Other Stall

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It's illegal because you need at least one fairy move to evolve eevee into sylveon, and once you forget any of those 4 moves, there's no way to get them back. (The move reminder only works on egg moves for pokemon bred in XY)

If showdown lets you use all four then that's a bug and should be taken advantage of
 
Actually, wouldn't it be perfectly legal considering Wish is an egg move and egg moves can be re-taught with the move re-learner?
 
A pokemon that I have been using to great success is specially defensive Chesnaught. I have found that the physical attackers that Chesnaught wants to be taking on, like Excadrill and Tyranitar, can be taken care of with just HP investment. This leaves plenty of room for investment in special bulk, making Chesnaught much more reliable against pokemon like Rotom-W and even Keldeo. Here are a few damage calcs that show how bulky Chesnaught can be on the special side, while still retaining its bulk on the physical side. The EV spread I use is 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef Impish.

252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Icy Wind vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Chesnaught: 170-202 (44.7 - 53.1%) -- 26.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Rotom-W Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Chesnaught: 59-69 (15.5 - 18.1%) -- possible 8HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Thundurus Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Chesnaught: 122-144 (32.1 - 37.8%) -- 30.5% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Chesnaught: 140-165 (36.8 - 43.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Mega Scizor U-turn vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Chesnaught: 108-127 (28.4 - 33.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Chesnaught: 75-88 (19.7 - 23.1%) -- possible 6HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

I think I have made my point. Chesnaught can wall special attackers whose STAB attacks it resists, like Rotom-W and Thundurus and Keldeo outside rain, while still reliably switching into and threatening the physical attackers it wants to take on. With access to Leech Seed and Spiky Shield, Chesnaught finds itself able to harass the opponent while being able to keep itself healthy relatively easily. If that isn't enough, it even gets access to Synthesis, though sandstorm and rain diminish its healing capabilities. A final, extreme example is:

+1 252+ Atk Mega Tyranitar Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Chesnaught: 246-290 (64.7 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Chesnaught Hammer Arm vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Tyranitar: 324-384 (80.1 - 95%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Chesnaught is able to switch into Mega-Tyranitar as it uses Dragon Dance, Spiky Shield to knock it into OHKO range of Hammer Arm, survive the boosted super effective attack, and retaliate with its own 4x super effective STAB move. With a specially defensive EV spread.
 
Yeah, both forms of Deoxys can be really annoying for stall teams, and there are few things able to stand in their way. Luckily, I've found Mew to be an excellent anti-lead this gen, in no small part due to the unpredictability that comes from its expansive movepool and great stats all around.

Mew (This is a Lead) @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Spe / 4 SpD
Jolly Nature
- Roost
- Taunt
- Will-o-Wisp
- Knock Off

Speedy Mew is a great answer to the Deos:

Deoxys-S: Knock Off 2HKOs. They'll usually go for the Taunt on the first turn, and can often only get one layer of spikes up.

Deoxys-D: Taunt it and keep on knockin'. Since most Mew don't run Speed EVs, most Deoxys-D think they can outspeed this one and try to Taunt it (even if they 're carrying Magic Coat). If you're paranoid, you can always Taunt it after you Knock It Off.

Mew can also outspeed and somewhat-reliably deal with Kyurem-B, the Bane of Stall; furthermore, its bad Psychic typing can prove to be a boon when physical Dark-types such as Tyranitar and Bisharp stay in expecting a free turn only to be rendered burned and helpless by WoW. (You'll be burning a lot of things as they SD or DD; Quagsire makes a great teammate.) Mew also gives fellow stall teams hell with Taunt and Knock Off.
 
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So, this thread has been quiet for a bit, and I just went out and started spamming together a stall team (Mainly because my college class is less interesting than this). So I came up, after a few adjustments, with basically a fusion of Yuttt's team and some of my more "Anti-meta" struggling contenders. The team itself went 100+ turns with full spikes against it (never a good thing to let that happen, but that was the second game) and is fairly good in defensive capabilities. However, it hasn't found any stride in offense outside of Mega Aggron going "Mehehe destroy EQ users with counter". Base 230 Defense is a wonder.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-106136621

The full team isn't that hard to figure out... Aggron as Pinsir-mega counter (And Mawile, +utility physical wall), Chesnaught rounds out some other physical stuff, namely a fallback wall to allow Aggron more freedom to dual the physical megas and takes on Bisharp, Alomola is the last one mostly for Mega Zard-X and Darmanitan. Alomomola's set is admittedly almost as bad as Cresselia's.

