OU RBY OU Discussion Thread

[Leader of the Rockets]

I think jolt makes sense if my intention is to rip twave t1.

It generally shouldn't be. Lead Alakazam is already sacrificing a dominant opening game for consistency (which is a legtitmate choice). With Jolt, you're sacrificing even more, because Jolt doesn't have the same level of consistency. I can just switch in a ground. I can play a double switch to ground and then to Jynx and then boom... your lead didn't do anything.

 

[dangerk1d]

With Jolt, you're sacrificing even more, because Jolt doesn't have the same level of consistency.

Yes, which is why I generally don't use it unless I can't use zam or zap (if I want them in the back). Sacking jolt to sleep against a rhydon team also isn't the end of the world, I think where jolt becomes really bad is when your kicks don't get the job done and chansey waves you, and then your jolt gets murdered instead of slept. I think zap is better in that scenario because you can fit agility/rest more easily.

Ultimately I agree, I don't like it as a replacement for either zam or zap lead. I think it has some place as a discount version of either one that you can use along side them, but I totally get how it can feel too shit at either to be worth it.

 

[violet river]

In the midst of complaints of nobody wanting to talk about the game, I've also been thinking about Jolteon recently.
I feel like Pin Missile Lead and Rest Back Jolteon can be divided into two different pokemon, basically.
Lead Jolteon with T-Wave, Thunderbolt, Double Kick and Pin Missile is very hard to wall out - when you get a favorable matchup on say Starmie lead, and they swap on twave or stay on tbolt, you start the game off very strong, threatening to crit through stuff, and generally score lots of damage on sleeping threats. However, there's three main caveats to Lead Jolteon. 1: Rhydon. Normally, you justify a rhydon weakness by running Zapdos who's a big monster that kills everything, but Jolteon's measurably less destructive. Speaking just on lead here, I like how Lead Jolteon has better clicks vs Alakazam and Starmie - leading zapdos vs starmie and twaving on blizz and then tbolting as they swap happens a lot and isnt really ideal...God forbid starmie freeze or crit. Zapdos in lead just has less consistent clicks, but the point remains. There's a rhydon weakness, and are you really gaining enough upside?
The second critique is that it can mess with your sleep game, like outlined by Believer of GXE. Alakazam lead teams frequently spread twave and attacks early though, and they get by, using normal moves on their Exeggutor to push sleep through early, or just keeping sleep for the late game. It's not a particularly unworkable caveat, but it's something to keep in mind with Lead Jolteon.
The third is that it often twaves at lead and has Snorlax enter on it, and just beat it out. Once Jolt has to swap out, it loses a lot of threat, and you see a Jolt just get manoeuvered around a lot and not do all that much.
In my mind, Jolteon is a higher ceiling version of Alakazam as a lead, that just really doesn't want to face Rhydon. Whether or not you think this is worth it is based on how consistently you can get an advantage in the games where Jolt gets a fine matchup. I don't have a lot of love for lead Jolteon, because I feel like the huge leads it can generate can also be generated by other pokemon relatively often, and opting into the Rhydon fish just isn't necessary at all. Meh. I would run it in less serious games, but I'm unconvinced it's a part of the optimal mixed strategy of playing RBY in tournament.
Honorable mention to the Jolteon + back Jynx pairing. I didn't really consider this as a lead set, because it's pretty clearly a fake lead, you just want to swap jynx on enemy Starmie, and otherwise you're just twaving gengar and bolting into jynx(?). Swapping jynx on stuff like zam as well, context dependant. I don't know. I haven't played with it very often, but it's just another way of changing the jynx team's lead matchup spread a bit. It doesn't make anything too crazy but I think it's neat.
I got tired writing and I think anything beyond this would just be yap, but the long and short of it is I think that the rest set in the back has a couple of requirements, i.e: doesn't want to vs rhydon, doesn't want to vs rest egg(inversely likes to see egg rushing), wants to see zapdos. It has a similar matchup spread to Rhydon teams, but trades off losing to Rhydon teams in exchange for more tauros resilience(so better versus Everything Else). I think it crests the bar to be a part of the optimal mixed strategy, probably.
This isn't meant to be like, trying to be an arbiter of truth here. Just what I think about the pokemon. Good but not worth using more than sparingly.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

High A:
Mid A:
Low A: The Cholaski (Jynx/Chansey/Cloyster/Tauros/Starmie/Golem)
High B:
Mid B:
Low B: Classic Don (Starmie/Exeggutor/Chansey/Snorlax/Rhydon/Tauros)
Classic Zam + Mie (Alakazam/Exeggutor/Chansey/Snorlax/Starmie/Tauros)

Just to hate on the B tiers a bit more. Classic Don would obviously be in Mid B above the specials team if not for wrap being pretty good against it. Having a wrap weakness is not good considering wrap teams are very low skill teams. Many bad players know how to play wrap teams optimally, because the strats are brain dead. Classic Don gets to walk around like he can just stroll into A tier half the time, because people don't play wrap enough. Play wrap more guys! This guy is getting an ego!

