OU RMT with a twist

[Meriksn]

This team is made with the restriction of only being allowed to use Pokémon with movesets you can obtain on the Gold/Silver/Crystal cartridges, but should function reasonably well in GSC OU. Without further ado, here is the team:

Snorlax@Leftovers
Return
Curse
Belly Drum
Rest

Snorlax may or may not be my lead, since most other things (bar Forretress) seem unsuited for the role. This is the relatively uncommon CurseDrumlax. Body Slam is possible in the place of Return, if you value the paralysis chance. Double-Edge is not, as it is a Gen 1 TM. If Skarmory becomes a problem, FB Curselax is another option.

Tyranitar@Leftovers
Rock Slide
Pursuit
Fire Blast
Roar

This is an important supporter for Snorlax. Fire Blast takes care of those pesk Steel-types that will happily wall Snorlax, while Pursuit is for Gengar and Misdreavus. Rock Slide for STAB, and gives this team an answer to Zapdos, Roar since this team has no other Phazer. Tyranitar is often the most unpredictable Pokémon in GSC when it comes to movesets, but on this team, all four moves are essential.

Forretress@Leftovers
Spikes
Rapid Spin
Explosion
Hidden Power [Bug]

Spikes, Rapid Spin and Explosion in one neat package. Forretress has nice synergy with Tyranitar. Hidden Power [Bug] is a semi-decent attacking move that keeps Starmie out of its face, but if Starmie is not a problem, this could be changed to Toxic if you want. Hidden Power [Bug] is likely the best option anyway.

Misdreavus@Leftovers
Mean Look
Perish Song
Protect
Thunder

Misdreavus is a spinblocker, but also provides offense. Thunder gives me another option against Skarmory, but is less reliable than Tyranitar's Fire Blast. Perish Trap has the possibility to break stalls. Walls mono-attacking Snorlax and can take predicted Explosions.

Miltank@Leftovers
Body Slam
Growl
Heal Bell
Milk Drink

Provides Heal Bell and an answer to Snorlax without Belly Drum. Tyranitar in particular appreciates Heal Bell support, as it is very vulnerable to Toxic. Spreading paralysis with Body Slam is useful. Miltank is a good teammate for Snorlax as well, as it can paralyze Normal-resists coming in to wall Body Slam, and Heal Bell synergizes with Rest.

Heracross@Leftovers
Megahorn
Earthquake
Rest
Sleep Talk

The last slot goes to Heracross, but if you have better ideas, they are very welcome. Sleep Talk Heracross has a bad match-up against Flying-types and a fairly good match-up against everything else. It is a good status absorber, but this doesn't synergize very well with Miltank.

Closing thoughts: No Electric, since finding Raikou with the correct DVs is hard and finding Zapdos is impossible. As a result, if Tyranitar and/or Misdreavus are out of commission, Skarmory will walk all over my team. Heracross should probably be thrown out for something else, but it's hard to say what, given the cartridge restraints.

 

[Mr.E]

I feel bad nobody has responded in almost a week and oh look I just happened to check RoA again after way too long.

Acid Armor Vaporeon basically 1v6es this team. Misdreavus is the only thing that can even touch Vap and simply isn't reliable enough on its own because it can hardly even switch into Vap. Perhaps you don't care, Growth Vaporeon is not exactly reasonably obtainable either despite technically existing, but still the lack of Water resist is somewhat disconcerting. Raikou isn't that hard to get passable if not imperfect DVs but something like Exeggutor or Meganium over Heracross would probably be even better still. They maintain the Ground resistance, which you otherwise lack (and a weakness to which Raikou would exacerbate), while giving you game against Water-types. Eggy gives you a sleep user as well, though it sadly can't Explode without Gen 1.

 

[Meriksn]

I can't believe I didn't think about Meganium. The standard Razor Leaf/Leech Seed/Synthesis/Reflect set is very easily obtainable, and should fit well with the team. Thank you for replying.

