Hi guys! I’ve been floating around PO/PS for ages, and I finally got some time off from uni so I figured I’d post my favourite team as a way of introducing myself to the community.
Lots of Talking
I suppose I should begin at the beginning – this team started around an offensive core of CB Entei and CB Azumarill. I’m a stall player at heart, but I like to use offensive pressure in conjunction with passive damage sources, especially in XY. Anyway, the theory was that together Entei and Azumarill can switch into and severely damage every common Defogger, making removing hazards difficult and/or risky for my opponent. They also both switch in relatively easily, and provide powerful priority so I didn’t need to bother with a dedicated revenge killer.
With those two, I initially used the standard stall core of Quagsire / Chansey / M-Venusaur / Skarmory, which I’d actually theorized Entei / Azu to complement. This worked pretty well – I peaked a bit over 1900 PS iirc, throwing Chesnaught > M-Venusaur along the way because Grass Knot Bisharp and well played Aegislash were costing me more battles than Keldeo. I realized I was losing most of the time to other stall teams, because M-Venu + Quag was the definitive stop to my offensive core, and my defensive core was identical to what opponents were using.
To cope with that, I switched to a different defensive core, Quagsire / Zapdos / Ferrothorn / Chansey, which is just better in this meta for a few reasons. #1, Skarmory is rubbish. Everything its supposed to beat can be tailored to beat it, mainly because of its awful 4MSS. Ferrothorn, on the other hand, is as good and reliable as ever. #2, using Zapdos as my Defogger gave me a massive matchup advantage against typical stall, and also gave me a nice Pressure core with Entei. Pressure abuse went on to be my primary win condition against full stall, and it’s effective to the point where I don’t think the current team has lost to any stalls which don’t carry Gothitelle.
I’ve only made one serious run at the leaderboard, and despite being 100% confident I’d make it to #1, I didn’t, because a couple of people called Deniss and Dauude Sandstorm popularized two teams which completely wrecked mine (I somehow managed a 2-1 WL against Deniss, although running into lower rated players using his team ruined my score). I still managed to get to 3rd, though, which to me just demonstrated that the team is capable of winning against anything which doesn’t completely counterteam it :)
Overall, this team suits my style perfectly, and it’s extremely fun and (I think) easy to use, especially for people who aren’t used to full stalls. I hope some of you try it out and enjoy it :)
More Talking, About Individual Pokemon
Quagsire @ Leftovers
252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Curse / Haze
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Recover
Quagsire is essential in this metagame for two main reasons, Defiant mons and Char-X, but it’s helpful against so much other stuff besides. If nothing else it’s a safety net which makes sure 90% of physical attackers can’t sweep me. I’m sure you all understand how physically defensive Quagsire works, but I’ll give some brief explanation to the first moveslot. Earthquake, Recover and Toxic are all obvious (and its so deliciously easy to catch stuff like Latios and Rotom-W switching in with a Toxic); I prefer Curse mainly as a defense boost, which really is valuable when so many of the things he has to beat can nearly 2HKO him. The attack boost isn’t really useful, it just tends to make the opponents switches more predictable in response to the threat, which I can abuse with Toxic or double switching.
Apart from the obvious, I thought I should go through some other uses for Quagsire:
· Death fodder
· Tanking Volt Switches with its amazing special defense
· Seriously though, M-Manectric and Raikou are very popular and nobody ever uses HP Grass on them. Meanwhile Rotom-W is nowhere to be seen. It’s a good time to be a Water / Ground.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Protect / Spikes
- Power Whip
Everyone stopped using Ferro for a while because M-Venusaur doesn’t die and walls everything. But now every offensive team overprepares for Venusaur (HP Flying Keldeo lol), plus people realized Venu doesn’t do anything against stall.
Anyway, the bulky Grass niche is arguably the most important defensive role in the meta right now, because of Keldeo, Azumarill, and M-Gyarados. Physically defensive Ferrothorn doesn’t beat those threats quite as reliably as M-Venu, but I have Azumarill and Zapdos to help out so it doesn’t matter unless I’m backed into a corner and have to start making risky predictions. Ferro rewards me by being a reliable SRer and racking up massive amounts of residual damage against offensive teams.
I’ve been tossing up between Protect and Spikes for a while. Protect scouts Choice-mons and helps PP and Leech Seed / Toxic stall, which is just gravy. On the other hand, Spikes is more of a thematic choice which makes the Entei / Azumarill core much more dangerous. At the moment I’m running Protect because it works better against offense, and I beat stall comfortably anyway with Pressure. Both options are good though.
