Pokemon Gen 2 Moves Tier List THE PREMIUM | A Curse Upon You 

SHOULD FUTURE SIGHT BE HIGHER AND FRUSTRATION BE USED TO COUNTER DITTO?! SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT Yes but pls still comment, I need the engagement, thank you for watching. Chat argued for Future Sight to be higher AND someone mentioned Frusration countering ditto, I cut all of that! TOO PREMIUM!

There is one game where Attract is one of the best moves available: Pokémon Red/Blue Rescue Team. That game doesn’t have genders, so Attract always works. Oh, and the odds of being unable to move were increased from 50% to *100%*. It does wear off now… after enough turns to kill any non-boss… and most bosses. Since Attract is a near universal TM, there’s basically no reason not to run it.

frustration actually has somewhat of a niche on pokemon showdown if you end up fighting a ditto. say you're a normal type sweeper, you set up swords dance and are prepared to sweep a weakened enemy team with return. choice scarf imposter ditto can cut you short, it'll copy your boost and uno reverse card you with its own return sweep. HOWEVER if you run 0 friendship and frustration, the default friendship on showdown is the max 255, so the enemy ditto is very likely to be max friendship, preventing an enemy ditto from doing any damage via frustration. and because frustration is the exact same move as return, you effectively lose nothing in the vaccum of a simulator where you can always have a max power frustration. i actually lost because i didnt know this once, and tried clicking frustration on my ditto.

Fun fact, Rivalry, a normally useless ability, was actually used in Worlds at VGC on Haxerous specifically to kill the Genies. The guy using it only lost to Ray Rizzo, so it was obviously pretty damn good.

Uh it looks like I accidentally used Belly Drum twice so I guess I'm dead now rip

I think your filler tier is a very good idea. There are lots of pokemon moves that are learnt in the early game and they're meant for the early game. Or need to be used by pokemon with limited movepools. It's a very good tier list I think.

Baton Pass even works with no-boost fast Pokemon. It allows faster Pokemon to switch after the opponent switches because it's a move, not a switch. It sounds pretty niche, but if you have baton pass you basically always push it instead of switching.

That future sight at the beginning actually did give me psychic damage as a Fire Emblem fan

Fun fact: It took me way too long to come to terms with the fact that in gen 2 Shadow Ball is a stronger go-to attack on Umbreon than bite or feint attack, especially when you get Curse involved

Some pokemon will use Blunder Policy + Zap Cannon for the combo of raising their speed by +2 if they miss or just paralyzing their opponent if they land. Either way, they're going to outspeed their opponent in the next turn. Xurkitree and Porygon-Z can attempt to sweep with this combo in singles.

I always left the sacred ash on my Ho-Oh's because I thought it boosted the power of sacred fire. If only.

It's funny you talked about mean look and spider web in the more competitive context because I remember figuring out I can use my Crobat to mean look the roaming legendaries in Heartgold (they didn't disappear from the game if they used roar in that gen) when I was 10 or 11 and thinking I was an evil genius that just had outsmarted the game. For me that move was among the best just for that fact alone. It was especially great because I could brag about my big brain strats to my friends at school and just feel like a badass as they expressed their amazement at my discovery lmao. Also, this is completely unrelated but the miltank "HP battery" you mentioned in the video was just hilarious to me for whatever reason.

Return stands out the most to me, still one of the best normal moves to this day. I wish frustration was dark type though because who actually walks around with Pokemon who hate you?

As a diehard Gen 2 fanboy, I sincerely appreciated the BellyZard shoutout.

I would honestly put Future Sight at the top of Niche/bottom of Staples, because I hardly ever see a Slowbro or Slowking not run this move.

Little side note with Beat Up. Dugtrio uses it on offensive teams in Gen 3 OU if you can guarantee the 2hko to blissey since with very amount of SpD (or none, i don't remember) you survive Ice Beam. It is still a niche move but it's a small detail you forgot to mention!

