SoT is Stalling out Platinum

Well after talking to people who thought that Stall would never work out well in this new Platinum metagame full of pokemon with new tricks up their sleeves. I decided to try out a Stall team, and after tweaking it a bit I came up with this. It's been winning a good 85% of it's battles, but it is lacking in some areas, it doesn't have an Anti-Spinner, and it doesn't have a way to heal status. This has got me to around 1500 since starting to use it at 800, and I haven't really tried climbing any higher than that. I'm hoping you guys at the Rate my Team board could help find things that I missed when building, and help me come up with ways to solve that. I created a new nick for the team just before posting this team, and it has gone 4-0 and is at 1000. I'll update the progress as I ladder. Nick is the same as the title, Stallin out Plat


Hippowdon (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP/16 Atk/152 Def/88 SDef
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock
- Roar

Hippowdon comes in and starts the fun. He sets up my Rocks, and starts the Sand Stream while posing a decent offensive and a great defensive precense in the battle. Slack off is there to recover damage when I need to, and Roar is just in case something tries setting up on me, or if I just want to shuffle around for residual damage.
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Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 240 HP/232 Def/36 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Leech Seed
- Recover
- Thunder Wave
- Grass Knot

This is a great set, and I have grown very fond of it. I am thinking about running HP Fire ove Leech seed, so I can catch incomming Scizors off gaurd. Thunder Wave is to Paralyze Heatrans, Infernapes, and other offensive threats switching in hoping to get a jump on the team. Recover to help regain health and to Leech Seed+Recover Stall.
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Forretress (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP/162 Atk/96 Def
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Earthquake
- Toxic Spikes
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin

Sets up my Spikes and Toxic Spikes. I usually tend to lean towards setting up Spikes before Toxic Spikes, since T-Spikes are absorbed easier, and don't effect as many pokemon in this current metagame as it did in previous ones. Earthquake is to catch incomming Heatrans who switch in more often than not. Rapid Spin to clear the field on my side of the playing field.
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Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP/216 Def/40 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Discharge
- Heat Wave
- Roost
- Toxic

This guy is the MVP of this team. Toxic is there to kill Swamper, and other pokemon that seem troublesome for this team. Discharge over Thunderbolt so that I can get a chance a better chance at paralyzing pokemon. Heat Wave for the oh so common Scizor, and other steels (Metagross/Bronzong/Lucario) switching in hoping to "absorb" a toxic. Roost to help me stall out longer.
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Rotom-w @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/136 Def/120 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

My status absorber and Anti-Spinner. He kills every Spinner with ease. I recently replaced Heatran with this guy, and my winning percentage has increased tremendously since doing so. I am very pleased with the performance he has been bringing to the table.
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Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP/80 SAtk/176 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Wish
- Protect
- Thunder Wave
- Ice Beam

In here for Skymin. Plain and simple, that thing is fucking annoying, so I threw this in here to attempt to Para/Beat it out. She has helped out a lot more than that though, she takes care of Heatrans Fire Blasts, and lures them into exploding right into my Rotom. Wish to heal herself and others, and protect is to get a free turn for toxic stalling, and get free health.
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After an immediate glance, you seem to have mistakenly chosen Brave for Celebi's nature, as oppose to Bold.

I may have additional comments to share with you later.

Yeah, I was just told by Latino lol. Thanks for catching that guys. ^_^

Even though I don't do stall I can rate it so yeah... even though Taylor will just outdo me in every way with his rate lol.

Ok so the Hippowdon lead is cool but consider Swampert. At a glance CBTar with Aqua Tail could be deadly to this team. I also like Reflect on celebi as opposed to T-Wave since with Reflect your team is very bulky on the physical side. You already have enough resists to the common special attacks. Try softboiled on blissey over protect. Set up pokes will just eat that set up since you have to protect just to gain HP.

You might wanna try Shed Shell on Forretress just for Magnezone trying to kill you. If Forretress is down Weavile is a nightmare to this team so you really wanna keep him alive.

As I said I'm not the best staller so I really can't help too much...

Need to edit the first paragraph saying you do have anti-spin

Who exactly said stall won't work in the platinum metagame......?