The specials team... ugh. The fact that many players who use this team do desperate things like put double edge on exeggutor is evidence of the inadequacies of this team. It's begging to have Egg or Chansey be replaced. It makes me sad because a team of the top 6 pokemon in the game should be A tier, and it's so close! But the weaknesses of the team are too obvious and will eventually make themselves known to you. Maybe not this game, maybe not the next, but it will happen. And every team has weaknesses, sure, but this team's weaknesses feel slightly harder to play around than others'. Needs more power!

That being said. Replacing Egg with Gengar on the specials team makes a team that is better than both the Don team and Specials team. Ditto for replacing Chansey with Gengar. Just how much higher above those teams... I'm not sure. Difficult to say.

 

[GirlsSeeGhosts]

+ ---- + ------------------ + --------- + ------ + ------- +
| 1 | Alakazam | 30.90857%
| 2 | Starmie | 24.60772%
| 3 | Jynx | 20.06382%
| 4 | Gengar | 11.51512%
| 5 | Jolteon | 4.44745%
| 6 | Zapdos | 2.41273%
| 7 | Tauros | 1.55654%
| 8 | Exeggutor | 1.27072%
| 9 | Chansey | 1.10585%
So: I went ahead and clumped how to lead Jynx into 2 main categories, and this will be the lions share of all leads. Alakazam and Starmie are clumped as one. Those two combined; they occupy 54% of leads. Jynx and Gengar are then lumped as one. They occupy 31% of leads. If I consider this only two things, this makes 85% of leads two things.
I'm going to estimate Jynx equity turn 0, without calculating for Starmie or Alakazam, and then proof some math for how to lead Jynx against starmie+Alakazam at the end as one.This means I have to calculate how often Jynx is favorable to me instead of my opponent in the very early game for everything except starmie+Alakazam:
Jynx vs Jynx =50% favorable outcome so 50% of 20 is 10%.
Jynx vs Gengar=50% (remember this is an estimate) so 50% of 11.5 is 5.75%.
Jynx vs Jolteon=75% favorable event for Jynx, 75% of 4 is 3%.
Jynx vs Zapdos = 80% favorable event for Jynx, 80% of 2 is ... 1.6%
Jynx vs Tauros is roughly 50% favorable for Jynx,
50% of 1.5 is 0.75%
Jynx vs exeggutor: 80%+ favorable for Jynx 85% of 1.2 is roughly 1%.
Jynx vs Chansey is roughly 80% favorable to Jynx so 80% of 1.1 is 0.9%

Now let's add up all those numbers in bold to get how often jynx finds favorable situations.
That number is 10+5.75+3+1.6+0.75+1+0.9=23%.

Now for the starmie+Alakazam combo which makes up 54% of leads:
Next is to consider, if you consider yourself having a paralyzed Chansey as favorable, then we can calculate how often we need to switch to Chansey turn 0 to protect our equity. We already know from everything else that we have 23 of the 50 we need to be ahead of our opponent. So we are 46% of the way there. Now how do we get enough of our own Chanseys paralyzed? (Alternatively we can cast a blizzard on opponents that try to get tricky and expect us to try to swap to Chansey to take paralysis and they might try to get something like say exeggutor turn 1 to capitalize on that.
So let's start with how often our opponent is doing that? Let's say our opponent uses starmie/zam to t-wave 66% and try to out swap to exeggutor 33%. How do we mathematically defeat that opponent? I will show you with math and estimates.
Lets do an example:
Jynx uses Lovely kiss 50%, we also swap to Chansey 50%.
Lovely kiss 50%: so 66% of the time our opponent t waves, we get paralyzed with our Jynx 50% of the time and manage to get a 62.5% lovely kiss(remember we take paralysis) turn 0 off for 62.5% of 66 is 41.25% then of the the other 38.5 that we either missed or took full para, we get a redraw of another 62.5% chance for our lovely kiss to land so 62.5% of 38.5 is 24%
So of the 66% possible we can capture favor for, roughly 62.5% is on turn 0 and another 24% is captured on turn 1, now I'll add some estimates if both of those didn't work it's another 62.5% of 24 which is 15, but at this point they have counter switched, but we are full health but paralyzed so we will subtract 30% to turn that 15 into only 10.
41+24+10=75% so we hold 75% equity of 66 which is 49.5%.
Now for the 33% that they switch to exeggutor.
We get 0.75% of 33 which is 24.75% if we miss, they have exeggutor in vs Jynx so we get another 0.75 of 8.25 which is 6.2%
24.75+6.2= 31
This means 31 of 33 it favors Jynx.
So we hold 93% equity of 33=31
We also hold 75% equity of 66=49.5
31+49.5=80.5%.
Lastly Alakazam+starmie combined make up 54% of leads so we get 80.5% of 54 which is 43.5%.but we only use Jynx lovely kiss half of the time for our scenerio so we capture half of this. Which is 21.75%.
Now to calculate for the equity of our Chansey swaps being favorable for our Jynx leads.
Our opponent in our scenerio rips thunderwave 66% of the time so we capture 66% of 50 straight up for 33%, but then having a paralyzed Chansey from here is flimsy to say that it's ahead until we get sleep off....but I don't care to calculate too far into this.
The other 33% our opponent actually out swaps us 50% of the time and gets their Exeggutor in favorably vs our Chansey, meaning we have to swap back to Jynx and they pick up 75% of 33%. Which is 24.75, which means we get 8.25. If they miss we then get 75% of 8.25 which is 6.2%. now we divide all of this by two, because we swap half of the time, meaning the we get an additional 3.1% of favorable scenerios from sheer luck, when they out swap us, and then they miss.

