Stall in BW2

[X5Dragon]

I was referencing Yoshi in my post but didn't want to post names but since that's done I think he should come here and explain his team, he does use a Dusclops however as I've recommended to block spinners.

Edit: He uses rain stall, I'm pretty sure that paints a pretty picture of what's he's using aside from Dusclops. Also, is it me or is M Dragon's Rain Stall seeing a revival minus one or two pokes? It looks like this topic has spurred some archive digging lol.

 

[Lady Alex]

Ah, I found a replay of the team he's using.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMln6RdlegM

 

[Chou Toshio]

I think there's a more fundamental but easily overlooked reason why stall pulls the short end of the stick with each new generation:

Yes, Stall gets new boosts (regenerator, ferrothorn, pringles, etc.), but at the end of the day, you only get to bring 6 Pokemon with you, with which to check the entire metagame.

So it's not the entirety of stall forces versus the entirety of offensive forces.

On the ladder, it's 6 stall pokemon against the entirety of offense.

Easy to see why it's a losing battle.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

You know there is a fair amount of active stallers here, myself included, that are pretty much always wanting / complaining to see the legendary full stall team, or at least semi-stall team, but rarely getting answered. I think its pretty aparent that we are all having issues in this metagame.

How about instead we make our own stall team right here in a sort of mini creative a team style, we have about 5-8ish people to work with. Im pretty sure if we all work together we might actually be able to make something great. 5-8 heads are better than one, so why not?

 

[EtherDrive]

Ive ran into this interesting strategy on PO where my opponent ran all bulky mons with trap moves(fire spin, whirl pool) and several toxic spike users.

What he did was basically trap a mon of mine with a specific wall that could survive and successfully sustain long enough for the poison and trap attack to kill me.

Was quite interesting indeed

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Whatever stall team you use, it MUST have a direct genesect answer, meaning hard stop to everything. Jellicent, Dusclops, Heatran, doesn't matter--you need one. From there, I've found the secret is an unbreakable defensive core. You need something that will stay extremely resilient to anything but 5 boosted HO pokes. They need to be perfect for each other.

From there, you can fill in the rest with needed utilities--hazards, spinning, blocking, phazing, the like. It may be useful to include some kind of "panic button" poke...rock polish genesect was brought up in some thread as a viable poke on a stall team to bring out when you simply can't wall the entire game anymore. Something that will break the only playstyle stall can't directly wall, hyper offense.

But I dunno, I'm not exactly the perfect stall player myself. Just sharing some experiences.

 

[tehy]

I think there's a more fundamental but easily overlooked reason why stall pulls the short end of the stick with each new generation:

Yes, Stall gets new boosts (regenerator, ferrothorn, pringles, etc.), but at the end of the day, you only get to bring 6 Pokemon with you, with which to check the entire metagame.

So it's not the entirety of stall forces versus the entirety of offensive forces.

On the ladder, it's 6 stall pokemon against the entirety of offense.

Easy to see why it's a losing battle.

Yeah, if you study gens you can figure this out. Look at earlier gens;leaving out the clusterfuck that was gen 1, gen 2 was pretty staly, gen 3 stally too, gen 4 really opened it up, gen 5 it was aite, gen 5 with bw2 it's even worse. gen 6 kills stall unless it gives it HUGE buffs. Guess i get to learn offense, DX...

 

[thatgirl]

Heal Bell + Multiscale is an illegal combo on Dragonite (HB is from XD), for what it's worth.

Altaria fits nice and snug into my team, being able to counter weather, roar and act as a cleric at the same time. Definitely underrated.

It also gets perish song, which is useful and pretty rare.

 

[Marowakawaka]

Anyone who is saying that stall is bad in B/W2 is basically saying that offensive is the best way to play the game. Stalling can still be achieved, but it depends on the set your foe is running and how good his prediction skills are. The more people that say stall is bad, the less people using stall, then the more people dropping counters for stall teams. I say that in a few months or even weeks, stall will become one of the best ways to go in B/W2 OU.

