Volcanion is underrated. Wanna know what else is underrated? Stall. While many people consider stall to be the worst playstyle, it’s getting better with new ideas like Buzzwole.
I want to start off by talking about why stall used to be bad. Specs Lele and Kyurem was a problem, future sight would kill your team, you would lose to pressure + rocks, taunt would beat you, SD Kartana would destroy, and there were many more problems. But now, stall can beat all of these. Let’s explain some adaptations stall has taken.
First off, stall is getting rid of Blissey. It sounds like a bad idea at first, but this is a good thing it’s finally being removed. Blissey really only does 3 things for stall. It beats Volcarona, it beats Dragapult, and it provides rocks if you don’t have already. That’s an entire slot you’re wasting and stall is so much better without it. There are other ways to beat Volcarona, Dragapult, and get up rocks which I will explain. (Note: Stall hasn’t completely gotten rid of Blissey. It’s still used on Shedinja builds and etc.)
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One single defog Corviknight just isn’t enough to keep up with hazard stack, and pressure rocks. Lando + Corviknight is super common right now. However, an adaptation stall has taken is to go for the no defog HD Boot spam spikes route. By giving spikes to stall and using HD Boots, you win games where there is no way to keep hazards off your side and apply offensive pressure. This is a lot more effective than trying your best to play around and remove hazards while you can just balance the hazards out with spikes and HD Boots.
Future sight + breaker was dangerous for stall teams but now, Pex likes to run light screen on stall to minimize it taking damage. And even better, Slowking and Slowbro are dropping and ppl are realizing (including myself) that they switch into nothing and are easy to take advantage of. But back to light screen toxapex, it effectively provides a way to switch into dangerous breakers like Weavile, Urshifu-R, and Kartana. It’s a cool tech that has been used in WCOP and OLT. I made a post
here on light screen pex if you want to know more.
is also a way to beat future sight and it beats Tapu Lele and Kyurem as well. Shedinja builds are usually very successful, but they have many tricky match ups like Adamant Weavile where you have to predict. With proper play it’s good and many people will say that this is the best type of stall right now.
Stall needs an electric immunity, Tran check, and Volc check. These Pokemon are best at doing the job. There are other options but these are the main 3 in a good build. Hippowdon and Chomp both provide rocks and can check Volc by living a +1 giga drain. Both also easen up some MUs against things like Zeraora, and Zapdos. Gastrodon fits builds with Blissey since they don’t need to worry about Volcarona too much.
is something to try out for hyper offense and stuff but for now these 3 grounds seem to be better in most cases. Not saying that Quagsire is bad now for stall (in fact Quag is still superb on stall IMO), but I’m more used to using these grounds.
Addtionally to stall, Clef is shifting to more specially defensive builds. It depends on your team but sometimes it can even skip out on Unaware and aromatherapy. How Clefable should be used depends on your build. Forgot to say, but Toxapex likes to run Spdef spreads on stall now instead of physdef. It’s to check Dragapult but sub wisp sets can be annoying to play around.
Some other great stall innovations
Scizor, AV Reun, and spdef Corviknight can check Kyurem and Tapu Lele. Specs Kyurem isn’t the best right now because it’s easy to chip with hazards and outspeed, but these 3 mons are rising ways to check these stall destroyers. Spdef Corv and Scizor are obvious but for Reun, the AV set can trap, knock, and break your opponent’s team with infestation. I saw a team like this win some crazy matchups so it’s worth trying. It also beats all Tapu Fini sets.
Terrak, SD Kartana, banded ttar, doesn’t matter. Buzz beats them all. A great mon increasing in usage for stall and bulky offenses. It can clear out some of stall’s biggest physical threats and it is problematic for other teams to get past this Pokemon. Especially with light screen pex, this thing has a lot to offer for a stall team.
Dragonite is another mon being used more on stall. It checks things like SD Kartana, Heatran, and Urshifu-R (with future sight). It also can free up a slot with heal bell. Dnite is another mon worth trying but be careful with it since Weavile is going to rise to S- soon.
Torn-T is great on stall. It gives a knock user, a potential breaker to get through other fat, and some venge killing potential. Taunt NP Torn can’t be walled unless you have a Zapdos or a Koko to revenge kill it. Heat wave puts pressure on Corv, and it can even pivot around and beat future sight. Shed Shell pex + u turn torn beats Heatran and it can get knocked in the process. It’s a good partner with Skarmory with some knock off utility and it pushes through the other team.
With that being said, a single stall team can now have a way of
- Shutting down future sight
- Shutting down Kyurem and Lele
- Beating hazard stack
- Beating Pressure + Rocker cores
- Beating SD Kartana
- Applying pressure to revenge kill some threats. (Like a Koko or something)
On Magnezone, with things like Buzzwole, offensive pressure, and stuff like Landorus running toxic instead of knock, it’s less of a threat. Spdef Corv can definetly run shed Shell and be ok. Scizor can’t really do anything, but if you run sandtomb your opponent will cry for days. Skarm can run shed Shell if you don’t bring it out against knock users and have something like a Buzzwole for Rillaboom or something.
Magnezone there was kinda random, but I wanted to talk about it first. Let’s move on to the rising threats for stall.
Taunt NP torn will just win unless you have a Zapdos, Zera, or Koko (who are all great on stall). There really isn’t much you can do otherwise. Get lucky and hope you don’t run into it.
If your Skarm gets cheesed after a Shell Smash, and nothing else works, you lose. This is for all teams so it’s not that big of a deal.
IMPOSSIBLE U CANT BEAT SPECS ERUPTION HEATRAN
ARCTOZOLT NO SWITCH INS
Honestly these are all of the rising things stall needs to watch out for. It’s not a lot. If I’m wrong let me know but from my POV, stall is really good now unlike before. While other ppl are struggling to beat Weavile, we have it here. Probs some things I missed but the way it stacks hazards and can play around even the toughest threats with offensive pressure makes it super good now. Of course there are other things for stall and I didn’t explain everything.
Not a meme. It checks Heatran and traps things with Oblivious and lots of pp. I’m in the process of making a wailord stall team. Then when I get a good peak (around 1800-1900), I will make a VR nom and get this thing up there. WAILORD TO C- NO STOPPING US.
Have a nice day. Please don’t react haha to this post
AquaVanilla
which has a pretty good mixed bulk with 95/110/130, is a great user of the aforementioned protect, offers a rare ghost resist that doesn't just fold to draco, can heal bell for team support, and use foul play well to punish setup sweepers
(rest) 
