Table of Contents
1. Pokepast Link
2. Highest Rating Achieved
3. Introduction/Team Overview
4. Individual Pokémon
5. Problematic Pokémon and Matchups
6. Replays
7. Acknowlegdements
1. Pokepast Link - No Boots Stall
2. Highest Rating Achieved
Replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1910344849-2zfh85jh8e4nqokt8i6xb0d2mfacz86pw
I have currently gotten to 18th on the leaderbaord and 2004 in rating. My goal when setting out to ladder climb with this team was to get to 2k so achieving it feels amazing! This is by far the highest I have ever been with my prehome team only peaking at 109th and 1835 overall. As this is my first generation playing competitive pokemon I am super proud of this even though it might not be as impressive as getting top 5 on the leaderboard! I am still playing this team as I have enjoyed it, so I will be trying to best my current peak and if I do I will make sure to update this, most likely in a comment below!
3. Introduction/Team Overview
Even since Pokemon-Home came to S/V I have been looking for my new stall team to play. S/V is my first dip into competitive pokemon so while I was use to all of the S/V pokemon a lot of the home pokemon were new to me and I had to learn a lot of lessons about what they do the hard way (I am looking at you
and 
). I liked playing with a lot of the pokemon from my prestall team such as 
, 
, and 
, so I kept those on the team while messing around with the other slots. I tried a lot of different comps including 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, and many many others. But finally landed on this team which I have had a lot of success with so I wanted to share it!So most stall teams run 6 boots to avoid the problem of switching into hazards or having to run hazard control such as defog or rapid spin. I have tried those teams but they never really resonated with me so I looked for something different. While boots allows for less initial damage, leftovers can provide more health recovery which allows survive more hits. Since I am running no boots I need hazard removal on my team. While for most teams 1 hazard removal pokemon is fine, if my hazard removal pokemon does faint and then hazards are later set up the game becomes significantly more difficult. So to counter act that I run two hazard removal pokemon in
and 
.Outside of hazard removal I also need great answers to hazard setters so once I do clear hazards they can't constantly reset them. I find that there are currently 2 major hazard setter in
and 
and then a variety of less common setters in 
, 
, 
, and 
. To apply pressure to and I bring back from my prehome team which 2HKO both of them giga drain. To deal with other setters like , and I bring in which can trap them with infestation and slowly chip away at its health. Now lets get to the fun part of talking about each of my pokes!4. Individual Pokémon
4.1 Cyclizar
Cyclizar is one of the most useful utility pokemon in this generation as it is able to do so many things. In fact because of its utility it has been popping up more and more in stall teams. SupaGmoney recently posted a RMT featuring the bike lizard and back in my prehome RMT I also featured it. Our lizards are a bit different though. In contrast to the one in 6 boot stall I am able to run assault vest on my lizard bike which gives me 303 special defense compared to the 229 on the boots version. I do have a bit less health (303 vs 344) but am able to run max speed at 375 (vs 305) which lets
speed past almost everything in the tier. The only pokes that naturally out speed our lizard bike are , 
, and . This lets cyclizar effectively get off whatever utility move it wants to get off.The move set mostly just builds itself. Rapid spin is amazing for clearing hazards, which is a requirement for this team. Knock Off is great at removing problematic items like leftovers, choice items, or rocky helmets. U-turn is great to get some chip damage in while switching into either a poke with a favorable matchup against whatever they have in or to get a little extra health recovery with leftovers on whatever you bring in if your opponent has already moved (either they were faster or maybe they switched). You can also switch into
if you are expecting a low damaging contact move like uturn from the opposing side. The last move is a bit less clear however. I want a damaging move so I can wear the vest. I initially had draco meteor, however I changed it to overheat to pressure opposing steel types like and mainly 
. I discuss the golden boy more later but between knock off and overheat you are able to apply a lot of pressure to opposing . I chose tera fairy so that it can tera and be immune to a dragon move like glaive rush from 
or dragon darts from 
.Tera fairy in front of a hex dragon darts