54%=total pool competing for.
Of this we capture 80% of 66% of 54, which is 28% of the 100.
As well the 3.1% of the 100.
Now we add in what Jynx accomplishes vs the other 46% of leads, which makes up 23 of the 100.

In conclusion, Jynx should be favorable to our fictional Alakazam+starmie, as well as other leads a total sum of 28+3+23=54%. So we win 54/100.

This 54/100 is vs all of opponents using the leads as posted at the start of this post. 1760+GXE opponents meaning just using Jynx will yield a positive outcome more than half of the time, vs all of opponents, with the caveats that you consider a paralyzed Chansey a favorable outcome, for some of the outcomes.

This is obviously done with estimates, but I think I used enough data points to say I should be within 80% of what I think. I actually think Jynx is more like 60/100 favorable. But my math is showing 54/100.
(Meaning 54 of 100 matches favor Jynx into all possible scenerios)
Also I did not calculate for leads used less than 1% of the time.
The fictional opponent I presented is actually probably using a range that's more difficult than what you might actually find in reality such as their Alakazam+starmie is (t waving 66%, swapping exeggutor 33%) some actual opponents will only t wave, which would make for different math. That math actually favors Jynx even more heavily though.
Tldr; use Jynx and win. Jynx wins 54/100 matches vs 1760+GXE total lead composition possibilities, and I'm estimating slightly higher at like upper 50's.
(This means Jynx finds itself 54 of 100 matches in a favorable position and 46 of 100 in a not favorable position out of all of the possible things opponents will lead with, at the rates they will lead them with, from the standpoint of the 1760+ GXE players last month, though we did have to estimate to how our opponents will play Alakazam+starmie on turn 0).
As in, with what I'm saying; if you just lead Jynx you should be able to win vs anyone, at least the starting first 2 turns, more than half of the time, regardless of anything, because in our scenerio we are playing against the range of possibilities instead of the opponent.

***So what I calculated is an estimate for a binary yes/no calculation for if it's positive for the Jynx lead player by turn 2 to be in a positive scenerio, and concluded 54/100 matches vs 1760+ GXE players, that the total sum of their range (all leads possible) will produce a favorable turn 2 scenerio for myself leading with Jynx 100% of the time.

This entire approach is both mathematically suspect and fundamentally misguided.

Mathematically, while I don't have time to go through every example, I'd like to point the reader's attention to Jynx vs Gengar being listed as 50% favorable, which is so obviously wrong even by the standards proposed here I don't think it needs explaining.

An analysis that tries to turn situations like this into binary yes/no calculations will miss important nuances. For example, you call the Jynx vs Tauros lead a "50-50 chance for a favorable outcome", but that relies on the assumption that the only thing that matters is getting Sleep off on turn 1. Your analysis doesn't take into account the fact that the worst case outcome for the Tauros user is much better than the worst case scenario for the Jynx user. It doesn't take into account that if a Jynx is paralyzed by Body Slam, it becomes a liability while you try to Rest off the status and try to wake it again.

Removing these nuances from analyzing and not considering real-game plays is how you end up with a Jynx lead analysis that assumes that the opponent will go to their Exeggutor 33% of the time.

I implore you to root your analysis in what actually happens in an entire, realistic game, rather than using an overly simplified model that checks if Jynx can land Lovely Kiss and calls that winning.

 

[Sabelette]

I’d like to also throw in that “1760 GXE” does not exist, you’re looking at Glicko ratings, and 1760 Glicko can be achieved at 1300 or 1400 Elo pretty easily. In other words, this doesn’t remotely imply the opponents are any good at the game either.

 

[Sabelette]

1760+ translates to 79-80 GXE
But that's the best data I have to go off of, which is usually like 1400's+

yeah, i mean, as has been stated many times in this thread, 1400 elo is not reflective of the reality of high level play even if you ignore the fact that your methodology is also simply not reflective of any actual game state that ever exists and assumes absurd scenarios like people hard switching exeggutor into jynx 33% of the time for no reason

 

[Amaranth]

So starmie t waving 100% is wrong.

Probably accurate, however "my opponents will switch Eggy 33%" is not a conclusion you can take away.

This is for a long list of reasons, the biggest ones being:
1. People do things that are wrong all the time, this in particular is something many people don't play around at all. Even if this was true in a "correct" meta environment, you could get an even better lead by playing against what people are actually doing (ie. not harding Egg on Jynx 1/3rd of the time on turn 1) rather than what they're "supposed to", until they catch up
2. Even if they do play around this turn 1 twave, they are much more likely to do that by throwing out a midground attack (esp something like Surf Mie lead) than to commit hard Eggy
3. The gamestates of Chansey eating the turn 1 twave are not necessarily a hard loss; see GirlsSeeGhosts's points about nuances. Games are complex, many teams often just settle for Sleep Powdering the Jynx even if there is no sleep block around; and sleeping the Jynx or not sleeping the Jynx is frequently not a huge difference as the pokemon is fairly easily exploitable in many scenarios even if it's just awake.

You are trying to turn complex game states into hard math and simplifying a billion important variables along the way. If it was possible to math out situations this way, we would already have turned RBY OU into a trivial mathematical exercise. The fundamental problem is you can always ask one more question: "what about the next turn?" And that will force you to reinvestigate whatever conclusion you think you've reached.

Pokemon is fundamentally a game of estimates. Only when things are down to only 2-3 mons on each side you can start to consider most gamestates as reasonably humanly solvable with mathematical accuracy (and even then, not all gamestates). Everything before that is VERY far from this world of mathematical proof that you want to live in, and if we did live in that world, the game would be made trivial.

 

[GirlsSeeGhosts]

Why it's approx 50% is because it's approx 45% hypnosis vs lovely kiss, but when jynx lands lovely kiss, it gains an advantage on turn 1 with blizzard for a 9% freeze chance often, Gengar doesn't make this back up on turn 1 like Jynx so I had to beef up Jynx from 45%, it's only estimating as well.

You can't just put numbers out there and then say "approx" to make the results align closer to the narrative you want to push lol. We know exactly the odds of Hypnosis vs Lovely Kiss.

I originally had a whole thing written but then I got tired of using a calculator app so I used Excel. anyways here are the actual sleep odds of the interaction. Somehow I don't think this will bring this specific conversation forward much, but maybe something more productive can come from it. Please use real numbers if you're gonna go that route.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

Marcoasd made a video on Zapdos and spoke on how many people think it isn't that great. People say Rhydon walls Zapdos and give this as justification for why Zapdos is a mediocre ou mon. But, if instead of asking, "Does Rhydon wall Zapdos?" we instead ask, "Does Rhydon effectively wall this Zapdos team?", the answer should be no. And that changes everything. It has been said that one can only play double switching mind games until Rhydon is gone or that you're basically playing a 5 vs 6 for most of the game. I don't think this is true though. I mean, ideally, your opponent wants to save Rhydon until your Zapdos is gone. Can't this be exploited? Isn't this a weakness you are inducing within your opponent's team? If my opponent has Rhydon and he is genuinely playing a 5 vs 6 with me (i.e. getting Rhydon involved) instead of an equal 5 vs 5... then I'm winning. He is being careless, and I'm most likely winning because of it. I think Zapdos is a high skill pokemon (or Zapdos teams are high skill teams to be more precise), and I think a lot of people just don't know how to play Zapdos teams or they play them carelessly. There is really no reason why Rhydon teams should be walling Zapdos teams at any sort of dominant rate.

To be fair: I do think the popular Zapdos teams of the past were slow and not conducive to synergizing well with Zapdos. But with newer teams, I no longer feel that Rhydon teams are a counter to Zapdos teams. And I honestly don't hear anyone even try to argue that Rhydon teams do counter Zapdos teams, which is obviously harder to do.

 

[dangerk1d]

Very good points. Regarding this in particular:

"Does Rhydon effectively wall this Zapdos team?"

I think another aspect is how much more limited rhydon structures are compared to zap ones. I find myself struggling to fit everything I want when building with rhydon, whereas zap brings enough flexibility with speed/wave/bolt to fit all kinds of nasty tricks to ruin don teams (usually through gar/jynx leads and even the odd cloyster). There are just way fewer don teams to prepare for than zap teams.

Speaking of cloyster, on the other side of the matchup triangle, I've found that cloy isn't necessarily that bad into zap! The zap "weakness" isn't really so in practice when you're stinging their ice weak team with blizzards and booming on a valuable target before zap can exploit it. But I guess that's to agree that the matchup triangle of "what's in back" isn't so cut and dry.

How do you feel about laxless rhydon teams? I think they can offer a potent mixup to zap, but the weaknesses are somewhat difficult to ignore for me, as well as the general passivity.