Finally, Power Whip over Gyro Ball because of Rain Dance Manaphy, CroCune, Sub Gyarados and Gliscor, and so on. Power Whip also prevents enemy Quagsire from healing up, which comes in handy when I need to break through it with Entei.
Zapdos @ Leftovers
252 HP / 240 Defense / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
- Volt Switch
- Defog
- Roost
- Heat Wave
Zapdos is probably my second favourite team member after Entei. There are occasional games against offense where he does nothing / struggles to Defog, but in general, he provides an incredible amount of utility. He Defogs reliably against most teams, counters Pinsir and Birdspam in general, gives a backup counter to Ferrothorn and SD Scizor (which is important considering Entei relies on Wish for recovery), and is an incredible stallbreaker.
The stall matchup, particularly against teams which use Skarmory (e.g. all of them), can be won almost singlehandedly by this guy. Every time a Venusaur needs to use Synthesis, to keep taking on Azu, I switch Zapdos (or Entei) into it. Every time a Skarm needs to Defog, I switch in Zapdos or Entei. Every time a Chansey needs to Heal Bell, I switch one of them in. Zapdos has Leftovers and Roost, Volt Switch for momentum, and doesn’t rely on an 8 PP Sacred Fire, so I usually go with him. Give the opponent 30 turns of this, and the smart ones will resign. For the less smart ones, somewhere in the fifty to one hundred turn range they’ll suddenly find their teams literally falling apart. Status can be healed, health can be recovered, but once PP is gone, it’s gone forever. PP stall is thus what I call a “hard” offensive strategy, in that it’s a guaranteed win, which I facilitate using softer strategies like setting up hazards or hitting important mons with Toxic. Of course, it’s not uncommon for other teams to use Pressure mons themselves – I’ve had to play SansNickel’s full Pressure team a few times. In general, though, if an opponent can out PP stall Entei and Zapdos, they’ll have some kind of exploitable hole in their team.
Thanks btw to Rosenfeldius for pointing out that 252 HP hits a Leftovers number, which more than outweighs having the ability to switch into SR in sandstorm / hail 4 times which you get with 248 HP. 16 Spe outpaces Adamant Bisharp, and then the rest to defense to handle Pinsir and the like.
Chansey @ Eviolite
120 HP / 252 Def / 136 SDef
Bold Nature
- Wish
- Soft-Boiled
- Heal Bell
- Toxic
Not really a fan but good Char-Y counters are hard to come by. It’s important to only use Chansey as much as you can afford; she will lose any and all momentum you have. If you’re playing an offensive team with the Keld / Char-Y core, the best way to stop Keldeo from being annoying is to stop Char-Y from coming in safely. The same goes for other threats Chansey counters. If you can avoid using her, it’s usually worth doing so.
That’s not to say Chansey isn’t a necessary part of the team. She does stop a lot of threats, and her Cleric abilities are obviously important against defensive teams. I use Soft-Boiled over Protect because it’s an infinitely better option. Protect may let you stall Toxic damage or PP, but it’s so exploitable, especially on something like Chansey which is already as exploitable as a teenage girl with no money and a drug habit. Unless you are utterly incapable of prediction, Soft-Boiled is always the better choice. 4MSS is a bit of an issue, I’d like to fit Seismic Toss, but Toxic is definitely better and nothing else is replaceable.
Other stuff Chansey does:
· Gets used as death fodder
· Sweeps when all its counters are gone
· Makes 10 year olds rage about stall
· Looks so ugly it throws my opponents off their game
Entei @ Choice Band
200 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Extreme Speed
- HP Grass
- Bulldoze
In many ways the easiest Pokémon to use, ever. If the opponent doesn’t have a safe Sacred Fire switchin, spam Sacred Fire until everything is burnt / dead. It’s a non-contact move so don’t worry about King’s Shield and so on. Then, spam Extreme Speed. If stuff needs revenge killing, hit Extreme Speed. Most of the time it’s really that simple. It works best to do as much damage as possible with it early game, then cunningly withdrawing it once it’s down to 25.1% health.
Stone Edge was originally used over HP Grass, to hit Char-X/Y, Talonflame, and Balloon Tran, but I realised it was used so rarely as to be basically worthless. HP Grass 2HKO's Quagsire, which is the only counter most modern stalls run for Entei, which can be very valuable if they have something like Gothitelle which limits my ability to safely PP stall.
