Huddle Formation

Just a quick note: this is pretty long. I got bored the other day so added loads more detail than I was planning on writing. Needless to say, a lot of the stuff (such as intro, teambuilding process etc) aren't really important at all, I just wrote them for the sake of it.

Despite using full-stall a lot in DPP, this team has been my first attempt at the playstyle in BW. I was very reluctant to try full-stall this generation due to the addition of a few threats who can generally ruin stall quite easily. CM Reuniclus is public enemy #1, taking no damage from entry hazards, Toxic and Sandstorm and setting-up all over the common stall members. For this reason, when I set-out to make this team, I was adamant to make Reuniclus easy to deal with, and I am happy with how the team turned out in that regard. Calm Mind variants are Roared away by Latias, who resists Psychic, Psyshock and Focus Blast. With Unaware, Quagsire can come in, ignore the SAtk and SDef boosts from Calm Mind, Encore it as soon as it tries to Recover and then PP stall it or wear it down with Earthquake. Although trying to switch it in is difficult, Choice Band Tyranitar can KO slightly weakened Reuniclus with Crunch.

The team peaked on the Smogon ladder in the low 1400s, before I lost like 4 -23 matches in a row to some unfortunate crits and freezes, and I completely lost motivation to try and get those points back, but thats just the nature of playing stall I guess. Although its been pretty successful for me, there are some pretty obvious flaws and I'm looking for some suggestions on patching up some weaknesses.

Team-building Process:

Forretress is often overlooked in BW due to tough competition in the forms of Skarmory and Ferrothorn, who can both set-up Spikes as well as take on Sand teams and Rain teams respectively. However, Forretress still has its advantages; namely Toxic Spikes and Rapid Spin, which are vital to stall teams. Forretress is the only Steel-type on the team, which means it is often my best switch-in to most variants Haxorus and Dragonite. However, without recovery outside of Leftovers and Wish support from Blissey, it is far from the ideal check to these threats, as it gets worn down quite quickly by even their resisted Dragon-type attacks. Since Forretress is the sole Steel-type, I decided to go with a purely physically defensive EV spread and nature, just so that Outrage-locked Dragons are doing as little damage as possible.

The choice between Leftovers and Shed Shell was a difficult one, since no matter which I choose, I open up the team to some weaknesses. Without Leftovers, I am under a lot of pressure to go to Blissey and pass a Wish, otherwise Forretress won't be able to switch-in and check Haxorus and Dragonite as easily. Also, Forretress will inevitably be switching-in while hazards are up so she can spin them away, and without Leftovers she gets worn down quickly. In addition, Leftovers allows Forretress to get back to Sturdy easier, which has occasionally been useful against CB Dragonite if I don't have Stealth Rock up, as it means I am guaranteed to get in a Gyro Ball and break its Sturdy, which means I can later revenge-kill it easier with Latias. However, the lack of Shed Shell leaves the team with a huge weakness to teams such as 'Enter the Dragon' (i.e. Magnezone + loads of Dragons), as Magnezone can easily switch-in on Forretress, set up a Subsitute and then either Charge Beam to rack up SAtk boosts, or just finish me off with Hidden Power [Fire]. Once Ferrothorn is down, my team becomes much weaker to the Physical Dragons, with Gliscor as my best bet against them.

I went against my aforementioned personal rule of 'no Pokemon with 2 hazards' here since I realised I was using up too many Pokemon slots for setting up hazards and I ended up quite weak to a few threats, and this was the simplest solution to patch up those weaknesses. I am incredibly open to change on Forretress' moveset, as long as both Spikes and Toxic Spikes remain somewhere on the team, as I don't manage to set-up 3 layers of Spikes and 2 layers of Toxic Spikes in most battles since Forretress is very easy for a lot of set-up sweepers to set-up on.

Choice Band Tyranitar is one of my favourite sets to use at the moment, as it maintains incredible SDef bulk whilst still packing incredible power. Tyranitar is the first Pokemon on my team that checks Reuniclus, KOing them if weakened or leaving them at low enough HP to be easy pickings for Gliscor, Latias, Quagsire or Blissey. Tyranitar also checks a myriad of other Special threats during Sandstorm, most notable Latias and Latios, who can break through Blissey with Calm Mind/Roar and Psyshock/Trick respectively.

Tyranitar is invaluable while playing against Drought teams, as it can easily sponge hits from Special Venusaur and can deal massive damage to whatever the opponent wants to bring in with Stone Edge. Even Choice Band Dugtrio fails to OHKO this Tyranitar with Earthquake, but even if I do lose Tyranitar against Sun, sun sweepers can still be handled between Latias and Blissey, with Quagsire providing some extra support against most variants of Volcarona.

The EV spread is focused on allowing Tyranitar to repeatedly switch-in to set up Sandstorm against Rain and Sun teams, in particular the latter. Although a more offensive EV spread has been tested (iirc 152 HP / 252 Atk / 104 Spe), I prefer this bulky one much more, as it plays a lot like SDef Tyranitar but without being ridiculously weak. The loss in power due to the low Atk investment is noticeable, but I find the bulk is much more important on a defensive team like this, particularly since Tyranitar's resistance to Fire, and 'pseudo-resistances' to Ice- and Electric-type attacks (due to great SDef), it is often used as a pivot switch between team members.

Maaaan Quagsire needs so much more usage. This guy is the only viable Pokemon with the Unaware ability, giving it a niche in the current metagame. Where Gastrodon is used to counter Thundurus and other Rain threats with Storm Drain, Quagsire can reliably take on a lot of set-up sweepers in the game 1v1, including Thundurus, Calm Mind Reuniclus and CM Rain Abuser Jirachi. Despite the SDef-inclined EV spread, Quagsire can still also beat SD Excadrill and SD Toxicroak as long as it is at high enough HP.

Despite the Encore nerf in BW, now only lasting 3 turns as opposed to 2-5 turns in previous generations, it still gets plenty of use on this set and has brilliant utility. Although Quagsire has very low speed, it is just fast enough to outspeed Ferrothorn and Reuniclus, which I can Encore into Stealth Rock/Thunder Wave/Spikes and Calm Mind/Recover respectively. Quagsire and Tyranitar work very well here to dispatch of Reuniclus, by Encoring it into any move other than Focus Blast with Quagsire, then switching to Tyranitar and firing off powerful Choice Band Crunches and Pursuits to finish it off or catch it on the switch.

With the exception of Encore, the rest of the set is standard. Scald is nice just for STAB and catching stuff like Ferrothorn with a burn on the switch, making it much easier to wear down. Scald also gives me a way to hit balloon Excadrill and Thundurus, and packs surprising power in Rain. Earthquake is the most powerful move on the set, and also allows Quagsire to hit both Bulk Up and Swords Dance variants of Toxicroak for decent damage. I shouldn't need to explain why Recover is here, right? I originally used Toxic over Encore, but didn't find too many oppurtunities to use it, as I already have Toxic Spikes support from Forretress and Gliscor is very good at spreading around status on the opponent's team thanks to Substitute easing prediction.

If you haven't tried out this set yet then you really need to. Gliscor is infinitely better than Breloom at abusing Poison Heal, and alternating between Substitute and Protect allows you to PP stall a wide range of choiced Pokemon, most notably Rotom-w. There are few things in this game more satisfying than PP stalling a Rotom-w out of Hydro Pumps. Gliscor is here as my main switch-in to Terrakion, non-balloon Excadrill and Conkeldurr, and he can tank their attacks nicely (with the exception of CB Terrakion Stone Edge). Although I really want to use Ice Fang over Toxic so that I can beat Balloon Excadrill 1v1, but Toxic is pretty vitally important to help wear down stuff like Latias, Rotom-W and other Pokemon that aren't affected by Toxic Spikes, which are difficult to take down otherwise. Ice Fang would also be useful against DragMag teams who can easily remove Forretress from the battle early. However, I just love this set to do anything about these problems. It is likely in the future that I will go on to use a Protect / Ice Fang / Earthquake / Toxic set, but without Substitute it becomes harder to spread Toxic around the opponents team.

The Speed EVs allow Gliscor to outspeed max speed Tyranitar and Adamant Breloom, but again I'm very open to some other EV spreads. The main reason for this is because without Ice Fang or Taunt, Gliscor can't do anything to Breloom anyway, and the only time Tyranitar tends to run max speed this generation is when it is a Choice Scarf set, which outspeeds Gliscor regardless of how much Speed investment I have. I think I remember undisputed using like 20 Speed EVs on his Gliscor in 'Rain Man', so chances are I'll test out that EV spread sometime in the near future.

With the new Wish Mechanics, Blissey just got even better, with the ability to pass on crazy big Wishes on to teammates, most importantly Forrtress who can be healed back up to full HP and activate Sturdy with just 1 Wish. Tyranitar is also another prime candidate for receiving a Wish, due to the complete lack of recovery on the set. Blissey is mainly just here to sponge special attacks, and although it doesn't have any resistances or immunities outside Ghost-type attacks, it still makes a great switch-in to special oriented Rain and Sun sweepers such as Starmie and Venusaur respectively.

