Getting back into OU
A Blast from the Past
an OU Stall Team by AC
A Blast from the Past
an OU Stall Team by AC
Introduction:
Hello Smogon Community. I’m AC and this is my first post on these forums since approximately 4 years ago. I used to be pretty active back then, and in fact most of my posts were in this very sub forum. I have always loved the RMT forums, because it’s just awesome how more experienced players can help newcomers and other people who seek to optimize their team ideas and of course it’s always very helpful if the best players out there share their retired teams with the community. I did my best to help some people with their teams back then too, so I decided to get back here to get some help on my own team now. This is obviously the first team I’ve built since 2008, so I’m sure there are some flaws in it that I don’t see. It is a stall’ish team, because that’s what I have most experience playing and what I had most success with back in the days. I have heard that stall teams have a lot of trouble keeping up with the more powerful offensive threats of OU nowadays, but nonetheless this team has worked pretty well for me. It peaked around 1900 at the Pokemon Showdown OU ladder (I’m not sure if it was on the leaderboard, I didn’t check that), after an 18-2 record on said ladder. I didn’t reach more points because I was testing more teams with the same account too, including some that I hadn’t build myself, so my win/loss ratio became a lot worse at some point. Apart from that, I’ve tested it against some friends’ teams and on Pokemon Online as well (I didn’t keep track of any scores or records it might have reached there, though).It is very fun to play and I think it checks most prominent threats of OU pretty well, although it certainly has some weaknesses too. I’m coming back to that later on. Anyway, onto the team.
The team at a glance:
Team Building process:
I started building this team with what I remembered to have worked exceptionally well in the last teams I built years ago. My last team used Scarf-Tyranitar and Stallbreaker Gliscor together with a very strong Grass-Water-Fire core consisting of defensive Celebi, Heatran and Wish Vaporeon. As a stallish team, the last team member was one of my all-time favorite pokemon that had served me well throughout 2 and a half generations: Skarmory.
So this was what I started from. I thought it might be easier for me to try to adapt my old Gen 4 team to the current metagame with some appropriate changes. When looking through the new Gen5 pokemon in OU, Jellicent caught my eye immediately. It was a bulky water which was able to do something for my team that I had always missed: block rapid spin. I decided to run it over Vaporeon.
The next pokemon I considered was Latias. It had just been voted to Uber shortly before I went inactive and I had little experience with it. I noticed that its dragon typing worked just as well together with Fire and Water as Celebi’s grass typing did, and Latias’ extra speed seemed very helpful for revenge killing other dragon types. Also, with all those new special attacking threats with access to strong boosting moves such as Calm Mind and Nasty Plot, I figured that Skarmory wouldn’t be able to deal with all of them effectively. Latias is able to deal with most, if not all specially based boosting sweepers, so I put it in my team over Celebi
At this point I decided to give the team a first try on the ladder. But before I could do that, I had to adapt some of the old movesets of my old team members to the new metagame. Skarmory, which had previously been a specially defensive set, was changed to a purely physical wall in order to take on Swords Dance Garchomp and other prominent threats better.
Accordingly, Heatran was changed from a max Speed variant to the specially defensive set, because Skarmory was no longer able to take Draco Meteors (especially not the ones coming from Hydreigon and Latios). Now I had a good double-Steel core to deal with incoming dragon moves.
After that, I decided to change my Gliscor set too. The new Dream World ability seemed just too powerful, so I went for the standard Sub-Protect Toxic stall set. Probably one of the best, and certainly among the most annoying pokemon in OU right now. Finally, after some first testing on the ladder I figured that I really wanted a strong Ice move somewhere in the team.
After trying different things, including Ice Beam on Jellicent, I decided to try Ice Beam on my Scarf Tyranitar. It OHKOs Standard Gliscor as well as all the dragon types with a 4x weakness to Ice after Stealth Rock damage, even with a Jolly nature. In the end, I decided to run Ice Punch instead, because it guarantees some OHKOs that Ice Beam didn’t and the only important threat that Ice Punch didn't hit as hard as Ice Beam was Gliscor (the only OHKO Ice Punch over Ice Beam misses out).
Before testing the team extensively, I went through all common pokemon and movesets of OU in order to see if my team was going to be able to deal with it in theory. To my surprise, it seemed like it did. My actual testing also showed that in general,t he old principles of Gen 4 still pulled their weight in Gen 5, if only the right adjustments have been made.
