Gen 2 GSC Viability Ranking (OU)

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Omastar is pretty good. I completely forgot about him. He was worthy of old D-tier, now he's questionable. I wish he had more health. He manages to sleep talk well and he often forces snorlax to switch. Haze is meh....I suppose if you have problems with sleep talking curselax you can run haze.

Being weak to both lightning and ground is his worst quality. Omastar is pretty unique and functions similarily to suicune, but different enough to earn him usability.
 

Jorgen

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Omastar's life purpose is setting sandstorm. Rock typing and access to Reflect/Haze allow it wall Snorlax, which is everywhere and therefore gives it plenty of opportunities to switch in. Water STAB keeps out the things that are otherwise immune to sand, meaning Omastar reliably gets some use out of sand.
 
Speaking of sandstorm, does it have any good uses in GSC OU? This generation was the one where it did the most damage (12,5% per hit), so I'm curious if it is possible to give it a go.
 

Rotosect

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Holy crap is Sandstorm bad in GSC, I don't even fathom how anyone could seriously consider using it.
Best case scenario you're dealing little more than 30% damage to your opponent over the course of 5 turns, assuming it's not immune.
Worst case scenario your opponent takes no damage, you're forced to send something that isn't immune to Sandstorm after the first turn and take 25% damage over the course of the remaining four.
Wait, did I damage? I meant "Leftovers negation". You're going to deal more damage over time with freaking Leer or Tail Whip.
Even Thief is a less gimmicky option if you really want to negate Leftovers.
Seriously don't use Sandstorm. It's that bad.
 

Jorgen

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Maybe you missed it, but Sandstorm does 12.5% per turn in GSC. It does more than negate lefties, which is why it's at least somewhat interesting.
 
Even Thief is a less gimmicky option if you really want to negate Leftovers.
You gave me an idea.

Thief Skarm + SS Omastar might not be too bad a combo. They both have a tendency to see Electrics, and that double whammy hurts. Plus they stop most Laxen.
 
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Jorgen

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Thunder Lax ruins that combo's dreams. I've seen it happen. To me. It ain't negligible.
 
How about we just give Snorlax his own SSS rank? Everyone know you should have him on your team, but it would be bad if new players see this list and figure they should always go with both electrics as well.

The S-rank definition even suggest you can drop Snorlax if you remember to pack Raikou/Zapdos.

Snorlax having bolded text is imo not enough.
 
How about we just give Snorlax his own SSS rank? Everyone know you should have him on your team, but it would be bad if new players see this list and figure they should always go with both electrics as well.

The S-rank definition even suggest you can drop Snorlax if you remember to pack Raikou/Zapdos.

Snorlax having bolded text is imo not enough.
Alternatively we could just give Raikou and Zapdos something like A+, and shift around some of the A mons. Even though I don't play GSC and I dislike stall (started out in BW2 and got serious during Genesect era XY), I really think re-organising tiers into: S-A+-A-A- and so on would be cool
 
To elaborate on my quip, GSC is mostly about breaking stall. Everything's bulky, so the focus is on those things that can hit hard enough to break through that bulk. DrumLax, Marowak... these are extremely offensive, and aren't used in later generations because they're slow and become "flimsy" instead of "a little less bulky". Stall by itself doesn't work very well because opposing teams are themselves bulky enough - and have enough Rests - that "Toxic everything and wait for a bit" is NOT a win condition (this is why Blissey is bad in GSC; its extreme bulk is not needed and everything else is too bulky for its puny attacks to do anything). I can provide logs of people new to GSC trying this and not accomplishing anything.
 
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How would a skarm, steelix, omastar core work for a TSS team?

Also: Ive been using Magmar a little, really fun poke to use, beats skarmbliss pretty decently, and cross chop is just awesome.
 

Isa

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SkarmBliss is not a thing in GSC, rather it's SkarmKou. Magmar can't handle that.
 

Bedschibaer

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I'm not really a fan of running both Skarm and Steelix on the same team, mostly because they do very similar things (checking lax) with the only difference being that the one is the offensive variant of the other. Skarm and Lix lose to the same things which makes them a rather bad defensive core. You'd also have to run a spiker for a tss team which would share even more weaknesses with those mons.
Tss might sound pretty cool on paper, but it's actually disappointingly bad. You are most of the time better off running something more conventional on your team (curse or thief or toxic on your skarm, rhydon/ttar instead of omastar) so you will end up with a more standard but alot better spikes centered team.

About magmar: i think it's extremely outclassed as a fire type by moltres and charizard (and those aren't really reliable to begin with), as a mixed attacker by nidoking, snorlax, tentacruel, etc and as an "anti-skarmbliss mon" by mixlax, zard, cruel, etc.
 

Jorgen

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SkarmBliss is a thing. A mediocre thing, and beating it is hardly a complete measure of a Pokemon's worth, but it's a thing nonetheless. It's more relevant for historical usage (à la JoltWak) and for its continued viability in future gens than for its current power.

Magmar mostly stinks because of trash defenses and being outclassed. If you want a gimmicky Fire to abuse Sunny Day, go Entei. It's faster, gets Solarbeam to pound Suicune/Vap/Starmie, and can actually tank a hit.

Beds is right about the double-steel core. Too redundant. The only time I go double-steel is if one of them is Forretress, and that's because Forry doesn't really do a Steel's main job (countering Snorlax).
 
and as an "anti-skarmbliss mon" by mixlax, zard, cruel, etc.
I don't agree with Tenta being an "anti-skarmbliss" Pokémon. Skarm can rest-loop if it runs Surf (baring a crit) and if it runs Hydro Pump it still only 3HKOs (if it doesn't miss). I think even Magmar does that job better than the old druid.
 

Bedschibaer

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fair point, cruel should probably not be on that list at that point, because when it comes down to only taking out skarmbliss magmar, electabuzz and the likes really do a better job. That they are alot less viable in general is out of question, i just wrote that post rather carelessly.
 
Not even MixLax, Fire Blast CurseLax kills "skarmbliss" just fine.

skarmbliss
Main stall core in GSC is SkarmKouTank. Skarm stops Wak/DrumLax/Heracross/Drain Egg, Raikou stops Zapdos/Growth Vap/BP Jolt/Gengar/Roar Cune/Thunder Missy/TrapPass Umb, Miltank stops Tar/Rhydon/Lix/FireLax/Nido. Chuck on a Spiker, a Sleep Talker and Lax and you have a GSC stall team.

Miltank can be exchanged for Missy if your Sleep Talker's Cune. There's a few other variations, like having your Sleep Talker be Lax.
 

Mr.E

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Forretress works fine against Snorlax if you run Reflect. It just gets shit on by Fire Blast even harder than Skarmory/Steelix but it's not like either of them are "countering" Fire Blast Snorlax either. Hell, Steelix is even weak to Earthquake so it slowly gets worn down by any non-mono 'lax.

TSS isn't really a thing because weather isn't a thing in GSC, outside of the odd Sunny Day Firemon (Houndoom > Entei) and that's just because their movepools are all utterly atrocious and it fucks with Starmie/Suicune switching in. Sorry, there's no Sand Stream to chip people down with.
 
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