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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 TeamGen, 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: