Standard Plays?

[jorgen]

I'm trying to come up with a list of standard opening/mid-game plays for all the situations you can find yourself in (endgames are really a different beast altogether, you can actually calc the odds instead of using heuristics). It's a pretty daunting task though, and when I start to get bored with writing everything down, I can be hasty and forget to think through everything that's in my mind.

To make this at least somewhat tractable, I assumed a single standard-ish team:
Exeggutor: Psychic/Sleep Powder/Explosion/Stun Spore
Lapras: Blizzard/Body Slam/Thunderbolt/Sing
Snorlax: Body Slam/Earthquake/Hyper Beam/Self-Destruct
Tauros: Body Slam/Earthquake/Hyper Beam/Blizzard
Chansey: Ice Beam/Thunderbolt/Thunder Wave/Softboiled
Rhydon: Earthquake/Rock Slide/Substitute/Hyper Beam

Yeah, yeah, I know, no fast sleep absorber. Maybe not the best representative of "standard", but I like it. Anyway, here's what I've got so far:

SPOILER: Click to show

My lead: Egg
Their possible leads:
Jynx: Switch to Lapras to take sleep, go to Chansey, paralyze it, go back to Lapras to absorb the next Blizzard, then either
               try to wake up or bring Lax in on a Psychic/FP/switch to something else.
Gengar: Stay in, either absorb sleep or go for sleep powder. Switch to Rhydon if slept. Go for Stun Spore if you get your own
               sleep off.
Exeggutor: Go for the 50-50 sleep
Starmie: Stay in for sleep powder
Alakazam: Stay in for sleep powder

Other times:
My active: Lapras

Their active:
Alakazam  - Go for Bslam/Blizz (the latter especially if he's para'd and you're not) OR Sing OR go to Egg (OR Lax if he's 50%/recover range)
Chansey   - Go for Bslam OR Sing OR go to Lax (OR your own Chansey if it's paralyzed and his is not)
Cloyster  - Go for Tbolt, tank Clamps
Dragonite - BLIZZARD, tank Wraps
Exeggutor - BLIZZARD
Gengar    - Go to Egg/Rhydon/possibly even Lax.
Golem  - BLIZZARD
Jynx  - Body Slam/Tbolt it (latter if you suspect a Counter), or even Sing if it's being a pain. You can only tank so many Psychics
Lapras  - Tbolt in the ditto. Or Sing if it's being a pain. OR go to Chansey if you are not winning the ditto
Persian   - BLIZZARD
Rhydon  - BLIZZARD
Slowbro  - Tbolt. Or sing if it's being a pain.
Snorlax  - BLIZZARD
Starmie  - Tbolt. Or Bslam/Sing if it's still unstatused and it's somehow being difficult to deal with.
Tauros  - BLIZZARD
Zapdos  - Go Rhydon


My active: Exeggutor
Their active:
Alakazam  - Stun Spore if awake and unpara'd, otherwise go Snorlax
Chansey   - Either go Snorlax or try to Explode
Cloyster  - Go Lapras or Chansey
Dragonite - Try Stun Spore (or if low enough, Explosion), then switch if you are Wrap'd
Exeggutor - Stun Spore, or go for Psychics, or go Lapras/Chansey (or even Lax if para'd/in Hyper Beam range)
Gengar    - Psychic or Stun Spore if unstatused
Golem  - Psychic or Stum Spore if unstatused
Jynx  - Go Lapras or Chansey
Lapras  - Go Chansey. Or absorb a Blizzard with Lapras beforehand. Or try to Explode/go Lax if desperate.
Persian   - Psychic or Stun Spore if unstatused
Rhydon  - Psychic or Stun Spore if unstatused
Slowbro  - Stun Spore, or Explode ASAP. Switch to Lapras or Chansey (or Lax if desperate)
Snorlax  - Psychic or Stun Spore if unstatused. If para'd, go Rhydon or Snorlax.
Starmie  - Stun Spore or Explosion if desperate. Otherwise go Chansey.
Tauros  - Psychic or Stun Spore if para'd. If in KO range, go Lax or Lapras. If Hyper Beam predicted, go Rhydon.
Zapdos  - Go Rhydon

How am I doing so far? I recognize I'm missing a lot of "next level" stuff, such as if your Egg is on their Golem or whatever, you might try to bring in Lax on a possible Para'd Zam switch-in, but this list is looking more for the "standard" move to make, i.e., one that's super greedy (makes the most of just one single turn) and risk-averse (minimax optimal).

