OU RBY OU Discussion Thread

[dangerk1d]

how common is single sleeper? i always find myself wanting at least two sleepers incase something happens to my first sleeper. feels like an insurance worth investing in say, if you're running lead jynx and don't wanna lose your single sleeper in the worst case scenario. though i reckon it's eggy in the back most often used for single sleeper and more uncommon for single sleeper to lead jynx?

Your hunch about single sleep jynx being less consistent than egg is spot on, but it's not necessarily less common. A lot of players prefer to greed solo sleep jynx, either because they view jynx as an inherent risk that should be committed to fully or because the costs of double sleep for them are too high. For example, I almost always prefer double sleep with jynx, but doing so on jynx mie don forces you to drop bolt on chansey and blizz on starmie, which makes the team feel way worse at breaking egg. And then you usually have to run to beamlax for starmie, which makes you worse into opposing egg don teams. So in that particular case for me, the consistency of double sleep is usually not worth the other bad matchups + drop in power. It ultimately comes down to what you prefer.

 

[SpoiledBerries]

Your hunch about single sleep jynx being less consistent than egg is spot on, but it's not necessarily less common. A lot of players prefer to greed solo sleep jynx, either because they view jynx as an inherent risk that should be committed to fully or because the costs of double sleep for them are too high. For example, I almost always prefer double sleep with jynx, but doing so on jynx mie don forces you to drop bolt on chansey and blizz on starmie, which makes the team feel way worse at breaking egg. And then you usually have to run to beamlax for starmie, which makes you worse into opposing egg don teams. So in that particular case for me, the consistency of double sleep is usually not worth the other bad matchups + drop in power. It ultimately comes down to what you prefer.

@solosleepjynx i wanna add that i think those teams get considerably safer to run at a higher level. The main thing you're watching out for with solosleep jynx is getting gar boomed on imo, but since it's understood the safer click when you don't know the jynx players team is taking the hypno thats what you generally see getting clicked more often. With JynxMieDon specifically once jynx is sleeping the matchup can be equalized eqlax and chansey, especially if its vs GarZap. Since JynxMieDon is a super synergistic team if your early sleep gets down and running singchans requires big concessions to be made the solosleep variant still sees tons of play even though its greedy, Sceptross especially used it a ton last SPL and sometimes twice a set.

https://pokepast.es/8fe6936162a5c7bb
I like this version of the 6 a lot, the team has to risk starmie often so blizzbolt ros is a huge help vs cloy teams and leerdon is good so enemy reflax don't run through your team with starmie paralyzed. Boomlax rounds out the team really nicely and bandaids the mild tauros weakness that comes with running rhydon but the rhydon ditto and gar mus are made a lot harder.
One more thing, after running it a bit in the past and seeing it flop I don't think singchans on this team is very viable. You have to run SingIce or you're too rhydon weak, which forces you into running SurfBolt starmie which means you're a rhydon team that gets dogwalked by eggy and starmie. If you think they're likely to garboom you, run MieEggDon.

 

[Amaranth]

@solosleepjynx i wanna add that i think those teams get considerably safer to run at a higher level. The main thing you're watching out for with solosleep jynx is getting gar boomed on imo, but since it's understood the safer click when you don't know the jynx players team is taking the hypno thats what you generally see getting clicked more often. With JynxMieDon specifically once jynx is sleeping the matchup can be equalized eqlax and chansey, especially if its vs GarZap. Since JynxMieDon is a super synergistic team if your early sleep gets down and running singchans requires big concessions to be made the solosleep variant still sees tons of play even though its greedy, Sceptross especially used it a ton last SPL and sometimes twice a set.

https://pokepast.es/8fe6936162a5c7bb
I like this version of the 6 a lot, the team has to risk starmie often so blizzbolt ros is a huge help vs cloy teams and leerdon is good so enemy reflax don't run through your team with starmie paralyzed. Boomlax rounds out the team really nicely and bandaids the mild tauros weakness that comes with running rhydon but the rhydon ditto and gar mus are made a lot harder.
One more thing, after running it a bit in the past and seeing it flop I don't think singchans on this team is very viable. You have to run SingIce or you're too rhydon weak, which forces you into running SurfBolt starmie which means you're a rhydon team that gets dogwalked by eggy and starmie. If you think they're likely to garboom you, run MieEggDon.

