RBY OU Tutoring: Lesson 2 – Cornerstone plays and strategies
As the title says, this lesson is about the strategic aspects of RBY OU. By “cornerstone play” I mean plays that are quite unanimously regarded as good, profitable and well recognized plays, but that also means that good players WILL expect them. This is where the beautiful part about RBY comes into play: you often know what the opponent has and you often know what he is trying to do, but so does he. You have to be smart, watch your opponent and try to find out his patterns and manners in playing. The biggest cornerstone plays are seen in the lead matchups, because those are limited and will occur in every battle. Trying to get the best out of the lead is important as it nets you an advantage in the early stages of the game. In this lesson I will explain you common strategies and plays you will see in the three stages of the game: Early game, Midgame and Endgame.

Early game:

By early game I mean the sequences that result out of the lead matchup. As you probably already know the most common leads are Sleep leads (Gengar, Jynx, Exeggutor), and leads that spread para, have a good matchup versus certain sleep leads and are also mostly there to take the status. I will call those Anti-sleep leads for now (Alakazam, Starmie). There are other, more niche leads, but for now I will only focus on these. So let’s break down the matchups.

Gengar vs. Gengar – usually both players try to win the speed tie and hit the hypnosis. The one who loses usually goes into another psychic type like Exeggutor as a follow up.

Gengar vs. Jynx – Gengar usually attempts to stay in here and hit the hypnosis versus Jynx as it is faster and neuters it, often for the rest of the game. Jynx usually stays in too as it is also designed to take status. In case hypnosis misses it can either sleep gengar or hit it with a psychic for the 2hko, potentially ohko in case of a crit.

Gengar vs. Exeggutor – pretty much the same scenario as with jynx. Exeggutor might want to switch out though, depending on the rest of the team of the lead eggy user. If eggy supposed to take the sleep you stay in, if not you switch out.

Gengar vs. Alakazam – Gengar only rarely stays in here. Zam outspeeds and potentially ohkos with a crit. The gengar user usually attempts to switch out and absorb either the Thunderwave or the Psychic. Common lead zam switchins are Chansey or Exeggutor.

Gengar vs. Starmie – Similar scenario, Gengar can attempt to stay in and hit the hypnosis, the odds are not good for it though. Usually the gengar user goes into Chansey when facing Starmie lead.

Jynx vs. Jynx – Both players attempt to win the speed tie. The player who loses usually goes into something that can take jynx’ attacks like a starmie or a chansey

Jynx vs. Exeggutor – Exeggutor loses and thus often switches out into something that can either take the sleep or take the blizzard.

Jynx vs. Alakazam – Usually both pokemon stay in. Jynx usually puts alakazam to sleep, alakazam neuters jynx with a paralysis and, if lucky, some Seismic Tosses. These are trades both players are usually okay with.

Jynx vs. Starmie – This one is a little trickier. Often it goes the same as the alakazam matchup. A twave is traded for a lovely kiss. The jynx user can actually go rather safely into Chansey though, the Starmie user can attempt to stay in and actually wake up rather early vs the jynx, making it basically useless.

Exeggutor vs. Exeggutor – Both stay in and try to win the speed tie, unless either has a dedicated sleep absorber in the back, then they go into it.

Exeggutor vs. Alakazam – Actually the only lead matchup that almost always goes into the favour of Eggy. Alakazam absorbs the sleep and trades for a twave or a seismic toss. Follow up into Exeggutor after absorbing the sleep is either to stay in, since Alakazam doesn’t take a lot damage or to go into either Chansey, Starmie, etc.

Exeggutor vs. Starmie – Exeggutor is usually scared out here at the threat of blizzard and goes into a Chansey for example.

Alakazam vs. Alakazam – This one is rather tricky because many players do different things here. When facing an alakazam lead you can do the following things: a) you stay in and trade thunder waves. Does this give you a big advantage? Not really, because a paralyzed zam can block sleep later on. But the thing is you can do the same thing to your opponent, so you don’t really lose anything from it either. Paralyzed zams usually don’t kill each other though. b) you go into chansey to absorb the incoming thunder wave. You still get to preserve a healthy zam for later on, you got a chansey that can absorb any status move now and you usually still get to fire off a thunder wave or an ice beam with your chansey. c) you go into exeggutor. This way you take the thunder wave with your eggy, take a seismic toss or a psychic the turn afterwards and you put something to sleep, most likely zam itself. This is also beneficial if your opponent takes the solution b and goes into his chansey, because then you threaten it with a sleep and you have the momentum.

Alakazam vs. Starmie – This one is rather tricky too. Alakazam can rather freely switch into chansey, since that fears nothing from starmie at all, and that way you can preserve a healthy zam. The starmie can rather freely go into his chansey or he can go into eggy. Both pokemon can also stay in. The more you battle the more people you see doing different things in this matchup, this is why it’s good to know the playerbase.

