Stall's for pussies

animenagai

animenagai

is a Three-Time Past WCoP Champion
And I'm the biggest pussy in the world (heck I play pokemon, that's a sign :O). Anyways, I've been trying to get into stall lately. Despite all this talk about stall being easy and boring and whatnot, I think most top players would agree that stall takes more skill than offense. In offense, if you make a mistake you can easily come back with your speed and power, in stall, if you lose the one counter you have to a big threat, you're pretty screwed. At least that's how I look at it, and probably why I'm not that good with it. This is an attempt for me to learn a new style, and I'll greatly appreciate any constructive criticism.

Team at a glance:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dpmfa227.png
dpmfa479.png
dpffa242.png
dpffa073.png
dpmfa385.png
dpmfa145.png

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


skarmory.png


Skarmory (M) @ Shed Shell
Ability: Keen Eye
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 Spd
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Spikes
- Stealth Rock
- Roost
- Whirlwind
---

I honestly love this metal bird. The double spike is amazing, and imo it sets down spikes better than anything because of it's simple healing move for longevity and resistances. Can quite easily can an early lead against the likes of metagross and swampert leads. Setting down spikes early is the key to winning in stall right? This is the king in that. I am thinking of using brave bird over whirlwind though as zapdos already has roar.

rotomheat.png


Rotom-h @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/4 SDef
Bold nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Will-o-wisp
- Rest
- Discharge
- Sleep Talk
---

Staple on any stall team. A spin stopper is just priceless in stall. Rest talk because I want it to be able to heal on its own rather than really on wish support. Discharge over shadow ball because it can hit the spinners better as well as deal with sub toxic zapdos if I get the para. WOW is for t-tar and scizor.

blissey.png


Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def/20 HP/236 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Wish
- Protect
---

Yes, I use a fat pink whore. Do I really need to say too much about this bitch? Walls pretty much any special attacker in the game. Wish bliss over aromatherapy because this team really doesn't mind status. Toxic to beat latias and starmie, S-toss because I hate beaing walled by the likes of sub tran.

tentacruel.png


Tentacruel (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP/120 Def/136 SDef
Calm nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic Spikes
- Surf
- Ice Beam
---

More gay standard shit. The reason I chose tenta is because I was sold on skarm (kinda built the team to use that dual spiking chicken), so I figured using forry would just be too much of the same thing. I usually like to use rest over ice beam, but I don't have aromatherapy, so I opted for more coverage.

jirachi.png


Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 110 HP/252 Atk/148 Spd
Jolly nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Ice Punch
- Trick
- Iron Head
- U-turn
---

This is probably the only other instance of creativity on this team :D. I chose Trickscarf jiraichi because most stlal teams have problems with mence. People usually just LO stall it, but I have no sand to help with that, so I wanted a proper counter. Actually works really well. Trickscarf is probably the most universal revenge 'killing' tool you can have. Since I don't have hippow, this is also my only rock resist. Don't tell me to lead with this and SR, you either have to waste your scarf, u-turn or risk being trapped by maggy. Sucks.

zapdos.png


Zapdos @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 178 HP/252 Def/80 Spd
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Roar
- Roost
- Heat Wave
- Thunderbolt
---

When I got to this last spot, I realised that I ahd a massive lucario weak. Gyara could be annoying too (though I have skarm and rotom) so I opted for the flying yellow porcupine. Having another phazer is really nice.

Well that's my team. I find sand a bit overrated as I've seen good players run stall without it so I gave it a try. Rate away.

edit: changes in bold.
 
having just started a stall team myself (though I am still a novice) I'm confused by your Rotom's set up. Wouldn't a Spiritomb or something be more suited for a set with only a ghost attack like that? Rotom-h is capable with fire and electric, but doesn't have as high of defensive stats and it just seems like a waste. idk

Edit: Oh, and one other thing. I recommend replacing Zapdos or something with a Hippowdon. Sand Stream is amazing and he can get you type coverage and a stealth rock back up. There's a sticky about stalls and I think it goes over this. he has a recover type move and can use earthquake and/or the 3 fang attacks which is very nice for type coverage. he also has good tanking abilities and Zapdos doesn't really fit the role of a stall team

Mod Edit: See it's kind of cool huh?
 
Piotrowiak said:
having just started a stall team myself (though I am still a novice) I'm confused by your Rotom's set up. Wouldn't a Spiritomb or something be more suited for a set with only a ghost attack like that? Rotom-h is capable with fire and electric, but doesn't have as high of defensive stats and it just seems like a waste. idk
Click to expand...

