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What teams thrive nowadays?
- Thread starter Phadunk
- Start date
Teams that run Scizor, and run heatrans to switch in to scizor when another team sends in their heatran to counter your scizor.
That was in general a joke.
The real joke is how 90% of teams involve metagross, scizor, salamence, heatran, azelf and latias...
Basically choose the top 6 most used and use the first set from smogon; as far as i've seen thats how everyone on shoddy get their teams.
Edit:The best teams are those that are ridiculously standard, or counters that that is ridiculously standard.
Ridiculously standard: Bronzong w/ stealth rock, gyro ball, trick scarf and explosion.
Counters standard threats: Bronzong (HEATPROOF) with Light Screen, Earthquake, Gyro Ball and Explosion
Can survive threats like Heatran, salamence and infernape; And can lay up a light screen. Then, they can survive and use earthquake to ohko heatran and infernape, and can kill salamence with explosion. With slightly different sets you can have one which counter scizor (did you know bronzong learned flamethrower? me neither) and other threats...
That was in general a joke.
The real joke is how 90% of teams involve metagross, scizor, salamence, heatran, azelf and latias...
Basically choose the top 6 most used and use the first set from smogon; as far as i've seen thats how everyone on shoddy get their teams.
Edit:The best teams are those that are ridiculously standard, or counters that that is ridiculously standard.
Ridiculously standard: Bronzong w/ stealth rock, gyro ball, trick scarf and explosion.
Counters standard threats: Bronzong (HEATPROOF) with Light Screen, Earthquake, Gyro Ball and Explosion
Can survive threats like Heatran, salamence and infernape; And can lay up a light screen. Then, they can survive and use earthquake to ohko heatran and infernape, and can kill salamence with explosion. With slightly different sets you can have one which counter scizor (did you know bronzong learned flamethrower? me neither) and other threats...
It must be pretty easy for you to win 100% of your matches then if you always know exactly which 6 pokemon and movesets your opponent will have every time.
All sorts really. Stall is as annoying as always, especially if you don't know how to beat it. Bulky offense is of course popular with latias and scizor being very nice additions. I think between OU losing garchomp and gaining latias and scizor with BP, it's about the same in terms of offense vs defense.
Most teams I see are half fast sweepers, half bulky offense with a dash of support. (Thats what I'm using.)
Stall is pretty rare nowadays. So is scizor actually.
Stall is pretty rare nowadays. So is scizor actually.
Lies.
If you're in the middle range of players (like me) you'll see that scizor is everywhere and there are quite a few stall teams as well.
Scizor is not around much? What are you smoking, I want some D:
The most successful stalls in the current Standard metagame tend to be heavy stall. A "typical' stall team will look something like Swampert/Blissey/Rotom-A/Forretress/Skarmory/Gyarados. Stall is probably the most reliable style of play, though other styles are still effective. I feel that the Standard metagame is very "balanced" right now; no Pokemon is truly dominant, even Scizor or Salamence. Unlike the Garchomp days of DP, it is not so easy to say "clearly" what the best OU Pokemon is, even using usage statistics. As for stall not being common, the OP didn't really ask for what is common. He asked which styles are most effective, and are the best for winning.
lol @ the idea of Scizor + Salamence, possibly the two most unbalanced offensive pokemon in the game, not being truly dominant
I would say that a format like:
Suicide Lead
Bulky Offence Core
Frail Revenge Killer
Support Option
Is the most common, due to being able to take hits, set up rocks, and, defeat the pokemon which KO your bulky attackers by outspeeding them (Likes of SpecsJolt, and Gengar). Frail Offence just falls to Scizor and it's Base 90 Bullet Punch nowadays. Hence the rise in Steels, they are bulky.
Suicide Lead
Bulky Offence Core
Frail Revenge Killer
Support Option
Is the most common, due to being able to take hits, set up rocks, and, defeat the pokemon which KO your bulky attackers by outspeeding them (Likes of SpecsJolt, and Gengar). Frail Offence just falls to Scizor and it's Base 90 Bullet Punch nowadays. Hence the rise in Steels, they are bulky.
Hm right now I feel that most people are using bulky offense but the most effective style is Stall. With it you have a sweet advantage against balanced teams which give you time to heal your crew and set up entry hazards when they bring a wall not to mention that weaker players just caan't beat a well designed stall team. The bad thing about heavy stall is that this kinda of team usually focus on countering everything and sometimes losing one single pokemon means gg so they have a disadvantage when playing against heavy offense focused on several pokemons with the same counters and checks, the first ones weakening these counters and the last ones sweeping. But right now I am not seeing many well buid offensive teams (with the exception of few people using stathakis' manaphy team with Suicune, Gyarados or Kingdra) so that's no a big deal.