 

[Amaranth]

Marcoasd made a video on Zapdos and spoke on how many people think it isn't that great. People say Rhydon walls Zapdos and give this as justification for why Zapdos is a mediocre ou mon. But, if instead of asking, "Does Rhydon wall Zapdos?" we instead ask, "Does Rhydon effectively wall this Zapdos team?", the answer should be no. And that changes everything. It has been said that one can only play double switching mind games until Rhydon is gone or that you're basically playing a 5 vs 6 for most of the game. I don't think this is true though. I mean, ideally, your opponent wants to save Rhydon until your Zapdos is gone. Can't this be exploited? Isn't this a weakness you are inducing within your opponent's team? If my opponent has Rhydon and he is genuinely playing a 5 vs 6 with me (i.e. getting Rhydon involved) instead of an equal 5 vs 5... then I'm winning. He is being careless, and I'm most likely winning because of it. I think Zapdos is a high skill pokemon (or Zapdos teams are high skill teams to be more precise), and I think a lot of people just don't know how to play Zapdos teams or they play them carelessly. There is really no reason why Rhydon teams should be walling Zapdos teams at any sort of dominant rate.

To be fair: I do think the popular Zapdos teams of the past were slow and not conducive to synergizing well with Zapdos. But with newer teams, I no longer feel that Rhydon teams are a counter to Zapdos teams. And I honestly don't hear anyone even try to argue that Rhydon teams do counter Zapdos teams, which is obviously harder to do.

Quite funny timing for this post right after the RBYPL Usage Stats came out, showing every other top pokemon remarkably close to 50% winrate, while Zapdos is all the way down at 45%. Over a sample size of nearly 1000 games, this seems somewhat meaningful.

There's some further quirks to investigate there, for example Jynx Egg Zap had a strong positive winrate as a combo of 6, while Zam Egg Zap floundered (7 wins 14 losses). Lead Zapdos also tanked hard, fighting against an uptick of Sleep leads. There's enough there to support your theory that Zapdos in itself is powerful but people are yet to figure out the sharpest and best builds for him at the moment.

This is analyzing a "moment" of the meta moreso than anything fundamental about the pokemon of course, and I'm sure it's not necessarily reflected on ladder. But I find these stats often reveal nuggets of truth about what's going on and where you can push the meta further forward.

I think Zapdos is fundamentally very strong, obviously. But it seems likely to me that we are in a weaker moment of the metagame for him until tighter combos of 6 are polished, figured out, and pushed to prominence.

If I were to further theorize why, I'd say it's got something to do with popularity of Blizz Mie and Boom Lax at the moment. But I think the full real reasons are extremely deep and dank, tying back to slight changes in the sleep game the ramifications of which I've not fully grasped yet - case in point, the main dealbreaker in winrates between different types of Zapdos teams seems to be the plan for the early game.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

the main dealbreaker in winrates between different types of Zapdos teams seems to be the plan for the early game.

The early game is something I think about a lot. You can just win there. Just for example, the last replay I posted in this thread, the game starts off with my Jynx vs my opponent's Persian. I switch to egg and then sleep the Persian, and it isn't much of an exaggeration to say that I won the game right then and there. I gained the momentum and never let my opponent have it back. This is a power that Alakazam twavers just don't have. I play with Alakazam lead quite a bit, and you gain a consistency in your opening games at the loss of this power. And... it's looking like maybe that tradeoff might not be worth it.

I think another aspect is how much more limited rhydon structures are compared to zap ones.

This is something else I have thought of as well. I'm not confident enough yet to have a strong stance on this though. Everyone knows I have no love for the classic Rhydon team, but I know there are newer teams that use Rhydon, but I don't have a lot of experience using those. So, I don't feel confident enough in saying how good or not good Rhydon teams are as of now. But in a world where the classic Don team was the best team Rhydon could make, that would be another positive in Zapdos' favor, because Zapdos does have better teams than that.

 

[Hipmonlee]

You can't just put numbers out there and then say "approx" to make the results align closer to the narrative you want to push lol. We know exactly the odds of Hypnosis vs Lovely Kiss.

I originally had a whole thing written but then I got tired of using a calculator app so I used Excel. anyways here are the actual sleep odds of the interaction. Somehow I don't think this will bring this specific conversation forward much, but maybe something more productive can come from it. Please use real numbers if you're gonna go that route.

View attachment 792764

This is why Jynx should click Psychic in this matchup.

A single Psychic puts Gengar in any quake range, and even a minimum roll means the Jynx is threatening a KO. Pretty hard for Gengar to stay in after that.

So basically a 40% of winning the interaction, and even in the worst case scenario, its just a sleeping jynx. Something you always prepare for with a Jynx lead anyway. Whereas, for the Gengar, 5% of the time you get crit KOed, and youre playing a 6v5 and are about to lose another mon to sleep.

Whereas Lovely Kiss makes the interaction basically risk free for the Gengar, unless they're running single sleeper for some reason.

I don't consider Gengar a counter to Jynx lead at all, unless it explodes.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

This is why Jynx should click Psychic in this matchup.

A single Psychic puts Gengar in any quake range, and even a minimum roll means the Jynx is threatening a KO. Pretty hard for Gengar to stay in after that.