Rotom-H compensates for smaller defense with its excellent typing. Steel resistant and has Levitate means it can wall the shit out of a lot of attacking types. Besides, Rotom doesn't seem to be used for attacking here, rather than walling, forcing switches, and laying down Will-O-Wisp.
 
I suggest using Snorlax over Blissey as your special absorber. Probably the CB flavor. It helps to deal with Trick users that are ever so common these days, dishes out a huge amount of damage, and sponges special hits fairly well while not crumpling to physical hits quite like the fat, pink whore. It somewhat breaks from the theme of the team, but can be quite a surprise for your opponent when you hit hard when they expect stall.
 
I like it, this is really what you see on a typical stall team, but I'd suggest Roserade or Swampert over Tentacruel. Roserade can sleep those Levitators that avoid Spikes and resist SR and still be able to do some damage, which is pretty valuable in stall. Swampert can free up SR from Skarm, allowing for Brave Bird or Drill Peck for some basic offense, as well as pack Roar in case Skarm can't do enough phazing on it's own.

If not, it's totally fine, Tenta is great too. Also, if you see that there's too much phazing on your team, you can always opt for Metal Sound on Zapdos over Roar to scare those things that come in and resist both of your attacks.
 
The earlier posts surprise me...
Just as a note, to hopefully make a point using as few words as possible: ipl both used zapdos regularly, as well as didn't run hippo.

Out of curiosity, why the choice of black sludge over leftovers on tentacruel? Obi's reasoning seemed very sound; leftovers and black sludge are exactly the same, but if an opponent has a tricker, taking a black sludge is actually better then leftovers because they can then later try and trick that onto another one of your pokemon.
I'm an overall poor team rater, so I can't provide anything other then questioning this choice which I'm sure you put some reasoning behind-I'm just posting to here this reasoning.

EDIT:
Is it better to be slower or faster then metagross with skarmory?
Slower sounds appealing so that you don't have to fear any eqs while roosting. In that case keeping the current 0 speed evs would obviously be the better option.
As a note, ipl invested a lot of special defense into his skarmory. I'm not sure if you'd want to consider this yourself.
Phazing is spectacular, especially on predicted switches (with entry hazards).
 
I too have started using stall and I must say it is very different to offensive. (and harder)

Zapdos doesn't really fit the role of a stall team
Click to expand...

If you mean that Zapdos doesn't work on stall then you are sorely mistaken. Zapdos can preform a number of different roles on a stall team. These include a physical tank, s special tank and a Toxic staller.

Speaking of Toxic stalling Zapdos, I recommend that you use Substitute over Heat Wave on Zapdos to help rack up poison damage. I use it on my stall team and it works wonders with his speed, especially against slower stuff.

I really don't get why you lead with Skarmory. A lot of the common leads can beat him 1 on 1. I recommend that you lead with Jirachi and put Stealth Rock over U-Turn. Jirachi would also make a good lead for this team as it would disguise the fact your your using a stall team. After all, wtf uses a Choice Scarf Jirachi as a lead on a stall team?

Also, now that you've got SR on Jirachi you can chuck Brave Bird on Skarmory over SR and swap those 4Spe EVs into attack.

Leftovers -> Black Sludge on Tenta. (See above post) And consider Knock Off over Ice Beam.

Overall pretty good team. Good Luck!
 
Substitute may make taking advantage of pressure easier (stone edge, in particular), although I don't have the experience with the team to really judge here.
-The primary reason I'm posting here, however, is to add that toxic can also work over stealth rock if you decide to test those changes; the idea is from ipl who ran that move set, however, he lacked a toxic spiker on that build of the team, making it perhaps less useful for you. Still something that may perhaps be worth considering as an option.
 
i dont know if anyone mentioned this but you have 80 special attack evs on blissey and no special attack to make use of it dump it into hp heck put some in speed but dont waste it
 
Shur.tugal said:
I too have started using stall and I must say it is very different to offensive. (and harder)



If you mean that Zapdos doesn't work on stall then you are sorely mistaken. Zapdos can preform a number of different roles on a stall team. These include a physical tank, s special tank and a Toxic staller.

Speaking of Toxic stalling Zapdos, I recommend that you use Substitute over Heat Wave on Zapdos to help rack up poison damage. I use it on my stall team and it works wonders with his speed, especially against slower stuff.

