Pokémon Gen 1 Team Builder for Red, Blue and Yellow

How does this Gen 1 team planner work?

The builder on this page is preset to the Red / Blue / Yellow Pokédex, which is the original 151 Pokémon, and to the Gen 1 type chart with 15 types. Click Add Pokémon in any slot, search by name, Pokédex number or type, and the Defensive matchups, Offensive coverage and Team averages panels update as you add members.

Because the chart is the Gen 1 version, the defensive grid has 15 rows instead of 18: Steel, Dark and Fairy do not appear. Pokémon that gained those types later are judged by the types they had in 1998. Magnemite's Steel typing is ignored so it is treated as a pure Electric type; Clefable and Wigglytuff are treated as pure Normal types. The per-member grid under Show per-member multipliers shows the ×2, ×0.5 and 0 values the original games used.

The counts in each cell are weak · resist · immune. For a Gen 1 story run, the rows that decide most battles are Electric, Ice, Psychic, Ground and Water, because those are the types that strong trainers actually attack with. If any of those shows a first number of 3 or more, fix it before worrying about anything else.

What is different about the Gen 1 type chart?

Gen 1 has its own type chart, and several of its rules were changed in Gold and Silver. The builder applies all of them when Red / Blue / Yellow is selected, and the Pokémon type chart page has the full Gen 1 grid for reference.

Three more quirks shape what a good Gen 1 team looks like:

• Dragon has no real attack. The only Dragon move is Dragon Rage, which always does 40 damage regardless of type. Dragonite's typing matters defensively, but its Dragon attacks do not benefit from any type chart value, so the Offensive coverage row's Dragon entry is cosmetic in Gen 1.
• Ice has almost no resists. Only Water and Ice types resist Ice attacks, and nothing is immune. A ×2 or ×4 Ice weakness on Dragonite, Golem, Rhydon or Exeggutor is effectively unanswerable except by switching to a Water type.
• Ghost moves are weak anyway. Lick does 20 base power and Night Shade does fixed damage equal to the user's level, so even without the Psychic bug, Ghost offense is minor. Gengar's real value is its Poison typing, Ghost immunities to Normal and Fighting, and high Special.

Why are Psychic types nearly unbeatable in Gen 1?

Psychic's only weakness that works is Bug. The Bug moves available are Twineedle (25 base power, hits twice), Pin Missile (14 per hit, two to five hits) and Leech Life (20), all on Pokémon with low Attack. The Ghost weakness does nothing because of the bug in the table above. Psychic attacks hit Fighting and Poison for ×2, and Poison is the second most common type among the 151 because of all the Grass/Poison and Bug/Poison lines.

The stat system compounds this. Gen 1 has one Special stat that serves as both special attack and special defense, and the Psychic types with the highest Special, Alakazam, Mewtwo, Starmie, Exeggutor and Hypno, are also the hardest to damage with special attacks. Psychic is also a special type, so their own Psychic attacks run off the same high number. Critical hits are based on base Speed, and Alakazam's 120 base Speed gives it a critical hit on roughly one in four attacks.

For team planning this has a direct consequence. Your team's Defensive matchups row for Psychic should show no more than one weak member, and you want a Psychic type of your own, since the best answer to a Psychic type in Gen 1 is a faster Psychic type. Sabrina's gym and the Elite Four are where this matters most.

Which types do you need for the Red, Blue and Yellow gyms?

The eight leaders are the same in all three versions, but Yellow changes several of their teams. The table uses the Red and Blue teams and notes the Yellow differences afterwards.

In Yellow, Lt. Surge uses a single level 28 Raichu, Erika uses Tangela, Weepinbell and Gloom, Koga uses three Venonat and a Venomoth, Sabrina uses Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam, Blaine uses Ninetales, Rapidash and Arcanine, and Giovanni uses Dugtrio, Persian, Nidoqueen, Nidoking and Rhydon. The types you need do not change, but Koga's team in Yellow is Bug/Poison, so Flying, Fire and Psychic attacks all work.

The Elite Four is the same in every version: Lorelei (Ice, with Dewgong, Cloyster, Slowbro, Jynx and Lapras), Bruno (Fighting, with two Onix, Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee and Machamp), Agatha (Ghost and Poison, with two Gengar, Golbat, Haunter and Arbok) and Lance (Dragon, with Gyarados, two Dragonair, Aerodactyl and Dragonite). A Psychic type and an Electric type together have a super-effective attack against most of these twenty Pokémon, and an Ice attack handles Lance's three Dragons and Aerodactyl. The Champion is your rival with a team built from the starter that beats yours.

How is Pokémon Yellow different for team building?

Yellow is built around the anime, and that changes your opening six in ways the builder cannot infer from the Pokédex alone.

• Pikachu is your starter and follows you on the overworld. It refuses the Thunder Stone, so you are stuck with a 90 Speed, 50 Special Pokémon for the whole game unless you trade it away and back. Pikachu does learn Thunderbolt by level 26 in Yellow, which keeps it usable through the Elite Four if you want to.
• All three Kanto starters are gifts. Bulbasaur comes from a woman in Cerulean City if Pikachu is happy enough, Charmander from a trainer on Route 24 north of Cerulean, and Squirtle from Officer Jenny in Vermilion City after you beat Lt. Surge. Taking all three gives you Fire, Water and Grass by badge three, which is a complete core already.
• Jessie and James appear in Mt. Moon, the Rocket Hideout, the Pokémon Tower and Silph Co. with Ekans, Koffing and Meowth. Their Pokémon are the only way to see those lines in Yellow, since you cannot catch them.
• Thirteen Pokémon are missing. Weedle, Kakuna, Beedrill, Ekans, Arbok, Raichu, Meowth, Persian, Koffing, Weezing, Jynx, Electabuzz and Magmar can only be traded in. In exchange Yellow has both Red's and Blue's exclusives, so Growlithe, Vulpix, Oddish, Bellsprout, Mankey, Sandshrew, Scyther and Pinsir are all available in one cartridge.

If you are planning a Yellow team, add Pikachu first, then the three starters, and read the table. You will usually find that Electric and Psychic are your remaining holes, which Ground and Psychic types fill. The Suggested teammates list is drawn from the 151 and ranks fully evolved options first.

Red vs Blue: which version has which Pokémon?

Red and Blue each lock eleven Pokémon behind trades. The lists are the same in the Japanese Red and Green and in the Virtual Console releases.

Arcanine is the main reason to pick Red for a story team: it is the best non-starter Fire type in Gen 1 with 110 Attack and 100 Special. Blue's Ninetales is weaker but Vulpix is available earlier, and Blue has Sandslash as an early Ground type for Lt. Surge. Neither list changes the type coverage you need; it changes which Pokémon fills the slot.

Beyond version exclusives, remember the in-game trades and one-offs that every version shares: Eevee from the Celadon Mansion rooftop, Lapras from Silph Co., a free Magikarp outside Mt. Moon, the fossil choice in Mt. Moon (Omanyte or Kabuto) and Aerodactyl from the Old Amber. Hitmonlee or Hitmonchan from the Fighting Dojo is a choice, not both. Build those decisions into your plan before you make them, because they cannot be undone without a second cartridge.

Related tools

This page is the Gen 1 version of the main Pokémon team builder, which can switch to any later game's Pokédex and type chart from the Game menu. If you are replaying Kanto in the Game Boy Advance remakes instead, the FireRed and LeafGreen team builder uses the Gen 3 chart with Steel and Dark, the fixed Ghost matchup and the Sevii Islands Pokémon. For the general method behind filling six slots, read how to build a Pokémon team.