Cheese Strategy / Pokémon

With Pokémon spanning nine main generations with countless spinoffs over decades, it is little wonder that people came up with cheap tactics.

---

Series-Wide

• Using Legendary Pokémon on your team is frowned upon by skill-oriented players simply due to their Purposefully Overpowered nature. There is no rule saying you can't use Legendaries if you want to, but it's viewed as a Cheese Strategy by those players. In competitive battling, Legendary Pokémon are usually relegated to the Uber tier and can only be used against players who are also using Legendaries against you, though there are some exceptions that aren't considered Game-Breaking enough to warrant being banished to Uber in spite of their in-game Legendary status (most legendary "trios", variant "forms" of certain legendaries, Regigigas, etc).
• "Para-Flinch" is a strategy where your Pokémon first paralyzes the opponent (reducing their chance of attacking by 25% while drastically lowering their speed, so they'll always attack second), then uses a fliching move (Bite, Headbutt, etc.) which has a 30% chance of preventing them from attacking. Using a Pokémon with the ability Serene Grace increases the chances of causing paralysis and flinching even further, which certain held items will add yet another 10% chance of causing flinching. Sometimes, confusion is added to the mix, which adds a 50% chance (reduced to 33% in later generations) of damaging themselves, but unlike paralysis, will resolve itself within 2-5 turns. Properly set up, the afflicted Pokémon will only have about a 30% chance of attacking, making it an incredibly frustrating strategy to face.
• The widely-hated "FEAR" strategy has seen variations throughout the series.
  • Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum introduces the strategy. "FEAR" stands for Focus Sash^note A held item which allows the Pokémon holding it to retain 1 HP if they're hit by an attack that would KO them from full, Endeavor^note The targeted Pokémon has their HP reduced to the same total as the attacker's, as long as the attacker's is less than the target's, Quick Attack^note Priority move that always goes first as long as the opponent didn't use another priority move in the same turn, and a level one Rattata. You give Rattata the Focus Sash, take an attack that leaves it with 1 HP, use Endeavor to bring the opponent's HP down to 1 as well, and then have Rattata follow up with a Quick Attack to deal 1 HP in damage. It eventually became widespread enough to take on another meaning — "Fucking Evil Annoying Rodent".
  • A variant saw the Clefable line use Magic Guard (preventing Focus Sash from being undone by weather effects) along with a damaging weather such as Hail or Sandstorm. Later in Gen V, the Reuniclus line gained the ability to do this as well.
  • Generation V changed the game with the ability Sturdy, which essentially works as a Focus Sash without taking up the item slot. It can also work more than once as long as the attacked pokemon started at 100% HP, as opposed to the Sash which only worked once per battle. Thus, the FEAR strategy changed to being centered around either level one Aron or level two Probopass^note Nosepass has to level up at least once to evolve. Aron could use Endeavor as usual, while Probopass required Pain Split^note Combines the user's and the target's HP and distributes half of it to each of them, making it slower but less reliant on its item.
  • After Gen V, Obvious Rule Patches and Nerfs to the metagame (particularly the weakening of weather effects) effectively neutered the strategy. Generation VII saw a minor revival with Togedemaru, but it didn't last long.
• Baton Pass is a move that switches out the current Pokémon, with the Pokémon coming in receiving any stat changes the user had. This has lead to teams consisting of multiple Pokémon with Baton Pass and a stat boosting move, with the end goal of giving one particular Pokémon a variety of buffs, allowing them to sweep the entire opposing team with no real resistance. This strategy is often hated in the competitive community for it's lack of real skill or adaptability, plus a heavy reliance on what team the opponent brings.^note Some teams are just too slow or don't have the tools to stop a Baton Pass team before it achieves its Instant-Win Condition, while those with the tools to stop them before they get too many buffs off can collapse the Baton Pass team with ease.

Generation I

Pokémon Red and Blue

• The "Wrap-spam" strategy. In later generations, Wrap deals damage per turn while allowing both the player and opponent to continue acting, but in Generation I, Wrap hits 2-5 times for little damage, but locks the enemy Pokémon from attacking or retreating, so a common tactic is to to stun-lock the opponent, especially if the opposing Pokémon is afflicted with paralysis to prevent it from ever attacking first.
• The Gen I AI was easily broken in a number of ways. One of the most famous was using part-Poison-type Pokémon against those with non-damaging Psychic-type (strong against Poison-type) moves, such as Barrier or Agility. As Gen I AI Pokémon did not use up PP when attacking, they would spam these non-damaging moves non-stop, allowing your Pokémon, no matter how weak, to eventually whittle it down. This strategy works even against high-level opponents including the Elite Four. This strategy became wide-spread following its (unintentional) use in Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, where Red's Venomoth took down Lance's Dragonite in an Elite Four battle.
• Generations 1's X Accuracy, instead of boosting the chance to hit, made every move unable to miss. Even One Hit KO moves. While you do need to be faster than your opponent or else they fail, this can be easily done with a speed boosting move, an X Speed or two, or even just naturally outleveling your opponent, letting you sweep anyone, even the Final Boss, by spamming an otherwise Useless Useful Spell.