 

[StairFall]

So I've been running stall and the main problem I've been running into is powercreep in general. I was using Ferro to lay down hazards and he's being destroyed by powerful neutral hits. Sheer force landorus and Tornadus-t have been the biggest problems for him but choice scarf moxie mence can kill me with two outrages if I'm at about 50%. I either have to take two hits with a resist or a boosted hit with my resist and after that things are kind of over. Another thing is that mixed movesets are more common because of u-turn. Chansey can absorb nearly any special attack but u-turn totally wears it down as well as the ubiquitous superpower on otherwise special attackers.

Walls in this metagame simply can't afford to tank powerful neutral hits like they used to. On top of that stall functions by having pokemon that can use utility moves and they do that by having enough defense to brush off hits so they can use their moves freely. But now that hits are so powerful I find myself having to heal all the time I don't have the luxury of those free turns to get up hazards or a toxic or whatever. Phazing worked in the past because only specific wallbreakers could beat the wall that was phazing, they would switch to it and then it would get phazed out. But now that multiple pokemon on a team can disassemble the different walls phazing is ineffective. They don't have to switch to a specific pokemon so they just launch attack after attack.

After that I added a weird pokemon to the team, whimsicott. Whimsi ran a sub seeding spread with toxic and encore with 252def/252spdef (I wanted low health to maximize leechseed recovery.) Whimsi could barely take a hit save for stuff like defensive politoed's scald, however I found he didn't have to. I feel like with how powerful attacks and teams are now walls can't be tanking hits all the time, there's simply too much pressure and the lack of weak attacks and free turns means that ironically it's your walls that end up getting stalled out. They simply have too few opportunities to set up damage. So I started running substitute, protect and either a variation of dry skin/rain dish, poison heal or leech seed to deal with things. It's more efficient to simply prevent hits from happening then to take them.

 

[dice]

My friend Gamester and I (if you know him) made an interesting Rain Semi-Stall team if any of you want to try something similar out as this is more of an idea. Our team was Politoed - Gravity LandorusT - Jirachi - Ferrothorn - Tentacruel - Latias; the team was based around utilizing Landorus-T's Gravity and abuse Spikes and Toxic Spikes; it was a pretty interesting concept but we never got to perfect the team. Nonetheless, it's something that helped out against offense a lot.

 

[haxcho]

Anyone who is saying that stall is bad in B/W2 is basically saying that offensive is the best way to play the game. Stalling can still be achieved, but it depends on the set your foe is running and how good his prediction skills are. The more people that say stall is bad, the less people using stall, then the more people dropping counters for stall teams. I say that in a few months or even weeks, stall will become one of the best ways to go in B/W2 OU.

This is only partially true. It won't make stall better in any objective way - It would still be the worse playstyle, but catch the opponent off-guard. It's like a gyarados with HP Fire - It's hilariously weak, but it MIGHT be worth it because you hit some stuff 4x effective who totally didn't expect that. Though because of team preview, the surprise factor is actually even lower. Also, there are always a few who will still play stall, so people will keep a few counters most likely, and it's even quite likely that most people don't even need dedicated stall counter because the offensive playstyle at the moment just hits so damn hard that they're strong enough against stall anyway. So, I definitely disagree with your prediction.

As a sidenote: My comment was based on the assumption that stall is weaker. It's not meant to argue that this assumption is true to begin with. Though I might write something on that later, too.

 

[StairFall]

You know there is a fair amount of active stallers here, myself included, that are pretty much always wanting / complaining to see the legendary full stall team, or at least semi-stall team, but rarely getting answered. I think its pretty aparent that we are all having issues in this metagame.

How about instead we make our own stall team right here in a sort of mini creative a team style, we have about 5-8ish people to work with. Im pretty sure if we all work together we might actually be able to make something great. 5-8 heads are better than one, so why not?

This sounds like a great idea. It would be more efficient than the CCAT because we have a clear goal in mind made up of people who actively play the style we're working toward and it serves a specific purpose of trying to prove that stall is still viable. If we're going to do this though where should we start?

 

[lokt]

Can someone show to me what on stall handles tyranitar? I've been struggling against CB and mix versions.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Ive talked to a mod and he thinks that we shouldn't do it until after a few other projects that are going on now are done. After those are done he assured me that a stall CCAT will have a solid shot of happening.