[magic9mushroom]

Lapras isn't a great switch-in to Cloyster; it needs 2 Clamp misses to win because it doesn't have Thunder Wave, and as such the matchup's about 55-45 straight-up (50-50 if you have to switch Lapras in). Then again, Chansey's not a great switch-in either (Thunder Wave helps, but on the other hand KABOOM) and your team has issues with Cloy in general, so whatever.

[Isa]

Flowchart gaming at its finest.

I like the idea, though I'd have used a more standard team (meaning, not an Exeggutor lead).

Not entirely sure if Lapras TBolt vs. Starmie is great as it deals 41-49%, Starmie can take one and go for Recover spam. If you must stay in I'd rather go for Body Slam once to try to get paralysis.
I'd rather go Chansey from Exeggutor and after (potentially) paralyzing, send in Snorlax on a Recover (unless it's Reflect in which case Ice Beam spam is happening).

[magic9mushroom]

Sept 30, 2014 0:03:55 GMT -8 Isa said:

Not entirely sure if Lapras TBolt vs. Starmie is great as it deals 41-49%, Starmie can take one and go for Recover spam. If you must stay in I'd rather go for Body Slam once to try to get paralysis.

This. Forcing Starmie to use Recover once is not worth eating damage that can't be Recovered off, or being Thunder Waved. You have Lapras active vs. Starmie, you go for status (Sing/Body Slam - both are unreliable, though) or switch to Chansey.

I'd rather go Chansey from Exeggutor and after (potentially) paralyzing, send in Snorlax on a Recover (unless it's Reflect in which case Ice Beam spam is happening).

I think you forgot to say "vs. Zam" here. It sounds like you're continuing on from what you were saying about vs. Starmie.

...Though Reflect Starmie is actually not that terrible an idea; if you can get Thunderbolters and Victreebel out of the way it becomes a Reflect Chansey that outspeeds Tauros and has STAB. Probably Surf, Reflect, Recover, Tbolt/Twave. I should run that one of these days.

[piexplode]

You could probably use a fllowchart idea like this to improve teambuilding.

[marcoasd]

Interesting; first thing that comes to mind: Egg lead vs Starmie: go to Lapras to take Blizzard, then Chansey... then mmm Ice Beam? Sing!

[joker]

Continuing the scenario Marco considered, Chansey can Ice Beam on Starmie (if she stays in) or predicting Chansey / Lax / Egg coming in, but in the last case he has to let the first sleep to the opponent (and obviously not taking it with his own Egg); another play could be the switchback to Egg predicting his opponent going to Chansey / Lax and sleeping for first this way. In this situation Sing seems for me the best move if Chansey had it.

[magic9mushroom]

Sept 30, 2014 8:55:18 GMT -8 joker said:

Continuing the scenario Marco considered, Chansey can Ice Beam on Starmie (if she stays in) or predicting Chansey / Lax / Egg coming in, but in the last case he has to let the first sleep to the opponent (and obviously not taking it with his own Egg); another play could be the switchback to Egg predicting his opponent going to Chansey / Lax and sleeping for first this way. In this situation Sing seems for me the best move if Chansey had it.

Sing Chansey is the best answer to a Starmie lead, yes. It's the reason I like it so much alongside Gengar lead, since Egg doesn't want to switch into lead Starmie. That people will often switch Egg into Sing Chansey and get slept is just a bonus.

With lead Exeggutor vs. lead Starmie, though, staying in for Sleep Powder is reasonable. Crits hurt but won't OHKO; only the 9% freeze chance is really going to stop you sleeping Mie. You could switch it up with switching to Sing Lapras every now and then, though (Blizzard's a pretty safe prediction); the issue is that Sing is less accurate and a Tbolt-spamming or even Psychic-spamming Starmie doesn't give Lapras many more attempts than it gives Egg.