Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
LGPE RU is now fully established! With LGPE's limited Pokedex, RU has a low power level relative to more modern generations, but there are still certainly some outliers. Whether it's Kadabra's amazing Special Attack and Speed, Kingler's tankiness and sweeping potential, or Kangaskhan's blend of bulk, speed, and coverage, there's plenty to be afraid of here.
RULES
Mechanics: Pokemon are set to Level 50. Pokemon do not have EVs, Abilities, or Items. IVs and Natures still apply. Clauses:Smogon-Wide Clauses. Allowed Pokemon: Pokemon 1-151 and Meltan, minus the prohibited Pokemon listed below, are allowed for use in LGPE RU.
This is probably not much of a surprise if you've been following LGPE RU discussions at all, but it turns out that the sole Mega Evolution, with a 50 BST lead over the rest of the metagame and a 29 point lead over the next highest offensive stat, is a little bit overbearing. Mega Charizard Y has great Speed and the raw power and movepool it needs to solve pretty much any potential problem, with its only real flaw being its Rock (and subsequent Stealth Rock) weakness. From our admittedly small amount of testing, it seems that Zard-Y's presence is only barely manageable and heavily constricting, and as such it is being banned prior to LGPL. We may revisit this ban at a later date once the tier has settled (or sooner if there is enough community outcry).
hello chat. i've been harassing quite a few people for LGPE RU games and i think i've played enough to have a decent understanding of the meta.
so here's my personal VR and general thoughts going into LGPL.
i think this mon is likely to be HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC during LGPL and i am advocating for it to be BANNED. it's just too strong and once it gets agility up it can single-highhandedly win games (especially later on when teams are weakened.) agility lets it run adamant which makes it even harder to check defensively. it also gets plenty of coverage options in superpower for finishing off water resists, rock slide for flinches and hitting flying types, x-scissor for tangela and to have a 100% accurate move for the psychics, AND facade which can let it instantly win games if the opponent statuses it. it just has so many options on top of the already ridiculously strong crabhammer (which has a boosted crit rate too!) it can basically choose whats able to check it and theres not much you can do to stop it if it gets even a single free turn.
TLDR: BAN KINGLER
ol' reliable. the only mon that i've used on 100% of my teams so far because its just so good at being speed control. timid lets it outspeed the entire tier which is incredibly useful when there are so many fast threats roaming around. encore also gives it great utility and makes clicking sucker punch or setup against it super risky. from there you can either run seismic toss for the ditto or calm mind to punish free turns given by encore. this mon is just very good and theres not really much of a reason to drop it
kang is a giant ball of stats and is very good at utilizing them. not amazing at one particular thing but very solid in general. i usually prefer to run adamant since basically everything faster than it is running jolly or timid already and most of the mons slower than it are still slower even with a plus speed nature (maybe you could run jolly if you're really scared of jolly gyarados?) unfortunately kang only gets facade as normal stab which nerfs its firepower a bit but that also means it's one of the best mons at punishing will-o-wisps or thunder waves. kind of a double-edged sword. sucker punch is also a really nice tool to have for the faster mons since a lot of them are weak to it but you have to be wary of substitutes or encores. thunder punch is also a nice tool to have for the plethora of waters that kang outspeeds but you could also run fake out for free damage (especially when combined with rocks!)
another ball of stats but unfortunately has some issues with assigning a nature since each of its stats are all equally important. after some thinking i decided to opt for bold and just run seismic toss instead of a special-attacking move since it really needs earthquake and aqua jet. seismic toss also 3hkoes kingler which is really nice since you outspeed it most of the time. blastoise is really integral defensive check to a lot of powerful mons in the meta and it can 1v1 most of the fast offensive threats in the tier. scald and toxic really arent that appealing to me since you'd really just rather be clicking a good attacking move.
