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== ''General Maingame'' ==
* One strategy that works very well in almost any ''Pokémon'' game is simply using only one Pokémon in battles. While you're supposed to be using a balanced team to counter the Pokémon that are strong against your starter, [[One Man Party|by simply using the same]] '[[Mon]] over and over, it becomes so powerful that [[Scissors Cuts Rock|even super-effective hits deal almost no damage]] (and that's assuming they manage to hit you at all). Not until ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' was this strategy finally nerfed; your experience gains are based on the level difference between your Pokémon and the Pokémon you're fighting, so training just one Pokémon isn't really viable, as they'll be getting crap for Experience in no time.
** It's important to note that you WILL get a lot more EXP at the same level though, making getting early levels much easier. And later in the game, you can still be so overleveled that you don't NEED more... It's not uncommon to see a level 43 or so Emboar (usually used because it has [[Jack of All Stats|a great movepool and decent all around offenses]]) before the fourth gym, when the gym leader uses level 30 at the most.
** It's not quite as nerfed in Black & White as it might seem. Thanks to the fact that you get the Lucky Egg ''for free'' roughly half way though the game (which in itself could be considered a minor [[Game Breaker]]), the boosted EXP makes it quite possible to plow though everything with one high-leveled Pokémon.
* The single easiest way to get through any game is by having a friend who has already beaten the game and is willing to trade powerful mons. The first Gym Leader's level 15 or so Pokémon aren't exactly a match for a level 90 juggernaut, are they? To attempt to prevent this, the designers include the badge system; Pokémon not caught by the player will usually ignore them (doing things like sitting around, even sleeping in the middle of the fight) if they are above the level designated by the player's badges. The problem is that: 1. the Pokémon only has to listen to the trainer once, while in the meantime the opponents aren't capable of doing anything at all thanks to the super-Pokémon's ridiculous defenses, and 2. the badge system seems to think that the Trainers are much stronger than they are (for example, getting the fourth badge makes a traded Level 50 Pokémon listen to you, whereas the final boss has Level ~60 Pokémon in an average game.)
** Even easier is if you have a friend further in the game who has a bit of patience. Trade them your [[Mons]] and have them level them up on the higher-leveled Pokémon late in the game (along with the boosted exp for trading), and then trade back when they're sufficiently leveled. Then you won't even have to worry about the Pokémon ignoring you occasionally, as your own will listen to you no matter which badges you have.
* The series' original game breaker, and to this day one of the most dreaded, is Double Team. This move (and the very similar Minimize) increases the user's evasion - on the first use, all moves have 3/4 of their normal chance of connecting, the second use drops this to 3/5, and can continue until accuracy is 1/3 of the usual value. And when it was introduced, only one move could counter its usage - the underwhelming Swift. If an opponent had the chance to buff their evasion enough, or could heal on top of that (such as early top tier favorites Alakazam, Starmie, or Mewtwo), you basically had to hope to get extremely lucky if you wanted a chance to win. Even with a proliferation of ways around it (10 different moves guaranteed to hit, plus a few other ways to neutralize it), the effects of evasion are feared so much that banning the two moves guaranteed to raise it is perhaps the most common [[House Rules|house rule]] called, items giving one level of increase are considered overpowered, and things that have a ''chance'' of increasing it (the move Acupressure and the ability Moody) are also sometimes called game breakers themselves. And it is ridiculously easy to get, to the point where the full list of fully evolved Pokémon that can't learn Double Team at all is as follows: Ditto, Unown, Wobbuffet.
** There's also Minimize, which at first it was "Double Team, but with more uses and only a few can learn it". Then ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' make it '''''boost evasion twice as fast as Double Team'''''. Ow. It's just as banned as Double Team at least, but still.
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** Although, Psychics in general are ridiculous, another special mention is to Exeggutor who has good stats, nice sets of resistance (and some weaknesses that, back in Gen 1 aren't too well developed, making it some sort of [[Fake Balance]]) and nice move pools, including Explosion, Sleep Powder, and Stun Spore. To put it simply, in a metagame with such powerful threats, a status problem move will be very brutal to deal with. Exeggutor didn't have the speed of Alakazam, but its insane movepool made it a really frustating mon to deal with.
