In RBY and GSC, link battles do not restore your Pokemon's HP, status or PP, for example allowing you to bring a Flail Dodrio into a GSC battle with 1 HP, or a paralyzed Chansey into RBY, or any other 'impaired' Pokemon. Which brings forth the question: what should be legal, and how should they be implemented on the teambuilder? With RoA's new ladder system potentially enabling RBY and GSC Anything Goes, pre-status/damage/non-max PP should be available regardless of legality as otherwise it wouldn't truly be 'anything goes'.
Regarding legality, certain things come to mind:
- RBY Non-Max PP is busted as it makes partial trappers just about impossible to PP stall.
- RBY Pre-Status is busted (pre-poison for days), though I believe it'll (somewhat) diversify Anything Goes: you'd still have Mewtwo spam, but each status comes with its own pros/cons. Poison makes you immune to status, but vulnerable to Dragonair and Rapidash (two partial trappers that aren't OHKO'd by unboosted Mewtwo and have Agility), Paralysis helps you PP stall but gives away the speed advantage, and No Status leaves you vulnerable to freezes/sleep but is the least vulnerable to partial trapping. Vaporeon also gains an amusing niche with Haze as an anti-status lead, as it can strip an opposing Mewtwo of its protective status to make it vulnerable to freeze/sleep.
- RBY Pre-Damage is nothing more than a handicap.
- GSC Non-Max PP is nothing more than a handicap.
- GSC Pre-Status is way less busted than RBY, as most statuses aren't exactly wanted in GSC. However, it would weaken status moves, and at the start of a round all Pokemon could start asleep with 0 turn wakeup to completely prevent early game status without any drawbacks. Either GSC Pre-Status as a whole, or pre-sleep with 0 turns (possibly widen the range) remaining would need to be banned.
- GSC Pre-Damage though is very interesting. Instant 1 HP + Flail/Reversal combos without requiring Endure or Substitute, and strong Flying-type users that can avoid being invalidated by Spikes. GSC Pre-Damage would add more options to GSC without breaking anything, as they have tremendous offense to make them scary but retain big drawbacks and viable counters to keep them balanced.
Should any part of pre-damage/status/non-max PP be integrated into Smogon RBY/GSC metas? Myself, I believe pre-damage should be allowed as it appears to expand GSC without harming it as pre-status could, and non-max PP should be legal only in GSC if at all.
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