u/XionGaTaosenai

(This is part of a weekly series. See this post for information on my general methodology, links to previous entries, and a list of pokemon I plan to cover in the future. If you want to make suggestions for other pokemon you want me to cover, please make those suggestions on that post.)

Accelgor

Bug type

• HP: 80
• Attack: 70
• Defense: 40
• Speed: 145
• Special: 60

Moves:

• Leech Life
• Double Team
• Quick Attack (Incompatible with Acid Armor)
• Mega Drain
• Swift
• Agility
• Recover
• Acid
• Bide
• Acid Armor (Incompatible with Quick Attack)
• Body Slam
• Toxic
• Take Down
• Double-Edge
• Hyper Beam
• Rage
• Mimic
• Reflect
• Rest
• Substitute

In my Escavalier review, I mentioned that my decision to only give Escavalier 60 special, while it made perfect sense when covering Escavalier in a vaccum, put Accelgor in a rather awkward position if I even wnated to review it in the future. Accelgor and Escavalier are counterparts to each other, and the interest of fairness would favore keeping their base stat totals as close to each other as possible, but doing this when Escavalier only has 60 base special means giving Accelgor only 60 base special, instead of the 100 it could have otherwise have - an obvious letdown to any Accelgor fans in the audience. In this review, I went with the 60 special, because that's what I would consider the closest approximation of what Game Freak would have done if they were making both Accelgor and Escavalier in Gen I, but if you want to, you can imagine that Accelgor has 100 base special instead - it doesn't really make that much of a difference, because Accelgor has much bigger problems to worry about.

So Accelgor, uh, does not learn moves. I mean, it has some interesting stuff to play with - It would be the fastest pokemon in the game, even faster than Electrode, with access to Recover, Agility, and Acid Armor, but this thing just cannot deal damage. It gets non-stab normal moves off of 70 base attack, and it gets Mega Drain and Acid, which both have 40 base power, and that's it. Even with 100 base special, it's not going to be doing much with Mega Drain as its only special attack. It also has absolutely atrocious physical bulk, with only 40 base defense. Recover is not enough to make up for this - you get 2HKOd by so many things that you're stuck just hitting Recover every turn, until you inevitably get paralyzed, and the you're super fucked because Accelgor has absolutely nothing going for it other than its speed. It would be one thing if Accelgor could do something of impact during the scant few turns it gets to be alive, but all it can really do is click a Body Slam that can't even 4HKO Persian without a crit, and pray that you get lucky and inflict paralysis (Accelgor would have a 28.3% crit chance that it could also get lucky with, but Accelgor could land 3 crits in a row and still not KO Tauros, much less anything with serious bulk, so Accelgor's crits just aren't that valuable).

This thing, with 60 special or 100 special, is never so much as getting a whiff of OU, and it proably isn't even seeing UU, because what can it even do? But for all its glaring flaws, Accelgor would be a fairly unique pokemon in the context of RBY's roster - it's a fast Recover user with no Thunder Wave, but relatively high physical attack, which gives it a markedly different niche from other recover users. In PU, it would be competing with Porygon and Staryu, both of whom benefit from much better offensive movepools and TWave access, but Porygon is very slow, even by PU standards, and Staryu is even more fragile than Accelgor. If Accelgor found itself dropping to ZU (or even lower), it would become the only pokemon with non-Rest recovery that would be legal in the tier, which would definitely secure it some kind of niche.

(Before anyone asks, because it's been a while since this has come up, Acid Armor and Quick Attack are incompatible because Shelmet and Accelgor learn different moves by level up. To have an Accelgor with Acid Armor you have to raise it as a Shelmet to a level well past the level where Accelgor would learn Quick Attack, and since there's no move relearner in RBY, you would never be able to legitimately learn Quick Attack. Every other move that only one or the other can learn via level up is either a TM move, or is learned early enough as Shelmet or late enough as Accelgor that it creates no notable conflicts)

(This is part of a weekly series. See this post for information on my general methodology, links to previous entries, and a list of pokemon I plan to cover in the future. If you want to make suggestions for other pokemon you want me to cover, please make those suggestions on that post.)

Armaldo

Rock/Bug type

• HP: 75
• Attack: 125
• Defense: 100
• Speed: 45
• Special: 70

Moves:

• Scratch
• Harden
• Water Gun
• Slash
• Swords Dance
• Toxic
• Body Slam
• Take Down
• Double-Edge
• BubbleBeam
• Hyper Beam
• Submission
• Seismic Toss
• Rage
• Dig
• Mimic
• Double Team
• Reflect
• Bide
• Skull Bash
• Rest
• Substitute
• Cut
• Strength

A while back, I had gotten a suggestion for Cradily, on the basis of it being a rock type that wasn't weak to Earthquake, making it hypothetically more capable of actually walling RBY OU's premier normal types than Rhydon (who is actually a pretty poor answer to the likes of Tauros or non-Monolax Snorlax) is. This suggestion was immediately followed up with a suggestion for Crustle, the requester possibly realizing mid-comment that rock/bug would be an even better type combo for walling big normals due to lacking an ice weakness. I went ahead and reviewed Cradily and then Crustle as requested, but behind the scenes I was raising my eyebrow a bit at the fact that someone would suggest Cradily, notice the rock/bug line, and then jump to requesting Crustle when Armaldo was, like, right there.

