How to win in just 7 turns in RBY - the use of toxic+wrap/clamp


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I had talked in detail about the creation of a toxic+wrap/clamp team which will destroy any traditional team centered around Chansey, Exeggutor and Snorlax. This post describes the step by step specific strategies. It will be updated progressively to cover more possibilities later but for now I assume that the opponent has the following team members - Alakazam, Chansey, Exeggutor, Snorlax, Tauros and either Zapdos or Rhydon/Golem. This seems like the standard team most likely to be encountered. I assume Alakazam will be the opponent's lead.

For details regarding my team please see this link:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-new-staple-seven.3619091/

At the bottom of this current post is an importable/exportable list of my team members and their move sets. I have Gengar (lead), Tauros, Victreebel, Dragonite, Cloyster and either Zapdos or Jolteon (the former is often preferred).

Reserves:
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Reserves:

Here we go...

Turn 1: your Gengar vs opponent's Alakazam
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Alakazam will use either Psychic or Twave on you; you use Explosion - bang. There is around a 56/7% chance of mutual destruction, and around 74% of it if Alakazam does not land a critical hit with Psychic. We will go by this 'optimistic' most likely scenario for now. If Gengar is first up against Jynx then also explode - it makes no difference in terms of strategy.

Note that if Alakazam and Gengar are both destroyed then the remaining match-ups will be strongly in your favor (especially if they have Golem/Rhydon rather than Zapdos). The opponent does not know this of course this early on into the game and so would be willing to risk the exchange of Alakazam and Gengar.


Turn 2: send out Victreebel vs opponent's Exeggutor
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Most people after the mutual destruction of Alakazam and Gengar will send out Exeggutor. Send out Victreebel and use Sleep Powder. Simple. You are faster and will be one step ahead always in this sleep war. Putting a sleeper to sleep is a double win since not only do you have a sleep lead you can be sure that nothing will put you to sleep. It's almost as good as putting two pokemons to sleep!


Turn 3: the opponent most likely will switch out Exeggutor after it is put to sleep and send out another pokemon - most likely Zapdos if they have one
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This is often a highly crucial turn which decides the fate of the game. Use Stunspore.

Often with Sleep Powder Victreebel, people expect you to Sword Dance next. Hence they will send out something faster than Victreebel but chances are they're not expecting that a Stunspore is waiting for whatever comes. Most likely Zapdos will come out and receive the Stunspore. If they don't send out Zapdos then you know they have Golem/Rhydon instead most probably. If Zapdos is out and you paralyze it then it's over - you have won. Sometimes Tauros comes (though unlikely) in which case you have also won. If there is no Zapdos then chances are it will be Chansey which switches in. Paralyzing Chansey isn't that great but certainly not bad either.


Turn 4: Zapdos gets paralyzed and they switch back to Exeggutor to wear away sleep from Wrap
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Use Wrap. They will switch back to Exeggutor after one or a few Wrap hits. Here's a crucial platform: when you put something to sleep and Wrap/Clamp, the opponent will often send out the sleeping pokemon in the hope that the many Wrap/Clamp turns will wear out sleep. Take advantage of this.


Turn 5: switch Victreebel away from the sleeping Exeggutor
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Now you have a few options:

a) Switch to Cloyster
b) Switch to Dragonite and get ready for the Agility boost
c) Switch to Zapdos and set up Light Screen (they are unlikely to have Golem/Rhydon if they have a Zapdos)

Option a) is preferred and let's assume it is chosen.


Turn 6: the opponent expects to get hit by Blizzard and so switches to Chansey from Exeggutor
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Of course Blizzard is coming next - at least that's what everyone will think. Instead use Toxic on an incoming Chansey.


Turn 7: Chansey 'badly poisoned' and forced to switch out, Exeggutor comes back in
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Use Clamp on Chansey. Assuming you don't miss with Clamp, Chansey will be forced to withdraw to get rid of the 'badly poisoned' status, and most likely Exeggutor or Zapdos will come out again. Keep on Clamping or else switch to Victreebel or Dragonite which are more reliable with their Wraps. If Cloyster misses and gets paralyzed at any point then blow Chansey up with Explosion.