I once had someone gigabrain me by using scary face on their partner pokemon to outspeed me in a trick room set I was running But mostly I think the move is just for pokemon that want speed control but don't get thunder wave, or don't want to deal with the 90% accuracy of thunder wave. Pretty niche

Can I just say I absolutely love this channel so much and it’s so criminally underrated for the amount of effort you put in the videos

Notable use for future sight is breaking stall. You future sight, teleport into a wallbreaker, and with the combined force of both the future sight attack and the incoming hit you can bust down a lot of pokemon that would usually stop individual wallbreakers. Removing a key line of defense is often match winning against defensive strategies. Meta-defining in the context of stall heavy singles formats.

Attract is such a great move. This move saved me so many times in Pokemon crystal Kaizo. 95% of the Pokemon you face are male. This works well in gen 2 where you can only have one status inflicted on a Pokemon. I used a female Kangiskhan with Attract, Toxic, body slam and Substitute. Sweeped everyone.

Remember when Teddiursa was among the most useful Pokémon in XY, not for its competitive battling prowess, but its utility in game? It had Sweet Scent to lure in the hordes, Bulldoze and Rock Slide to take them out, and the Pickup Ability to get any items. The hordes were a source of EVs.

I found your gen 1 tier list video after seeing if i could remember every gen 1 move the day before. Throughout that 3ish hour video, i found myself loving your commentary and cheery attitude. You rock man! Subbed!

Yo just wanted to say great video! I've been feeling like absolute crap cause sickness and struggling to pass out but you just have this certain vibe that makes me feel good and also helps sleep. Idk, wacky scenario but I wanted to say keep up the good work!

There is another very relevant use of protect in singles that wasn't mentionned. Basically, you can use protect to see if your opponent has a move that can kill you if you stay on the field. It's deceptively good on pokemon with double weaknesses that some pokemon exploits specifically to counter them. For example, a lot of pokemon in gen 3 OU have hidden power grass just to beat Swampert, but Swampert can use protect to see if their opponent have Hidden Power Grass, and then switch out. The same goes with pokemons like Heatran or Lando T for example. Not only that, but by using protect you can also see if your opponent has the intention of predicting a switch-in or not which can lead to crazy mind games you can take advantage of, but that's more complicated stuff.

Beat up actually has its uses in gen 8 ou. Both Weavile and Bisharp run it because it is the highest base power dark move in the game. It could also be used with kings rock shenanigans before kings rock got banned

If I remember correctly switching out have +7 priority and pursuit on a fleeing pokemon has +8. Fun fact: if used on a pokemon that have used u-turn it loses the priority but it still hit the pokemon trying to leave (I've lost my beedrill because of this)

Icy Wind is underrated AF. I always thought "weak" attacks with guaranteed speed drops are really neat, because they can be chained into a stronger move to do extra damage. It works best on mons with average speed (slow enough to benefit from it, but fast enough for it to matter). My Feraligatr could handle anything after that move. Slow down overleveled dragons to finish them off with Ice Beam, do a number on fast annoying psychics with Bite after Icy Wind, yadda yadda. I like Rock Tomb for similar reasons, although its accuracy can be shaky sometimes.

One thing I would give Vital throw is Brawly in gen 3. Having a 75 power always hit move that early on is brutal. In my water-type monotype run, he wrecked me so bad. I was not grinding at all and I had like 3 pokemon with me(mudkip, lotad, and azumarill) and none of them could stand up to his Makuhita for long. Absolute hell of a fight. Would recommend.

28:12 encore is actually one of the best moves in game depending on the game youre playing like, if youre doing a nuzlocke of a difficult rom hack, its a contender for the best move in the game

Dude I know this video is a year old, but I’m so glad you made these PREMIUM edits, they’re gonna keep me entertained on a long flight, you rule Cheese

Future Sight is actually a really legit competitive move on Teleport Pokémon in Gen 8, most notably Slowbro and Slowking as you said. Future Sight turn 1, Teleport turn 2, switch to a physical attacker whose switch-ins are more vulnerable to special and/or Psychic-type moves, and hit ‘em with a one-two punch on turn 3. Very effective

Outrage tends to be set up fodder after fairy types were introduced

Swagger is 100% meta defining over the course of its life span. You even mentioned it was banned, but it also was one of the strongest things pokemon with prankster could be doing in doubles. It got nerfed, and arguably was the reason for prankster and confusion nerfs. If you ever want to see true pain, watch Aaron Zheng's top four 2013 worlds match against Ryosuke Kosuge.. yikes.

