how viable is stall as a playstyle?

[Princess Bubblegum]

Yea, even if you have a solid Breloom counter, you are still going to need to sleep sack something. If you are really worried, you may want to run 2 checks for Breloom, that way you are still fine if one goes to sleep.

Celebi, Amoonguss, and Skamory are your best bets, alternative / supporting checks can range from Roserade, Zapdos, Gliscor, Latias, Dragonite, ect.

In general: 1 solid check or counter + 1 emergency check / additional check or counter. That should be good enough most of the time.

 

[Scorpiopt]

Why not Espeon or Xatu has counters to breloom

 

[Yuttt]

Espeon and Xatu are more fitted to Offensive teams, and we are discussing stall.

 

[Scorpiopt]

They have plenty of options to support and help stall aswell, i dont belive in this categorizing that certain pokes are for offensive or stallish roles , they have multiple uses

 

[Yuttt]

I suppose they can be fit on a stall team, but are usually outclassed because of their lackluster stats, and, in Espeon's case, not many useful tools to help stall teams.

 

[Scorpiopt]

I suppose they can be fit on a stall team, but are usually outclassed because of their lackluster stats, and, in Espeon's case, not many useful tools to help stall teams.

thats probably true however discussion was about a breloom counter and these 2 fit xD

 

[Yuttt]

Only Xatu, I think, as Espeon easily falls to Bullet Seed. Breloom probably won't go for Spore when you have a MAgic Bouncer on you team, so I guess they can help you that way too. Xatu, however, is great at beating Breloom, and I love using it combined with Gastrodon/Quagsire.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Xatu can work, I have seen some stall players using it well enough, Epseon though has little to nothing to offer a stall team outside of magic bounce, mainly the lack of useful resistances that Xatu brings to the table which make it superior to Espeon defensively.

The problem though is Xatu is still pretty frail defensively its self, and if I am not mistaken Breloom can possibly break through it, so you are definitely going to need another check behind it. Not to mention being Pursuit weak.

 

[psVoltage]

Actually Rainstall is pretty good, I used a team that my bro ShootinStarmie gave me and it does extremely well and got me pretty high on the ladder. (2000 range) I would love to explain it more but im extremely short on time atm. I might edit it later on.

 

[Arcticblast]

To extrapolate from Espeon/Xatu: Magic Coat still bounces back Spore. While it takes some prediction to get that right, it also prevents Taunt and absolutely destroys Jellicent and Sableye. You have to remember, though, that many users of Magic Coat are weak to one of Jellicent's STABs. Tentacruel, Jirachi (doesn't normally carry Psychic STAB), Reuniclus, and Gothitelle are the main OU-viable Pokémon that could carry Magic Coat to fuck up Breloom, although some of them (like Tentacruel) need to be wary of being set up on.

 

[Nglittleguy]

Been using mdragons rain stall team with a few adjustments for the bw2 meta. Seems quite viable to me.

 

[PDC]

At this point, I don't think we need to question if stall is viable, as it obviously is. Stall in BW may be a bit harder to pull off, and there are definite ways to beat it, but stall in this meta is not some sort of mystery. The average sand-stall team I have seen was basically composed of Hippowdon / Celebi / Heatran / Jellicent / Tyranitar / Filler, which was the basic standard for teams. In DPP, stall would change constantly. IPL always changed his stall formula, usually involving his last mon. He would change it from ScarfTar, Jirachi, and among other things to compensate for the changes in the metagame. Stall in this meta has been a bit different with the introduction of "Rain Stall" which is definitely one of the most solid instances of a stall team. Usually a bit of offense is mixed in, as so many powerful Pokemon and sets do very well under Rain. Stall is a bit harder to pull off, but it is certainly viable.

It doesn't really need to resort to using gimmicks to be effective either, and for most cases I find Xatu and Espeon completely underwhelming and very unreliable. Neither really are amazingly useful, and most result in sacrificing themselves just for the sake of avoiding Stealth Rocks getting up. I guess I can agree some more offensive presense is needed on stall nowadays, as it has been widely used and been very useful. Stoutland, Latias, and multiple other more offensively oriented Pokemon have been incorporated in stall as time goes on, and I just think the way stall can adapt makes it more viable than many think.

 

[BKC]

I've been using Quagsire and it's pretty awesome. Sleep Talk Amoonguss is also decent.