The Kanto region's Pokemon and mechanics garner a lot of nostalgia, even for people who weren't alive when the original Pokemon games released. It's no surprise, then, that RBY Smogon battles are quite popular on Pokemon Showdown. The tiers found in this generation have been set in stone for a long time. Those tiers, however, are for a 6v6 Singles battle. What happens to the ranking a Pokemon accrues if it is the only Pokemon you can use? What happens if we pit every Gen 1 Pokemon against every other in a mano a mano fight to the fainting?
Welcome to the Kanto 1v1 Round Robin.
(This series assumes all Pokemon have their best 4 attacking moves, all multi-hits hit the maximum damage, and no moves crit. Chance effects that decide a battle round to the nearest whole number, meaning an over 50 percent chance indicates a success.)
Over the next few articles, we'll look at premier OU threats in a 1v1 context.
Snorlax
Snorlax is an excellently bulky Pokemon with a 160 base HP, very decent Attack, and some of the best physical moves to take advantage of. However, what keeps Snorlax so high in OU is the presence of Psychic Pokemon to gatekeep Fighting types from the format. With no Psychic teammates, how does Snorlax stack up? With Body Slam, Earthquake, Hyper Beam, and Counter at its disposal, its main threats are Pokemon with both good Defense and good Special. Fighting types can also give it trouble with good enough Attack and movepools.
The legendary bird trio all beat Snorlax for the same reason: they all have good Defense, good Special, they're immune to Earthquake, and they all have secondary STAB that hits Snorlax neutrally with a good chance of an extra effect on Snorlax.
Additionally, Psychic members of OU ruin Snorlax. Exeggutor and Alakazam are free to Psychic spam to their hearts content, the former being boosted by Snorlax's lack of Ice Beam.
Cloyster and Lapras pose an interesting question: What happens first, Counter or Body Slam paving the way for a Hyper Beam to KO, or the Ice Beams and Blizzards getting a freeze? Most of the time, Snorlax can KO first. But it is fairly close, Snorlax only taking it in about 65% of fights!
Speaking of 65% chances, that's around the odds of Golem burning with Fire Blast before Snorlax can reasonably KO through the burn. Somehow, an odd UU pick becomes a great counter in a 1v1!
UU continues its plunder with Gyarados. Hydro Pump is a guaranteed 3HKO, which is faster than Snorlax can come back with 2 Hyper Beams, only due to the final turn including Gyarados outspeeding.
Machamp also beats Snorlax for one simple reason: it's the only Fighting type that can hit hard enough to 2HKO Snorlax with supereffective STAB.
THE SCORES SO FAR:
1. Mew (150/150)
2. Mewtwo (149/150)
3. Snorlax (140/150)
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