I really don't like the Thunder Wave + Toxic Spikes combination here to be honest. If you're going to toxic stall your opponent, you don't want to miss your chance without any pokemon, even Thunderwave'd you have a better chance of defeating the opponent's pokemon with Toxic. With that being said, why don't you try to use Seismic Toss over Thunder Wave on Blissey? With Seismic Toss you will probably have a much better chance of defeating a Zapdos, which can be pretty troublesome here. I honestly would not use Earthquake on Fortress here, you have something to handle Heatran with, so put that slot to something that will actually do something, and Gyro Ball fits well on the spot, being able to defeat and actually OHKO Weavile and Mamoswine, will hit Tyranitar, and 2HKO Gengar even without any Attack EVs.

There was a discussion about it in the main chat of Smogon University. A lot of people said stall really wasn't as viable anymore in such an offensive metagame. And really the only thing Thunder Wave is on there for is because of the abundance of pokemon that resist Toxic Spikes. On nearly every team 4/6 of the team resist toxic spikes. The other 4 are all of which vulnerable to Thunder Wave and with them being slower it helps my team (being very slow) have a much easier time to kill off opposing pokemon.

And EQ has been helping out, because I generally use it first turn, so I catch a ton of Heatran/Infernape/Magnezones switching in. I will take Gyro ball into consideration because of the Gengar thing, which troubles me to an extent.

Thanks for the advice guys =]

I've seen many stall teams like this have an Infernape weakness. The best tool you have to fend off Infernape is Calm Rest Talk Rotom. However, with Sandstorm blowing and Stealth Rock in play agianst you, it's not easy to switch Rotom in since Infernape can use Fire Blast without worrying about you sending in something to resist it. I can see you switching to Blissey to take the Fire Blast and then switching to Rotom for a Close Combat and Resting up when needed. I don't like to rely on stalling out a Pokemon with residual damage. Hippowdon can take a Fire Blast or Grass Knot and live; however, you would need to keep it nearly perfect health to manage that.

The good news is that you have something on every Pokemon to ruin Infernape, so you will be able to catch a bunch of them on the switch. Toxic Spikes also makes stalling it out much more realistic since you are only looking at only a few turns of switching. That allows you to stay on guard for other threats that could sweep you. Lucario and Kingdra can create small problems. Both of which you can handle, but you would be looking at taking a bit of damage in the process.

Overall, it's a good team. I don't recall battling you with this team, but there are a plethora of teams out here that go by the same formula. I would suggest adding something like Vaporeon for a definite Infernape counter, but it would probably create more problems to take something else out. The one thing that you could replace for it would be Celebi, but if you aren't having a problem with Infernape (or Fire-types in general), keep it the same.

Stall is getting some more backing thanks to Platinum, but there's one particular Pokemon that runs allover this: Azelf with Fire Blast, Grass Knot, HP Ice, Explosion (pretty much same thing w/ Mixape with CC over Splosion). You seem to have status balanced out pretty well, just remember, since Steel types are becoming evermore present Toxic damage is not as devastating as it once was. My suggestion (I pretty much suggest it to everybody lol): Bold Clefable @ LEfties w/ Softboiled, Encore, T-Wave, and Seismic Toss. It will take a Mixape CC, Gengar Focus Blast, this thing is sturdy. No damage from Toxic/SR/Spikes/Sandstorm/Hail. T-Wave + Encore give you a chance to setup with something or Stall out w/ Clefable. Wish Bliss really doesn't really aid your team too much- 5/6 of your Pokes have their own recovery, while you'd be dumb to keep Forry in on Sp Attacks.

After witnessing this team play about 3 times, I saw that you play it extremely well, and have ways of getting rid of Infernape when it comes in. But, it cost you crippling a pokemon or sacrificing, which is okay, but in stall teams, the wrong sacrifice on the right team leaves a huge hole in your team, such as when battling DDMence, and sacrificing Hippowdon or Zapdos. Also your kind of missing a bulky water, it would help out but it isn't completely necessary

sub heatran ruins you pretty bad i'd throw some stoss on that bliss... youll still be able to deal with skymin between zapdos/rotom/bliss, and with sand/sr up youll be putting the pressure on it it monre ways than one.