An in-depth look at the team:
Heatran @ Leftovers
Trait: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
- Lava Plume
- Protect
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
The first member of my team is specially defensive Heatran. I mostly use it as my lead, because it is my Stealth Rock user and I obviously want to get my Rocks up as soon as possible, but I often have to use a different lead nowadays after seeing the opposing team. Unfortunately, Heatran doesn’t match up very well with a lot of common leads any more. The set is very good at what it does, though, scaring out things like Forretress and Ferrothorn immediately and setting up Stealth Rocks reliably. Toxic is a great move on Heatran, because it hits all of its common switchins very hard. Protect is great for both scouting and racking up Toxic damage. I decided to use Leftovers as its item, because I feel that the extra recovery, especially in conjunction with Protect and without a Wish user in my team, is much needed for Heatran.
Heatran serves as my U-Turn absorber and as my counter to many different threats in the current OU metagame. It is probably the best, if not the only, 100% hard counter to Rock Polish Genesect, which is an absolute beast that can wreck entire teams otherwise. It also absorbs Draco Meteors very well and forces Choice-locked dragons to switch out or die to Toxic + Protect. It is also one of my better answers to Tornadus-T in rain, because it can easily sponge hurricanes and survive a Superpower. Also, a very important reason why I chose this heatran as my specially defensive Steel type over pokemon like Jirachi is that it doesn’t get trapped and killed by Magnezone. Zone already takes out my Skarmory, which is already a pain, and I really don’t want it to kill both of my bulky steel types to allow dragons to take my team apart.
Jellicent @ Leftovers
Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 34 Def / 216 SDef / 8 Spd
Calm Nature
- Scald
- Recover
- Taunt
- Will-O-Wisp
This Jellicent has quickly become one of my favorite Pokemon in OU. It does just so many useful things for my team and it certainly forces the most rage quits after Gliscor. Jellicent is probably the best spin blocker ever, and as such it is very useful for my team’s game plan. It also takes everything that the common Rain Offense teams can do to me. It walls Politoed into oblivion and isn’t even 2hko’ed by Tornadus-T’s Hurricane. I originally had the physically defensive Taunt-set for Jellicent, but I decided to change it to the special wall set because I wanted to wall rain sweepers even better and also because I want it to spin block reliably against Starmie with Thunderbolt. Toxic is there to beat opposing Jellicent and to wear down many special attackers I want Jellicent to beat. Shadow Ball is there to hit Starmie hard (2hko on Standard Starmie) and also to do some good damage against Gengar and Alakazam. Especially the latter can be very annoying for my team, because it’s slightly faster than Scarf Tyranitar. Jellicent can also beat most variants of Gyarados, although not as reliably as the physically defensive set with Will-O-Wisp.
As indicated above, Jellicent is my main counter for offensive rain sweepers like Choice Politoed and pretty much everything else that likes to spam rain-boosted water moves. It’s able to spinblock against every rapid spin user in the game bar Toxic Tentacruel, which is very rare. Also, If Tentacruel is weakened, I can sometimes take it out with Shadow Ball, especially after a SpDef drop or two. Jellicent also counters all Toxic-less variants of Heatran, Vaporeon, Gastrodon and pretty much the rest of the bulky water types of OU. It is also a very reliable counter against Volcarona and most Infernape.
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 HP / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Ice Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit
- Crunch
I love my good old Scarf Tyranitar. It doesn’t just threaten to kill Psychic and Ghost types, it just kills them no matter what, thanks to STAB Pursuit. The EV spread is pretty standard; max Speed allow me to outrun positive-natured base 115 Speed Pokemon, and max Attack makes sure it packs a punch. And yes, this Tyranitar actually does not have Stone Edge, as strange as that may seem. I had in on Ttar forever, but I really think that my team needs a reliable Ice move more desperately than a powerful stab that misses 1 out of 5 times. Stone Edge is certainly the best move it has for cleaning up late game. But I don’t need it to clean up, I need it to remove threats for me. Against Gliscor, Landorus (T), and all Dragon types with a 4x weakness to Ice, Ice Punch is greatly appreciated. Thundurus-T is probably the most prominent threat that I would need Stone Edge for, but then again, Thundurus-T often carries a speed-doubling move, so TTar wouldn’t be able to revenge-kill it anyway. Gyarados is another threat that is hit hardest by Stone Edge, but Tyranitar usually can’t beat Gyarados anyway and I’d rather go with Skarmory or Jellicent for that job.