Although Stealth Rock isn't ideal here, its pretty much the only place I can fit it on the team. There are a few options I would rather have over Stealth Rock on the set. The first is Toxic, which would help to wear down Flying-typing and Levitate Pokemon who aren't affected by Toxic Spikes. A second attacking move such as Flamethrower or Ice Beam would also be useful; the former helps a lot against Ferrothorn, who can just set-up Leech Seed and hazards up against Blissey who can't really do much in return, and Ice Beam would help a lot against stuff like Gliscor and Landorus who are immune to Spikes (and in Gliscor's case, Toxic) so are naturally more difficult to beat with this team that many grounded threats. Flamethrower and Ice Beam would also be useful against the apparently increasingly popular SubSplit Gengar. Seismic Toss is just useful for getting a guaranteed 100 damage on any non-Ghost-type, which is nice of a defensive Pokemon like this who often only gets 1 moveslot free for an attack.

The decision between Blissey and Chansey is always a difficult one, but I decided to go with Blissey here due to having Tyranitar on the team, and the Leftovers recovery has proven invaluable countless times. I have used Mail in the past just to troll stuff like Rotom-w and Latios with Trick, but the lack of Leftovers recovery forced me to play much more conservatively with Blissey, so I ended up changing it back.

This was originally a Calm Mind Latias, used to clean-up late game as an alternate win route to 'Toxic stall the fuck out of everything'. However, I rarely found myself using Calm Mind, since the main reason I wanted it was to boost alongside Reuniclus and then Roar it out, but since most Reuniclus seem to have Psyshock, this never really worked out for me. I also needed some extra insurance against stuff like Excadrill (without X-Scissor), Terrakion, Gliscor and Landorus, so decided to go with Surf over Calm Mind to provide an extra check to these threats. I also used Reflect for a while but it was never particularly useful.

Latias is the sole Water-resist on the team, meaning it is incredibly useful against Rain teams. Its Fire- and Grass-resists also means it nicely checks common Sun sweepers such as Venusaur. For this reason, the moveset complements its role as an anti-rain and anti-sun Pokemon. Roost and Roar are particularly useful, with Roost recovering back 50% HP and helping to rack-up Toxic damage, and Roar forcing away Pokemon that try to set-up on Latias, and also spreading around more entry hazard damage, and Toxic on grounded Pokemon. Latias also has very nice defensive synergy many Pokemon on the team, in particular Tyranitar, who attracts Ground- and Fighting-type moves which Latias can take with ease. Tyranitar can also switch-in on special Dragon-type attacks from Latios if I'm not willing to risk the speed tie (assuming its not running Hidden Power [Fire], and also is immune to Psyshock making it easier to switch-in on Calm Mind Reuniclus, who often won't risk predicting the risk fearing Roar.

Conclusion and Considered Changes:
This team has been good for me so far but as with all teams, there are flaws. There are a few problem Pokemon which are incredibly difficult for me to play around. The first is Choice Band Terrakion, who can 2HKO Gliscor with Stone Edge, and also makes me play very carefully with Tyranitar so as not give it a free attack boost with Justified. The second major threat is Mamoswine, whose Ice- and Ground-type STABs really hurt this team. Choice Band sets aren't too difficult to play around, but Life Orb sets are really troublesome. I just have to make sure I get up Toxic Spikes and Spikes early game before it comes and then make smart switches to stall it out with Toxic and Life Orb recoil. Protect on Blissey and Gliscor also comes in handy a lot here. The changes I am currently considering are:

• Forretress: Move Toxic Spikes somewhere else on the team, Shed Shell.
• Tyranitar: Different EV Spread, possibly more Atk EVs.
• Quagsire: Curse/Toxic over Encore.
• Gliscor: Fewer Spd EVs, Ice Fang over Substitute/Toxic.
• Blissey: Move Stealth Rock somewhere else, Flamethrower over Stealth Rock.
• Latias: Test Calm Mind/Reflect over Surf again.
• Jellicent/other Ghost somewhere?

Threat List:
Maybe later.

hey,

this stall team has definitely been a familiar one with the other effective stall teams. since you have the core quite on lock, the only changes left to make are within your movesets or ev spreads. these are obviously alternate options to make depending what you want to do. i'd really like you to consider toxic > encore on quagsire. it just makes it much more difficult to deal with because it can help beat rotom-w because cb scizor + leftover rotom-w with volt switch teams can be quite the nuisance to this. you'll be hard pressed with it and as such i think this might help you out a bit. additionally, you can beat things like cm latias way quicker. toxic has more benefits than encore in my opinion.

for latias, i'm definitely a big fan of cm + hp fire over that variant. for two reasons: you lack the ghost-type to even combat with rapid spin users and the other reason is having to beat cm virizon one on one. a late game virizon might prove to be your death because you're no longer able to phaze it. hp fire rids of common spinners such as forretress and excadrill. with this change however, you're going to have to play latias more conservatively to prevent it from being trapped by tyranitar. i guess all i'm saying is, the quicker you get rid of opposing spinners, the easier you lay down your hazards.

as for other options, i can't help but suggest ice fang > sub on gliscor. that set is quite annoying i'll admit, but ice fang allows you to have an optimal check to balloon excadrill. additionally, it allows you to hit things like dragonite (who is normally problematic with substitute). ice fang also hits breloom amongst many things. with that being said, if terrakion is a problem, you could always pump up 252 hp / 252 def impish+ as an option. the speed is rarely missed in my opinion. another option to try is volt switch > toxic spikes on forretress due to the amount of toxic users you have now (should you take my advice). this last paragraph is completely optional, but this applies to the other paragraphs too. a lot of things to play around with, but overall i like this stall team. overall gl!

Blissey shouldn't waste her time laying rocks since Forretress can do that much better, so give her Toxic. Plus, Jellicent would be a good choice for this team as a means of crippling pesky physical attackers via Willowisp. Overall, excellent team.

Your team is going to have trouble against dragons considering how they all carry fire moves so Forry can't do anything about it. I suggest using Specially defensive Jirachi instead of Blissey, who has the special defense to take a non STAB fire blast. It gives you wishpassing and stealth rock still, and can totally screw over the opponent with parahax. Although none of Tyranitar, Latias and Jirachi are as good as Blissey at sponging special attacks, as a group, they can take every special attack imaginable.


Why are you running speed on Forretress? Its just going to weaken Gyro Ball. I suggest going with a Relaxed Nature and a 252 Hp/ 176 Def/ 80 SpD spread. You should also probably swap Leftovers for Shed Shell, since you don't want Magnezone or Duggy ruining your fun and Jirachi can Wishpass.

I agree with f about Quagsire. Toxic>Encore since Quagsire doesn't have the speed to effectively use it. You may also consider Stockpile over Earthquake to turn Quagsire into an unbreakable wall (except grass moves of course). Poison and Burn damage will rack up and Quagsire can just sit there at +3/+3 and laugh as the opponent fails to dent anything. The only pokemon in the game that resists Poison+Burn is Heatran, who despises Scald anyways.

This opens up a slot on Quagsire. I suggest running Ice Fang instead of Toxic. Since Forretress and Quagsire should already have distributed status to everyone, Gliscor can just come in and immediately start an infinite chain of Subtecting. Ice Fang allows Gliscor to fulfill its niche as an Air Balloon Excadrill/ Terrakion and non HP Ice Landorus counter.

f said:

hey,

this stall team has definitely been a familiar one with the other effective stall teams. since you have the core quite on lock, the only changes left to make are within your movesets or ev spreads. these are obviously alternate options to make depending what you want to do. i'd really like you to consider toxic > encore on quagsire. it just makes it much more difficult to deal with because it can help beat rotom-w because cb scizor + leftover rotom-w with volt switch teams can be quite the nuisance to this. you'll be hard pressed with it and as such i think this might help you out a bit. additionally, you can beat things like cm latias way quicker. toxic has more benefits than encore in my opinion.

for latias, i'm definitely a big fan of cm + hp fire over that variant. for two reasons: you lack the ghost-type to even combat with rapid spin users and the other reason is having to beat cm virizon one on one. a late game virizon might prove to be your death because you're no longer able to phaze it. hp fire rids of common spinners such as forretress and excadrill. with this change however, you're going to have to play latias more conservatively to prevent it from being trapped by tyranitar. i guess all i'm saying is, the quicker you get rid of opposing spinners, the easier you lay down your hazards.

as for other options, i can't help but suggest ice fang > sub on gliscor. that set is quite annoying i'll admit, but ice fang allows you to have an optimal check to balloon excadrill. additionally, it allows you to hit things like dragonite (who is normally problematic with substitute). ice fang also hits breloom amongst many things. with that being said, if terrakion is a problem, you could always pump up 252 hp / 252 def impish+ as an option. the speed is rarely missed in my opinion. another option to try is volt switch > toxic spikes on forretress due to the amount of toxic users you have now (should you take my advice). this last paragraph is completely optional, but this applies to the other paragraphs too. a lot of things to play around with, but overall i like this stall team. overall gl!

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Thanks for the suggestions, I'm definitely going to be testing most, if not all of these out.

King John said:

Blissey shouldn't waste her time laying rocks since Forretress can do that much better, so give her Toxic. Plus, Jellicent would be a good choice for this team as a means of crippling pesky physical attackers via Willowisp. Overall, excellent team.

