Update: since I completed my testing of this Pokemon, many of Showdown’s replays were lost (occurred Nov/Dec 2023). Consequently, some of the replays I used as a showcase may no longer work- apologies!
NFEs, or Pokemon that aren’t fully evolved if you’re somehow reading my blog and not familiar with the abbreviation, are mildly interesting in RBY. It’s obvious that some NFEs are better than some fully evolved Pokemon, but they’re difficult to justify due to RBY lacking mechanics that might make them worthy. Items don’t exist, so there’s no Eviolite. An NFE getting a different ability to its fully evolved form might help, but they don’t exist yet either. In RBY, the only reasons an NFE might stand out from a fully evolved Pokemon is if it has a different typing, or if any of its stats get worse upon evolving.
That makes it a little ironic that Kadabra is unequivocally the best NFE to use in RBY. After all, there is nothing it can do that its fully evolved form, Alakazam, can’t do better. Picking Kadabra over Alakazam is never justified. So why Kadabra? Well, the premise behind Kadabra is that you pick it alongside Alakazam, not instead of it. And this actually makes a fair amount of sense.
Both Alakazam and Kadabra are effective status spreaders and have a fair amount of raw power with their STAB Psychics. As Psychic Special drops accumulate, they can threaten even the likes of Chansey, especially with a timely full paralysis. So the idea behind Kadabra/Zam is that you use one to wear down walls so that its counterpart can sweep.
I think this idea of using redundancy to its advantage is really cool, and also highlights how good Psychic types are in RBY. There’s essentially no downside to running them, and by combining paralysis with accumulated Special drops via the move Psychic they can overwhelm even walls such as Chansey.
Teambuilding
The first step in using Kadabra is figuring out how to use it. Using both it and Alakazam outside the lead slot gives you the best chance of maximising their combined power, however constructing a balanced team becomes extremely difficult. Kadabra can work as a bad Alakazam lead- the only matchup that drastically changes is Gengar which outspeeds, but that’s still very risky for Gengar. Alakazam is already one of the best leads in the game so you could certainly go that way as well.
Another question is which Pokemon should be brought out first? As mentioned, one should wallbreak and the other sweep, at least in theory. Kadabra is tempting as a sweeper, since revealing it early is terrible information management (your opponent can then assume you have Alakazam as well. I also think it makes sense for better Pokemon to support weaker Pokemon. However despite seeming intriguing, one single calc is enough to make Kadabra utterly unviable as a sweeper:
- Tauros Hyper Beam vs. Kadabra: 307-361 (108.4 – 127.5%) — guaranteed OHKO
Kadabra being outpaced and OHKOed by the best sweeper in the game, found on literally every respectable team, is a death sentence for sweeping potential. This is a nightmare to play around and just generally unfeasible. So that means you’re looking to play Kadabra before Alakazam, but what about whether you lead it?
Well, I tried both. I first made a team where both Kadabra and Alakazam were outside the lead position. This took a bit of experimentation, but eventually I settled on the team below. The full importable can be found here.
Edit: This team is less settled than I made out here- I’ve since made further changes. The fundamental issue is that Lax gets overwhelmed as soon as it Rests, and there’s very little backup in that scenario. I decided that rather than adding backup, I’d switch to a more aggressive variant that hopefully changes how the team plays.I haven’t updated the importable or anything, as I plan on testing more.
The general game plan of this team is to start by fishing for a freeze with lead Chansey. Eventually the opponent will either sleep it or paralyse and then switch out to Snorlax. If Snorlax comes in, that’s a prime opportunity to bring in Gengar and go for the sleep. It’s for this reason that Gengar has amazing synergy with lead Chansey. Once you’ve landed sleep, Kadabra can spread status and combine with Snorlax to wear down the opposing team, with Alakazam joining the fray later in the game.
There is one very notable issue with this team: it has no Rhydon switch-in. This is definitely a flaw, however the team is built in such a way that everything can threaten it with significant damage. It’s very much in line with the notion of offense compensating for defense, which I remember most from Borat’s legendary guide to GSC (although it is admittedly quite old and outdated at this stage)
If you’re offensive, be lenient to yourself on how much defensive coverage you need. Sacrifice it for offense if needed. Offense can cover defense. If Machamp can’t switch into anything, it isn’t really beating your team is it?
Borat
Likewise, if you’re defensive, you can be pretty lenient on how much offensive coverage you need. On the other hand, defense does NOT cover offense.
The other team I created used Kadabra as a lead, basically a poor man’s Zam lead. Below is what the team looked like, and you can find the full importable here
Looking at this team, one thing may jump out to you- it lacks a Chansey. The reason for that is simple- Starmie’s way better against physical attackers, while still covering opposing non-Electric special attackers. Meanwhile Chansey often feels redundant with both Kadabra and Zam having significant overlap defensively. I do lose out in the Zapdos matchup, however my idea is that the rest of the team can simply out-gun it, with numerous Pokemon outspeeding. This may also be meta-dependent: Zapdos was at a low point when I was testing this team and has since started to see a resurgence.
