OU Steelix question

[Jorgen]

Can somebody tell me why the ADV standard of Earthquake/Toxic/Roar/Rest just doesn't get used in GSC? I mean, Toxic to nail Cloys and Eggs and keep out shit like Marowak and Machamp would be pretty awesome, and Rest to actually stall out Zapdos and not fear Hidden Powers so much from Raikou? Yes please, one of Lix's biggest shortcomings is its lack of recovery. Also with Thief being less gimmick and more commonplace as of late, being able to Rest means that if you get caught by Gengar or whatever, you aren't totally screwed. Same with being burned by a random Snorlax Fire Blast or whatever.

I mean, I guess you're pretty useless in terms of doing something to Skarm/Zapdos, but the former can't stop Lix from Spikes shuffling (albeit without Curse this is not as effective, at least for endgame sweeping), and the latter can at least be forced to Rest with Toxic, which makes Lax's life a little safer.

Why does this never get used? It's a really solid, intuitive set, yet you almost never see it.

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

Most probably figure Toxic is futile with Rest and Heal Bell common. I mean, other mons do it as well though, but I suppose people are more inclined to not do it with Steelix because of the Curse set, which is nice with the super slow speed and Steel typing. That's how I feel at least.

 

[no longer here]

As you know there are two types of team in GSC (in general): Offensive teams and Defensive one. Offensive teams aim is to put pressure on opponent with Boom+Spikes+Setupmon(as curselax/sdwak/ecc) to win in an easy way while Defensive one aim is just to put pressure on oppo with Spikes (again) + PPstalling + Status spam.

Fact is that in 6 Slot it would be a waste for offensive team to use a stallish set for a pokemon like Steelix which can easily put pressure booming on your sweeper counter/phaze your oppos sweeper while setupping. Curse/Boom/Quake/Roar let you "cover" as many threat as possible so it became the standard set. Use a "stallish" move as Rest (without a beller in your team) could be a shame for an offensive team. Toxic is good but not as good as the other move, but I suppose can be a gimmick choice if you want to try!
These are my two cents about offensive category since Steelix is simply outclassed by Skarmory for defensive team (Do not forget that Skarm can be much more helpufull since it learns Thief too, letting you able to stop Marowak stealing his item). In the end I think that these are the causes of why Steelix set can't change too much from the standard one.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Not every team is either full out offense or full out stall, every team has to have its offensive and defensive components.

Anyways, I think the main reason this isn't used is that curse steelix just does more in terms of processing your gamestate, applying pressure and seeking for a good tradeoff with boom, in case it has it. Luring water types, suicune or starmie, is great support for many standardish boom teams. Let's take a look at what you trade off here for. Basically you are just going to be a slightly worse overall toxic skarm that doesn't get shat on by electrics. Rest being your only counterplay for Zapdos is kinda meh, lix probably won't get away with waking up easily so it ends up being a pretty big momentum sink, vulnerability to spikes doesn't really help alot for that matter. Will you effectively toxic those cloys and eggys though and still keep stuff like lax in check in the short run? Definitely yes. I have seen and used Toxic Ttar for similar reasons, it was ok for what I wanted it to do, it wasn't really outstanding though.
It also reminds me of that Piloswine set BKC has a hardon for without curse and with toxic for cloysters. I never liked that, but I mean I have seen it do stuff before. It certainly works but I think it's rather niche, and that's how i feel about this steelix too, it's pretty much just that but with normal resistence, a worse electics matchup and it will hit eggy with toxic instead of ice beam. If you want a normal resist that can spread toxic and phaze but if your team is too owned by electrics to let skarm do the job, here is your opportinity. People will expect you to have curse anyways, so they will be caught off guard most of the time. Generally I wouldn't bet on that set becoming more used than curse steelix, you just lose out on tons of offensive pressure. I can see it being viable though.

 

[Lavos]

cuz boom op lol noob

 

[McMeghan]

For the record, standard ADV Lix these days is EQ/Protect/Boom with Roar/Toxic/HP Rock (or some odd choices like HP Ghost) in the last slot.

I think Beds covered the reasons why Curse/Boom sees more usage. I'd say the ability to better select your boom target is the main selling point. Steelix is rather weak without any boost, so there is more incentive in directly switching Skarm/Zapdos all the time on its face if it can't slip any Curse in the process. When you'll finally Roar out a Steelix check that could scare it away, you won't be able to make him think twice before picking its move without the threat of Explosion or a boosted EQ.

This set is rather unexplored tho, it'd probably end up playing differently and I can see the merits behind its spikeshuffling abilities and the fact that it reliably checks the Electrics and MonoLax in one spot.

 

[Royal Flush]

I think there's a bit of merit for this set for being a Skarm that doesn't give free switches to electrics, but Lix is usually more effective with curse I guess? I don't think Toxic is enough to pressure stuff, and taking around 42% of +1 eqlax is a bit rough on the long run.

Comparing to the quakebeam toxic Piloswine (I believe I was the first to actually use it on a serious match so I feel like comparing them), pilo is just plain better because ground ice stabs are pretty amazing at applying pressure to the top tier mons, all in all they are both niche stuff, but I like the idea of Piloswine a lot more.

 

[Mr.E]

Skarm's usually more effective with Curse too, really. *shrug* Why not Toxic on Steelix, though? Probably because Steelix is more likely to be in a position to sweep with Curse, it has more and better options than Skarm in general (Explosion and other secondary attacks), lower usage so variant movesets are underexplored. I'd like to think Skarm would use Explosion and Body Slam more than Toxic if it learned them.