Generation II

Pokémon Gold and Silver

• Generation II is well known for its metagame "stall teams". Unlike any of the following generations, which tend to heavily favor Fragile Speedsters and Glass Cannons engaging in exciting Rocket-Tag Gameplay, this is a generation dominated by its Stone Walls and Mighty Glaciers, viewed as the most boring playstyle by much of the fanbase and is the least played generation according to Smogon. What makes it truly "cheesy", however, is that there are essentially no counters to it. A team with a Cross-Chop Machamp and a Gengar to No-Sell the Normal-type moves common to these teams comes the closest, but even they are easily countered if just one or two members of the "stall team" can use something like Psychic. Some of the Pokémon, moves, and other factors that play into its "cheesy" reputation include:
  • Snorlax is the unquestioned king of Gen II competitive play. The beefy Normal-type's biggest drawback is its lack of Speed, which the new move Curse takes full advantage of. For non-Ghost-types, Curse cuts their Speed in half while raising Attack and Defense. Since Snorlax is almost always going to attack second anyway, the loss of speed means nothing while putting more "might" into Mighty Glacier. Additionally, it gets Belly Drum, which cuts its HP in half while maximizing Attack. Due to a bug, if Snorlax's HP is less than half, the move will appear to "fail", but a massive Attack increase^note +2 instead of the +6 the full version applies, but still a powerful increase will still be applied. Finally, Snorlax has its old standby move, Rest, to restore its health to full. Throw in an offensive move like Double-Edge (120 base damage, for which Snorlax receives a STAB, at the drawback of damaging the user which Snorlax can easily "Rest" away) and, after the slower set-up turns, you've got a monstrous attacker with boosted defenses who can Rest to heal up.
  • Skarmory (a Steel/Flying-type) and Blissey (a Normal-type) are Defense and Special Defense walls, respectively, leading to the popular "SkarmBliss" pairing. Skarmory's typing means its only weakness is the (rare in this generation) Fire-type, while it call wall off every physically attacking type in the game, and is seen as the only viable non-Ghost counter to a Belly Drummed Snorlax. If things get hairy for it, it can use Whirlwind to force the opponent to switch out their Pokémon. Meanwhile, Blissey, in addition to its incredible HP and excellent Special Defense, is the ultimate Support Party Member, capable of putting up a Light Screen (weakens incoming Special Attacks) and healing the party, including status effects, with Heal Bell.
  • Umbreon, a new Dark-type "Eeveelution", is another bulky tank with solid-across-the-board HP and both types of defense, has access to Charm (lowers the opponent's Attack by two stages and is a great counter to Curse), and makes for a great user of Pursuit (a Dark-type move that deals double damage if the opponent is switching Pokémon out for which Umbreon gets a STAB) to take out weakened retreaters.
  • Exeggutor was dominant in Gen I but suffered a bit from the "Special Split" between these generations, leaving it better suited to these "stall teams". Its typing gives it many resistances to common attacking types (Ground, Water, Electric, Psychic), it comes with status moves (Sleep Powder, Stun Spore) to slow the battle down, Leech Seed for Life Drain, and can still hit hard enough with STAB'd Psychic to chip away at all but the best Special walls while easily taking down some of the "stall team's" only counters (the Fighting-type Machamp and part-Poison-type Gengar).
  • This generation introduces the first "entry hazard" attack in the series in Spikes, which damages any non-Flying-types by 12.5% of their max HP when they enter the battlefield. Cloyster and Forretress are the main Spikes users, themselves defensive-oriented statistically, while its use encourages players to have a "spinner" (a Pokémon who can use the otherwise competitively useless "Rapid Spin" which can clear Spikes) on their teams (which Forretress can also conveniently learn).
  • Toxic, a move that inflicts a Pokémon with a more severe type of poison that compounds each turn, existed in Gen I and the common metagame counter for it is to simply switch out the afflicted Pokémon, which resets it to standard poison, meaning it didn't see much use. Here, however, with so many stall-heavy teams relying on massive defenses, even the 1/8 of max HP damage caused by standard poison is a huge benefit, leading to most teams including a Toxic-user.

Generation VII

Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

• Ultra Necrozma is the Climax Boss, and it's remarkably difficult to fight fairly against. While there are means to fight against it without resorting to cheesing (most of them boil down to the fact its moveset is completely resisted by Steel-type Pokémon), most players instead resort to things like exploiting Artificial Stupidity (by sending a Zoroark disguised as a Pokémon that is weak to Psychic-type attacks, making Ultra Necrozma use Photon Geyser, which Zoroark is immune to), or by using an Inkay or Malamar and use Topsy-Turvy to turn Ultra Necrozma's massive x1.5 boost to all its stats turn into a x2/3 drop.

Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!

• The "Master Trainer" battles available in the post-game are meant to be incredibly difficult fights against trainers who each specialize in a different species of Pokémon and only that species, which you must battle with your own Pokémon of that species. If approached in the most straightforward way, they are every bit as challenging as intended. However, almost all of them can be "cheesed" with a good "stall" strategy. Nearly all Pokémon can learn Toxic (which inflicts "bad poisoning" that increases in damage each turn), and most can learn some combination of Protect (prevents all damage but cannot be reliably used two turns in a row), Rest (fully restores health and status but puts the Pokémon to sleep), and a two-turn attack like Dig or Fly, all of which are available as unlimited-use TMs. Use Toxic, stall, win through attrition, repeat. It makes the vast majority of Master Trainer battles far easier.

---