Heatran is the bane of this things existence, but you can work round it. In general the first time I get a Heatran vs Entei matchup, I switch to Azumarill. You can just Bulldoze instead, because everyone just leaves their Heatran in to get OHKO’d, but switching to Azumarill is better in case you get an opponent who misclicked ‘Switch’ instead of staying in. This way, you confirm that you have nothing to hurt them with, so you can catch them with Bulldoze further down the track (try to do it as they switch Heatran in; if you’re in another Entei vs Tran matchup, you don’t want them expecting you to switch out and pulling a double switch).
Btw the EV’s outspeed 252 Adamant M-Heracross, which usually prevents it from being too annoying, especially since everything on the team can either OHKO it or hit it with Leech Seed / Toxic.
Other things Entei does:
· Help PP stall
· Die to Stealth Rock
Azumarill @ Choice Band
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough
- Superpower
If Entei is mindless, Azumarill can require a huge amount of prediction to use successfully. In particular when the opponent is running Ferrothorn, just try and find an advantageous position (e.g. vs Garchomp) in which Superpower would make absolutely no sense, and then use Superpower. In other scenarios, double switching tends to be the key to using Azu, particularly against M-Venusaur when you can keep hazards down for an extended period of time. Against offense, though, Azumarill reverts to more of the mindless basher role. Many teams really are absurdly weak to its Water / Fairy STAB’s. Just hit stuff, then clean up with Aqua Jet.
Horrible 4MSS can be irritating. Ideally I’d like to run Knock Off, Façade (for insurance against Scald Keldeo), and Brave Bird as well. I suppose one of Superpower or Waterfall could be replaced by Knock Off, but it’d really only help against Aegislash. I consider Leftovers > Choice Band occasionally as well, because Azu often doesn’t last long enough against offense, but overall the extra power is much more beneficial. If I ever get time I might even try something like Belly Drum / Aqua Jet / Play Rough / Knock Off with Lefties for extra bulk while maintaining some potential power.
More Stuff, Including Me Being Awkward
People normally put a threat list here if they can be bothered.
Anyway thanks guys, I really appreciate anyone who's taken the time to read this far :) I don't really know how to close an RMT so I'm just going to wish you all a nice day.
And an importable:
Lots of Talking
I suppose I should begin at the beginning – this team started around an offensive core of CB Entei and CB Azumarill. I’m a stall player at heart, but I like to use offensive pressure in conjunction with passive damage sources, especially in XY. Anyway, the theory was that together Entei and Azumarill can switch into and severely damage every common Defogger, making removing hazards difficult and/or risky for my opponent. They also both switch in relatively easily, and provide powerful priority so I didn’t need to bother with a dedicated revenge killer.
With those two, I initially used the standard stall core of Quagsire / Chansey / M-Venusaur / Skarmory, which I’d actually theorized Entei / Azu to complement. This worked pretty well – I peaked a bit over 1900 PS iirc, throwing Chesnaught > M-Venusaur along the way because Grass Knot Bisharp and well played Aegislash were costing me more battles than Keldeo. I realized I was losing most of the time to other stall teams, because M-Venu + Quag was the definitive stop to my offensive core, and my defensive core was identical to what opponents were using.
To cope with that, I switched to a different defensive core, Quagsire / Zapdos / Ferrothorn / Chansey, which is just better in this meta for a few reasons. #1, Skarmory is rubbish. Everything its supposed to beat can be tailored to beat it, mainly because of its awful 4MSS. Ferrothorn, on the other hand, is as good and reliable as ever. #2, using Zapdos as my Defogger gave me a massive matchup advantage against typical stall, and also gave me a nice Pressure core with Entei. Pressure abuse went on to be my primary win condition against full stall, and it’s effective to the point where I don’t think the current team has lost to any stalls which don’t carry Gothitelle.
I’ve only made one serious run at the leaderboard, and despite being 100% confident I’d make it to #1, I didn’t, because a couple of people called Deniss and Dauude Sandstorm popularized two teams which completely wrecked mine (I somehow managed a 2-1 WL against Deniss, although running into lower rated players using his team ruined my score). I still managed to get to 3rd, though, which to me just demonstrated that the team is capable of winning against anything which doesn’t completely counterteam it :)
Overall, this team suits my style perfectly, and it’s extremely fun and (I think) easy to use, especially for people who aren’t used to full stalls. I hope some of you try it out and enjoy it :)
More Talking, About Individual Pokemon
Quagsire @ Leftovers
252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Curse / Haze
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Recover
Quagsire is essential in this metagame for two main reasons, Defiant mons and Char-X, but it’s helpful against so much other stuff besides. If nothing else it’s a safety net which makes sure 90% of physical attackers can’t sweep me. I’m sure you all understand how physically defensive Quagsire works, but I’ll give some brief explanation to the first moveslot. Earthquake, Recover and Toxic are all obvious (and its so deliciously easy to catch stuff like Latios and Rotom-W switching in with a Toxic); I prefer Curse mainly as a defense boost, which really is valuable when so many of the things he has to beat can nearly 2HKO him. The attack boost isn’t really useful, it just tends to make the opponents switches more predictable in response to the threat, which I can abuse with Toxic or double switching.
Apart from the obvious, I thought I should go through some other uses for Quagsire:
· Death fodder
· Tanking Volt Switches with its amazing special defense
· Seriously though, M-Manectric and Raikou are very popular and nobody ever uses HP Grass on them. Meanwhile Rotom-W is nowhere to be seen. It’s a good time to be a Water / Ground.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Leech Seed
- Protect / Spikes
- Power Whip
Everyone stopped using Ferro for a while because M-Venusaur doesn’t die and walls everything. But now every offensive team overprepares for Venusaur (HP Flying Keldeo lol), plus people realized Venu doesn’t do anything against stall.
Anyway, the bulky Grass niche is arguably the most important defensive role in the meta right now, because of Keldeo, Azumarill, and M-Gyarados. Physically defensive Ferrothorn doesn’t beat those threats quite as reliably as M-Venu, but I have Azumarill and Zapdos to help out so it doesn’t matter unless I’m backed into a corner and have to start making risky predictions. Ferro rewards me by being a reliable SRer and racking up massive amounts of residual damage against offensive teams.
I’ve been tossing up between Protect and Spikes for a while. Protect scouts Choice-mons and helps PP and Leech Seed / Toxic stall, which is just gravy. On the other hand, Spikes is more of a thematic choice which makes the Entei / Azumarill core much more dangerous. At the moment I’m running Protect because it works better against offense, and I beat stall comfortably anyway with Pressure. Both options are good though.
Finally, Power Whip over Gyro Ball because of Rain Dance Manaphy, CroCune, Sub Gyarados and Gliscor, and so on. Power Whip also prevents enemy Quagsire from healing up, which comes in handy when I need to break through it with Entei.
Zapdos @ Leftovers
252 HP / 240 Defense / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
- Volt Switch
- Defog
- Roost
- Heat Wave
Zapdos is probably my second favourite team member after Entei. There are occasional games against offense where he does nothing / struggles to Defog, but in general, he provides an incredible amount of utility. He Defogs reliably against most teams, counters Pinsir and Birdspam in general, gives a backup counter to Ferrothorn and SD Scizor (which is important considering Entei relies on Wish for recovery), and is an incredible stallbreaker.
The stall matchup, particularly against teams which use Skarmory (e.g. all of them), can be won almost singlehandedly by this guy. Every time a Venusaur needs to use Synthesis, to keep taking on Azu, I switch Zapdos (or Entei) into it. Every time a Skarm needs to Defog, I switch in Zapdos or Entei. Every time a Chansey needs to Heal Bell, I switch one of them in. Zapdos has Leftovers and Roost, Volt Switch for momentum, and doesn’t rely on an 8 PP Sacred Fire, so I usually go with him. Give the opponent 30 turns of this, and the smart ones will resign. For the less smart ones, somewhere in the fifty to one hundred turn range they’ll suddenly find their teams literally falling apart. Status can be healed, health can be recovered, but once PP is gone, it’s gone forever. PP stall is thus what I call a “hard” offensive strategy, in that it’s a guaranteed win, which I facilitate using softer strategies like setting up hazards or hitting important mons with Toxic. Of course, it’s not uncommon for other teams to use Pressure mons themselves – I’ve had to play SansNickel’s full Pressure team a few times. In general, though, if an opponent can out PP stall Entei and Zapdos, they’ll have some kind of exploitable hole in their team.
Thanks btw to Rosenfeldius for pointing out that 252 HP hits a Leftovers number, which more than outweighs having the ability to switch into SR in sandstorm / hail 4 times which you get with 248 HP. 16 Spe outpaces Adamant Bisharp, and then the rest to defense to handle Pinsir and the like.
