Gen 2 the stall team of stall teams

[highstakespkmn]

@leftovers (F)
~Encore
~Rest
~Thunderbolt
~Toxic

as a lead, scares Cloysters out, encores Jolteon's subs, and often can get something such as Snorlax Toxiced on the switch. later on in the game, is probably the best perish trap counter, and can potentially stall out Zapdos, Electabuzz, Gengar, and random shit like Dynamicpunch Dragonite, who the rest of the team can have some trouble with.

@leftovers
~Psychic
~Rapid Spin
~Recover
~Surf

probably the best spinner in the game, and when you have a toxistall oriented team, you have to get those spikes out as efficiently as possible, and Gengar isnt doing anything to stop me spinning them away carrying Psychic, which also happens to counter Machamp and Tentacruel, both of which can tear through the rest of the team easily enough. Misdreavus is usually a wasted slot anyway with Raichu waiting to come in.

@leftovers (M)
~Curse
~Rest
~Roar
~Rock Slide

all stall teams need to be able to stop Snorlax, and while Skarm has trouble against the Fire Blasting sets, Tyranitar shuts them down cold. Roar is absolutely awesome here because it works off the toxic/spikes support while 100% countering Skarm's attempts to blow it away. Earthquake would be nice to have, but I can't afford to have it's health worn away by Spikes or Toxic especially without a beller, and once it gets started its really not getting stopped anyway by too much.

@leftovers (F)
~Rest
~Spikes
~Surf
~Toxic

Toxic is there to hit fellow Cloysters and Starmies to give me an upper hand in the stallfest, Rest is once again there so I don't get killed by Toxic or Spikes with the lack of a beller, and Surf is a much stronger choice than Ice Beam due to its ability to hit Forretress and Cloyster for some decent damage.

@leftovers (M)
~Double-Edge
~Flamethrower
~Rest
~Toxic

spread more Toxic love, how can you not love this guy? the one common Pokemon that can sort of counter it without taking a Toxic is Gengar, and even Gengar is rarely going to be carrying Rest, so good luck trying to stop repeated Flamethrowers while taking Spikes damage. doesnt immediately kill, but works with the rest of the team to create little chinks in the armor of a standard stall team to eventually reach the point where it can't handle the combined assault of Lax and Tar.

@leftovers (M)
~Drill Peck
~Rest
~Sand-Attack
~Whirlwind

stops cursers cold. besides for further countering Curse, Sand-Attack also cripples basically everything that is going to be switching in, forcing another switch into the spikes AND has a lot of PP if it ever gets to that point.

 

[133tSneasel]

Raichu: Fine.
Starmie: Maybe Light Screen or Reflect somewhere in there
Tyranitar: Standard.
Cloyster: Works. Maybe Forrtress in it's place
SNorlax: Good
Skarmory: Maybe Curse over Whirlwind, but I guess you need more Roar's and Whirlwinders.

Watch out for Raikou, and Electabuzz, this kind of looks like Pocket's team a little

 

[Pocket]

Wow, haven't thought I would see this type of team anymore x_x. I really like how you added Raichu in there, as Electric resist is a necessity in GSC with Raikou and Zapdos running about. Snorlax alone cannot take the Tbolts / Thunders for the team.

The team has good coverage, but beware of Bellylax and Ttar; these are the types of offensive pokemon that can potentially break through your team's draining efforts, mainly because they hit fast and hard. A D-Edge from Bellylax is a 2HKO on Skarmory. Your team has the resources to stop this type of Snorlax, but you cannot simply react but be extra aggressive to them so that it won't have enough health to do much damage to your team. Skarmory being asleep is especially the vulnerable point if the opposing team has a Bellylax, cuz Skarmory would not be able to stop the fatty's rampage.

Tyranitar's unpredictability owes to its potential danger to this team, but basically Tyranitar with Fire Blast, Crunch, and / or Thunder to stop Starmie / Skarmory and / or Curse + Screech to make its physical hits hit hard can be difficult to deal with if you're not prepared. However, seeing how most offensive Ttar lacks Rest, I can see Snorlax relatively safely Toxic it followed by some stall.

