I'm almost certainly not the first person to make this team - basically every RBY team has been made already. But I'm the first person to make a RMT about it so that has to count for something, right?
The Inspiration
11 days ago, BeeOrSomething played against legendary RBY player Serpi in the semi-finals of RBY World Cup III. The first game saw Bee loading a fairly normal, albeit infamous, Gengar lead team. The next two games, however, were much more interesting. Game 2 had Bee loading an extremely unorthodox Laxless and Taurousless team, replacing them with an interesting Cloyster + Rhydon + Slowbro core. While dropping Snorlax is not too unusal these days, dropping Tauros on top of that is extremely, extremely (emphasis on extremely) uncommon. Tauros is so good at what it does (cleaning, applying offensive pressure) that there's basically no reason to drop it unless you're specifically trying to surprise people by not having it. Game 3 had a slightly more sane but still incredibly unorthodox Tauros lead + CloyDon team without Snorlax. Despite what you might think, Tauros is actually a really strong lead and has generally favourable matchups across the board. The only reason you don't see it in the lead slot is because Tauros is infinitely better in the back.
Now, normal people would look at these two teams and think "Wow, these are some crazy teams! I'd never use these myself!" But I am not most people. I'm a genetic freak and I'm not normal! So obviously I immediately took these as inspiration and wanted to cook up something diabolical. My first thought was to use Persian alongside lead Tauros + Laxless CloyDon. While that idea was fun sometimes, it just wasn't consistent enough for me to win often. It was too frail and couldn't consistently deal with opposing Tauros, even after teching Growl onto Persian specifically for the Bull matchup. So, after a few quick games replacing Persian with Starmie and Zapdos, I ended up trying Slowbro and instantly fell in love with the team. It just fit perfectly and gave me a (mostly) reliable Tauros answer while also being a devastating wincon if played right.
The Team
Obviously, these are the stars of the show, and this team is built around them. CloyDonBro is a very strong core that's held back by being completely incompatible with standard Big 3 (Tauros + Snorlax + Chansey) teams. These problems can be alleviated for the most part by leading with Tauros and dropping Snorlax completely. Chansey and Exeggutor were pretty obvious additions afterwards. Chansey is a blanket check to opposing Starmie, which otherwise feasts on this team, and provides you with a Sleep-inducing move in Sing. Exeggutor is also here because it's just really good and defensively checks so much of the meta. as well as giving backup Sleep support if Chansey is unable to.
Lead Tauros
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Blizzard
- Hyper Beam
The most standard Tauros set there is, and that's exactly what this team needs. Body Slam and Hyper Beam are obvious, and Earthquake is for threatening Gengar and dodging the occasional Counter. Blizzard is certainly the least useful move here, but I chose to keep it in case Tauros somehow manages to stick around later in the game. You can maybe try Stomp over Blizzard to maximize the Jynx matchup's odds but I don't think its worth it really.
You're going to want to use Tauros as your designated sleep sack, since every other member of the team NEEDS to be awake for the team to properly function. Always stay in vs. Jynx and Gengar and attack. For Starmie and Alakazam, you should always switch to Chansey and use the free opening to fire off Sings until you land one. If the opponent paralyzes your Chansey you'll be in a great position, forcing your opponent to break through your Chansey to get their own sleep. If against an Electric-type lead, switch to Chansey. If they paralyze Chansey, switch to Rhydon the following turn and you'll be in an equally great position.
Standard Cloyster
- Blizzard
- Clamp
- Explosion
- Rest
There's even less of a reason to devite here than with Tauros. Cloyster is your main response to opposing Snorlax and to a lesser extent Tauros. STAB Blizzard is phenomenal nukes basically everything thats not an Ice-resist or Chansey (and even then, you still have the 10% OHKO chance!) Clamp lets you stick damage on targets that are slower than you and gives you a free pivot if it lands. I wouldn't use this move willy-nilly since missing can really screw you over, but if you think the offensive momentum you'll gain is worth it you should use it. Explosion is a phenomenal move in RBY and lets you get bonus value out of Cloyster after it does what you need it to do. I would recommend aiming to explode on Starmie, Chansey, and opposing Cloyster to enable the rest of your team. Rest is like, fine, and good into more passive teams. But don't fall into the trap of repeatedly using it gives your opponent a lot of offensive momentum every single time.
Restdon
- Earthquake
- Body Slam
- Substitute
- Rest
Rhydon is mainly here to stop Zapdos from 6-0ing this team, otherwise you'd be seeing Snorlax here instead. The reason you use Rest here over Rock Slide is that you really want that extra insurance into MonoLax by resting off Body Slam paralysis. If Rhydon is paralyzed it's basically incapable of making any progress into the likes of Starmie, Chansey, or really just any paralyzed target lol. Beyond that, never drop the other three moves. They're too integral for Rhydon's gameplan.
Rhydon is your main mid-game progress maker and is what you're going to be using to deal with Chansey and other Special walls. Try to paralyze the opponent's switch-ins with Body Slam if possible. Rhydon helps a lot vs PhysLax and MonoLax too, trading favourably with the former (and getting an opportunity to use Rest later) and completely walling the latter. You should still try to avoid switching into Body Slam.
Rhydon also really appreciates Cloyster and Slowbro being able to switch in on Tauros's Blizzard and EQ for free, which forces opposing Tauros to risk letting those two in for free if it wants to deal real damage to Rhydon.
