np: UU Stage 10 - Suspect Test Round 1 - Let it Snow

[Chimpakt]

After testing out my own hail team and failing, I tried out Pocket's hail team on the server and it did pretty well. But against more offensive teams, I really struggled. I couldn't really match their speed. mienshao did a lot of work vs them but it can only be brought in so many times, and hjk missed at inopportune times. And there's really nothing on the team to take scarf EQ's bar Snover (blastoise can only switch in to EQ's so many times under hail), but in combination with rocks it will be worn down.

surprisingly I havent went up against any opposing hail teams, but I'm confident in Mienshao putting in work :].

[WhiteQueen]

please don't bring back snover. i am already impossible to beat in uu. i don't need anymore powers from the mighty snover

This post was infracted for being absolutely retarded. Use this brave man as an example of how not to post.

[hilarious]

another thing about blizzard spam is that each time you click blizzard you get a ten percent chance to knock out a pokemon almost no matter what - the freeze rate (well they do have a 20% chance to defrost but that like rarely happens and often time your opponent will quickly retreat their frozen popsicle because they fear something can set up on it).

I use cloud nine altaria on hail stall for a decentish response to Chandelure (a better way to deal with it is to quickly set up hazards and hail to limit its staying power) and hails fire and fighitng weakness in general (while the rock weakness is stressed on the team even more the only real Rock pokemon in UU i believe cant take blizzards at all and other various stone edges/rock slides can usually be taken by blastoise/nidoqueen). Altaria also has perish song for nasty old last poke boosters like Snorlax and Suicune that potentially could run me over.

If you dont think Blizzard hits stuff hard for Snover you are going to be really disappointed by Giga Drain I doubt it 2hkos most bulky waters.

Roar isnt actually used on Walrien to rack hazard damage (although thats nice) but more so to prevent yourself from being phazed by the likes of blastoise and suicune and Snorlax (body slam can break your sub but their first response is whirlwind generally) as well as other stuff i probably cant think of right now. this allows you to begin your sub protect stall fest earlier (you wouldnt be able to do this if your opp had a Roar Suicune and you only had Toxic instead of Roar). Unfortunately Walrien requires heavy speed investment to make the most out of Roar, at least enough to outspeed 4 speed suicune (speed creep is important friends). Benefits include being able to set up on a wider variety of pokes like Gligar (no fear of Toxic) and being able to surprise a few pokes (weakened blastoise/claydol'hitmontop thinking it can spin on you? just blizzard its face off.) Walrien just isnt tooo bulky when you invest this much in speed though so although you can set up a sub protect stallfest against scarfgon locked in a move i doubt you would be able to set up against bandgon locked into outrage as easily, especially if you had to switch into hazards. Also im not quite sure how to maximize walriens defenses since i doubt max hp will be the most beneficial for something that has hp as his highest defensive stat.

now if only there was a way you could have enough free turns to get up tspikes and sub and aqua ring on walrien c:

[Chimera404]

Originally Posted by Fat WhiteQueen

please don't bring back snover. i am already impossible to beat in uu. i don't need anymore powers from the mighty snover

This post was infracted for being absolutely retarded. Use this brave man as an example of how not to post.

Lol, was that... that had to be deliberate, no?

@hilarious,
That's a nice set for Altaria, though I'm questioning the viability of the Pokemon in the first place. Decent typing in a team that definitively doesn't give a crap about ice-type attacks, but the stat distribution makes it neither extraordinarily fast nor bulky, leaving it at a loss against stuff with a simply higher BST (speed, attack, etc.). Taking away Hail is also annoying at times because you lose a bit more residual damage. I'd recommend Slowbro over it if you really need something to take fighting+fire, because even without lefties recovery it has the GOD ABILITY REGENERATOR to get out of sticky situations without using Slack-Off.

Yeah Giga Drain does jack shit but at least it gives me recovery aside from Leech Seed. Back to Blizzard!

Uh.....
You might not be using Walrein to phaze for the most part but when you have a full set (or close to it) of entry hazards then you will do more damage in a single Roar than you can in 7 turns worth of stall. Aqua Ring runs into the problem that Sub only has 16 PP, meaning that you've effectively cut your stall time by half, and no priority at that. Run Protect, always... and Roar... and Substitute... and I prefer Blizzard so that I'm not COMPLETE set-up fodder over whatever support move you may run on the last slot.