There are many many upsides of Sing Chans on JynxMieDon aside from Gengar Explosion insurance:
* Improved lines to switch on twave turn 1 - boltbeam chansey can also do this to some degree, but you need to find a switch back to Jynx later, Sing makes it much cleaner. This helps the match ups vs a lot of stuff and especially stuff that goes Sing SToss Chans to greed a sleepless Eggy (not especially common, but reasonably popular over the last ~year id say).
* Much improved Jynx mirror (duo sleep vs solo sleep is decisively ahead if you win the lead tie, and only concedes a couple freeze chances if you lose it as opposed to having to play a full 5v6)
* Many times opponent doesn't even think to play around the Sing bc they just see lead Jynx and assume/gamble on no Sing (especially true of SingIce if you can reveal Ice early).
* Not autolosing to Gengar Explosion is a nice side effect, but about #4 on the list of reasons to run this (match up is still pretty bad as garboom t1 is usually followed by Eggy or Jynx sleeps which means your Chansey still can't get sleep, you either have to give up the Starmie and play a very gimped Rhydon endgame, or the Rhydon itself but it needs to hard switch from unrevealed on the sleep move which can be awkward)

Also: I don't really understand how running TBolt Mie makes you "dogwalked by Starmie" either, and if Exeggutor wants to come on SurfBolt Starmie when you're running a Rhydon team to take twave and chip, you're more than happy. This whole analysis doesn't really make sense to me.
Of course Egg+Mie is always going to be a bad match up for Rhydon teams but you're as well equipped as any other version really, certainly the match up is a hell of a lot worse if your Starmie is *not* Thunderbolt (as you end up falling for the easy line of Egg booms Chans -> your Starmie+Lax+Tauros+Rhydon all lose to enemy Starmie)

It's clear that solo sleep Jynx is still viable of course, and a necessary greed at high levels into certain scouts, but dual sleep has felt FAR more consistent to me on paper and in practice. The opportunity cost of Sing>TBolt just isn't very high to me as I don't think SurfBolt (or PsyBolt) Starmie is bad on this 6 at all. Like I wouldn't be running Blizz Mie at all anyways, what are you hitting? You've got tools for both Exeggutor and Zapdos, you're certainly not struggling in either match up. "Oops all Eggy hate" teams are pretty good, but any Rhydon team is by definition not that, so that's not the reason for Blizz Mie either. What is the reason you want Blizz Mie so bad on this 6? Abusing opps who risk Eggy vs unrevealed Mie by default? It's an upside but hardly fundamental imo. Is there anything else I'm missing?

 

[violet river]

There are many many upsides of Sing Chans on JynxMieDon aside from Gengar Explosion insurance:
* Improved lines to switch on twave turn 1 - boltbeam chansey can also do this to some degree, but you need to find a switch back to Jynx later, Sing makes it much cleaner. This helps the match ups vs a lot of stuff and especially stuff that goes Sing SToss Chans to greed a sleepless Eggy (not especially common, but reasonably popular over the last ~year id say).
* Much improved Jynx mirror (duo sleep vs solo sleep is decisively ahead if you win the lead tie, and only concedes a couple freeze chances if you lose it as opposed to having to play a full 5v6)
* Many times opponent doesn't even think to play around the Sing bc they just see lead Jynx and assume/gamble on no Sing (especially true of SingIce if you can reveal Ice early).
* Not autolosing to Gengar Explosion is a nice side effect, but about #4 on the list of reasons to run this (match up is still pretty bad as garboom t1 is usually followed by Eggy or Jynx sleeps which means your Chansey still can't get sleep, you either have to give up the Starmie and play a very gimped Rhydon endgame, or the Rhydon itself but it needs to hard switch from unrevealed on the sleep move which can be awkward)

Also: I don't really understand how running TBolt Mie makes you "dogwalked by Starmie" either, and if Exeggutor wants to come on SurfBolt Starmie when you're running a Rhydon team to take twave and chip, you're more than happy. This whole analysis doesn't really make sense to me.
Of course Egg+Mie is always going to be a bad match up for Rhydon teams but you're as well equipped as any other version really, certainly the match up is a hell of a lot worse if your Starmie is *not* Thunderbolt (as you end up falling for the easy line of Egg booms Chans -> your Starmie+Lax+Tauros+Rhydon all lose to enemy Starmie)