I wouldn't use Raichu's Encore, which only has 8 PP, for Misdreavus. You already have Tyranitar and Skarmory with Roar to phaze out Missy. Of course if they are both asleep, then Raichu is there for the rescue!

Also, not too sure if you would want to reveal somewhat of your 'surprise' pokemon at the very start of the game. The more later the opponent knows about Raichu's tactics the better the mouse is able to execute it imo. Perhaps start out with Cloyster to have the Spikes up right off the bat, or Snorlax which can start dishing out Toxic / damage, as well as being able to deal with many threats. Snorlax can deal with the Jolteon leads farely well, too, if that's your concern.

 

[havoc]

no Sleep Talker = something is going to be out of commission for a long time. when one component of a stall team is out of commission, it usually opens the gate for certain things. even by themselves, many of the Sleep inducers (Nidoking, Exeggutor, Jynx) have potential to give the team problems, especially Nidoking since it is immune to Toxic and can switch into Raichu/Tyranitar quite easily.

the main issue here is the same issue with most stall teams: it can't beat other stall teams. 4 of your pokemon only have 1 attack each. you have Spikes and Rapid Spin, but not enough offense to be a threat if another team has a Rapid Spinner to get rid of your Spikes. a Reflect/Rapid Spin/Surf/Recover Starmie can almost singlehandedly stall out your entire team (Surf is a 3HKO on Raichu).

 

[Veteran In Love]

lol isn't this bob's TSS team

anyway as was determined years ago, NYPC sets run roughshod over it,
especially sets like LK Nidoking and LK Drumlax. But IMO since every pokemon is needed, if you can be smart and get Cloyster to be sleep bait.

Critical Hits and repeated doses of heavy, mixed offense tend to do the trick as well: The second biggest problem I found with Bob's team was that one/two unlucky situations, especially with pokemon resting frequently and having to stall out a ton of hits, could easily cost him the game.

Suggestions:

-Since Tyranitar is going to be slow anyway and won't be flinching anyone in the near future with Rock Slide+Curse, I'd suggest HP Rock for simply more PP and accuracy, the almost negligible downside being -5 in Base Power.

 

[Loki]

highstakespkmn is bob

 

[133tSneasel]

I was wondering if we could use Clefable, and/or Shuckle with Encore, Toxic, Rest, and a filler move. Maybe Return or Double-Edge on Clefable, and maybe Rollout, or Hidden Power, Bug on Shuckle in place of Raichu, since it can't really take a hit

and maybe Qwilfish over Cloyster?

 

[highstakespkmn]

Yes, this team is NYPC weak, probably should've mentioned it was intended to be used in an NYPC-free metagame, one where sleep trapping was shunned but not really banned outright (one of the reasons I felt the need for Raichu in the first place), but I guess if were taking the GSC metagame to be all NYPC moves included then yeah it is weak to them. Otherwise, there's a slight Exeggutor and Bellylax problem which has already been brought up. I'm working on writing a rather large argument against the instatement of NYPC moves in general, but more often than not, they ARE accepted nowadays.

But the real reason I'm bringing this back from the dead is cause I was fooling around with hidden powers in GSC and really think the topic of whether or not to use HP rock or Rock Slide is more than just the base power, PP, and accuracy. This goes for Sleep talking Zapdos/Raikou as well (although Drill Peck and Crunch are more common than HP for the most part). I'm just using HP Rock TTar as the example here, but this applies to all HP basically. Whereas in ADV or DP when you use an HP you are giving up 1 or 2 stat points, in GSC, you can be giving away 20 HP. Even in T-tar, you're losing 4 attack, 6 def, and 8 HP. Totally negligible in attack, HP Rock becomes essentially a base 69.4 power attack, but in defense, it's going to be taking in average 4.2% more damage from all physical attacks and 2.0% more damage from special attacks.