You don't NEED to run full HP EV's but at least hit 404 HP so that you can have your 101 HP Subs. I don't know what's most efficient, but that's a requirement so that... uh, Chansey and Registeel can't break your sub, or whatever uses Seismic Toss in this metagame.

Free turns is easy for Stall. Send in Nidoqueen on something that seriously can't hurt it and lay down a single layer of TSpikes (you're going to be phazing so 2 layers is waste of time and damage). Then lay down SR. Then DIE and get Walrein back in, or go to Froslass and finish the job with a couple layers of spikes. Now you're down 4-6, but Stallrein's in for free and you've got time to sub and stall.

[tehy]

Actually, i saw that post before it was edited, and a mod edited it, so probably not. But it was amazingly hilarious, and a great example of how to write a post, so thanks kokoloko!

Also, free turns are not necessarily easy for stall. Any team can theoretically get free turns by suiciding a pokemon, of course, but a stall team really needs all of its pokemon in order to wall threats-suiciding one for temporary advantage is a really bad idea. This is exacerbated by the fact that you're running a snover, and if you're running suicide spikes froslass, well, that's 3 pokemon basically down. (You could sacrifice snover, but it's huge setup bait, so it's not that easy.) Stall's version of free turns is hard-walling stuff, so there's that, Still, all you're really walling is water and ice-types, but that's mostly just bulky waters that can toxic or scald-burn you, and hail teams that also run stallrein. There ARE things it can wall and switch in on, but it's not exactly easy. Stallrein is really meant to nearly die, sub, then subtect until he's out of PP. The other moves are if someone is giving you free turns via stall tactics of their own, or some form of setup.

Edit: Flareblitz, exactly what i was talking about, thanks. Pocket, that sac for hazards thing might be true, but note how he was talking about getting up hazards and THEN dying, I.E. sacrificing after you've got them down. Which is not the best of ideas. If they've got a spinner and a toxic immune/blizzard resist with recovery, they can basically wait until walrein runs out of PP,and then you've got a weakened stall core for no real reason.

[Pocket]

Yea, reckless saccing leads to demise of stall teams. However, sometimes the price of saccing Froslass or Nidoqueen for the extra layer can be really worth it, especially for a hail team, where residual damage is virtually irrecoverable. I also found out that often only 2 or 3 defensive mons are usually sufficient in halting the opponent's offensive maneuvers, so smart saccing of dispensable walls actually work (Walrein alone can pretty much shuffle / toxic-stall its way to victory when the stage is set) So both of you guys are correct in some respects :d.

Anybody managed to make Jynx work? I've been using SubNP Jynx, but Idk, it hasn't been pulling its weight. It is difficult to bring it in and hard to sweep with only Blizzard. Lovely Kiss is shit, and Jynx's Speed tier is just slow enough to be outrun by handful of threats in the tier :/ I have to admit that Scald immunity is a godsend, though!

It may most likely be the particular type of team I'm using. It's essentially stall with Jynx tacked in. Jynx doesn't seem to quite work as a lone sweeper it seems, idk. I should probably read White Queen's legendary RMT for inspiration.

EDIT: Found It. 4 Ice-types, 2 of them being scarfed, and no Rapid Spinner; wtf is this shit!

[ElectivireRocks]

Originally Posted by Fat WhiteQueen

This post was infracted for being absolutely retarded. Use this brave man as an example of how not to post.

You must be new to modding on Smogon, because it's pretty clear you have absolute no clue of what you just did.
Protip: you don't give an infraction to the legendary WhiteQueen for bragging out, you just don't.

This post was infracted for disrespecting a staff member. Goodbye :)

[superbadd]

Pocket, you might wanna try sub-kiss. Between lovely kiss and substitute, this gives jynx plenty of opportunities to just spam blizzard. Lovely kiss allows jynx to render a counter useless.
Jynx @ Life orb / Leftovers
lovely Kiss/Substitute/Blizzard/Focus Blast

Between Stealth rock and Hail damage it can 2HKO pretty much anything. :)

[Chimera404]

Awww.... so I missed the fun?

Shucks. Anyone willing to tell me what it looked like?

About free turns for stall: It's harder to get them, for sure, but you hit the nail on the head: hard-walling stuff IS the equivalent of free turns. Hail Stall is an oddity among stall because it doesn't really need too many members besides Stallrein to beat a non-hail team (though if you're up against hail good luck to you sir). It's easy to set up hazards and then sit there for 32+ turns until the enemy is back at a disadvantage.

When I said free turns I generally meant stuff like swapping Nidoqueen into... i dunno, Heracross's CC or Megahorn.

