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In gen 1, why is Karate Chop not even mentioned, its an always critical hit move like slash, giving it base 100 power? Is there something wrong with it that I am missing, outside that is can never be a stronger move than that.

Also, is Surf Raichu legal or no? I was talking to some people a while back and they said it really wasn't but no one feels like changing it.
 
Ok, thank you everyone :)

In gen 1, why is Karate Chop not even mentioned, its an always critical hit move like slash, giving it base 100 power? Is there something wrong with it that I am missing, outside that is can never be a stronger move than that.

Also, is Surf Raichu legal or no? I was talking to some people a while back and they said it really wasn't but no one feels like changing it.
My guess would be that the fighting types that learn it are all weak to Psychic, so it's a large risk to run them.

Yes it is Legal, you were able to get a Pikachu with Surf in Pokemon Stadium, it's legal along with Amnesia Psyduck/Golduck
 
What I mean is that for the fighting types that can use it, Submission is almost universally chosen over it, heck Low Kick is give a mention because of it's flinch chance.
 
What I mean is that for the fighting types that can use it, Submission is almost universally chosen over it, heck Low Kick is give a mention because of it's flinch chance.
Karate Chop is Normal-type in Gen 1. Thus, no STAB for Fighting-types. And given that basically the whole reason to use Fighting-types in Gen 1 is their super-effective STAB against Normals... yeah.

(And if you want a Normal move on them to hit Psychics, Body Slam has that awesome para chance, and does around the same damage once you factor in crits.)

Surf Raichu is legal because it's a tradeback from Stadium - which is a Gen 1 game. You could theoretically play a meta with "no tradebacks from Stadium", but given that Surf Raichu is still mediocre and Amnesia Golduck is totally outclassed by Slowbro, it doesn't seem particularly necessary.

(Tradebacks from GSC change the meta drastically, which is why they're typically not allowed. Mostly by giving two of the most powerful moves in RBY - sleep and Amnesia - far better distribution.)
 
Are there depositories of various viable lead sets for GSC and RBY similar to the lead thread that exists on the Smogon mainsite for ADV?

Just somewhere I can see lead synergies and matchups. GSC especially seems to be giving me troubles in working out what denotes a good lead Pokemon.
 
Don't think there's a repository for RBY, but the common leads are:

Alakazam (Psychic/T-wave/Recover/[SToss or Reflect or Kinesis])
Starmie (Psychic/Blizzard/Recover/filler) [filler = T-wave/Tbolt/Surf/Hydro Pump/Hyper Beam]
Gengar (Hypnosis/Explosion/filler/filler) [filler = Confuse Ray/Thunderbolt/Psychic/Night Shade/Mega Drain]
Jynx (Lovely Kiss/Blizzard/Psychic/filler) [filler = basically anything in Jynx's learnset, Mimic/Counter are the most common]
Exeggutor (Sleep Powder/Psychic/Explosion/[Mega Drain or Stun Spore])

Matchups amount to roughly the following.

Jynx/Exeggutor > Alakazam > Starmie/Gengar
Alakazam/Jynx > Starmie > Gengar/Exeggutor
Alakazam/Starmie > Gengar > Jynx/Exeggutor
Gengar > Jynx > Alakazam/Starmie/Exeggutor
Starmie/Gengar/Jynx > Exeggutor > Alakazam

Jynx is probably the best lead on merit alone, but Gengar is common and Jynx is nowhere near as useful as the others later on.

As far as synergies go, Starmie and Gengar both like to be backed up by Exeggutor or Sing Chansey because those are the best responses to an Alakazam lead. Gengar particularly likes Sing Chansey because it also works against a Starmie lead. Jynx likes to be backed by Egg or Zam for a turn-2 switch if it's slept by Gengar. Not sure about the others.

EDIT: Starmie's filler there isn't as versatile as you'd think. Surf, Hydro Pump and Hyper Beam are all there to blast Jynx, it's just that Starmie's spoilt for choice and none of them really stands out over the others.
 

Jorgen

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In GSC, Zapdos/Raikou are probably the most common leads due to their ubiquity (they're on every team), high Speed, good attacking power, preventing lead Cloyster from getting Spikes up on turn 1, and a broad array of good matchups. If your opponent has it, Nidoking is likely to lead, too. Forretress and Cloyster could lead for those turn 1 Spikes, and stuff like Jolteon and Smeargle could lead to go for the Agility Baton Pass to something like Marowak. The lead in GSC isn't super important, though, as long as you can do something (sleep, paralysis, spikes, baton pass boosts, or just plain attack well), you're a good lead. Matching up well against Electrics is pretty good out of a lead, too, since, again, Electrics are probably the most common leads. A good matchup against Cloyster and Forretress is also very nice to avoid giving up those Turn 1 Spikes. High Speed is also good just to make sure you have plenty of good matchups.
 
Are there depositories of various viable lead sets for GSC and RBY similar to the lead thread that exists on the Smogon mainsite for ADV?

Just somewhere I can see lead synergies and matchups. GSC especially seems to be giving me troubles in working out what denotes a good lead Pokemon.

