Research Are there any Pokémon that have zero losing matchups for an in-game playthrough?

[bdt2002]

Hello, everyone. It's me again. For a long time now, I've been fascinated with viability rankings, and seeing how different factors- in this case different Pokémon- would fare relative to one another in a certain setting. As we know, the Orange Islands' version of that comes in the form of the in-game tier list threads. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say that a lot of work goes into making those, and I for one have always been extremely jealous of the time and effort those guys put into their work.

There's always been one statistic that interests me the most when looking at in-game Pokémon viability, and that's the Pokémon's matchup spread against important NPC battles, such as Gym Leaders, the Pokémon League, the evil team(s) of the region, stuff like that. That got me thinking about the question that's been bothering me for ages now. I cannot help but be curious about if there's a Pokémon or a group of Pokémon out there, who, if we were to look at factors such as stats and typing, would hypothetically have an undefeated win-loss record against a certain game's important NPC battles.

I've thought long and hard about this, but every time I find a potential option in any of the eight (and more in the future) Generations of Pokémon, there's just always something that has to ruin it. Take the evil teams of Ruby & Sapphire being good matchups for some Pokémon but bad for the opposite team, for example. I cannot state this next part enough: I do not intend for this thread to consist of a ton of "theory-monning", as it's called, and would also like to keep wishlisting or any unsupported speculations to a minimum if possible.

Here's how I'm hoping this discussion can go, if you guys want to join in my research for a little bit. At the end of this post, I've left the list of criteria that I'm looking at for what I would consider an important NPC battle, as well as what would make that battle a win, a loss, or a draw. (Mirror matches will be considered as even, for the record.) From that list, I want to see if we can come up with any ideas of Pokémon from a specific game or game versions that, according to my list, would log a beautiful number 0 in the "losses" column. Large amounts of wins are all the better, but the main focus here is staying undefeated. I think that wraps up everything I have to say, so thank you all for your help in advance, and here's the lists I've been using.

1. What NPC battles are eligible for this discussion?
-Rival battles
-Gym Leaders
-Elite Four members
-Champions
-Evil team leaders
-Totem Pokémon (SM & USUM)
-Trial Captains (but only if they are required battles)
-Superboss Pokémon (examples include fusion forms and Eternamax Eternatus)

2. How are wins, losses, and draws decided?
-Wins and losses are determined by counting the amount of opposing Pokémon on the NPC's team and forming a Win-Loss-Draw record for the Pokémon in question against each of those Pokémon. For example, let's say that a Gym Leader has five Pokémon, that our test subject, a Pikachu, wins against three of those but loses to two of them. Pikachu's matchup record would be 3-2 for this NPC battle, and as such, the battle as a whole would be considered a winning matchup.
-For a battle to be determined as a winning matchup, the Pokémon in question must have greater than a .500 win percentage in their matchup record for that particular NPC battle. Naturally, matchup records of less than .500 would be considered losing matchups, and matchups at .500 exactly would be considered even.
-Once a person is able to calculate a Pokémon's matchup record against every important NPC battle, a final "Total Record" will then be calculated using the results of the individual matchup records. Going back to our example Pikachu, let's say that our Pikachu wins five important NPC battles and loses against seven, while going even in two more. If you couldn't tell, I'm just picking random numbers here. Pikachu's Total Record for the game in question would be 5-7-2, or roughly 42.86% (.429).
-For the sake of mathematics, a draw is considered as half a win and half a loss at the same time. An even number of draws, starting at 2 draws, carries the same effect as a 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, et cetera. matchup spread. However, draws do not have to be included in matchup records and total records. Because if they were, going 100% would be physically impossible.

 

[bdt2002]

If you made it to end of my post, excellent. That was a long one. Allow me to reward your patience with an example of how to go about this kind of thing. In this next example, I'll be looking at one of my very first suspects, being Jynx in RBY. I chose Jynx as a suspect because of the Psychic-Type's lack of bad important NPC matchups in RBY playthroughs, as a Bug-Type specialist is absent and types such as Ghost have other issues hindering them from beating the Psychic-Type. Jynx in particular can be obtained in RBY through an in-game trade for a Poilwhirl, which in turn can be obtained in numerous ways, the earliest being as a Poilwag as a fishing encounter with the Good Rod on several bodies of water across Kanto. The Good Rod can be obtained in Fuchsia City, just in case anyone's wondering. As such, Jynx's NPCs matchups will only consist of those found after the initial point that the player can do the trade.

