Team Shadow Stall
The face of deathby boredom itself
This is the most recent version of the the team I have been using throughout the entire X/Y meta (although it has changed a lot along with the meta). As the name implies, it is a combination of stall and shadow tag; for the most part, I focus on tanking the opponent's attacks then hitting back, using shadow tag to deal with what I cannot tank, and setting up for a sweep when I find the opportunity; synergy is essential. Despite how it appears (lol blissey), this team has had great success so far, easily qualifying for a couple of suspect tests and netting plenty of rage quits. I have built this team over the course of many months, changing it to combat the growing number of viable wallbreakers. Theoretically, it should no longer have to adapt to changes in the meta in order to thrive (although in practice it probably still should try to adapt).The face of death
History and Evolution of the Team
Stall v1.0: What am I doing?
In all honesty, when I first began making an OU team for gen 6, I had no idea what I was doing (I only really had experience with monotype in gen 5, and no experience putting actual thought into teambuilding). I attempted to create a balanced team, but somehow ended up with this:
I had a mixed defense unaware clefable to take care of set-ups; jellicent for its immunities, tanking, and will-o-wisp, rotom-w because many people used it, blissey as a generic wall, mew for heal bell and defog utility (along with superb physical walling), and mega scizor for some form of offensive presence. (Basically, I had tried to make a defensive core, but didn't have any space left for more offense.) Despite the lack of thought I had put into this, I managed to ladder up to the 1600s in elo ranking. At that point, mega lucario started to completely reduce my team to shreds.
Stall v2.0: Congregation of the Annoying Pokemon
As I laddered with my team more, I began to learn more about the meta, and was eventually able to change my team to better counter it. I decided that jellicent just wasn't good enough due to its weaknesses and low physical defense. I also decided that mega scizor didn't really have much synergy with the rest of this defensive team. However, I decided to keep rotom-w, thanks to its ability to utilize a scarf to combine a fast will-o-wisp, crippling stall with trick, and scouting ability as a lead. Clefable was unable to handle all set-ups alone (especially mega scizor, which was more common at the time), so I decided to add quagsire to help it. I also added skarmory as a generic physical wall, to tank the dark attacks that mew couldn't.
I took a long break between laddering with the first version and creating this second version. When I returned, I knew more about how my team functioned, relying on rotom-w as a scout and fast utility, and everything else for wall and stall. The more I laddered, the more I became familiar with my team's capabilities (mew is a surprisingly insane wall). Then this happened:
This was the highest I peaked. At this point, I became sick of ladder decay and took a very long break from laddering. I also thought I had finally perfected my team to counter all threats that could appear (oh, how wrong I was).
Later, the swagger suspect test took place, and I took Stall v2.0 to try to get reqs. While I did achieve them, laddering was considerably harder than it was in the past. The meta was evolving, and there were new threats such as focus punch/fire fang mega mawile, an increase in keldeo and landorus usage, more mixed attackers (including aegislash and deoxys-s), an increase in gothitelle, etc. After the suspect test, I decided to try to ladder again (my ranking had decayed considerably), but I was unable to regain my former ranking, nor was I able to achieve the reqs for later suspect tests. I then took yet another very long break from any form of laddering.
Stall v3.0: Team Shadow Stall
As I went to bed one night, I was thinking about how I could improve my team for the first time in a while. Then suddenly, a devilish thought came to my head. My gen 5 mono psychic team (which had actually performed decently on the OU ladder) had used wobbuffet as a counter to stuff it couldn't normally handle. In addition, the main problem with my team was that the opponent could always switch out at no cost before I could harm them (since my team lacked offensive presence). I could use wobbuffet to trap counters and ensure that I could stall the rest of the opponent's team! Then another thought came to my head. Other than counters I mentioned above, one common cause of losing was getting outstalled by teams such as the venutran core, regenerator core, etc. Gothitelle gave my team major headaches, so I decided I could use it myself to cripple opposing stall. And so, I began to work on team shadow stall.
I had to replace two pokemon in order to make room for dual shadow tags. The first to go was rotom, as he was the only pokemon on my team without recovery and was often the first to die. Next, I had to think carefully about which wall I didn't need. Clefable and quagsire were essential for unaware, and blissey was my only dedicated special wall. Mew was very useful for its utility and general bulk (even without special defense investment, it could still tank some special hits). Skarmory was essential due to its typing and for hazards. In the end, I decided to get rid of skarmory, since the walling was somewhat redundant in the presence of mew + quagsire, and hazards were the least essential to my team surviving (and it conflicted with defog). Thus, my current team was born:
I will go over the specifics of this team later. In regards to performance, I thought this team up just as the aegislash suspect test was nearing its end. Since it is easier to reach more skilled player on the suspect ladder's lower elo, I decided to test it there. After a few battles getting used to this team, it ended up dominating everything and getting me the suspect reqs in two days. However, during the mawilite suspect test, it was somewhat more difficult to get reqs, and I became more aware of counters to this team.
