As of the time of writing this post, I’ve uncovered 3 Pokemon I’d consider usable as part of my Trashmon Chronicles: Kadabra, Poliwhirl and Magneton. However, there’s something of an issue with me calling them usable. If you’re serious about winning games, the list of Pokemon I’d recommend doesn’t include them. In fact, the gap between these Pokemon and the Pokemon I’d consider “optimal” in RBY seems incredibly vast. I’d compare it to swimming the English channel. It’s possible to cross, but no reasonable person would ever want to do this. At least, so you’d think. But I’d like to dig a little deeper, and hopefully expand this topic into general competitive gameplay (though I’ll still reference RBY a lot).
When Big Yellow approached me to discuss Magneton for one of their videos, I was a little conflicted in how I should frame the niche I uncovered for it. I’m adamant that it’s a valid niche that makes it genuinely usable, but I also didn’t want to unintentionally give the impression that it was some sort of hidden gem. It still sucks, it’s just not so bad that I don’t think I have a reasonable shot at winning with it on my team. After all, that’s my criteria for something being usable. I need to think I have a reasonable shot at winning against a tournament level opponent.
But if something’s usable but still bad, that means that using it decreases your chances of winning. That logic can be applied to almost every level of competitive viability, until you reach a handful of options that are considered optimal. These are your “meta” threats, however the list of options you’re open to using is probably much greater. In RBY, there are only really 11 Pokemon that are considered standard. This is based on the 2024 version of Smogon’s RBY viability rankings.
In any case, as I see it there are a few questions:
- Why use sub-optimal options anyway?
- Where do you draw the line?
- Why would you use something that you think is a bad option, well past merely sub-optimal?
Defying Optimisation
I’ll get one thing out the way quickly- trying new and unconventional strategies can be fun. However, for a competitive player aiming to win, this isn’t really an argument that holds much weight. Maybe you could argue that if you’re having more fun you’re more likely to maintain a positive mindset and thus perform better? That’s a flimsy argument to say the least. Instead, I believe arguing for bad or sub-optimal options needs to be rooted in competitive merit.
Sub-optimal play in a competitive space isn’t a new concept. One thing that sprang to mind was David Sirlin’s post where he discussed it, using the term “donkeyspace”, coined by Frank Lantz. Both Sirlin’s description and Lantz’s own description describe playing sub-optimally in order to exploit the sub-optimal play of opponents. Lantz also alludes to ambiguity in the end goals of players (how do you know you’re winning unless you have a clear path to victory?).
But Why?
There are other potential reasons that are relevant. One reason you might consider “bad” options is for the purpose of innovation, however this has an obviously weak case. The reason it technically applies is that “bad” strategies are often largely overlooked and underdeveloped, meaning there’s room for exploration. However the reason they’re overlooked is because… they’re bad. Players take a cursory look at them, identify that their flaws generally outweigh any potential benefits and move on. This means that although they’re understudied, the likelihood of finding hidden gems is very low.
One argument that I strongly believe to be the case is that it makes you a better player. Playing with a weak link on your team forces you to get maximum value out of the rest of your team, which should transfer to regular play. On a personal note, I find I play better when I’m behind anyway. The issue I have with this argument, is that it’s good for practice, but that’s not what I’m doing. I’m bringing this trash to tournaments, and I’d argue that some of this “trash” is reasonably usable even at that level.
The best answer I can give is that using terrible strategies comes with inherent advantages that help to offset the fact that they suck. Whether this manages to balance things out is of course, another matter entirely. I can think of a couple dynamics whereby shitty strategies have a built-in advantage
- It throws off evaluation of strategic decisions
- In real time games it can exploit ingrained habits and muscle memory that might specifically work against more relevant threats
- Surprise! Leveraging surprise actually works in multiple ways
- Gotcha moments where the opponent doesn’t identify all of the options available
- It makes it harder for your opponent to discern your strategy
Garbage and its Benefits
An obvious benefit is to surprise opponents with overlooked strategies, exploiting the obscurity of bad options. This feels gimmicky at best. A sufficiently knowledgeable opponent shouldn’t be caught off-guard, and it’s not something you can expect to get away with all the time. But it’s also undeniable that you’ll get a decent amount of mileage out of this factor, even against strong players. An example would be a tournament match against Amaranth a couple months ago, who’s a world class opponent that I was expecting to lose to. There I nabbed a surprise KO on their Rhydon via Fearow Mirror Move, which they simply forgot about.
Of the list I provided above, perhaps the easiest point to understand is how low tier strategies can gain an advantage in real time games. Obviously, in real time games where split second decisions are often required, a significant portion of decision-making is built off muscle memory and habits built up over countless hours of practice. Low tier options may present gameplans wildly different to top tiers, and habits built against meta threats may not always work against low tiers. The video below from Vars III discussing the rise of low/mid tiers in Smash Ultimate touches on a lot of points in this space.
Matchup Imbalance
At the end of the day, if you bring a meta strategy/character against someone using something from a lower tier, you probably won’t have a ton of matchup experience against them. But they will definitely have a ton of matchup experience against your more common meta threat. The funny thing is that even once you switch to turn based games where you have time to think and make up the difference with logic, this imbalance still cannot be eliminated.
In turn based games with hidden information, using bad options makes it significantly harder for your opponent to guess what you might have available to you. The best case scenario is that you may even be able to work towards a hidden gameplan. In RBY it’s relatively easy to guess that an opponent might have Zapdos in the back, but it’s much harder to account for a more niche threat like Venusaur.
Even if you don’t have any advantage from hidden information, using off-beat strategies still presents a benefit, albeit one far less tangible. It’s that your opponent’s lack of familiarity with your strategy will mean that they misjudge the importance of various gameplay factors, or fail to grasp certain decision-making.
This is essentially what any player grapples with when learning a new metagame. It represents a subtle and nuanced knowledge base that’s difficult to explain, usually built up through extensive practice. Opponents can try to logic their way through this barrier, but it’s not easy, especially if there’s a time constraint. Using off-beat strategies obviously doesn’t force an opponent to relearn the meta, but even on a smaller scale this effect is a major obstacle.
A Matter of Attitude
Now, over the course of my trashmon chronicles thus far, I’ve used some really, really bad Pokemon. And for all my words about how you should use bad options, I don’t think you should use most of the Pokemon I’ve featured on my blog. They’re generally so deeply flawed that any off-meta boons you get are insufficient to overcome said flaws. However, it’s impossible to define where that boundary lies without practical experience. Moreover, every player will have their own boundary, as this will never be a one size fits all matter.
Something that’s regularly seen in many competitive games is for players to obsess over “meta” strategies. They act as if there are at most a handful of viable strategies in games where countless options and combinations are possible. This in turn causes players to greatly overestimate the gap between what’s optimal and what’s not. Subsequently, many options being declared unviable when instead they’re merely sub-optimal. Even in metagames that are decades old such as Melee, it’s possible for characters deemed unviable by top level players to make historic runs (and here’s Armada, a GOAT contender, dismissing Donkey Kong’s potential).
At the end of the day, it pays to experiment and push boundaries. Some of it won’t work. You might even decide this degree of experimentation isn’t for you. But rigidly adhering to a narrow list of what’s optimal ensures that you miss out on potential new ideas, as well as opportunities to challenge yourself and grow as a player. For me, I’m not going to stop using terrible Pokemon. Because I sincerely believe that using worse strategies makes me a better player.
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