Red&Blue Gym Leaders

A tier list by harm_contour · in Pokemon · published 20 July 2026

This is based on the strength and difficulty of all gen 1 gym leaders. Particularly for first time players or even kids because these games simply aren't difficult to anyone who's familiar with the Pokemon games. That said, you can't judge these games based on that since they were designed for people who never experienced Pokemon before. Brock: obviously very easy with 2/3 starters. It's kind of a cool battle in potential with Bide but it's really just difficult for Charmander and only the first time until a new player figures out what bide does. Obviously in Yellow it's a totally different ballpark but I'm not considering that in this list. The chances of you beating this guy going in blind is basically 67% - depending on your starter. Misty: comes in at quite a steep level and her Starmie (with a massive Special stat of 100) actually has Bubblebeam which is very strong (65 base is a lot for a 2nd gym). On top of that, Starmie has a whopping 22.5% crit rate in gen1. The battle keeps getting harder to win thanks to harden which adds an interesting dynamic especially for Wartortle and Charmeleon who may be tempted to use normal type moves. The chances of you beating her going in blind are quite low imo for a first time player. Even Ivysaur isn't an auto win because it's likely under leveled and Starmie outspeeds. Bubblebeam will actually damage you, and if Starmie lands 3 hits the chance of at least one being a crit is >50%. Furthermore, Starmie has perfect DVs and the player hasn't had the chance to really get many HP and Special EVs yet. That said, if you solo level Ivysaur it's quite an easy win because you can get to like level 22 quite easily that way. Lt Surge: with Voltorb's Sonicboom having the potential to weaken the team and then a very strong attacking mon in Raichu with Thunderbolt I'd say this is an awesome gym leader that forces you to get a counter such as Diglett or at least just overlevel your starter. Even with Ivysaur this isn't a walk in the park due to Sonicboom, Thunder Wave and then just eating several Thunderbolts in a row. Also while Ivysaur resists electric, its moves don't do super effective damage. The chances of you beating this guy going in blind are quite low imo for a first time player. Of course with a Diglett it's a walk in the park but that's just good game design. Also his Gym puzzle is annoying so even just getting to him feels like a hard fought battle even though it's a bit of a cheap tactic. Erika: actually she can be quite deadly if you don't have counters but that's really only relevant to Squirtle players and the chances of not having any bird mon at this stage is quite low. Tangela does absolutely nothing but Victreebel and Vileplume are solid mons with good moves due to Razor Leaf's high crit rate. Also they have a variety of spores and powders to mess you up. Still, grass counters are so easily available I never heard anyone seriously struggle with this gym even as kids. Koga: his level bump is huge (Erika's ace is lvl29 and Koga's is 43) if the players goes for him without detours. Due to the non-linear flow after celadon gym, players can easily fill in that level gap or arrive super under leveled and that is the main determining factor in how difficult this fight is. He also teaches the player that accuracy is a thing and he can be very annoying in the right context. Someone who just over leveled their starter and nothing else can actually lose to this guy if they let poison whittle them down and then Weezing can explode on them. Though this depends a bit on the opponent trainer AI which is generally not reliable. The main way people lose to Koga is being under leveled tbh. That said, Sludge isn't as terrible as it may seem as it's a STAB move of 65 base dmg and none of the starters resist it. All in all, this guy can definitely cause trouble even if he's ultimately not that hard to beat. Solid leader in my eyes. Sabrina: it's a shame her Mr Mime is a throwaway but on paper this is still a tricky one. Few mons resist psychic or do super effective vs them and then both Kadabra and Alakazam have recover on top of strong STAB damaging moves. The main problem is that players will have the Lt Surge badge at this point which boosts speed and speed EVs are the most common so it's actually kinda realistic to just outright outspeed her entire team except maybe Zam. And while Sabrina's team can dish out a lot of damage, it surely can't take much. If the player can two-shot everything, this really isn't much of a fight. Though I guess if you arrive paralyzed at the Zam and it gets its Reflect up this could become painful. Anyway, the Venomoth is a cool addition to break the true monotype and it can paralyze mons. Even though probably nobody will remember her Venomoth specifically. Still, arriving under leveled to Sabrina is a sure fire way to get sent to the shadow realm really quickly and IMO she's the most intimidating late game gym leader for sure. Blaine: the total monotype at this stage just is too easy. It worked fine for gyms 1, 2 and 3 but by this point the player has learned their lesson. Also fire isn't a great offensive type and 2/3 starters resist it. Charizard with eq and Blastoise just breeze through this gym. At least Arcanine is super cool and high level and has Fire Blast which can even do good damage to mons that resist it. Other than that just kind of a boring team I'm sad to say. Could've at least had Magmar with Confuse Ray or something. Giovanni: In Red/Blue he just sucks. The mons are awesome but they just don't have any good moves. And 2/3 starters have a positive match up vs him. I mean wtf is that final Rhydon with these 4 moves: Stomp, Tail Whip, Fissure, Horn Drill. The 1hko moves in gen1 only work vs slower mons... 1/3 of the time. And Rhydon is slow AF! Now if the rest of Giovanni's team had speed lowering moves or para moves then this would be a cool idea to punish "one mon teams". But the only way Giovanni can induce slowdown is Nidoqueen getting a lucky para with Body Slam. Considering he's the final boss it's just underwhelming. Even Charizard users won't have much of a problem because in Red/Blue Earthquake TM is found in Silph Co and can thus be easily acquired before Giovanni. I don't think many players would lose to Giovanni even when going in blind. Getting caught off guard with 1 hit KO moves is just not really a thing. Because 30% chance of body slam para combined with 30% chance to then land Fissure or Horn Drill just isn't it. Maybe this happened to like 5% of players. And then they just tried again with exactly the same team and strategy and NOT get unlucky and just win.

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