 

[Crystal_]

I like the pursuit ttar/cursedrumlax/miltank core to begin with but the rest of the team needs to be reworked imo. Granted, you're limiting yourself with those restrictions so it becomes harder. Growthvap is the most glaring weakness, but you're also quite weak to drumlax (and drum in general) and you will quickly be forced to switch snorlax into thunder electrics since you have no other reliable answer. So for the most part, you will have a hard time drumming safely. If you had access to seismic toss heracross I'd quickly recommend it over earthquake for the synergy against skarmory but at least you should switch to curse to have a remote chance against zapdos although the main problem being lack of electric resist would remain anyway. Some pokemon I'd consider in different combinations while keeping the core of the aforementioned three are Skarmory, Cloyster, Quagsire, Meganium (as Mr.E pointed out) and Starmie. Blissey over Miltank can be an option depending on what the others are. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you can get the standard movesets of all of those mons with just GSC (maybe there's a problem with unique TMs like Rest though). For example lax/cloy/mega/tank/skarm/ttar could be a decent lineup (using your current lax/ttar sets).

 

[Meriksn]

I like the pursuit ttar/cursedrumlax/miltank core to begin with but the rest of the team needs to be reworked imo. Granted, you're limiting yourself with those restrictions so it becomes harder. Growthvap is the most glaring weakness, but you're also quite weak to drumlax (and drum in general) and you will quickly be forced to switch snorlax into thunder electrics since you have no other reliable answer. So for the most part, you will have a hard time drumming safely. If you had access to seismic toss heracross I'd quickly recommend it over earthquake for the synergy against skarmory but at least you should switch to curse to have a remote chance against zapdos although the main problem being lack of electric resist would remain anyway. Some pokemon I'd consider in different combinations while keeping the core of the aforementioned three are Skarmory, Cloyster, Quagsire, Meganium (as Mr.E pointed out) and Starmie. Blissey over Miltank can be an option depending on what the others are. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you can get the standard movesets of all of those mons with just GSC (maybe there's a problem with unique TMs like Rest though). For example lax/cloy/mega/tank/skarm/ttar could be a decent lineup (using your current lax/ttar sets).

Cloyster does not get Explosion and Rapid Spin in Crystal. Explosion is a TM from RBY, whereas Rapid Spin has to be bred from Kabutops, or a chain starting with Kabutops, so Cloyster has considerably less utility within these constraints. Skarmory is a curious case. I have been investigating, and there is no way to have Drill Peck and Whirlwind on the same set without breeding from a Fearow or Dodrio that learns Whirlwind from the RBY TM. If it wasn't for these drawbacks, I would obviously have used both Cloyster and Skarmory. That means I "have" to run Forretress if I want to have Spikes (which I do), which in turn makes Starmie ever so slightly redundant. Exeggutor seems like a good option, but like Cloyster, it misses out on Explosion. A set of three attacks + Sleep Powder, or two attacks and double powder, or a Leech Seed set are all interesting ideas. In the case of the latter, it will lack Substitute (again, RBY TM).

 

[Mr.E]

Cloyster is pretty limited without Explosion (or Spin), because it's not actually very good outside of Spikes and needs additional utility to make it worthwhile, but Eggy still has access to everything else it normally uses (status, STAB, and Leech Seed). It's not particularly good at being a secondary Zapdos/Raikou check because of its sad Special Defense though.

 

[Meriksn]

Exeggutor seems like a reasonable option, but I think I prefer Meganium. In particular, Reflect is going to allow me more freedom with Snorlax, to the point where a classic Drumlax with Earthquake seems more viable than before.

 

[Jorgen]

Question: is the aim to compete in standard format battles placig this restriction on yourself, or to play against other folks in-cart who have the same restrction?

Raikou with his "classical" coverage move (crunch, not hidden power) shores up a lot of issues either way, though.

 

[Meriksn]

Standard battles. I have to look out for Zapdos, Exploders and whatnot.