This Tyranitar is my main counter for pretty much all Psychic and Ghost types in the tier, including but not limited to: Reuniclus, Gengar, Latias, Latios, Deoxys, Cresselia, Starmie, most Celebi and more. Additionally, it is a very reliable revenge killer against some of the most dangerous boosting sweepers in the metagame, such as Swords Dance Lucario and Swords Dance Terrakion. It also revenge-kills dangerous mixed sweepers that stall teams often have a lot of trouble with, such as Salamence, Hydreigon and Dragonite. Last but not least, Tyranitar summons a permanent Sand Storm for my team, which is a huge advantage for me against Rain- or Sun-based teams. Hurricane and Thunder are a lot less threatening at 50% accuracy and those water moves won’t take my walls down without the 1.5 boost that rain grants to them. 4 Members of my team are immune to sand Storm, so I can usually also use the continuous sand damage to my advantage too. It also helps me wear down offensive threats like Life Orb sweepers much faster.
Gliscor (F) @ Toxic Orb
Trait: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 184 Def / 72 Spd
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Substitute
- Toxic
This is it: Mr Ragequit himself, one of my favorite Pokemon of all times and even stronger than it used to be in Gen 4 thanks to Poison Heal. The speed EVs let me outpace Jolly non-scarfed Tyranitar and Adamant Breloom, and the remaining EVs make sure he can take pretty much any physical hits as well as possible. 252 HP EVs also bump its SpDef significantly, which is very significant because this Gliscor can actually beat most bulky water types without Ice Beam one on one. Earthquake is the obvious STAB move of choice which demolishes most things that are immune to Toxic, mainly Steel and Poison Types. Toxic is the crux of this set. In conjunction with alternating between Substitute and Protect, Gliscor can beat each and every pokemon one on one if it’s either faster or if it has a Substitute up. The fact that three of my team members carry Toxic only makes Gliscor’s Sub-Protect strategy even more dangerous. I might add here, that I’ve always preferred multiple Toxic users to Toxic Spikes on my stall teams, because it always seemed much more reliable to me. I would love to have room for Ice Fang (vs opposing Gliscors), Aerial Ace (vs Breloom) and Taunt (vs Stall mainly), but unfortunately I can only use 4 moves and these seem to be the best. Protect is also useful for scouting, especially against Choice users.
Gliscor is in my team as my main Stallbreaker and general Annoyer. It is honestly so hard to take down if I can prevent it from being hit by boosted Water moves or Ice moves. This is not everything, of course, as Gliscor is also my main check for a number of dangerous OU threats. Offensive Tyranitar, Swords Dance Lucario, Jirachi, most Metagross, Magnezone (unless it’s behind a sub and has HP Ice, which rarely happens), Heatran (just trying to not switch into boosted fire STABs), most Conkeldurr, Dugtrio, Toxicroak and more. Additionally, it easily beats some of the best walls in the game, including Hippowdon, Blissey and Chansey. It grants a very important immunity to Electric type moves to my team and it is one of three team members who are immune to Spikes and Toxic Spikes while only taking 12 % from Stealth Rocks. On top of that, it functions as an incredible status-absorber.
Skarmory @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 24 Spd / 232 Sp.Def
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Whirlwind
- Roost
- Brave Bird
Standard physically defensive Skarmory. Nothing special, but why would I change a set that has worked wonders in three generations. As indicated above, it complements Heatran as the physical half of my Steel duo that is supposed to take the strong dragon moves that run rampant in OU. EVs are also standard. The Speed investment lets me outrun max speed Wobbuffet and makes sure I can use Spikes in its face while it Encores me. HP are obviously max’ed and the rest goes into Defense to maximize its walling potential. The moves are standard too, Spikes, Whirlwind and Roost being more than obvious, and Brave Bird (over things like Taunt) being even more important than ever with Technician Breloom spamming 187.5 base power Grass STABs nowadays. Said Brelooms usually don’t carry Focus Punch any more, which makes Skarmory a perfect counter once something else has taken the Spore. I don’t like Shed Shell at all on Skarmory, because I’ve always found the additional recovery to be too important to give up. I’ll have to live with the occasional Magnezone killing me.
Skarmory is my main switchin to offensive threats like Kyurem-B, Garchomp, Dragonite, Gyarados, Metagross and many more. It is also a very good switchin to some of the tier’s strongest defensive pokemon, because many of them can’t hurt Skarmory at all and I can use Spikes and start Phazing around against them. Those Pokemon include Hippowdon, Chansey, Blissey, Gliscor without Taunt, Jellicent without Wil-O-Wisp, Quagsire and some bulky waters outside Rain. Skarmory had two main rivals for this team slot as my physical Steel type and Spikes user, namely Ferrothorn and Forretress. Every one of them has its own advantages and disadvantages, Ferrothorn being the best Kyurem-B counter in the game with additional access to Leech Seed, Forretress having access to Toxic Spikes and Rapid Spin… But in the end, Skarmory’s ability to phaze, its access to a reliable instant recovery move in Roost and the fact that it survives +2 SD Garchomp’s Fire Fang and that it counters Technician Breloom were enough arguments in its favor.
Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Recover
- Roar
Honestly, CM Roar Latias is one of the most underrated Pokemon in the tier. This thing is incredibly hard to stop, the only reliable ways being Tyranitar and Toxic. The 252 HP EVs make sure it can take hits from both sides of the attacking spectrum better, while its naturally stellar SpDef makes it a reliable special wall. The remaining EVs in conjunction with a Timid nature make sure Latias is as fast as possible, allowing me to revenge kill important threats and set up CMs before most opponents can hit me back. The move choices are self-explanatory, Recover being a reliable instant recovery move, Calm Mind boosting its special stats, Dragon Pulse being the obvious choice of attacking move with STAB and an insane neutral coverage and Roar making sure I also have a specially defensive Phazer to support Skarmory and rack up entry hazard damage.
Shuffling is not everything Roar does on this set, though. The ability to set up along all of the common CM and Nasty Plot users of the metagame, and then Roar them out once both sides have boosted up to +6, is just devastating. Using this strategy, Latias is a hard counter against CM Celebi, CM Keldeo, CM Reuniclus, CM Jirachi, Nasty Plot Thundurus-T, Nasty Plot Infernape and pretty much any other Nasty Plot or Calm Mind user in the game. Apart from being a good defensive check to all those Pokemon, it is also a formidable late game sweeper against many teams. Having access to Roar itself makes it almost impossible for opposing Hippowdon, Skarmory, Swampert and whatnot to Phaze Latias out after a few boosts. Latias is faster and will just Roar them away before. Being a second Phazer in my team also greatly helps me beat the new Espeon-boosted Baton Pass Teams in OU.
Some weaknesses/problems:
Instead of writing up a whole thread list, I decided to name some of the biggest problems and hard-to-handle threats my team has, because I think that my team covers the rest of the OU threats pretty well. Of course, if someone more experienced than I finds another weakness, please feel free to point it out.
Unfortunately, Tyranitar can’t outspeed this Pokemon, even with a Choice Scarf. The fact that it doesn’t take any damage from my hazards and sand storm doesn’t help me either. It Ohkos Tyranitar and Gliscor and 2hkos the rest of my team (Jellicent only after Stealth Rocks and with Sand Storm active, I believe), while outspeeding every single one of my team members. Until now, I have never lost to it, thanks to smart switching and maybe one or the other Focus Blast miss on Heatran or Tyranitar. Still a pain to face.
It usually loses 1 on 1 against Latias and Jellicent, but once I’m poisoned, it can just stall my health away. When carrying Taunt, Skarmory suddenly turns from a reliable counter into a useless bait. Luckily again, I have never lost to it, thanks to Tyranitar’s surprise Ice attack, him not being able to poison me for whatever reason, or even by PP stalling it by just switching back and forth between Gliscor and Skarmory.
My best Jellicent counter is my own Jellicent and while Shadow Ball and Toxic can give me the edge in the mirror, I’ll mostly lose to faster Taunt variants. Tyranitar can 2hko any variant with Crunch, but being burned by Scald or Will-O-Wisp on the switch is not doing me any good. Variants with both Taunt and Toxic are a real pain for me to face. I usually have to kill it with smart switches, getting in TTar without the risk of a burn, or trying to Toxic it somewhere along and then stalling it to poison death.
Yes, I know. Each and every team has a weakness against RP Genesect, so nothing special here. I even have a good counter for it, but if Dugtrio joins the party, it can potentially get ugly for me. Both Tyranitar and Jellicent can survive one hit from +1 Genesect packing Giga Drain, but they can’t ohko back and the fact that Gene recovers some health in the process doesn’t help either.
This is probably the biggest weakness I could figure out. Tentacruel just stands here as a representative of an archetype that can give me a lot of trouble. In the stall mirror, I’m often in the disadvantage because I don’t have a Rapid Spinner. And Tentacruel in rain is probably the hardest RS user for Jellicent to handle, because I just can’t kill it and because it has Toxic Spikes. Also, especially against rain stall, Jellicent also hast to sponge all the boosted water type attacks coming from Politoed and friends. Having a Sand inducer can help, but Scarf TTar doesn’t really do anything else against stall. In those matchups, If Jellicent gets poisoned and eventually worn down, I’m going to be taken apart by Tentacruel’s Toxic Spikes and its Rapid Spin.
So that’s it. My first team since 4 years ago. I am trying to improve this team and make it as competitive as possible in the current OU metagame, so all kinds of feedback, criticism and suggestions are very much appreciated. Also, I apologize for any language mistakes I might have made, I’m not a native speaker.
Until then, thanks for reading.
Cheers,
AC