Compared to Crustle, Armaldo has the same speed, slightly worse physical bulk, slightly better special bulk, and way higher attack. Movepool-wise, Armaldo is a sufferer of "Gen I Fossil Syndrome", lacking rock or ground coverage just like Omastar, Kabutops, and Aerodactyl do in Gen I, but in return it gains BubbleBeam and Body Slam. Crustle's lack of Body Slam was something I criticized it harshly for when I reviewed it, and combined with the higher attack stat, it makes Armaldo a much more potent pokemon than Crustle would be, while BubbleBeam is a welcome option against Rhydon, though the lack of Earthquake makes Armaldo far worse off against Gengar in turn.

At a glance, Armaldo seems like it would run a Swords Dance/Slash set similar to Kabutops fairly well, having higher attack so it can more consistently OHKO Chansey at +2. However, Armaldo's speed is so low that Slash's crit chance is only 70% making the move a lot worse, and being so slow is pretty bad for a swords dancer in general. Also, BubbleBeam lets Armaldo 2KHO Rhydon, but it's definitely no Kabutops Surf. Body Slam is going to be a much more valuable move on Armaldo than Slash is, though Slash might still be worth running in place of Swords Dance, or even BubbleBeam if you think the rest of your team can handle Rhydon pretty well.

In Gen III, Harden was a niche option on Armaldo for exploiting Armaldo's crit immunity in order to make Armaldo a truly formidable physical wall, but with no abilities in Gen I, Armaldo is no longer immune to crits and a Harden/Rest set is much harder to justify, being easily countered by crits and having to contend with constant paralysis.

(This is part of a weekly series. See this post for information on my general methodology, links to previous entries, and a list of pokemon I plan to cover in the future. If you want to make suggestions for other pokemon you want me to cover, please make those suggestions on that post.)

Seviper

Poison type

• HP: 73
• Attack: 100
• Defense: 60
• Speed: 65
• Special: 100

Moves:

• Wrap
• Lick
• Bite
• Poison Tail (signature move)
• Screech
• Glare
• Toxic
• Body Slam
• Take Down
• Double-Edge
• Rage
• Mega Drain
• Earthquake
• Fissure
• Dig
• Mimic
• Double Team
• Bide
• Skull Bash
• Rest
• Substitute
• Strength

I've been wanting to cover this pokemon ever since I reviewed Zangoose 8 months ago. You would think that there wouldn't be much to say about Seviper in RBY, because it's a poison type in a meta where psychic types dominate, but Seviper actually has a couple of standout traits that would give it a small but notable niche in OU, particularly on wrap teams. Teams that are built around the use of partial trapping really want all of their partial trappers to also be equipped with paralysis-inducing moves - a wrapper wants their opponent to always be paralyzed, and that just goes so much more smoothly when the wrapper can inflict paralysis themselves instead of having to switch out for a teammate whenever their opponent sends in an unparalyzed pokemon. The carnal desire for paralysis moves on wrap teams is so immense that it gives Weepinbell a niche in OU, on teams that also have Victreebel and want to go all-in on partial trapping. Seviper is a wrapper with a paralysis move that is probably better than Weepinbell, so if that's the bar for being worth considering on a dedicated wrap team, Seviper has already cleared that much.

But Seviper is way more than just a bottom of the barrel pokemon that happens to have paralysis & wrap - it's legitimately a solid wrapper, and I'd argue even better than Arbok, who is the main #3 wrapper in canon RBY behind Victreebel and Dragonite. Arbok is a mainstay on wrap teams due to being the only pokemon in RBY with a combination of Wrap, a paralysis-inflicting move, and Earthquake (which Dragonite doesn't get in Gen I), making it the best wrapper at dealing with Gengar, who otherwise pretty much shuts down the wrapping strategy by being immune to damage from Wrap itself. Seviper, as it turns out, also learns Earthquake, and has better attack and much better special bulk than Arbok does. In order to keep Seviper's BST the same as Zangoose's, I gave it 100 base special coming from its special attack - it doesn't have any good moves for taking advantage of this offensively, and it still gets 2HKOd by virtually every STAB psychic in the game, but it at least can't get OHKOd by Exeggutor and Alakazam like Arbok can. The only advantages Arbok has are higher speed and access to Rock Slide and... Hyper Beam?