It's clear that solo sleep Jynx is still viable of course, and a necessary greed at high levels into certain scouts, but dual sleep has felt FAR more consistent to me on paper and in practice. The opportunity cost of Sing>TBolt just isn't very high to me as I don't think SurfBolt (or PsyBolt) Starmie is bad on this 6 at all. Like I wouldn't be running Blizz Mie at all anyways, what are you hitting? You've got tools for both Exeggutor and Zapdos, you're certainly not struggling in either match up. "Oops all Eggy hate" teams are pretty good, but any Rhydon team is by definition not that, so that's not the reason for Blizz Mie either. What is the reason you want Blizz Mie so bad on this 6? Abusing opps who risk Eggy vs unrevealed Mie by default? It's an upside but hardly fundamental imo. Is there anything else I'm missing?

the main downside wrt having to run psybolt/surfbolt mie is that in order to check mie like that, you have to absorb paralysis on your starmie. keeping a pristine starmie is often very important in my opinion for both restlax and tauros. i feel as though you trade off sing>bolt on chans in that you get better early lines and sleep game etc, but the sacrifice is that you're forced to take paralysis on starmie a lot of the time.

 

[Amaranth]

the main downside wrt having to run psybolt/surfbolt mie is that in order to check mie like that, you have to absorb paralysis on your starmie. keeping a pristine starmie is often very important in my opinion for both restlax and tauros. i feel as though you trade off sing>bolt on chans in that you get better early lines and sleep game etc, but the sacrifice is that you're forced to take paralysis on starmie a lot of the time.

But this always happens no? Your Chansey gets boomed and then you just have to anyway? Unless you go Starmie on Egg straight away to protect Chansey from the boom... which also gets your Starmie paralyzed? It's such a marginal improvement IMO it makes things more comfortable but not really in a way that meaningfully improves any match up

 

[violet river]

But this always happens no? Your Chansey gets boomed and then you just have to anyway? Unless you go Starmie on Egg straight away to protect Chansey from the boom... which also gets your Starmie paralyzed? It's such a marginal improvement IMO it makes things more comfortable but not really in a way that meaningfully improves any match up

i think it decreases the amount of time where you get to play the game with an unpar starmie

 

[dangerk1d]

My preference for jynx (psyblizz) mie don might be a case for the particular meta trends of the now. Mie teams are low, egg teams are high, and those that use both in the back seem to prefer psyblizz on mie to hedge for zapdos, which means I can still have a chance if egg blows up on chansey. Chansey walled by mie + mie walled by egg means I have to play a little more slowly with a structure that feels very defensively unsound, and I really value the offense that bb chansey enables in this case. Having to get lax or starmie parad in order to stop mie (as river mentioned) slows things down a lot for me, and being able to run other moves on lax is also nice (boom to be a bit better into tauros + less exploited by don, and I guess ice/eq versions too).

I also think rhydon is so strong and so good at abusing paralysis that losing out on sleep is less of a tragedy than for other teams, because you can para and break to make up the disadvantage.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

I mean at that point you're just describing stall, which has pretty much always struggled in rby. Parahax and crits ruin the efficacy of stalling out the game, making teambuilding for that sort of thing even more of a stretch.

As much as I like to bash Wrap, it's just better at utilising poison/burn (which isn't saying much). Why waste turns for the sake of time when you can just go for the win? Games taking longer cuts both ways because it allows more opportunity for the aggressive player to land hax

Well the question, "Why not go for the win?" depends entirely on if wrap is really "going for the win." My answer would be no. I like trapping moves as a way to get out of corners or in situations in which they are relatively safe, but like you, I have found building teams that depend on them is never consistent.

You don't need to make the whole team stall. You don't need to be in the team builder thinking, "How do I make a stall team that uses toxic to win the game?" I'm not saying I have a found a way to bring gsc spikes and stall teams to gen 1. You just need to be able to stall the specific pokemon that is poisoned, such as Chansey or Alakazam. You need to be able to stall in parts of the game. Not the whole game.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

I haven't really kept up with what people have used in tournaments as of late, so idk if I'm late or early to the party, but reflect beam/bolt Chansey has just straight up surprised me and beaten me in a couple of games. This prompted me to try it for myself, and I felt immediate pay off. It seems to be really good against the popular team structures right now. I don't have any interesting commentary to add. Just reporting my experience.