And for god's sake stop using formulas like the one above to make teams, think of a strategy and build your team based on executing it the most effective way possible without having problems dealing with the majority of the pokemons used in the current metagame. Oh, and a plan B is nice too
And for god's sake stop using formulas like the one above to make teams, think of a strategy and build your team based on executing it the most effective way possible without having problems dealing with the majority of the pokemons used in the current metagame. Oh, and a plan B is nice too
With stall I think you'll find it much more difficult to lay down your entry hazards and keep all six members of your team in check, without being caught out by some Life Orb Salamence, et cetera. Just yesterday when I encountered a relatively good player using stall, he found it difficult to set up his Spikes and the like because he was heavily occupied with defending the onslaught from my mix-heavy attackers; it took him a good 20 turns to find himself able to set up his layer of Stealth Rock, and Forretress (which set up SR eventually) lead his team into the game.
Now the general consensus is that stall can outplay the overwhelming majority of styles played and come out victorious because it is involves six Pokemon covering a widespread of threats. But its own strategy (which I feel is to set up entry hazards and chip away with intelligent switches and moderate attacks) is effectively shut down because you sometimes find yourself absorbing attacks and risk losing one of your Pokemon just because you could not control the opposition from the get go; instead, you're under pressure and you cannot execute your own strategy. You find yourself making no progress as the opponent carefully targets one or two threats and looks to eliminate them, and once you lose a vital piece of your team and the floodgates open, it becomes increasingly diffcult as you try to get back into the game whilst maintaining your balance to incoporate for the opposition's stat-up sweepers, et cetera.
This is why I feel stall is as "reliable" as, for instance, bulky offense.
Having not played competitively for months I found myself on the ladder encountering Scizor, Heatran, Salamence, Latias, Metagross/Jirachi and filler all on the same team occasionally. Together, there is balance, bulk and threat written all over this team and it easily competes with what ever it finds itself against. The winner is usually the player who has the most unexpected, innovative technique waiting to suprise the other.
Balanced teams work decently from my experience. I managed to beat a stall team with mine ;)
I wonder what the metagame will be like when HG SS come out... move tutors etc
I wonder what the metagame will be like when HG SS come out... move tutors etc
If I was ever on, you'd have fun battling me. Dugtrio/Olmastar/Forretriss/Vespiquen/Flygon/Feraligatr make a great team, simply because Scizor just hate my Vespiquen, Salamence and Gyara are destroyed by 'Gon, and Feraligatr can then sweep.
whilst not entirely common i find offensively based weather teams to be a real thorn in the backside, particularly rain.
i dont know about everyone else but rain went through a phase in OU at one stage )albeit quite brief) but the shear offensive pressure of such teams is uncanny. Even running the ever reliable stall teams essentially allow setups for such offensively minded teams that only ever switch and kill before it dies as they're extremely powerful and dont often need to switch making it very hard.
furthermore even these stall teams wiill eventually have a crack in the team when 1 pokemon goes down (as mentioned before, a crucial moment for any enemy offensive team).
whilst i personally believe these teams are good you cant exactly use them entirely easy but the ease of quite standard bulky offensive teams with said team members above are easy to use and effective, being most common.
i dont know about everyone else but rain went through a phase in OU at one stage )albeit quite brief) but the shear offensive pressure of such teams is uncanny. Even running the ever reliable stall teams essentially allow setups for such offensively minded teams that only ever switch and kill before it dies as they're extremely powerful and dont often need to switch making it very hard.
furthermore even these stall teams wiill eventually have a crack in the team when 1 pokemon goes down (as mentioned before, a crucial moment for any enemy offensive team).
whilst i personally believe these teams are good you cant exactly use them entirely easy but the ease of quite standard bulky offensive teams with said team members above are easy to use and effective, being most common.
I agree with almost all of your points Taylor, but saying stall can't lay down rocks is just not right. I've personnaly found a way of almost always laying down the rocks: Lead with a phisical tank to lure a special attacker, switch in Blissey (no duh) and SR on the switch to a phisical attacker. Since blissey has so many free turns thanks to a special attacker switching out on every encounter, I thought to myself - why isn't anyone using SR Bliss? SR can be in place of a support move, and you can then lay down stealth rocks early on. It may be true that some stall teams aren't designed to lay down entry hazards early on, but not all of them. A good stall team can set up hazards early in the match, without causing too much negative momentum, and going on from there, and I've actually seen a lot of well built stall teams lately. A well built stall team, followed by smart play, can single handedly beat the whole metagame.
Your methodology is flawed. For starter, many leads in OU are suicidal, so it doesn't matter what if you're leading with a physical wall, they can still just set up rocks and explode. Taunt is common on azelf leads to especially, as well as fire attacks from the likes of heatran so it's not like you're guaranteed anything being set down.
Secondly, when your opponent switches in a luke, ape, salamence etc. you can't exactly go to your forry/skarm to set up spikes. What you are left with is basically both of you setting SR. That is hardly an advantage. With good pressure from an offensive player, you may not set down those spikes/toxic spikes very soon at all. SR alone is not enough for stall. They don't have enough of an advantage that way as entry hazards are the primary source of damage for them. So what Taylor said still stands.
I find that a well rounded rain dance rips through about 70-80% of all shoddy teams, especially on UU, although on OU it's a bit more difficult imo, although you finish games in literally 2 minutes, so your rating goes high quick.
Scizor/salamence/azelf/etc are good until you reach the 1400's, then you need to be creative...
Scizor/salamence/azelf/etc are good until you reach the 1400's, then you need to be creative...
I never said it "can't" because it certainly can; I said it was "difficult". If you're phazed with a Taunt lead, essentially nulifying your lead's attempts to set up Stealth Rock. Then, you have to play accordingly, as you're then looking for an opening to seize the opportunity of a set-up, but you're occupied with the oppostion's Life Orb onslaughts, et cetera.
The thing is and a lot of people will agree with me is that stall is an excellent method for zooming up the leaderboard. The likelihood when playing stall is that you will beat the majority of players providing you have a good degree of understanding for the playstyle. Stall works particularly well in this suicidally offensive climate and the majority of offensive teams often opt to build a team that functions well against other offensive teams and in doing so disregard or dont prepare correctly for the threat of stall.
If we look at the key components of one of these offensive teams we quickly begin to realise why stall is so succesful especially if that player cheaply gives away their stallbreaker or they choose a poor one. The common offensive make up typically consists of some of the following Scizor, Gyarados, Flygon, Tyranitar and Lucario. A well made stall team easily handles all of these threats its what they are designed to do. Often dangerously perceived threats have multiple pokemon on the stall team dedicated to countering them. For instance Lucario who in my opinion is a pretty poor option for single handedly beating stall, yes it can weaken members and pave the way for a team mates sweep but that is all it can really do, Gyarados, Rotom, Celebi and Hippowdon all wall different variants of the Swords Dance set. In fact a Lucario without ESpeed and perfect coverage will actually destroy stall but you will lose against the majority of offensive teams.
The key to stall's success in the leaderboard is simply people dont correctly prepare for it. It also happens that the majority of players who play stall are extremely talented and there teams are made to handle certain "threats" effortlessly.
Stall is actually extremely susceptible to some of the less popular tactics, a higher standard of play and team building. For instance a classic mixmence with roost is terrifying for stall to face, there are other dangerous threats but if you want to ladder succesfully you should prepare for stall and know a typical stall teams composition and with this insight target weak areas. Overloading a wall is a good way to do this.
The reality with offense is that when playing other offense its fairly even one mistake or a bad team matchup will decide the match so you need to play perfectly with stall there is room for error and you handle the majority of the threats well. Whereas offensive teams really battle against Sub Petatya empoleon and LO Jolteon with Blissey stall just ignores these threats, Agility Metagross is similar as Rotom competely walls almost every variant. Ultimiately what beats stall and what beats offense varies greatly because offense is more common than stall and stall specially prepares for what offense loses to the majority of the time stall wins.
The most effective against both teams is bulky offense but as this is a compromise of the two styles you can lose to certain threats Toxic Spikes for instance.
Finally, it is often the case that a lot of stall players will not play stall when in tournaments as the standard of play is higher.