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Yeah, Stealth Rock isn't ideal on Blissey but I really don't want both Stealth Rock and Spikes on the same Pokemon, since it means that if I somehow lose Forretress early game before I manage to set-up some hazards then really can't do anything to the opponents team due to the lack of offensive options the team has. If my hazards are spread out, then even if I lose Forretress or Blissey, I still have the other to set-up their respective hazard and I actually have a chance at a comeback. Jellicent has been considered, the problem is finding somewhere to put it without opening up some massive holes.

New World Order said:

Your team is going to have trouble against dragons considering how they all carry fire moves so Forry can't do anything about it. I suggest using Specially defensive Jirachi instead of Blissey, who has the special defense to take a non STAB fire blast. It gives you wishpassing and stealth rock still, and can totally screw over the opponent with parahax. Although none of Tyranitar, Latias and Jirachi are as good as Blissey at sponging special attacks, as a group, they can take every special attack imaginable.

Hide

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Serene Grace
Careful
252 Hp/ 224 SpD/ 32 Spe
Iron Head
Body Slam
Stealth Rock
Wish

Why are you running speed on Forretress? Its just going to weaken Gyro Ball. I suggest going with a Relaxed Nature and a 252 Hp/ 176 Def/ 80 SpD spread. You should also probably swap Leftovers for Shed Shell, since you don't want Magnezone or Duggy ruining your fun and Jirachi can Wishpass.

I agree with f about Quagsire. Toxic>Encore since Quagsire doesn't have the speed to effectively use it. You may also consider Stockpile over Earthquake to turn Quagsire into an unbreakable wall (except grass moves of course). Poison and Burn damage will rack up and Quagsire can just sit there at +3/+3 and laugh as the opponent fails to dent anything. The only pokemon in the game that resists Poison+Burn is Heatran, who despises Scald anyways.

This opens up a slot on Quagsire. I suggest running Ice Fang instead of Toxic. Since Forretress and Quagsire should already have distributed status to everyone, Gliscor can just come in and immediately start an infinite chain of Subtecting. Ice Fang allows Gliscor to fulfill its niche as an Air Balloon Excadrill/ Terrakion and non HP Ice Landorus counter.

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The only dragon that is a problem is MixMence w/ Outrage or Brick Break, as the others are all handled by the rest of the team. Hidden Power [Fire] Latios is just Pursuit bait for Tyranitar, and can also be revenge-killed by Latias if necessary. CB Dragonite hates Stealth Rock and Latias can switch-in and KO if its locked into anything other than Outrage, and DD variants are Toxiced and then lured into Outrage. Haxorus is dealt with the same way as Dragonite is most cases. MixMence is difficult to deal with because Outrage/Brick Break 2HKO Blissey, but it really hates Life Orb recoil and Sandstorm and a potential Toxic, not to mention Latias can switch-in on any non-dragon attack and KO with Dragon Pulse. The Jirachi you recommended doesn't help against Dragons at all, as CB Dragonite and Haxorus just run right through it, Latios can Trick, and it relies on Body Slam paralysis to beat Salamence. The paralysis from Body Slam would also be completely counter-productive, as getting a paralysis on something I need Toxiced could very easily lose the game for me. Not to mention using SDef Jirachi opens up the team to Rain hugely, as it can't take Hydro Pumps in the Rain well at all, where Blissey can.

I can't remember why I was using Spd EVs on Forretress. IIRC it had something to do with winning Speed ties vs opposing Forretress, but if anything I'd want to underspeed so I get the Rapid Spin off after they set-up hazards. I've already said why I'm using 252 HP / 252 Def, the SDef EVs seem unnecessary when I have Blissey, Latias and Tyranitar on the team already, and Forretress needs all the Defense it can get to repeatedly take Outrages. Also who uses Landorus without Hidden Power [Ice] anymore?

VERAKS said:

just saying, i dont mean to troll but this is kind of like blue blurs team with a few set change, but yeah nice rmt :D

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I haven't seen Blue Blurs team, but okay!

Thanks for the rates so far. I'm definitely going to try out Ice Fang over Substitute on Gliscor to help check Balloon Terrakion and Excadrill better. I'm also going to test 252 HP / 252 Def Impish on Gliscor just to tank hits from Sand sweepers better, as well as to take Outrages from Haxorus and Dragonite a bit better. I'll start testing Toxic > Encore on Quagsire as well, and post here again with results. Thanks!