and then clicking knock off to ko the pult has come up a few times. I have also been playing around with tera fire so overheat does more damage but felt that it was not worth it since I generally want to use my tera defensively not offensively on the stall team. A defensive tera will get more millage in stall than an offensive tera.The last thing I will mention on cyclizar is that between u-turn and rapid spin you can easily deal with opposing
which can be a major problem for unprepared stall teams. You will often want to u-turn into since it does not take much off of the magma storm and can apply pressure to the with earthquake.4.2 Corviknight
Our second hazard control pokemon is
. Therefore defog is a must to have. Roost is also a must as it allows for health recovery and longevity. The last 2 moves have a couple options though; Iron defense, Body Press, brave bird, u turn, taunt, iron head, and bulk up. I wanted 1 damaging move out of these like iron head, brave bird, or body press and 1 utility move. I chose to run brave bird as my damaging move. I did this so I can pressure pokemon like , 
, 
, 
, and 
. Body press also pressures some of these pokes but not also fails to pressure others like and . The last move on our metal birb is u-turn. I chose u-turn to have a nice pivot move on a slower pokemon. will often go last which allows you to pivot into either a check to whatever they have in or a pokemon with leftovers to recover a little bit of health. I also chose to run tera flying to boost the power of brave bird. This was also quite useful in making corviknight also resist fighting moves while fire would be neutral and keeping the immunity to ground moves. The boosted brave bird while no longer being weak to fire came up a few times with 
in the format, but since it has been banned it rarely comes up. I rarely tera the metal birb which is probably a sign it should get changes however I haven't figured out another good defensive tera for it yet so I have left the semi offensive tera on .As for the item I chose Rocky Helmet to get in for some chip damage. It makes corviknight a great switch into things like u-turn from opposing pokemon, rapid spin from
, and can provide some late game chip damage before it dies against threats like , 
, and . This chip damage can weaken many pokemon with no recovery throughout the course of the game, such as 
, , 
and 
, and is almost free since u-turn deals so little damage to corviknight. Pressure is since PP stalling can become very relevant especially with 8 pp dragon moves like glaive rush and draco meteor. The ev spread is fairly normal for a physical tank. Outside of hazard control and chip damage with rocky helmet, is great at tanking physical attacks as well as grass moves because of its 4 times resistance. This is quite important since we have 2 pokemon weak to grass moves on the team. Lastly although this team cares less about knock off then 6 boot stall variants, getting leftovers knocked off can be annoying and this is a great knock off absorber.4.3 Toxapex
Our next friend on the team is a stall repeating all star
. The move set I decide to run is designed to stall after an opponent has been hit with toxic and sometimes even trapping them. To do this I run toxic, to apply the toxic effect, infestation to trap them, baneful bunker to protect, and recover to heal itself. Infestation is great since it provides nice damage over time against poison and steel types like , 
, , and . It can then also start alternating between bunker and recover to heal if neccessary to keep the opposing pokemon trapped. The interesting choice here is baneful bunker over protect. While toxic is better it can sometimes be hard to get up. This can happen against pivot pokemon such as , , and and pokemon that make contact with a large damaging move such as headlong rush or solar blade 
.This pokemon has defenses for days and can be quite hard to break. I chose to make my pex a special defense tank so that it can absorb moves such as earth power, discharge, thunderbolt, and draco meteor. Having a lot of special bulk allows pex to tank a hit from many special attackers and then get a toxic off. Pex then switches out to recover most of the health lost making it ready to rinse and repeat again. I have also found that pex usually ahs enough physical bulk to survive earthquake and other strong physical moves like glaive rush, which still allows it to get a toxic off when it is at full HP. The main move that pex is scared of is headlong rush from pokes like
and . Overall special defense pex is a great answer to a variety of special attackers including 
, 
, 
, and . And while it does not completely wall these pokemon, , 
, and 