[FlareBlitz]

Originally Posted by Fat Pocket

Yea, reckless saccing leads to demise of stall teams. However, sometimes the price of saccing Froslass or Nidoqueen for the extra layer can be really worth it, especially for a hail team, where residual damage is virtually irrecoverable. I also found out that often only 2 or 3 defensive mons are usually sufficient in halting the opponent's offensive maneuvers, so smart saccing of dispensable walls actually work (Walrein alone can pretty much shuffle / toxic-stall its way to victory when the stage is set) So both of you guys are correct in some respects :d.

I'd argue that hail is the exact kind of team where this sort of strategy isn't worth it.

You have a snover and a froslass with minimal defensive investment, meaning you're relying on 4 other Pokemon to check every offensive threat in the metagame (because those two won't be doing it). These Pokemon will also not have leftovers recovery. This puts them in a very precarious defensive position, and they won't be able to stand up to any good offensive team (which work by placing redundant offensive pressure in an effort to break walls and have at least one member sweep).

If you sac froslass to get up an extra layer of spikes, for example, LO Zapdos is going to hammer your team until scarfgon is free to sweep.

Originally Posted by Fat Pocket

Anybody managed to make Jynx work? I've been using SubNP Jynx, but Idk, it hasn't been pulling its weight. It is difficult to bring it in and hard to sweep with only Blizzard. Lovely Kiss is shit, and Jynx's Speed tier is just slow enough to be outrun by handful of threats in the tier :/ I have to admit that Scald immunity is a godsend, though!

I've made Jynx work on a hail team, but it was an LO np wallbreaker variant.

Jynx @ Life Orb
Modest / Timid
-Nasty Plot
-Blizzard
-Psyshock
-Lovely Kiss

LO Jynx is absurdly good at luring and obliterating defensive counters to the standard set, and works really well on a hail team for this reason (as those counters cause hail teams trouble as a whole). Some examples of the sheer powa:

+2 Blizzard v. max/max Umbreon: 77.7% - 91.6%
+2 Psyshock v. standard Snorlax: 79.7% - 94.2%
+2 Blizzard v. 252/0 Slowking (seriously guys, stop using this): 59.6% - 70.3%

This is going to die quickly against offensive teams, but the good news is, you still have a sleep inducing move and very powerful attacks.

Originally Posted by Fat ElectivireRocks

You must be new to modding on Smogon, because it's pretty clear you have absolute no clue of what you just did.
Protip: you don't give an infraction to the legendary WhiteQueen for bragging out, you just don't.

We're not going to encourage arrogant, idiotic behavior just because it's from someone widely known to be an arrogant idiot. Don't follow in those footsteps.

[cim]

Originally Posted by Fat ElectivireRocks

You must be new to modding on Smogon, because it's pretty clear you have absolute no clue of what you just did.
Protip: you don't give an infraction to the legendary WhiteQueen for bragging out, you just don't.

you're literally arguing that if someone is cool they should be above the rules. bravo, mate. if anything we had too much of that back in the day.

My advice for testers: Play hail offensively. Jrrrrr lent me his team. No Walrein, no spinner, and only two Ice types total. It's fun. Not sure if this style of play is broken, but it's a neat way to add a touch more offensive pressure. Think of it as an automatic layer of Spikes on your opponent (for 2HKOs anyway).

[Super Mario Bro]

This meta is amazing. It's a bit lopsided towards offense, but not super aggressive (like OU), and semi-stall teams are entirely viable. There also isn't a single Pokemon or strategy that centralizes the meta around it.

I like Snover's role in the meta, but Abomasnow would probably need to be banned to BL if it drops down from OU.

[kokoloko*]

Hi.

I know I said I'd post a new thread with the requirements on the 24th, but I already made up my mind on how I'm going to go about picking the few lucky people who will have the privilege of voting as part of the Senate, so I'm just going to post them here and edit them into the OP.

If you wish to apply to vote as part of the council, you must send me a PM containing the following information:

• A screenshot of your current ranking on the UU suspect ladder. Please use the /ranking command, not what is shown on the ladder, so I can see your win/loss ratio. I strongly suggest you try to get your Glicko2 above 1900 and your deviation below ± 60, by the way ^_^
• A list of your UU tournaments and past ladder accomplishments that you consider relevant.
• A short paragraph explaining why a past suspect should have or should not have been banned. I encourage you to include reasoning for both sides if you feel it'll make your point of view clearer, but do pick a side, please.

