OU SkarmBliss in GSC OU!

GSC has had many threats and issues being still to this day being worked on on other Pokemon Forums, but setting all of that aside what is still special is the combination of Skarmory and Blissey. I've tried time and time again to make a solid team with them on it but it's always missing a piece.




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Taken straight off the Smogon page's moveset Blissey commonly packs Heal Bell and Soft-Boiled, and thats about all they have in common. On Pokemon Showdown I would like to say using Ice Beam over Flamethrower is better because there is no Freeze Clause. Sing would be wonderful asset if it wasn't competing for a spot over the powerful Light Screen that makes SkarmBliss a staple IMO.










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Skarmory always packs Drill Peck, Whirlwind and Rest. The last slots being Thief or Curse if you like to PP stall or want to wall them out with defense; or just straight win outright with powerful Drill Pecks. On Pokemon Showdown Skarmory performs the same valuable slot to the team as it does on the cartridge.


So my question to you is if you could make a SkarmBliss team what would it look like and why.
 
I've learned that slapping Lax on a team and calling it a day always isn't the answer in GSC. Sometimes to beat Lax you need Dynamic Punch Tyranitar, and or a Explosion or Whirlwind into Spikes etc.

Lax itself isn't very versitile, but absorbs so much damage coming from everything not named Explosion and Dynamic Punch that it does fit on quite alot of teams, or used to.

Lax can Self-Destruct though, which is huge in a GSC meta dominated by walls that also like to Explode or carry Toxic

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I've actually managed to come up with a team in a short amount of time for testing SkarmBliss and it works pretty swell.

Raikou @ Leftovers
- Thunderbolt
- Reflect
- Roar
- Rest

Tbolt is for PP and Para chance, Reflect is to save Skarmory from getting OHKO'd. Roar is Roar, it can save you in a pinch sometimes when a Skarmory Whirlwind could'nt, and as a plus lets you scout out the rest of their team and it also let's you PP stall. Rest is to let you not get Toxic'd or otherwise lose Raikou.

Blissey @ Leftovers
- Heal Bell
- Light Screen
- Ice Beam
- Soft-Boiled

Heal Bell is to clear status, Light Screen to protect Starmie and Skarmory, Ice Beam is for Freeze Hax, Soft-Boiled to recover.

Skarmory
- Drill Peck
- Whirlwind
- Rest
- Thief

Drill Peck is to cause residual damage, Whirlwind to stop Snorlax, Rest is pretty important for a free status clear and damage heal, Thief lets us play the long game against any teams we might face while giving Skarmory a leftovers or Thick Club usually. Sometimes a free Lum Berry can make all the difference I guess.

Starmie @ Leftovers
- Psychic
- Rapid Spin
- Surf
- Recover

Psychic and Surf for STAB, Recover to heal damage and Rapid Spin to blow away Spikes.

Suicune @ Leftovers
- Ice Beam
- Surf
- Sleep Talk
- Rest

Ice Beam for Freeze Hax, Surf for STAB, Sleep Talk is to fight back from Sleep and Rest is to heal status and damage.

Snorlax @ Leftovers
- Curse
- Body Slam
- Belly Drum
- Rest

Curse and Belly Drum on the same set so you don't know which way I'm going to use Snorlax, and if worse comes to worse I can sweep normally with a Belly Drum mid game or if Skarmory has performed it's Thief successfully I can use Curse for PP Stalling and to give myself a long game. Body Slam is for Para'ing since Starmie doesn't carry Thunder Wave.
 
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SkarmBliss isn't even that good? It's a pretty shitty combo in that you're getting practically zero offensive production from either slot

Honestly the team you posted is fairly poor, with numerous gaping flaws. Firstly it's literally 6-0'd by FBLax. Second it has literally no offensive avenues besides Lax and hoping for a freeze. Third is Lax itself- that's a really support dependent set due to its mono-normal coverage and you've given it absolutely no support. Overall it lacks a core strategy beyond hoping for a freeze and trying to last long enough for the opponent to get bored and quit

"Lax itself isn't very versatile" this is blatantly untrue js

In all honesty I find it easier framing the problem as a question of building around Blissey than around SkarmBliss- Skarm's a staple that's easy to fit on a number of teams, Blissey's far more awkward due to being redundant (Kou and Lax are already pretty good special walls) and a deadweight offensively. As HereToHelpRBY said, if you're intent on running SkarmBliss, your next step is to add a Lax to the team. Because of Blissey's sponging capabilities vs most special attackers, I need to lean a lot less on Lax to sponge those hits, while you also need to add some offensive firepower to your team. To me, this means DrumLax is a natural fit and I'm running either EQ or LK in its 4th slot.

If I run LK, then TTar is a natural choice for the 4th slot on the team, due to checking FBLax and providing invaluable Pursuit support for Lax (Umbreon is also an option, but it's sooooo passive). I'm then looking at adding Spikes to the team since it could really use some passive damage. Cloy seems nice, as it's generally more useful than Forry and the team would probably appreciate a bit of extra Wak insurance. That leaves patching up a gaping Champ weakness as well as ideally finding some Vap insurance and a little more offensive firepower. Also consider wallbreakers such as NKing and DNite, as well as making sure that Zard doesn't 6-0 you (I mean Zard's not very common or good, but shitting on SkarmBliss is exactly what it does, so you need a plan for it).

If I run EQ, then there's not really any need for Pursuit support, so there's a bit more freedom in terms of teambuilding. Some things to look out for are a secondary Lax check, Spikes plan, insurance for Wak and Champ since they can easily wear down Skarm, as well as plans for random other threats such as mixed wallbreakers, Zard, maybe Vap? Idk how reliable Blissey+Lax is in dealing with Vap since iirc Blissey doesn't actually win 1v1
 
That team is unable to do anything to ghosts.

Honestly the few times I've tried Blissey in a team I always ended up taking the route of SD Marowak with screen support. Then you throw a body slam drumlax (with EQ) for the synergy with Marowak against Skarm, add the electric, the spikes/spin water slot, and you're set. What can Blissey bring to the table that a typical Miltank stall team can't? Reliable Light Screen support is what I could come up with.
 
To be fair Blissey also brings a Ice Beam Heal Beller off a decent Spa. Atk stat, something Miltank can't even dream of doing. It's the closest thing to a Celebi in GSC OU currently.

To be quite honest the team I've shown above is good at PP Stalling, winning against Stall (Rapid Spin Support and Ice Beam), and being able to wallbreak you eventually if Lax gets a B.Drum up. It even carries Dual Screens for a Lax B.Drum sweep!

Starmie is the teams Ghost check, which is better than nothing in the long run since Psychic is coming off a huge Spa. Atk stat as well and it dents everything in the meta except Umbreon and Ttar.

I've noticed what the team loses to is well built stall, meaning other stall teams that carry Skarmory and usually Raikou. (Think Spikes or PP Stall)
 

Jorgen

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I usually end up going Rhydon + Para support on SkarmBliss teams, personally.

Zapdos - Thunderbolt/Hidden Power Ice/Rest/Thunder Wave
Blissey - Softboiled/Heal Bell/Light Screen/Ice Beam
Skarmory - Drill Peck/Whirlwind/Rest/Curse
Snorlax - Body Slam/Flamethrower/Curse/Rest
Rhydon - Earthquake/Rock Slide/Curse/Roar
Starmie - Surf/Thunder Wave/Recover/Rapid Spin

Probably needs more Toxic for residual damage given how little time it'll spend attacking, but meh. I'd rather not interfere with para spread.


Alternatively, if residual damage is a problem, a Spikier twist:

Zapdos - Thunder / Rest / Reflect / Hidden Power Ice
Snorlax - Double-Edge / Flamethrower / Toxic / Rest
Blissey - Softboiled / Heal Bell / Light Screen / Toxic
Cloyster - Surf / Toxic / Spikes / Rapid Spin
Skarmory - Drill Peck / Curse / Rest / Whirlwind
Misdreavus - Mean Look / Perish Song / Protect / Confuse Ray


Zapper probably wants Sleep Talk for Nidos, but meh. ST is too boring.
 

M Dragon

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Blissey is also an easy Light Screen vs any special attacker.

Things like Machamp, Marowak, Vaporeon can be a huge pain with Light Screen. Even BDLax likes Light Screen, because it allows it to switch in a Thunder, BD, and still be able to sweep a team, especially if theres also Reflect.
Generally if you use Blissey is because you want Light Screen, or you need a heal beller that also walls electrics.

