SM OU Defensive Salamence Stall without Chansey [Peaked 1900+ #46]

[lonely blue heart]

Hi everyone. I have been playing this game for 5 years and I never posted anything here, so now I'd like to share this team with you guys. I've made this like a few months ago but I don't think the meta changed too much.

I've seen some people that like to put music in their rmt so you can listen while reading, so I will put one of my music video (yes, I'm also a musician). I hope you don't consider this as spam. (Once I was reported from showdown for spam but that time I was really spamming lol).

Introduction

Since 2015 I mostly play stall because I like the pokemon that are usally used in stall such as chansey, clefable etc. So I usually try to build teams around pokemon that I like. A great friend of mine who also play the game competitively had used a balance team with defensive mence in xy, and I started to think about using it in SM. It has a good defensive type, decent 95/80/80 bulk (his physical bulk is actually huge if you count intimidate), good defensive ability, amazing coverage and acess to roost and defog, why don't people t give it a try?

Proof of peak

I actually remember that i reached around 1940, but I don't have the print so I won't say things that I can't proove :P

The team

Salamence @ Leftovers

Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Defog
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower

Explanation: Of course, the star of the team. With intimidate, Salamence is actually really bulky, we can tell that he is one of the bulkiest pokemon (physically) that has a reliable recovery. He is a very underrated user of defog, and the only one in this team. Salamence has a great MU against 4 premium hazard setters in ou: ferrothorn, landotus-t (without explosion, but can handle hpice pretty well with roost), heatran and excadrill. He also can beat normal tapu-bulu sets and kartana, 2 major threats in OU. Mence is algo a great check of some rare wallbreakers such as crawdaunt and alolan marowak (mons that are very problematic to stall). One thing to notice is that a lot of things that mence do, the much more common zapdos can also do, but salamence can take neutral hits much better due to intimidate and has a quite powerful (for a defensive mon) earthquake, an extremely useful move in a lot of mus. Salamence can also decentely deal with Serperior, which is quite annoying.

Set: As I've said, salamence is a great user of defog because of the great mu against common hazard setters. Roost is necessary of course, as almost any mon in stall needs a reliable recovery. Is also very important to note that because of the lost of the flying type, mence can take a lot of threats with rock moves (sometimes even ttar, depending on the set and the hax, he can stall out stone edge's pp), and most importantly: it takes only 25~30% from lando's hp ice after a roost. Earthquake is very strong due to salamence's high attack, it deals great damage against tyranitar and excadrill and ohko heatran . Flamethrower is the reason why he beats ferrothorn and scizor, it is also the only way he can hurt lando. Intimidate is extremely useful even against things that it doesn't check, because it helps other team members too. I will leave some calcs, just comparing his bulk with some other mons:

Calcs

-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Snorlax Double-Edge vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 159-187 (40.4 - 47.5%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Snorlax Double-Edge vs. 248 HP / 240+ Def Zapdos: 232-274 (60.5 - 71.5%)
(just to show the difference between the 2 when taking neutral hits)

Calcs

-1 252 Atk Mold Breaker Gyarados-Mega Crunch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 84-99 (21.3 - 25.1%)
252 Atk Mold Breaker Gyarados-Mega Crunch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 85-102 (25.5 - 30.6%)
he can actualy take neutral hit better than skarmory (!!)

Gastrodon-East @ Leftovers

Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Scald
- Toxic
- Recover

Explanation: Gastrodon is a very underrated mon in my opinion. When I made this team, it wasn't even OU. He is the only electric imune mon in the team, and this is very important since I don't have chansey so it would be very hard to beat tapu koko. Heatran is very annoyning to stall, and gastrodon is a great answer to it. He is also a good check of greninja and magearna and the only toxic user of the team. If volcarona doesn't have giga drain, gastrodon can poison it and let clefable beat the moth with a lot wish wishprotect.

Set: Nothing special here. Scald is very useful, water stab and a nice 30% chance of a burn. Toxic is very important in stall, and I couldn't choose other move since all the other members don't have it. I use earth power instead of earthquake because of the fear of being burned by heatran's lava plume, but earthquake is also a good option to beat CM magearna easier. Recover is necessary to keep gastrodon healthy. Storm drain is very great so gastrodon can check kingdra and greninja, being really annoying against rain teams.

