GSC OU Does every team need a Lax in GSC 1U/OU?

[RBYer]

That team is destroyed by so many mixed attackers / special attackers with wide coverage.

 

[Jame$ G]

Less than you might think. Drum f.blast clefable could tear it a new one but Miltank checks most other mixed attackers.

 

[RBYer]

Less than you might think. Drum f.blast clefable could tear it a new one but Miltank checks most other mixed attackers.

Yeah Drum Clefable can destroy it but that's the least of its worries simply because it isn't all that common. How about if I put it this way? "The team can't take repeated special attacks". It can't even do anything about Rest/Talk HP Ice Zapdos except hope that you leave it in to get exploded on.

You've got a Miltank, and an Ampharos that can't even heal itself. It could improve by replacing Ampharos with Raikou, but even then it's got a huge Tyranitar problem. I don't even want to talk about what HP Bug Marowak or Drumlax do to the team.

It's going by this "hope you are on the defensive the whole game" strategy (well that's the only way it can ever work), but I don't think it really has the tools to carry it out because it also wants to be able to stall.

 

[Jame$ G]

It may have had rock slide on steelix actually, I'm questioning myself now. But obviously it's a team which requires skill, good predictions and a certain amount of luck to use effectively. I noticed every time Amharos was brought into play it was with a "jump switch", so predicting that i'd bring in something Ampharos needed to counter, rather than tanking a hit to do it, and somehow they just read me like a book. Forretress can take Marowak, yeah a prediction variable but it can take a boosted hit, starmie, eggy & miltank all out speed it and threaten. HP water legendaries are checked by eggy, HP ice by Steelix, I lost my Raikou to terrible parafusion hax to Ampharos on both games.

 

[Roostur]

A more interesting question would be "does every team need a raikou or zapdos?"
I've used a non zap and kou (actually no electric poke) team with a good bit of success. It has worked against really good players. Even though a team with no electric can win, it doesn't mean it is optimal though. I suspect that zapdos and raikou are sort of like snorlax in that when you consider everything and every possible team you can come up against, they are the most flexible and fill more roles than any other poke you could've put in their place. Now they obviously aren't necessary to the extent that snorlax is but I think they are extremely good. But, like I said, I've used non electric teams with success so I could be totally wrong. I wish more people would test this with different teams.

 

[Conflict]

You are right electrics are in no way mandatory. And ive done well with multiple electric-less teams on ladder or even highlevel GSC tours.

Snorlax is harder to replace mainly due to its role compression. Its a good wall that actually has options to break through stuff unlike other walls like Blissey or Raikou that cant advance a gameplan in the same manner. Snorlax stats and movepool are just made for GSC. Not to mention that Lax design is just super cool.

 

[Roostur]

You are right electrics are in no way mandatory. And ive done well with multiple electric-less teams on ladder or even highlevel GSC tours.

Snorlax is harder to replace mainly due to its role compression. Its a good wall that actually has options to break through stuff unlike other walls like Blissey or Raikou that cant advance a gameplan in the same manner. Snorlax stats and movepool are just made for GSC. Not to mention that Lax design is just super cool.

VIL's team (Forretress, tyranitar, vaporeon, lax, gengar, exeggutor) is a really good no-electric team. Btw I say "VIL's team" because that is who I stole it from, I'm not sure where it originates from. I've won games against pretty good players with that team. BUT.. I've also lost to worse players with that team. So it depends on the team you are fighting.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Jolteon is the most obvious reason one would choose to forgo a legendary Electric. Full BP therefore doesn't use them.

Roar Vaporeon would definitely be a way to patch the problems with Vaporeon and Suicune that otherwise arise.

 

[Ariel Rebel]

If you want to use the argument that lax is well countered and that most players build their teams to check lax, I would say that rather than foregoing lax, it would be better to play an unconventional lax set instead. The movepool for lax in this gen is enough to force us to scout the set prior to getting comfy in a game. If I knew my opponent didn't have lax, I would adjust my game to suit that. But if my opponent has lax and I don't know the set, I will be playing with a degree of caution.