Idk this helps, but Antar compiled the RBY Leads from May on Showdown:

Code:
Total leads: 10084
+ ---- + ------------------ + --------- + ------ + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Usage %  | Raw    | %      |
+ ---- + ------------------ + --------- + ------ + ------- +
| 1    | Alakazam          | 21.40525% | 2284  | 22.650% |
| 2    | Exeggutor          | 20.33630% | 1738  | 17.235% |
| 3    | Gengar            | 12.66362% | 1219  | 12.088% |
| 4    | Jynx              |  7.38903% | 616    |  6.109% |
| 5    | Starmie            |  5.84299% | 510    |  5.058% |
| 6    | Tauros            |  5.54030% | 562    |  5.573% |
| 7    | Snorlax            |  4.27703% | 373    |  3.699% |
| 8    | Lapras            |  2.77836% | 225    |  2.231% |
| 9    | Zapdos            |  2.36345% | 240    |  2.380% |
| 10  | Chansey            |  2.25763% | 278    |  2.757% |
| 11  | Dragonite          |  1.40093% | 208    |  2.063% |
| 12  | Ninetales          |  1.38481% | 123    |  1.220% |
| 13  | Dodrio            |  1.13532% | 83    |  0.823% |
| 14  | Venusaur          |  1.09120% | 152    |  1.507% |
| 15  | Golem              |  1.08631% | 122    |  1.210% |
| 16  | Charizard          |  1.01818% | 188    |  1.864% |
after this is kind of gets in-consequential

As far as I know, there are no lead stats for GSC, but Pokemon online has lead sets for various Pokemon

GSC Stats here (lead stats in the right column of the specific Pokemon stats)

RBY doesn't have specific lead sets really. I haven'y played much GSC, but leads don't seem to important seeing the shear amount of turns per game, Borat also mentions in his guides how leads don't matter much, and one should switch them around from time to time in order to not get counter teamed.
 

Jorgen

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Lead Starmie with Psychic ain't as common as that. Lead Starmie is more likely to be using Psychic thanks to the Gengar matchup, but it isn't on 90% of them.

Or at least it normally isn't, looking at PO's usage stats suggests the 90% figure to be accurate, but that's a pretty small sample size.
 
Lead Starmie with Psychic ain't as common as that. Lead Starmie is more likely to be using Psychic thanks to the Gengar matchup, but it isn't on 90% of them.

Or at least it normally isn't, looking at PO's usage stats suggests the 90% figure to be accurate, but that's a pretty small sample size.
If you don't care about Gengar, you might as well use Jynx as a lead.

(And yeah, I wasn't expecting to see 90% myself, but personally I think Psychic on Starmie is awesome even on a non-lead so I'm hardly going to complain about the figure.)
 
Lead matchups aren't too important in RBY because no common leads are instantly threatening or threaten every switch in, and it's not that important to get the first sleep. General rule of thumb, your lead should be either a sleeper or sleep absorber. You need to have both on your team. Jynx for example can do both, but it is unlikely it'll do both in one battle. So if you lead with it, you need to have a back up absorber in case it gets slept.

The best absorbers are zam starmie and jynx. Don't let people tell you that gengar is a good absorber. Gengar is a terrible sleep absorber at high levels of play and I know other top players agree with me on that. If you lead with an absorber, the idea is to troll the other lead with paralysis and/or attacks, just being a general nuisance until your absorber gets slept. The idea is that you have the optimal pokemon take sleep, and can then get a sleep on them later. Of course, you need to have another sleeper in your team as well. If your lead is jynx, don't take sleep with something else, it should be the absorber, otherwise you're not using her to her full potential and are wasting a team slot.

Another general rule, it's good to let the absorber take paralysis instead, as long as it can still safely switch into sleepers. However, don't do this if wrap is legal. In the wrap meta, it's better to have your fast specials slept than paralysed, so that they can switch into wraps and try wake up in them or force the wrapper out.

So as long as you have a sleeper and a sleep absorber and a general team strategy, the lead match up matters very little.
 
So as long as you have a sleeper and a sleep absorber and a general team strategy, the lead match up matters very little.
Well, the issue is that having the lead matchup in your favour is a lot like playing as White in Chess. If White makes an error, Black will merely equalise, but if Black makes an error it'll usually cost them a pawn or so.
 
Eh I won't compare lead match-ups to chess openings there are a large variety of differences that don't make them comparable. Also, playing as black doesn't give you an immediate disadvantage, heck some masters have main the claim that black has the advantage if they know what white is doing and can react to it, seeing their opening immediately.
 
A 'good' lead match up is basically getting the first sleep. Something like having your zam lead against their gar actually isn't that good because they'll probably go to eggy and get the first sleep. Or they could go to chansey and get either a favourable paralysis trade or a headstart in the freezewar. But, as you would know, getting the first sleep isn't that important.

I think equating a good lead MU to being white is a poor analogy because having the better lead MU doesn't make you go first every turn, or have some other advantage that is constant throughout the battle.

Team synergy is way more important than a lead MU. It might be nice in tourneys to anti-lead a team that you know of, but the gain is minimal.
 
In terms of how we used to handle Self-KO clause back in 3rd gen, did winning and then fainting via recoil (for example Double-Edge) cause you to lose to the clause or was that only moves that fainted you first like Explosion, Perish Song and Destiny Bond?
 
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Does anyone know of a ADV UU guide? I don't know much about the tier but was interested in playing. Or even a threat list, or anything?
 

McMeghan

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I don't remember reading an ADV UU guide ever.
I learned the tier by finding this team (http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-uu-mouths.85653/ mouths, by Pyrotechnix) and playing some games with it for an ADV UU tournament.

Here is a PO Forum discussion about ther tier: http://pokemon-online.eu/forums/showthread.php?6465-UU-ADV-Metagame-Discussion, you will notice that shrapn3l, who's a pretty old player, made some kind of tier description/threat list, so I hope that'll help you to discover this pretty fun tier.
 

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