maybe i'm just missing something but i don't really get why people are saying this mon is phenomenal. its just so frail and theres so much priority flying around that makes it hard for it to even exist. it can use substitute for sucker punches but that just requires a lot of prediction. everything i ranked above it beats it pretty bad and those mons are SO good that it makes it hard for kadabra to function. maybe i'm just subconciously always building teams that own kadabra idk
another mon that beats kadabra lol. it has a really nice speed tier with jolly and having a fast will-o-wisp is nice but unfortunately its not as nice as it could be since the two main targets for it (kangaskhan and kingler) run facade which gives them a ridiculous power boost. rapidash is just kind of set-up fodder for kingler in general. if the crab gets banned i expect this mon to get way better
the only normal type with a real normal type attack (double edge.) also has a really nice speed tier and can choose to run adamant or jolly depending on if you want to risk getting caught lacking by jolly kangaskhan and timid haunter. sucker punch lets you hit the fast psychics and swords dance can let your dedge nuke something. is theoretically defensively checked by quite a few mons (golem-a, haunter, magneton) so sometimes you might want to run super fang or crunch as a compromise
lovely kiss is soooooo broken and good especially against rockers. very solid lead and very hard to switch into regardless of nature (modest or timid.) unfortunately suffers from the "is-deleted-instantly-by-+2-kingler" problem that a lot of top tiers face but it should be used to get an early advantage so it shouldnt be facing a set up kingler often anyways
raichu-alola 2, just slightly worse. which is absolutely enough to be good in this meta! electric is a great attacking type and non-stab psychic can do enough damage against the things it wants to hit. not being a psychic type at least lets it be safer against sucker punch users. is ohkoed by kingler after rocks (are you starting to see a pattern here???????)
a very good switch into kangashkan and kingler (unless it runs x-scissor or crits with crabhammer while it's slightly chipped) which is very nice since defensive counterplay is very lacking right now. dual powders is also incredible (just be careful to avoid paralyzing kangaskhan.) you basically need bold to not get overpowered though
you'd think this mon would be a lot better than it actually is but it suffers from being rocks weak and every team being overly prepared for kingler with electric types and sturdy switch-ins to water moves. not bad though
agility is a ridiculously good move in general. you should probably pair this with kingler instead of as an alternative tho
absolutely run timid to speed creep blastoise and kingler. resisting rocks and being able to switch into psychics and raticare is pretty awesome
just a little bit too slow to be top tier. it has all the coverage it needs to kill things but needs to predict correctly to get those kills. no priority is really bad too!
marowak is the most consistent rocker by far and really isnt ohkoed by much (kingler, jynx). golem alola is able to set up rocks against both of those but the 4x ground weakness really sucks if u try to set up rocks alongside an opposing marowak.
the ability to burn things with alolawak is just not worth it when u realistically get 2hkoed by most things already and you want to set up rocks on that 1 turn you're alive, not to mention being weak to rocks and losing to every other rocker. onix is a really funny gimmick to speed creep kingler and blastoise with jolly and get free rocks. maybe its better than i'm giving it credit for but right now i would prefer a more consistent rocker (did you know timid raichu doesnt ohko onix? i didn't either until just now)
theoretically really hard to switch into but i just havent seen anything from it yet and switching is kind of bad rn
thunder wave is a good move (also a raichu check!) barrier + calm mind might be able to win games if it doesnt get crit (or encore'd by raichu}
the bane of every kadabra team. this thing is almost certainly noob bait since its just slower and weaker raticate with stab sucker punch but i'd really like to be proven wrong.
hear me out. +2 stab hyper beam with nasty plot. even at +2 its not that strong but it has a goated speed tier and it might be a decent wallbreaker
has a weirdly goated movepool but this isn't rby so ice-typing kind of sucks extremely bad
has broken quiver dance but its butterfree. come on. its outsped by so much unless you run timid and if you do you're sacrificing your damage output if you do end up setting up. also being 4x weak to rocks in a tier with perma rocks is lmaooooooo
I made a pokepaste of sets for every mon you could realistically find in RU. Don't take these sets as gospel because there is absolutely more than one set for each mon but these are the ones I consider to be the most splashable. Make sure to import these to the cantsaycalc calculator since Showdown's official calc doesn't support LGPE at all.
this is basically all relevant mons and their speed stat. the + sign indicates a positive nature, a - sign indicates a negative nature, and no sign indicates a neutral nature.
hope you can find these helpful, and hmu on discord @ diegoyuhhi if you ever want ru games!
- Kangaskhan is the tier's best Speed control with its bulk and STAB Fake Out + Sucker Punch, but it's only second best in the tier (I'll go over the rat next). Seismic Toss Kangaskhan also lacks real switch-ins. Tangela, Marowak, and Blastoise can't switch in as they would vs Facade Kangaskhan. Good 'mon.
- If any tiering action is to be taken, then Alolan Raichu should be looked at first. Alolan Raichu is too suffocating with its effectively unresisted STAB combination and an uncontested Speedtier. Encore, Reflect, and Substitute muddle Sucker Punch, the strongest priority move, as counterplay. Far too many games in LGPL came down to who won the Raichu-A Speed tie. The tier would be far healthier if we only had regular Raichu instead of Raichu-A. Nothing would be lost with an Alolan Raichu ban, as regular Raichu would fill its place without a stupid strong Psychic to maul through Marowak (Careful can only switch in once) and Alolan Golem.