Suspect: Jynx



Game: Red, Blue, & Yellow
Total Matchup Record: 13-2

(Matchups: Beats Giovanni's first battle, Erika, Koga, Giovanni's Silph Co. battle, Sabrina, Giovanni's Gym battle, Bruno, Agatha, Lance, and goes 5-1 against the rival & Champion's pool of possible Pokémon in up to four different battles, while only losing to Blaine and Lorelei. No draws are present.)

You don't have to do the matchups in full detail like I did. I just did that in case anyone was curious how RBY Jynx got a win percentage as high as 86.66% (.867).

 

[Hugin]

I mean, you can just look at the speedrun routes for various games. They rely heavily on X items because they're usually underleveled, but at least some of the mons are basically god-tier throughout. Notable standouts:
Nidoking Gen I. Has trouble with Misty, and things can get messy in certain hard fights, but it can win every in-game matchup most of the time with proper planning, and would be very easy if it entered fights at a more reasonable level. Blastoise was used before this, but it had issues with Surge and Gyarados.
Feraligatr Gen II. The only things that hit you SE are Rival's Meganium, a couple random grass coverage moves, and Red's Pikachu. Meganium isn't exactly a threat though, so it has one bad matchup the entire game.
Swampert Gen III. Grovyle at Rival 2 is the only fight you lose because of bad matchup, everything else is bad RNG, silly speed strats, or being severely underleveled. These days the route swaps to a legendary endgame, but that has more to do with the ridiculousness of Kyogre/Rayquaza than any fear for Sidney's grass-types.

You get the picture. There's games where the speedrun needs multiple mons because nothing has a great matchup with everything(Gen VI is a mess and I love it), or where there's at least one seriously bad matchup (USUM Hawlucha just murders everything it encounters for 99% of the game and then meets Necrozma and gets liquified), but mostly, the speedruns have spent a decade+ figuring this out.

 

[bdt2002]

I mean, you can just look at the speedrun routes for various games. They rely heavily on X items because they're usually underleveled, but at least some of the mons are basically god-tier throughout. Notable standouts:
Nidoking Gen I. Has trouble with Misty, and things can get messy in certain hard fights, but it can win every in-game matchup most of the time with proper planning, and would be very easy if it entered fights at a more reasonable level. Blastoise was used before this, but it had issues with Surge and Gyarados.
Feraligatr Gen II. The only things that hit you SE are Rival's Meganium, a couple random grass coverage moves, and Red's Pikachu. Meganium isn't exactly a threat though, so it has one bad matchup the entire game.
Swampert Gen III. Grovyle at Rival 2 is the only fight you lose because of bad matchup, everything else is bad RNG, silly speed strats, or being severely underleveled. These days the route swaps to a legendary endgame, but that has more to do with the ridiculousness of Kyogre/Rayquaza than any fear for Sidney's grass-types.

You get the picture. There's games where the speedrun needs multiple mons because nothing has a great matchup with everything(Gen VI is a mess and I love it), or where there's at least one seriously bad matchup (USUM Hawlucha just murders everything it encounters for 99% of the game and then meets Necrozma and gets liquified), but mostly, the speedruns have spent a decade+ figuring this out.

See, the speedrun metagame has so many other things that go into it, and I'm unsure of how I'd consider some of those for my criteria. Would they affect the standings at all? Do we go into this conversation with the mindset that items are allowed in battle? Questions like these aren't questions I've asked myself a lot, or in some cases haven't actually taken into consideration.

In terms of the nominations you talked about, though, I can absolutely see where you're coming from. USUM Hawlucha dominates the earlygame, and snags an incredible 6-0 record through Melemele and Akala Island, only having draws against the Totem Marowak and the Nihilego battle along that span. GSC Feraligatr is another one that lacks a lot of winning matchups but more than makes up for it with a lack of losing matchups. There's a few Pokémon here and there (Jasmine's pair of Magnemite and Clair's dragons immediately come to mind) that may give it some issues, but as far as power level is concerned, GSC is low level enough to where strategy and efficient training at least lets Feraligatr be useful in those fights. Same case goes for the famous RSE Swampert, while I'm still thinking about Water-Type starters.

 

[adman2]

Feraligatr Gen II. The only things that hit you SE are Rival's Meganium, a couple random grass coverage moves, and Red's Pikachu. Meganium isn't exactly a threat though, so it has one bad matchup the entire game.

Rival ???'s Bayleef can be a threat to solo Croconaw in Azalea Town, at least if you're not using items. Mine died multiple times to Razor Leaf. Croconaw had defeated most trainers except for Sprout Tower, which I was saving for the solo Pokemon I was going to use for the rest of the game.