Cress takes Lando/Thundy and most misc special attackers. Flygon takes Charizard-Y, defog support... Scares out heatran... Unfortunately isn't much of a defensive beast with the shit coverage rock/fire gives. Fire blast is there to clear out skarm and Ferro while Rock slide is to kill Char-Y... As you might guess, misses out on heatran BIG time. Clefable is kinda all purpose cleric/dragon slaying Latios. I dunno... I feel like I could use one more EQ move, and maybe another fire move.

Aggron @ Aggronite
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SDef
Impish Nature
- Counter
- Roar
- Heavy Slam
- Rest

Chesnaught @ Leftovers
Ability: Bulletproof
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 Atk
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Leech Seed
- Hammer Arm
- Spiky Shield

Cresselia (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Moonlight
- Psychic
- Magic Coat

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Def
Bold Nature
- Moonlight
- Moonblast
- Stealth Rock
- Heal Bell

Alomomola @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Toxic
- Knock Off

Flygon @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 HP / 252 SDef
Careful Nature
- Fire Blast
- Rock Slide
- Roost
- Defog

This team is teaching me just how good mega aggron is. So beastly. Takes +2 eq from Pinsir like it's nothing, counters and kills. Mawile-mega has a hard time, but kind of needs to get to +2 to OHKO itself on Mega Aggron... Annoying, but that's how it goes.
 
I like Mega Aggron. The only problem is that it struggles with entry...Steel Rock isn't a great starting type and if you misread an attack it can be forced into a SleepTalk cycle pretty quick.

Cress as you mentioned is also one of my favourites. It works well with Porygon2 and Sylveon I've found. Always kind of secretly hoped it gets Heal Bell or something like it sometime just so it becomes a hilariously fat cleric.

What does this topic think of defensive Arcanine? I am tempted to try out a non-standard FWG core and Arcanine seems to work well as an alternative to Heatran. Intimidate is always useful and it has access to pretty much the entire core defensive Heatran set aside from Stealth Rock (Roar/Will-O-Wisp, and bulky enough stats). With Morning Sun it can regenerate fairly well...it'll struggle against TTar but I guess so did Heatran. Killer is that it regains that rock weakness in comparison and continual cycling it in for 25% damage will wear it down...but it looks like a nice Pokemon to try out.
 
Hm, I just thought of this a few moments ago, so I apologize if its ineffecitve, already proposed, or anything like that.

With a Grip Claw and Infestation, wouldn't a trapping stall team be quite effective? With a Grip Claw and the buffed trapping mechanics, a poke would lose 7/8 of their health over 7 turns while being unable to switch. (While you switch to something that walls them). With one or two dedicated trappers and a team of walls, this process could be repeated until your opponent is dead or completely worn out.

Of course, the problem would be to find these dedicated trappers, and I am simply too lazy to find them :P

This could also be an effective offensive playstyle by switching into a setup sweeper that walls the mon being trapped.

Anyway, thoughts?

EDIT: Nevermind, trapping moves apparently wear off once you switch out D:
 
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I like Mega Aggron. The only problem is that it struggles with entry...Steel Rock isn't a great starting type and if you misread an attack it can be forced into a SleepTalk cycle pretty quick.

Cress as you mentioned is also one of my favourites. It works well with Porygon2 and Sylveon I've found. Always kind of secretly hoped it gets Heal Bell or something like it sometime just so it becomes a hilariously fat cleric.

What does this topic think of defensive Arcanine? I am tempted to try out a non-standard FWG core and Arcanine seems to work well as an alternative to Heatran. Intimidate is always useful and it has access to pretty much the entire core defensive Heatran set aside from Stealth Rock (Roar/Will-O-Wisp, and bulky enough stats). With Morning Sun it can regenerate fairly well...it'll struggle against TTar but I guess so did Heatran. Killer is that it regains that rock weakness in comparison and continual cycling it in for 25% damage will wear it down...but it looks like a nice Pokemon to try out.




Defensive Fire types in general have been a recent focus of mine, purely and solely because of their application against Mega-Mawile. They obviously won't appreciate the possibility of an incoming Knock Off, but resisting the Play Rough is regardless a huge asset. Arcanine is one such example and it really didn't underperform when I tried it out.

