Randomly found your posts googling running a Stadium Tournament, but do you still have a tierlist for every pokemon available in rental? I saw one, but it was really old.
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Other Tiers Pokemon Stadium Rental Metagames Hub
- Thread starter Theorymon
- Start date
Yes, the old one with 150 is completely outdated and should not be used anymore. Could be wrong with some NFE Pokemon as we only use those in unofficial tournaments.
Also, we are starting to work on a brief analysis of every Rental Pokemon to help introducing new people as more and more are joining. Hope this helps!
2026 Draft Update
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After some years of playing Stadium Rentals and with a solid community now established, the time has finally come to test and unravel the meta. With representation from the top players of the regular season, we’ve held a tournament with no restrictions whatsoever. The meta and team compositions have been independently analyzed by two schools within the community to compare their conclusions. Without further ado:
Tierlist:
To put things into context — what I take into account in this tier list:
The first thing is evaluating how good a Pokémon is individually: its overall quality, how it fits into team structures, and how effective it is in fulfilling its role within the meta. Then, there are Pokémon that might rank higher than expected because they happen to be the best possible piece in a specific team that performs extremely well in the current metagame. Conversely, some high-quality Pokémon may appear slightly lower because, in practice, they’ve proven to be less effective despite their strong stats or potential.
Exeggutor:
It can safely switch into Water, Psychic, Ground, and to a lesser extent Electric Pokémon. It’s the best answer to a large portion of the metagame, and with its Grass/Normal combo and the ability to spread paralysis, it can threaten virtually anything. This makes it both essential defensively and incredible for generating progress in battle. On the other hand, forcing Exeggutor to do too much heavy lifting in a match is often its downfall — it simply can’t cover everything on its own.
Gengar:
This Pokémon has the greatest ability to completely turn games around, even against its supposed counters. Its Thunderbolt/Night Shade combo is devastating to anything not named Chansey. Everyone tries to prepare with “counters” or faster options, yet it still ends up deciding matches on its own. Between its multiple roles it ends up also being the best revenge killer of the top tier available pokemon, can sweep, and can be a last resource counter to Exeggutor.
Articuno:
Essentially, it’s offensive terror in pure form — consistent damage output, a 10% chance to freeze its “counters” every time it attacks, Substitute, and even Sky Attack has situational value against its only true counter, Lapras.
Kadabra:
One of the best Pokémon in the format. It can adapt to and fulfill defensive roles as well. Offensively, it might fall slightly short in terms of Speed, but its power and accuracy are top-tier — plus, it has a 30% chance to lower the opponent’s Special stat, which can completely shift a matchup or force switches. Its critical hit rate is also very high, allowing it to create tense and risky endgame situations.
Starmie:
Brings both speed and solid power to the table. It sometimes relies on a critical hit, but those aren’t particularly rare. Its moveset offers great coverage — though it’s left helpless against Exeggutor, the key point is that as the battle goes on and Exeggutor becomes increasingly weakened, Starmie’s sweeping potential grows dramatically. It feels much more comfortable compared to Persian or Jolteon, since it doesn’t have to deal with immunities, and crucially, it’s faster than both Kadabra and Gengar. To top it all off, Chansey isn’t a fully reliable answer thanks to Swift.
Rhyhorn:
Together with Exeggutor and Gengar, it appeared on absolutely every team in our tournament. Early on, players debated whether a Ground-type was even necessary, or if Jolteon could be handled otherwise — but it turns out this Pokémon is amazing on its own. With 161 HP, it improves the matchup against Gengar significantly, serves as a last-resort option to beat Chansey, and once positioned, it hits the entire meta with Rock Slide and Earthquake.
Jolteon:
Extremely dangerous. Its moveset lets it hit Exeggutor, it’s the fastest Pokémon in the meta, and it has a very high critical hit rate. It’s easy to counter in theory, but at the same time it forces predictable switches, making your opponent play the prediction game. Many Pokémon can take advantage of a Rock/Ground switch-in, such as Water-, Ice-, or Grass-types. And late in the game, without a Ground-type in play, Jolteon becomes arguably the best Pokémon you can have.
Chansey:
This Pokémon offers resistance to all special attacks and, more importantly, is the best sleep sack against the opponent’s Gengar. Also, this pokemon packs a punch and can be played either offensively or defensively, but bear in mind, if you play the later style, to build a team able to absorb the losing momentum it creates when resting. Its main weakness is the meta’s abundance of physical coverage, and with critical hits being fairly common, taking too many hits over the course of a match can be very risky.
Persian:
The omnipresence of Gengar makes things very difficult for it, but this Pokémon has the Speed, power, and coverage against Rock-types to secure calculated victories. Another point in its favor is that quality physical offense is rare — Persian’s kit allows it to threaten Chansey and Kadabra to a significant extent, which is often not easy to achieve.