Turns 8-12: opponent's defence collapses completely like a pile of cards
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In the next few turns with Wrap/Clamp and various switches due to the poison it is likely that Chansey will lose a lot of health and fall. Exeggutor will be badly damaged to within KO range. It may now be a good time to send in Dragonite with Agility off the sleeping Exeggutor. At some point their Tauros will be forced to come out and you will use Victreebel to paralyze it. Their Snorlax will also come out at which point you can use Cloyster to Clamp it, dish out Toxic on it. Soon it will be time to send your own Tauros and Zapdos/Jolteon for the finishing kill. In fact you could send them in for a rampage at any point after Chansey falls or is about to fall, and preferably before Exeggutor wakes up (if Exeggutor does wake up it's usually not too difficult for Victreebel to come back in with Wrap and put him back to sleep again if you feel that's something worthwhile).

You totally dominate the game at this point and will win except for terrible luck.


I will expand on this post later describing how to deal with situations which are not so ideal, most notably if Gengar failed to finish off Alakazam, or even worse that Gengar got KOed first by a critical hit Psychic. I will then talk about the strategies against other leads and teams. Note that this current strategy should also apply to a team that has Jynx for Alakazam - it just makes what I have described even more plausible.

B-2 Spirit (Gengar)
- Hypnosis
- Toxic
- Thunderbolt
- Explosion

F-15 Eagle (Zapdos)
- Thunderbolt
- Drill Peck
- Thunder Wave
- Light Screen

M1A2 Abrams (Tauros)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Toxic
- Earthquake

AH-64 Apache (Victreebel)
- Wrap
- Razor Leaf
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore

F-35 Lightning (Dragonite)
- Wrap
- Blizzard
- Agility
- Hyper Beam

USS Zumwalt (Cloyster)
- Clamp
- Blizzard
- Toxic
- Explosion

M2 Bradley (Jolteon)
- Thunderbolt
- Thunder Wave
- Pin Missile
- Double Kick
 
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What a load of rubbish.
"I can win really easily, assuming that my opponent has this team, and does what I expect, and my explosion kills, and my opponent doesn't CH, and my Sleep Powder and Stun Spore and Clamp and Wrap never miss..."

As a side point, would people really let their only sleeper be put to sleep on Turn 2 without getting a sleep in return?
 
What a load of rubbish.
"I can win really easily, assuming that my opponent has this team, and does what I expect, and my explosion kills, and my opponent doesn't CH, and my Sleep Powder and Stun Spore and Clamp and Wrap never miss..."

As a side point, would people really let their only sleeper be put to sleep on Turn 2 without getting a sleep in return?
Almost everyone I played sends out Exeggutor after the double KO between Gengar and Alakazam. It doesn't matter if Exeggutor runs away they have no choice and something will be put to sleep. And it can actually be better if it's Chansey or Zapdos which got put to sleep. Exeggutor gets wrapped and often never has a chance to attack before dieing. Sleep powder has 75% success rate I will probably get two shots before I die from Exeggutor's psychic, which means there's a 94% chance of success. Wrap has 85% success rate and most top players switch around to dissapate the damage across pokemons. It doesn't matter if I miss once so long as I don't miss twice in a row after the first success. The chance of me missing twice in a row is 2%. The chance of clamp missing twice in a row is 6%. Stunspore also has a 75% success rate.

In gen 1 the teams are pretty much like the opposing team I just described - and their strategies pretty predictable. They have all responded quite closely to the ways I described above, since they don't expect you to have a non-standard team and have no idea what you're trying to do until it's too late. For example as I said, if they know your team then they should switch out Alakazam but nobody does that since the 'textbooks' says Alakazam is good against Gengar. Another example: after Victreebel puts something to sleep all the good players (1300 rated minimum) would send out Zapdos (if they have one), since the 'textbook' says that Victreebel's going to SD next and they know they'll be screwd if they don't send out Zapdos. Well too bad I don't go by the script. Of course less good players aren't as predictable but you can win easily against them.

I did say I will try to cover less optimistic scenarios like a critical hit from Alakazam and how to deal with those. Of course I will never cover everything but I will sufficiently cover common scenarios and matchups to convey the idea of the team - it certainly can be done in gen 1 where there's only a handful of (usable) pokemons.
 