Since all these factors are still relatively small and balance each other out to some degree, we can either say "HP Rock or Rock Slide, who the fuck cares?" or "HP Rock or Rock Slide, what is more important since I want to have the best possible team? Accuracy and PP or doing 7.7% more damage, taking 4.1% less damage from physical attacks, 2.0% less damage from special attacks, and the possible flinch?" Personally, I've just been like "whats the big deal", with a slight inclination towards "I don't want to give all that up for accuracy and PP without seeing some proof", but really I can't say for sure what's better, and since this team has been successful for me, I would like it to be as good as possible. The last time it's made a noticable difference was I was able to get a Donphan poisoned and Spikes up, and predicted its switchins to whittle its HP down to about 20%. Then I was able to Rock Slide and hit the flinch which secured my Spikes and the upper hand.

Also, as much as people might like to give my team (or me in a sense) shit for being pure stall, Snorlax is actually a rather good wall breaker and with all the Spikes and Toxic floating around, I might have a hard time getting to a stall team, but eventually I'm usually winning the fight, and if I play my cards right, I can often beat offensive teams in 30-50 turns, which really doesnt show how good or bad my team is, but more that there is some offense hidden behind the 5 Resters and 1 Recoverer. The Toxic is also strategically placed to cover almost everything, and where is a Toxiced Bellylax really going? Probably not too far, until it either Rests or is Heal Belled, both of which can help my cause further. I just feel the need to draw a distinction between a "keep your opponent mostly on the defensive and wear down slowly while searching out weaknesses" style vs. a more all out Celia style stall, which literally was almost 100% sitting back and waiting for PP to run out.

 

[Ghandi]

I missed Celia, lol..

 

[Borat]

Won't break standard stall. Ever. Apart from Tyranitar, which is absolutely walled by Skarmory/Growltanks/Suicunes that are omnipresent, nothing on the team remotely has a chance of sweeping. With no moves out of the ordinary, you're pretty much bait. Being that your team isn't "stall", or so you say (even though it is), it'll lose out in the long run against a typical GSC stall on principle alone. Oh, and it doesn't help that "typical GSC stalls" run Drumlax.

Snorlax is actually a rather good wall breaker

Boblax is walled by Suicune, bar two very timely CHs. And I hear Suicune is on 100% of GSC stall teams.

Spikes and Toxic floating around

I have yet to play a stall team that doesn't run a spiker itself; and guess what, spikers double as a spinner! Pure stalls usually run Cloyster, since Cloyster > Forretress heads up.

Fact is, I just can't see this team win at all, regardless of prediction. Against your typical stall team, you have a hard time getting Spikes set; Skarm has no offense; Raichu has no offense; Boblax has no offense; Cloyster has no offense; Starmie has no offense; T-tar aforementioned. And against an offensive team, it just has far too many mix-sweeper weaknesses to be effective.

Your only way of remotely winning is through Spikes/Toxic, but the fact is, stall teams can just sit on their ass resting and you wouldn't be able to do shit about it. Skarm is all they need to stop your lone sweeper, and it's immune to both Spikes and Toxic. Throw Suicune in there and it's just gravy. All in all, I think a Drumlax has a better chance of breaking your stall than a -6 Acc t-tar does of breaking theirs.

and if I play my cards right, I can often beat offensive teams in 30-50 turns

This team has far more defensive loopholes than your standard stall. Lacking both Raikou and Suicune, mix sweepers will absolutely tear this team apart. You have no answer to Dragonite, Tyranitar, Nidoking, Thunderlax, etc. So I don't know which offensive teams you've been playing, but they surely aren't offensive teams at all. It doesn't really show you how effective your team is, but merely how effective theirs are.

As far as I'm concerned, this is bob's team with Raichu splashed in over Blissey to cover for the NYPC weakness, which it fails to do... hence an inferior stall team to the standard. Have a nice day.

The standard stall that I refer to: Suicune, Cloyster/Starmie, Raikou, Skarm, Miltank, Drumlax.