>>38611694Gen 3 or 4.
Gen 3 had the most diverse meta, but was kind of held back by the Baton Pass elephant in the room. The lack of the physical/special split is hit and miss, I think overall it's more miss than hit, but it's still neat.
Gen 4 has a slightly less diverse meta, and was starting to show the effects of power creep, with pokemon just being redundant versions of others, and MagDrag was awful, but after Chomp and Mence got the ban, and the HGSS/PT Hypnosis accuracy fix, it was probably the single most comfy meta in existance.
Gen 5 shat the bed. Team Preview alone fucked most metagames and meant rogue teambuilding choices were instantly far less viable, and power creep pretty much broke the meta into broken pieces of shit in OU, and normal pokemon in the lower tiers, a trend that has continued to this very day.
6 and 7 are literally the exact same shit circus, it's almost funny how little gen 7 actually did to the gen 6 meta, besides tikis of balance.
Gen 2 is probably the most skillful meta, but it is also easily the most boring.
Gen 1 is just very straightforeward. There's like, 3 pokemon that need to be on every team, Tauros, Chansey, and Alakazam, two slots dedicated to your choice of Exeggutor or Victribell, and your choice of Gengar, Golem, or Rhydon, then one last choice to define your team with, probably from Slowbro, The other of Gengar, or Rhydon/Golem, Jolteon, or some other niche dark horse pick.