This is a topic which I would love to see discussion on for gen 1. In gen 1, I think this would make a great topic.

 

[Ortheore]

This is a topic which I would love to see discussion on for gen 1. In gen 1, I think this would make a great topic.

I'm intrigued by this discussion as well, but in relation to Tauros rather than Lax. If we're talking about Lax then I would say the answer is a definite no imo, since GolDon are capable of providing physical wallbreaking, Slowbro already does Amnesia and Chansey sort of replicates its general defensive utility as well as doing Reflect better. Sure, that's multiple pokemon but they do the job well enough that for that specific role I would feel comfortable dropping Lax. Having said that, if I do drop Lax I always pack a GolDon since that physical wallbreaking is too good to pass up, although that's just a personal preference since I definitely think you can drop Lax and not use GolDon and still have a viable team.

Tauros is a whole other matter though. It's every bit as dominating as Lax imo but it isn't as versatile, as the only roles it fills are sweeper and revenge killer

 

[magic9mushroom]

My Withdraw Slowbro team had no Tauros, but post-Crystal Tauros got buffed even more (though not quite as much as Chansey) and I'm not really sure ignoring it is still viable.

 

[Lojh]

Something that needs to be taken into consideration is how optimal your team is. Snorlax is very versatile with a numerous amount of sets each with different counters (think Salamance in DPP). One of borat’s quotes in one of his guides is that every team outside a specific few just works better with snorlax. Snorlax enables offense to break stall (drum) and also helps defense work by walling the ever powerful raikou and zapdos. Without snorlax to counter these, teams need either an incredible amount of offense to cover up for the hole in defense (via aggressive plays, double switches, cross chop spamming) or pokemon like blissey that have no use other than walling and are pathetic pokemon in general. Quagsire also does a good job of walling electrics but falls short on other special attackers that snorlax could handle (vaporeon comes to mind.) Snorlax however is only overcenteralized in teambuilding, not playing. While playing snorlax might have to sit on the bench doing nothing but walling the occasional special attack while other pokemon are being used more. All in all, snorlax is a positive effect on the gsc meta.


Celebi is dumb and dont let it to ou

 

[Roostur]

Something that needs to be taken into consideration is how optimal your team is. Snorlax is very versatile with a numerous amount of sets each with different counters (think Salamance in DPP). One of borat’s quotes in one of his guides is that every team outside a specific few just works better with snorlax. Snorlax enables offense to break stall (drum) and also helps defense work by walling the ever powerful raikou and zapdos. Without snorlax to counter these, teams need either an incredible amount of offense to cover up for the hole in defense (via aggressive plays, double switches, cross chop spamming) or pokemon like blissey that have no use other than walling and are pathetic pokemon in general. Quagsire also does a good job of walling electrics but falls short on other special attackers that snorlax could handle (vaporeon comes to mind.) Snorlax however is only overcenteralized in teambuilding, not playing. While playing snorlax might have to sit on the bench doing nothing but walling the occasional special attack while other pokemon are being used more. All in all, snorlax is a positive effect on the gsc meta.


Celebi is dumb and dont let it to ou

Depends on what you mean by pathetic. Blissey is pathetic in terms of offense but like you said it has great walling capabilities and stall SHOULD be the way people play this game if they want to play as perfect as possible, but they don't because no game is worth taking that much time out of relationships, friendships, and family, because if you're wasting that much time to play an old pokemon game, and taking that much time out of other important things in your life for it, then maybe you need to reassess your life (which is why this gen is so unpopular by the way). Blissey can definitely work over lax on stall teams though.

 

[Lojh]

Yes but lax on stall can do something like force spikes roar raikou out or with its mixed attacker set instantly help win the stall v stall matchup, whereas blissey just sits there and tries to freeze with ib or toxic things.

Edit: dont get me started on lkdrumlax and drumfirelax, which both 6-0’s your “best” stall team. Most of my stall teams run lkdrumlax with umbreon for the purpose of auto winning the stall v stall mu.