TobyBro
- Surf
- Amnesia
- Thunder Wave
- Rest
This set has been popular for 20+ years and for very good reason. TobyBro is an absolute demon if you let it set up. Slowbro is nice here because it gives this team additional Thunder Wave support and uses a lot of mons as setup fodder (Alakazam, PsyBlizz Starmie, RefEQ Lax, and Stoss Chansey.) Despite that, Slowbro has been struggling in the meta lately and it's very likely that it'll drop to UU. This team addresses a lot of the issues Slowbro teams usually have, mainly the huge Zapdos weakness and being too passive while setting up which can give the opponent an opportunity to break through before Slowbro is ready. Rhydon solves the Zapdos issue, and the team has enough of a defensive backbone to deal with anything trying to crit through or explode on Slowbro.
I would reccomend using Slowbro more in the mid-game than the late-game. Slowbro is great at baiting in the Special-attackers that the rest of the team really wants paralyzed. Baiting in Starmie and getting a Thunder Wave on it is incredible and makes Rhydon, Cloyster, and Exeggutor's life way easier. Keep in mind that you'll lose the surprise value of Slowbro by doing this, so don't expect an easy sweep later. Sweeping late-game is still possible, but teams are naturally more prepared for it these days so you're going to have a hard time.
SingToss
- Seismic Toss
- Sing
- Thunder Wave
- Soft-Boiled
Chansey is necessary to cover the previous three members of the team, otherwise you get run over by Psychics way too easily. There's not really much of a downside to running Seismic Toss here, since Exeggutor and Cloyster already cover opposing Rhydon so well defensively. Sing pairs well with lead Tauros since opposing Psychic leads are less likely to risk switching to their own back sleeper to predict Chansey coming in. From there, Thunder Wave and Soft-Boiled are necessary for Chansey to perform Chansey tasks. You can maybe try running BoltBeam with Exeggutor as your only sleeper but I personally really like the insurance of two sleep-inducers.
There's not really much to say about Chansey. Get sleep off, then start spreading paralysis ASAP to enable the rest of your team. Be careful of Psychic-types spamming Psychic into you, don't be afraid to switch to Exeggutor or Slowbro to reset the Special drops even if it means risking them being paralyzed. You NEED Chansey to be alive until opposing special attackers are neutralized.
Boomless Egg
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore
- Psychic
- Mega Drain
Egg is here for the additional paralysis and sleep support, as well as to make the Rhydon matchup much easier. Dropping Explosion might seem a little weird here but I think being able to consistently paralyze and threaten Starmie with the combination of Stun Spore + Mega Drain is better here than a one-time nuke. The rest of the team is more than capable of handling Exeggutor's common Explosion targets. While Starmie is also a main target for Explosion, I would rather not risk guessing wrong.
Exeggutor is also pretty straight-forward. Use it as your first line of defence against Rhydon, and try to harass the enemy with Status and Psychic Special drops when possible. You can use the opponent's assumption that you're running Explosion against them, and use their overpredictions and attempted boom absorbtions to make free progress.
Problem Matchups
+ Thunderbolt (and Blizzard)Lately a lot of Tauros have been running Thunderbolt to deal with the uptick in Cloyster usage. Thunderbolt lets Tauros 2HKO Cloyster after a Body Slam and gives Tauros a consistent 3HKO on Slowbro. Thankfully, most TBolt Bulls run Earthquake as their other coverage move, which means Rhydon can pivot in on a Thunderbolt aimed for Cloyster and win the 1v1 against Tauros after any attack from Cloyster or Slowbro (assuming no crit.) If Tauros' other coverage is Blizzard however, you're pretty fucked. It's not very common at all but some people have noticed that CloyDon teams are very weak to it and are running it because of that.
(BoltBeam specifically)Rhydon can handle Seismic Toss sets just fine, but BoltBeam is quite annoying for this team. Not impossible, it just requires a lot more patience on your end to get safe switches to Rhydon. I would recommend exploding on it with Cloyster. Slowbro can TRY to set up on it too since Chansey has a fairly low crit rate but this is more of a last resort option.
Yeah there's no way to sugarcoat it, this team blows into Victreebel. Thankfully this is an uncommon mon but if you roll the matchup you're going to get owned. You can try to PP stall Wrap with the combination of Rhydon, Cloyster, and Slowbro, but you're forced out to Chansey/Exeggutor every time it misses Wrap and that damage accumulates quickly. Not to mention that the predictable switches let in your opponent's other mons for free. If you're lucky you can get a TWave or Stun Spore off on Victreebel with Chansey or Exeggutor to stop it in it's tracks.
Not a fun matchup. You have lots of mons weak to it and Rhydon not having Rock Slide makes the matchup much harder. Luckily you still have Chansey, which you can use to paralyzed and chip with Seismic Toss, but its still quite scary. Lapras can easily get lucky and crit/parafusion its way through Chansey.
Replays
Okay its like 2am right now and I have to be at work in like 6 hours so I'm just going to do this tomorrow. I HAVE played a lot of games with this team and have even beat multiple decent team tournament-level players with this team, as well as peaking in the top 10 on ladder. I just didn't save anything because I didn't think I was going to make a RMT. Trust me, this team works.
Conclusion
This is the first RMT I've ever made so if there's anything you think I could have improved on please feel free to let me know. If people like this I might make more in the future for some less deranged teams.
o7
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