Other Tiers Pokemon Stadium 2 Rental Metagame

[Link407]

Pokemon Stadium 2 Rental Metagame
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With Pokemon Stadium 2 now available in Nintendo Switch Online Expansion pack and even enabled to play online I am very surprised a Rentals analysis was not yet started!

I know Stadium 2 is not a master piece like the original Stadium, movesets and stats tend to help non evolved Pokemon in a unfair way to balance it, but nonetheless I think Stadium 2 deserves a chance just because the fresh mechanics and diversity of strategies. What must be kept in mind is that in Stadium 2 there is some different movesets between Poke cup Lv50 Rentals and Anything goes Lv100 Rentals like Heracross or Girafarig.

I tried to compound a useful tierlist for both formats like I have done for Stadium (Pokemon Stadium Rentals) with mostly final stage Pokemon, but with modern mechanics this is extremely difficult and there is Pokemon that will be much more useful in 6v6, like the obvious Forretress as a Spikes setter, Rapid Spinners or Roar users. I don't have any replays yet as we are focused in Stadium tournament right now and Stadium 2 will have to wait! But analysis must start!

Overview:

My first approach is that Snorlax and Lanturn will shape the meta having solid moves and solid stats. Snorlax has a very solid movepool with Curse, Fire punch and stab Headbutt and is as good as ever. Jumpluff can beat Lanturn and in general is very annoying spreading paralysis and leech seed. Misdreavus is a great disruptor and also one of the best Snorlax counters. Steelix might be the best Steel and is a great Kadabra answer. Kadabra is still a super powerful Psychic with good coverage. Dewgong has the infamous RestTalk combo, and Ninetales is a great fire type to counter Jumpluff and the Steels.

I have started working on the Stadium 2 Datasheet where you will find all available Rental Pokemon and a brief analysis on the 50 most notable ones highlighting traits, roles and useful moves like this:

I will keep updating info but you can download it and work on if you want:

Pokemon Stadium 2 Rentals
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Edit: Also added a Speed tier sheet and a Damage tier sheet done with calcs against a neutral target with the most reliable move of the top 50, you can factor both to have conclusions like this, Kadabra is by far the best haymaker of the metagame, speed, damage and accuracy, It is followed by Primeape and Ninetales, and Alakazam may be the best cleaner, although I don't think games will be decided by Speed.

Strategy:

In 6v6 Heracross will pack Megahorn (but do not understimate Lv50 Reversal Heracross! Nintendo Cup 2000), Forretress will gain weight as well as Rapid Spinners and Roar users and Girafarig will lose it's ability to baton pass.

I also find interesting the possible weather wars coming in here with Azumarill being the main Rain setter and Skiploom the main Sun setter. We can also assume to forget about the GSC OU stalling metagame as there is very little recovery on the Rentals movesets and stats are way lower but is still possible, anyways you will face a much more fast paced game!

Talking about the stats Legendary and Pseudo Legendary Pokemon are hard beaten here, for example Zapdos will only reach 109 Speed while other base 100 like Ninetales will reach 122! The speed in Rental Metagame is also low and the most consistent Sweeper might be Kadabra, outside of that you will need to trust something like Ancient Power Aerodactyl or Psybeam Alakazam, even Headbut Persian!

Another aspect new in Pokemon Stadium 2 is the possibility of held items in the form of berries, you will have to keep in mind it in your calcs and strategies as any Pokemon can regain 10HP or heal Status once!

Closing words:

What is nice in those Rental metagames is that you can sit and play with your friends, even non Pokemon players can enjoy it and with Stadium 2 you find a lot of diversity, your goal strategy may be defined by one or two Pokemon having the right moves! Hope you find this interesting and want to participate trying to solve the metagame!

 

[pwndnoob]

I've been looking at this in the context of a snake draft, where strictly worse Pokémon are still valuable. For example, Abra is a 140 Special Attack, 126 speed (both 10 less than Kadabra) Psychic using mon that while it's just worse than Kadabra has value since you may not have the opportunity to draft Kadabra. That being said, a few omissions surprised me.

One I'm just surprised isn't on here is Bayleef. Plays similarly to Dewgong and Skiploom, who are both quality in their own right.

Likewise, not sure why Jynx got no love. She's nothing like her Pokemon Stadium counterpart but decently fast STAB Ice Puncher makes a mockery of the other Ice options despite that.

Cool kids click on Fissure on Diglett and ignore the haters.

But overall, I think you did a really good job, especially when I digged into the sheet. My love of random unevolved mons nonwithstanding.

 

[Link407]

Thank you pwndnoob! Yes I could miss something like Jynx and a lot of unevolved in Stadium 2! Still focus in Stadium 1 but I think this is a good starting point! :)

 

[Jorgen]

This list is probably sleeping quite a bit on the six selfdestruct/explosion users in the tier: weezing, voltorb, graveler, geodude, pineco, and koffing. They probably end up being quite influential.