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how viable is stall as a playstyle?
- Thread starter Bad Ass
- Start date
I enjoy Stall and still see as a viable play style, now whether you agree or disagree is up to your preference and desire for using Stall based teams. Countering every Pokemon along with the multitude of sets each Pokemon can be running in BW 2 is close to impossible if not so. Now that being said I believe it's more of the player's experience and skill that make Stall viable. I myself play rather aggressive with Stall contrary to the belief that Stall shouldn't over predict. Just the same can be saod about Offensive teams. A lead +5 sweepers can be thrown at each other till someone folds, which in the end it'll be the one that has the best strategy that comes out on top.
interesting that you say this, because it certainly begs the question of whether stall is solely good as a ladder playstyle or whether it is also viable in tournaments. it's often said that a good ladder player is trash in the eyes of the community because he can't consistently perform in tournaments. stall, if suited to anything, is better for the ladder where common sets reign supreme and consistency is valued above all. crazy batshit offense teams often lose to a certain defensive core, or fail to perform vs good players, while a stall team on the ladder usually has a decent enough matchup. obviously things like dragon spam are problematic, but against a standard balance team stall often works out quite well.
in tournaments, which are usually best-of-1 affairs against high level players, gimmicks become much more viable. you only have to keep your surprise hidden once -- no long, drawn out bluffing, no facing the same player twice, no word getting around of your team. even in best of 3 sets, you can change teams. the viability of gimmicks really hurts stall, since it thrives in the standard being in play
I'd like to just say that, at least with this generation, a lot of very strong players have emerged out of near obscurity aside from a few ladder tops to go on to perform well in official tournaments.
However, I totally agree with your second point and would like to make note of the fact that the reason stall performs so well is because it consistently beats bad players easily. And it's really consistent in winning a lot of games against less skilled players. Prime examples of this are IPL's ladder tops with stall last generation and KG's use of Taylor Stall when he was a Frontier leader. However, in a metagame where a player isn't driving for consistency with sheer number of wins (~20-25 games are necessary for getting to #1 on the ladder, ~5-8 games are necessary for winning most tours) I would say that stall would almost always be the inferior choice, since you'll be running into random shit that you wouldn't see on the ladder, since on the ladder players are running pure standard builds to drive for the greatest flat number of quick wins. That's not to say that Stall isn't tournament viable this generation - I know Lizardman and Bloo were both using some stall in Superstars, and obviously OST (lol) finals involved a matchup with stall oriented teams.
But finally, the top 4 on the ladder being stall doesn't really say anything. Stall consistently beats bad players, which simply means that decent players laddering with stall will perform well on the ladder regardless.
Ojama
Banned deucer.
Confirming the fact that Stall is extremely good against bad players / less skilled players. Stall has always been seen as a safe playstyle and that's why some players like using Stall in tournaments against "random players" to get a free win. But in my opinion it's almost impossible to win an official/big (like superstars) tournament only with Stall teams because they're weak to haxx, gimmicks stuff and matchup (it's pretty easy to deal with Stall with 2-3 Pokemon like Breloom and Landorus). I remember when someone told me that if you want to win something like Smogon Tour or Frontier, you have to use something else than defensive teams and he was right especially in the current BW2 Metagame. There are too many threats to deal with and being under pressure during an important game is definitely not the best thing... Just look at the OST finals between gr8astard and DestinyUknown: gr8 brought an original offensive team and destroyed DU's defensive sand very easily. In those kind of games it's really important to surprise the opponent and to take risks if you want to win. Balanced Teams are still viable and work well but I really don't see how Stall can be still viable in the current Metagame to be honest, there are just too many threats to handle and it's just impossible to counter them all.
I personally believe that stall is a very viable playstyle, just perhaps underdeveloped due to the fact that many people can't be bothered to use it correctly. A lot of people may find immediate trouble in the fact that they can't play it right off the bat, so they just give up. This means we don't see many n00bs playing stall, which means that there is less creativity - despite n00bs being n00bs they can occasionally come up with good ideas. And, as Ojama said, they can't really be used by better players in their tournaments, etc.
Stall, in BW2, often finds trouble in the fact that it can't deal with certain pokemon, especially because a lot stall powerhouses are earlier generation pokemon, they now can't deal with the power creep that is occurring. Landorus-I, Keldeo and TechniLoom are threats that have emerged this generation that stall has real trouble with. Stall teams will either need to get a specialised check to these pokemon or die whenever they come against them. Not being able to check absolutely everything is a problem for stall, whereas with with offence or even balance you can just make that a pokemon never gets its opportunity to sweep you. In stall you often need to use all of your pokemon, meaning that you will probably have to expose set-up bait somewhere along the line.
However stall can often be paired with more offensive pokemon to deal with a lot of offensive threats, as Meru has done with his team Aromacity. Semi-Stall is much better than Stall now, due to the fact that it can return offensive pressure on the more glasscannon-y pokemon that dominate OU nowadays. The synergy of a stall team, then a fast attacker is excellent. I do believe that full stall can still have a dangerous effect on the opponent, as the more pokemon you can counter then the more wins you will get. I have tried messing around with a full stall team of Hippowdon/Skarmory/Blissey/Jellicent/Heatran/Tentacruel, and it did very well against a lot of better players who used more standard pokemon and can't break through the defensive core. It certainly wasn't good - but I am by no means a good player and I expect that a better player could do better with it.
Overall, I believe that Stall is an extremely strong laddering playstyle, and a mediocre tournament playstyle. I would personally believe that an example of a less than viable playstyle would be Trick Room, and Stall is certainly far better than that.
Stall, in BW2, often finds trouble in the fact that it can't deal with certain pokemon, especially because a lot stall powerhouses are earlier generation pokemon, they now can't deal with the power creep that is occurring. Landorus-I, Keldeo and TechniLoom are threats that have emerged this generation that stall has real trouble with. Stall teams will either need to get a specialised check to these pokemon or die whenever they come against them. Not being able to check absolutely everything is a problem for stall, whereas with with offence or even balance you can just make that a pokemon never gets its opportunity to sweep you. In stall you often need to use all of your pokemon, meaning that you will probably have to expose set-up bait somewhere along the line.
However stall can often be paired with more offensive pokemon to deal with a lot of offensive threats, as Meru has done with his team Aromacity. Semi-Stall is much better than Stall now, due to the fact that it can return offensive pressure on the more glasscannon-y pokemon that dominate OU nowadays. The synergy of a stall team, then a fast attacker is excellent. I do believe that full stall can still have a dangerous effect on the opponent, as the more pokemon you can counter then the more wins you will get. I have tried messing around with a full stall team of Hippowdon/Skarmory/Blissey/Jellicent/Heatran/Tentacruel, and it did very well against a lot of better players who used more standard pokemon and can't break through the defensive core. It certainly wasn't good - but I am by no means a good player and I expect that a better player could do better with it.
Overall, I believe that Stall is an extremely strong laddering playstyle, and a mediocre tournament playstyle. I would personally believe that an example of a less than viable playstyle would be Trick Room, and Stall is certainly far better than that.
Even on the lower end of the ladder which i find myself on, i see some Stall teams though it's probably more common/expertly used higher on the Showdown ladder.
I find myself using Hail Stall since it's a nice change from the offensive approach and Hail isn't commonly used. Since my understanding of battling basics and experience with Hail Stalling is still rough, i see why Stall is indeed a hard thing for newer players to pull off due to how BW 2 meta game favors more offensive teams. Threats like Keldeo, Tornadus T, Dnite, Terrakion, Kyu-B, Scizor and so many more put a ton of pressure on your walls. Scizor is what i encounter most and just rips me apart.
Is semi stall more reliable than pure stalling teams? I'd like to know more about that, perhaps make major adjustments to how i approach stalling with Hail.
I find myself using Hail Stall since it's a nice change from the offensive approach and Hail isn't commonly used. Since my understanding of battling basics and experience with Hail Stalling is still rough, i see why Stall is indeed a hard thing for newer players to pull off due to how BW 2 meta game favors more offensive teams. Threats like Keldeo, Tornadus T, Dnite, Terrakion, Kyu-B, Scizor and so many more put a ton of pressure on your walls. Scizor is what i encounter most and just rips me apart.
Is semi stall more reliable than pure stalling teams? I'd like to know more about that, perhaps make major adjustments to how i approach stalling with Hail.
can't agree with this post since DU had a team advantage and just misplayed. in tournament stall teams can work but they cannot be ladder-versions of teams. you need to have some kind of spin to them in order to make them effective against uncommon threats. IPL use to change up pokemon on his core stall team in DPP to handle things in tournaments, but the underlying core team was always the same. for example, he'd slot in a zapdos some games when he expected his opponent to bring that lame ass nasty plot heal bell togekiss that basically 6-0'd his ladder version. gotta adapt!
I think that stall is very viable as a play style, however there are quite a few threats that need to be dealt with very carefully. It is this reason that a lot of people don't think stall is viable. Pokemon like Breloom have very specific counters that must be used or you lose, simple as. A few pokemon don't even have counters, like Hydreigon or Kyurem-B, and some have counters that don't fit with the rest of the team, for example your counter to Landorus could be Celebi but if you want to use Ferrothorn as your main entry hazard user, you have a problem. For this reason, there will always be at least one common weakness that the stall user will have difficulty playing around. For this reason, most stall teams will look very similar as the same pokemon will be used in order to deal with the biggest threats in the metagame. I don't think that stall is the 'safe' play style any more as it is difficult to play nowadays, but it is still viable and extremely effective when done right.
I have had the most success using stall when basing the team around Hippowdon and Sandslash, therefore my humble opinion is that sandstall is the most viable type of stall. Hippowdon and Sandslash may overlap in terms of typing, but the roles they play are remarkably different; Hippowdon is a wall with various EV spreads depending on whether you want a physical or a mixed wall, while Sandslash is an offensive user of Rapid Spin that doubles as a revenge killer and 'oh shit' button. From there, I added the required teammates to combat the metagame and made sure I included everything a stall team needs (meaning entry hazards and a solid defensive core) and my stall team was made. I don't claim to be the best team builder ever, there are probably flaws in my team that other people will be able to fix, such as my weakness to Sheer Force Landorus, but no team is perfect right?
There are some pokemon that cover a vast number of threats and therefore are extremely good members of stall imo, despite their flaws. I think that Sableye is incredible to the point that I almost prefer to to Jellicent. Prankster is godly, Taunt and Will-o-Wisp are so useful with priority. Recover is also very good on Sableye with priority, it packs an extremely deceptive amount of bulk. A very surprising addition that I find effective is none other than the pimp in suede himself; Weavile. Seriously, it is a better revenge killer and general 'oh shit' button than anything I have ever used. Ice Shard prevents almost everything from getting a clean sweep, especially dragons, Breloom and Landorus. Pursuit removes yet more key threats like Lati@s and the best Rapid Spin user in OU; Starmie. Furthermore, the best answers to Weavile are Scizor, Conkeldurr and Lucario, all of which share similar counters like Jellicent. Seriously, try it out.
Similarly, there are pokemon that seem like good additions to stall but just don't cut it. Firstly, every member of the team needs an instant recovery move; period. Stuff like Landorus-T and Gyarados don't work, they get worn down and eventually removed by the pokemon they are meant to counter. The only exceptions are Ferrothorn as it makes Leech Seed work, especially in rain, while Heatran as it has the typing and bulk to make Leftovers enough, especially with Protect. Forretress is the worst culprit, it is overloaded with jobs and is outclassed at all of them. Choice Scarf Tyranitar is slower than Alakazam and walled by Jellicent after Will-o-Wisp. The Magic Bounce pokemon are frail and weak to Pursuit. The list goes on.
As of the introduction of BW2, stall has been one of the most difficult styles of play to work with. It is also, imo, the most rewarding. Building the team will be extremely frustrating as there is no way to use a team of 6 defensive pokemon and be reliably successful, at least one offensive pokemon must be used as a 'soft check' to a wider variety of threats. Not many teams will introduce anything original to stall, the same pokemon will crop up time and time again. But it can be done, and any player that does will have something to be proud of. Good luck
I have had the most success using stall when basing the team around Hippowdon and Sandslash, therefore my humble opinion is that sandstall is the most viable type of stall. Hippowdon and Sandslash may overlap in terms of typing, but the roles they play are remarkably different; Hippowdon is a wall with various EV spreads depending on whether you want a physical or a mixed wall, while Sandslash is an offensive user of Rapid Spin that doubles as a revenge killer and 'oh shit' button. From there, I added the required teammates to combat the metagame and made sure I included everything a stall team needs (meaning entry hazards and a solid defensive core) and my stall team was made. I don't claim to be the best team builder ever, there are probably flaws in my team that other people will be able to fix, such as my weakness to Sheer Force Landorus, but no team is perfect right?
There are some pokemon that cover a vast number of threats and therefore are extremely good members of stall imo, despite their flaws. I think that Sableye is incredible to the point that I almost prefer to to Jellicent. Prankster is godly, Taunt and Will-o-Wisp are so useful with priority. Recover is also very good on Sableye with priority, it packs an extremely deceptive amount of bulk. A very surprising addition that I find effective is none other than the pimp in suede himself; Weavile. Seriously, it is a better revenge killer and general 'oh shit' button than anything I have ever used. Ice Shard prevents almost everything from getting a clean sweep, especially dragons, Breloom and Landorus. Pursuit removes yet more key threats like Lati@s and the best Rapid Spin user in OU; Starmie. Furthermore, the best answers to Weavile are Scizor, Conkeldurr and Lucario, all of which share similar counters like Jellicent. Seriously, try it out.
Similarly, there are pokemon that seem like good additions to stall but just don't cut it. Firstly, every member of the team needs an instant recovery move; period. Stuff like Landorus-T and Gyarados don't work, they get worn down and eventually removed by the pokemon they are meant to counter. The only exceptions are Ferrothorn as it makes Leech Seed work, especially in rain, while Heatran as it has the typing and bulk to make Leftovers enough, especially with Protect. Forretress is the worst culprit, it is overloaded with jobs and is outclassed at all of them. Choice Scarf Tyranitar is slower than Alakazam and walled by Jellicent after Will-o-Wisp. The Magic Bounce pokemon are frail and weak to Pursuit. The list goes on.
As of the introduction of BW2, stall has been one of the most difficult styles of play to work with. It is also, imo, the most rewarding. Building the team will be extremely frustrating as there is no way to use a team of 6 defensive pokemon and be reliably successful, at least one offensive pokemon must be used as a 'soft check' to a wider variety of threats. Not many teams will introduce anything original to stall, the same pokemon will crop up time and time again. But it can be done, and any player that does will have something to be proud of. Good luck
Honestly I never really have trouble covering threats when I use stall, with the exception of Breloom and mixed Dragons of course. My problems stem from the fact that, because I'm using stall and I have to cover these threats, I suffer against balanced teams which often include more hazard / anti-hazard mechanisms than I can, while also keeping up offensive pressure against me. Basically, I'm beginning to think that old stall really is inferior. Offense really is the best form of defense. If hail stall had a decent Spinner it would actually be arguably the strongest in this metagame imo, because Walrein and SubRoost Kyurem provide a near perfect integration between stall and offensive pressure, not to mention the simple abuse of residual damage from other members (LS + Protect Aboma for instance).
Example. Say I'm using my hax-ish team of Landorus-T / Togekiss / Forretress / Jirachi / Celebi / Jellicent. It covers most meta-relevant threats well (SpDef Togekiss is god btw). When I lose, it's practically always against something like SubToxic Tentacruel + Ferrothorn + rain sweepers, which matches or outclasses ForryCent hazard-wise and is constantly threatening offensively too. I can't win unless I either completely outplay the opponent or get a Togekiss sweep. The only way I can improve this matchup without making my team objectively worse is to become more offensive myself. And this kind of playstyle, sweepers + defensive core and hazard control, is absolutely dominant at the moment. Pure offense isn't the problem at all.
Example. Say I'm using my hax-ish team of Landorus-T / Togekiss / Forretress / Jirachi / Celebi / Jellicent. It covers most meta-relevant threats well (SpDef Togekiss is god btw). When I lose, it's practically always against something like SubToxic Tentacruel + Ferrothorn + rain sweepers, which matches or outclasses ForryCent hazard-wise and is constantly threatening offensively too. I can't win unless I either completely outplay the opponent or get a Togekiss sweep. The only way I can improve this matchup without making my team objectively worse is to become more offensive myself. And this kind of playstyle, sweepers + defensive core and hazard control, is absolutely dominant at the moment. Pure offense isn't the problem at all.
As a new player who generally uses underrated pokemon and moves (it's a personal challenge to see if I can keep up with more 'optimized' parties), stalling is a major tactic that I employ. For my current party, 2 of my pokemon have Protect, 2 have Spore, 4 have access to healing (Rest, Recover, Dream Eater and Wish). For an unoptimized party, I'll say it does hold up rather well.
stall'd be a lot more viable without kyurem-b hanging around... if there was ever a mon that was capable of raping entire stall teams singlehandedly with zero effort, it's cube.
regular kyurem's subroost set is also a pain in the ass since you can't really hurt it and it's got pressure but it's way more manageable than its ridiculous black counterpart.
regular kyurem's subroost set is also a pain in the ass since you can't really hurt it and it's got pressure but it's way more manageable than its ridiculous black counterpart.
I actually am experimenting with a mix of Stall and Hyper Offense: wear out your opponent's mons with stalling, roar and whirlwind shenanigans and then sweep. This means that Kyu-B along with Chandelure forms the offensive core, sweeping weakened teams, especially CB Kyurem-B who, after Chandelure gets rid of all the steel types, wrecks weakened teams with STAB Outrage. I always try and keep one mon extra before sweeping so that Kyu-B can switch out, that mon acts as fodder and allows Kyu-B to come back in and sweep again.
So, what do you guys think of HYPER + STALL?
So, what do you guys think of HYPER + STALL?
I think that stall players need to experiment a lot more than they used to in order to find a combination that works consistently and fits everything in. For example, I tried out Mandibuzz to counter Sheer Force Landorus (Focus Blast is a 3HKO, even after Stealth Rock most of the time) amongst other threats, while providing support in the form of Taunt and Whirlwind. It worked like a charm. The set is below.
Mandibuzz (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Overcoat
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SDef / 8 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Taunt
- Foul Play
- Whirlwind
- Roost
Foul Play beats Alakazam, Reuniclus, Espeon and Xatu. With Taunt, Foul Flay can even wear down Latias, Jellicent and SubDisable Gengar. Taunt is so useful, fucking over the entry hazard setters that can't break its defences while preventing stat ups and giving status the middle finger. Whirlwind is the main way of dealing damage via entry hazards, while removing stat boosts the opponent already gained. Roost should be obvious.
Other pokemon that I have tried with success are Sandslash on sandstall to provide Rapid Spin and revenge killing support, Altaria to check both rain and sun at the same time while providing Heal Bell and Perish Song Support, Moltres and Zapdos both PP stall with SubRoost and Pressure while checking sun and rain teams respectively, even Weavile can play a similar role to Choice Scarf Tyranitar except its frail and it checks dragons with Ice Shard. Definitely try experimenting with pokemon that aren't often seen in OU, they may well surprise you with how good they are.
Mandibuzz (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Overcoat
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SDef / 8 Spd
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Taunt
- Foul Play
- Whirlwind
- Roost
Foul Play beats Alakazam, Reuniclus, Espeon and Xatu. With Taunt, Foul Flay can even wear down Latias, Jellicent and SubDisable Gengar. Taunt is so useful, fucking over the entry hazard setters that can't break its defences while preventing stat ups and giving status the middle finger. Whirlwind is the main way of dealing damage via entry hazards, while removing stat boosts the opponent already gained. Roost should be obvious.
Other pokemon that I have tried with success are Sandslash on sandstall to provide Rapid Spin and revenge killing support, Altaria to check both rain and sun at the same time while providing Heal Bell and Perish Song Support, Moltres and Zapdos both PP stall with SubRoost and Pressure while checking sun and rain teams respectively, even Weavile can play a similar role to Choice Scarf Tyranitar except its frail and it checks dragons with Ice Shard. Definitely try experimenting with pokemon that aren't often seen in OU, they may well surprise you with how good they are.
I think we all agree that stall is extremly hard to build in todays metagame. The main reason is, imo, that you not only have the problems you had with stall in former generations (aka fitting in Rocks, Spikes, Spinnblocker, Spinner, Core etc.) but to handle all the threats while also having Rocks, Spikes, .. . Sadly, most of the Hazard-setters and Spinners do have the same weaknesses, so while you have 2-3 slots for basic stuff in your team, you covered nearly nothing.
The lack of good spinners is also annoying as hell. The only really good spinner (Tentacruel) is shit outside of rain while the second best one (Starmie) is Pursuit-bait. All the other spinners can't beat any spinblocker. If there was another good spiner, that'd make stall a lot more viable.
Still, I don't think it is not viable at all. While you are limited in your options to cover everything you need to, you're still able to build a proper stall-team that's not outright 6:0d by hundreds of threats. Sometimes thinking outside the box is the key to cover certain threats. For instance, in BW1 I liked paying Rocky Helmet Skarmory to troll the omnipresent VoltTurn-Teams that plaqued every Stall-team and it worked out perfectly.
The lack of good spinners is also annoying as hell. The only really good spinner (Tentacruel) is shit outside of rain while the second best one (Starmie) is Pursuit-bait. All the other spinners can't beat any spinblocker. If there was another good spiner, that'd make stall a lot more viable.
Still, I don't think it is not viable at all. While you are limited in your options to cover everything you need to, you're still able to build a proper stall-team that's not outright 6:0d by hundreds of threats. Sometimes thinking outside the box is the key to cover certain threats. For instance, in BW1 I liked paying Rocky Helmet Skarmory to troll the omnipresent VoltTurn-Teams that plaqued every Stall-team and it worked out perfectly.
i think it's clear by now that nothing else is going to be banned no matter how ridiculous it is to counter (hi, i'm kyurem-b, the death of every stall team; my "counters" are actually shaky checks!). i'd love to be wrong but it seems that "x uber can be checked by this and shorter banlists get me off so lets unban it" is more likely. unless we unban some amazing defensive pkmn or ban some broken offensive pkmn i don't think there's any hope for stall. whatever.
After reading this thread, I had a few battles on the simulator just to see how much stall I would experience. What I mostly saw were a few stall pokemon that were used at the beginning (Sableye was fairly common) and then followed up with some heavy hitters/sweepers in the later rounds. I don't believe that stall is "dead," but I do think that (with gen V especially) that trainers are drawn to the more offensive pokemon at the moment, and using about two stalls on their respective teams.
This Clefable works like a spin blocker but has a very useful niche. Beats every spinner in OU one on one, although LO Starmie is shakey. Immunity to hazards and other residule damage keeps her healthy. Using Clefable for Stealth Rock and spin blocker gives more team slots. Laughs at Ferrothorn need I say more?
Clefable @ Rocky Helmet
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Stealth Rock
- Softboiled
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic / Grass Knot
Clefable @ Rocky Helmet
Trait: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Stealth Rock
- Softboiled
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic / Grass Knot
@above: Forretress sets up against it. Ferrothorn sets up against it. Anything with 101 HP subs sets up all over it. Tentacruel sets up all over it. Donphan sets up rocks against it. And it doesn't stop anything from spinning since it can't block rapid spin.
I haven't played OU since January, but from what I hear the meta hasn't changed that much. In my experience, stall is perfectly viable, although yes you have to have more much checks for things and be able to play around rather than blindly countering things. One of the biggest blows for traditional stall in my opinion was giga drain growth Venusaur as it pretty much shits all over traditional stall special defensive cores, Krurem-B didn't help the issue either.
This thread has made me consider playing OU again actually, though just for play and discussion, I don't have the skill unfortunately for much more. :/
This thread has made me consider playing OU again actually, though just for play and discussion, I don't have the skill unfortunately for much more. :/