 

[SpoiledBerries]

Also: I don't really understand how running TBolt Mie makes you "dogwalked by Starmie" either,
I don't think SurfBolt (or PsyBolt) Starmie is bad on this 6 at all.

surfbolt MieDon is a really obvious synergy, surfbolt is clearly fine on this 6. The problem is that you're making your chansey a useless sack of shit on a team that needs all of it to not be to function properly. Starmie is a pretty vital defensive piece on this team bc its your only special breaker + 1 of 2 para spreaders + faster-than-tauros-guy and to not let enemy starmie walk all over you u have to instantly let it get paralyzed lol. It makes u super weak into tauros and lax and since your chansey is griefed you have a super hard time breaking through eggy too, which can cause big problems if its running a recovery move in drain/rest which are both getting more common in the meta rn. You get dogwalked by Starmie because if you don't get the freeze it puts pressure on your biggest defensive flaw (normals). JynxMieDon is a team that has to risk Starmie anyway and a lot of games it is gonna be forced into taking a twave, but usually thats after lax has gotten his slams off and maybe boomed and your chansey has spread some waves so that your physical attackers are set up to try win. Getting your starmie forced out and kneecapped if you dont want theirs to farm you sounds like a recipe for disaster, and I think that correlates with what I've seen, the team flows a lot better defensively with a freed starmie and chansey.

Im a rly big SingChans user so this would all be forgiveable if it freed up tons of room for your team in other places

* Improved lines to switch on twave turn 1

This isn't something I super value that much without getting a builder advantage out of it with sleepless egg and i'm sure it doesn't help with your general lax woes but i mean yeah ok it streamlines ur plays compared to bb chans, this can be good if its a line you're looking to take before the set

* Much improved Jynx mirror

if you win the tie:
you get the privilege of playing the same team but with a griefed chansey waow
if you lose the tie:
Instasinging the jynx for the 5v5 is another decent reason to run singchans here i suppose. Personally I think that playing 5v6 but their 6th is a Jynx is a fine gamestate to be in especially with this team, proportionally to how bad singice sux if you win the tie, but i can concede this too.

* Many times opponent doesn't even think to play around the Sing bc they just see lead Jynx and assume/gamble on no Sing (especially true of SingIce if you can reveal Ice early).

I think you'd like tbolt counter chansey this is mickey lol

* Not autolosing to Gengar Explosion (match up is still pretty bad)

The mu still sux yeah. I do like pblizz a little for this because if u get boomed and they're running egg u can go mie and try hateblizz them for the critmiss or freeze, and that + egghate and psydrop utility are why I like it on this team (though surfbolt is pretty interchangable (maybe better?) and I guess psybolt too).

I'm not super convinced but please do respond and tell me if i've got something super wrong, I'm writing this up bc i don't understand ur perspective and not to say "ur stupid and wrong". Perhaps UnViable(tm) is harsh but I do believe that if you think solosleep Jynx is too greedy in the mu that you're better off running a different team that can more easily afford two sleepers, eg. MieEggDon or CloyDon or like JynxMieEggDon maybe.

 

[Amaranth]

I'm not super convinced but please do respond and tell me if i've got something super wrong

i dont think you got anything "super wrong" but theres this general attitude from people that having sing on chansey is this gigantic sacrifice and i don't really agree with it at all, obviously it is A Sacrifice but its a price i'm more than willing to pay for the upsides. "griefed chansey" is crazy, your chansey still beats enemy starmie. you sit there and ice beam with a shit eating grin on your face. what are they gonna do? switch to lax? congrats thats the same counterplay they have for boltbeam chansey. tbolt improves almost nothing in an early game position, it only matters if opponent is trying to full send the 1v1 with psydrops which... why? you're happy to take frz odds or even just to settle for twave (you have a rhydon team after all). not to mention, if they are psyblizz and trying this 1v1, then you also dunk on them with your own starmie whenever the hell you like (sure you have to accept your twave, but they have to accept losing the game, so that's a good trade i think)

ofc its possible they bait a twave and catch it with starmie and *now* your chansey feels a bit griefed but that shouldnt happen all that much and not without giving up a significant number of ice beams in the process

and of course it matters in endgames, but endgame chansey is a total brick in a majority of situations and should be avoided as a whole generally