Thief can also let you steal held items from the (very few) trainers that have held items, which can be moderately useful in some runs to get items you otherwise might not be able to.

I was surprised you and the chat didn't talk about lite ability when talking about return. Mega Salamence love that aerilite Return.

I was there for the Livestream but looking forward to this PREMIUM EDIT

Love your content. I started watching you a few days ago and have been binging your pokemon tier lists. Also *Loves Meganium* you speak the truth about my favorite dino flower. I wish there was a way to buff it.

Ghost curse is useful ingame if you are fighting with higher leveled or bulky pokemon and your attacks cannot 1 hit ko and use curse and switch to stall.

I'm actually really glad you shouted out FalseSwipeGaming, they're a great channel

I have a feeling Ghost was made physical in Gen 1 because Psychic types (at least the ones in Gen 1) don’t tend to have good Defense, so it was intended to nuke the Psychic type. After all, they are only obtainable thanks Silph Co., which Team Rocket takes over, and the strongest Pokémon in the game (the one Team Rocket would be most interested in getting and that may be why they are in Cerulean to begin with) is Psychic type. But… they screwed up and glitched the typechart lmao

Fun fact: There's actually a niche Aerodactyl set in Gen 3 that uses Sleep Talk without Rest. It uses only two moves: Sleep Talk and Whirlwind. It takes advantage of the fact that moves used with Sleep Talk _ignore_ negative priority, so it can just keep phazing the opponent and racking up hazard damage. Big Yellow did a video on obscure strategies where he talks about this set: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4qpfRdnBYOY.html

Been waiting for a new video! Let’s gooo!

Great video. Found out about the channel through this and watched a bunch of other ones

Technically because most Pokémon are either 87.5% male 12.5 % female or standard 50/50, there’s a slightly higher chance your opponent is running male Pokémon (plus them lustful genie men) So if you’re going to run attract, female is the premier option. If you trap and then attract opponents (especially paralyzed ones) you can pull off some fun shenanigans. Good video! Updated to fix percent

A bit late to the party but I remember that a discovery happened in Gen 3 where switching can reset sleep counter. So now there is an Aerodactyl set in Genn3 that runs sleep talk without rest. It takes spores so nothing else has to sleep the rest of battle.

Attract: 50% chance to lose your turn until you or your opponent switch out. Yes, if the Pokémon youre attracted to leaves the field, youre no longer attracted, so even worse than confusion in spite of gender and return damage limitations, your opponent is forced to stay in for that 50% chance to miss your turn.

Frustration is actually a good choice over return for one exact reason: ditto. Since a ditto copying your mon will not copy its happiness and most ditto run max happiness for copied return, so running frustration frustrates Ditto slightly.

Very nice premium edit! Can't wait for the gen 3 edition

That was an amazing night for me. Sushi with friends and Cheese post dinner!

To add to safeguard: sometimes Volcarona in gen 8 runs safeguard on its sweeping sets so it can beat defensive Pokémon

Love those chill covers of Pokémon music you often use. Any specific artist behind them?

Rollout and Fury Cutter have a real niche in-game, since NPCs aren't very smart and you can set up a battle to start rolling out at first, weaker pokemon and absolutely demolish their ace in the back. Rollout has the advantages of type and being boosted by Defense Curl, Fury Cutter has the advantages of not locking you in and being able to continue for longer than 5 turns. Their accuracy murders their usefulness though, especially for pokes that don't have Hone Claws.

