In this thread, I was hoping to start a discussion regarding the construction of Stall-based Balance teams in OU. These are generally stall-oriented teams with an offensive win condition. They come in various forms, I guess using Toxic Spikes, a spin blocker, and a Calm Mind-based sweeper such as Crocune is one of the more popular variants. My current one uses a Toxic Spikes and a bulky Togekiss.
I've been experimenting with these teams, but I struggle with the innate passivity in them. In it's own way, stall is aggressive: your goal is to set up hazards and force switches. But for Stall-based Balance, you can't win simply by phazing, because otherwise you would be playing an inferior form of pure stall, and thus accumulating less wins than you would be by playing pure stall. What ends up happening is that an offensive team punches a hole in my team and exploits it, because I lack the defensive fortitute of a pure stall team. For example: U-turn spam Scizor is a pain, and after Rotom gets struck, retreats, and needs to come into Stealth Rock again, a Life Orb Gyarados can set up on something like my own Scizor and sweep through my entire team. A pure stall team would have a Forretress to blow up in cases like these, but I don't. How do I deal with cases like this and remain true to a Stall-based Balance team? It doesn't seem feasible to use two checks for Gyarados, or anything for that matter.
tl;dr: I get the basics of Stall-based Balance. What are the not-so-basic aspects?
I've been experimenting with these teams, but I struggle with the innate passivity in them. In it's own way, stall is aggressive: your goal is to set up hazards and force switches. But for Stall-based Balance, you can't win simply by phazing, because otherwise you would be playing an inferior form of pure stall, and thus accumulating less wins than you would be by playing pure stall. What ends up happening is that an offensive team punches a hole in my team and exploits it, because I lack the defensive fortitute of a pure stall team. For example: U-turn spam Scizor is a pain, and after Rotom gets struck, retreats, and needs to come into Stealth Rock again, a Life Orb Gyarados can set up on something like my own Scizor and sweep through my entire team. A pure stall team would have a Forretress to blow up in cases like these, but I don't. How do I deal with cases like this and remain true to a Stall-based Balance team? It doesn't seem feasible to use two checks for Gyarados, or anything for that matter.
tl;dr: I get the basics of Stall-based Balance. What are the not-so-basic aspects?
