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Pokémon Team Archive

For a few years now, I've wanted to create a page where I could archive teams I use in my Pokémon game playthroughs. I thought it would be fun to be able to look back on them whenever I wanted. In 2025, I'm finally deciding to put this page together which I can append to using journal-style entries. I'm not interested in keeping track of my teams from the newer games (past Gen 6 probably — but more realistically I will keep track of Gen 1 through 4, since those are the ones I like to play).

Entry 1

Version: Gold

Date: Some time around June 2024

Party: Typhlosion, Espeon, Tauros, Sunflora, Mantine, Ho-Oh

Notes: I try not to use legendaries, but I guess I wanted to use Ho-Oh here just because I hadn't used it in a while. Finding Fly-users is also a bit difficult in Gen 2, so that probably influenced my decision as well. I always like using Espeon or Umbreon, and Espeon is pretty much the better option in Gen 2 (Umbreon's offensive stats are much lower than its defensive ones, so its Dark moves are probably better used by another Pokémon). I'm not sure if I'd used Tauros in Gen 2 before this playthrough, so I thought it would be fun. With the Pink Bow, its Normal moves are really strong, and of course it doubles as a Strength-user. I think I remember Sunflora being a surprising asset on this team, and Petal Dance is a strong move. As much as I liked the Mantine addition this time, I think I remember not using it in battle as much as I would've liked; I guess I already had Sunflora for those Ground/Rock matchups, and Tauros was good against Fire matchups with Earthquake. Plus, Mantine suffered from the "being the Water-type in Gen 2" affliction, which inevitably means it will carry the burden of all three Water HMs.

Party breakdown:

Entry 2

Version: Solus Green (v1.2)

Date: Probably around October 2024

Party: Blastoise, Clefable, Gengar, Aerodactyl, Ninetales, Raichu

Notes: This was my first time playing through my own romhack, Pokémon Solus. It was a pretty good party from what I remember. Clefable was my Teleport-user via this romhack's Field Move slot. Similarly, Gengar was my Strength-user via Field Move slot. I recall Gengar was pretty interesting to use with the moveset I had. I think it was my first time using the Hypnosis/Dream Eater combo on Gengar in Gen 1. Aerodactyl unfortunately doesn't learn any damaging Rock-type moves in Gen 1, so it's a bit underwhelming, but at least it gets access to Fly. Ninetales is a really good Flamethrower-user for the most part, and Confuse Ray is nice to have access to. I hadn't used Raichu in a while, but it's fun to use, and I thought it would be a good time to use one again.

Party breakdown:

Entry 3

Version: Solus Red (v1.4)

Date: Probably around January 2025

Party: Pidgeot, Parasect, Mr. Mime, Golem, Kingler, Snorlax

Notes: This was my second time playing through my romhack, Pokémon Solus, except this time it's post-v1.3, which means there is a lot of new stuff since the last time I played — most notably, the addition of "forward-patched" learnsets, so Pokémon have access to some more moves. This party was awesome, too. This time, I ditched my starter, which is something I want to start doing in future playthroughs. Pidgeot is of course a well-used classic, but I hadn't used it in Gen 1 in a very long time, so I figured I would again. Parasect was easily the weakest link, but not by as much as you'd think. Leech Life in particular was very useful against Psychic Pokémon, but also Poison-types which Team Rocket always has (in Gen 1, Bug was Super Effective against Poison). Mr. Mime is a crazy strong user of several Special moves, and this time I gave him Thunderbolt and Psychic. One of the notable things I was able to take advantage of in this Solus update was the elemental punch TMs; Golem got Fire Punch and Snorlax got Ice Punch. The Ice Punch in particular is nice for some coverage in a pinch. Kingler is always a Pokémon that is interesting, because it's easy to miss; in Gen 1, you need the Super Rod for Krabby, so you can't get one till you finish Pokémon Tower and get the Poké Flute to wake the Silence Bridge Snorlax. Kingler is pretty fun to use, even if only for Crabhammer.

Party breakdown:

Entry 4

Version: Ruby

Date: Around October 2023

Party: Sceptile, Zangoose, Flygon, Ninetales, Sharpedo, Claydol

Notes: This one I don't remember much about, as I'm trying to write this entry nearly two years later. But this is a pretty standard party for Gen 3, I feel — the Ninetales is maybe the standout here. If I remember correctly, I was missing some Flying-type coverage because of the lack of Electric/Ice moves, so Claydol's Ancientpower was my only Flying-type coverage, unless I'm misremembering.

Entry 5

Version: Let's Go (Eevee)

Date: November 2018

Party: Tauros (Motley), Magneton (Trinitron), Nidoking (Giovanni), Jynx (Elysia), Ninetales (Lusamine), Gyarados (Mahogany)

Notes: I booted up my original save of Let's Go (in October 2025) because I plan to replay it soon and I wanted to check what my party was. Turns out this save is from 2018 — seven years ago! For that reason, I don't remember much about how this party played, but looking at it, I think it's pretty cool. I think after I was well into the game, I realized you aren't required to use your starter (Pikachu/Eevee) as part of your party, so it's either the case that I scrapped it and added a new member at that point, or this is my second playthrough altogether. Not sure.

Party breakdown:

Entry 6

Version: Solus Blue (v1.5)

Date: January 2026 – March 2026

Party: Hitmonlee (Deacon), Dugtrio (Douglas), Psyduck (Spence), Arbok (Arthur), Doduo (Carrie), Pinsir (Danny)

Notes: This was the first run for which I generated my party with Dexelect, my party generation software. In addition to that, for this run I participated in an async community race in the Solus Discord server — me and a couple others participated, and three of us ended up finishing. Acquiring all six members was a hard requirement. I finished with an IGT of 8:54.

This was a very interesting run for several reasons. First of all, the party was prescribed, so I didn't have the freedom of choice; deciding which Pokémon were going to be the most valuable was a consideration that I'm not faced with in typical playthroughs. Second, there's the race component — prior to this, I hadn't done a Pokémon game race since probably 2005 or 2006 with my friend. The time pressure adds extra challenge, especially coupled with the prescribed party limitation (i.e. trying to figure out which Pokémon are going to be heavy hitters while simultaneously trying to go fast, deciding which trainers to skip, and things like that).

The party's strengths did not really reveal themselves until late game. I initially planned to train up Arbok, but when Dugtrio came along I realized I should shift to him — STAB Dig and Gen 1 Slash are both powerful moves to have access to, plus Dugtrio is very fast. The real surprise to me ended up being Hitmonlee, though. Once I realized that he's generally pretty strong and gets Meditate, I started focusing heavily on training him. The Meditate (x6) + Mega Punch combo sweep was broadly applicable to tough trainers and some particularly powerful Gym Leader ace Pokémon, like Sabrina's Alakazam. A bonus was when its STAB Fighting-type moves could be taken advantage of against Normal- and Rock-types (or even types for which the matchup was neutral).

The League was a bit of a challenge, but to my surprise I was able to beat it first try. Agatha was my biggest fear going in because Hitmonlee's Fighting-type and Normal-type moves would be ineffective against her Ghost-types, and her Golbat would have the type advantage. However, this is where I was happy to have a partially-trained Dugtrio; Dig for the Ghost-types and Slash for the others ended up saving me.

In the end with an 8:54 IGT, Hitmonlee was my ace at level 59 with Dugtrio in second at level 40 (a pretty big delta which shows how heavily I leaned into Hitmonlee toward the end).

Fun fact — I decided to nickname every Pokémon in this party according to a theme. If you know what the theme is, come find me and let me know or something. And don't cheat with an LLM.

Party breakdown:

Entry 7

Version: Sapphire

Date: April 2026 – July 2026 (with some gaps)

Party: Vileplume, Tentacruel, Weezing, Skarmory, Lunatone, Walrein

Notes: This is another run that used a party generated with Dexelect (which is now a web app!). For most playthroughs going forward, I'm going to default to using Dexelect-prescribed parties, unless the particular game I'm playing hasn't yet been implemented in the software.

I liked this party overall. I wouldn't really consider any of them weak links after finishing the entire run, but there were certainly stand-outs: Walrein and Tentacruel specifically, with Weezing coming in third. Tentacruel ended up being the most reliable member in the first chunk of the game, since it was very defensive and has access to Surf as a solid STAB offense. But once I fully evolved Spheal into Walrein, it was clear that it was going to be the MVP for the rest of the game with its combination of general bulkiness, high Sp. Atk, and Hail + STAB Ice Beam (the TM for which can be found in the Abandoned Ship after getting Dive).

I would not say I struggled particularly on any of the Hoenn League Gym Leaders, except for Tate and Liza. Their Lunatone and Solrock are just very strong, and I blacked out at least once. My Pokémon were a bit under-leveled around this point in the game.

Before attempting the Elite Four and Champion, I wanted to train my Pokémon a bit more so they were all at least level 45 (I was scared of the Pokémon League, even though I didn't have a particularly tough time up until then). After they were sufficiently trained, I did my final rounds and collected 11 total Rare Candies and some TMs I wanted for my party — Ice Beam for Walrein, Shadow Ball for Weezing, Blizzard for both Tentacruel and Walrein.

I breezed through the Elite Four for the most part. Walrein was the MVP here. Sidney was no issue at all (Ice Beamed most things). Phoebe's second Dusclops was a bit of an issue, but didn't deplete too many of my item resources. Glacia's party was not much of an issue (particularly her two Sealeo up against my Weezing's Thunderbolt), but her Walrein was probably the biggest challenge of the Elite Four; I think Weezing's Thunderbolt ended up being quite useful to push here after she kept using Full Restores. Drake, surprisingly but perhaps not in retrospect of the type matchup, was a breeze. Walrein's Ice Beam and Blizzard took care of everything, and Salamence's 4x weakness to Ice was very helpful here.