I'm sure people mentioned the regional winning gmax Charizard with charti berry and ancient power.....so technically ap would be niche I suppose

Aerodactyl used AncientPower in GSC because it had to use Hidden Power for Flying STAB. Horrifying. Also in an absurdly depressing turn of events, Kangaskhan sometimes used Attract in GSC because it's forced to be female while max DV Pokemon are forced to be male.

I bet at least half of the garbage tier moves would be universally viable for both casuals and veterans if the moves in question were given an in-battle and out of battle effect/ buffed, or given more accessibility alongside abilities that pokemon would benefit from; example we give shuckle fury cutter , you could use rest and toxic, but what if you wanted to shake things up a bit. What if frustration was BUFFED with the ways to increase happiness being more restricted so that you could play a more niche, yet unexpected playstyle. Thief could be a dark type acrobatics in effect and everything, but loses power if it either already has a held item or steals it form the opposing side. Zap cannon, inferno, and Dynamic punch with the third being an exception thanks to No guard machamp, more pokemon should have access to abilities like no guard or are similar, such as magnezone with zap cannon. Twister being dragon type hurricane, except it's buffed to either 50 or 60, and does double power in weather effects , making it deceptively wimpy, but with unused weather types like say hail or sandstorm it gives those effects and twister more versatility. Future sight is a really bad move on it's own: what if we made it a bargain sale psycho boost without the stat drop? multi hit moves such as triple kick could stay as it is, and be given to pokemon with technician, or make it a fighting type rollout: it starts with base power 60, has maybe 80 accuracy so it's not super busted as you immediately see it do 120, followed by 180. and lastly my last examples are steel wing and metal claw, i'm sure these were made for non steel types for type coverage, metal claw is a weaker meteor mash essentially. If we can have a move like power-up punch where it guarantees an attack boost, we make metal claw and steel wing a boost in buffing their respective stats. rock smash pretty much sucks except where it has a 50% chance to lower defence, so we make these moves increase to 50% chance. Low damage moves will only be really useful in tandem with special abilities or the pokemon themselves, if more moves were made versatile, theoretically powerful, it might give everyone a reason to use.

I used Sandstorm in the early days of Gen 8 on some stall teams. Ferrothorn normally runs spikes, however in the early gen 8 OU days people were way overusing Heavy Duty Boots. So, after rocks, I'd throw off a sandstorm to get chip on the 5 heavy duty boots mons to get that switch chip. It's not good now, but I mean, you asked if anyone ever had a use for sandstorm the move.

Sweet Scent can actually be used on Contrary mons to bypass Evasion Clause.

Really cool list, the only thing I would think is Sleep Talk is a little low (it's better than Mirror Coat, surely?!). Admittedly, I'm biased as I've always had a soft spot for Crocune-like sets. There was also the point that Sleep was once so prevalent, I think some Choice Banders (mainly Heracross) ran Sleep Talk without Rest just to act as a sleep absorber.

I FORGOT ABOUT POCKET SAND lol, a+ laughter. thank you.

Beat up king rock weavile is actually pretty good. I think that'd be enough to bump it to at least filler tbh

I miss being able to straight up solo some teams with my Comfey in Gen 7 RU. Sun boosted Z-Growth, Priority healing with Draining Kiss and Giga Drain, and Hidden Power Fire for steel types and the like.

14:05 multi hit moves can be nice for set up strats to break through sash and sturdy edit: though obviously this one in particular is still outclassed by bonemerang lmao

Snore Jirachi was a funny meme set I saw a RU-vidr using. Spam Cosmic Power until you can use Stored Power, between Resting and flinch-fishing with Snore. Hilarious win condition.

About Attract: it works based on gender, and only in gen 2 gender is decided by attack dv:s (dw/16 < gender ratio = female), attack dw:s influence how much confusion damage is meaning special attacker want low attack dw:s while physical ones still need the power. All this means attract could be used by a female physical wall against all the male physical attackers. yup. meta defining move right there.