- A sleeper pick for a while, but the damage of High Jump Kick is absurd. By far the best physical wallbreaker in the tier. Feint is pathetically weak but after a Bulk Up you can pick off the frailer Psychics Kadabra and Jynx (both tend to use Substitute too).
- The only other suspect 'mon to look out for. Sleep is dumb. Really, really dumb. I don't think I need to explain why.
- The Kingler ban bandwagon has overblown its course. The meta has adapted nicely to it. I also think Kingler plays a healthy role in the tier as a strong Agility sweeper to overcome the oppressiveness of the upper Speedtiers.
- The Fastest 'mon in the entire tier. Fake Out / Foul play / U-turn / filler, where the filler move can be Taunt, Hypnosis, or Toxic, is a great pivot and Raichu-A check. It's quite annoying to deal with, as it outspeeds everything. Stay away from the Nasty Plot + Hyper Beam stuff.
- Our only Dark-type and it has the strongest priority move in the tier. Its bulk is enough to switch into Alolan Raichu and you often can get a Swords Dance off with it. All three of Swords Dance, Super Fang, and U-turn are great 4th move options.
- You got Sleep Powder + Quiver Dance, but Butterfree only works on anti-Stealth Rock teams. Even then it's not that great with no SR up.
- Agility + Bulk Up but your best STAB is Brick Break. If it had better STAB, Hitmonchan would be legit.
- Tangela but with coverage and Will-O-Wisp but the Earthquake weakness is atrocious for it.
LGPE RU: THIS METAGAME IS SICK (also my 500th post!)
hello everyone, since i just went 7-1 in ru in lgpl and i really loved exploring this metagame i thought i'd share some of my thoughts about it :)
once again a big s/o to TTK for all the help thoughout this season, me discovering how good mons like lee or persian are is also thanks to you.
anyway, this is my personal vr (ordered within tiers):
S TIER: undoubtedly the best mon in the tier, a almost-unresisted stab combo + seismic toss for mirrors and the few real resists, combined with a meta-defining speed tier make this mon a total menace. it can even run many utility options in the last slot, from encore to fake out to a random screen in those scenarios where you want more than just attacking. personally i don't see it as broken per se but i think it is mandatory (or close to) on every single team and every team should have ways to check/play around it, which can also just be the combination your own alochu + kanga and maybe more prio users. still, it requires a lot of planning ahead and preserving way to beat it if it's still around by the mid/late game. the glue that holds together most teams, kanga is just a massive ball of stats, and it does so much for every team that it's very hard to forgo imo. incredible tank which can live many hits from most of the tier and dish back great amounts of damage, with prio options in fake out and sucker, a way to pressure normal resists and alochu in eq, tpunch for the many water types in the tier, and a very spammable stab facade which also allows it to absorb status. kanga does something every game, being an emergency defensive answer to whatever you need it to answer when at full or close to, and almost always being able to at least trade with something before going down. just an amazing mon all around.
A+ TIER: another great tank which can survive a lot of hits and hit back hard, blastoise's water typing can be a detriment in certain mu's (like alochu) but it also gives it useful resistances to many mons in the tier, from the many waters to jynx and dash. between solid attacking options in stab surf, ice beam for tang, and seismic toss for consistent damage vs resists, and other tech options like dark pulse/eq for alochu, ajet for prio, and potentially more (dtail? fake out? reflect?), toise is just a consistent beast, and you almost never go wrong by putting it on a team. unfortunately its speed tier is pretty below average, and it suffers competition from the many other water types in the tier, which can have more desirable traits in certain structures. the once-thought-of-being-broken crab is still an incredible mon, being a great agility cleaner which destroys more offense-oriented teams and which is also able to break for itself in the early game, but the metagame has adapted, and nowadays most well-built teams should have a way to handle it either defensively, offensively or a combination of the two. despite this, it's still an amazing mon that can break apart even prepared teams if well positioned. its go-to set of agility/crabh/xsciz/superpower is always great, but the possibility of it running facade also makes many ppl scared of statusing it as a way to interrupt its sweep, and other tech options like protect/sub for fake out/sucker can also be explored. i have a love and hate relationship with this mon. it has a great stab combination, combined with a high spatk stat and good stab moves, but its good-but-not-fantastic speed tier and its huge frailty mean that you'd be, in theory, able to revenge it either offensively by outspeeding it or defensively by tanking a hit and striking back. however, the moment when it all falls apart is when you account for lovely kiss; if your defensive switchin gets put to sleep and doesn't wake up in time, it's going down, and while it's sleeping jynx can even protect itself from revenge killing via substitute. just a very dumb mon answer both in the builder and in game, and it's all due to that fucking 75% accurate move potentially swinging an entire game's result. ban sleep, jynx is fine without it. despite the tier being full of water types this mon just offers so much to a team. a great speed tier just shy of alochu's, a good atk stat paired with good moves in stab flare blitz, drill run for mirror and megahorn to hit waters harder, and fast utility with moves like wisp (especially relevant if more ppl start dropping facade from crab), reflect to improve teammates' physical hit-taking capabilities, quick attack for prio, and even agility to become a cleaner. it's also a physical attacker that is not walled by tang, one of the best offensive checks to jynx, and it 2hko's non-impish marowak from full which many try to use as a switchin. amazing consistency pick for a lot of teams.