In all honesty, when I first began making an OU team for gen 6, I had no idea what I was doing (I only really had experience with monotype in gen 5, and no experience putting actual thought into teambuilding). I attempted to create a balanced team, but somehow ended up with this:
I had a mixed defense unaware clefable to take care of set-ups; jellicent for its immunities, tanking, and will-o-wisp, rotom-w because many people used it, blissey as a generic wall, mew for heal bell and defog utility (along with superb physical walling), and mega scizor for some form of offensive presence. (Basically, I had tried to make a defensive core, but didn't have any space left for more offense.) Despite the lack of thought I had put into this, I managed to ladder up to the 1600s in elo ranking. At that point, mega lucario started to completely reduce my team to shreds.
Stall v2.0: Congregation of the Annoying Pokemon
As I laddered with my team more, I began to learn more about the meta, and was eventually able to change my team to better counter it. I decided that jellicent just wasn't good enough due to its weaknesses and low physical defense. I also decided that mega scizor didn't really have much synergy with the rest of this defensive team. However, I decided to keep rotom-w, thanks to its ability to utilize a scarf to combine a fast will-o-wisp, crippling stall with trick, and scouting ability as a lead. Clefable was unable to handle all set-ups alone (especially mega scizor, which was more common at the time), so I decided to add quagsire to help it. I also added skarmory as a generic physical wall, to tank the dark attacks that mew couldn't.
I took a long break between laddering with the first version and creating this second version. When I returned, I knew more about how my team functioned, relying on rotom-w as a scout and fast utility, and everything else for wall and stall. The more I laddered, the more I became familiar with my team's capabilities (mew is a surprisingly insane wall). Then this happened:
This was the highest I peaked. At this point, I became sick of ladder decay and took a very long break from laddering. I also thought I had finally perfected my team to counter all threats that could appear (oh, how wrong I was).
Later, the swagger suspect test took place, and I took Stall v2.0 to try to get reqs. While I did achieve them, laddering was considerably harder than it was in the past. The meta was evolving, and there were new threats such as focus punch/fire fang mega mawile, an increase in keldeo and landorus usage, more mixed attackers (including aegislash and deoxys-s), an increase in gothitelle, etc. After the suspect test, I decided to try to ladder again (my ranking had decayed considerably), but I was unable to regain my former ranking, nor was I able to achieve the reqs for later suspect tests. I then took yet another very long break from any form of laddering.
Stall v3.0: Team Shadow Stall
As I went to bed one night, I was thinking about how I could improve my team for the first time in a while. Then suddenly, a devilish thought came to my head. My gen 5 mono psychic team (which had actually performed decently on the OU ladder) had used wobbuffet as a counter to stuff it couldn't normally handle. In addition, the main problem with my team was that the opponent could always switch out at no cost before I could harm them (since my team lacked offensive presence). I could use wobbuffet to trap counters and ensure that I could stall the rest of the opponent's team! Then another thought came to my head. Other than counters I mentioned above, one common cause of losing was getting outstalled by teams such as the venutran core, regenerator core, etc. Gothitelle gave my team major headaches, so I decided I could use it myself to cripple opposing stall. And so, I began to work on team shadow stall.
I had to replace two pokemon in order to make room for dual shadow tags. The first to go was rotom, as he was the only pokemon on my team without recovery and was often the first to die. Next, I had to think carefully about which wall I didn't need. Clefable and quagsire were essential for unaware, and blissey was my only dedicated special wall. Mew was very useful for its utility and general bulk (even without special defense investment, it could still tank some special hits). Skarmory was essential due to its typing and for hazards. In the end, I decided to get rid of skarmory, since the walling was somewhat redundant in the presence of mew + quagsire, and hazards were the least essential to my team surviving (and it conflicted with defog). Thus, my current team was born:
I will go over the specifics of this team later. In regards to performance, I thought this team up just as the aegislash suspect test was nearing its end. Since it is easier to reach more skilled player on the suspect ladder's lower elo, I decided to test it there. After a few battles getting used to this team, it ended up dominating everything and getting me the suspect reqs in two days. However, during the mawilite suspect test, it was somewhat more difficult to get reqs, and I became more aware of counters to this team.