Toxapex @ Leftovers

Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Haze
- Recover
- Toxic Spikes

Explanation: Toxapex is in my opinion the best defensive pokemon in OU, only competing with chansey (though their functions are quite different). He is my only zardY counter, and my best greninja counter. Anyone who plays OU know that haze toxapex can stop a lot of sweeps, and its very hard to take down. He is also my best way to deal with tapu fini. As tapu fini is usually the only defogger of the team, it can easily goes down when poisoned by toxic spikes. Pex is the first choice of greninja switch in, as he can recover the damage dealt with regenerator, but we need to be careful against extrasensory and zdig. Pex is also a great answer to volcarona lacking psychic.

Set: Nothing special here, pretty standart toxapex set. Scald is very useful, water stab and a nice 30% chance of a burn. Toxapex is very difficult to take down, so many times you will get a lot of chance to get the burn. Haze helps a lot to deal with many setup sweepers, and usually let it beat passive sweepers because of the high pp that it has. Toxic Spikes instead of toxic is very important in order to beat tapu fini, who is very annoying to this team. Is also a great way to punish aggresive double switchs that people do often to beat stall. Recover is important to keep pex healthy. I prefer leftovers over black sludge in defensive teams, because if an annoiying choice scarf trick black sludge, it can use trick again and cripple other member of the team with pex's black sludge. Full spD in order to check zard Y, greninja and volcarona better.

Clefable @ Leftovers

Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Protect
- Heal Bell

Explanation: Most stall teams need a pokemon with unaware. I also needed a heal bell user and wanted a fairy, so clefable was the coice. She is my best answer to a lot of setup sweepers including Gyarados, Zygarde, Mimikyu, Garchomp and much more. She also is a great answer to mega heracross, and can deal great damage to Mega-Gyarados with super effective stab moonblast. Clefable is my best hope against zard X , as she can let it kills him self while using flare blitz. If volcarona is poisoned, she can let the moth dies with a lot wish-protect. Clefable is also a decent answer to serperior.

Set: Nothing special here, pretty standart unaware clefable set. Max def investment so the fairy can hadle zard x and other physical set up mons better. Wish is the best recovery move that unaware clefable can have, as she can't have softboiled. Protect is used to stall (usually when the opposing mon is poisoned) and of course to make wish reliable. Heal bell is necessary in any defensive team, without it it would be very easy to wear down the mons, and clefable is my user of choice. Unaware is needed to clefable ignore stat boosts, and leftovers for the great passive recovery.

Jirachi @ Leftovers

Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock

Explanation: Tapu Lele is in my opinion one of the strongest pokemon in OU. She can act as a cleaner, revange killer and specially a really strong stallbreaker. So, its very important to have a tapu lele counter in stall, and jirachi is the only one viable in ou with reliable recovery (ok, maybe cresselia too. And I'm not counting leech seed as a reliable recovery :P). Jirachi is also my pick for stealth cocks, argubly the best move in the game. It also is a great answer to many special attackers such as Alakazam, Lati@s, Tornadus etc.It also has protect to scout and stall poisoned mons. I made this team shortly before jirachi's rise to OU, and I remember saying that it is very underrated because is the best tapu lele -which is one of the best mons in the tier- counter.

Set: Wish and protect are necessary for the reliable recovery. Protect, as I've already said when talking about clefable, is good to gain some useful turns, scout and stall. Iron head is the STAB move of choice and deals heavy damage against tapu lele. It also has a nice 60% of flinch and is very annoying for opposing defensive mons. Stealth Rock is argubly the best move in the game and jirachi is my pick for it. Full spD investment so it can take shadow ball and hpfire from tapu lele, as it takes little damage from psyshock even without evs in Def.

Sableye @ Sablenite

Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Protect

Explanation: Probably the best Mega for stall, Sableye is very useful when controlling hazards and is my medichan counter. This guy makes ferrothorn (who would be really annoying) almost useless against stall. With only 1 weakness, the niche of reflecting hazards, great bulk and will o wisp, sableye is amazing when checking offensive stealth rock setters such as Ttar, Garchomp and Landorus. When they have swords dance, we can switch to clefable and play mindgames with the opponent (like sending sableye back, and the sending rocks back to them too).