A TIER: speed.exe but holy shit is it good at doing that. persian's entire niche derives from the fact that it is the fastest mon available in ru and the only one which outspeeds alochu. speaking of alochu, persian is a great offensive check to it and all the other fast and frail psychic types of the tier, hitting them hard on their weak physdef thanks to foul play, which is also a pretty spammable move in the tier tbf. fake out is great for that extra chip to get better foul play ko's, taunt can potentially deny stuff like agility or rocks, and u-turn makes it a great momentum grabber when you force switches. after ttk destroyed me in a test with it and i overcame the mindset of "mid speed fighter in a tier full of psychics, how can it be good" and started looking at actual calcs i was genuinely flabbergasted, mon literally 2hkos the entire tier from full even with jolly thanks to the combination of hjk+eq. feint is a fine option for prio and last slot can be w/e you're not clicking it anyway. if hjk wasn't such a risky click we'd see lee a lot more, but at least its rise in popularity lead to kanga running jolly instead of ada to outpace it and thus outputting less damage, benefitting the rest of your team. just an incredibly consistent rocker. i'm of the idea that, unless trying to use something in their stead, every basic team starts with alochu+kanga+wak. rocks are incredibly valuable in a tier as offensive as this (and they're also a big part of why the tier is so offensive) and with its solid bulk and defensive typing, marowak can set them up pretty consistently. don't just see it as a set-up-rocks-and-die bot tho, since its stab eq is very strong in the tier, and with its other slots being practically useless otherwise it can run moves like tpunch and fire blast to hit the few resists.
A- TIER: the embodiment of a glass cannon, kad is especially threatening in tandem with other spatkers (look mum mzam just like you) to weaken shared checks to let one of them clean up. offers practically 0 defensive utility tho (it dies to lee's hjk from full after rocks LMAO) so it kinda has to be played in very aggressive teams, which often end up weak to pers and kingler so yea pick your poison. incredible physical wall, can switch in on most physical attackers without thinking twice (stopping eq spam is especially nice since the move is otherwise pretty free in the tier), and sleep+leech is crazy good utility, with the latter also potentially providing teammates with some useful chip healing. its speed and especially spdef suck but those problems can be solved by teammates. i do probably value this mon higher than most but that's because i believe it holds so much potential, despite its overall mid stats and meh speed tier, just because of the insane depth of its movepool. surf, ice beam, toss, yawn, cm, encore, disable, toxic, light screen, and even more make this mon very customisable and potentially scary on preview, forcing your opponent to guess what it's actually running.
B+ TIER: 2nd best rocker behind wak, fits on more aggressive builds who don't care about wak's bulk and damage output and just want to set rocks up and die, while also potentially preventing opposing rocks or at least delaying them via taunt to disrupt opposing counterplay to your offense. dtail is also cool to force switches in a pinch. not a big fan of this guy, despite a good stab move in dedge it doesn't hit too hard without a sd boost and it's somewhat hard for it to find an opportunity to sd in the first place due to its not-stellar bulk. has other cool options like sucker, uturn, and taunt, but i often feel like it wants too much to go its way to be actually able to break. discovered this mon very late in the tour, it's simply amazing at trading damage. its bulk lets it live a shitton of even supereffective attacks from full and hit back hard with the combination of superpower and eq. it can trade itself for an opposing threatening offensive mon in the lategame, or for a defensive piece in the early game to enable teammates. basically a second alochu to run alongside it, because if one already is busted imagine 2. jokes aside, being a worse alochu isn't too bad of a destiny, since this mon can weaken alochu checks in the early game to allow the real deal to be unstoppable in the late. physical coverage is too weak, tbolt psy toss does the job. incredibly cool rocker with a ton of sick applications, better handling stuff like dash, jynx, rat, and kinda kanga compared to kwak, but at the same time it requires you to build very specific teams since you need extra insurance vs common metagame mons such as opposing kwak and electrics. rocks weakness is also rough.