Hippowdon and Jirachi are solid switch ins for tyranitar. Hippowdon, even defensive versions is never 2HKOed by weak ass ice beams, and neither is Jirachi by fire blast. Hippowdon can blidly switch into CB-tyranitar with ease, and while Jirachi does take a ton from crunch, it out speeds to kill with iron head.

Other Options I have used:
-Politoed, similar to Jirachi, takes a ton from CB but outspeeds for the kill
-Scizor and Terrakion can easily check tyranitar they work to check a ton of other threats and can even come in on prediction
-Your own tyranitar: make sure you have superpower!
-Donphan is in the same boat as hippodon but withouth recovery
-Gastrodon, Chansey, Sableye: everything but CB
-Amoonguss: takes it all
-Hitmontop: total counter
-Nothing: remember, mix tyranitar is a piece of shit, it can't do anything unless you let it, its movepool is cramped, so its always missing coverage, meaning you will always have something for it, CB tyranitar isn't common enough to get crazy about

Edit: 5XDragon 28 evs

 

[X5Dragon]

Hey guys just a quick q, how much spA evs do I need for an Amoonguss with HP Ice to OHKO broken MS Nite (for example after SR) or a full health Sally? Thanks!

Edit: Thanks Scarfwynaut, appreciate it :)

 

[Jimbon]

Having used a Sand Stall team extensively, I can definitely attest to how much harder it is to utilize well in B/W2. Given how offensive the metagame is right now, it really isn't catered towards Stall. Also the new introductions B/W2 gave us, including Tornadus-T, Keldeo, Thundurus-T and Genesect make Stall that much harder to play. It has come to the point where there is simply too much to deal with, and sometimes those 6 teamslots are not enough to make your team solid, or to the point where you can successfully wall a large portion of the metagame. Even stall has had to adapt to this, as Stall definitely appreciates even a Scarf 'mon as a catch-all backup to things such as CM Keldeo and NP Thundurus-T. Stall is on the receiving end of the incredible power creep, and it's getting increasingly harder to pull off.

For those talking about stall being risky, of course it's risky. It's probably the most predictable playstyle, as when playing stall you really cannot afford to lose one Pokemon early on in a match leaving you open to something else. There's nothing stopping your opponent double switching into his Sheer Force Landorus predicting your Tentacruel switch, not giving you opportunities to spin agianst offensive teams that work so well by stacking hazards. The influx of Deoxys-D teams also really doesn't help Stall as a playstyle out either, as Deoxys-D is pretty great at guaranteeing hazards while also being able to prevent them at the same time. Another notable mention of a factor against Stall is the introduction of Shadow Tag Gothitelle. Honestly, you can slap Gothitelle on pretty much any team and it works. Specs versions pretty much trap everything on standard stall and remove them, making you so easily prone to Gothitelle's accompanying sweepers. The fact that stall has to check so many different threats means you might not carry 2 answers for one Pokemon, and if Gothitelle removes your Terrakion counter, then it's highly likely you'll be on the receiving end of a Terrakion sweep.

Just looking at the usage stats, which are the only way of seeing what people are using, it's pretty easy to see why stall is suffering so badly. There's simply too much to cater for, and the harsh reality is you only get 6 Pokemon to wall an entire metagame. Even looking through the RMT forum, I don't think I've seen one successful stall team as of yet. I guess it just goes to show that offense is king in this metagame, and that probably won't be changing for a while with the re-introduction of Garchomp and potentially Kyurem-B.

 

[NoUserName]

I saw a Sand Stall with Hippo, Roserade, Aerodactyl among other things and it seemed to be very good.

Aerodactyl is ridicoulous Bulky in Sand in regards of its Special Defense. It was SubRoost variant with Taunt and Rock Slide, I didn't pay much attention to its ability, but it was likely Pressure, to stall better. The Evs may be something like this, according to the damage of my special sweeper: 252 HP / 64 Sp Def / 184 Spd, (maybe Enough speed to outspeed Tornadus-T)

Roserade had Toxic Spikes and Sleep Powder.

And the typical, spinner, spiker, spinblocker, steel and check to Gene.