The Rise of Fire types
After three years of playing Stadium Rentals, one name has earned its place in fire: Flareon.
At first, Fire-types weren’t even considered part of the meta, they were seen as functional thanks to the balance of the rentals. Flareon didn’t even make it into our first tier list back in 2023, and was later ranked as the worst Fire-type overall for its poor speed and “lack of coverage”. But after multiple drafted cups, people began to realize its power through point value (PP), and it started to dominate the leaderboard in terms of victories.
All of this led to its big breakthrough a year ago, during the first equal tournament (still with points limit but no handicap to the best players), where Flareon appeared on nearly every team. At that point, the rise of Flareon — and Fire-types in general — was unstoppable. Yet one question remained, and skepticism still lingered: is this Pokémon truly top-tier?
There was only one way to find out — with a completely unrestricted cup: The Limitless Cup (anything goes, 6v6 format).
So what’s the deal with Fire-types?
At first glance, Ice-types seem to do the same job, and with several advantages. However, Fire-types offer one of the few clear interactions that allow consistent progress. Their only real counters are Water-types, since Rock-types get destroyed by their overwhelming Special Attacks. They can force switches and wear down their checks, paving the way for the terrifying Ice-types, led by Articuno.
Within this synergy, there’s one piece that fits perfectly: Flareon.
On its own, this Pokémon has become the best wallbreaker in the game. Thanks to its stat distribution and the combination of Fire Blast + Take Down, it can 2HKO almost the entire meta and even 3HKO Starmie, its usual switch-in. It also has clear opportunities to come in against Exeggutor — present on every team — and can absorb paralysis since it often attacks on the switch and doesn’t rely on Speed anyway.
Following these developments, other names have entered the spotlight — most notably Moltres and Arcanine, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Both run Substitute, and both can avoid the 3HKO from Exeggutor’s Egg Bomb, allowing them to punish switches effectively. They perform well as generalist leads (in team preview formats, having multiple potential leads is valuable).
The key difference lies in their typing. With the main Ground-type, Rhyhorn, carrying Rock Slide, Flying-types have lost much of their advantage. Arcanine works well as a standalone Fire-type, with a versatile moveset, neutrality to Ice, and a Speed stat higher than Articuno’s. Moltres, on the other hand, is the most powerful Fire-type overall — capable of switching into Earthquake during mind games and often advancing the game’s pace by simply clicking Fire Blast.
Sample Teams
I’ve often been asked for sample teams for the Anything Goes format, but since this format hadn’t yet been tested within my community, I couldn’t give a clear answer. I’m now presenting a structure that, in my opinion, could represent the best approach to the current metagame — illustrated through three teams representing each of the three viable playstyle archetypes right now.
Normal-Psychic Offense:
To begin with, this is what I would define as meta-defining.
It’s the first thing that comes to mind when looking at the available Pokémon. Between Normal- and Psychic-types, you can hit virtually everything in the metagame, and from there it’s just a matter of building a solid supporting cast capable of making the necessary switches.
I believe this archetype has become somewhat outdated, but with enough research it could still work. The main issue, however, is Gengar. While Persian is absolutely incredible and efficient, it gives Gengar completely free entries, so when building with Persian or Tauros it is advisable to bring Chansey. Talking of Tauros, losing the valuable speed of Persian is bad, but Fire Blast could be a good middle ground coverage to hit Gengar and Rhyhorn, also coupling a great burn and crit chances. Burning Gengar could sound bad, but this puts it in range of two night shades and cuts its ability to perform extended fights.
Gengar, initially seen as nothing more than a Persian counter, is in fact the most dangerous Pokémon in the game. It’s often said that a battle isn’t truly over until Gengar has fallen (you can see a perfect example of this when the full tournament is uploaded).
It’s possible to build teams that take advantage of these interactions, as we’ll see later, but Gengar complicates things. The biggest benefit here might be being able to bring in Rhyhorn safely in a 1v1, which allows it to threaten nearly the entire meta — including Gengar.
Aside from that, this team is very complete and well-rounded. By simply swapping out Persian, you can easily tailor it to your liking: make it sturdier with Lapras, more versatile with Arcanine or Jynx, or swap Chansey or Kadabra for a Water-type. It’s quite flexible overall and serves as an excellent representation of the metagame.
Electric-Ice Offense:
Here we have a team that capitalizes on these predictable switches — and possibly one of the best teams if you’re confident in your ability to outread your opponent.
Electric-types like Jolteon clearly invite Ground-types to switch in, which allows us to build a team specifically designed to exploit those responses. The most basic concept is Jolteon + five Pokémon capable of threatening Ground-types. This structure gives great flexibility when switching and places you in a better position when predicting, reducing overall risk.