it can often eat a single super effective thunderbolt, discharge, or earth power and then respond with a toxic. Another great matchup is against . Often times versus lead I will start with pex. I do this to trap it with infestation and then alternate between baleful bunker and recover. This will usually bring it down to about 49% or 37%. And if it says once free the next infestation will be able to trap and ko it. This is able to remove or at least severely weaken it while only allowing rocks up on your side which you can clear shortly after.I chose tera flying here as a defensive tera. It lets me completely blank a single ground move such as earthquake or headlong rush. In the late game this can be the difference from winning or losing since you can blank and earthquake from
or 
get a toxic up and still have enough health to stall the pokemon out with infestation, bunker, and recover.4.4 Dondozo
The next poke is gen 9s best addition to stall, the physical beast dondozo. While he is certainly a physical beast with max special bulk he is also a massive special wall. Special dondozo is able to wall pokemon such as :dragpult:,
, , some 
, 
, and . It can also tank a hit from a super effect thunderbolt and discharge as well as a draco meteor. Giving up on the physical bulk does make it a bit worse against things it normally checks like and but if you position it right you can increase its defense with curse to allow it to successfully wall these pokemon. In a pinch dondozo can also stall out using shadow ball as long as he does not get a defense drop. While you are likely to get one, switching out and back in again can reset it and this strategy should only be used as a last resort. This makes one of the most versatile and important pokemon on the team!As for the move set I run the normal rest and sleep talk to allow it to be useful and recover its health. I then run curse to reinforce its physical matchups and lastly I run liquidation as an effective stab move. Lots of dondozo's run earthquake and body press and avalanche but because I only have room for 1 move I prefer to use liquidation as it can hit practically everything outside of the water absorb pokemon
and .I have tera dark on my dondozo as my answer to set up stored power sleepers. Most of them do run some fairy move for coverage but the special bulk here comes in handy as it can tank 3 hits and rest and then do some damage with sleep talk.
4.5 Ting Lu
Our newest member to the team is on of the ruin pokemon,
. When testing the team I was finding I had a lot of trouble against since its electric moves was super effective against 3 of my pokemon and hurricane was very strong against 1. was my only real answer to it without a tera and so I went to the drawing board and sitting there was a giant bowl pokemon. completely changed the matchup as well as other electric types like 
and 
. Not only does he do great against electric types having a stab earthquake is able to threaten many strong pokemon currently including , , and .When looking over the move pool I had many options. Stab earthquake was a given and was my first inclusion. Then I decided that I also wanted stealth rocks as a hazards option to prevent my opponents from freely switching all game. That left 2 moves left. At first I considered a rest talk set but found that I just didn't have room for the sleep talk. That led me to look at other possible moves. I considered a dark move like throat chop, but figured I mostly wanted them for
but already had leftovers so it wasn't necessary. Ruination also came to mind but felt like I could not capitalize on the health loss before it could be recovered in general. Then I thought back to why I had it on my team in the first place and remembered that pesky . While it was great at switching into a zap it could not hit it. That is when I got the idea to run the unusual rock slide. It is able to deal great damage to fliers and since its very uncommon to run on it is able to catch lots of opponents by surprise. This allows me to now also deal good damage to flying pokemon or pokemon with air balloon. The last move I settled on rest to be a way to recover health if necessary.As for its EV spread I chose to max special defense to take full advantage of its absurd ability lowering the opposing pokemons special attack by 25%. This ability is bonkers, which I'll touch more on later. I chose tera poison as it normally has a physic immunity and ground moves are just okay against it. It also now resists fairy, bug, grass, and fighting moves which
is normally weak too.4.6 Wo Chien
The last poke on my team is possibly my favorite pokemon from this generation
. I have loved the adorable snail since I started playing them on my prehome stall team. While they are not the best and maybe even the worst of the 4 ruin pokemon I found great use for them. Originally added to the team for its typing (rather than in spite of), being able to resist both grass and electric was major for the team. The weaknesses to fairy, fighting, and but were a problem however. That is why I chose tera ghost. Ghost has only 2 weaknesses, dark and ghost, both of which it resists normally. And after tera it resists bug and is immune to fighting which it is normally weak too. The tera is also quite useful against since it is quite unlikely to click earthquake or headlong rush since it resists it normally and facade no longer affects it after a tera. This allows for it to take a free turn to get some damage off on it. This is true for all close combat users as well such as .The moveset is the same as my pre home team since I have found it to be great. Giga drain also gets a lot better post home since it is now able to pressure hazard set up users like
