If your first Pokemon games weren’t Red/Blue and your old enough to be playing in the master’s division, chances are your first Pokemon game was either from the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (RSE) or, like me, it was Fire Red/Leaf Green, the remake of the classic games. I replay games from this generation, which for the rest of this article I will be calling RSE, all the time. With my interest in competitive Pokemon I thought it would be interesting to break this up into lots of different sections: Mechanics, Viable Pokemon, Movesets, and Potential Sample Teams. Let us begin.
Mechanics
There are lots of important things to note about Gen 3 doubles that are different from singles or even Gen 4 doubles. Here they are.
- Electric-type Pokemon can be paralyzed and Grass-type Pokemon are affected by powder moves.
- Spread moves do 66% of regular damage instead of 75%, meaning that you have to deal much more damage to a Pokemon to knock it out in RSE
- When a Pokemon faints in RSE, the partner will be immediately sent in, instead of at the end of the turn. This means the Pokemon switching in WILL be damaged by all remaining attacks targeted at the respective slot during the rest of the turn.
- Sleep turns reset upon being swapped out.
- The physical/special split has not happened yet. All Fire/Water/Grass/Electric/Psychic/Dark/Ice as well as Dragon-type moves are special. All Normal/Ground/Bug/Poison/Flying/Rock/Steel/Ghost-type moves are physical.
- Sitrus Berry heals 30 Hit Points, not 25% of total HP
- Trick Room and Tailwind are not yet moves, meaning that the only forms of Speed Control are Rock Tomb, Icy Wind, Thunder Wave, Static, Speed Boost, Swift Swim, and Chlorophyll.
- No team preview. The first two Pokemon in a player’s party are their leads, with the second two being the back four.
Other General Rules
So, because this is still VGC, we’re gonna assume the following
- Bo3, with changing Pokemon in between games being allowed
- Item Clause
- Species Clause
- The banning of restricted and mythical Pokemon, which in this case is Mewtwo, Mew, Celebi, Ho-oh, Lugia, Rayquaza, Kyogre, Groudon, Deoxys, and Jirachi.
- A Full National Dex format. Potentially Hoenn and Kanto Dex only coming soon?
Viable Pokemon
Not all Pokemon are created equally. Here will be listed all seemingly viable Pokemon with a brief description as to why.
– Blastoise
Blastoise boasts a Water typing, which is probably the best thing you could ask for in this format. It gets coveted supporting moves in the form of Yawn, Haze, Icy Wind, and Rain Dance. However, its offensive capabilities are definitely less than that of a Water-type with two STABs, such as Kingdra.
– Clefable
Clefable can be seen as viable in RSE for most of the reasons that its seen viable in gens 6 and 7, it’s bulky, gets access to crispy supporting moves such as Follow Me and Helping Hand, as well as Rain Dance and even Wish! It can’t do much outside of that, though, and there are potentially some better normal types that we’ll take a look at shortly.
– Alakazam
Alakazam has a super strong movepool in RSE thanks to the elemental punches, Calm Mind, and Psychic giving it pretty much everything it has ever needed to be successful. The downside is that its physical defense is still extremely low, and the only ways of getting around that are redirection or Reflect/Intimidate.
– Magneton
I feel like Magneton deserves a spot on this list for one reason – its typing. It walls out any other electric type in the format, has the utility to explode and spread Thunder Wave while also doing massive amounts of damage to Water-types weak to its Thunderbolt or Thunder attacks. While it would normally wall Alakazam and Gengar, Magneton does have to remember that both of those Pokemon have access to Fire Punch in this generation.
– Gengar
Gengar feels like that one niche support Pokemon that can do lots of things but isn’t that best at doing any one thing. Its a fast Rain Dance setter that’s immune to fake out, but its weak to Tyranitar’s Crunch. It’s a decent attacker with a good movepool, but Alakazam has the same movepool with a higher Speed and Special Attack stat, as well as a better STAB. Overall, it’s not a bad Pokemon but just not as strong as it is in a format such as RSE OU.
– Rhydon
Rhydon has the interesting ability to completely wall any Electric-type in the format! However, most Electric types in this format are likely to carry HP Grass or at least HP Ice, meaning it isn’t totally safe. Lightningrod is a nice ability to pair with Water-types, speaking of which completely decimate it. Ground and Rock also got the short end of the stick in this format sort of, because both of its premier attacks in this generation, Earthquake and Rock Slide, are affected by the 66% spread move nerf.
– Gyarados
While Blastoise was technically the first bulky water we probed, the next few are ones that I think are all more viable because they all perform certain roles better. Gyarados has the odd place in the format of being a Physical attacker without any real STAB to show for it, besides HP Flying. But, its typing means that its not weak to Grass moves, which while not popular, is a luxury most other Bulky waters can’t afford. It can also use Dragon Dance and become a potent offensive threat; again, not a trend most bulky waters follow.
– Lapras
Bulky water #3 reporting for duty. Lapras is a Water-type that’s immune to other Water-types thanks to Water Absorb, but outside of toxic, it can’t really counter them well. Instead, Lapras works well in addition to other bulky waters, just aiding the onslaught of Surfs and Ice Beams, of which Lapras boasts a STAB boost in both.
– Vaporeon
Vaporeon is THE supportive Bulky water of the generation. It’s immune to other Water-type moves, has a great support move pool featuring Icy Wind, Yawn, Toxic, Wish, Rain Dance, and Helping Hand. Its incredible high HP stat and good typing means that its very hard to take down, and even if you do get the chance you might have more waters to get through, as Water spam is a very serious team archetype in a format such as this (And even future ones, see: 2008 and 2009 VGC World Championships)
– Snorlax
Taking a break from bulky waters we have everyone’s favorite fat tub of lard! Snorlax with Thick Fat has the ability to serve as a great check to water spam with a moveset of something like Curse / Rest / Shadow Ball / Return. With the relatively low amounts of fighting types in this format, the monster that’s terrorizing the metagame now might have actually chowed down on the competition 13 years ago.
– Zapdos
Zapdos is probably the best Gen 1 Pokemon in this format. With the exception of Magneton, a moveset of Thunder / HP Grass / Drill Peck / Protect hits everything listed above for at least neutral damage. Of course, Zapdos has a great movepool – featuring other moves such as Thunder Wave, Substitute, Thunderbolt, Roar, Rain Dance, and Light Screen to name a few. But what really makes Zapdos so spectacular are its typing and stat distribution. With only two weaknesses, one of which is ran off in a format full of Water-type attackers, Zapdos stands at the top of all the original 151. What about the other 235 Pokemon though? Well my friends, let’s take a look.
Life Orb's VGC outpost 