-1 252+ Atk Huge Power MegaMawile Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arcanine: (42.18 - 49.73%)
-1 252+ Atk Huge Power MegaMawile Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arcanine: (28.9 - 34.37%)

Both give you a free chance to fire off a will-o-wisp or use Morning Sun if you don't expect them to sub up.

However, going full bulky (and a little speed creep) will make this pokemon pretty weak.

0 Atk Arcanine Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 48+ Def Heatran: (40.51 - 47.79%) -- Chancy 2hko after SR and Leftovers



Other Options for bulky or bulky-ish Fire types that can possibly switch into MegaMawile might include Charizard-Y sans hazards (doesn't take Knock Off damage), Heatran, Chandelure, Moltres, Rotom-H, Entei, Victini, Talonflame, and ... Magcargo? Charizard-X is bulky also.

Bulk is a relative word: if Rotom-W can be bulky with a base 50 HP stat, then it's not impossible for a fire type to be bulky as well with the right investments.

Before abilities, Entei has the largest physical bulk if I'm not mistaken. After intimidate, Arcanine is physically bulkiest.

252+ Atk Huge Power MegaMawile Play Rough vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Entei: (36.72 - 43.18%) -- 53.91% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Huge Power MegaMawile Knock Off vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Entei: (53.34 - 62.81%)



Mawile is just fckin strong, like too strong, and all of those above take serious damage coming in, especially from Knock Off.

Forcing a bulky fire into my team, regardless, is an ongoing mini-project. At the moment Rotom-H is my favorite.
 
Moltress basically hard counters Mawile on paper because it also resists Focus Punch (which is actually more powerful than STAB Play Rough), but it has that insane 4x SR weakness which makes simple switching far too an effective tactic in wearing it down.

Arcanine probably is indeed the best Mawile counter in my opinion, but I'd probably still invest in physical bulk tbh, since without it, walls tend to get wore down easier than they'd like, which is especially relevant when you are SR weak. Doing around 45% to Heatran with an univested CC is still good enough imo; sacrificing bulk to achieve a situational 2HKO against something which lacks reliable recovery anyway and isn't a big immediate threat to stall doesn't seem worth it. Arcanine obviously gets both Intimidate and reliable recovery, which automatically gives it a pretty big edge over all the other fire types for the role.

But to illustrate how insane Focus Punch can be:

-1 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arcanine: 171-202 (44.5 - 52.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Poison types could be worth looking into. Weezing I'd imagine could be alright, as he has decent natural physical bulk, resists both Play Rough and Focus Punch, has access to Will-O-Wisp to cripple Mawile, has a good attacking movepool consisting of things like Flamethrower/Fire Blast and Thunderbolt, and Toxic Spikes for team support. Then there's Quilfish who has intimidate like Arcanine, but resists any fighting coverage moves, and has Destiny Bond to take things by surprise. Arcanine will most likely remain the best option, though, so I'd probably stick with him but give it physical bulk.
 
Other Options for bulky or bulky-ish Fire types that can possibly switch into MegaMawile might include Charizard-Y sans hazards (doesn't take Knock Off damage), Heatran, Chandelure, Moltres, Rotom-H, Entei, Victini, Talonflame, and ... Magcargo? Charizard-X is bulky also.
Charizard-X works pretty well in my theory testing. It can't survive Mega Mawile nearly as well as Arcanine (it needs no hazards on your side and would just barely survive) but can deal with a good number of top tier threats (even non-Belly Drum Azumarill to my surprise).
 
The best I've been able to do with Mawile is just basically make it really damn hard for it to switch in. This is doable even with a stall team, pokemon with will-o-wisp, fire coverage, STAB ground attacks, and really slow gyro balls generally function well and at most I usually only have to sac one thing to get mawile under control (assuming no hax :P) now that I've gotten better at playing against it. Every time I think I've finally got it walled, it shows up with a fire fang or focus punch or something. I suppose that's the reward for skillfully teambuilding around running such a slow-but-powerful mega: WALLBREAKING



I've noticed that many of my stall teams aren't incorporating megas; I usually start with a pokemon that walls Landorus-I or that walls Charizard-Y or that walls Pinsir and just kinda work from there trying to patch up weaknesses. I end up with pretty good teams that work well, but really don't like Knock Off spam, and don't quite have tanky power when they need it. I think I will try to start with pokemon1 = megapokemon in the future, and work around THAT instead.