The Team
Mew @ Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
Nature: Bold (+Def, -Atk)
- Will-o-wisp
- Defog
- Roost
- Psychic
Now that I now longer had rotom-w, I needed some form of burning the opponent. On my monotype psychic team, I have a mew (inspired by my OU team) with will-o-wisp, so I decided to sacrifice mew's heal bell for this move, since blissey already had aromatherapy. I was convenient having status healing on both a physical wall and a special wall, but I found the burn to be more useful. The only reason I have psychic is that it provides a reliable STAB, provides a reliable form of damage, and prevents mew from becoming completely taunt bait. (Also lets it fight against stuff like conkeldurr, taunt terrakion, etc.) The EV spread makes it an absolute physical tank; people always seem to underestimate how much 100/100 base stats lets you survive. Although it isn't nearly as capable of special tanking, the HP investment lets it survive moderately-powered special attacks that aren't super effective (even life orb draco meteor from latias). Now that I think about it, the 4 EVs in special defense could probably be more useful in speed.
Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 156 Def / 100 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
Nature: Bold (+Def, -Atk)
- Cosmic Power
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Moonlight
In the first two versions of my team, cleffable's moveset was cosmic power/charge beam/stored power/moonlight. This moveset was extremely effective, despite many people dismissing it as a gimmick. However, in my new team, I realized that the lack of immediate offensive presence was a huge issue, especially now that I had fewer walls to switch to coupled with the increasing usage of taunt. So, I decided to replace stored power with moonblast. Now that I had moonblast, I no longer needed coverage for dark, so I replaced charge beam with the more reliable calm mind. Cosmic power was still necessary in order to function as an amazing mixed wall. Clefable is the ace of my team due to how many games it has won me with last-resort sweeps. Currently, the only problem I have with clefable is moonlight. Since it has its hidden ability, it cannot use softboiled, and moonlight only has 8 PP, which seriously hinders the turns it can boost. In addition, moonlight's effect is reduced by popular weathers, such as sand (and also rain dance manaphy). Other than that, it is extremely difficult to take down clefable without super effective moves or toxic. It's also fun when the opponent assumes clefable is magic guard and boosts alongside me :)
Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Nature: Impish (+Def, -SpA)
- Curse
- Recover
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
Earlier, I used to run haze instead of waterfall due to the dreaded baton pass chains running around. Fortunately, I was able to add back waterfall once baton pass was nerfed. Waterfall provides the essential coverage needed against flying types, especially talonflame. Quagsire won't be taking many special hits, so I have curse over stockpile so that quagsire can actually sweep once special attackers are removed. Quagsire basically takes care of all the set-ups that clefable can't, such as mega scizor. It is also my most reliable counter to pokemon like bisharp, ttar, and mega charizard x. There isn't really much to this.
Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Nature Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
Nature: Bold (+Def, -Atk)
- Heal Bell
- Wish
- Protect
- Seismic Toss
I know what you're thinking: "omg use chansey it's so much better." In the first version of my team, I used blissey because I didn't know better. However, when making the third version of my team, I seriously considered replacing it with chansey. Several factors led me to decide to keep blissey. First of all, with the wish/protect combo, leftovers would be incredibly useful to recover more health. Second, this team naturally causes lots of switching. The leftovers help when double switches take place, and also when stealth rocks are up. Before Team Shadow Stall, blissey's moveset was aromatherapy/softboiled/toxic/seismic toss. First of all, I decided to replace softboiled with wish due to the intense switching my team caused. In addition, wish support would be incredibly useful for wobbuffet. Next, protect would ensure wish recovery on blissey. In addition, protect removed the 50/50s I had to play against specs keldeo, who before had given me lots of trouble. Finally, I had to have some form of damaging the opponent. I decided that toxic would clash with will-o-wisp too much (and also leave my team completely defenseless against magnezone). Seismic toss would make it so that blissey would not be complete taunt bait, which would be incredibly useful, as I'll describe in the counters section. Since blissey is my only dedicated special wall, and now that it is the only cleric on the team, it has become one of the most important members.
I promise the the lefties + bold nature spam will end now.
Wabbaffet @ Focus Sash
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 SpD
IVs: 0 Atk
Nature: Calm (+SpD, -Atk)
- Counter
- Mirror Coat
- Destiny Bond
- Encore
The first member of my team's shadow tag core. Wobbuffet is used mostly to trap and kill offensive threats to my team, such as landorus-i. The focus sash works well with mew's defog in order to kill set-up sweepers that quagsire cannot wall, such as mega pinsir, mega mawile (before it was banned), and outrage mega charizard x. My old team struggled a lot with the opponent switching, despite the hazard support I had. Wobbuffet fixes this problem. Once I defeat the counter to my team, I am almost guaranteed to win the game. Wobbuffet also has great synergy with gothitelle, which I will go greater detail into once I talk about gothitelle.