If we look at the key components of one of these offensive teams we quickly begin to realise why stall is so succesful especially if that player cheaply gives away their stallbreaker or they choose a poor one. The common offensive make up typically consists of some of the following Scizor, Gyarados, Flygon, Tyranitar and Lucario. A well made stall team easily handles all of these threats its what they are designed to do. Often dangerously perceived threats have multiple pokemon on the stall team dedicated to countering them. For instance Lucario who in my opinion is a pretty poor option for single handedly beating stall, yes it can weaken members and pave the way for a team mates sweep but that is all it can really do, Gyarados, Rotom, Celebi and Hippowdon all wall different variants of the Swords Dance set. In fact a Lucario without ESpeed and perfect coverage will actually destroy stall but you will lose against the majority of offensive teams.
The key to stall's success in the leaderboard is simply people dont correctly prepare for it. It also happens that the majority of players who play stall are extremely talented and there teams are made to handle certain "threats" effortlessly.
Stall is actually extremely susceptible to some of the less popular tactics, a higher standard of play and team building. For instance a classic mixmence with roost is terrifying for stall to face, there are other dangerous threats but if you want to ladder succesfully you should prepare for stall and know a typical stall teams composition and with this insight target weak areas. Overloading a wall is a good way to do this.
The reality with offense is that when playing other offense its fairly even one mistake or a bad team matchup will decide the match so you need to play perfectly with stall there is room for error and you handle the majority of the threats well. Whereas offensive teams really battle against Sub Petatya empoleon and LO Jolteon with Blissey stall just ignores these threats, Agility Metagross is similar as Rotom competely walls almost every variant. Ultimiately what beats stall and what beats offense varies greatly because offense is more common than stall and stall specially prepares for what offense loses to the majority of the time stall wins.
The most effective against both teams is bulky offense but as this is a compromise of the two styles you can lose to certain threats Toxic Spikes for instance.
Finally, it is often the case that a lot of stall players will not play stall when in tournaments as the standard of play is higher.
the best teams are the teams that have a central unifying strategy, check the smog, cresselia push, offensive teams, stall teams, rain teams, sandstorm teams etc, they all do better than any team using the top 6 pokemon from smogon, even then, you should want your team to be unique as it is YOUR team, sure anyone can chosse from 10 pokemon to make a rain team, but to think of a unique, strong and thriving team takes time, you need good inspiration and and the will to stand out, you cant choose 6 pokemon that smogon say are the top 6 pokemon and hope to be the best battler around, teams that centre around 1 strategy will always beat other teams that have no team strategy
I'd have to disagree with you there. In my experience playing stall, I had 3 checks to Lucario, yet I hated Lucario above all other offensive threats. Adamant LO Lucario with CC, Crunch, and Extremespeed/Stone Edge/Ice Punch does wonders at breaking stall. A x4 resist to SR means he can bascially come in and out whenever he wants, he resists Toxic Spikes, unlike stallbreakers such as Kingdra or TTar, and resists sandstorm, unlike Kingdra or Salamence. Lucario can easily get an SD by coming in and forcing Blissey out. A +2 CC will deal ~87% to a standard Hippowdon, so he doesn't like to come in unless he's at full HP. Also, Gyarados isn't such a good check to Lucario. His LO recovery is negated because of sandstorm, so he's at 75%. A SD+Intimidate Crunch does ~37% to 248/252Impish Gyarados, who can only hope to OHKO back with Earthquake, not an entirely common move on RestTalk Gyara. So Lucario can just pull a 2HKO on Gyara, and even if he doesn't, Gyarados will either have to Rest or die from sandstorm the second round. Stone Edge just makes things worse. Celebi and Rotom are easily dealt with. Skarmory is OHKOd by a +2 CC. I'd say the best check to Luc is Swampert (actually, a great check to TTar and the like too), but Swampert would need Wish support.
It's leaning towards hyperoffensive I feel like (I am not sure if it will be totally hyperoffensive though as I see a lot of bulky offensive teams nowadays). I see a lot less Defensive/stall teams and more teams that are incredibly offensive these days.
I, again, agree with the fact that stall teams are rare nowadays but never with scizor being a rare pokemon in the metagame. Scizor, in my opinion, is everywhere.
I would say the most effective team/playstyle is the stall team though as it slowly destroys most teams. However, it will not do well against the stallbreakers (salamence, lucario, etc), which consists of one of the most used pokemons in the metagame.
I, again, agree with the fact that stall teams are rare nowadays but never with scizor being a rare pokemon in the metagame. Scizor, in my opinion, is everywhere.
I would say the most effective team/playstyle is the stall team though as it slowly destroys most teams. However, it will not do well against the stallbreakers (salamence, lucario, etc), which consists of one of the most used pokemons in the metagame.