** Speaking of gen 1, one Pokemon stand amongst the rest, being considered the King of OU, not a psychic, but a [[Badass Normal]], literally: [[A Load of Bull|Tauros]]. It has solid stats (for the time) and nice move pools that allowed it to deal with most threats in the metagame. However, by the time, normal is, without a doubt one of the best offensive and defensive types. Fighting moves are rare, and it is only resisted by Rock, which Tauros can cover with [[Kill It with Ice|Blizzard]] (listed above), and at the time, Normal had the no recharge after Hyper Beam, which got downright brutal combined with the fact that Tauros was pretty fast as well. The best part, however, is the fact that if you mispredict the Hyper Beam, it can use Body Slam which paralyzes 30% of the time. It was so ridiculous that some considered the introduction of Foretress and Skarmory by Generation 2 is mostly for this beast.
** Also, another [[Badass Normal]] was Persian mainly because it was easy to obtain (at least in Blue Version), had great attack and speed, was very versatile, and had a great move set, which included Pay Day (so you would never run out of money again) and Slash (which always landed a Critical Hit in this game) and both moves were normal, so they got STAB as well. The only thing that could slow it down or stop it were Rock and Ghost Pokemon which were a small amount of the overall Pokemon population back then, and could be countered with Blizzard. Everyone else was susceptible to Slash considering it was 70 base power and 100 base accuracy plus STAB (1.5x) plus critical hits (2x). In other words, a Persian's slash was equal to 210 base power and 100 base accuracy, and unlike a lot of moves at that power, it had a lot of pp (power points), so it could keep spamming Slash until it eventually won the battle.
* One mustn't forget [[The Missingno|Missingno.]] in ''Red and Blue''. It's complicated to explain how to do it, but basically you can use a glitch to duplicate all your items, including the ''Master Ball''. So you can catch ANY Pokémon with ease. Or duplicate Rare Candies, and just spam your way to high levels (though your stats suffer somewhat). Or you can get infinite amounts of certain TMs and items, and can sell for boatloads of money or teach them to everything on your team. One must be careful when using it, though - it can become a [[Game Breaking Bug]] if you're not careful.
* ''[[Pokémon Stadium]]''. Go to Pika Cup with a Level 20 Charmeleon, Dragonair or Arcanine that knows Dragon Rage and see [[Curb Stomp Battle|what happens]]. It got nerfed on Stadium 2's Little Cup, though, where SonicBoom and Dragon Rage will always miss.
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** ''Emerald'' changed the scaling for Pickup too - it's far more useful than Fire Red and Leaf Green's Pickup, but still slightly less broken than Ruby and Sapphire's, as getting the better items require you to be [[Level Grinding|at a higher level]].
* An easy way to screw with the difficulty curve in ''[[Pokémon Colosseum]]'' is to abuse a [[Good Bad Bugs|bug]] that allows you to use any Ball an infinite number of times. Because much of the challenge in the game comes from catching the Pokémon of competent Trainers instead of those in the wild, taking advantage of would-be scarce early Great Balls and midgame Ultra Balls allows for many battles to go much easier than they normally would, and the money saved by not buying Balls and selling spares can be used for many more Revives than would be normally expected. [[Hilarity Ensues|And then you get the Master Ball...]]
* In the main game of Emerald, you can catch Rayquaza near the end of the game. Unlike in the rest of the series, the version legendary is at level 70 in this game, far above anything else in the main game, so if Rayquaza is used for the rest of the game, there will be no challenge at all.
== ''Fourth Generation'' ==
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*** The most popular item for Garchomp is the Yache Berry. It cuts the effectiveness of Ice-type attacks, Garchomp's only major weakness. This allowed it to get a Swords Dance off and practically guaranteed one or two KOs before Garchomp goes down. Which ties into the reason why Chompy got [[Kicked Upstairs]] into Ubers; in its heyday; it reduced practical diversity to the point where nearly every team that stood a chance was forced into something like this: Garchomp, Garchomp Counter x2, Counter-Garchomp-Counter x2, filler.
*** An even more hated version is Bright Powder-Chomp. Using Garchomp's Sandveil ability (opponent accuracy is cut to 80%) and adding an additional 10% for the item means that attacks hit him a maximum of 72% of the time in sandstorm, which by the way is painfully easy to set up (all you need is a Tyranitar). All you need to do is Substitute repeatedly until you dodge an attack, Swords Dance, and sweep. This is all made even easier because Garchomp can switch-in and force out most Pokemon because of how impossibly threatening it was. If you switch out while Chomp subs, gg.