Gothitelle @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)
- Trick
- Rest
- Calm Mind
-Psyshock
This set was based on the set that would destroy the second version of my team so easily. Gothitelle does have some use against offensive threats such as keldeo and mega heracross; it can outspeed both of them, KO keldeo if keldeo is slightly damaged, and usually KO mega heracross after a close combat drop. Other than that, gothitelle is mostly used against defensive threats as expected. It's mostly meant to trick a scarf to cripple the opponent for the remainder of the match then switch out, but if I find the opportunity to, I will set up. It can also switch into a predicted support move from a tricked scarf (although this requires 50/50s). Now about its synergy with wobbuffet. Wobbuffet traps and kills offensive threats, while gothitelle traps and kills defensive threats. This enables me to trap and kill any kind of threat to my team that I choose. In addition, if I battle a pure stall team, I can use the following strategy to almost ensure victory: wish pass to wobbuffet, use encore, then depending on what the opponent used, either use a countering move and repeat or switch to gothitelle to trick.
Counters
Mega Heracross
As to be expected for any stall team, mega heracross is a huge problem. The main reason it's a problem is that its ability allows it to break through wobbuffet's focus sash (this is probably the greatest counter to my claim that my team does not need to adapt). The only way I can defeat it without too much damage is spamming seismic toss with blissey (it can survive anything that isn't close combat) then finishing it off with gothitelle. If it uses substitute, then it's game over. However, I do have one chance against any mega heracross: clefable. Since each individual multi-hit is weak, crits won't deter clefable from setting up too much. Clefable is also bulky enough to set up successfully. There have actually been occasions when mega heracross swept 5 of my team, followed by clefable sweeping all 6 of the opposing team. However, if the opponent has both mega heracross and a steel type, it's most likely gg.
Ghost Types
Gengar and chandelure, as special attacking ghost types, pose a huge problem. First of all, they cannot be trapped by shadow tag. Since they are special attackers, quagsire cannot defeat them, and thanks to ghost STAB, mew cannot defeat them. Blissey, who only has seismic toss for damage, cannot touch them. Clefable loses to gengar with sludge bomb. Fortunately, I've noticed a decrease in the usage of ghosts.
Knock Off Stallbreakers
Mew and gliscor pose a huge problem due to the combination of taunt, knock off, and status. Taunt + status makes it so that I slowly die while the opponent recovers, and knock off makes it so that I can't reliably switch in gothitelle to trick a scarf. If I do manage to get gothitelle in with the scarf intact, however, they pose no problem.
Powerful Stallbreakers
Mega gardevoir and mega alakazam both boast taunt, high special attack, and psyshock. With their special attack, they break through mew, quagsire, and clefable, and psyshock + taunt takes care of blissey. To defeat them, I normally need to either predict well with blissey (they cannot defeat it if it gets in a seismic toss first) or use wobbuffet. Even then, mega gardevoir with will-o-wisp defeats wobbuffet. These don't ensure my defeat as much as the other counters do, but they make the outcome of each match uncertain.
More Uncompetitive than Swagger imo
Believe it or not, one of my counters comes from something I should be able to wall perfectly fine. The only reason excadrill gives me any trouble at all is iron head's ridiculous flinch rate. Normally, whether or not I win depends on whether iron head flinches after one attack.
Most things that would normally counter me are taken care of by the shadow tag core. However, there may be some things I'm forgetting; I'm making this post late at night :P
Edit: I forgot this one because I never ever see it used anymore.
Sub Set-up Mold Breakers
The problem with mold breakers is that they break through unaware, so it becomes difficult to wall with clefable and quagsire if they set up. Normally this still wouldn't be a problem due to wobbuffet. However, in the past I've seen mega gyarados with substitute. Not only can I not kill with wobbuffet, but mew can't will-o-wisp (mew can't even break the sub due to mega gyarados's dark typing). I haven't actually run into mega gyarados with the latest version of my team yet; I'm just theorizing here.
So in summary, my team consists of a dedicated physical wall, a dedicated special wall, two unawares, and two shadow tags. Synergy is the most important thing in this team, and if an important pokemon goes down, the rest follow quickly. If the team manages to stay together, victory is usually certain. Using this team involves identifying the key threats that I should prioritize for shadow tag, then using predictions (omg, predicting with stall?) to trap and kill them.
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