Honestly, the real shocker is that I’m running BlizzBolt Starmie in 2023. Although that set used to be standard for many years, these days whenever I run it I almost always change it, as lacking a STAB sucks when dealing with Lax and Tauros. But I found that I really needed the Exeggutor coverage, especially since Double Edge is really threatening to Kadabra (probable 2HKO!), while Tbolt was always mandatory on this team.
Kadabra as a lead is worse than Alakazam, but the difference is surprisingly small. You’re slower than Alakazam and Starmie, but that doesn’t make a huge difference as you should still be able to land status and play normally. Being slower than Gengar is obviously a cause for concern (even if Gengar isn’t as common as a lead), but it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. Gengar still relies on Hypnosis and its dubious 60% accuracy to capitalise on its speed, which can very well miss. I prefer early paralysis with this team, so Gengar’s getting paralysed and is suddenly in hot water.
Results
Kadabra looks like a poor man’s Alakazam, and frankly, that’s exactly what it is. It serves much the same role and is almost as effective offensively. Defensively it’s significantly worse, but it’s not unmanageable. Relative to Alakazam, the most notable differences are:
- OHKO’d by STAB Hyper Beam
- 75% chance to be 2HKO’d by Exeggutor Double-Edge
- 3HKO’d by Seismic Toss and Night Shade
- Zapdos Thunderbolt and Jynx/Cloyster/Lapras Blizzard have damage ranges between 36 and 46%, guaranteeing a 3HKO, whereas it’s not guaranteed against Alakazam
Those differences are significant, and go a long way in ensuring that Kadabra isn’t as effective at leveraging its offensive potential. At some point you have to make a trade off between being passive and risking letting it die. Compounding things is that many of Kadabra’s best matchups are capable of paralysing it. I don’t think it’s really practical to avoid status on Kadabra.
Despite that, it’s still effective, defensively against other Psychic types and non-SToss Chansey. It’s not greatly threatened by them (barring Double Edge Egg), and can spam Psychic to induce Special drops. The ideal thing would be to then force a switch and spread paralysis and damage, but a more realistic scenario would be that Lax has a much smoother time coming in and beating up a paralysed foe.
The lead Kadabra team is undoubtedly better than the non-lead team. Although I think the non-lead team can work, it’s just a little too unreliable defensively. Meanwhile lead Kadabra is just a worse version of lead Zam, and allows you to construct a balanced team around them. The only caveat is that early in the game Kadabra inviting in a fresh Lax is not ideal. Even if you damage or paralyse it as it comes in, that’s often not enough to make up for the damage it’s capable of dealing in retaliation.
I found that I got the most value out of Kadabra using it against weak special attackers or ones that often have mono-Psychic coverage. Basically, Chansey and the Egg/Star/Zam trio. This allowed it to both limit the spread of status within my team, and eventually force out the opposing Pokemon and allow me to capitalise from there.
There is one other thing that I’d like to vent about- how incredibly flawed Reflect Alakazam is as a sweeper. Using these teams gave me a new appreciation of just how much that set struggles, making it all the more wild to me that this set was ever considered standard (this Smogon analysis from 2012 lists Reflect as the primary 4th option).
The issue is that it has absolutely no tolerance for hax, as a crit from any physical attacker like Tauros will end it. Furthermore, even with Reflect, attackers like Lax can pressure it and break it with a timely full para, meanwhile Explosion also deals tremendous damage. On top of that, basically every special attacker it’s likely to face will be able to paralyse it, negating its great speed and exposing it to revenge killers.
Replays and verdict
I spent much more time testing my Kadabra team and accumulated a lot of replays. I think I might just list some of the more notable ones here. It’s also worth noting that a lot of the replays I saved used earlier versions of the team that were ultimately updated
- This tournament match against Emma I think showcases Kadabra well, as it was able to spread status and get some valuable damage off. It was using an earlier version of the team that I later scrapped, and it unfortunately wasn’t enough to secure a win- Zam got crit and I lost the Tauros ditto.
- This tournament match against Medeia also showcased Kadabra well, as it broke through Chansey and set up an advantageous position for my Zam before my opponent forfeited
- A tournament match against Kenix showcases lead Kadabra, which forces Rest from both Exeggutor and Jolteon. Overall though, lead Kadabra tends to do the job but seldom does much more.
- Using lead Kadabra again, this tournament match was perhaps a bit more typical for lead Kadabra- I was able to trade status, and later on use it to bait switches and generate momentum from predicting the opponent’s move. Also this is the only notable replay using the final version of my team.
- Using the final version of my non-lead Kadabra team I faced Ebola on the ladder, and this battle highlights the shortcomings of Kadabra. It got heavily abused by their physical attackers and ultimately I ended up losing
- Lastly, here’s a neat little replay from the ladder with lead Kadabra. It starts off by scaring Gengar out into Jynx, then later in the game it wakes and gets some valuable damage
The verdict on Kadabra is that it’s best used as a lead, where you can get solid value out of it, though it’s unlikely to perform spectacularly. I guess the best way to describe it would be to say it has a high floor but a low ceiling. In any case, it’s easily the best Pokemon I’ve covered thus far in my trashmon experiments, significantly better than the next closest competition in Magneton.
Leave a Reply