Stall Breakers

Ok, so I've been really suprised at the number of stall teams on Shoddy, and even more suprising is the amount of success they have.

Two new reasons for this would be everyone's newfound love of Toxic Spikes and Shuckle. Now Boah still works well at dismantling stall teams, but it is immediately shut down by Shuckle, because it can Encore Focus Punch and switch in a ghost without taking much damage etc. People now also realise that even though Guts Hera hurts, it isn't going to be sweeping your team anytime soon considering that Toxic will wear it down immensely.

Now instead of conforming and making a stall team myself (well not at this stage anyway, maybe when the rage has died down), I want to make a team containing a couple of stallbreakers, stuff that can tear through these all too common teams.

Does anyone have any pokemon they like using to break down stall teams/stalling in general??

Choice Specs Lucario is pretty beastly. He can 2HKO most common walls like Blissey or Cresselia. Give him a try sometime.

Also, the special-attacking Electivire is something I might recommend. It hits common physical and special counters for 2HKOs, so it's a great late-game sweeper even without a motor boost as most walls are generally slow.

Even though guts won't completely demolish teams, hera can put huge dents in anything that's not named gliscor. I know it's not a commonly used move, but torment can drive walls, well, up the walls. Taking out their side of the weather (if they have one) and replacing it with SS/hail helps too. Shedinja can be great against some common walls, mainly because it's not too likely that they'll be able to do more than status it.

Theres no big secret really...

Substitute, Taunt, Encore, at least one poison type not named Weezing or Gengar and one hell of a sweeper.

Optional components would be Spite, Disable, a Rapid Spinner, Golduck and or some other weather changer.

in regards to shuckle and TS, drapion comes to mind

People actually have problems with Shuckle and TS? I was kind of under the impression most teams carry like 2 flyers and a steel type, normally even 2...so I don't know how to answer a question to stop something like tihs...

TTar breaks stall like nothing else. Just Pursuit/Crunch Bliss/Dusknoir/Cress and yeah

I have to say, these Stall Teams are very surprising to me, as before even Smogon was saying "This gen is all offense. Stall is dead, because of all these powerhouses..." Now? Sandstorm, Hail, Toxic Spikes, Stallrein, Ludicolo, Encore Shuckle, and other stalling beasts are running the show in a lot of teams.
As for counters...
SpecsLuke is monsterous against them, but beware of counters for him.
Heatran slaughters the hail teams... HP Elec for the Water/Ice contingent...
BTW, is there any Rain Dance stall teams 'cept Ludicolo?

I've had good experiences with SpecsLuke in the past. I used to ALWAYS run one, and it tears through everything except Shuckle, which is why it can't do it all on its own now. I think TauntGyara works pretty well against it, as losing its Leftovers to Knock Off isn't nearly as bad as losing Choice Specs. Hmm something I've thought about for awhile about using a DDTar with DD/Stone Edge/Crunch/Ice Beam to break this stall open, and once Shuckle sees DD, the user would normally assume Taunt instead, although if the Shuckle user was smart it wouldn't switch into Tar in the first place.

I had the severe mispleasure of facing a Stallrein and I would have to say stalling is still a viable (if boring and annoying) tactic.

As far as countering Skarmbliss, I think everyone knows about Mixape...
An ideal 'stallbreaking' team would include, in my opinion, CBtar and Mixape.

Gungnir85 said:

I had the severe mispleasure of facing a Stallrein and I would have to say stalling is still a viable (if boring and annoying) tactic.

As far as countering Skarmbliss, I think everyone knows about Mixape...
An ideal 'stallbreaking' team would include, in my opinion, CBtar and Mixape.

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For the classic skarmbliss combo, CBmeta is still one of the best choices to KO them both without a sweat.

Gungnir85 said:

I had the severe mispleasure of facing a Stallrein and I would have to say stalling is still a viable (if boring and annoying) tactic.

As far as countering Skarmbliss, I think everyone knows about Mixape...
An ideal 'stallbreaking' team would include, in my opinion, CBtar and Mixape.

Click to expand...

Due to CERTAIN stall types being popular, I would say CBTar loses some appeal. MixApe also has a weak to Surf/etc.
I think he means the really stallish Hail/Sandstorm teams, not SkarmBliss wall combo though.

I've found that stalling Hail teams are easy to take down; SS teams, however, are on another level. By far the easiest method is to bring in Rhyperior, IMO. Rape away. Thanks for the SS Boost.
If you're not a fan of Tar, I could suggest the same against Hail teams, except give Rhypy sand rock item and ss. It DOES work, especially since it's less expected than a drain punch blissey, while being (quite literally) infinitely more useful. Unlike TTar, it also puts a limit on the length, which means you don't permanently fuck over any thunder users on your team, or your own SS-weak walls.