 

[violet river]

i dont think you got anything "super wrong" but theres this general attitude from people that having sing on chansey is this gigantic sacrifice and i don't really agree with it at all, obviously it is A Sacrifice but its a price i'm more than willing to pay for the upsides. "griefed chansey" is crazy, your chansey still beats enemy starmie. you sit there and ice beam with a shit eating grin on your face. what are they gonna do? switch to lax? congrats thats the same counterplay they have for boltbeam chansey. tbolt improves almost nothing in an early game position, it only matters if opponent is trying to full send the 1v1 with psydrops which... why? you're happy to take frz odds or even just to settle for twave (you have a rhydon team after all). not to mention, if they are psyblizz and trying this 1v1, then you also dunk on them with your own starmie whenever the hell you like (sure you have to accept your twave, but they have to accept losing the game, so that's a good trade i think)

ofc its possible they bait a twave and catch it with starmie and *now* your chansey feels a bit griefed but that shouldnt happen all that much and not without giving up a significant number of ice beams in the process

and of course it matters in endgames, but endgame chansey is a total brick in a majority of situations and should be avoided as a whole generally

so we're already accepting we have to be throwing beam out and not twaving, and giving enemy lax better entry on jynx teams(ones that do not take kindly to normals smashing through them as a general rule). BBchans is more able to spread paralysis/have the team spread paralysis, because it doesn't get permablocked by mie. the main thing tbolt improves in an early game position is you have a proactive swap versus starmie that can start laying down paralysis. hrm, i'm phrasing pretty poorly, but my point is that we either accept more passive lines, or we have to use our Starmie for the enemy starmie/ros earlier in the game. JynxMieDon especially is a team that adores having its starmie pristine, imo - once it takes paralysis, Tauros and RefLax both look like huge threats.
Snorlax swap on monoice chansey isnt the same counterplay as snorlax swap on bbchansey, because you're heavily disincentivised from thunder waving.
Having to raw our snorlax into their unpar snorlax means our lax has less health, meaning it can take on tauros less, meaning starmie has to check tauros.
Generally just having a less self sufficient chansey means starmie has to fight more stuff, and JynxMieDon is a team that likes to try keep starmie, is my thinking. I don't HATE singchans on this team, but it's definitely making you worse vs cloy ros reflax etc. I have one set of this team that I like well enough.

 

[BeeOrSomething]

Generally, if the opponent is fine accepting paralysis on their Starmie when you’re playing with Rhydon, Lax, and Tauros, then surely that is plenty enough in many situations to accept that Chansey is technically “walled” by Starmie. Depends what you as a player care about more, I suppose. I agree that BB Chans is typically going to be better at spreading paralysis and being a backup option in end games. Having unparalyzed Jynx open in the back against a likely slept psychic lead team is certainly quite good though.

 

[dangerk1d]

You don't need to make the whole team stall. You don't need to be in the team builder thinking, "How do I make a stall team that uses toxic to win the game?" I'm not saying I have a found a way to bring gsc spikes and stall teams to gen 1. You just need to be able to stall the specific pokemon that is poisoned, such as Chansey or Alakazam. You need to be able to stall in parts of the game. Not the whole game.

The most promising application for this I've seen is toxic to support amnesia reflect bolt lax, because the electric resists/immunities often can't heal and one of your other biggest obstacles is Chansey pp stalling you, which becomes way harder to do with the assistance of passive damage. I tried it on ladder while testing for tour and it can indeed farm, there are plenty of things (jolt, zap, gar, toss chansey) to bait don, and opposing Chansey of course will be switching into plenty of things.

I've struggled to find other win conditions that prefer toxic > paralysis though, even something like molt often seems better with paralysis to hedge for how shit your move accuracy is. I considered golem > don on laxless structures, basically like the old amaranth toxic boom spams to wear down a few things until i can outnumber them with explosions, but I feel like the meta is way too fast right now to not have something to clean and close a won position.

Maybe a team with beam agilinite (1 wrapper) could work with boom support to protect you from Tauros/other things that'll hax you in a long game, you can stall/slow the game down and then have the option to pounce, agility, and then win the game, kind of like those gsc drumlax teams. Thinking out loud so that may be crap, but I'd have to look into it.