Midgame:

The midgame starts pretty much whenever the early game is over. Here it’s important to spread status and set up your win conditions for the endgame. This always depends on your team of course. Usually you have one or two definite win conditions. One is Tauros, the other one variates from team to team, it can be a lategame Psychic like Starmie or Zam, it can be a slowbro, it can be a Rhydon, it can be a Zapdos or a Jolteon. You can even have more of those. It’s important to know your team. What do you need to achieve to win. Tauros for example wants basically everything that’s faster paralyzed, it wants opposing Tauros out of the way, it wants bulky pokemon like Exeggutor, Lapras, Snorlax, etc weakened. Tauros is in a good position to win you a game if absolutely nothing on the opposing team can switch into it anymore. The same holds true for any other win conditions you might have. Lategame Starmie? Would be a good idea to remove that Chansey the opponent has. Zapdos? How about taking out those Rock types. You get the deal. When you build a team you always have to look at it and ask yourself what exactly you want to happen in your battles. Then you can try to play accordingly. You have several tools to achieve the conditions you want to put you in a winning position:

Lures: a lure is a pokemon or a sequence of moves that tries to make your opponent go into a certain pokemon and punishing that. For example Surf Snorlax – Snorlax usually throws out powerful body slams and can kill off pokemon with hyper beam and self-destruct. The rock types are decent switch ins into it and they can absorb the 2 most powerful moves. Don’t reveal surf until you know whether or not your opponent has a rock type, if he does try to kill them with surf as they switch in into a potential hyper beam or self-destruct. Other popular lures would be sing Lapras to neuter Chansey, Hyper Beam Starmie to kill off Chanseys or Alakazams, Sing Chansey to hit other Chanseys, Counter Chansey, Snorlax Jynx, etc. Try to think of your own lures, try to think of plays to make to status certain pokemon, to punish certain switchins and build teams that can capitalize off that.

Exploders: they often fall into the lure category, but often they don’t. Basically you just have to play your exploders accordingly to what you want to take out. Try to get the most value out of them. If your full health snorlax explodes on a weakened jynx you did not get a good trade out of it. If your snorlax takes out a full health Starmie right before it would die to an attack you got a good trade out of it. The concept is simple, yet hard to execute. Do not be afraid of pulling the trigger when needed.

Status spread: Everything with twave, stun spore or a sleep move. Try to pressure in unstatused mons with attacks, hit them when they don’t expect it. Your opponent will try to get his chansey for example paralyzed so he can switch it in on other status moves. Capitalize off that with double switches and by attacking it and you will be able to gain an advantage.

Snorlax, Lapras, Exeggutor, Slowbro, Cloyster, Golem. Notice a similarity in all those pokemon? They are rather slow, so they don’t really fill the sweeper role, but they are all rather powerful, they can explode, spread status and they all force certain plays respectively. Try to figure out how to use pokemon like these to your advantage. Snorlax for example is capable of killing more than one pokemon in a game. Lapras is bulky enough to take hits, it can fish for game-changing freezes and it hits very hard. Exeggutor is a time-bomb that can punish every switch-in with status and powerful attacks. Slowbro forces your opponent to go into his defence, it spreads status and you can bait your opponent to explode his pokemon and switch into a resist or a pokemon you don’t need anymore. Cloyster spreads damage and can trade for very important pokemon on the opposing teams. Golem takes hits, absorbs thunderwaves and hyper beams and it can trade for important pokemon like Starmies or Exeggutors. Those are not all pokemon that apply big pressure during the midgame, maybe you can find other ways to set up big advantages in your games.

Do not forget the defensive part of the game though. Your opponent does the same thing you want to do, Chansey for example is a pokemon that can stop your opponent from doing things and it can generate advantage by spreading status or luring out other pokemon.

Endgame:

On paper it’s really simple. Look at the team of your opponent, look at your team. What needs to happen for you to win the game? What needs to happen for your opponent to win the game? Identify the win conditions and try to execute them. This is not really a thing that can be taught, rather a thing you have to learn by yourself.

A good rule of thumb is always “risk vs. reward”. When you make a play, ask yourself what do you gain out of it if it goes according to your plan? What do you lose if it doesn’t go accordingly? Try to evaluate every decision, this takes time to learn and as you play more you will get a good feel for the endgames.

Play the numbers: In RBY chances are pretty much everything. You will very often have to go for a certain critical hit and you will very often have to rely on your opponent not getting that critical hit. Knowing the rough chances of certain things occurring is important in your decisionmaking. If you have the choice go for the decision that theoretically makes you win the game more often. It sounds obvious when you think about it, but it requires a lot evaluation during your battles.