Boa's right. Every stall team i've faced that's not an SS team is rather easy to take down. Toxic, knock off, and a few well placed hits do the job well enough. In hail teams, with the exception of frosglass, everything dies to cross chop/close combat.

SS teams running toxic spikes/stealth rock with a spin blocker, on the other hand, are a whole another deal. Some can actually fare extremely well. I think Specs luke is probably the only thing that can really "tear through" such stall teams.

Gyarados and Tyranitar will tear apart stallers with Taunt and Dragon Dance. SpecsLuke 2HKOs common walls like Blissey.

I find outstalling the opponent usually works by keeping the weather advantage, and keeping toxic spikes away from the opponent and on your side of the field. :-p

But for a more offensive approach, two pokemon stand out as anti-Toxic Spikes: Roserade and Deck Knight's Toxicroak.

Roserade hits harder than Specsmence with Leaf Storm (too bad everything resists grass), has more than decent coverage with grass/fire/ghost (Shadow Ball and HP Fire or Weather Ball on a sunny day team). All this while eating up their toxic spikes.

Deck Knight's Toxicroak is similar, except with dry skin it utterly walls my walrein, becomes dangerous with swords dance, can strike first with sucker punch while dishing out stab fighting attacks.

For Cresselia/Blissey, a faster Sub-seeder with decent defenses but sub-par HP comes to mind... Abomasnow. I'm surprised how well he works to break Cresselia and Blissey. Moonlight versions of cresselia lose their recovery (hello there hailstorm) and blissey gives back some 30% hp to Abomasnow. Focus Punch + Leech seed is an amazing combination.

I imagine breloom can do it too, although with significantly higher attack, STAB on focus punch, poison heal and higher speed it seems like a waste. Its not like Blissey or Cresselia will be staying in long with him anyway.

Taunt Gyarados is the classic that generally works. Wish Passing seems to break my stalling strategy as well, and with the Eevees learning Wish as an egg move, you have a wide variety of sweepers who can wish pass (Glaceon is amazing with Blizzard, Specs Glaceon is significantly more powerful in a hailstorm than Specs PorygonZ who is stuck with only a 80 BP attack. (180 BP off of blizzard, 160 with Adaptability + Tri Attack) ). Leafeon walls, swords dance passes, and has quite a huge attack.

Rain Dance is extremely useful. It is essentially +1 attack on all water attacks and +2 speed on a huge number of pokemon.

Strangely enough, Sunny Day is more defensive than Rain dance. Fire Pokemon take water hits neutrally and Solar Beam sucks with Abomasnow (2x resists, turns Solarbeam into 2 turn attack, cuts power down from hailstorm) and T-Tar (+50% boost from sandstorm, turns solarbeam into 2 turns and cuts power) sitting around in many stall teams.

killerduck said:

Boa's right. Every stall team i've faced that's not an SS team is rather easy to take down. Toxic, knock off, and a few well placed hits do the job well enough. In hail teams, with the exception of frosglass, everything dies to cross chop/close combat.

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Don't confuse mono-ice with hail teams. I run Swampert, Tentacruel, and Frosslass. 3 pokemon who either have the defenses to take it, resist it, or outright are immune to it.

A hail team that is focused on being mono-ice is just asking for trouble.

Clefable breaks stall very easily. It takes no damage from any of the stalling moves with Magic Guard, can Encore the opponent's move, either forcing them to switch out, or allow it to Calm Mind up in their face and then use Ice Beam/Thunderbolt to hurt whatever comes in. If it switches in to a Toxic, it also can't be statused after that and it won't be taking any damage from the Toxic. Heh, Clefable is a neat-o.

Shaymin is also really good surprisingly to break a stall with the STAB 120 BP Seed Flare with the side effect of a double special defense drop. If it starts getting into trouble, it can just rest up to get rid of any status and switch out. It can also Aromatherapy the annoying Toxicing of things like Shuckle. If they try to outstall Shaymin, they're just asking for a Seed Flare drop. The only big problem is Seed Flare's awful PP.

It should also be noted that Mamoswine is able to break through all sorts of shit with 130 base attack. You can also stick Curse on it and give it Ice Shard/Earthquake to break through. The bigger reason though is that it's the only pokemon immune to both Hail and Sandstorm which allows it to always have Leftovers recovery.

Bologo said:

Clefable breaks stall very easily. It takes no damage from any of the stalling moves with Magic Guard, can Encore the opponent's move, either forcing them to switch out, or allow it to Calm Mind up in their face and then use Ice Beam/Thunderbolt to hurt whatever comes in. If it switches in to a Toxic, it also can't be statused after that and it won't be taking any damage from the Toxic. Heh, Clefable is a neat-o.