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

I am not sure if HGSS should count the post-game bosses or not (mainly cause the HGSS tier list never went beyond Lance due to a myriad of reasons). But if we want something with essentially 100% winrate, then the level 50 Magikarp is a good candidate here if you don't go beyond Lance.

For context, on Route 43, it is possible to repel trick a level 50 Magikarp with a level 26+ Pokemon in the lead. Pop in one Rare Candy and you have a level 51 Gyarados. You can either spam it with Proteins or Rare Candies if you are not planning on soloing with it (it's generally enough to just beat the mandatory trainers to not need candies / vitamins), though spamming 10-11 Rare Candies is bound to inflate almost anything's performance. In addition, you will need one Heart Scale to reteach Dragon Dance and preferably another to reteach Ice Fang at some point before the Pokemon League.

Moveset in the beginning can be just Surf / Strength (and some other TMs if you fancy that, but not needed, the HMs are enough). Waterfall becomes your main STAB later and Dragon Dance / Ice Fang replace Surf and fill the 4th moveslot. It is important to note that Gyara can also get past Lance with just Strength (will explain later on), but Ice Fang does the same with considerably less effort / risks.

Anyways, assuming you do the stuff above, you get a very clearly broken Pokemon. Gyms 5-7 and the entirety of Team Rocket fold to Surf / Strength due to the level difference. When you get to Clair, you will have Dragon Dance at this point and a few of those against her own Gyarados will help your Gyarados sweep (and without healing, in most cases). You also sweep the rival for very similar reasons.

You get to the Pokemon League with Strength / Waterfall / Ice Fang / DD as your final moveset. At this point, all you have to do is spam DD enough times against every member's lead and use the strongest move. Against Lance, either spam DD to the max if Strength is your strongest move against Dragonite or only a few times if you have Ice Fang, kill Gyara, then OHKO everything else with Waterfall / Ice Fang / Strength

so yeah, you've got a 100% winrate. Unless you want to count all the missed matchups as losses, but in terms of the ones that the level 50 Gyara is available in, it's got a 100% winrate up until Lance. Though I am wondering if it couldn't potentially sweep the Kanto Gyms as well if you go in a specific order or something

 

[Siggu]

If any kind of planning is included then Emerald Rayquaza can plow through the entire game from the moment is caught.

This one was kind of obvious, though...

 

[Magnus0]

I'd like to mention Lilligant in B/W. It doesn't have a 100% perfect matchup spread, but it comes really close. Lilligant can sweep pretty much any fight in the game regardless of type matchup thanks to the combination of sleep powder and quiver dance. It gets both of these moves before level 28, which is really early for such a stupidly broken combo. It can also abuse petal dance without getting confused thanks to own tempo, which adds to Lilligant's insane damage output. Lilligant has one bad gym matchup against Burgh, but it can sweep all remaining gyms including the entire E4. It can also sweep Ghetsis and N (only in White).

 

[bdt2002]

I am not sure if HGSS should count the post-game bosses or not (mainly cause the HGSS tier list never went beyond Lance due to a myriad of reasons). But if we want something with essentially 100% winrate, then the level 50 Magikarp is a good candidate here if you don't go beyond Lance.

For context, on Route 43, it is possible to repel trick a level 50 Magikarp with a level 26+ Pokemon in the lead. Pop in one Rare Candy and you have a level 51 Gyarados. You can either spam it with Proteins or Rare Candies if you are not planning on soloing with it (it's generally enough to just beat the mandatory trainers to not need candies / vitamins), though spamming 10-11 Rare Candies is bound to inflate almost anything's performance. In addition, you will need one Heart Scale to reteach Dragon Dance and preferably another to reteach Ice Fang at some point before the Pokemon League.

Moveset in the beginning can be just Surf / Strength (and some other TMs if you fancy that, but not needed, the HMs are enough). Waterfall becomes your main STAB later and Dragon Dance / Ice Fang replace Surf and fill the 4th moveslot. It is important to note that Gyara can also get past Lance with just Strength (will explain later on), but Ice Fang does the same with considerably less effort / risks.

Anyways, assuming you do the stuff above, you get a very clearly broken Pokemon. Gyms 5-7 and the entirety of Team Rocket fold to Surf / Strength due to the level difference. When you get to Clair, you will have Dragon Dance at this point and a few of those against her own Gyarados will help your Gyarados sweep (and without healing, in most cases). You also sweep the rival for very similar reasons.

