Ecruteak Gym :: Stadium 2: Gym Leader Castle

The fourth gym gives you yet another three trainers to beat. This time, you must defeat Medium Holly, Sage Ty and Gym Leader Morty. Their teams aren't as varied as the ones used in Goldenrod gym, but don't underestimate them.

Of the eighteen Pokémon used in this gym, eight of them are Poison or half-Poison types. Even with second types, they're all weak to Psychics. Also, seven are weak to Ice - if you have a Jynx, she's ideal for this gym.

Anyway, here' Medium Holly's team:
-HootHoot
-Ledian
-Unown
-Bellsprout
-Ditto
-Nidorina

Bellsprout, HootHoot and Ledian are weak to Ice, Bellsprout and Nidorina are weak to Psychic. The team's quite straightforward, but watch out for Ledian's moves - it has Safeguard, Light Screen and Reflect, which boost its Defense and Special Defense and prevent it from having its status changed. The good news is that it's very frail in the first place. If you can, try sending it to sleep or paralysing it before it uses Safeguard.

Make sure you have something to counter Ditto - if you're feeling bold, bring a Magikarp with only Splash along on your team, then switch to it as soon as Ditto comes out. Switch back, and you have an easy victory. If you feel you need all three of your team to be useful, bring something which the rest of your team can defeat.

Unown is easy to beat, but watch out for Hidden Power - it can be any type except Normal, so prepare to switch if necessary.

Sage Ty's team:
-Zubat
-Golbat
-Gastly
-Haunter
-Smoochum
-Misdreavus

Strangely, Ty has more Ghost types than Morty. Four of these are partly Poison types (Zubat, Golbat, Gastly and Gengar), so you'll be sorted if you have a Psychic type with you. The problem with this team is that they all know Mean Look - a move which traps your Pokémon, meaning you can't switch out. On top of that, they all have a move to combo with it - Zubat and Golbat have Toxic, Smoochum and Misdreavus have Perish Song, and Gastly and Haunter have Curse. As soon as they use one of those moves, the pressure will be on to defeat them quickly.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Gastly, Haunter and Misdreavus also know Spite. This move reduces your moves' PP, making it even more difficult to beat them. If you can, use high-PP moves such as Thunderbolt and Ice Beam rather than their low-PP equivalents of Thunder and Blizzard.

Morty's team will seem like a walk in the park after that:
-Noctowl
-Ariados
-Gengar
-Sudowoodo
-Girafarig
-Cubone

Morty doesn't particularly care for tactics - he goes all-out on the offensive, having only fighting attacks on his squad. The exception to that is Noctowl, who knows Foresight - this move allows Fighting and Normal attacks to hit Ghost types, so if you're a Ghost fan, watch out for Noctowl's Take Down. Other than that, match types and knock them out as quickly as possible; use a Psychic type against Gengar and Ariados (watching out for Gengar's Shadow Ball) and an Ice type against Cubone and Noctowl. If you have a Girafarig on your own team, use it against Gengar - it's part-Normal, so it won't be affected by Shadow Ball at all. A Dark Pokémon would also do well here, since four of the six Pokémon have a Psychic attack at their disposal.