*** Despite the fact that Generation 5 brought more ways to check Garchomp, he got banned. Again. Even with checks such as Balloon Heatran who could come in on any attack and KO as long as Garchomp wasn't hiding behind a Substitute with Hidden Power Ice, if Garchomp WAS hiding behind a Substitute, it didn't stand a chance. In fact, the combination of Substitute and Swords Dance in a sandstorm was a menace to anyone who couldn't break the substitute and take out Garchomp before it boosted too much or set up another substitute.
* [[Discussed Trope|Mentioned]] in ''Platinum'': one of the things Volkner can say when he visits your Villa is that all of his Pokémon are potential [[Game Breaker|Game Breakers]].
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** Multi-Hit attacks (Bullet Seed, Fury Swipes/Attack, Pin Missile). Due to the damage calculation in the ''Mystery Dungeon'' games being much different than the mainstream titles, these move actually hit as hard as most other attacks ''per hit''. The brokenness comes from the fact that the STAB bonus from the mainstream titles is also implemented in the Mystery Dungeon games, meaning with the right Pokémon (A Treecko with Bullet Seed and the Concentrator skill for instance), this can be quite lethal.
*** Speaking of Bullet Seed: because of how damage mechanics work, it can perform up to five ranged attacks, each of which deal a great deal of damage by themselves. And if you happen to KO the 'mon in front of you? It ''keeps attacking'' the ones behind it until you either run out of moves or targets.
*** If you think that's bad, try linking Screech with a multi-hitting move, like Meowth or Persian with Fury Swipes, and watch how fast you take your opponents down.
** In the original game, Protect made you invincible to damage for one turn, and Sonicboom only did 20 points of damage regardless of the Pokémon's stats. In the Mystery Dungeon games however, Protect now stays in play for multiple turns, allowing for multiple attacks while the opponent is helpless, and Sonicboom is a ranged attack that hits for 55 points no matter what. Also, unlike the original games where most Pokémon could easily have 200+ health points at the end of the game, most Pokémon naturally won't even reach triple digits (100+ health points) at the later points of the game, so just imagine how devastating and frustrating 55 direct points of damage from a distance, (specifically off-screen) would be.
** There was also Shedinja from the ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series, who unlike in the regular games where they were limited to 1 health point no matter what, ''were'' able to eat Sitrus Berries in order to increase its health to maximum. Couple that with the Wonder Guard ability, and the ''Super Mobile'' ability in the first game which is obtained by eating enough Gummies to reach maximum intelligence, to see how destructive one Pokémon could ''truly'' be.
** Attacks that hit the entire room are usually game breakers, i.e. Earthquake. Who cares if you wipe out your teammates (Or, maybe not, considering the hit radius is ONLY an entire room and teammates in corridors are safe) if you can curbstomp an entire Monster House? Or, for even more mileage, you can link Earthquake with an ability like Protect. Wipe them out, then defend yourself! The worst part is, a single Pokémon can have a multi-hit ranged move, a defensive move, and a room-clearing move, and will likely not find much use for any of their moves because that Pokémon will likely be stat-grinded enough from feeding it Gummis that it's generic attack one-hit KOs anything that's not a boss.
*** Pfft please, if you want a nasty one try Heat Wave, which hits all the enemies in the room AND leaves your allies unharmed. Same with Silver Wind, or any attack that hits the room all at once. On top of that it can be linked, and Charizard has it from a VERY LOW level, making dungeons that force you back to level one to be a snap with a Charizard on your team.
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** Similar to the above example the "[[Fan Nickname|Haymaker]]" cards which are basic Pokémon cards with HP comparable to most evolution cards and low energy costs; Scyther, Hitmonchan and Electabuzz can give you a massive advantage at the beginning of a match and then there's what happens if you have four in a deck.
*** The Pokémon Trading Card Game underwent [[Sequel Escalation]] for each generation that was released, plus another for HeartGold and SoulSilver. It's reached the point where the old Haymaker deck is easily overpowered. This is due to an increased emphasis on evolution in that evolved Pokémon get lower Energy costs for greater effects, more Pokémon capable of hitting the Bench, vastly improved Trainer cards (since then split into Trainers, Supporters, and Stadiums) that can easily search for cards of your choice from the deck or discard pile, and a trend away from Energy being the requirement for attacks, instead leaning towards other effects on the field. Together, this has resulted in a frenzy pace, most tournament decks refined to be fully set up in 1 turn, or 2 at most. For instance, Gyarados has an attack that does 30 damage for each Magikarp in the discard pile. A popular deck is designed to use Rare Candy to [[Magikarp Power|evolve a Magikarp on the first turn]] (bypassing a rule prohibiting this), find the 3 remaining Magikarps and discard them, attach an Expert Belt (which boosts attack power by 20), and use this move for 110 damage. Also, this attack requires no Energy at all. Compared to decks like these, the Haymaker is but a light jab.