I will not say more about his/her team, to respect the user, I only said that to ilustrate that it is possible to make a good Sand Stall and show forgotten tools such Aero in Sand or Roserade.

 

[StairFall]

Another problem I've had running full stall not just in this metagame but always is having a trick absorber. Using a plethora of utility moves is the very basis of stall and if you're tricked a choice item you're limited to one of those moves each switch in. On balanced or semistall I can throw out my own choice pokemon to limit or neuter the problem but with full stall if the opponent has trick something is getting a choice item unless I somehow taunt them which is unlikely because you're rarely going to predict a choiced switch in and taunt them in case they trick. Any suggestions for dealing with trick?

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Most trick users, if not all the relevant ones are special attackers. If you have 2 solid special walls, its really hard for the other team to get the edge by just crippling on. Also Tyranitar and Jirachi still do their job pretty bad well if tricked. You don't have to have exactly 2 walls, for example Blissey + Scarf-Tyranitar as about all you need.

Also don't count your bulky grass type, if you have one, as a special wall, it only deals with bulky waters.

I've been futzing around with regirock, unsurprisingly its not that great :/. But what I was surprised about was how effective Latias is in this meta, most teams these days actually lack a counter for it, so CM can just sweep whole teams right of the back. I am running refresh Latias so that's even less counters. Scizor and Tyranitar have dropped a lot, and a good portion of them lack pursuit, making it even better.

 

[thebrownie]

Can someone show to me what on stall handles tyranitar? I've been struggling against CB and mix versions.

Run a breloom. With Poison heal, protect, seed, spore and drain punch you can check a good amount of the meta.

 

[StairFall]

On the subject of bulky grass types not all of them even handle bulky waters. Bulky waters gained scald which allows them to deal damage and cripple physical attackers all while providing another source of passive damage. The common grass types used to counter them all prevent this in some way usually through either natural cure or aromatherapy or in Breloom's case having toxic orb and poison heal. Hell even Cacturne has water absorb. It also happens to be why I hate running techniloom. Without the ability to switch in on scald with impunity you're only allowing them to do what they're trying to do.

Also concerning bulky waters it's a shame Milotic doesn't get calm mind, rest talk would be amazing because of marvel scale.

 

[Lady Alex]

I think I may start focusing my attention on making a successful semi-stall team rather than trying to make full stall work. As Scarfwynaut said, Latias is a great pokemon on semi-stall, since a lot of teams don't have dedicated counters to it. It works as a really effective last mon, and in that scenario, even some of the pokemon that typically threaten aren't able to get past it.

 

[Paolo]

Stall still has lots of potential I have a stall team that has broken onto the leader board several times and I know for a fact if I spent the time to ladder I could get it to top ten. The problem is the team may not end up looking like you expect. Try different Pokemon, I have been using Roserade on my stall team and I really did not expect it to do much but it is by far the best Toxic Spiker I have ever used. Anyways I do not want to give away to much about my team until I break top ten or at least get close to that and I might post a RMT. Stall is still a good play style you just have to think a little outside the box.

 

[StairFall]

I recently started using Jirachi in the rain with sub/thunder/water pulse/iron head and lefties. Right now the EV spread is standard specially defensive jirachi's but I'm thinking of either making it into slightly more of a mixed wall or giving it a bit of an offensive presence. If you get a sub up and the para with thunder then you can start going to town. If you get the paralysis and the confusion off then use iron head to pokemon has a 60% it will flinch, 25% chance it will be fully paralysed and a 50% chance it will hurt itself, the chances of them actually hitting you are even lower if they're using a move below 100% accuracy and they have to do that multiple times because I'm behind a sub and they may not break said sub if they're a weaker pokemon.

I know it's a unsportsman like to abuse the RNG and bank on hax but it really does its job well. I've gone 10-15 turns at a time without taking any damage. It doesn't really stall into the traditional sense of stalling because you're using direct instead of passive damage but the fact they have such an incredibly low chance to hit you let's heal sometimes nearly 50% with lefties and they never do any damage while you slowly chip away at them. I don't know if that still counts as stall but it certainly falls into the whole tank hits and do damage over time strategy, it also beats magic guard unlike other forms of stall.