I really don't get why you lead with Skarmory. A lot of the common leads can beat him 1 on 1. I recommend that you lead with Jirachi and put Stealth Rock over U-Turn. Jirachi would also make a good lead for this team as it would disguise the fact your your using a stall team. After all, wtf uses a Choice Scarf Jirachi as a lead on a stall team?

Also, now that you've got SR on Jirachi you can chuck Brave Bird on Skarmory over SR and swap those 4Spe EVs into attack.

Leftovers -> Black Sludge on Tenta. (See above post) And consider Knock Off over Ice Beam.

Overall pretty good team. Good Luck!
Click to expand...

I thought about sub-toxic zapdos and I have to say that it's still my favorite zapdos (as well as one of the biggest threats in the metagame imo) to date. However, the reason I chose zapdos in the first place was to beat lucario. Therefore I feel that heat wave is necessary.

As I said before, I absolutely hate a scarfed jiraichi lead. It's popularity just isn't justafied to me at all. Keep in mind that I need to keep the scarf early in order to deal with mence (which is hardly ever a lead, or at least it shouldn't be). Therefore, tricking the scarf on the first turn is out of the question. Given that I don't trick on the first turn, what do I do? If I SR, there's a good chance that I'll get trapped by magnezone. If I u-turn, my opponent will set up SR and I'm behind already. If I attack, they'll almost certainly survive, set up rocks and switch into a counter while I'm stuck on an attack.

It's just not a very good lead at all. I much rather use skarm and win maybe half the time (against hippow, swampert, metagross and the rare t-tar) then flip a coin hoping that my opponent doesn't have a maggy.

Oh, and I'll change tenta's item to lefties :P
 
Don't have time for a proper rate but a minor nitpick:

List of Rapid Spinners (in usage order):

Starmie
Forretress
Tentacruel
Donphan


Thunderbolt 2HKOes Forretress, as well as KOing Starmie and doing lots of damage to Tentacruel, where as Shadow Ball hurts Starmie a lot, Donphan a bit and barely dents Tenta/Forry. Now if you have Will-O-Wisp for Donphan as well as recovery, then why would you run Shadow Ball? Another plus of Thunderbolt is that it allows you to hit stuff like Heatran, who loves switching into Rotom Oven.

Just a thought, will update later/post later with a better rate :).
 
Rotom-H and Zapdos do very similar roles. Zapdos is needed for Lucario, but Rotom-H can do that do. Rotom's primary purpose is not to be a tank, but to be a spin-blocker. Change Rotom's movepool to Thunderbolt, Shadow Ball, Will o Wisp and Overheat, and it's EVs to 252 HP / 44 Def / 212 Spe. Rotom can outspeed Adamant Lucario and OHKO with Overheat.

The main advantage of this is now Zapdos can be replaced with Hippowdon - use the standard set with Roar as the fourth move.

Hippowdon should be the lead. Skarmory is a horrible lead. He instantly fails to Taunt and Infernape. As well, your team before was completely dependent on Skarmory for his entry hazards. With Hippowdon setting up sandstorm and SR, you still have a fighting chance if Skarmory dies due to misprediction or a surprise attack (most likely exploiting Skarmory's abysmal SDef). With Hippowdon using SR, Skarmory can now have Brave Bird as a form of offence. This is especially useful for Salamence, Breloom, Machamp, Infernape (on the switch) and Gyarados should Rotom-H have taken sufficient damage. (Note that Zapdos cannot switch into Gyarados as it DDs thanks to Stone Edge, and Rotom-H needs Thunderbolt). Hippowdon also absorbs paralysis for the team. I admit that the changes to Rotom means you don't have a sleep absorber, though Hippowdon isn't a bad absorber. He has plenty of physical durability to stall out his sleep, and he's done most of his team support work after using SR.

Also, as stated by puffery, Blissey has useless EVs in SpA. have 20 HP / 252 Def / 236 Def. 20 HP gives an extra point of Leftovers recovery.


Should you ignore my rate, then at the very least, read MS' post.
 
I do not think you need Zapdos to take on Lucario. Tentacruel can switch into most of them with little to no fear, if you tweak the EV spread just a bit. I used to resort to the infamous Skarmbliss on a team for my defensive core (the idea behind it was to set up hazards and weaken the team until my Kingdra could setup and sweep). obviously Blaziken, Infernape, Lucario and powerful mixed Fighting attackers in general give a lot of trouble to the duo. I put Tentacruel to patch the weakness and it worked perfectly, especially since Blissey could heal it with Wish. It did also the Toxic Spiking job.