Chansey @ Eviolite
120 HP / 252 Def / 136 SDef
Bold Nature
- Wish
- Soft-Boiled
- Heal Bell
- Toxic
Not really a fan but good Char-Y counters are hard to come by. It’s important to only use Chansey as much as you can afford; she will lose any and all momentum you have. If you’re playing an offensive team with the Keld / Char-Y core, the best way to stop Keldeo from being annoying is to stop Char-Y from coming in safely. The same goes for other threats Chansey counters. If you can avoid using her, it’s usually worth doing so.
That’s not to say Chansey isn’t a necessary part of the team. She does stop a lot of threats, and her Cleric abilities are obviously important against defensive teams. I use Soft-Boiled over Protect because it’s an infinitely better option. Protect may let you stall Toxic damage or PP, but it’s so exploitable, especially on something like Chansey which is already as exploitable as a teenage girl with no money and a drug habit. Unless you are utterly incapable of prediction, Soft-Boiled is always the better choice. 4MSS is a bit of an issue, I’d like to fit Seismic Toss, but Toxic is definitely better and nothing else is replaceable.
Other stuff Chansey does:
· Gets used as death fodder
· Sweeps when all its counters are gone
· Makes 10 year olds rage about stall
· Looks so ugly it throws my opponents off their game
Entei @ Choice Band
200 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sacred Fire
- Extreme Speed
- HP Grass
- Bulldoze
In many ways the easiest Pokémon to use, ever. If the opponent doesn’t have a safe Sacred Fire switchin, spam Sacred Fire until everything is burnt / dead. It’s a non-contact move so don’t worry about King’s Shield and so on. Then, spam Extreme Speed. If stuff needs revenge killing, hit Extreme Speed. Most of the time it’s really that simple. It works best to do as much damage as possible with it early game, then cunningly withdrawing it once it’s down to 25.1% health.
Stone Edge was originally used over HP Grass, to hit Char-X/Y, Talonflame, and Balloon Tran, but I realised it was used so rarely as to be basically worthless. HP Grass 2HKO's Quagsire, which is the only counter most modern stalls run for Entei, which can be very valuable if they have something like Gothitelle which limits my ability to safely PP stall.
Heatran is the bane of this things existence, but you can work round it. In general the first time I get a Heatran vs Entei matchup, I switch to Azumarill. You can just Bulldoze instead, because everyone just leaves their Heatran in to get OHKO’d, but switching to Azumarill is better in case you get an opponent who misclicked ‘Switch’ instead of staying in. This way, you confirm that you have nothing to hurt them with, so you can catch them with Bulldoze further down the track (try to do it as they switch Heatran in; if you’re in another Entei vs Tran matchup, you don’t want them expecting you to switch out and pulling a double switch).
Btw the EV’s outspeed 252 Adamant M-Heracross, which usually prevents it from being too annoying, especially since everything on the team can either OHKO it or hit it with Leech Seed / Toxic.
Other things Entei does:
· Help PP stall
· Die to Stealth Rock
Azumarill @ Choice Band
252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Aqua Jet
- Play Rough
- Superpower
If Entei is mindless, Azumarill can require a huge amount of prediction to use successfully. In particular when the opponent is running Ferrothorn, just try and find an advantageous position (e.g. vs Garchomp) in which Superpower would make absolutely no sense, and then use Superpower. In other scenarios, double switching tends to be the key to using Azu, particularly against M-Venusaur when you can keep hazards down for an extended period of time. Against offense, though, Azumarill reverts to more of the mindless basher role. Many teams really are absurdly weak to its Water / Fairy STAB’s. Just hit stuff, then clean up with Aqua Jet.
Horrible 4MSS can be irritating. Ideally I’d like to run Knock Off, Façade (for insurance against Scald Keldeo), and Brave Bird as well. I suppose one of Superpower or Waterfall could be replaced by Knock Off, but it’d really only help against Aegislash. I consider Leftovers > Choice Band occasionally as well, because Azu often doesn’t last long enough against offense, but overall the extra power is much more beneficial. If I ever get time I might even try something like Belly Drum / Aqua Jet / Play Rough / Knock Off with Lefties for extra bulk while maintaining some potential power.
More Stuff, Including Me Being Awkward
People normally put a threat list here if they can be bothered.
Anyway thanks guys, I really appreciate anyone who's taken the time to read this far :) I don't really know how to close an RMT so I'm just going to wish you all a nice day.
And an importable:
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