The deadline to apply is November 24th, at 11:59 PM.

PM / VM me with any questions you may have; don't ask them here. Also, this applies only to the vote on hail. Finally, the Mew suspect thread is up.

That is all.

[PK Gaming]

This metagame was surprisingly decent!

I didn't like the idea of introducing auto-weather into UU, but Hail's got its fair share of pros and cons in UU. Like it's actually possible to force hail into losing positions with such abusable weaknesses. (and tbh classic rain is arguably just as strong, if not better than hail in UU)

I ran a generic blizzspam team. It wasn't very good, but Ice body Glaceon was my MVP (with Rotom-F close behind it). It would usually recover off that SR damage like a champ.

[hilarious]

Originally Posted by Fat Chimera404

About free turns for stall: It's harder to get them, for sure, but you hit the nail on the head: hard-walling stuff IS the equivalent of free turns. Hail Stall is an oddity among stall because it doesn't really need too many members besides Stallrein to beat a non-hail team (though if you're up against hail good luck to you sir). It's easy to set up hazards and then sit there for 32+ turns until the enemy is back at a disadvantage.

There is so much truth in what you said here according to my ladder experience. Other types of stall usually need either all or all but one members to live if it wants to wait out your opponents attack until they give an opening for you to heal/phaze/set up hazards or in general regain some pressure and momentum. All Hail Stall needs is a Walrien with preferably one layer of any hazard up, generally the best being Toxic Spikes as well as a few select opponent Pokemon to die/be weakened.

I mean if we really want to look at this in dept, then you can just look at a standard team and see what can break Walrien. If your opponent has a Choice Scarfer thats not like Cincinno then you can basically disregard that Pokemon when your stallrien is in motion, it might actually be helpful for you to set up on. Indeed Choice pokemons in general have nothing on Walrien if he is under a sub, so if your opponent is using one or two choiced mons thats one or two pokes you check off in your head as useless in an attack on your defenses.

Then we look at other items your opponent uses, Life Orb is generally even better fr Walrien as your opponent is worn down even faster and still has no hope in breaking your stall. Leftovers Pokemon are either defensive and gives you a free sub (you can phaze them out with a sub intact usually which is why I am fond of Roar stallrien) so they are little threat too.

The only things that are truly tough for Walrien are certain leftover attackers like Bisharp who can end the stall fest potentially but they are not particularly common and still wont be able to set up if you have Roar.

Given all this Walrien can in general take down the majorities of teams, at least 3 members usually if it can find time to set up a sub and if some type of hazard is set.

Thats why I still think hail stall teams are good to use and frankly if your Hail team happens to have a bit of free space and you are using hazards, it might not be a bad idea to slap on Walrien just because it unlike the vast majority of defenders in the metagame, is self sufficient to a high degree on hail teams.

Has anyone made a successful full stall team without hail? Or has the metagame shifted so an entire playstyle was lost?

[jrrrrrrr]

cim is 100% right when he said that hail is best used offensively. More specifically, using hail as just a 6% damage booster rather than centering your entire team around the move Blizzard. Sorry if this sounds douchey, but there's no way anyone in this thread is going to convince me that Walrein is a good pokemon.

Originally Posted by Fat cim

My advice for testers: Play hail offensively. Jrrrrr lent me his team. No Walrein, no spinner, and only two Ice types total. It's fun. Not sure if this style of play is broken, but it's a neat way to add a touch more offensive pressure. Think of it as an automatic layer of Spikes on your opponent (for 2HKOs anyway).

If anyone is rushing to meet reqs, here's the team he was talking about. Me, cim and GTS were all using it and we loved it:

http://pastebin.com/LvNSvJV1

That's a pretty good summary of it, cim. Stacking your team with Ice-types in a metagame filled with Fire and Fighting types is ridiculous....so I didn't do that. The only Ice-types I have are Snover for obvious reasons (and to counter Water-types and harass Curse Snorlax), and Rotom-F who is so fast with a Choice Scarf that none of those Fire/Fighting types can touch it before eating a STAB Blizzard/Thunderbolt.

Kingdra and Victini are there to cover Fire-types, Victini and Nidoqueen are there for Fighting-types, Rotom-F revenges everything (and is usually how I "checkmate" someone with Blizzspam), and Raikou is just there because it's the best abuser of hail in UU period.

Other changes I've thought of making - Brick Break on Victini over Flare Blitz, Sub on Raikou over Aura Sphere, Dragon Tail on Nidoqueen over Toxic Spikes

And yes, I'm using Flare Blitz Victini. Don't laugh, it won me a match because I had to kill a Nidoking and Roserade back to back!