Hey Penguin,

So after reading your entire RMT (which was a challenge in itself), I feel as if this team has the "Would have won if I didn't misplay" syndrome. This means that your team has all of its weaknesses covered very well, just that one misplay may screw you over to a point of no return (Like leaving Latias in on a unpredicted Tyranitar switch-in and get pursuit trapped). That was just an example, whether or not it was a good one is irrelevant, hopefully I got my point across though.
__
Suggestions:
I agree with f on the Ice Fang > Substitute for Gliscor, just because of the reasons he brought up. Breaking Excadrill's balloon is so important because it gets rid of his pseudo-Ground immunity and makes him vulnerable to your hazards excluding Stealth Rock (since that hits him regardless).
I do however disagree with Toxic > Encore on Quagsire just because I know of your hatred towards Reuniclus and Encore is going to shut down any CM variant and even Trick Room variants too (if you lock them in on Psychic/Psyshock/Shadow Ball/ etc...). Locking them in on a set-up move allows you to send in T-Tar and Crunch/Pursuit trap Reuniclus for the KO unscathed (normally).
__
Overall, solid team.
Looks super annoying to face, which I'm sure is what you were going for.
Good job. ^_^

Great Stall layout as others mentioned. One change I can suggest is fitting Volt Switch on Forretress and running some speed on Tyranitar. Forretress is a good spinner, but opposing Stall with Jellicent is gonna be really hard for you to beat, as they can spin your hazards fairly easily, and you can't do the same. Volt Switching out of Jellicent and into a Tyranitar who can trap Jellicent without worrying about being burnt would help you a lot in these matchups. The 152 HP / 252 Atk / 104 Spe spread you mentioned seems pretty good. It also has the benefit of OHKOing Reuniclus more often than not, and in turn making it easier to trap. I don't think the lost bulk is too much of an issue with all the special defense you already have.

One more small change I can see helping you is Ice Beam on Blissey. Taunt Gliscor actually looks really hard to beat with Quagsire being specially defensive and Scald not doing that much damage. Of course, this also helps with Dragonite, Salamence, and Landorus who are all pretty big threats for stall. Great team man!

Once Magnezone gets its easy trap off on Forretress, CB Haxorus / Dragonite absolutely destroy you, since they need a bit of prior damage for Latias to KO. For this reason, I strongly suggest using Volt Switch over Gyro Ball on Forry. You can now lay up a hazard as Mag comes in, V-S out on the sub, and Roar it out with Latias.

Breloom is a royal pain in the ass for this team, since it gets a ton of chances to switch in for a free Spore + Sub (Tyranitar, Forretress, Quagsire); your main physical wall, Gliscor, is completely walled, and your backup check, Latias, is taking [44.7% - 52.6%] from Focus Punch. As annoying and effective as your current Gliscor is, I recommend switching over to the Swords Dance set, which not only counters Breloom 100%, but also gives your team some much-needed offensive presence, helps against opposing stall, and gives you a backup check to Air Balloon Excadrill if Quagsire goes down.

Just a few things to consider, great team and gl.

BKC said:

Once Magnezone gets its easy trap off on Forretress, CB Haxorus / Dragonite absolutely destroy you, since they need a bit of prior damage for Latias to KO. For this reason, I strongly suggest using Volt Switch over Gyro Ball on Forry. You can now lay up a hazard as Mag comes in, V-S out on the sub, and Roar it out with Latias.

Breloom is a royal pain in the ass for this team, since it gets a ton of chances to switch in for a free Spore + Sub (Tyranitar, Forretress, Quagsire); your main physical wall, Gliscor, is completely walled, and your backup check, Latias, is taking [44.7% - 52.6%] from Focus Punch. As annoying and effective as your current Gliscor is, I recommend switching over to the Swords Dance set, which not only counters Breloom 100%, but also gives your team some much-needed offensive presence, helps against opposing stall, and gives you a backup check to Air Balloon Excadrill if Quagsire goes down.

Just a few things to consider, great team and gl.

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Yeah, I started testing these out when you first mentioned them to me and they are both helping hugely.

The changes I have decided to make so far are:

• Ice Fang over Substitute on Gliscor.
• Volt Switch over Gyro Ball on Forretress.

And the suggestions I am still not sold on but will continue to test are:

• Toxic over Encore on Quagsire.
• Ice Beam over Seismic Toss on Blissey.
• Calm Mind + Hidden Power [Fire] Latias.
• 152 HP / 252 Atk / 104 Spd Tyranitar
• Swords Dance over Toxic on Gliscor.
  
  Thanks again for all the suggestions so far.

Hey there.

The largest threat to your team at this point is an SD Lucario. Both Air Balloon and Life Orb variants 2HKO Quagsire, and can destroy the rest of your team if it runs Ice Punch (which most do). A Swords Dance Toxicroak is also a major threat for the same reasons as Lucario (it 2HKO's Quagsire quite easily with Cross Chop). To fix this weakness, I suggest that you change Gliscor's EV Spread to 252 HP / 40 Def / 216 Speed. I also agree with BKC about changing Gliscor to a Swords Dance variant as it will greatly help you put pressure on opposing stall teams, and destroy Air Balloon Excadrill; this is especially important seeing as how Quagsire is specially defensive and 2HKO's it with Earthquake. Gliscor can still defeat the likes of Excadrill quite easily.