So despite being a fully evolved pokemon, Seviper couldn't learn Hyper Beam until Gen IX, but this doesn't actually bother Seviper that much, because it gets something that's basically just as good in its signature move, Poison Tail. Poison Tail is a move that gets an increased crit rate, which means that in Gen I, it will almost always crit when used by a pokemon with at least 64 base speed (a bar which Seviper just barely clears). A crit STAB Poison Tail hits just as hard as a non-STAB Hyper Beam, bypasses Reflect, and doesn't have the downside of needing a recharge turn if it doesn't KO, so I don't think Seviper would use Hyper Beam much even if it could learn the move - Glare/Wrap/Poison Tail/Earthquake is all it needs. You might think coverage would be an issue, but poison wouldn't actually be a bad offensive type in RBY OU if it had any good moves to use - the only two OU pokemon that resist poison also resist normal moves anyway, and are also weak to Earthquake, so Poison Tail + Earthquake is actually a pretty good combo! Poison Tail also gives Seviper a pretty decent killshot on Exeggutor, dealing about 60-70% damage, which is much better than even Dragonite can do. Sending a poison type to fight a psychic type is risky business, but Seviper is faster and can tank one Psychic if it needs to, so if nothing else it's a great revenge killer.

(Zangoose doesn't actually learn Hyper Beam either, which I completely missed when reviewing it and is a much bigger deal in Zangoose's case, so I'll have to give that review an update!)

So Seviper is, in most respects, a significant improvement over Arbok, and would probably be an auto-include in any dedicated wrap team unless you really need the extra speed Arbok provides. Wrap all-in teams would run both and probably drop Weepinbell (unless you wanna go super stupid and run six parawrappers). I don't think Seviper makes it into OU proper, just like all the other wrappers, and it probably still sits below Dragonite and Victreebel, but I think it would become the clear #3 if you wanted to run a third wrapper.

(This is part of a weekly series. See this post for information on my general methodology, links to previous entries, and a list of pokemon I plan to cover in the future. If you want to make suggestions for other pokemon you want me to cover, please make those suggestions on that post.)

Shiftry

Grass type

• HP: 80
• Attack: 100
• Defense: 60
• Speed: 80
• Special: 60

Moves:

• Bide
• Harden
• Growth
• Explosion
• Razor Wind
• Swords Dance
• Mega Kick
• Toxic
• Body Slam
• Take Down
• Double-Edge
• Hyper Beam
• Rage
• Mega Drain
• SolarBeam
• Dig
• Mimic
• Double Team
• Reflect
• Selfdestruct
• Swift
• Skull Bash
• Rest
• Substitute
• Cut
• Strength

Shiftry was briefly mentioned in the comments of my Ludicolo review, since the two are version counterparts of each other and the whole reason I gave Ludicolo 100 special instead of 90 was so that if I ever reviewed Shifty in the future, they could still have the same BST as each other, even though this works against Shiftry's favor by giving it only 60 base special instead of the 90 it could have had. Much like Ludicolo, Shiftry is a grass type that learns no status moves, which makes it very unusual compared to RBY's canon grass types, but not in a good way. It still suffersfrom all the same downsides of RBY grass types - STAB moves with awful power and horrid coverage - with none of the upsides. It doesn't even get Razor Leaf - that wasn't added to Shiftry's movepool until Gen IV, and even then, it was only available via the move relearner mechanic.

The one thing Shiftry does have going for it is the rare combination of Swords Dance and Explosion. In actual Gen I, the only pokemon that can learn both of these moves is Mew, who is restricted to Ubers only, and even in this series the only pokemon I've covered before now with the combination are Lickilicky and Landorus, both absolute powerhouses in their own right. Shiftry gets to bring the SD+Boom combo to OU, and UU, and probably NU, and maybe even PU or ZU, and its grass typing is actually an asset in this role, as it makes it risky for rock types to switch into you trying to catch an Explosion (ghost types, however, are still a huge problem, and even Gastly hard counters Shiftry). The issue with running Swords Dance + Explosion is that it's inherently a 1-for-1 trade at best, and even if you trade Shiftry for something "move valuable" than it, you still had to use a teamslot that could have gone to a better pokemon instead. So in order to get real value out of Shiftry, you have to spread some damage or status on pokemon other than the one you go boom on, while also surviving long enough to still go boom, and in OU or even UU, this is much easier said than done. Chansey's Ice Beam 2HKOs Shiftry, which should give you an idea of just how easy it is for any decently strong pokemon with an Ice, Flying, or Fire type move to take out Shiftry in only a couple of turns, especially with STAB, and this is a problem for a pokemon that wants to survive at least 3 turns to get positive value out of it (one turn to SD, one turn to use any attack that is not setting up or exploding, and one turn to explode after forcing the pokemon you hit with the second attack to switch out somehow). It wouldn't be impossible to get value out of Shiftry in higher tiers - a +2 Explosion will OHKO Cloyster, so it's not hard to get at least that 1-for-1 trade so long as you can maneuver around Gengar/Rhydon - but it's hard to justify a teamslot for a pokemon that will in most games be unable to do anything but explode, and the tier where Shiftry would actually settle will be the tier in which it can survive more than a couple turns and be an appreciable threat before it blows up.