Shaymin is also really good surprisingly to break a stall with the STAB 120 BP Seed Flare with the side effect of a double special defense drop. If it starts getting into trouble, it can just rest up to get rid of any status and switch out. It can also Aromatherapy the annoying Toxicing of things like Shuckle. If they try to outstall Shaymin, they're just asking for a Seed Flare drop. The only big problem is Seed Flare's awful PP.

It should also be noted that Mamoswine is able to break through all sorts of shit with 130 base attack. You can also stick Curse on it and give it Ice Shard/Earthquake to break through. The bigger reason though is that it's the only pokemon immune to both Hail and Sandstorm which allows it to always have Leftovers recovery.

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This post made me actually want to use a Cleffy. O-o Anyway, as for the pig comment, I wouldn't say that curse would take the best advantage of his potential. He has no reliable recovery move besides rest, and one of these scenarios will happen:

A. You have Curse, rest, and sleep talk, leaving one attacking move and therefore getting easily walled.
B. You ditch sleep talk and are rendered useless for 2 turns. Mamo doesn't have the defenses to afford that.

Dragontamer: I don't believe that was my Toxicroak specifically, it may have just been one in the flurry of things I mentioned that could employ a similar stalling strategy.

Bologo said:

Clefable breaks stall very easily. It takes no damage from any of the stalling moves with Magic Guard, can Encore the opponent's move, either forcing them to switch out, or allow it to Calm Mind up in their face and then use Ice Beam/Thunderbolt to hurt whatever comes in. If it switches in to a Toxic, it also can't be statused after that and it won't be taking any damage from the Toxic. Heh, Clefable is a neat-o.

Shaymin is also really good surprisingly to break a stall with the STAB 120 BP Seed Flare with the side effect of a double special defense drop. If it starts getting into trouble, it can just rest up to get rid of any status and switch out. It can also Aromatherapy the annoying Toxicing of things like Shuckle. If they try to outstall Shaymin, they're just asking for a Seed Flare drop. The only big problem is Seed Flare's awful PP.

It should also be noted that Mamoswine is able to break through all sorts of shit with 130 base attack. You can also stick Curse on it and give it Ice Shard/Earthquake to break through. The bigger reason though is that it's the only pokemon immune to both Hail and Sandstorm which allows it to always have Leftovers recovery.

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Speaking only for my stall team, if I saw a Clefable the first thought in my mind depends on what is out. If I already have Aero out, I'd likely Taunt it, then switch to Dusknoir and Subpunch it to hell. If Dusky was already out, I'd use its Taunt then Subpunch. Either way my team isn't predicated entirely on stall, I also have a vicious CB Mamoswine that tears through opponents early and late-game alike, and a Hippowdon that can PHaze and Slack Off damage. Vap wouldn't do so well against a CMer, but I could always BP Aqua Ring to Aero or Dusky and stall you out of Boltbeam PP.

Shaymin gets stalled badly. Protect/Sub/Protect/Sub runs it out of Seed Flare PP, only registering one hit in the process, other than perhaps a switchin.

Garchomp seems to work surprisingly well for me. Switch in on Blissey T-Wave, SD on the switch, Flamethrower for Steels and Outrage/Earthquake kills everything else. Yache Berry for Ice support.

Taunt TTar does double the damage to Stalls. Sandstream AND Taunt ends the whole purpose of a stall. Then TTar can DDance on the switch and work from there.

As someone who runs a successful Stall team, i find the biggest things that eat me are

1. Mixed Infernape. Even if he's poisoned, life orbed, and SS is up, something's dying.
2. Nasty Plot Togekiss. So many people use Flinchax that they lose sight of what a beast this thing is. Air Slash/Aura Pulse destroy teams without CM bliss or some luck, and even ones that do.

StrangerDanger said:

As someone who runs a successful Stall team, i find the biggest things that eat me are

1. Mixed Infernape. Even if he's poisoned, life orbed, and SS is up, something's dying.
2. Nasty Plot Togekiss. So many people use Flinchax that they lose sight of what a beast this thing is. Air Slash/Aura Pulse destroy teams without CM bliss or some luck, and even ones that do.

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1. Tentacruel. Nasty Plot Grass Knot does like 30% damage. More than enough time for me to toxic spikes twice, and then OHKO with surf. Resists close combat and flamethrower/fire blast. Granted, not everyone runs Tentacruel on stall teams >_>
2. Good god yes. Togekiss is the bomb. Nasty Plot Shadow Ball / Aura Sphere can break non-CM Cresselia/Bliss/skarm with 0 Sp. Atk EVs.

aren't both Gengar and Skarmory not affected by Spikes and Toxic Spikes? and Skarmory is also not affected by Sandstorm and can learn Taunt and Toxic...(not the standard, but the standard was mostly made for "normal" teams, so maybe Taunt + Toxic + Roost + filler can help against stall teams)

er, all flyers/levitators aren't effected by spikes/toxic spikes iirc..