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To all the HO players that are groaning about how difficult is to face a Deoxys-D, and that you are forced to a 50/50 flip coin between the two Deoxys-D, Naive CB Genesect is your answer! It outspeeds Deo-D, gets an Atk boost because everyone puts the 4 EVs on SpD to ensure that they will always set-up a layer of hazards against ScarfSect, and deals 105.26 - 125% with U-turn. Not to mention this lovely Explosion!
If you really think about it, prediction really doesn't make you 'win matches'. I have never won a single match solely because of one huge good play with great prediction- even if it meant getting a Dragonite to, let's say, +2. Pokemon isn't just one play, nor is it a fight between one pokemon. Especially with experienced teambuilders and players; they never put themselves in a position where should they be predicted they would lose the match. No. Against someone who knows what they're doing, you could get a Latias to +6, but often there is a Quagsire or Scarfed Genesect waiting in the wings. Not only that, but if you watch almost any battle in an international tourney, you'll quickly notice that matches rarely are completely composed of quarrels between advantages between the players. Usually, advantage is not grabbed by a single person for the whole entire match. It fluctuates- sometimes, you have momentum, sometimes your opponent has it. Don't focus all your energy on a single play, because you'll be prone to screwing up afterwards.
In my opinion, winning a match is not one smart play, but a solidified connection between strategy, pokemon, and player. You've got to have a strategy- because you can't make a team with just the goal of 'winning'. It's not going to turn out well. You want to aim for a strategy that will help you win, instead of winning 6 1v1 matchups with astonishing prediction. Find a strategy that will help you beat win any match if you do it successfully, create a team around that strategy, and when battling, just DO it. If you've got to sacrifice a pokemon, then do it. Winning shouldn't really be focused around how you should act against your opponent, but more of how your opponent will respond to you. What counters your strategy? Make sure you've got a solid answer to it. What prevents your strategy from being set up? Prevent that. What are the flaws to your strategy? Cover them up as beast as possible. As a famous quote has always said, it's not the battle that determines the winner, but the preparations made beforehand. Craft your strategy, your team, so that you never put yourself in a rut, where it's a loss-loss or even a win-loss situation.
Just as a side note, I've noticed that there's a higher chance of you making MORE bad plays after making a single one, as well as a higher chance of making MORE good plays after making one.
Really? I win on big plays all the time. Like, me burning a gliscor with sableye on a mostly physical team that can't break sable. Or me taking down the enemy's spinner, or weather setter, or the one pokemon that can break me.
Pokemon CAN be just one play. Let's say i take down your quagsire or genesect. My latias can now sweep you easily, GG. (Not to mention, if it's SUBcm, then scarf genesect phails.)
Again, i've created momentum through single big plays all the time. Well-built Pokemon teams are like a building. Strong and tough, hard to break with a lot of force-but remove one key element, and it all comes crashing down. I recently wrote a post about how, against rain teams, the entire game comes down to me burning politoed. That's because once it's burned, it'll die. And once it dies, the whole team is GG. Once someone's status absorber is gone, sableye wreaks havoc. Once someone's starmie counter is gone, starmie ruins stuff.
Actually, it IS the battle that makes the winner. Have you ever played against one of those challenge noobs with an uber team with your any other tier team? A lot of the time, my OU team beats theirs. You could argue better synergy and a gameplan, sure, but more often it's just... they suck and i don't.
As for HO teams, why don't more run sableye? It's a great last-ditch check to all kinds of sweepers, and it's really hard to give up momentum with prankster taunt. And you can always run that really douchey Cm recover set, that might actually be good for stallbreakage.
People who say prediction is 50/50? I suppose you can't really prove it, but i tend to win those coin flips an AWWWWFUL lot for just blind luck. (Although playing this game, i do see how luck can be skewed.)
People who say prediction is 50/50? I suppose you can't really prove it, but i tend to win those coin flips an AWWWWFUL lot for just blind luck. (Although playing this game, i do see how luck can be skewed.)
Just for the sake of clarity of what a 50 / 50 is pretend you have Weavile and Latios facing each other down one on one- does Weavile Ice Punch / Night Slash or Pursuit? Does Latios try to bomb Weavile or does it try to GTFO? Assuming both players have a clue what they are doing they know they might as well flip a coin here.
Of course if you know what the other player (a random low ladder player with no experience) is trying to achieve you can pretty much predict their exact move on any given turn. For example the brain dead play of Breloom vs. anything slower- they WILL spore every single time, just send in whatever's least valuable for the rest of the game, even if its at 20% they won't consider you sacking it. Don't take too long though or they might figure out something's up!
A coin flip is only a coin flip if both players are aware of it- those players you're getting "lucky" against probably aren't even aware of the other moves they should be contemplating, if they're only thinking about one move you only have to think about that one move. Of course you don't have to get carried away and take ridiculous risks because its not a 100% certainty but it's pretty close.
As for HO teams, why don't more run sableye? It's a great last-ditch check to all kinds of sweepers, and it's really hard to give up momentum with prankster taunt. And you can always run that really douchey Cm recover set, that might actually be good for stallbreakage.
Really? I win on big plays all the time. Like, me burning a gliscor with sableye on a mostly physical team that can't break sable. Or me taking down the enemy's spinner, or weather setter, or the one pokemon that can break me.
Pokemon CAN be just one play. Let's say i take down your quagsire or genesect. My latias can now sweep you easily, GG. (Not to mention, if it's SUBcm, then scarf genesect phails.)
Again, i've created momentum through single big plays all the time. Well-built Pokemon teams are like a building. Strong and tough, hard to break with a lot of force-but remove one key element, and it all comes crashing down. I recently wrote a post about how, against rain teams, the entire game comes down to me burning politoed. That's because once it's burned, it'll die. And once it dies, the whole team is GG. Once someone's status absorber is gone, sableye wreaks havoc. Once someone's starmie counter is gone, starmie ruins stuff.
Actually, it IS the battle that makes the winner. Have you ever played against one of those challenge noobs with an uber team with your any other tier team? A lot of the time, my OU team beats theirs. You could argue better synergy and a gameplan, sure, but more often it's just... they suck and i don't.
As for HO teams, why don't more run sableye? It's a great last-ditch check to all kinds of sweepers, and it's really hard to give up momentum with prankster taunt. And you can always run that really douchey Cm recover set, that might actually be good for stallbreakage.
People who say prediction is 50/50? I suppose you can't really prove it, but i tend to win those coin flips an AWWWWFUL lot for just blind luck. (Although playing this game, i do see how luck can be skewed.)
But see, that's not prediction, that's strategy. You KNOW your Latias is a huge threat when your opponent's Quagsire or Genesect goes down. You KNOW your Starmie can sweep once your opponent's counter is removed. As a great player, you KNOW that all you have to do in order to get closer to winning the match is to take out certain pokemon so Latias or Starmie can sweep. So, that's what you aim for during the battle. Prediction will help your strategy, but it does not define it, and it should not BE it.
As for your question with Sableye, Sableye is great for countering Stall, but when most players see it, they see 'support', and don't put them in an offensive team even though support pokemon are godly for HO as well. Also, I've seen people use Wide Lense and all that, but still WoW's accuracy is still terrible, and it seems as if you always miss when it's most necessary to hit. I've used Sableye on an offensive team before, and I can also say that by experience I've found that it's hard to transfer from Sableye to a sweeper safely. You can Taunt a support pokemon and burn it, but nowadays they usually carry coverage moves that can hit your frail sweepers for a pretty decent chunk. Maybe I'm just not playing it correctly.
Yeah I think there's a clear difference between prediction and playing knowing your opponent's team. With B/W introducing team preview, it adds a whole new dimension to the battle. You have to think twice about making a certain move as can be detrimental, for example knowing your opponent has an Espeon or Heatran but deciding to use Toxic or Will-O-Wisp respectively. It adds a whole other level of prediction to the battle, as your predictions turn into obvious plays. Team preview has also made it possible to analyse your opponent's team before a match. It allows you to see what Pokemon you need to remove before attempting a sweep, or what causes you trouble. It makes it a lot easier to play around knowing your opponent has something that threatens your team, whereas beforehand in past generations you didn't have this privilege. You didn't know your opponent's last Pokemon was a Swords Dance Lucario, so you didn't think to keep your Scarf Pokemon alive. Overall, I feel like this has lead to playing a lot more smart play among players, myself included. It's easy to see what team archetype your opponent is running from team preview, and how to play around it, for example Hyper Offense leading with Deoxys-D and Rain leading with Politoed. This relates back to the argument of prediction vs playing knowing your opponent's team. Prediction doesn't even have any role in a lot of matches. I'm not saying it's not important or players don't use it, it's just there can be matches where one team is clearly superior than the other so much so you don't even need to predict to win.
Prediction itself is an interesting concept. You should only really have to use prediction when you're at a disadvantage to regain momentum or catch something on a switch that makes your chances at winning a lot higher. Team preview eases this a lot, and forces players to think ahead, whether it be the next turn, 5 turns or even the whole match. If you can successfully make one good prediction it can completely twist the momentum of a match, regardless of the current score. The most relevant example is in the situation of Garchomp who is currently being suspect tested. One correct prediction allows Garchomp to get one free Swords Dance, or a hit off on one of it's main counters for that extra chunk of damage for a 2HKO. The main point here is that prediction is an aspect of battling that can change matches around instantaneously. But there are also other things to consider when making predictions such as the skill level of your opponent, and the risk involved when making said prediction. While it may change the battle in your favour, it can also backfire and you end up losing your Dragonite as you double switch into an Ice Beam.
As for Sableye, I haven't tried it. It seems like a pretty cool Pokemon for offensive teams, a cool pivot with status and recovery. The main niche it has over other Spinblockers is that Sableye can prevent hazards, as well as preventing Spins. Taunt + Will-O-Wisp shuts down most common hazard setters bar Heatran, which is great as most HO teams nowadays run Dragonite or Salamence, or some Flying mon that doesn't appreciate losing 25% everytime they switch in. Sableye also causes a lot of problems for Stall Teams, which HO can have troubles breaking through. I'll have to try it though to see what happens, it seems like a huge dick with priority status and shuts down a lot of the common 'mons right now.
The problem is that while Sableye is annonying, it's so frail, but still anonnying to take down because it has no weakness; you have to rely on OHKOing it with very strong neutral attacks because it has priority Recover. If you have only physical attackers, you have to pray that WoW misses, or you are going to have a Pokémon crippled for the rest of the match. Imagine if your CB Terrakion is burned... It's frustrating. It can still be dealt with many things:
Heatran (immune to Toxic, love being hit with Will-O-Wisp, can blast Sableye on oblivion with Fire Blast, problem is that without Life Orb, a Flash Fire boost or when it's rainning, Sableye isn't OHKOed, and priority Recover means that Sableye can still be annonying to take down)
Guts users (they actually love being statused so that their attacks are powered up; however, most of their STABs are Fighting, a type to wich Sableye is immune, and their coverage moves may not OHKO, making them suffer from the same problem as Heatran)
Hard-hitting special attackers (They aren't going to mind burns unless you consider the passive damage that they are going to take. But as burn don't halve damage from special attacks, Sableye is easy to defeat with a strong special attack such as Choice Specs Latios' Draco Meteor)
Whimsicott (if you avoid Taunt or a status move on the switch)
If you manage to hit Sableye on the switch with an attack that OHKOes him
Other than that... Sableye is annonying to face. I don't know if it's good by myself, I haven't yet tried to use it because of its fragility and lack of offensive presence, while in the past I had problems with stall teams, Sableye is just too frail and weak to use for me. It's not that it's played mainly as a supportive pokémon; it's just its frailty.
But see, that's not prediction, that's strategy. You KNOW your Latias is a huge threat when your opponent's Quagsire or Genesect goes down. You KNOW your Starmie can sweep once your opponent's counter is removed. As a great player, you KNOW that all you have to do in order to get closer to winning the match is to take out certain pokemon so Latias or Starmie can sweep. So, that's what you aim for during the battle. Prediction will help your strategy, but it does not define it, and it should not BE it.
As for your question with Sableye, Sableye is great for countering Stall, but when most players see it, they see 'support', and don't put them in an offensive team even though support pokemon are godly for HO as well. Also, I've seen people use Wide Lense and all that, but still WoW's accuracy is still terrible, and it seems as if you always miss when it's most necessary to hit. I've used Sableye on an offensive team before, and I can also say that by experience I've found that it's hard to transfer from Sableye to a sweeper safely. You can Taunt a support pokemon and burn it, but nowadays they usually carry coverage moves that can hit your frail sweepers for a pretty decent chunk. Maybe I'm just not playing it correctly.
Well, yeah, but isn't that mostly true of HO? It's not like you always get a free pivot to stuff. at best, you just sacrifice it.
Yeah, sableye is frail, but again, it checks plenty of stuff that HO hates like fire, and doesn't really cede much momentum.
As for the strategy thing...
Strategy is fine, and clearly you need to establish a way to actually win, but i consider this to be pretty basic stuff. We all know the properties of certain things, and how to leverage them. The real key is predicting what will happen and taking advantage of it. All the strategy in the world won't help you if you can't predict, but if you predict perfectly, you can probably win a lot of games. (Assuming your team isn't terrible.)
i like the idea of sableye on offense-but-not-too-offense; you have enough team flexibility that you can find an easy switch from sableye to something else, or from soemthing else to sableye. in addition, basically putting sableye anywhere on a team will give stall a really really bad day. on HO you're gonna have to sack it to switch it, but really either
1. sableye counters an entire team (cough full stall) in which case you're probably gonna have a free switch anyway, and only an idiot would sack a mon that was so effective against the opp's team. if sableye can counter THAT much of the team then chances are said team does not have that much punch. hell you'd probably leave sableye in rather than switching it out, if it can wreak that much havoc.
2. sableye counters a precise mon on said team (cough stallmons) in which case you only brought sableye in because that mon was ready to be countered, so the opp will probably gtfo now that they've been neutered by taunt, and you get to double switch with them to bring in a sweeper safely. sometimes you'll get lucky and the sweeper comes in against setup bait, other times not. depends on the team
3. sableye is being used to score a clutch burn or something on a setup sweeper or other offensive threat, in which case if you don't have a substitute up, sableye will die and was gonna be fodder against that mon/your opp's team anyway, might as well just sack n roll
i have had catastrophic experiences using sableye on full stall because it just has no bulk whatsoever and freaking everything kills it. i might try temp v1's substitute set from the OU lead thread if i get the time to ladder; substitute makes sableye so much more effective against offense (and also insures you against random shit like toxic forry if you didn't go for the taunt right away)
Sableye should never be to much an an issue these days for a stall team, remember it can only attack with night shade and wisp, if you have any of the following pokemon, you should be ok:
-Heatran
-Gliscor
-Amoonguss + Slowbro (oh no wisp has done over 66% already? switch and PP stall it to death)
-arguably Politoed and Tentacruel: don't mind burns and can fish for crits / burn hax before they are wisped to death
Whats is really dangerous to stall is its ability to spin block, walls can not take repeated boosted hits + hazards. Id argue that spin blocking is more dangerous this generation then last when packed on an offensive team.
Heatran has no reliable recovery so it can be wittled down. Amoongus can't touch Sableye with its moves, and Politoed/Tentacruel are going to go down eventually to the burn, and Sableye is not going to stay in on either of them risking a scald burn.
The only pokemon that would cause problems from your list would be Slowbro and gliscor and Gliscor has to be poisoned (but that shouldn't be too difficult).
one of the biggest problems for Sableye (other than powerful special attackers, and WoW misses) are clerics who stop Sableye from burning pokemon. If they get a free switch in to their cleric, Sableye will just have to burn everything over again and with WoW's shaky accuracy, that may not be too reliable. Clerics aren't too common as they're (Chansey essentially) only seen on Rain stall from my experience.
the thing is that taunt will give serious problems to almost anything on a stall team; even if sableye cannot damage them notably, it still shuts them down, makes them much easier to force out. any team using sableye should easily be able to capitalize on that. idk about you but half my stall team hates sableye's guts (skarm, chansey, latias) because the taunt ruins their day and prevents them from accomplishing anything effective while they're in. if sableye can't touch a mon, it should be switching out once it's taunted and possibly landed the burn. at that point it's already done its job; you have someone burned on your stall team and unable to support so you'll have to switch as well.
there are better stallbreakers in terms of being able to actually deal damage or break things down (britscor, taunt tornadus I or T, taunt jellicent - against certain mons) but sableye does a pretty solid job on it as well
one of the biggest problems for Sableye (other than powerful special attackers, and WoW misses) are clerics who stop Sableye from burning pokemon. If they get a free switch in to their cleric, Sableye will just have to burn everything over again and with WoW's shaky accuracy, that may not be too reliable. Clerics aren't too common as they're (Chansey essentially) only seen on Rain stall from my experience.
Yeah Clerics are quite annoying for Sableye, although if you're predicting it to come in, switch straight back into Sableye. Alternatively if you predict their Cleric to come in you can switch out to something that will be able to easily KO their Cleric, and so even if they do cure all of the burns, you can burn everything again for good.
i have had catastrophic experiences using sableye on full stall because it just has no bulk whatsoever and freaking everything kills it. i might try temp v1's substitute set from the OU lead thread if i get the time to ladder; substitute makes sableye so much more effective against offense (and also insures you against random shit like toxic forry if you didn't go for the taunt right away)
I would highly recommend you do its great to use, although it doesn't have to be just for a lead. The idea behind that set is to cause a lot of misery to your opponent throughout the match, whether that be starting turn 1, or later on in the match. As for a teamtype it best fits on, I'd have to say on either a Balanced team or a more offensively inclined one. As you've said Sableye on stall isn't all that great, because it can be KO'd easily enough given the circumstances, and on a stall team theres a plethora of other things that can do a similar job.
For anyone interested this is the Sableye set Alkinesthetase and I are talking about:
Okay well this guy is something that I used to use, and the only reason I stopped was because the main orientation of the team changed.
Thanks to his typing and prankster, Sableye can be a huge pain in the ass (we all know this). The main idea behind this set is to cause annoyance and break stall. The beauty of this set is that it can counter HO teams and stall teams, and you've only used one slot in your team. That allows this guy to be the 6th member on an already built team, that requires a little more insurance against certain teamstyles or specific threats.
Now the fact that it doesn't actually have any offensive moves can be looked on as a negative, although the four moves on the set are more useful than say Nightshade.
Taunt is obligatory with this set as it is the main thing annoying stall, and it can also hinder HO teams who try to set up hazards/screens early on. It also annoys the hell out of any set up sweeper in general. Will-O-Wisp is used over Toxic as time taken to stall something out with the burn damage is not so much of an issue, and the decrease in attack allows Sableye to stall out almost any physical attacker. Substitute is used in conjunction with Recover to allow Sableye to stall effectively, and if you absolutely couldn't stand not having an attacking move, you'd swap one of those.
The given EVs let Sableye maximise leftovers recovery, while pumping the rest into special defense so that he can stall out special attackers. The rest are thrown into Def as Sableye isn't actually attacking anything, and thanks to Prankster it doesn't need to worry about outspeeding. 0 attack EVs to minimize any confusion damage, if it somehow gets confused.
Thats just a lead I like.
Something else I've been trying out lately with my Sableye lead is the use of Torment. You can run Torment over either Recover or Substitute, whichever you feel is the least useful. Now combine priority Torment combined with priority Taunt, status, spinblocking and either reliable recovery, or more defenses against stalling, and you have one seriously annoying, although incredibly useful, utility mon. Personally I prefer running Recover over Substitute when I use Torment, because I will usually Taunt as my first option, preventing those random status' that are getting thrown around. There are very few things in the meta that can effecitvely deal with the set, things such as Thundurus-T and Tornadus-T are highest on the list, as they both carry multiple moves that can hit Sableye hard, so Torment doesn't both them. Although if they are burned and using a Life Orb, they can be worn down very quickly using Recover and Substitute. So whether you use Torment or Substitute is up to you, depending on which better suits your team, and exactly what you want Sableye to do.
The only things that beat this set are Fire types, because they can't be burned, although if you've previously Toxic'd them, they too fall just as easily.
The only true counter to this set is Heatran, as he can be neither burned nor Toxic'd, although I think today every single team has at least one, if not more hard counters to any Heatran variant.
If you read everything I accompanied the above Sableye with with, you'll see why I like using it so much, but for those that didn't; Sableye can act as a hard counter to both Stall teams and Hyper Offense teams, as well as being a solid annoyance for any other type of team. It is possibly the best utility mon I can think of, being able to do so much to support whatever team its on, and it can find a place on almost any team. When building a new team, Sableye is always something I like to keep in mind, although I will tend to not put him on the team until he is the 5th or 6th member, because you want to build your main team with 4-5 pokes, and then add him as one of the final members to cover a hell of a lot of bases. Oh, and this thing also absolutely goes to town in Ubers, but thats for another day.
Linking back to the discussion on prediction; using a Sableye similar to this from early on in the match, can force your opponent into thinking in a way in which they may normally not, in that they know they have to be a lot more conservative with certain members of their team for fear of a burn, or being shut down by Taunt. With Sableye helping to influence their mindset, you will be able to have a much more than 50/50 chance to correctly predict and understand what they are likely to do.
I've been using Sableye a lot lately on my Hail teams and he's been pretty fantastic. The extra residual damage is just crazy impossible for most teams to cope with. To my mind he's also one of the best anti-meta mons around right now because he beats non-Magic Coat or Mental Herb Deoxys-D, Genesect kinda, and a lot of the sand based physical offense which is going around generally. Plus he's great on Hail because Abomasnow or Kyu can set up on the only two Spinners which can get past you, Tenta and Starmie.
The 4th move thing is pretty interesting. I use Sub like most guys, Knock Off / Torment both have viability. I've actually seen Calm Mind being used as well to stall out special attackers.
CM's its own separate and awesome set, with the theory that, if sableye gets up some CMS, he becomes unbreakable. Then you can just stall out every member of the team. I'd imagine it works pretty well, except CRITS. But still.
Agreeing with the comments above. Everyone knows what a Sableye is packing for it's moveset, it's all about throwing your Heatran or any Fire type take the WoW, but keeping in mind that your opponent won't double switch predicting your own switch. It's all about mind games with Sableye and keeping pressure up against it. Magic Bouncers laugh all day as well, though not being able to do much in return they do force it out.
As you've said Sableye on stall isn't all that great, because it can be KO'd easily enough given the circumstances, and on a stall team theres a plethora of other things that can do a similar job.
the cruel thing about sableye for stall is that it fills so many roles that stall appreciates: spinblocks (pretty damn well - cruel and starmie will break subs and they'll actually hurt you if you don't have a sub up, but you deny them their protect/toxic/recover and then other mons on your team can break them easily. no other common spinner even begins to threaten you), breaks opposing stall (like crazy, because FUCK ferrothorn, taunt and burn it until it cries molten steel tears), spreads burn (granted jellicent does this pretty nicely as well), generally trolls everything (why else do you think the ability was called prankster)
and yet it just never seems to click on my stall teams because it just doesn't have the bulk. you end up having to spread those roles across multiple mons in stall (which you can do if you teambuild well, although i have yet to find the perfect formula), where as offense/balance doesn't need them all but likes being able to cram them all into one slot, which is why those teams get along well with it
ah and ricky horror also raised a good point in that stall is magic bounce weak enough as it is; running pure support mons like sableye will just make it worse. sableye and xatu kinda just ineffectually slap at each other until someone gets impatient and switches
I don't get the Sableye destroys stall statement at all. Sure Taunt shuts down many mons in a stall team but s good stall player should have accounted for such an obvious threat to stall. This is why pokes such as bulky Starmie with Scald, SpDefensive Heatran with Lava Plume, Slowbro with Scald and even Xatu exist. And i am only talking about hard counters now, as if we are only looking for checks then we also have Gliscor, Poison Heal Breloom and any mon with Regenerator. Just switch between the Poison Heal poke and the Regenerator poke and pp stall Sableye. Stall teams that are easily beaten by Sableye are not good stall teams.
Another very useful move for Sableye is Snarl, which lets you handle SpAttackers too, and also deal some damage to Reuniclus, which you hard counter.
Stall can beat Sableye with Heatran and Xatu individually and Regenerator mon + Poison Heal poke (although at this point one of your key walls is possibly burnt) but the threat Sableye poses isn't being uncounterable as much as being impossible to spin against on a sun team. Bulky Starmie with Scald is not going to reliably spin on Sableye even in rain (although Sableye will need SpD investment in this case) let alone counter it in normal circumstances. Starmie is very important to keep healthy because the spinner is way too valuable on stall to risk trying to counter things with Scald burns. If the stall team with Sun is in control of the weather nothing can spin on it so it just goes to show how badly you would want Heatran or Xatu specifically here, knowing how hard it is to fit cleric + regen + poison heal mon (lol). I could see Slowbro + Glisc without a cleric being used if stall were usable in this metagame so I wouldn't be at too huge of a risk of my physical backbone getting crippled.
I don't get the Sableye destroys stall statement at all. Sure Taunt suts down many mons in a stall team but s good stall player should have accounted for such an obvious threat to stall. This is why pokes such as bulky Starmie with Scald, SpDefensive Heatran with Lava Plume, Slowbro with Scald and even Xatu exist. And i am only talking about hard counters now, as if we are only looking for checks then we also have Gliscor, Poison Heal Breloom and any mon with Regenerator. Just switch between the Poison Heal poke and the Regenerate poke and pp stall Sableye. Stall teams that are easily beaten by Sableye are not good stall teams.
Another very useful move for Sableye is Snarl, which lets you handle SpA too, and also deal some damage to Reuniclus, which you hard counter.
What I meant by Sableye destroying Stall, is that it destroys the main strategies behind it. Obviously there will be members of any Stall team that Sableye isn't going to beat straight out, and there are more than you mentioned earlier, but its not like one's team is solely made out of Sableye.
Its true that anything that doesn't mind status, alongside Fire types, really have no issues dealing with a Sableye that doesn't pack Nightshade/Foul Play/Snarl. However there should always be other members of a team that can at least adequately deal with said threats. Magic Bouncers are an annoyance in general, however they are easy enough to actually take down with the correct match up, and if you decide to actually make Sableye one of the main facilitators in your team strategy, you simply adapt and make KO'ing Espeon/Xatu your number one priority.
As for Slowbro and other mons with Regenerator, sure they can just switch out and gain their health back, but on the switch you can just WoW/Taunt something as it comes in, which will generally put it at a disadvantage from turn one of the match up. If however you predict that say a Fire type, or something that doesn't mind status is coming in, you can switch to the appropriate member of your team. As far as switching between the Poison Heal mon and the Regenerator, what happens when Stealth Rocks and possibly a layer of Spikes are up? The Regenerator mon won't care all that much, as it's still making up ~8% HP each time it switches out, although the Poison Heal mon will die seriously quickly, and Sableye will have enough PP to outlast at least that. Granted Gliscor doesn't even get affected by Spikes, so to any Sableye not carrying an offensive move it does a good job of walling it, but Breloom goes down very quickly.
Its also not that common that a stall team will be built with Sableye in mind, because a large portion of players see it as to gimmicky to be a serious threat, and so leave it out when making their team. While this doesn't generally cause them all that much pain, due to Sableye's rarity in OU, when it does pop up it can really cause a lot of issues. So by that its kind of unfair to say that any Stall team that can't handle Sableye is bad, it might just be weak to one specific threat, as almost any team is.
temp said it pretty well. it's actually pretty challenging to make a stall team right now that has more than half its members taunt-weak. heatran is basically mandatory for weatherless or sand stall so that's already one. bulky pivots like amoonguss that don't tend to run more than two support moves; these mons can also fare okay against sableye and taunt users in general. the problem is that it's also nearly impossible to make a stall team that has less than half its members being taunt-weak. someone on your team's gotta be packing the hazards and the phazing and what not; all these things bring in a weakness to sableye. skarmory, for example, is a very common fixture on stall, sableye freaking destroys it. taunt, burn, start chillin, what's skarm gonna do? brave bird you to death while burned? not gonna happen.
ultimately any stall team should have answers to sableye yes, but sableye will also be an answer to a part of every stall team. the real work of stall is in the moves that don't deal direct damage, and sableye shuts them all down. indeed with good play the stall player should be able to kill sableye and get back to the game. but with good play, the sableye player should be able to protect the sableye and ensure that costs the stall player momentum and health every time it comes in - either way, sableye is gonna be pissing you off
as for actually hard countering sableye, yee said it well... it's tough to build a core of mons that will actually hard counter sableye. unless you can just smash its face in (and even then it might have a substitute up), the slippery little bastard is gonna recover and then either keep trolling you or flee for its life, and it'll be back later. it's hard enough to build stall right now as it is; trying to incorporate specific abilities or specific mons (barring universal glues like latias, who fit on nearly EVERY team) just makes it harder.
finally, i could see xatu beating sableye with sun-boosted heat wave or night shade, but sableye could really do the same thing back with a night shade of its own, so the two will just be roosting/recovering off one another's hits until someone runs out of either pp or patience. xatu would need toxic to win (granted, plenty of xatu do carry toxic, so it's not out of the question) in which case sableye has to substitute to survive (can't taunt a motherfucking xatu), at which point it loses the sub and either subs again (takes more damage, eventually you run out of health with which to sub unless you can read xatu's mind and sub only when it toxics you) or attacks (might eat a toxic). eventually xatu will win, although it will probably take a while.
Btw, seeing as yee mentioned Sableye as a spinner in sun teams being able to wall any spinner, what about Sun stall? It's an idea that i always wanted to try, but never made it, because tbh it is quite a difficult task.
The biggest assets that sun stall offers over other stall teams are Sableye, a spin-blocker that cannot be beaten by any spinner, an almost godlike special wall, Heatran, which loses its water weakness in sun, and is therefore now able to wall Latios, Recover-less Starmie, Rotom-W and Tentacruel as well as hit very hard with Lava Plume, Cresselia, which is an excellent wall that beats many threats to common stall such as MixMence and CB Terrakion and of 'course the deadly SubSeed Venusaur.
problem with sun stall (and it's a shame because i'd love to see full stall in sun done well) is that so few things can capitalize on sun in a defensive manner... steel (being the best defensive typing in the game) has a fire weakness that suddenly disappears under rain, and rain dish exists (cough tentacruel). in addition, bulky politoed is actually bulky, because it can serve as a bulky water. sand wears down opposing mons, and boosts the special defense of rock types which means things like tyranitar and terrakion actually become kinda bulky.
compare to sun. the only thing it really has going for it, from a stall perspective, is that it denies other weathers. bulky ninetales is... lol not bulky. if by bulky we mean "struggles to survive but tends to do the job well enough that dugtrio can do the rest", then okay, you got me, but sun can't win the weather war without the offensive pressure and momentum that helps trappers thrive. being pure fire is really not a very good defensive typing. fire actually lends itself REALLY well to other defensive typings (heatran and rotom-heat have absolutely incredible typings, seriously if rotom-h's typing was on a mon with better support movepool, i would use that shit) but on its own just downright sucks. in addition, sun worsens the weakness of one of the most important defensive types in the game, steel, which impairs your ability to wall any dragons that pack fire coverage, hence why dragons work so well both under and against sun. then there are relatively few defensive benefits to sun - no equivalents to rain dish, no residual damage like sand or hail that goes so well with stall. the only real stally thing that benefits from sun is morning sun, which is actually a terrible move, because with only 8pp you can't stall out anything or anyone. you get accelerated chlorophyll subseeding, but there are better ways to wear down opponents, ways that sun has difficulty exploiting.
the benefits of sun for defensive teams are limited, and the only ones i can think of have already been listed. hence why sun stall is not really a thing. there need to be more good bulky fire and ground types for sun stall to succeed (rock is probably better in sand than in sun...). just as rain takes away steel's weakness to fire, sun eliminates weaknesses to water; that's got to be the best way to capitalize. i guess you have mons like donphan, lando-t, bulky rotom-h, bulky heatran, etc, but why go to the trouble of running sun (which has the hardest time winning weather wars, on its own at least) if you would abuse those threats instead of powerhouses like cb victini? i'm one to talk since my favorite style is weatherless full stall (probably even crazier than sun stall, in this era...), but it's really a matter of pragmatism
i build my stall teams in terms of FWG+hazards, but the problem with sun stall is that ninetales already wastes a slot for little to no benefit. if you actually intend to run full stall in this metagame, every mon needs to be pulling its full weight, which is tough when ninetales sucks ass. this team probably wouldn't work in practice but let's see what happens if i start bullshitting off the top of my head
obviously bulky ninetales is a start. idk if i'd run roar because heatran is probably a given as well. definitely pain split, but i'm feeling gliscor in here somewhere so maybe neither toxic nor willowisp are necessary. double fire phazers feels very redundant though. probably the standard sunny day set with sunny day/solarbeam/pain split/fire stab and a bulky spread. you'll actually hurt opposing weather starters that way, and seeing as there's no room for dugtrio, you need all the help you can get.
heatran, i'm not sure about. i've preferred shed shell restalk heatran on all my other teams, but this being sun, the whole point of shed shell (countering sun sectrio) is kinda moot. i'm thinking standard sdef heatran with lefties, lava plume, protect (if you're gonna run lefties, might as well abuse em), roar, willowisp.
grass, the obvious shoo in is venusaur, but i'm not sure. a part of me leans towards tangrowth, but the shit special defense makes you too vulnerable to rain, and a grass type that can't take on rain is bullshit in my mind. i'd probably end up sticking to specially defensive subseed venusaur. i'd want to run spikes rade except that its bulk is just not good enough for OU.
the water is a tough one, because i like slowbro (fire blast 8D) except it's not a great pick for the meta right now. if in doubt i'd probably start by trying it though, some standard set would probably work fine for a first attempt.
there we go, fwg+ninetales. what's next with 2 slots? idk, tbh. sableye seems like a shoo in because we seem to agree that it spinblocks best when in sun, but that leaves only one slot for hazards+toxic. i like latias because it fits everywhere (this is the only place where i'd actually run hp fire latias), but that means you have to cram stealth rock onto heatran. you can run britscor but you have no room for sr. landorus-t seems nice; no room for toxic though. and none of these options give you a spinner; the only one that fills that would be pure support donphan (rapid spin/stealth rock/roar/toxic).
FINAL PRODUCT: tales, heatran, slowbro, subseed venusaur, sableye, donphan?
even so the team has only one steel, a steel that is fighting/eq-weak, so dragons destroy you. ROUND TWO START
okay so after writing all that i realized that the resulting team would probably suck ass. i think the problem is that fwg is too rigid to build around when you only have 5 slots. let's try again.
again let's start with the bulky tales and the bulky heatran. we can shuffle around roar and toxic and willowisp between these guys however we want so let's skip that part. i think i'd put sr on heatran this time.
now, spikers on sun is what i really want to think about. i don't want to run forretress, right off the bat i know that. rapid spin/spikes is too much work for forry when it also has to handle dragons, which are sun's problem #1. i'm thinking either deoxys-d (bulky spiker - recover/taunt/spikes/night shade) or standard skarmory (using my special 252/x+/60 spread that takes two LO tornadus-T hurricanes). deoxys brings a nice fight resist and doesn't carry a fire weakness, which is nice, but it's vulnerable to shit like cb tyranitar (which sun is weak enough to already), and it doesn't provide a dragon resist. leaning towards skarmory; it plays nice with heatran and brings in the crucial second steel - no stall team these days should go without two steels; too many dragons running about.
okay so that's three mons: tales, tran, skarm. where's the rain counter? i don't like amoonguss because opposing fire types will murder you and he'll pull no weight except against rain. gastrodon is the obvious choice. if we give gastro toxic then we can take it off of either tran or tales, whichever one was running it. i like physdef gastro personally, but ima try to find room for a lando-t or donphan or shit in here, so let's keep going and let the gastro be sdef to take shit like thundy-t focus blasts better
tales, tran, skarm, gastro. we already have a problem with ground attacks but ain't no such thing as a levitating spinner. i'm gonna say xatu here to alleviate both problems - screw spinners, and screw ground attacks. standard xatu (heat wave/roost/uturn/status) should be plenty sufficient.
now for the final mon. if we look at the resistance pattern of the five we have, we can already see some typing issues. xatu is the only solid fighting resist and terrakion destroys it. stab electric abounds and gastro is the only counter (bulky heatran cannot stay alive against thundy in rain). my thoughts initially went to britscor, but the overlap of potential status users on this team is getting high. instead let's try that substitute sableye set. if we get up a sub we can burn terrakion and its ilk and protect our precious spikes and sr. plus we seem to have agreed that sableye works well in sun so why not? plus, if we run willowisp here and toxic on gastro, that means neither ninetales nor heatran has to worry about carrying status, which gives them maximum moveslots.
FINAL PRODUCT: tales/heatran/gastrodon/skarmory/xatu/sableye. the weaknesses are not nearly as obvious, but i think this one still has some pretty deep flaws... i wouldn't want to be the sucker having to play it. still, it's not a terrible second try.
obviously this requires a more committed team building effort, but if you just look at the ideas that i started spinning off the top of my head, there is very little that ninetales brings to the table... softens water moves and gives venusaur chloro, and that's it (venusaur is not even a very good stallmon to start with, that's why subseed is its last set >_>). that's what i don't like about sun stall: sun itself becomes the weakest link, an artificial limitation on your team, and you start wondering what you could accomplish if you just dropped ninetales for something that actually... does something. what can i say without trying it though, eh?
EDIT @ wynaut below: yeah mamoswine is a major limiting factor for stall in general; i used to be running sdef skarm with no def investment but mamo easily flinches it to death with icicle crash, so you basically have to be impish+def investment or mamoswine will break your team no matter what else is on it. edgequake+fighting+ice is really quite catastrophic. zong counters but easily gets worn down by switching in on repeated superpowers, dies eventually.