Benefits include knock off immunity, trick immunity, all around great stats, and quiver-in-their-pants intimidation factor; is my charizard a bulky will-o-wisp tank variant or a fire blast spam variant?

It's nice to see Megas such as Aggron and Char-X seeing use in stall instead of default Scizor and Venusaur. I use Aerodactyl a lot myself. And I was encouraged to try Blastoise as a bulky spinner and it worked great. How do Tyranitar and Garchomp fare as bulky SR setters? Did you notice MegaPinsir has base 120 Defense? And how about the rest-talk intimidate MegaMawile set in the analyses? Now THAT seems interesting

RestTalk
########
name: RestTalk
move 1: Rest
move 2: Sleep Talk
move 3: Play Rough
move 4: Foul Play <-- this move is variable for sure
ability: Intimidate
item: Mawilite
evs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
nature: Impish
 
Physically defensive Rest-Talk Victini sounds pretty good on paper.

Victini @ Leftovers
Trait: Victory Star
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- V-create
- Will-O-Wisp
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

You can avoid Mawile's Sucker Punch with W-o-W (they'll never expect it) as well as burn Landorus-T switch ins (again, they'll never expect it). V-Create hits incredibly hard either way even with no investment, 2HKO'ing Conkeldurr for example even with the speed drop. It does lower your defense but Stall doesn't have too much trouble with switching in and out so it's not too big of a deal. W-o-W also helps with Aegislash's King Shield mindgames.

Arcanine does give this set some competition though, but I guess the surprise factor does give Victini an advantage. V-Create also hits much harder than Arcanine's Flare Blitz.
 
I have mixed opinions on stall, I mean, Stall requires small amounts of skill, I built a stall team to test its viability and endured 15, 40+ turn battles to test the hypothesis that I could get an ELO above 1250, and lose minimal battles. In the end I reached an ELO close to 1380 and had a 14-1 streak. Honestly, it can be cheap, but as Gen 6 moves more toward defense... One has to consider its viability...
This is the Team-

Dr. Venom (Gliscor) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Def / 12 Spd
Impish Nature
- Protect
- Substitute
- Toxic
- Earthquake

Dr. Unaware (Quagsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Curse
- Recover

Dr. Sprout (Venusaur) @ Venusaurite
Ability: Chlorophyll
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Synthesis
- Leech Seed

Dr. Doctor (Chansey) @ Eviolite
Ability: Natural Cure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave
- Aromatherapy

Dr. Hazardous (Deoxys-Defense) @ Red Card
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Taunt
- Magic Coat

Dr. Owww (Skarmory) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Defog
- Brave Bird
- Roost
- Whirlwind
 
Physically defensive Rest-Talk Victini sounds pretty good on paper.

Victini @ Leftovers
Trait: Victory Star
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- V-create
- Will-O-Wisp
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

You can avoid Mawile's Sucker Punch with W-o-W (they'll never expect it) as well as burn Landorus-T switch ins (again, they'll never expect it). V-Create hits incredibly hard either way even with no investment, 2HKO'ing Conkeldurr for example even with the speed drop. It does lower your defense but Stall doesn't have too much trouble with switching in and out so it's not too big of a deal. W-o-W also helps with Aegislash's King Shield mindgames.

Arcanine does give this set some competition though, but I guess the surprise factor does give Victini an advantage. V-Create also hits much harder than Arcanine's Flare Blitz.

Tbh, Volcanion is about the best chance to take Mawile outside of Arcanine.

Just assuming Lava plume as an attack for highest BST (Which we basically know is bullshit)

0 SpA Volcanion Lava Plume vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mega Mawile: 212-252 (69.7 - 82.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Volcanion: 196-231 (56.9 - 67.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
^Yes, absolutely devastating again...

252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Volcanion: 105-124 (30.5 - 36%) -- 47.1% chance to 3HKO

But once you start looking to more common sets, it is manageable. Fantastic defenses, no fight weakness (something heatran loses out with)... It really provides a beautiful chance and the niche it would need. Iron head is 4x resisted, fire fang 4x resisted, all mawile could hope to do is focus punch... Which, to me, is a great chance.
 