B TIER: practically unresisted dark stab is cool, its sucker is pretty strong, and being able to get a free switchin on psychic is nice, but it kinda just feels pretty middling to me stats wise. i'm already not a fan of krat and this being even slower is not it. mon has grown on me despite me being an hater after my game vs fp, it can 1v1 a lot of mons in a vacuum, but those vacuum scenarios are somewhat hard to create and it hard loses to dash. a good player can probably make it work tho. mon is pretty cool, very tanky and hits quite hard, and also has some defensive applications due to resisting stab+coverage from kingler (rock slide is fake), dash, and lee. unfortunately held back by rocks weakness, middling speed stat and x4 elec weakness. kind of a noob trap imo, steel typing seems cool but you're not checking neither alochu nor kanga so kinda why bother. still has a few unique defensive and offensive applications, i haven't rlly felt the draw towards wanting to use it tho. not bad as a special tank to lift some pressure off of kanga, especially thanks to its useful psychic resist, but it's somewhat passive so i haven't really felt the need to use it in any team, it kinda just feels extra insurance that in game you often do not need.
B- TIER: if you can prevent opposing rocks, set your own, chip everything in range, and find a way to setup then yea this mon is very strong, but it requires an incredible amount of support to properly work. elec stab on a rocker is somewhat cool but it offers absolutely nothing defensively and with it being so slow it can't even abuse its cool offensive movepool. special kingler except it's weak af, needs a lot more chip being dealt before being able to clean. it can still work tho, probably better to run it alongside kingler instead of as a replacement. cool physical tank as tang alternative, poison type is rare in the tier and has some cool applications, even tho eq weakness is rough. has pretty varied coverage and boom. weezing but spdef oriented (which kinda sucks in a tier where most spatkers are psychics). more coverage and more overall stats in exchange for worse boom and slower. it probably doesn't suck per se but why would you put this on a team. what benefits does it offer.
C TIER: slower, weaker, and has worse coverage than dash. np sounds cool on paper but it's sooo weak. flying+ground+uturn seems fire but 80 bp moves off of 90 atk is just not it. has cool traits and a pretty wide movepool but lacks stats. agility sweeper with a 75 bp stab. just no. tang but it beats opposing tangs in exchange for not doing anything tang is supposed to.
TEAM DUMP i will edit in some explanations in the next days cause i'm tired now since i've been writing a lot lol
anyway
i've made some slight edits to some sets compared to how i had actually brought them in the game to keep them up to date with the meta
so yea, that was a lot of stuff about a metagame i've been really loving recently. i sincerely hope we can see it develop further in the near future :)
Zard-Y is now quickbanned!
- A sleeper pick for a while, but the damage of High Jump Kick is absurd. By far the best physical wallbreaker in the tier. Feint is pathetically weak but after a Bulk Up you can pick off the frailer Psychics Kadabra and Jynx (both tend to use Substitute too).
- Agility + Bulk Up but your best STAB is Brick Break. If it had better STAB, Hitmonchan would be legit.
- Tangela but with coverage and Will-O-Wisp but the Earthquake weakness is atrocious for it.
i do probably value this mon higher than most but that's because i believe it holds so much potential, despite its overall mid stats and meh speed tier, just because of the insane depth of its movepool. surf, ice beam, toss, yawn, cm, encore, disable, toxic, light screen, and even more make this mon very customisable and potentially scary on preview, forcing your opponent to guess what it's actually running.
mon has grown on me despite me being an hater after my game vs fp, it can 1v1 a lot of mons in a vacuum, but those vacuum scenarios are somewhat hard to create and it hard loses to dash. a good player can probably make it work tho.
weezing but spdef oriented (which kinda sucks in a tier where most spatkers are psychics). more coverage and more overall stats in exchange for worse boom and slower.
slower, weaker, and has worse coverage than dash. np sounds cool on paper but it's sooo weak. 
flying+ground+uturn seems fire but 80 bp moves off of 90 atk is just not it.
has cool traits and a pretty wide movepool but lacks stats.
tang but it beats opposing tangs in exchange for not doing anything tang is supposed to.