So basically a 40% of winning the interaction, and even in the worst case scenario, its just a sleeping jynx. Something you always prepare for with a Jynx lead anyway. Whereas, for the Gengar, 5% of the time you get crit KOed, and youre playing a 6v5 and are about to lose another mon to sleep.

Whereas Lovely Kiss makes the interaction basically risk free for the Gengar, unless they're running single sleeper for some reason.

I don't consider Gengar a counter to Jynx lead at all, unless it explodes.

Unrelated to Jynx and Gengar, what is your opinion of lead Alakazam nowadays, if you even have a strong opinion? I like Alakazam less and less every time I play. I wonder if your views on him have changed throughout time.

 

[Eeveeto]

Not Hipmonlee, but will tell my own opinion about Zam. Alakazam is a decent lead, though it's a little better in the back. Has an even match-up vs Starmie, great vs Gengar, not terrible vs Tauros and has a shot vs Jynx. Only truly bad match-up is Egg, but Egg is the worst lead out of the "common" ones.

Starmie>Jynx>Zam>Tauros>Gengar>Zapdos>Jolteon (yes, based of experience I rate Jolteon as worse lead than Zapdos but better overall Mon) > Egg is the order of leads in my humble opinion. Of these, all except the first 2 are usually better as non leads for me.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

Not Hipmonlee, but will tell my own opinion about Zam. Alakazam is a decent lead, though it's a little better in the back. Has an even match-up vs Starmie, great vs Gengar, not terrible vs Tauros and has a shot vs Jynx. Only truly bad match-up is Egg, but Egg is the worst lead out of the "common" ones.

Starmie>Jynx>Zam>Tauros>Gengar>Zapdos>Jolteon (yes, based of experience I rate Jolteon as worse lead than Zapdos but better overall Mon) > Egg is the order of leads in my humble opinion. Of these, all except the first 2 are usually better as non leads for me.

Well, I at least agree with your top 3, but I would say Starmie=Jynx and the gap between Starmie=Jynx and Alakazam is very big. I just think thunderwave is really not good in the opening, to the point that you're sometimes just throwing the game away. Sleep or freeze is ideal. Obviously, thunderwaving the right pokes is fine, such as Jynx (cus paralyzed Jynxed is easy to exploit), but you're so often just not thunderwaving the right pokes.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

I think a lot of people are losing games that they think they are losing in the mid or endgame, but if further analyzed, they are probably losing a lot of these games in the opening. People should reeeallllyy pay more attention to the opening game. It's very consequential.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

The specials team... ugh. The fact that many players who use this team do desperate things like put double edge on exeggutor is evidence of the inadequacies of this team.

Just to think out loud, everyone who has used this team understands what I mean. It's like a duct tape solution to the fact that the team lacks physical prowess. It has made me realize something: every time you want to put double edge on Exeggutor, you should probably be asking yourself, "What changes can I make to this team so I don't have to do this?" Double edge on Exeggutor is dumb, and it's always there for a reason you should have fixed. If you want to be wrong, at least put hyper beam. When I topped the ladder last year with Starmie/Chansey/Egg/Snorlax/Tauros/Clefable I used hyper beam on Exeggutor. And yeah, catching Jynx and Alakazam slipping is fun. But even then, c'mon, it's gimmicky. Fun, but gimmicky. Stun spore Mega drain Rest Double Edge Hyper Beam

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

Alakazam is way to passive of a lead, it at least accomplishes a few things though, it is able to be a sleep blocker, and it can thunderwave, and it can chase Gengar away....the problem is, it loses you momentum often, and it's easy to exploit Alakazam because of how many things block it, I usually think it can be beaten often by just straight running opp Alakazam out of all of their pp.
It has me asking, how when you take sleep, how it happened? Alakazam invites in most of every sleep you can find......
| 4 | Chansey | 70.11338%
| Sing 26.149%
| 5 | Exeggutor | 69.52545%
Sleep Powder 93.284%
| 7 | Jynx | 26.97140%
Lovely Kiss 99.732%
| 10 | Gengar | 19.70560%
Hypnosis 97.863%
| 16 | Lapras | 3.81146%
Sing 74.183%
| 20 | Victreebel | 1.17970%
Sleep Powder 93.083%
| 21 | Venusaur | 1.02542%
Sleep Powder 71.328%

So here above we have our usage rates for things used above 1% that can sleep something, and their corresponding sleep moves frequency of usage.
Now we will evaluate each one and see if Alakazam is inviting them in or not.
#1. Yes. Does Alakazam invite in Chansey?
So a number percentage of 26% of 70% is added to "I'll start from behind".
#2. Yes. Does Alakazam invite in Exeggutor?
So a number percentage of 93% of 69% is added to "I'll start from behind".
#3. Yes. Does Alakazam invite in Jynx? So a number percentage of 99% of 26% is added to "I'll start from behind".
#4. No. Does Alakazam invite in Gengar? This is where Alakazam has a momentum advantage is this turn 0 spot, where they can gain an advantage, but instead what happens is Gengar will switch and as for Alakazam; they psychic an exeggutor or Chansey, and lose momentum often instead....it should be the case that Alakazam has the advantage enough to say it takes the lions share of Gengars 19% usage rate, but it will just chase Gengar away instead in practice.
#5. No. Does Alakazam invite any of Lapras, Victreebell, or Venusaur?
For the total sum of the last 3 sleepers combined to 6% usage rate in total. Alakazam mostly chases this away and plays counter play to this stuff very well, but this is by far less important because all 3 of this combined is 6% usage.