You get to the Pokemon League with Strength / Waterfall / Ice Fang / DD as your final moveset. At this point, all you have to do is spam DD enough times against every member's lead and use the strongest move. Against Lance, either spam DD to the max if Strength is your strongest move against Dragonite or only a few times if you have Ice Fang, kill Gyara, then OHKO everything else with Waterfall / Ice Fang / Strength

so yeah, you've got a 100% winrate. Unless you want to count all the missed matchups as losses, but in terms of the ones that the level 50 Gyara is available in, it's got a 100% winrate up until Lance. Though I am wondering if it couldn't potentially sweep the Kanto Gyms as well if you go in a specific order or something

This whole post is certainly very interesting. I'm guessing that either you or another user discovered this in one of the tier list threads. For the record, I am not counting battles where a Pokémon isn't available as losing matchups. If I was, then literally everything that isn't a starter Pokémon would have at least one losing matchup. Looking into whether or not OP Gyarados wins against every Kanto leader is diving a little bit into theorymonning territory, but I think it should be possible with enough routing and planning put into place.

If any kind of planning is included then Emerald Rayquaza can plow through the entire game from the moment is caught.

This one was kind of obvious, though...

I can't say I've ever used it, but IMO Emerald Rayquaza isn't actually all it's cracked up to be. Like, yeah, it's a Level 70 legendary that's going to be really good if you go back and catch it before the postgame. Again, this is diving into theorymonning territory, but I'd expect that Rayquaza has a few flaws holding it back from true dominance. Low PP on its starting moves and over-reliance on TMs immediately comes to mind. Without TMs taken into account, if Steven was still the Champion in Emerald, I'd actually consider that a losing matchup if it existed.

I'd like to mention Lilligant in B/W. It doesn't have a 100% perfect matchup spread, but it comes really close. Lilligant can sweep pretty much any fight in the game regardless of type matchup thanks to the combination of sleep powder and quiver dance. It gets both of these moves before level 28, which is really early for such a stupidly broken combo. It can also abuse petal dance without getting confused thanks to own tempo, which adds to Lilligant's insane damage output. Lilligant has one bad gym matchup against Burgh, but it can sweep all remaining gyms including the entire E4. It can also sweep Ghetsis and N (only in White).

I've used this Pokémon before, and it's really, really good. Unfortunately Gen 5's busted sleep mechanics don't affect single player as much as it does competitive play, but that doesn't change the fact that Lilligant can basically set up for free on Pokémon it shouldn't be able to. Lilligant has other tricks up its sleeves in this game to. Own Tempo & Petal Dance is a particularly combination that only Lilligant gets access to, and it even gets access to several reliable recovery moves. The only thing really holding Lilligant back is a limited attacking movepool as far as type coverage is concerned. There's a ton of Pokémon that resist Grass in the BW1 Unova dex that I found I had to set up at least one or two extra turns to turn 2HKOs into OHKOs.

 

[Siggu]

I can't say I've ever used it, but IMO Emerald Rayquaza isn't actually all it's cracked up to be. Like, yeah, it's a Level 70 legendary that's going to be really good if you go back and catch it before the postgame. Again, this is diving into theorymonning territory, but I'd expect that Rayquaza has a few flaws holding it back from true dominance. Low PP on its starting moves and over-reliance on TMs immediately comes to mind. Without TMs taken into account, if Steven was still the Champion in Emerald, I'd actually consider that a losing matchup if it existed.

Well, that's why I said "including planning". With Dragon Claw and TMs for Thunder(bolt) and Flamethrower/Fire Blast for Wallace and Glacia it has little problem beating everyone on sight.

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

I'm guessing that either you or another user discovered this in one of the tier list threads

This was the source of the information (from the thread) and I confirmed (and even tested) it. Replying just to give credits where it's due

Also, since I saw it in an earlier post here, I wanna note that USUM Hawlucha can actually beat Ultra Necrozma. Basically, the traded one has Unburden and you can get a Focus Sash from the Dancer on Poni Wilds. You can also teach Hawlucha Endeavor either through tutors or level. So you have UN bring you to one HP, you hit it with Endeavor, then trigger Unburden and outspeed it (remember that Hawlucha is very fast and you will be at a significantly high level due to traded exp and Exp. Share). Now, you have the problem that you cannot get past Kahili and Ribombee (or Mimikyu from earlier), but oh well, still doesn't prevent Hawlucha from being one of the most broken in-game Pokemon ever. Just mentioning this since I thought this would be an interesting piece of info

 

[Zowayix]

Half-joke answer: Get SwSh + DLC, then go to the Crown Tundra as soon as possible. Lose to Peony's level 70 team (the plot will continue regardless), then head to Dynamax Adventures with its rentals and catch a Pokemon at level 65 while you still have 0 badges. Proceed to curb stomp the rest of the game.