I also agree with running Volt Switch over Gyro Ball on Forretress for the aforementioned reasons. Also, run Stealth Rock over Toxic Spikes on Forretress. This will allow you to run Toxic over Stealth Rock on Blissey, which will stop Blissey from being complete set up fodder.

Overall, really solid team. Hope I helped, and good luck!

I'm worried how much that Gliscor EV spread will compromise its ability to beat Terrakion and Excadrill, especially considering it can't beat Balloon Lucario w/ Ice Punch anyway, but I'll make sure to give it a test anyway. Lucario is pretty rare but is definitely a threat to the team, I normally just have to hope it comes in late-game and rely on making good switches to rack up Life Orb damage and Def/SDef drops and then finish it with Latias, but this obviously isn't a good plan of action considering how much +2 ExtremeSpeed does to Latias.

The loss of Toxic Spikes on Forretress looks like it'll hurt my team's ability to deal with grounded threats such as CB Haxorus a little, since it doesn't tend to try and switch-in on Blissey or Gliscor so it would be difficult to get Toxiced, but I'll try that out as well anyway.

Thanks!

Hi,

The other raters have really summed up the majority of opinions here, so I'm going to try my best to bring a fresh take to your team. Quaqsire can really use a +def Relaxed nature here and go full out in its physical defense stats, since most of what it covers on the special side is covered already by other pokemon, and it will always win against Toxicroak and Lucario if they boost up on the switch. The necessity for Encore thus disappears, which leaves room for Toxic on Quagsire, a move that I think has a lot more utility on your team to deal with Volcarona and the like. Latias can then use a CM + Roar set, which still beats CM Rain/Standard Jirachi, something that Quagsire previously covered as a special wall if you take my changes. However, this will open you up to some nasty last mon sweepers like Reuniclus or Virizion, but these unfortunately endgames are exactly that; they can be manipulated to work in your favor, by the great tool that is Team Preview. Without a ghost, however, Rapid Spin users like Starmie, Forretress and Excadrill really get free reign when attempting a spin. The loss of momentum in this fashion can cause a lot of excessive switching, so another pokemon to consider for Latias' spot is a stall-breaker SubDisable Gengar, who is great against opposing stall in BW for good reason. Being in the same speed tier as Latias provides some speed to your team, and the coverage it has hits the main things you wanted Latias to hit, namely Excadrill and Terrakion. The most important thing you lose here is a Water resist which I am well aware of, making this really a choice of preference, as your team is extremely solid already. Although Blissey could wall some Water attacks, it ultimately falls to Specs Boosted Hydro Pumps, etc. Hopefully this rate helped, good luck!

So you basically took blur's team ... Edited moves and EV spreads(made it worse btw) and not even gonna give him credit? not cool bro. :/

Meh oh well..
This stuffs been said already but oh wells. xD
Change Quag's EV's to 252def ... Get rid of encore for toxic.
Put 216 speed EVs on gliscor to outspeed adamant lucario.
Get rid of substitute for swords dance and toxic for ice fang.

Oh and volt switch on forretress. If you can predict. itll save him from getting Zonetrapped.

If you look at the teambuilding section he did not copy blue blurs team, and it was AM who created the team originally not blue blur


Volt switch seems nice on Forretress but without gyro ball sub split gengar looks like it could be a problem as it forces a stall war with blissey.

I would put 252 attack Evs on tyranitar, this allows you to deal massive damage to reuniclus, 2hko skarmoury and ohko ferrothorn with superpower who can be annoying for this team without hp fire on latias. Speaking of latias I would probably keep roar I have played with the "blue blur" version of the team and there are many times when I wished I had roar, especially versus threats such as cm reuniclus and nasty plot celebi.

I would also go 252 relaxed on Quagsire to help deal with banded dragons and mixed landorus, both of whom are large threats
Cool team gl

Stall team can cause a lot of problems for this team also crippling your backup sweepers.
Latios isn't really the best choice for this team since Jirachi can do a lot better, and help take out stall teams, Taunt Skamory can also help.

~ Iron Head
~ Body Slam
~ Wish
~ Protect

Quagsire is currently my best answer to Thundurus, since Blissey doesn't take boosted Focus Blasts well at all, so by making Quagsire Relaxed 252 Def I can see myself having some huge problems with it. I'll test it out, hopefully Thundurus gets banned this round anyway.

