I consider stall builds to be pretty restrictive generally; almost all are exactly weather (Groudon), physical wall (usually Lugia), special wall (Blissey), spinner (usually Forry), ogrecheck (Latias), and wildcard / boom absorber (often Ho-Oh). In my experience, though, even though all of these roles are necessary they aren't actually equally effective. In particular, I find Latias to be somewhat mediocre at its job and also not very useful in circumstances where it's not checking the relatively few mons it beats. Quite a lot of my attempts at innovating stall have tried to find alternates to Latias for this reason, to varied success. This team attempts to compress Impish Lugia and Latias into Careful Lugia as the ogrecheck-cum-physwall, weakening its matchups to certain physical threats somewhat but also allowing more room in the build for extra mons - specifically an extra boomabsorber slot, as I generally find those Pokemon most effective overall in actual games. This particular version is more-or-less what I used against Hack in UPL, splitting the spiker / spinner into two slots - Deo-D and a dedicated spinner - to stonewall their Skarm-based gameplans. As a result, there are two significant differences here from traditional Stall teams: Starmie and lack of Latias.
In terms of origins, this team was inspired in part by the old exiline dusclops sunstall with a similar structure; that team plans to use lugia vs subcm kyogre in a somewhat similar way but with Blissey coming in first to Light Screen, which makes Lugia more vulnerable to crits; the Lugia spread there is also much too slow for my tastes. The idea here was to immediately go Lugia, which forces Ogre out without having to ww if it doesn't Sub on the switch.
Deoxys-Defense @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Def / 52 SpD / 188 Spe
Impish Nature
- Seismic Toss
- Spikes
- Recover
- Cosmic Power
With Starmie Deoxys-D is required. Cosmic Power beats lead m2 (including BU) pretty reliably, with the Def invest being enough to (barely) live a raw t1 boom from any m2 (and hit a nature number), meaning you will usually be able to get at least 1 spike up at some point. Dropping Knock is unfortunate; I used it over Cosmic vs Hack because I didn't expect lead m2. Otherwise it's pretty standard Deo-D. Here Deo-D is part of the counterplay to certain physical attackers - specifically ray - so the physdef helps there; rest is in spD for tios. Cosmic Power can get crit through, but much of what you'll have to get into an entrenched fight against with it is vulnerable to PP stalling, so it can still eat enough of, say, recov subcm m2's pp to prevent it from getting through the whole team
Groudon @ Leftovers
Ability: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Atk / 240 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Bulk Up
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Rest
Groudon blah blah blah Sun. Groudon is sort-of a weak point on this team; as the primary Lax switchin it's *mostly* reliable but not entirely. It also sometimes has to take on opposing Groudon, for which I've toyed with (sometimes much) faster spreads. The Attack is primarily because I find its biggest weakness against Lax is that it can't hit as hard as I'd like if push comes to shove. Letting Skarm in is much less an issue alongside Mie. I've considered Slide because Ho-Oh is probably generally overall more of a pain than tios for this team, but after a bulk up Groudon sorta walls Ho-Oh pretty well. Groudon is part of the answer to DeoA as well but I generally favour Ho-Oh for that purpose.
Lugia @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 52 SpD / 204 Spe
Careful Nature
- Reflect
- Recover
- Whirlwind
- Toxic
This is one of the more novel elements of the team: Careful Lugia. The idea is that Lugia threatens to Tox SubCM Ogre unless it uses Substitute on the switch, in which case it gets a single attack off - and Surf does 40 or less, which is not at all damage from which Lugia can't recover. Substituting on the switch also risks whatever this team has in predicting that and, say, attacking to break the sub or outspeeding and toxing - or indeed Groudon coming in and setting Sun. Unsurprisingly the result is a Lugia a bit weaker as a response to things like ray, hooh, groudon, hera, etc. but the team has backup answers to these (mostly...). The Speed is to ensure outspeeding don and subcm hooh, which also lets you check the latter quite well in a way similar to how Kyogre gets checked. Lugia has to be used a bit differently here than on typical stalls, being less able to handle a series of different physical attackers pressuring it; depending on the team you're against you'll arrange what mons are checking what differently but with a bit less of a reliance on Lugia.
Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 20 HP / 104 Def / 240 SpD / 144 Spe
Careful Nature
- Soft-Boiled
- Heal Bell
- Toxic
- Light Screen
Since the SubCM Ogre check here is not a water resist proper Blissey has to be able to take on sets like CM Spout Kyogre, and the SpD bias here lets Blissey do that - it lives +1 252+ Kyogre Water Spout into the same under a Light Screen. This is one of what I'd consider a very very rare team whose initial Kyogre switchin is Blissey. This makes Blissey a less reliable check to things like adamant recover ho-oh, and less able to stay in on Groudon and Tox it in exchange for allowing a SD, but it also makes Bliss more solid against boosted special attacks like +6 subcm Ho-Oh - from which it still takes ~65 but it can hang on long enough to complete a ppstall. Light Screen is primarily for Water Spout Kyogre, and secondarily to give Ho-Oh or Deoxys an easier entry against Latias to force it out.
Starmie @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 172 HP / 84 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Toxic
Starmie is the team's other big novelty: as a spinner with recovery and natural cure it doesn't get worn down nearly as easily as other spinners tend to; with hpfire it scares out skarm / forry and with tox it forces out Deo-D. Against Gengar it can hit reasonably hard with HPFire on the switch, and against Dusclops it can mess around with it by Toxing it, forcing it to take spikes, chipping it with hpfire, etc. Skarm is sometimes an issue if the opponent starts Toxing on the switch but it generally takes quite a while for mie to get worn down significantly by that. If you happen to run into Tyranitar you can mess around with it a bit by getting a tox off and luring it into slide so you can switch out safely. The Speed investment is mostly to make outspeeding TauntCM m2 as reliable as possible because the team's recourse against it is otherwise quite minimal. Mie is also a pretty good gross check, letting you block one boom from most non-Spikes teams if Mie has nothing to spin.
Ho-Oh @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Atk / 240 Def
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Toxic
- Recover
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Sacred Fire
A relatively offensive Ho-Oh is allowed by Deoxys-D taking on lead and SubCM M2. The benefit of Adamant HPFly here is mainly that you can break SubCM Ho-Oh's subs. Ho-Oh gets relied on relatively heavily against Deo-A, Hera and sometimes Groudon, so the physdef over spD is useful; it's otherwise the same as ho-oh on a typical stall team.
The gameplan is pretty similar to standard stall gameplans so I won't expound too much. Since the team splits the forry teamslot up into more resilient and specialized spikes / spin slots the matchup vs opposing stall / generally against spikes teams is quite good.
In terms of threats, there are a number worth mentioning. Groudon is probably the biggest one; if Lugia is weakened Twave Slide Don can push through the team fairly readily. The matchup isn't *horrible*; there is enough status on the team for landing a tox on Don to be fairly plausible, and Lugia still beats it unless ressured heavily. Snorlax is a pain; Bulk Up Groudon generally is good enough but will get crit/parad through eventually if you can't get spikes up. Metagross is checked by Ho-Oh and Starmie, so is relatively easy to deal with, especially if the Gross team is Spikeless. Mash raises on CB can hurt Mie though. Ho-Oh is often enough for DeoA, with Groudon as backup; and Ho-Oh here is harder to lure than it would be on a typical stall, but if the DeoA is Slide Groudon will eventually get worn down - especially if the DeoA is alongside restlax. Spinblockers are generally somewhat of a weakness for Starmie; Gengar can slowly get worn down by Sun HPFire and Dusclops takes Spikes and Tox but both will be able to prevent removal for a while. Back M2 can be dealt with by DeoD or Ho-Oh as circumstances demand, and SubCM Kyogre and SubCM Ho-Oh are generally beaten / phazed by Lugia. Lastmon SubCM Ho-Oh is trickier, but usually a combination of Cosmic Power DeoD, Ho-Oh, Lugia, and Blissey can eat all of Ho-Oh's Flamethrower PP.
In terms of options, the Ho-Oh and Starmie slots could be changed around somewhat. Dusclops could be used in lieu of Ho-Oh for better Lax and Hera but worse Don and Gross matchups, plus spinblocking if you run into an opposing Starmie. I've looked into a couple alternate spinners: Claydol beats Groudon quite well, but leaves the team weaker to Gross; it also can fit Psychic for Gengar more easily and should still be able to 1v1 most Skarm and Forry but is also less resilient overall and may end up with matchups where it's not able to do anything useful. Forry or Cloy free up a DeoD moveslot for Knock; Forry helps vs. Gross, DeoA, and Hera but is much easier to deal with for most teams, while Cloy can spin and spike a bit more easily. Armaldo beats Lax and helps vs. DeoA but can't spin vs Tox Skarm all that easily.