** The Team Rocket booster packs, full stop. These had such Pokemon as Rocket Blastoise who could use its "Rocket Tackle" attack for 40 damage, and flip a coin which if it was called right, negated ''any'' damage from the opponent in the next turn including status effects, all for reducing its health by 10 HP, Rocket Charizard who had an attack called "Continuous Fireball", which for ''one'' fire energy it could flip a coin until it got tails, and the attack did ''50 points of damage to the opponent for each heads it got'', and the best part is that most of these overpowered cards were ''common cards''. The rare cards were even worse like Rocket Dragonite who had a power that allowed you to put two Pokemon on your bench at once while it was in battle, and a Trainer Card called "Here Comes Team Rocket" which made both players play the game with their prizes face up, and eliminating the random possibility of picking a weak prize after a victory while thinking of a proper way to use your prizes in any order you want, while keeping an eye on your opponents possible prizes at the same time.
== General Competitive Multiplayer ==
* In official tournaments for the ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, the use of insanely-powerful Pokémon (which are dubbed "Ubers") is almost invariably banned. Most of the Ubers are intentionally overpowered (most of the [[Olympus Mons|unique legendary Pokémon]] fall under this category, since they serve as an [[SNK Boss|ultimate challenge]] for those going for [[
** OU is considered the standard tier, anything below it being questionable for use in tourney play. Only very specific OU Pokémon draw ire, those being the most effective ones.
** Ubers also see use in the ''Pokémon Battle Revolution'' random Wi-Fi, where Nintendo has ''not'' banned them, oddly enough.
*** That's because tiers are entirely decided [[Broken Base|by the fans]]. That they haven't banned Legendary Pokémon (and Wobbuffet) from Wi-Fi play like they have from the Battle Frontiers in the later games, however...
* Even among the [[Purposefully Overpowered]] Pokémon, in Uber Tier of competitive play, there's some Pokémon who stand out too much and need a mention. Groudon and Kyogre are exceptional. Not only do they have an excellent stat spread and very broad movepools, they have an ability that change the weather upon switching in, which can easily turn the tide of battle.
** Kyogre gets special mention because unlike Groudon who's a ''Ground''-type Pokémon with an ability that raises ''Fire''-type moves, Kyogre's a ''Water''-type Pokémon that has an ability that raises ''water'' type moves, ''and boosting its Water-type moves along with STAB!'' Oh, yes, and it can learn Thunder! Combine that with the fact that its Drizzle ability is a ''permanent'' Rain Dance on the field (at least until someone else changes the weather) and you have the move Thunder hitting 100%, along with possible paralysis and Ice Beam for any dragons that try to resist its attacks. Consider that its Special Attack are on the same rank as Mewtwo with considerably better bulk, give it a Choice Specs to boost its Special attacks ''further'', or Choice Scarf to raise its speed to the point where only a few Pokémon without Choice Scarf itself could exceed it, to see how devastating it is in battle. Simply put, Kyogre is the Stealth Rock of Ubers: you MUST have a counter for it if you want to win. This Pokémon IS [[Game Breaker]] incarnate in its own tier. So much that you might see [[Com Mons]] such as Quagsire, Lanturn, Shedinja, and recently Gastrodon in Ubers just to beat Kyogre.
** Groudon is no joke either. 150 base attack, and 140 base defense paired with solid 100 base HP makes it a very sturdy tank that even Rayquaza's outrage can't break easily. He has a crazy movepool including Thunder Wave, Stealth Rock, Rock Polish and Swords Dance. Oh and he's a ground type meaning he gets STAB Earthquake which is awesome and is immune to thunder wave. In terms of power, if you, by some case, let Groudon set up more than 1 boost, you're going to face probably the most unstoppable physical sweeper in the whole game.
** While in lower tiers it suffers from no good abuser(as of gen 5, only 2 abusers are really great and the other abusers, while good, are no match for rain abusers), in uber tier sun (that is summoned by Groudon) has many great abusers such as Ho-oh and recently Reshiram in gen 5. Kyogre might be better on a single comparison but in terms of a supporting role, Groudon outclasses Kyogre with both its ability and movepool.