After rotom is pursuited by ttar (ice punch from lucari does ~60% iirc) this team is wrecked by ice punch lucario. I suggest adding more speed to zapdos to outpace luke.

He can handle Tyranitar with Fortress and Hippowodon and;

After rotom is pursuited by ttar (ice punch from lucari does ~60% iirc) this team is wrecked by ice punch lucario.

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You can't use this kind of logic in pokemon, this is pretty bad logic, because if we go by it, I can also assume that if Tyranitar kills Celebi and Rotom-W (when he clearly has a counter to Tyranitar), Gyarados 6-0's this team. Zapdos is able to handle Lucario clean, as a non-boosted Ice Punch 3HKO's (34.13% - 40.53%) and a +2 boosted 2HKO's (68.27% - 80.53%) while Zapdos OHKOs back.

So yeah..

252/0 blissey has less physical defense than a 0/0 gengar

i suggest moving the ev's in hp to defense so that if something turns out to be a surprise physical attacker you can have a chance at surviving the hit

I'd REALLY suggest Shed Shell on forretress, because the moment he dies your team is lacking a rapid spinner, and two forms of spikes. that is too much to lose in just one pokemon, and therefore he becomes crucial to holding your team together. If Magnezone decides that Forretress should meet an untimely end, there would be nothing to really stop it from doing so. I also think that four status inducers would be too much: i would suggest removing Thunder Wave from celebi and consider putting Perish Song on it, if for nothing than those "Last Resort" stat uppers that may give problems to your team, especially but not limited to Cursing Snorlax.

Articanus said:

I'd REALLY suggest Shed Shell on forretress, because the moment he dies your team is lacking a rapid spinner, and two forms of spikes. that is too much to lose in just one pokemon, and therefore he becomes crucial to holding your team together. If Magnezone decides that Forretress should meet an untimely end, there would be nothing to really stop it from doing so. I also think that four status inducers would be too much: i would suggest removing Thunder Wave from celebi and consider putting Perish Song on it, if for nothing than those "Last Resort" stat uppers that may give problems to your team, especially but not limited to Cursing Snorlax.

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I second this even though I was first =P. Not to mention weavile is a fan of this team if that was to happen. Even though were not supposed to use that logic.

Weavile just gets owned by this team in general since you have SS running, usually SR, and possibly Toxic Spikes/ Spikes that will also wear down on it. if only SR and SS is up, that's 31.25% off it's overall HP. And that's assuming it doesn't come into an attack. If Weavile is scaring you, go with reflect on Celebi over my suggestion of Perish Song(you currently have Thunder Wave), and against snorlax just leech seed, Reflect, and Grass Knot the fucker till he can't breathe anymore. Critical hits will also work greatly in your favor, but so will Defense drops and Brun rates from snorlax(assuming they run Crunch and/or Fire Punch).

Spanky, you should listen and consider Shed Shell on Forry. Though really I don't think I've seen a Magnezone in a while, and I always run Leftovers on Forry anyways.

You told me Tran was staying... I'm sad, I coulda suggested Rotom... However, now that Tran is gone I'm curious on how you deal with TrickScarfers. Especially ScarfAzelf. I guess you could just predict around it like I do with most teams.

Also, your team is pathetically MixApe weak Spanky. If you make a single misprediction you're fucked. Remember how we talked about the Calm Zapdos thing? Well, that'll help (slightly) but you'll still need Thunderbolt on it. Just chuck in enough EVs to 2HKO Scizor (104 will 2HKO Leftovers Scizor on average, 16 will do a bit over 50% on average) and you're set.

It looks solid though beyond that though.

I changed Forres item, and until I find a suggestion that doesn't change the basic playing style of this team, I'm not gonna change it. Infernape has yet to actually pull of more than 2 kills, and if worse comes to worse, I trust my predicting skills enough to stall it out until it can't really be to useful. Celebi has helped this team greatly, by crippling Gyara's/Mences so they're basically screwed, and the Zappy/Hippo can come in and do their thing.

Great team SoT.

There isn't really much for me to suggest however you should consider the following:

Thunder Bolt on Zapdos
Shed Shell on Fortress - as it has been stated
Seismic Toss and Softboiled on Blissey. And Bliss should also have 252Def over 252HP.

Other than that it s an awesome team! Great job!