Another route is to keep Gengar, thanks to its sheer quality and its ability to also lure Rhyhorn — and sometimes even beat it — putting tremendous pressure on the opponent.
Finally, this archetype allows for several variations. Zapdos is the first notable one; it provides more mid-game power through stronger damage output and the ability to spread paralysis, although it worsens your matchup against Exeggutor and Gengar. Graveler, being faster than Rhyhorn, is also valuable, and here you have the best Self-Destruct of the meta. When using it, it’s advisable to include Lapras as your Ice-type to improve the Articuno matchup, since you’re effectively inviting it in. However, keep in mind that Graveler performs worse than Rhyhorn against Gengar, so this option is best when Jolteon is on the team.
With Haunter, you can maintain team cohesion, pressure opposing Ground-types, and gain access to Explosion that can bait Pokémon such as Exeggutor, Kadabra, or Chansey — though it’s worth noting that Haunter’s overall quality is far below that of Gengar. Slowbro is an interesting option because it switches more safely into Rhyhorn and outspeeds it. Lastly, Chansey can also work to bait Rhyhorn and wear it down over time.
To me, this archetype is extremely strong and has great potential for further testing — unfortunately, it didn’t see any play in our tournament, as we’ll see below.
Ice-Fire Offense:
Finally, this archetype is not only the one I’m most proud of, but also the one that had the highest representation in the tournament.
Practically everyone reached the same conclusions. This synergy allows for steady progress on its own — of course, you still need to outplay and outpredict your opponent, but once properly positioned, it lets you advance regardless of the matchup.
Teams without Lapras will constantly fear the threat of being frozen — whether it’s their Water-type or Chansey — while Articuno relentlessly fires off Ice Beams at everything, and pairing it with a Fire-type allows you to dismantle teams that aren’t well prepared for that combination.
In this environment, most players leaned toward the classic Articuno–Flareon and others to the Lapras–Moltres pairing, used as counter to Articuno-based teams while following the same overall theme. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I’ll just say that although the advantage might seem obvious for the latter combination, Articuno teams actually have plenty to say in what appears to be an unfavorable matchup.
As for the rest of the team, I’d say it’s not as flexible as the previous archetypes — Starmie can be replaced by Kadabra or Chansey in the Lapras-based builds. Still, the team presented for this archetype is, in my view, an exceptional piece of work, with every part fitting perfectly into place.
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Pokemon Stadium Zero (Pocket Monsters Stadium JP) Rental Metagame
I would highlight the following as the main competitive formats: Pokémon Stadium Lv50 6v6, Pokémon Stadium 2 Lv100 6v6, and, for this particular case, Pokémon Stadium Zero Lv50 3v3.
The main difference of this game is that it can only be played in Japanese and features just 40 selectable Pokémon. It is the Stadium title that comes closest to the original cartridge experience: Pokémon have much more inflated stats, making them significantly stronger than in other Rental Metagames. In addition, many Pokémon come with good movesets.
This results in a more “realistic” game in the sense that strong Pokémon are leagues ahead of weaker ones, creating a far more unbalanced metagame. On the other hand, if we want to play using rentals, the only available format is the official 3v3.
In terms of mechanics, the most relevant aspect is that Hyper Beam does not require a recharge turn after knocking out a Pokémon, which makes it an extremely powerful tool for closing out battles and this will be the only 3D game with this feature available. This makes this game much more faithful experience to the original cartridge game and it holds a strong beta-like feel and historical charm.
Below you can find an initial draft-style tier list. We do have a small tournament uploaded on the channel, but it was very informal and not particularly representative of the meta.
Overall, Exeggutor is extremely dominant, with access to sleep, Explosion, and its powerful Psychic. Starmie has an absolutely brutal moveset, but interestingly it ends up being completely walled by Exeggutor. Other Pokémon look very promising—especially in a 3v3 format—such as Snorlax and Lapras.
I think this format heavily rewards mind games during team selection, as Electric-types like Zapdos and Jolteon are incredibly strong, yet are completely walled by Golem. Also worth highlighting are other Normal-types such as Kangaskhan, which has a wide-coverage moveset capable of beating Gengar, and Tauros, which on the other hand gets hard-stopped by both Gengar and Golem, but still wields the devastating Hyper Beam.
Speaking of Gengar, while it may not look very powerful on paper, it can be extremely valuable for walling Normal-types, Hyper Beams, and Explosions. Finally, it’s worth noting that Fire-types and Articuno may find a niche in this meta due to the sheer ubiquity of Exeggutor on nearly every team.
Below you can find the list of eligible Pokémon, along with their movesets and the move order, sorted by Speed.
If you want to help shape this meta with me, hit me up or leave your thoughts down below!
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