Bro encore is insane in-game. Even better than in competitive. If you can predict and lock the AI into defense curl or something you can easily set up for a sweep because they basically never switch

I can't believe I didn't comment this at the time but Sleep Talk is occasionally used on Choice sets that are only using one move or so, or have a STAB move that's just way better than any coverage you could run. Especially if there are a lot of good sleepers or one big one like Darkrai in pre Gen 7 Ubers. Examples include choice Latis in Gen 5, Specs Vanilluxe with Blizzard, Freeze Dry, Sleep Talk and no fourth move. Similarly there's a Xerneas set with Power Herb and Geomancy, Moonblast, and Sleep Talk with no fourth move, since Sleep Talk can't call Geomancy.

spite is a move that saves you if you made a mistake. because sometimes you just can't come back from certain mistakes. If you are in game PvE and you have accidentally let a snorlax set up belly drum and you don't have any answer to it's bulk and it's set to sweep you, if you have a ghost type pokemon, you can spite away all of it's attacking moves rendering the belly drum worthless. This is an example, and this very rarely happens because most people who make that kind of mistake don't think about that level of strategy, or the player wouldn't make that mistake to begin with. still useless, but at least it is possible for it to have a use

I remember Foresight being the reason people using Warturtle in NU back in Gen 5 and I think it was also a reason to use Rain Dish Blastoise over the significantly better the better Rain Dish Tentecruel in OU that generation. Also Ash used it against Ghost Types so Cyndiquil can hit them with that iconic Tackle attack. two generation after Giga Drain got buffed, Energy Ball became a 90 Base Power move. Probably because GF realized "Why is this just 80 Base Power?" Can you imagine Pinsir actually got that one evolution which is basically Heracross and Pinsir merged? Poor thing got cut and lost Megahorn in the process... It was that one moment it could have been a Pinsir Signatur move even for just 1 Generation.

i literally had no idea future sight did damage until now because i never saw any pokemon using it live to do damage lol

So glad someone else immediately thinks of Dire when Cross Chop comes up

I love how he says "can someone suggest a clip for the premium edit" and then chooses the suggestion that was clearly the exact clip he was quoting

35:00 huh, for some reason I always lumped up Foresight and Odor Sleuth with Mind Reader and Lock-On as "make next move bypass accuracy" moves. TIL they're actually even more crap, since the latter at least have a niche use of hitting OHKOs and the like.

Attract is only for when AFTER your Miltank's Body Slam procs Paralysis and BEFORE you start spamming Stomp

Future sight definitively didn't see that coming.

Scyther with Technician running Fury Cutter is deadly. I’ve swept many teams with it.

1:32:22 Dratini line in gen3 get Twister as their only Dragon move until Outrage at like 50+lvl. It's painfully bad.

funny thing about foresight is that hitmontop used it in gen 4 UU for rapid spinning, he was that good at clearing hazards that some people would run 2 ghosts to keep him from doing it... Not enough to move tiers but I thought you should know this.

Great way to spend a lazy Monday morning

44:53 also worth using back then, not because it was all that good but because you didnt really have that many other options

20:20 i always thought curse makeing u slower was a reference to the power of the curse mark being too heavy.

Gen 2 competitive is like visiting your grandparents at a nursery home.

random comments on videos say that pursuit was cut from gen 8 because it was too good against psychic and ghosts and made them less useful. I feel like that's kind of faulty logic. cutting a move because it might be a problem for some critters when stuff like stealth rock exists. and some dark types lose viability for not having access to pursuit. idk. giga drain was actually meta defining in my own personal meta of what pokemon and moves are good in casual game teams because grass is my favorite type and giga drain is a cool sounding move that heals hp while damaging. it's the kind of move I'll always use if I have the chance, even before gen 4/5 when it got all the buffs :)

I dont remember if I was here for the live stream but I wish i was the person who "well ackshully" 'd the fun fact about Present in Gen 2

Speaking of hard fangames, Technician Fury Cutter on Kricketune is how you get past the first gym of Pokemon Reborn really easily.