I think a Sandstreamer like Tyranitar or Hippowdon, or even Abomasnow (the SubPunch/Subseed sets force a lot of switching, racking hazard and Hail dmg) would better serve you in the long run. Otherwise, good team. I sadly didnt found space on my old team for Rotom, and in fact I felt very upset when a spinner came from nowhere to blow away my spikes. Fortunately the team was built so that I could rack spikes repeatedly without much trouble, but it was a shame nonetheless.
 
just a quick note..why the special attack EV"s on blissey if your not using a special attack? Isnt it smarter to put that into hp then?
 
Having both Spikes and Stealth Rock on Skarmory is not recommended. If you come in on a mispredicted Fire Blast from the likes of Flygon or Salamence, your entire strategy is ruined. Blissey and Jirachi both learn Stealth Rock, and have the defenses to lay it down easily. This allows Skarmory another moveslot. Since it walls most Steels except Heatran quite effectively, Toxic would be ideal here. You can then free up the Toxic spot on Blissey for SR (Incidentally, Metagross & co just love switching in to Toxic Blissey).
 
M0nkfish: Why would I risk skarm on a fire move? If it's stuff like mence you're thinking about, chances are I'll waste jira rather than skarm.

MS: Good point. I'll change that now.

On the bliss EV's, it used to run flamethrower and I forgot to change them when I changed it to toxic. I'll fix them ASAP.
 
Just a quick comment:

Take out one of skarms moves because normal leads carry Taunt, and they shut down your metal pigeon instantly.
 
Golden Empoleon said:
Just a quick comment:

Take out one of skarms moves because normal leads carry Taunt, and they shut down your metal pigeon instantly.
Click to expand...


I like the idea of setting up spikes early, but I think using Skarmory as a lead is dumb. I'd switch Skarmory with Jirachi, it seems like the better choice, doesn't it?
 
Going to disagree with the first paragraph just to say, with offense if you just miss once, or mis-predict once, your paper-defense sweeper will get beat into the ground or statused into the shit-hole. Meanwhile stall packs all sorts of fail-safes, so it's a lot easier to have some "insurance" than offensive teams.
 
locopoke said:
I like the idea of setting up spikes early, but I think using Skarmory as a lead is dumb. I'd switch Skarmory with Jirachi, it seems like the better choice, doesn't it?
Click to expand...

lol Read the rant I wrote before. Jira lead sucks. On the problem of skarm getting taunted, think about what those leads are: gyara, ape and azelf. Gyara is hardly an issue early game without rocks set up as I have rotom and zapdos, so it's not really that big of an early lead at all. With azelf and ape, it wouldn't matter if I had brave bird/drill peck because I wouldn't risk the fire blast. If anything, I would want brave bird for stuff like breloom and not because of it's position as a lead.

With chou's comments, it might just be how I play and how I build teams. My main style is bulky offense with at least one specialist revenge killer and probably a priority user as well. When you build an offensive team, you're allowed to have those safety nets in place because the pokes that you choose, with stall, sure they're bulky but that doesn't mean that you can stop them. For example, if my zapdos dies, lucario's in for a sweep. DOesn't matter how bulky everyone else is.

On changing rotom's set, I'm pretty temted to pull the trigger. However, I have run a rotom with no means of recovery before on another stall team. I can tell you that when it's stall vs stall, you want to keep that anti spinner healthy. I'm a bit torn tbh, but I'll try it out.

I just realised that I'm actually a quite gengar weak atm beacause bliss can't hit it. Should I change toxic for flamethrower and maybe give tenta toxic over ice beam to deal with latias?
 
So its good you are using Discharge over Shadow Ball now, but I think when it comes down to your team versus opposing stall teams, the team with Shadow Ball on his/her Rotom comes out on top. You have no real reliable way of taking it down except for Tricking a scarf onto it (not likely) or getting lucky.

I wanna somewhat revamp this team's movesets to make it easier for you to hit opposing stall teams. We will go the Aromatherapy route on Blissey. While this defeats the healing your team members get, it also allows you to free up some slots for Rest, keeping synergy on the team.

So obviously, Blissey is gonna change. I'd suggest running Aromatherapy, Softboiled, Seismic Toss, and Ice Beam. For one thing, you hit Gengar now, which gives this team major trouble. Additionally, you keep Seismic Toss so SubHeatran doesn't run over your team.

The next change involve giving Rest to Tentacruel. I'd suggest Rest over Ice Beam on Tentacruel, since most Salamence run Earthquake now anyway. Actually, every dragon bar Latias probably runs Earthquake, so Ice Beam is far less effective now as in the past. Besides, Latias can simply Calm Mind on Tentacruel anyway, not much merit in my opinion.