Set: Will o wisp is necessary to cripple oposing physycal attackers and dealing passive damage to poison-immune pokemon that like switching in sableye such as magearna. Recover is the form of recovery and makes sableye really difficult to take down. Protect is very important so it can mega-evolve at the beginning of the match against a strong check (such as tapu lele or magearna) before it switches out. Then, we can switch sableye in annoying hazard setters such as ferrothorn to reflect spikes or stealth rock for the rest of the game. Its very difficult to choose between foul play and knock off, foul play is useful against physical sweepers but i pick knock off because of the heavy utility it brings against other defensive teams. Prankster can be useful before it mega-evolves to burn fast physical attackers such as M-Loppuny and Azumarril. I choose full investment in Def instead of the usual build with 252 in spD to check landorus-t and ttar better, as salamence can take heatran pretty well and sableye even without evs in spD can stall magma storm's pp with recover and protect.



Most notable threats

Of course, like many other teams (specially stall), the team has a considerable number of bad MUS. I will write here about the biggest ones that are seen in OU and that I remember (feel free to reply this post for me to add more):

This thing can destroy my team like it can destroy many other stall teams. The mu is winnable sometimes, but only with a lot of outplays.

M-mawile is broken, I honestly think its too much power for OU. I can play around tho. Mence can deal huge damage before it dies to play rough.

The lobster is quite strong and can be dangerous. Healthy salamence can handle it, tho. (It kills pex easily and deal huge damage to clefable).

Mega-Pinsir is really dangerous to this team. Most stall teams can counter it with zapdos or skarmory, but we don't have them. Salamence can take a +1 return and deal huge damage with flamethrower tho. Its very important to have rocks on the field to beat it.

Swampert is difficult to deal on the rain. Sableye can burn it tho, and win the 1v1 outside of the rain. If it lacks ice punch, mence can handle it very well. Protect and risky switchs between pex and gastrodon are useful to stall the rain turns.

or

+

(Edit, thnks to wutisudoin)

Albeit quite rare (both have <1% usage with steelium z) after a swords dance boost they are really dangerous as they have a chance of ohko salamence at +2 (+1 after intimidate) before it has a chance to ko them back.


Replays

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of replays (when I build the team i didn't think about it) , but I'll leave some here.

Replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-733160561
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-733147823
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-729045325
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-727064935
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-725608661 (against TR)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-723623959 (salty replay)

Copy & Paste for Showdown

Team CtrlCCtrlV

Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Defog
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower

Gastrodon-East @ Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Scald
- Toxic
- Recover

Toxapex @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Haze
- Recover
- Toxic Spikes

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Protect
- Heal Bell

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock

Sableye @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Protect

or pokepast: https://pokepast.es/f4c6ed986df4d9bf

Ending and conclusion

I think this is a good team and I'm proud of it. I'm not a native english speaker so I apologize for any error. I plan posting a lot of teams here in the future because I like this game and the teambuilding process so much. I would like to read any critics/suggestions/compliments and any of your opinions about this team. I would like to thank: Smogon, my friend for suggesting defensive salamence, and you for reading ;).









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[runningO]

did you put "stealth cocks" in jirachi's description intentionally? also, you might have to watch out for grass knot koko.

 

[wutisudoin]

The team is honestly pretty good, and covers most threats in the meta right now. I am a bit skeptical of mence, due to calcs like this
+1 252 Atk Excadrill Corkscrew Crash (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 334-394 (84.7 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
+1 252 Atk Kartana Corkscrew Crash (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 366-432 (92.8 - 109.6%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

Also your mence cannot touch a lot of set up sweepers, like Mega Gyara, I don't see too much point in EQ considering you already have gastro to counter heatran. Flamethrower isn't as much for ferro as you have msab, but helps you more against the mmaw, serp, exca and kart.
Additional threats:
Tapu Fini - this mon becomes incredibly annoying for your team, with taunt, as it can just chip down everything, while you cannot threaten it out with very much.
Hydreigon - very hard for you to kill, and annoying to switch into.
Band Zygarde - your main counter to this is clef, which means you risk tarrows crits and playing around rocks.
SD Chomp - I don't think this needs much explaining. SD chomp gets up rocks against you, and is able to 2hko/ohko the rest of the team.

 

[lonely blue heart]

The team is honestly pretty good, and covers most threats in the meta right now. I am a bit skeptical of mence, due to calcs like this
+1 252 Atk Excadrill Corkscrew Crash (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 334-394 (84.7 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
+1 252 Atk Kartana Corkscrew Crash (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 366-432 (92.8 - 109.6%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

Also your mence cannot touch a lot of set up sweepers, like Mega Gyara, I don't see too much point in EQ considering you already have gastro to counter heatran. Flamethrower isn't as much for ferro as you have msab, but helps you more against the mmaw, serp, exca and kart.
Additional threats:
Tapu Fini - this mon becomes incredibly annoying for your team, with taunt, as it can just chip down everything, while you cannot threaten it out with very much.
Hydreigon - very hard for you to kill, and annoying to switch into.
Band Zygarde - your main counter to this is clef, which means you risk tarrows crits and playing around rocks.
SD Chomp - I don't think this needs much explaining. SD chomp gets up rocks against you, and is able to 2hko/ohko the rest of the team.