As far as Mawile goes, whenever I used my own (4 attacks w/ Knock Off) against stall I only ever struggled against M-Venu and Gliscor. Neither can be 2HKOd, neither can be Knock Off'd, as long as you play Gliscor smart. The only weakness the two have as counters is a vague vulnerability to SD Mawile, compared to other Mawile checks; but still, if your team's really struggling with Mawile, those are the two I'd recommend.

Stall requires small amounts of skill

I hate seeing this come up. Yep, stall requires less immediate, risky prediction than offense. That's it. If you define skill as shallowly as the ability to predict well, then you're right. The way I'd define skill is the ability to execute your strategy while trying to prevent the implementation of the opponents; which stall has to do over many more turns, and under much greater pressure, than offense. At the highest level, stall requires an immense amount of forward planning on most moves. I'd also suggest that because stall battles are often resolved by the accumulation of small advantages, particularly in stall vs stall battles, they demonstrate skill over the course of a match much more effectively than in offense vs offense matchups, in which the outcome is regularly decided by a handful of turns.
 
As far as skill goes, in building a true successful stall team, there is an immense amount of thought.... Not really "skill" but knowledge and persistence would definitely be words true to the teambuilding. A good stall team, as I mentioned before, can have 4x amount of hours put in as an offensive team of the same strength. The only other style that can come close to this time line is Balanced, which takes an incredible amount of time to make work... (I still think Balanced is flawed by concept but meh)

For playing, if we're talking general ladder play, most ladder players are bad enough that they won't even stick out a full stall game. Once you get to true players, you get pretty competitive games... Just the process of risk/reward (I want my cleric out to pressure ____ out again and get some more health to ___) makes stall an incredibly complex style to play at the highest level. You could write a guide about stalling with a purpose... With some help, I might write up some of it sometimes. I have some good examples and obviously I can do so.

But really, people have a misconception because playing against stall is a psychological battle as much as it is a pokemon battle. The prediction eventually becomes "When do I break patterns?", "How pressing is healing/spiking/clearing hazards?", "Where can I gain another advantage?" and "What do I need to pressure out and focus on killing next?". When will your opponent start overpredicting your patterns? When can you take advantage of your/his patterns and jump track without losing anything? Knowing what is important to target, how to lure/double switch to force it out and simply playing in a way with an objective other than delaying shows the true 'skill' of a stalling style's play.
 
I think there's a major difference in philosophy here. Stall aims to always have a switch-in, period. Switching until infinity. It takes a serious amount of teambuilding skill to put something together that can come close to doing this, and when you run into your worst enemy (Kyurem-B with HP Fire? Mawile with Substitute?) you have to plan accordingly and make some pretty tough decisions. Sacrificing one of your walls is fundamentally a more difficult decision to make than offense sacrificing one of their now-useless sweepers.

Some other players tend to think that the ability to mindlessly switch should be discouraged as much as possible, which explains the ubiquity of hazards+voltturn. Obviously, if one player can always switch something in and stubbornly Recover up to 100% then they are clearly advantaged. (this is where the "cheap" accusations comes in, hippowdon recovering up while Latios Life Orb's itself to death). So I agree that every player should try to limit their opponent's ability to switch.

But a team that is built around the entire concept of free switches (forever) shouldn't be characterized as unskillful. First, it's their own fault for not being able to break it. Second, have you ever tried walling (not checking, WALLING) Pinsir/Talonflame/Staraptor teams, Lando/Tyranitar/Keldeo teams, DeoSharp teams, Charizard-Y+Calm Mind Landorus teams, Pursuit Teams? It would take an extremely well prepared team to handle all those different archetypes, because they are designed to "overload" the common counters and break through and clean up with the 3rd sweeper. And Thirdly, good matches never go extremely favorably to the stall team. Good matches are played between equally skilled opponents, and at the end, half of the walls will be dead, hazards are permanently up, the cleric has to choose between heal bell or recover, and the match probably came down to an extremely stressful series of 50/50 predictions several turns ago.
 
It's worth noting that stall doesn't actually aim to always have a switch in - it just needs to stay alive long enough to kill the other team, same as any other playstyle. Sometimes, the only way to do this is to accept that many threats, alone or in combination, are inherently un-wallable and will eventually break through, and that the best way therefore to handle some threats is by playing and teambuilding more offensively. In particular in this metagame, I feel like a lot of stall players put way too much emphasis on having theoretical counters to everything, while neglecting their own win conditions.
 