Most skarmbliss teams have this structure:
Skarm
Bliss
Spinner
Fire Lax Counter (Rock / Ghost / Umb)
Lax
Filler (usually something with Reflect)

Also in the team you posted you need either TTar or Umb to pursuit ghosts and to wall fire lax (you are weak to it atm)
 

Bedschibaer

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From my experience Blissey is amazing vs teams where the only special attackers are electrics and almost a dead mon vs teams that are heavy on mixed attackers, epsecially specially based with explosion (and those teams are really popular as we all know). Where it's also great is on teams that approach the game in a turbodrumming mindset, not neccessarily drumming itself but the same concept - spread status on key mons, set up screens, get in with your threat, kill something in the best case scenario and get out to repeat the process later. Blissey gives those teams the neccessary durability as well as several tools in making them work.

On teams that rely on residual damage and that want to stall out the game as long as possible Blissey has usually underwhelmed me. Maybe it's just me and I have no idea how to make that sort of team work effectively, but I find myself looking for a solid check to mixed attackers and something that doesn't let lax come in close to unpunished every time on those teams, namely miltank, if I even need a heal bell mon on those teams. It's just that I need a really solid argument to even use either Miltank or Blissey because they present so little impact on winning the game itself compared to other mons in the tier, they just so happen to fall into supportive roles.

I usually end up going Rhydon + Para support on SkarmBliss teams, personally.

Zapdos - Thunderbolt/Hidden Power Ice/Rest/Thunder Wave
Blissey - Softboiled/Heal Bell/Light Screen/Ice Beam
Skarmory - Drill Peck/Whirlwind/Rest/Curse
Snorlax - Body Slam/Flamethrower/Curse/Rest
Rhydon - Earthquake/Rock Slide/Curse/Roar
Starmie - Surf/Thunder Wave/Recover/Rapid Spin

Probably needs more Toxic for residual damage given how little time it'll spend attacking, but meh. I'd rather not interfere with para spread.
I've been running a very similar setup to this lately and I'm surprised to not see a drumlax on this team, because it certainly looks like a drumlax team. You got all the support with light screen blissey and tons of para spread, just seemed like a conclusion to me when building my team and it would also fix your issue with not attacking. I don't think a durdely lax is really needed with all those other walls on the team, you might want to try that because toxic on something would not really do alot on that team imo.
 

Mr.E

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In my past couple years' SPL resurgence, I've actually taken quite a liking to SkarmBliss again. A common problem I have with teams that have clerics on them (i.e. Bell Miltank/Blissey) is overlapping Fighting weaknesses that make you a dog against Machamp (especially if you run Cloyster too), since Skarm doesn't resist Fighting either. Kinda asks you to run Zapdos instead of Raikou to cover that weakness but now you have a major Electric weakness. Blissey solves that issue, while Miltank exacerbates it with its low SpD. Light Screen Blissey in particular gives it a pseudo-offensive purpose in being able to set up certain sweepers behind a screen, and also alleviates it being massive Snorlax bait by effectively making Skarm an impenetrable Snorlax counter because Light Screen protects it from Fire Blast Lax. But maybe the insistence to cover all my own bases instead of executing a hard gameplan is a flaw in itself... *shrug*

Miltank teams just always seem to have the issue for me that they either get ran through by Zapdos, because they're so heavily reliant on Snorlax to keep it in check and Miltank gets dumped by it, or get ran through by Machamp because you're running Raikou to cover Zapdos and you have like four Fighting weaknesses with no resist. Or you just end up even more durdly than a Blissey team because you're running more defensive non-threats like Misdreavus to cover all your bases defensively. Blissey teams are more offensive because Blissey itself (Skarm or not) is such a fantastic defensive pillar that it affords you the opportunity to run more offensive mons and/or sets. You don't have to durdle with Lax or package Raikou in there (who is no Zapdos offensively due to Grounds threatening a momentum shift against it) to cover Electrics, you have screens to muscle a setup booster through would-be counters.

As seen in one of my SPL matches this past season, Light Screen Blissey is basically 50/50 against Vaporeon if you have a second mon in the back that can actually kill it in a timely fashion, since Vaporeon only wins on account of PP. Thunder's an option but it opens you up really badly to Marowak when you can't touch it, especially if you just run a spinner and no Spikes of your own to wear it down even the slightest.
 

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