and . Knock off is another just great utility move and leech seed plus protect allows for some great health recovery. Its stats however have changed, and this is because I have now learned how just utterly absurd the ruins ability are. Here are a couple of my favorite calcs:Max Attack
with booster energy boosting attack:Max Attack 5 fainted +2 Attack
Max Attack (with speed nature)
This is kinda absurd. A
with max attack, 5 fainted allies that has set up a swords dance has only a 6.3% chance to ohko. That move is super effect with being souped up and it still can almost always tank a hit. A under the sun or with booster energy cannot ko a full health and then our snail friend recovers about 40% to 46% with giga drain and leftovers meaning it will on average take only about 47% damage from the close combat. Lastly a :samurot-hisui: running sacred sword will only deal at most 44% while recovers at minimum 35% with leftovers and giga drain making it essentially deal 3% and 9% damage. I find these calcs to be some of the most obscured that I have seen and this is why I switched over from a special defense to a physical defense one. I also use a minus speed nature since out speeding things is usually unimportant while extra knock off damage is.4.7 Notable Exclusions:
I won't talk to much on why I didn't include all the viable pokemon in stall but wanted to touch on these two since many see them, along with
as being the core to gen 9 stall. I just never enjoyed playing with. Its great and is the special defense wall in the gen, but I just found that it was too hard to set up rocks with it and that seismic toss was to medium of a damaging move. I also really like my pokemon to be versatile, being able to tank both physical and special attacks in a pinch, which it just cannot do. is similar but I also found that I was just not playing it right and could not figure out how to get it to stall major physical attackers as it would just take a big hit and faint. Essentially I just like playing with the 6 I chose over these two but they are both great stall pokemon.5. Problematic Matchups and Pokemon
5.1
The biggest treat to this team and most stall teams in general is the wall breaker
. The massive attack stat combined with guts and swords dance just allow to easily 6-0 your team if not prepared. For this beast of a pokemon there a a couple of interesting tools we have. , even though it is not iron defense and body press still can do good damage, around 30%, with brave bird and will normally go before the bear. Corviknight also will deal some chip damage with rocky helmet (33% if it gets hit twice) and the burn will start to add up. also can tera ghost blanking a facade, which can allow it to deal 45% back in a giga drain. Another less consistent option is to predict the switch in on the bear and click toxic with so it will be under toxic instead of burn. Lastly and can knock off the flame orb if it has yet to activate.5.2
+ Hazards , , , , Another tough matchup and the main reason to run 6 boots stall over this team is hazard setters plus
. This allows the opposing team to set up hazards and then protect them by switching into preventing you from clearing hazards with defog and rapid spin. To counter act this every pokemon on the team besides and can do something to deal with the golden boy. can earthquake to deal massive damage to it and also set up rocks to prevent continuous switching. can knock off for damage. can knock off for damage and then overheat. This is not guaranteed to ko all but will ko ones that are max speed and special attack (see calc below). Lastly is special defense partly as a last resort answer to goldy. At special defense it can tank shadow balls until it gets a special defense drop but that can be reset with a switch out. Then rest plus sleep talk can curse to increase damage and liquidation to eventually ko the . This strategy is risky and not without its flaws so it should only be used when it is your only option left.As for the hazard part of this team either
or can deal with them. Against and you can infestation to eventually ko them. For the others, can usually take them out with a couple of giga drains or leech seeds. Taking out the hazards setter and then finding situations where you can clear the hazards are the top priority in these matchups. Often times you might have to sac a :coviknight: to defog but it is usually worth it!5.3
This pokemon is also a problem for the team. Usually against pokemon with many sets you are able to protect and see what its on however that is not possible with