Agreed... That team I through together does have the counters, but lacks any win condition... I decided that I'm going to remove some pieces and fix it eventually as I like alomomola + Aggron-mega, and do like the concept of Flygon as a defogger + ZardY counter. However, offensive power, in some way/shape/form, needs to exist. Generally toxic works, but you still need to cut down heatran, skarm and ferro (who is gaining popularity very quickly...) as well as Venusaur. One of the reasons heatran is so good is because it could toxic anything and hit everything else in OU for SE outside of heatran... which it did have EP for.

Anyone want to work on a side project in this thread, and start piecing together pieces of a stall game? We'd have to outline concepts such as surviving pressure, applying pressure, clericing, order of importance, targeting and risk/reward, as well as some other parts... It wouldn't focus on team building, obviously (though we could work on one of those as well) but battling. Obviously we still can continue individual guide posts on pokemon/general discussion, but it would be interesting to throw together a project, as I could even contact the stall players/builders that don't visit this thread much, and we certainly have enough people with knowledge here already (In short, I'd probably just tag the hell out of some people via PM or showdown).
 
Hey everyone. First of all, let say thanks a bunch for posting on this thread as it has helped me tremendously in creating my own stall team, which has miraculously peaked at #2 on the main ladder. I've read a good portion of this thread, but I was wondering if you guys have discussed Gothitelle at all? She (he?) really really destroys my entire team, and honestly I have no idea what to do against it except read the opponent's mind and make 100% perfect predictions early-game. So yeah, any help you guys have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!
 
Hey everyone. First of all, let say thanks a bunch for posting on this thread as it has helped me tremendously in creating my own stall team, which has miraculously peaked at #2 on the main ladder. I've read a good portion of this thread, but I was wondering if you guys have discussed Gothitelle at all? She (he?) really really destroys my entire team, and honestly I have no idea what to do against it except read the opponent's mind and make 100% perfect predictions early-game. So yeah, any help you guys have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

Gothitelle is a very good stall breaker, and whenever I build a stall team I always add a CB Pursuit Tyranitar/Bisharp to counter it. But yes that would mean you can only revenge kill it, and there's little to counter it when it first switches in because of how effective it is.
 
Hey everyone. First of all, let say thanks a bunch for posting on this thread as it has helped me tremendously in creating my own stall team, which has miraculously peaked at #2 on the main ladder. I've read a good portion of this thread, but I was wondering if you guys have discussed Gothitelle at all? She (he?) really really destroys my entire team, and honestly I have no idea what to do against it except read the opponent's mind and make 100% perfect predictions early-game. So yeah, any help you guys have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

You could try running Shed Shell on some 'Mons that are particularly vulnerable to Gothitelle, but that will compromise their general functions.

I've only been reading some posts every now and then, so I can't offer anything concrete, but the "momentum-based stall" concept that utilizes U-Turn and Volt Switch may allow for a favorable response to predicted Gothitelle switch-ins, while not being completely useless should the guess prove wrong.

Too many users of Volt-Turn might ultimately weaken a "stall" team, though, since it seems, to me, that the goal of stall, or any team, really, is whittling down your opponent before they do the same to you. You might have to accept Gothitelle-based teams as having an advantageous match-up over your team and try your best, as you have been, to overcome those teams by playing smartly.
 
Hey everyone. First of all, let say thanks a bunch for posting on this thread as it has helped me tremendously in creating my own stall team, which has miraculously peaked at #2 on the main ladder. I've read a good portion of this thread, but I was wondering if you guys have discussed Gothitelle at all? She (he?) really really destroys my entire team, and honestly I have no idea what to do against it except read the opponent's mind and make 100% perfect predictions early-game. So yeah, any help you guys have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

If you can stick Pursuit on some mon on your team you can limit Goth's kills to 1 before it dies to trapping. Unlike other stall threats that some teams just instantly lose just based on match ups sake (such as Mawile or Manaphy), Goth is something you have the potential to play around.

I feel like a lot of stall players put way too much emphasis on having theoretical counters to everything,

Amen

Theorymoning counters rarely work in practice, and application is where it counts, and I also feel that lacking a failsafe (can be a win condition, but mainly just a back up plan) can be detrimental to the success of a team.
 
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