[Windsong]

I would just like to say that from my ladder experience playing exclusively with one of kokoloko's offense teams, any sort of Hail has really been mediocre and subpar as hell. Admittedly, my laddering experience is somewhat warped by the fact that I haven't lost a game yet, so everything's seeming rather ineffective compared to the pure offense I've been using, but I've played ~30 games or so and thus still believe my points to be valid.

First and foremost, defensive Hail simply cannot withstand the barrage from the numerous fire and fighting-types that run through the meta, and Pokemon that keep momentum easily, such as Mienshao and Flygon also make the life of defensive Hail miserable. I won't deny that defensive hail teams can be effective, I simply have not yet seen it demonstrated at all. While there are some nifty setups that the team can achieve with Pokemon such as Walrein, doing so requires sacrificing a spot necessary to handle certain threats, which well made stall teams simply can't do all that effectively without ending up weak to something. Defensive Hail has a definite advantage over most UU balance, sure, but it simply falls too easily against a fair amount of UU offense to really work perfectly.

Hail offense I've found even more mediocre. I ran into two or three hail offense teams (one of which, I just realized was the one j7r just posted above, being piloted by RT!) and I was not particularly impressed. Ice simply isn't that great an offensive type in UU, the extra 6% damage per turn is borderline ineffective against some teams, and if offensive Hail is made without a solid enough defensive backbone, many common sweepers can simply tear through it given slight amounts of support (for example, SD Mew is capable of running through a fair amount of j7r's team, with his only real stop to it being to sacrifice Rotom to Trick Mew a scarf). Again, Hail does fairly well against balance, which can't mount the offensive to power its way through it and lacks the defensive backbone to stand against repeated blizzards, but most solid offensive teams have a clear cut advantage over hail offense in my opinion.

[Pocket]

From using Hail teams extensively, I agree with windsong's observations. Snover just takes up such a valuable team slot. When I try to fit Snover + Hail Abuser, I find myself not having a slot for either a Revenge killer (unless I scarf Rotom-F / Jynx), a strong wallbreaker to beat Snorlax / Umbreon, or some gaping hole in my defenses, because these teams can become pretty rigid.

jrrrrrrr's team does quite an amazing job in covering all bases, though, so props for that! I'll try to emulate your team's format to tweak my own teams :d. It does look slightly vulnerable to entry hazards, though, with half of your team being SR-weak :x

[cim]

I'm going to be laddering today to try and make vote totals, but I don't feel strongly enough about it that I'd hate the result either way, hence why I waited to the last minute to do it :3.

That said, it seems pretty obvious to me that hail isn't broken. Jrrr's team is great, but it's just that - a well constructed offensive hail team. Good and fun, but not particularly broken. Defensive teams can actually be okay, but Snover / Walrein / 4 Pokemon can't possibly cover everything and will always have a few weaknesses. Obviously the above isn't a detailed justification for not banning, just a summary of my personal thoughts. I'm way too busy laddering to write my argument for Hail in advance.

[Oiawesome]

Kind of funny because jrrr's team has the same base as my team that I posted super early in this thread:2 Ice types(His snover and Jynx and my jynx and articuno)(snover dosent count for me though),a counter to hail teams(his victini my darmanitan),a bulky water(my suicune his kingdra),weather ball-er(we both have raikous),the only REAL diffrence is the nido that bieng said solid team jrrrr Im going to try to ladder a little today.

[kokoloko*]

Applications are now closed. I got about 15-16 Applications (more than I expected tbh) and I'll be reading over them as soon as I get a chance. I'll get back to you with the names of the people who make it!

[Oiawesome]

Thank you koko!

[kokoloko*]

Ace Emerald, Metric, Pocket, and Windsong have been selected as the lucky four who get to vote as part of the UU Senate this time around. I'll send a mass PM to everyone who will vote with instructions on how to do so right after I make this post.

[Dragoon124]

Well. it looks like Abamasnow may come back next month, at the rate it's going. This will probably give hail a bit more of an edge, but if hail starts causing a problem, which it isn't this time in my experience, we'll know who to blame.

[Dskullkid]

I'll just chime in, but I doubt anyone will care at this point. The reason I stopped playing ou is because of how much weather there was - it just wasn't fun. So I transitioned to uu where weather doesn't exist. I'm not saying that hail is overpowered, its just not fun to play against.