I've already replied to people as to why I'm not using SDef Jirachi. If I get rid of Latias then I become much much weaker to Landorus, who just runs through SDef Jirachi. The 60% Paralysis chance from Body Slam can also lose the game for me if I get it on something I need to get a Toxic or a Scald burn on. Also, how does SDef Jirachi help against Stall whatsoever? It can't do anything to Jellicent, Forretress, Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Gliscor, Tentacruel, Politoed, Gastrodon or opposing SDef Jirachi. The only thing it does beat is Blissey/Chansey, but they really aren't too big problems for this team, especially since I started testing SD Gliscor and CM Latias.

Also, I've already said I haven't seen BlueBlur's team, but people seem to jump to the conclusion that since we have the same 6 Pokemon I must have stolen it from him? Sorry, but that is just ridiculous. Remember this is the metagame where the vast majority of Sandstorm teams are just TTar / Exca / Rot-w / Celebi / Landorus / Scizor, and similarly most Rain teams are Politoed / Ferrothorn / Toxicroak / Starmie / Thundurus / Filler. I don't see you going around accusing people of team stealing in pretty much every other RMT on this forum.

Sorry if I overreacted about this, but I'm not going to be giving credit to someone who had nothing to do with my making of this team. I've already had to tell this to like 5 people who PMed me complaining at me for stealing the team of someone I hadn't even heard the name of before yesterday (no offense to him/her), so please just drop it.

I'd first like to say that this is an excellent team and I'm hoping you find a lot of success with it in the future. Now, I feel that you should be running yawn over encore on your quagsire. You are still able to still beat reuinculus, and force switches which will rack up damage with entry hazards. Spamming yawn is also a great way to put something to sleep while forcing tons of entry hazard damage.

Next, I see you having problems with hyper offensive teams. To help remedy this problem, try shed shell on forretress. If your not willing to try that, earthquake could work over toxic spikes, that way you can take down magnezones. Secondly,I dont see how you deal with bulk up conkeldurr. Without having taunt on your gliscor, you have no way to prevent it from setting up and destroying your team, as Latias won't be able to break through conkeldurr's bulk and encoring it into bulk up isn't great either. This is another reason for having yawn on quagsire,if they get greedy and bulk up, yawn will force an easy switch.

Here' what i think your final gliscor set should be
Gliscor@Toxic Orb
Nature: Impish
Evs: 252 hp 252 def 4 atk
Moves: Earthquake, icefang, taunt, protect or toxic.

Good luck!

Oh, dont change tyranitar at all, i feel that is probably one of the better sets right now. It seems incredibly effective. Maybe try calm mind for latias again, i dont really see surf doing much other than hitting excadrill after u get smacked with a x scissor.
Off topic: teach me how to get pictures on my little smogon thing on the top left of the screen xD

a very underrated option on quagsire is swagger, which will provide it with an option to kill the pokemon it cant beat straight up. you could run it over either of your attacking options if you feel like you're not using them that often.

all in all, this looks like a solid team. kudos!

Definitely go with Calm Mind on Latias IMO. Your team is pretty hard pressed to beat Celebi without Toxic on Blissey, not to mention it's really weak to Toxic Spikes; so having a safety net with Levitate is always great. Latias also helps against Calm Mind Jirachi if Toxic Spikes are down (which is quite likely to happen now that rain stall has gotten more common with undisputed's rmt) and might allow you to invest a bit more on Quaggy's Defense. Really cool team, good luck

After some testing, I decided to go with Toxic over Encore on Quagsire. Still unsure about replacing Toxic Spikes on Forretress and the other changes suggested but I'll continue to test them for a bit.

Although Swagger would be cool on Quagsire, I'm already struggling to decide on the 4 moves to use on it and the 4 moves I decided on all seem to have better utility.

Calm Mind on Latias is something I've been trying out on-and-off ever since I first replaced it, but I'm still not completely sold on it.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions so far, as well as the luvdiscs which I swear all just appeared out of nowhere!

I would really take all the (Toxic) Spikes pressure off of Forretress. You should try SpD Roserade.
Roserade @ Lefties
Natural Cure
252 Hp/252 SpD/4 Spe
Calm
- Sleep Powder
- Leaf Storm
- Toxic Spikes/Spikes
- Rest
Otherwise. SubCM Latias? It rapes Stall teams. And my advice. If you want a more offensive Gliscor I run the AcroFling set with enough EVs to still be bulky while ouspeeding Jolly Breloom and Adamant Lucario.

If you read through any of the other comments, you would know that he wouldn't want a offensive gliscor. anyways, i kind of feel like u shud take toxic spikes off forre since u have 3 toxic users.

Hey Peng,
Quick, minor change that you should make to your Quagsire.
Take 4 EVs from HP and the 4 from Def in order to outspeed common Reuniclus sets, this way, if it is the CM set with Psyshock, you can get the Recover off first if necessary.

This is up to you however, its nothing too major, it has its usefulness though.