Firstly I would like to appreciate your feedback. Mence is actually better in practice than it is on paper but I understand your
skepticism.
Corkscrew Crash Excadrill: Its important yo keep rocks outside of your field to deal with. It is a very notable threat (I will add it to "most notable threats") , but mence can still take a +1 and deal between 80-90% with eq. Its also important to prevent it from setup. he can't setup against mence, sableye and gastrodon. Its also risky to setup against pex. I'd also note that around 8% of the excadrills in high elo use steelium Z, so the usage of excadrill with steelium z is actually less than 1% (as his usage is around 10%), but it deserves a spot in threatlist as it is probably more difficult to deal with than most of the pokemon in my threatlist.

Corkscrew Crash Kartana: pretty much same as excadrill, except that its usage is even smaller (3% of 15%) ~0,05% , mence can ohko but it also has a higher chance of koing mence.

Tapu fini: Is actually really annoying as it is to any stall which doesnt have tango or amoonguss, but if I couldn't beat it I couldn't reach top50. I have one against a fairly good player using it:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-729045325
in this replay I couldnt even set tspikes, which is the best way to beat fini with this team

Hydreigon: I disagree with this one. gastrodon can wear it down with toxic and win against most sets 1v1. pex walls it also. Its usage in high elo of ou is around 1,5%, which is also quite low.
252 SpA Hydreigon Black Hole Eclipse (160 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 208-246 (48.9 - 57.8%) -- 57.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Hydreigon Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 105-124 (24.7 - 29.1%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Hydreigon Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex: 108-128 (35.6 - 42.2%) -- 89.8% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
the only problem would be a set with taunt , but taunts usage is so low that doesnt even have in smogon's index os stats, and still
fable can come in an attack that is not flash cannon and ohko back .

Band Zygarde: Its difficult to deal with, as it is to any stall (maybe a bit easier with tango). with prediction tho, its very possible to beat it. 3 of my mons have protect to scout the move. Clefable is immune to dragon type attacks and mence can easily take thousand arrows
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Zygarde Thousand Arrows vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 112-133 (28.4 - 33.8%) -- 98.2% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
gastrodon can recover the damage to scout, as its not ohkoed by anything. If it koes salamence, fable can revange kill kit after a bit damage or sableye can burn it. sableye also beat it in 1v1 without crit.

SD Chomp: it is usually the lead, and if its not it can't come safely in anything that isn't jirachi ore mence. sableye can burn it to fable take almost no damage to its attacks. Its annoying tho, and usually can set rocks if played correctly.

M gyara: Difficult to deal with as it is in any stall that doesnt have zapdos. Clefable can beat it in 1v1 tho, maybe deserves a spot in threatlist but It usually give me less trouble than the already mentioned threats and the Corkscrew Crash buds that you mentioned. As I've already said about fini, I wouldn't be able to reach top 50 if I've lost to every mgyara.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-733160561
/\ in this replay I beat a M-Gyara that started to set up behind screens. It was a fairly good player.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-733147823
/\ in this replay I beat a M-Gyara that didn't mevoled (to avoid being koed by fable and stay immune to eq) It was a fairly good player.

eq in mence: gastrodon can win the 1v1 agains tran but having mence win the 1v1 against heatran is important to keep rocks outside of the field. It also deals more damage to things like ttar, av magearna and etc who like to switch in mence. Its great to have a ground move in the team in many situations, but other great option over eq would be toxic (but it is generally worse as it can't touch heatran, I've tried a lot of things and this was by far the best set).






.

 

[lonely blue heart]

did you put "stealth cocks" in jirachi's description intentionally? also, you might have to watch out for grass knot koko.

I appreciate the feedback. It is also a pain for the team, I didn't mention bcause it is really really rare,as it isnt even in smogon index of stats (less than the 5% rare calmmind, wich is 5% of 15%, less than 1%). It isnt a autoloss tho, as jirachi can still deal with it and if the player dont get gastrodon on the switch gastron can still take gk and deal around 90% back.