** However, the most potentially devastating of Kyogre's moves is Water Spout. Water Spout has a very high base power, rivaling the [[Awesome but Impractical]] Hyper Beam, and it doesn't need a charge up turn and therefore is practical. The downside is that it becomes considerably weaker as Kyogre's HP goes down. However, with the aforementioned Choice Scarf, it could outspeed a good portion of faster Pokémon. AND if you try to use Choice Specs to it, this move is able to beat Blissey in TWO hits WITH SPECIAL ATTACK. A feat that no other Pokémon in the game can do without a massive amount of buffing. In fact, only Latias with Soul Dew is able to switch in safely on Choice Specs Water Spout from Kyogre.
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** Mewtwo, the original legendary [[Game Breaker]]. Insane movepool, high stats, and unlike Deoxys is actually bulky in addition to being the 4th fastest Pokémon commonly used in the uber metagame. And as if that's not good enough, Generation V gave it Psystrike, a signature move that has good base power and hits physical defense with special attack. Yeah he is so awesome that he is now THE one and only Pokémon in the metagame that has an excuse to run its previously unseen Psychic STAB move without any drawback.
*** At first, Psystrike is still not very effective against other Psychics and Steels and useless against Dark-types, which means half of the Uber tier is still resistant to Mewtwo's STAB. Until you realize how Psystrike makes a really big difference. First off, it doesn't need to sacrifice itself to beat Blissey. Second, it might be bad, but considering the commonly used Pokémon in ubers is not psychic or can't take Psystrike is a big factor too. Mewtwo also has Aura Sphere, Shadow Ball, and Fire Blast to cover the coverage to hit everything you need to hit.
*** Finally factoring Stealth Rock, it can hit everything he previously needs specific move to hit with enough damage especially with Calm Mind up. Psystrike gives him an excuse to run STAB, and ability to beat Kyogre and Blissey more reliably with his Calm Mind Set.
** Palkia. Extremely powerful STABs, capable of running a mixed set, wreaks havoc if used with Kyogre. It can even sort of counter Kyogre, with a quad resistance to Water-type attacks. Blissey? Palkia used Aqua Tail. Groudon's Drought? He won't live for much more with his only average Special Defense. It's just as capable in Generation V considering Latios and Latias currently can't get Soul Dew.
** Dialga. It's for a reason why he almost always a top 5. Awesome typing that resists stealth rock and is immune to Toxic and Toxic Spikes, awesome movepool, and it even learns Stealth Rock and receives a very great stats spread offensively and defensively. This thing is basically a Droughtless Groudon with Dragon typing.
* Generation V's metagame has not yet crystallized but one playstyle on online simulators provoked quite a bit of outrage; Rain teams. See, thanks to the Dream World being able to unlock Pokémon with unique hidden abilities, Politoed now has Kyogre's Drizzle ability, summoning permanent rain storms. Combined with the speed-doubling ability Swift Swim and Water's fantastic defense and neutral coverage, the metagame was completely annihilated by a blitz of obscenely fast, strong, and bulky water Pokémon, with previously overused Kingdra and strictly underused threats Kabutops and Ludicolo being considered Uber-level fighters. Add to that Manaphy, who can maximize his special attack with two turns of setups and is immune to status in the rain (letting him instantly heal with Rest) and it's no surprise that Rain was completely dominant in the Generation V metagame until Smogon declared it illegal to utilize Drizzle and Swift Swim together.
** What makes rain more devastating than sunlight isn't as is said in Groudon's niche over Kyogre is the lack of a great sunlight abuser. In standard, only some sunlight abusers are good and Venusaur pretty much shows the face of sunlight abusers among Chlorophyll users (high Speed, great coverage, bulky, insane movepool). While not exactly bad, Rain however, has Kingdra which, when combined with choice specs, can spam Hydro Pump and Draco Meteor, essentially his STAB attack all day long which only resisted by two Pokémon, one of which is used on almost every team but can't take repeated hits and the other is pretty much unseen nowadays leaving only Blissey as the reliable one, and Kingdra can also (although inferior) use Dragon Dance. Combined with Ludicolo and Kabutops, during the days of Drizzle, they are called the Broken Trio(KingColoTops). The might of the Broken Trio is proven by surpassing even Manaphy's usage during the short time before Manaphy's ban.
** Also note, sunlight can only have one of high Speed or boosted Attack. Rain can have both. This plays a big factor in making rain broken.
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