Leading Alakazam is like saying I want to start from being asleep first frequently, and then catch up later ...

Edit:
(Rounded %'s)
26% of 70 is 18%
93% of 69 is 64%
99% of 26 is 26%
=108%
In knowing Alakazam is easy to exploit, and that if leading with it, how do I counter that I will be facing a possible 108% of mons that counter me with sleep moves for turn 1. Its too big of an undertaking to say out swapping them can make back the difference, for how often I have to be right would be infeasible.

Actually, come to think of it isn't infeasible to out swap them, but it would be like saying in order to lead Alakazam properly would be to use it as a false lead, where you nearly always like 100% be swapping to Jynx turn 0 unless your facing sleep already anyways. It still has me saying it's passive though. But back Jynx isn't common...that's the only good advantage I can see though.

People are gonna be mad at you for using the numbers again :')

 

[bdt2002]

Similar in structure to what I’ve referred to as the Big 5 Leads of ADV OU before (Skarmory, Tyranitar, Metagross, Salamence, and Zapdos), I do believe there to be a pretty set-in-stone top tier of leads in RBY OU. It seems to me like what some of you have been discussing is how you’d order these leads in terms of viability. I for one would be all for RBY organizing a separate VR just for leads alongside the main VR the whole metagame, but for now I want to just focus on highlighting the groundwork for a Big 6 or Big 7 (don’t even think about it, I know what you’re getting ready to type) Leads of RBY OU and what that might look like.

At the top of my personal lead rankings you have Starmie and Alakazam, both of which sometimes combine for over 50% of weighted lead usage on the ladder and have more than enough tournament results to prove their excellence. If I had to pick which one I think is better as a lead, it’s really close between the two but currently I’m leaning towards Team Starmie though I have gone back and forth plenty of times. The value of a Turn 1 Thunder Wave combined with high Speed and Psychic typing is invaluable, but the one thing that does worry me about these leads is that I have had plenty of games where the opponent’s Chansey is able to come in a little too easily and absorb paralysis for the sake of preventing it from falling asleep or becoming frozen. Lead Zapdos can also be trouble occasionally if you’re not running Rhydon, but you make up for this with favorable matchups against Gengar and Jynx leads and more even matchups against Exeggutor and Jolteon leads depending on each Pokémon’s set.

Gengar, Jynx, Chansey, and the Electrics make up my second tier, and recently I’ve started discovering Exeggutor to also be viable in the lead slot though I don’t see this as much on ladder as the others. Their matchups with each other are can be more varied and it’s here where we start to see the battle between Paralysis leads and Sleep leads. Shoutouts to Exeggutor who can use both and also Explosion, by the way. Gengar and Jynx are the fastest viable sleepers in the tier and similar to my Top 2, I often go back and forth between them a lot. Both hate being paralyzed and Gengar can outspeed Jynx in a head-to-head so I want to lean Gengar here, but Jynx also has Ice/Psychic typing and the more accurate sleep move of the two. That, and you managed to convince me Jynx is, in fact, not a fraudulent Pokémon in this tier like I thought for years. On the other side of the spectrum, Chansey can often appreciate being paralyzed but is much slower and hates being put to sleep. Chansey has access to both Sing and Thunder Wave and matches up the best into the Top 2, but can struggle with the mid-tier leads. Finally, the Electrics, who have the fastest Thunder Wave in Jolteon and Agility Zapdos as well, and Zapdos also has mixed attacking STAB which is nice, but both can struggle with Chansey, are worse sleep absorbers than the fast Psychic-Types and have the added disadvantage of inviting in Rhydon early. I like Zapdos over Jolteon here. How would you guys rank these seven Pokémon (plus Exeggutor)?

 

[Amaranth]

Just to think out loud, everyone who has used this team understands what I mean. It's like a duct tape solution to the fact that the team lacks physical prowess. It has made me realize something: every time you want to put double edge on Exeggutor, you should probably be asking yourself, "What changes can I make to this team so I don't have to do this?" Double edge on Exeggutor is dumb, and it's always there for a reason you should have fixed. If you want to be wrong, at least put hyper beam. When I topped the ladder last year with Starmie/Chansey/Egg/Snorlax/Tauros/Clefable I used hyper beam on Exeggutor. And yeah, catching Jynx and Alakazam slipping is fun. But even then, c'mon, it's gimmicky. Fun, but gimmicky. Stun spore Mega drain Rest Double Edge Hyper Beam

