Other Tiers FireRed/LeafGreen Discussion Thread

GoldenSandslash15 · Feb 22, 2026

Only 212 Pokémon are available in this game (Link). There's also quite a few items missing (Bright Bowder, Choice Band, Light Ball, Mental Herb, Scope Lens, Shell Bell, and White Herb; along with the Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav, Liechi, Ganlon, Salac, Petaya, Apicot, Lansat, and Starf berries). Losing the Choice Band is HUGE. We also lose access to Emerald Move Tutors, the move Dive, and lots of Egg moves that require Hoenn mons to breed.

Curious if anyone is interested in making this into an actual metagame or not.

Kallum · Feb 24, 2026

GoldenSandslash15 said:
Only 212 Pokémon are available in this game (Link). There's also quite a few items missing (Bright Bowder, Choice Band, Light Ball, Mental Herb, Scope Lens, Shell Bell, and White Herb; along with the Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav, Liechi, Ganlon, Salac, Petaya, Apicot, Lansat, and Starf berries). Losing the Choice Band is HUGE. We also lose access to Emerald Move Tutors, the move Dive, and lots of Egg moves that require Hoenn mons to breed.

Curious if anyone is interested in making this into an actual metagame or not.

Whats interesting is that unless they extensively bug fixed the BOX System, in FRLG itself you should be able to ACE any Pokemon as an Encounter which theoretically negates this.

But yeah I think nonetheless playing a format that lacks a lot of the RSE Heavy Hitters would be an interesting experiment. (Smeargle is dead too I just missed him)

Janis105 · Feb 24, 2026

Looking at this, the most viable rock resist available is machamp, which is insane. This means dd tar would be a terror, and aero might still be good despite losing cb. Hard to make judgements, but I'd predict that steelix and donphan suddenly become viable for lack of better options for dealing with rock spam. However, they cannot touch gengar. It could be that the metagame becomes stale very quickly because every team needs donphan or steelix to beat dd tar, so every team will run gengar to beat those mons. I fear the meta would devolve into two extremes of like, steelix suittar mag skarm bliss defmie structures on the one hand, and rock spam on the other, either something akin to clasico or mag offense with aero and tar. Hard to say for certain ofc. Celebi, jirachi and the regis being gone also means that every team will need a blissey or a lax. Again, it'd probably be mag lax tar offenses vs bliss donphan structures. Feels like the stall structures would win this interaction. I hope I'm wrong, but I think this would be a very boring metagame

Yak Attack · Feb 24, 2026

~~Some of those mons~~ ~~on the VR are actually not able to be found because of the Mystery Gift never being distributed for Altering Cave.~~ Nvmd you said Smeargle was gone my bad.

Losing CB is huge, and debatably Salac and even Liechi/Petaya, as is losing Pert/Meta - it means DDTar will not need to worry about them in the back. You also lose Wisp Molt, BP Zap, boom Lax, Ice Punch/Wisp Gar, and PursuitTar. The movepools weren't really that impacted besides that, except for egg move inheritance, as the Move Tutors include most good moves, anyway.

TheMantyke · Feb 24, 2026

Worth mentioning that because of the roamer glitch, all of the Johto legendary beasts face a sizeable drop in power. Unless the games can communicate with the eventual switch 2 Colosseum release (where they can have normal IVs), they patch the bug, or Champions does something weird, they are stuck with max IVs of 31/8/0/0/0/0. Absolutely crippling swing for these Pokemon, effectively losing -15.5 BST and 31 points of raw stats for each stat set to 0. Raikou is outsped by base 100 Pokemon by one point!

SPFunkM · Wednesday at 7:31 AM

Rock slide flinch the tier but white herb curse aero as a setup sweeper goes hard

Janis105 · Wednesday at 12:18 PM

White herb is gone lol, so are stat berries. It'd almost have to be lefties spam on every mon, maaybe aero would prefer lum in some situations. But yeah the fact that the only viable offensive is lum berry further solidifies my point that it would probably be a donphan/steelix skarmbliss stall fest

oopsgtg · Wednesday at 12:41 PM

In the Orre community we have discussed this format a bit, and there are some notable differences besides mon legality to consider. As already mentioned, Choice Band and Salac Berry are not available, Suicune and Raikou are locked to terrible IVs (effectively they lose 60 BST). Moves such as Will-O-Wisp on Weezing, Moltres and Gengar, Self-Destruct Snorlax, Baton Pass Zapdos, Knock Off Alakazam and so many other moves (It is really hard to compile an exhaustive list because you have to check every egg move, then try to find a valid egg move chain and if you cannot then it is illegal).

We cannot yet know for certain some details such as if Altering Cave will be accessible which would be the only way to obtain Forretress, Houndoom and Smeargle. Also the Roamer IV glitch may be patched which would significantly buff Raikou/Suicune.

With that said I agree with Janis105 that Tyranitar is probably the most centralising mon in the 'FRLG OU' format. My view is that the FRLG Switch ports are primarily aimed at casual fans and only truly dedicated and somewhat insane people would build serious competitive teams on the Switch.

Here are some replays of the Orre community trying out FRLG VGC rules:

Yak Attack · Saturday at 12:28 PM

List of important move pickups on mons that, tmk, aren't found elsewhere:
- Zap Cannon Forretress (you can't legally obtain one, but I found this interesting)
- Megahorn Nidoking
- Superpower Nidoqueen
...and that's about it, lol. Are there any more?

Also, a list of moves that are available in Emerald as well could be useful, as some people may not want to trade up from the original games.

Kallum · Saturday at 3:16 PM

lowkey i just wish i could find people irl in northern germany to trade with

IllidanStr · 2026-03-03T13:10:45-0500

I dont know if this is a correct thread to ask this but is there already a competitive link battles on FR LG switch?

Other Tiers FireRed/LeafGreen Discussion Thread

GoldenSandslash15

Kallum

Janis105

Yak Attack

TheMantyke

IV Hater #1

SPFunkM

formerly Funkybeangamer

Janis105

oopsgtg

I'd far rather be happy than right any day

Yak Attack

Kallum

IllidanStr