I also propose running Shadow Ball on your own Rotom over Sleep Talk, to at least give yourself a chance to beat other defensive Rotom and break a hole in opposing stall teams. Keep Will-O-Wisp so that Tyranitar doesn't eat this team alive.

Since we lost Toxic On Blissey, I propose we run a faster SubRoost Zapdos with Toxic. Substitute / Roost / Thunderbolt / Toxic should suffice to act as a staller for this team. I'd run max HP, enough speed to beat Lucario (I think 176 is the right EV number), and the rest in defense to maximize bulk. This will basically cover your weakness to stuff like Nasty Plot Togekiss and Lucario. Heat Wave, although effective, I find is only useful to beat Scizor, Jirachi, and Celebi; the former two are hit hard by Thunderbolt, and the latter should fall to Toxic or Toxic Spikes.

These changes do mean that you will need to play Jirachi carefully, as you don't have Wish support anymore. Regardless, I feel you are a good enough player to utilize it wisely and not sacrifice it unless completely necessary.

Good luck, hope some of this was useful.
 
How has the Zapdos worked for you? I thought of trying to run a 280 speed Zapdos with Heat Wave on one of my stall teams to counter Lucario but never got around to it (I love using the bulky 252 HP/220 Defense/36 Speed Sub/Toxic/TBolt/Roost one too much). It just seemed like losing all that durability to get to that speed with a Stealth Rock weakness would hurt its overall usefulness. I'm just curious since I meant to test it the other day and never got around to it.
 
Oh well...um...wow...

The main issue I see here is um...you're about as likely to get outstalled as you are to stall someone else. The two biggest culprits for this weakness here is Rotom and Zapdos. First of all, Tentacruel can't even spin against Rotom and it'll only spin once if it even attempts to do it on Zapdos, which leads to the whole, you can't do shit to either one of them. Your main switch in to both would probably be Blissey. Now Blissey could overtake Zapdos, potentially, when it comes down to guessing "Is he going to Roost at 43% or is he going to Substitute again?" But either way you're wasting a LOT of Seismic Tosses. Now Rotom is an even bigger issue, I just see absolutely no way you can get past it, short of of flinch haxing it to hell with Jirachi.

Now how do we fix this? I would simply just change out Jirachi. You say Jirachi is your "anti Salamence poke." Why not change that into Tyranitar? Scarf it, and it'll still outspeed non-DD Mence, and just like that Jirachi, would get outspeed by a +1 Mence anyways. Now, you add in Sandstorm for the team, you can surprise the Salamence with a faster move after you switch in let's say Draco Meteor, and you can also Pursuit/Crunch Rotom away. Zapdos could just scout it by Substituting as you switch in, but at least you'd actually force it out this time.
 
Aeroblacktyl said:
Oh well...um...wow...

The main issue I see here is um...you're about as likely to get outstalled as you are to stall someone else. The two biggest culprits for this weakness here is Rotom and Zapdos. First of all, Tentacruel can't even spin against Rotom and it'll only spin once if it even attempts to do it on Zapdos, which leads to the whole, you can't do shit to either one of them. Your main switch in to both would probably be Blissey. Now Blissey could overtake Zapdos, potentially, when it comes down to guessing "Is he going to Roost at 43% or is he going to Substitute again?" But either way you're wasting a LOT of Seismic Tosses. Now Rotom is an even bigger issue, I just see absolutely no way you can get past it, short of of flinch haxing it to hell with Jirachi.

Now how do we fix this? I would simply just change out Jirachi. You say Jirachi is your "anti Salamence poke." Why not change that into Tyranitar? Scarf it, and it'll still outspeed non-DD Mence, and just like that Jirachi, would get outspeed by a +1 Mence anyways. Now, you add in Sandstorm for the team, you can surprise the Salamence with a faster move after you switch in let's say Draco Meteor, and you can also Pursuit/Crunch Rotom away. Zapdos could just scout it by Substituting as you switch in, but at least you'd actually force it out this time.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm scarftar is definitely an interesting option. I've ran it before on a stall team and it was pretty sweet. I do have worries about a simple jiraichi -> t-tar switch though however. For starters, last time I checked, t-tar is neutral to rock. That means I'll no longer have a good rock resist to counter t-tar's stone edge. Secondly, jira at least outruns adamant mence after a DD, which is the majority of DD mences because it's the standard set on the smogon analysis (trust me on this one). So unless I take out say zapdos instead, I'll have to pass.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top