 

[Ironmage]

The various speedrun routes are probably worth looking into for this, since catching mons can be slow. At the very least, they're capable of winning the full game if they get all the Exp and the occasional X item. Off the top of my head, this includes RGB Nidoking and B2W2 Excadrill. Emerald also uses Swampert until Rayquaza becomes available.

 

[Wukong]

This question might be better rephrased as "which Pokémon has the best matchup spread in its respective game(s)" as I don't think any single mon has zero losing matchups in a game, to my knowledge.

Given that reframing of the question, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Pokémon with a better matchup spread than Swampert, especially in Ruby. Given that you receive it at the beginning of the game, its winning/neutral matchups become inflated. It has a winning matchup against the villain team in Ruby. And its only losing matchups from a pure type perspective are, to my knowledge: the rival's Grovyle, Sydney's Cacturne, and Steven's Cradily.

It might very well be the best in-game performance by a mon ever.

 

[Scorpio]

Not quite the same thing but I’ve made what is basically the Dream Team for the various Alola games. It is as follows;

Primarina: Can take on Hala (it gets Disarming Voice by the time you face him on Melemele), both Fire Totems (since for SM it shouldn’t be evolved at that point), Olivia, Nanu, Lusamine’s Bewear, Hapu, Totem Kommo-o, Kukui’s Lycanroc, and Hau’s Noivern

Magnezone: Can take on Galdion’s/Plumeria’s Zubat/Golbat/Crobat, both Water Totems (Wishiwashi moreso), Olivia, Guzma’sTotem Mimikyu, Lusamine’s Milotic, Kahili, and Kukui’s Braviary and Ninetales.

Muk-A: Can take on Totem Marowak (USUM only), Totem Lurantis (it is in fact one of the better Pokémon for that fight since none of the SOS partners hit it super-effectively), Totem Mimikyu, Lusamine’s Clefable, Liligant, and Mismagius, Mina, Ultra Necrozma (on paper at least), Acerola, Gladon’s Silvally, Kukui’s Ninetales and Decidueye, and Hau’s Leafeon.

Hariyama: Can take on Ilima and both Normal Totems (though Totem Raticate is even more screwed), Gladion’s Weavile/Zoroark, Olivia, Totem Togedemaru (USUM only), Nanu (save for Sableye), Lusamine’s Bewear and Lopunny (USUM only for the latter), Molayne, Kukui’s Lycanroc and Snorlax, and Hau’s Crabominable and Tauros.

Oricorio: Can take on Hala, both Water Totems, Totem Lurantis (though it needs to be careful with Trumbeak/Kecleon), Guzma, Lusamine’s Liligant and Milotic (if Electric)/Bewear (if Psychic), Totem Kommo-o, Kukui’s Decidueye and Ninetales (if Fire)/Braviary (if Electric), and Hau’s Leafeon.

Mudsdale: Can take on both Fire Totems (though Totem Salazzle is even more screwed), Plumeria (save for her Golbat unless you have a Rock move), Olivia (who might as well just roll over and surrender at this point), both Electric Totems (Totem Togedemaru moreso), Molayne, Kukui’s Lycanroc and Magnezone, and Hau’s Raichu and Incineroar.

As you can see, basically every major battle is covered by this team and then some.

 

[Jaajgko]

I think Lucario in XY has none without requiring any X-Items. You can get a Riolu before the first gym on route 22 and evolve it to beat Viola, against which it struggles a little bit to deal damage, but doesn't take much in return (with Power-Up-Punch at level 15 it's an easy win though). 3rd gym looks like a tough match-up, but I'm pretty sure Korrina's Mienfoo just always clicks Fake Out turn 1, which gives it a free Swords Dance thanks to Inner Focus, and then it can sweep with Return. In tower of mastery you get a second Lucario with Hasty Nature, 25 Atk / 25 SpA / 31 Spe IVs, the EXP boost and that holds a Lucarionite. The gifted Mega Lucario easily dismantles the rest of the game. The only downside is that evolving Riolu into Lucario before the first badge is a bit annoying to do. Hardest fight might be Lysandre 2 but it should be fine with Power Up Punch and Protect.

 

[Sultan]

The Speed Boost Torchic that they gave to early players of XY just blew through everything. In theory, it has a losing matchup against Siebold, but at that point it will be so overleveled through its experience bonus that it won't even matter. The only problem with using it is that it might get so overleveled that it may stop obeying you.