Steven was not as difficult as I thought he might be, but it was definitely the hardest battle of the League. I had saved all 11 of my Rare Candies up till this point, so I dumped them all on Walrein right before facing Steven, since Walrein had been the MVP of the League. Walrein's Ice Beam & Surf and Tentacruel's Surf allowed me to handle his first five Pokémon fairly easily. I first sent out Walrein and used Hail on turn 1 to get the weather bonus. I think this helped take care of some Pokémon in fewer turns than they otherwise would be, and the weather damage finished off Claydol at the end of the turn, preventing Steven from using a Full Restore. His Metagross proved to be a challenge — I had no real type advantage against it, and Meteor Mash was very effective against my Walrein. The strategy I ended up using during the fight with Metagross was quite interesting. A lot of Revives were used, but it was to enable my Weezing's Explosion boomerang technique (a term I just invented). This involved using Weezing's Explosion (a very strong 250 base power move) to reduce Metagross's HP by about a third, taking the inevitable Psychic knock-out from Metagross on the following turn, sending out another party member as a sacrifice, reviving Weezing, and repeating as necessary until Steven was out of Full Restores and Metagross was knocked out.

While there were no true weak links throughout the run, Vileplume was probably the most disappointing purely because its utility didn't pan out as I'd hoped. I wanted to use Giga Drain and Petal Dance more often, but the Grass moves didn't seem as necessary as you might think in a water-heavy region like Hoenn. I even preemptively used all of my PP Ups on Giga Drain, and later realized they would have been better used on Walrein's Ice Beam. Lunatone was used about as much or possibly even less frequently than Vileplume, however it had more coverage with Psychic, Earthquake, and Rock Throw. Skarmory was pretty unexciting but solid overall — its type advantages were rarely taken advantage of, but it was strong enough to be useful when it mattered, and Aerial Ace is a great move to have access to when the opponent pulls some Minimize or Double Team shenanigans.

Party breakdown:

Entry 8

Version: Platinum

Date: Around June 2025 – August 2026 (took a long break)

Party: Golduck, Roserade, Probopass, Gliscor, Lickilicky, Altaria

Notes: This run did not utilize a Dexelect-generated party.

I took a very long break in the middle of this run for some reason, so I can't remember my thoughts about the party in the early- and mid-game. However, when picking it back up, I took on Volkner, Victory Road, and the Pokémon League, so I have a good sense of the party's performance in the context of those things. While Gliscor helped a lot with Volkner and in other battles along the way, Golduck was the clear MVP of this party after I got to the Elite Four.

I did end up using a lot of healing items by the end of the League, but mostly in a "maintenance" way; at the end of each battle, I had to revive and heal most of my party back up, but I wasn't spamming Hyper Potions on too many ocassions mid-battle to maintain tempo (with some exceptions). Aaron's party ended up being handled mostly by Gliscor's Slash and Aerial Ace after using a few Swords Dances. The battle wasn't much of an issue as I recall. Bertha's party was handled almost entirely by Golduck's STAB Water moves + Mystic Water — the only slight issue I recall was Whiscash, her first member, but I think Roserade or Gliscor came in handy here for some support. Similarly, Golduck took care of the entirety of Flint's party with his STAB Water moves + Mystic Water.

Of the Elite Four, Lucian was definitely the most challenging. Here's where I needed to land some lucky criticals to outpace the damage I was receiving from Bronzong and Alakazam. Bronzong's high defenses and resistance were hard to deal with, so I think Gliscor's Swords Dances helped outpace the damage it was dealing in the end. Of all his Pokémon, Alakazam was the hardest to deal with because of its high Sp. Atk and Speed, so a lot of healing and switching was necessary. Gallade was not as much of an issue as I anticipated, because it didn't have much to use against Gliscor; this allowed for a manageable setup with Swords Dance to get to +4 Attack, then a one-hit with Slash.

I was very scared of Cynthia. But, in the end, Golduck dominated. The strategy I went for was using 5 X Specials on Golduck during the matchup with Spiritomb who could not knock out Golduck with less than 3 Dark Pulses or Shadow Balls, giving me a consistent 2 turns of leeway before needing to heal. After Golduck was +5 Sp. Atk, I Surfed, Brined, and Ice Beamed to victory. Even her ace, Garchomp, was no issue after an Ice Beam. The one bump in this battle was her Milotic because of its resistance to Golduck's moves. I needed 2, or maybe 3 hits (Surf + Brine after getting it below 50%) before it was knocked out, and I think a convenient critical helped me here too. Lucario I recall needed 2 hits as well (to be honest, I completed this run yesterday and I already forget exactly how the Lucario matchup went; the excitement of the Golduck-powered victory being within my grasp must have clouded my memory).

Throughout the entire League, I don't think I utilized the other four Pokémon on my team at all, save for a couple small things (and sacrificial send-outs). Golduck and Gliscor swept up. Just before starting the Cynthia battle, I dumped all my Rare Candies and PP Ups into Golduck because I was confident that it would be the ticket to victory. By the end, at level 63, its Sp. Atk was 146. Notably, Roserade's was even higher (at only level 50) at 147 Ap. Atk, but Golduck's STAB Water moves and Ice Beam access ended up being more useful overall.

Party breakdown: