[Borat]

Bleh, fixed some misconceptions. I think the way I wrote it gave off the wrong impression. I don't think you should consider snorlax/electrics BEFORE even constructing the team. That's just wrong. Most of the time you cover snorlax/electrics mid-build process anyway. Synergy is the most important aspect of all. No synergy, no team, just a pack of OUs.

Step 1a: find a purpose with team (roar spikes toxic, joltwak, para support + wak, druidcruel, drumzard, drumquag, drumfable, cursechamp, cursehera, growthpass blah blah anything you can think of)
Step 1b: if possible, fit more "goals" and different "paths" to take (goals that complement each other)
Step 2a: find proper support (do you need a phazer? spc wall, physical wall, beller, etc); take a look at team roles/genre
Step 2b: round out team of six if you haven't already; take into account switch patterns and synergies; take a look at team roles/genre
Step 3: account for Snorlax/electrics/whatever other threats or defensive walls you need to consider
Step 4: test, then return to step 2

If you're offensive, be lenient to yourself on how much defensive coverage you need. Sacrifice it for offense if needed. Offense can cover defense. If Machamp can't switch into anything, it isn't really beating your team is it?

Likewise, if you're defensive, you can be pretty lenient on how much offensive coverage you need. On the other hand, defense does NOT cover offense. The lazy man's fix is just to throw a drumlax on it, or if you think you're skilled enough, all you need is to ensure spikes (e.g. forr + missy), which should be plenty enough to guarantee the game won't draw out forever.

Priority:

1. core strategy
2. team synergy*
3. roles
4. defensive/offensive threats/holes/gaps

*Team synergy: Basically one way to look at it is how fluid the team performs in battle. Play out a hypothetical match in your head. Good teams with good synergy offer many paths and options by way of double-triple-quadruple switches to keep offense/defense flowing and not stagnant. This is the idea behind constant pressure. If you're playing a marowak, chances are you can force in Cloy/Cune/Skarm, so you need something to capitalize from that position, either switching into Cloy/Cune/Skarm, or double switching to another offense that performs well vs Cloy/Cune/Skarm (electrics come to mind). Likewise, a curselax can probably force in steelix/miltank/skarm matchups, so you probably want something to capitalize off those matchups as well. These are just defensive switch-in examples. Sometimes, there are offensive "holes". If you're running starmie, then you run the risk of freely letting in lax, be it drum, curse, mix or any other of the million variants. You'll need something to fall back on from this position. The idea is to have many overlapping functions between a team, to make the team perform... as a team, rather than individuals. It's a general concept, and tough to grasp, but when you build a team with good synergy, it'll just "feel" right.

Example scenario: I send machamp, they send zap, I send lax, they send skarm, I send zap, they send lax, I send champ again. So if I make a double switch anywhere, I can force the ideal mismatch I want, be it zap vs skarm, lax vs zap, or champ vs lax. This allows me to get that all important curse on the switch, hit on the switch, para on the switch, fish for a CH, or whatever it is I need. These little switch triangles, squares, what-have-yous, make the team that much more dynamic and allows for more flexibility in real-world situations. Good teams have plenty of these hidden vs a wide variety of matchups

A team with good synergy is usually built from the ground up with this synergy concept in mind, rather than the "I need defense vs pokemon X so tack on pokemon Y". It makes the focus about the team, rather than the opposition. Otherwise, you have a team that feels somewhat disjointed. Just something to keep in mind.

After multiple tests and changes to the team to address problems, it will become one of two things:

1. Better
2. Worse

Humor me. If it's better, then good, keep at it. But don't base "better" off just wins or anything, if it "feels" better, more synergetic, more comfortable to play, performance in-battle, etc.

If it's worse, time to start over, maybe even scrap it and find a new core strategy to build around. Teams usually become worse because generally changes made were to cover up defensive gaps, since if a team loses, it's losing to certain attacks? And the best way to address those attacks? With defense! Don't fall into this trap, or you end up with a team that's completely disfunctional on both fronts.

However, if stalling was your goal in the first place, then maybe covering additional things made you suseptible to stuff you weren't weak to in the first place. Then look for alternatives, or just decide which one is more important to cover, and learn to play around the other thing.

It's very likely that whatever problems you're addressing could be covered up by playing differently, so if a team is at the point where it's starting to "feel right", then check to make sure if there's any changes you can make to the way you play before you make changes to the team and mess up the synergy.

Be creative.