. In most cases can wall it pretty well with leech seed and protect, but there a lot of different possible sets on this poke. Knock off also deals about 50%. Protection with can also be possible since hyperspace fury is not very effective against it. Another option to chip its health is to u turn with . In general this pokemon is not super common but is a good answer to the team as there are no super clean counters to it. It is not a very common pokemon right not though so I did not prioritize having a clean answer to it.5.4
One of my favorite pokemon from this gen
, is also a good threat against this team. It can often deal significant damage with salt cure, but that can be stalled out with the regenerators on the team. Late game , , and can pressure it with super effective moves. Often times switching between the bike and the pex and then switching to the snail can force it to switch out or you get a leech seed up, knock off its leftovers or heal a bunch with giga drain. It is a threat that is hard to remove so it requires a lot of precise play but often times just falls short of finishing off the team.5.5
+ 5 fainted alliesThe last poke I want to mention is
. If you still have and it can set up a single curse and then sleep you are golden and need no other counter. However sometimes you lose your early and now have a massive weakness to the king. There are still a couple of options. The first is setting up leech seed with and then stalling it out with your protect pokemon. You can protect, switch to a poke without protect, it will die you switch to a protect poke and repeat. If this is your answer clicking knock off to remove any leftovers might also be necessary. If it does not have leftovers you could also get some chip in early with u-turn, overheat, and infestation on its switch ins when your pex is out. As previously mentioned overheat from can deal about 50% to it, but you should be aware of sucker punch so if it has swords danced then this may not be possible. Another option is with earthquake which can also deal about 50%. If they have low kick you can tera poison to guarantee get one off or if they are iron head you can stay un teraed. Lastly :coviknight: rocky helmut can chip away about 33% of its health as well.Oveall while is our cleanest answer sometimes we will need to improvise and while grim it is not completely hopeless.6. Replays
Some of my replays are through jsbin. This is just like pastebin but for html files. I initially was downloading all of my replays instead of uploading & sharing them. I still wanted to include them so I found jsbin which lets paste the html file and essentially runs the webpage of the battle replay.
Tera to beat set up 
, and survive https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1909085314-thdw793fxis7wsdh7t17xjm52q8ipw0pw
+ https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1909088426-vghsgqxljms572i93xw95ihkkhnvex4pw
survives close combat and answers https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1909096315-vq81igl2c660003nb91nuqt2kjrscmlpw
Rain Team
https://jsbin.com/zepilem
Predictions showcasing rockslidehttps://jsbin.com/cuyonat
Hazards set up that could not be removed and
shows off special bulk against https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1909716324-mcncjoc3t94yvxhgve0bug3muzodtscpw
Baneful Bunker Poisons
and dealing with https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1909719921-9hirwe5x5dbkd0qs1hnn84m7ks5st83pw
Paralocked but still got through , , and https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1909726687-4obp2016957iptaxlu3ff6lypwvf5efpw
stalls with leech seedhttps://jsbin.com/zuseneb
Trick Room
https://jsbin.com/geyiquk
& vs sub/hex https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1910336579-xwuc60nyhvfuulff349qvwlvdi6pmbypw
last resort vs :ghodengo:https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1910344849-2zfh85jh8e4nqokt8i6xb0d2mfacz86pw
and team up against https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1910878830-8o22olaia0vmdnoon29j1ruievbyls6pw
7. Acknowlegdements
I want to thank the stall discord and everyone on it. It has been a tremendous resources that has helped me get better as both a player and a teambuilder. Everyone on there is great for bouncing ideas around and discussing plays and how you can improve. If you are interested at all in stall I highly recommend the discord. The link to the Stall Discord is: https://discord.gg/5kesazdPxF.
If you have any questions or comments about my team please feel free to leave a reply here. You can also find me in the stall discord if you are looking for an in-depth discussion about any specific matchups or team building questions!
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(57%), and 
. Even after tera crunch does not do a lot due to the tablets of ruin ability. Lastly 