I think this is one of your worst takes yet, normal move Exeggutor is THE Jynx killer. Nothing owns the Jynx match up like a sudden Double-Edge. Of course it's an expensive concession to make, but the idea that normal move egg is "replaceable" is really off to me - it's very uniquely good at pushing sleep past a Jynx trying to accept the Sleep Powder from you, and that's gamebreaking vs. structures like the classic Jynx Mie Don.
Hyper Beam is a bit more flexible, can also help you snipe a Chansey with psydrops/fps for example, but the real point of these moves is the Jynx match up above all

 

[dangerk1d]

Regarding zam lead: most of the time I'd rather have mie, but I think if you have double sleep with exeggutor + sing chansey, it makes twave a lot more tenable because you can target the paralyzed pokemon with egg boom later as they try to block sleep. If you're expecting certain matchups, simplifying the gamestate so early can really magnify your advantage (although it can of course backfire as well)

It's also nice because you get the early offensive potential of a para on chansey. If chansey sings mie lead, chansey is incentivized to catch your incoming sleeper with wave because it's going to be slept anyway. But if it's already paralyzed and taken some big hits from zam, it's more likely to heal, which gives lax a more aggressive start. That wouldn't be worth sleep blocking yourself most of the time, but egg gives you an out to remove chansey later on so you can sleep something else. It's a very aggressive and straightforward approach that I think has it's place.

(I know people also like t1 wave with chanseyless stuff because you can maintain pressure on parad chansey, but I've personally felt giving up the sleep game wasn't worth it. Perhaps a skill issue on my part)

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

I think this is one of your worst takes yet, normal move Exeggutor is THE Jynx killer. Nothing owns the Jynx match up like a sudden Double-Edge. Of course it's an expensive concession to make, but the idea that normal move egg is "replaceable" is really off to me - it's very uniquely good at pushing sleep past a Jynx trying to accept the Sleep Powder from you, and that's gamebreaking vs. structures like the classic Jynx Mie Don.
Hyper Beam is a bit more flexible, can also help you snipe a Chansey with psydrops/fps for example, but the real point of these moves is the Jynx match up above all

"Sudden" double edge. You're relying on them being ignorant. That's why I called it gimmicky. The lack of stun spore on Egg is consequential. You really have to think about that tradeoff. And if I know you have hyper beam over stun spore, or I suspect you might, that's not hard to play around. It's usefulness seems to only come from people lazily assuming you don't have it. And the opponent doesn't even pay much of a price for suspecting you have it and playing cautiously. If there was a high price to pay for playing around it, then the conversation would be different, but there really isn't. Just as a thought experiment, if we all got to see a preview of the opponent's team and moveset before every game, would anyone still use normal move exeggutor? I'm not gonna argue with you that it works against many people. I've used it with a lot of success. My lack of respect for it comes more from people trying to use it on me, and me just never biting, and maybe that is because I used it so much myself.

......The last time I used Jynx mie don (Or Jynx mie Golem) was when I solo'd the Cholaski team on the ladder as Chonasty, and I've been trying to play an opening in my head in which this would work on me and I just don't think you'd get me often with it... I can't imagine this working on me with any regularity.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

"Sudden" double edge. You're relying on them being ignorant. That's why I called it gimmicky. The lack of stun spore on Egg is consequential. You really have to think about that tradeoff. And if I know you have hyper beam over stun spore, or I suspect you might, that's not hard to play around. It's usefulness seems to only come from people lazily assuming you don't have it. And the opponent doesn't even pay much of a price for suspecting you have it and playing cautiously. If there was a high price to pay for playing around it, then the conversation would be different, but there really isn't. Just as a thought experiment, if we all got to see a preview of the opponent's team and moveset before every game, would anyone still use normal move exeggutor? I'm not gonna argue with you that it works against many people. I've used it with a lot of success. My lack of respect for it comes more from people trying to use it on me, and me just never biting, and maybe that is because I used it so much myself.

......The last time I used Jynx mie don (Or Jynx mie Golem) was when I solo'd the Cholaski team on the ladder as Chonasty, and I've been trying to play an opening in my head in which this would work on me and I just don't think you'd get me often with it... I can't imagine this working on me with any regularity.

Just wanna add, I'm genuinely surprised at the love for normal move Exeggutor. I didn't even know he had a fan club. I thought the only person who actually thought it was good was GGFan https://www.pokemonperfect.com/forums/index.php?threads/ggfans-2013-ladder-team.3103/.
Here he says: "What separates my Exeggutor from the others, however, is Hyper Beam as the 4th move. I have picked off many, many paralyzed Jynx and wounded Chanseys with it, ostensibly because of its raw power, but moreso because nobody would see it coming unless they've played me before. And if I felt that they might try and predict it, I could simply act accordingly by using Psychic instead. I love Hyper Beam so much that I'll never go back to Mega Drain and Stun Spore."

And again, he says here, "...because nobody would see it coming..." Moves that work mostly for this reason, I categorize as gimmicky.