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Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Between Psychic crit one-shotting or Explosion rolling low and missing the KO anyway, you've basically got a coin flip's chance of even trading with Zam on Turn 1. I wouldn't call that a particularly reliable strategy, nevermind [the rest of Omanyte's post]. Wrap alone isn't very reliable, which is why it's a niche move/strategy in the first place, because it turns out that 2% failure rate is actually pretty high when you have to go through dozens of iterations of it to meaningfully chip even a single enemy mon into something resembling KO range. It's so weak that PP stalling it is literally a viable strategy. Adding multiple 75% events, all following a T1 coin flip in the first place, is not a recipe for long-term success.

Pokémon is an easy game if you have perfect information. That said, even if your opponent had this exact team and theoretically would make every move exactly as expected, it isn't necessarily even correct to assume that to be the case because until they actually reveal their entire team and make those moves, you don't have advance notice of that information. Great way to lose tournament matches. Ladder means nothing, as people will either be playing ultra-standard just to keep their mind sharp without regard to individual game results or they're testing weird crap anyway and thus aren't gonna be anywhere near your expectations.

The "textbook" play is going to Snorlax anyway, nobody [competent] reveals Zapdos on Turn 3. Stun Spore following up Sleep Powder is a very common maneuver, Eggy probably won't even switch out immediately and especially not if you don't immediately SD in its face. Lax doesn't care about SS and even if you had SD, Lax almost always survives +2 Slam + Beam so there's little danger to Eggy staying in one turn. Wrap will then force Zapdos in (if you don't miss) and it threatens to wait Wrap out and TWave. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you can trade Stun Spore into it, since this Victreebel sure isn't killing anything and that sets up Dragonite, but at this point you're off the bad flowchart and actually playing a real match.
 
Between Psychic crit one-shotting or Explosion rolling low and missing the KO anyway, you've basically got a coin flip's chance of even trading with Zam on Turn 1. I wouldn't call that a particularly reliable strategy, nevermind [the rest of Omanyte's post]. Wrap alone isn't very reliable, which is why it's a niche move/strategy in the first place, because it turns out that 2% failure rate is actually pretty high when you have to go through dozens of iterations of it to meaningfully chip even a single enemy mon into something resembling KO range. It's so weak that PP stalling it is literally a viable strategy. Adding multiple 75% events, all following a T1 coin flip in the first place, is not a recipe for long-term success.

Pokémon is an easy game if you have perfect information. That said, even if your opponent had this exact team and theoretically would make every move exactly as expected, it isn't necessarily even correct to assume that to be the case because until they actually reveal their entire team and make those moves, you don't have advance notice of that information. Great way to lose tournament matches. Ladder means nothing, as people will either be playing ultra-standard just to keep their mind sharp without regard to individual game results or they're testing weird crap anyway and thus aren't gonna be anywhere near your expectations.

The "textbook" play is going to Snorlax anyway, nobody [competent] reveals Zapdos on Turn 3. Stun Spore following up Sleep Powder is a very common maneuver, Eggy probably won't even switch out immediately and especially not if you don't immediately SD in its face. Lax doesn't care about SS and even if you had SD, Lax almost always survives +2 Slam + Beam so there's little danger to Eggy staying in one turn. Wrap will then force Zapdos in (if you don't miss) and it threatens to wait Wrap out and TWave. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you can trade Stun Spore into it, since this Victreebel sure isn't killing anything and that sets up Dragonite, but at this point you're off the bad flowchart and actually playing a real match.
Hi thanks for the comment. I think many of your criticisms are valid and I have since altered the strategy somewhat. Please check the link to my team (had recent update) and via the discussion on another forum:

http://www.pokemonperfect.com/forums/index.php?threads/the-toxic-wrap-clamp-sweep-team.4721/

I do however stick by gengar exploding on Alakazam - even willing to risk critical hit psychic. I will explain how it works in the near future. Aye the flow chart is a description of a very 'optimal' scenario. I have only had it a handful of times.

Most people do switch out after you put their mon to sleep, SD or not - because they fear the risk of you switching out Tauros or some counter, so they will switch out. But then again if they know that you know that they will switch out they may not do that and if you know that they know that you know blah blah blah

The wrapping works differently in my team because it is a highly aggressive team and there's a lot I can say and demonstrate. In short I am not trying to wrap things to death from full health. The sweepers go on first and bring many things to within ko-range so the 2% is a small number since it doesn't have to be replicated that many times. Toxic+wrap/clamp can also help greatly in wrap success. If you investigate my team detail I think you will conclude that PP stalls do not work against it or at least would be extremely costly.
 
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