If u need status healer try heal bell on celebii.

One of the bst stall teams i saw in a while. I really like it. But most of thearts of nowadays (sorry for grammar errors) are flying/levitating/steel. Scizor, Heatran, Zapdos, Skymin, Azelf, Gengar are justr some examples. Blissey is the best victim of the TS.

Well, I promised SoT a full rate, not one of my half ass ones like normal so this will be good I hope ^_^

Nifty, a team that I agreed to rate that doesn't have a ton of things to fix. Nice job :D

Anyway.

Small Changes:

Hm. I had a different spread in mind for Hippo but this spread actually probably works better on this team. Move the attack EVs to defense, they are frivolous. DD Salamence rapes this team. Your Forretress is unable to do anything to Salamence stuck on Outrage. Hippow is 2HKO'd by DD LO Outrage; however, with Stealth Rock and 1 LO recoil Ice Fang takes out Salamence. Thus, you are going to need to have Ice Fang. Drop Roar on Hippowdon for Ice Fang. You can play around Salamence well enough I suppose, but your team will have to be in excellent health.

Now, Celebi. I don't get the EV spread, just max HP on it. 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 Spd. I don't mind a little paralysis support for stall teams so this actually works fine. How useful as Thunder Wave been in your experience? It it hasn't been working well I'd drop it for Perish Song for last Pokemon Curselax or Rest-Talk Cune or something. If you haven't been having problem theres, then keep T-Wave. Consider Heal Bell as well.

108 Attack EVs is enough to OHKO 4 HP / 0 Def Heatran on the switch with Stealth Rock damage. 12 Special Defense EVs allow you to not be 2HKO'd on average by a minimum SpA Starmie's Surf with Stealth Rock damage. So, I suggest you change your Forretress spread to 252 HP / 108 Atk / 136 Def / 12 SpD, Impish. Gyro Ball is fine for Weavile / Mamoswine / Gengar but I don't see you having a problem with any of those 3. Mixed Mamoswine w/ Blizzard is the only real threat but you can predict around this easily. I'm confident in that. EQ is fine to keep. Consider Shed Shell as well, I don't know if you care that much about Magnezone as you'll probably get your Toxic Spikes down at least anyway.

Theoretically, shouldn't things like Swampert etc. be poisoned by Toxic Spikes ? I see Toxic as unnecessary. Your team also has a problem with SubSeed Shaymin-S. Blissey + Zapdos can handle offensive versions just fine, but SubSeed will beat you rather easily. Speaking of Grass types. CM Celebi gives you issues as well. Considering those few facts, run Roar > Toxic on Zapdos. This gives you defense against SubSeed Skymin, CM Celebi, non-offensive Suicune etc. This gives you the phazor you lost in Hippo as well.

Rotom-W looks fine. Consider running 88 Speed EVs to outrun standard Breloom and max speed Scizor. Not really necessary but just a thought.

I said I liked some paralysis on a stall team. T-Wave Blissey is a bit excessive though. You need Toxic to beat things like NP Porygon-Z, Azelf etc. Try out Toxic over Thunder Wave. Get rid of those HP EVs and move them to Defense. Also, let's do a Leftovers +1 number because of Sandstream. The SpA EVs aren't needed. Run 24 HP / 252 Def / 56 SpA / 176 SpD. Oh, and I disagree with people saying you should run S-Toss. You don't need Seismic Toss it's completely unnecessary for this team. You easily have enough support to beat SubCM Raikou and things and that's really the only thing Seismic Toss Blissey is good for.

Major Changes:

I've already discussed the DD Mence weakness. The only real way to solve your DD Salamence issues would be to put in a Skarmory with some Special Defense EV investment, in which case you'd want to replace Forretress for that and then run Tentacruel over Celebi. You'll then need another utility physical wall so you'd want to run a Reflect Rotom-W instead with some Speed EVs. A defensive Stealth Rock T-Tar could be interesting for a more offensive option for your team. I doubt you'll want to change your team this much so feel free to ignore this bit though :D

Again, nice job.

Venom said:

I really don't like the Thunder Wave + Toxic Spikes combination here to be honest.

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I think T-Wave is for Skymin and other Flyers, who are immune to Toxic Spikes.