Attract had a counter-meta gimmick niche in Gen 8. Beyond the genies starters like Incineroar and Rillaboom are 7/8 Male as is Urshifu. Since the best comp VGC are mostly male a female Attract user can hit most relevant threats. Ideally it forces a switch into a worse matchup or forces a big threat like Landorous to miss 50% of its powerful moves if your opponent is down to their last 2 Pokemon.

Can we at least award Future Sight giga meme status for that Bulbapedia article

I would not put Outrage in meta defining. Maybe for Gen 4-5 but after Fairy Types came, hardly anyone used Outrage in singles. In Ubers I don't think any Pokemon uses it except Zekrom... And with any Generation it got used less and less. Like Gen 7 only had maybe Zekrom use it and if you used a Z-Move.

Frustration has a pretty decent use in competitive: it counters Ditto. Ditto doesn’t copy friendship, so it’s Frustration will have, like, 2 base power.

fun fact about the shop keeper in Links Awakening, he will empty ALL 16 heart containers AND go through the full health potion, meaning he does 32 hearts of damage, THAT WE KNOW OF!!! Strongest attack in zelda history and its a f**king DREAM!

Pretty sure that Lugia's main set in gen 2 Ubers is curse, and that it does use Aeroblast.

Bone Rush is pretty useless, but Bonemerang can be used as a Ground STAB option to break Substitute. Still Niche, but it works.

There was literally a point as a kid (which obviously didn't last long) where I thought Faint Attack was some kind of One Hit KO move lol Like you can't have that spelling in a game where your Pokemon also faints.

nice haircut. I put it in B Rank. It's outclassed by your old hair style but it does still well. It will get you through a day.

i remember teaching zap cannon to my espeon in silver as a kid because arceus said espeon gets no moves.

I like future sight. In battles, people will be sending in a pokemon that will counter slowbro, and probably wouldn't be weak to something like psychic. But in 2 turns, you likely have something else in, and they will likely have something else in too. It could be hard for them to position themselves correctly so that in 2 turns they will both be ok with future sight, and their opponants attacks in the same turn. and even if they do, they will take a lot of damage and might even be KO'd by the pokemon they counter. Its pretty low risk to use, rarely going to be a wasted turn. Whereas lots of pokemon like ferrothorn would eat psychic for breakfast, a Tapu Fini or Lando sent out against your ferrothorn counter will probably feel something from future sight and could end up in a position where they could be in trouble, which would take a chunk out of their ability to counter your team.

Not going to argue that Beat Up isn't niche, but it's worth noting that the "Beat Up on your own Justified sweeper" strat was a lot more viable in Sword/Shield since with Dynamax you could get a +4 boost while taking negligible damage.

The only instance I've ever seen Frustration is a trainer in the battle mode variant (outside of story mode) of the Tower Colosseum in Pokemon Colosseum who used a banded Swellow with it for some reason. Needless to say as a kid who didn't understand much about competitive battling (band, ivs, or evs) I thought the move was pretty busted. Kind of a shame Snore got buffed in Gen 6 where Togekiss lost its Normal typing. You thought T wave and Air Slash was bad, imagine it paired with the longevity of Rest and Snore dishing out decent damage and flinches while healing. Of course it could still do this pre Gen 6, but 75 power as opposed to 60 goes a long way when talking about Normal coverage on a defensive Mon (even with good base offense).

A cool thing about Endure is that in a Double Battle, the AI will typically hit the mon with 1 HP, making it a fake Follow Me in really hard Pokemon fangames/ROMhacks

I've convinced myself that Perish Song rivals Roar when it comes to Baton Pass. My reasoning is that you pass your perish counter along with the stat boosts, including to Soundproof Pokemon, along with the fact that it isn't -6 priority, meaning you can't get bamboozled by your opponent Baton Passing to a Soundproof Pokemon

Re: Frustration Ghetsis' Hydreigon has a max power Frustration to further indicate that he really is a monster