ORAS NU Long&Boring Battles (Stall Team, Peaked +1400, needs fixing)

[AOJ]

Hi everyone. So basically after playing some LC and PU with some for fun team I decided to make things even less serious and made another for fun team, this time in a tier i knew almost nothing about, NU. Things surprisingly went good in this past week I played with this guys, but I soon realized that the team needed at least a couple of fixes to work even better. Let me introduce you the squad:

THE TEAM


Xatu @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Psychic
- Giga Drain
- U-turn
- Roost

As I said, this team was born for pure fun, and Xatu is IMHO the funniest pokemon to play with in the whole tier. I just love the mind games it creates. This bird has a fundamental to keep hazard control since I neither have a spinner nor a defogger, moreover he checks 2 pokemon who otherwise completly wall my team: Vileplume and Quagsire. Colbur Berry is simply to stomach a Knock Off and prolly the best thing he can carry since Leftovers are a bit redundant with Giga Drain and Roost, Giga Drain hits Quagsire and Water types in general, Psychic is the standard STAB and U-turn is to gain some momentum. Max SpD is to form a nice core with my second special wall. I used to run Heat Wave to hit Steel types before, but Quagsire is a way bigger problem.


Audino @ Audinite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 SpA
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Dazzling Gleam
- Wish
- Heal Bell

Audino is the second member of my specially defensive core. He has good synergy with Xatu, since he takes KO and Dark attacks in general like a boss, while Xatu hits Poison types. The set is pretty standard, Calm Mind is useful against special set up sweepers who may cause some problems to the team (Lilligant, Mismagius) and may be used sometimes as a late-game win condition, Wish and Heal Bell are pretty self-explanatory for a stall team.


Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Recover
- Scald
- Curse

Quagsire is just a monster. He walls the 80% of the physical attackers, laughs in the face of the majority of the set up sweepers and has the perfect movepool for a defensive pokemon. All the moves are pretty self-explanatory. Curse, just like Audino's calm mind, may be used as a win-condition if Quagsire is in the condition of spamming EQ without worrying about his counters.


Garbodor @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Aftermath
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spe
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Gunk Shot
- Toxic Spikes
- Drain Punch

Another pretty self-explanatory set. Garbor and Quagsire form a great physically defensive core, covering each other's weaknesses and walling almost the entire tier together. Spikes support is just mandatory, Gunk Shot hits hard and Drain Punch is just the best filler to give Garbodor some way of recovering.


Misdreavus @ Eviolite
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Timid Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Hex
- Taunt
- Pain Split

Allow to introduce you the real star of the team. Missy spinblocks and taunts defog and heal bell users, so if this little princess goes down before the opposing team's spinner/defogger is the dead, I'm in a world of trouble. Eviolite boosts defenses and makes her a great mixed wall, Hex abuses all the tox/burns that usually afflict the opposing team, Pain Split is a good way of recovering and a great move in general.


Pawniard @ Eviolite
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Stealth Rock

As you may have seen, there's still no rocks setter in the team. I wanted to have an offensive rock setter, who could clean late game and setting up the mandatary hazard at the same time. I started with Kabutos, but his presence made me really too weak to Grass types, so I changed to Pinsir, but he didn't have a great synergy with the rest of the team, moreover he was also weak to hazard. So I decided to use to use this guy: he can clean like a boss late game with Sucker Punch, sets up rocks and spams random Knock Off early-mid game, and has Iron Head for another nice STAB. Defiant is nice when Missy is gone and I can't prevent defogging.


THREATLIST

As I previously said, Vileplume and Quagsire are 2 huge problems for this team, and I absolutely need to find a way to counter them, possibly without altering the general idea behind this team, which is having fun with almost just stall mons. I thought about giving Xatu a more offensive spread, in order to mantain Magic Bounce and not having to put a spinner in the team, or replacing Pawniard with a more appropriate sweeper, but I would have pick another Stealth Rock setter and I don't like the idea of losing Defiant.
Another threat, albeit less dangerous, are special setup sweepers. This team handles physical attackers better than special ones, and if someone like Lilligant manages to put someone to sleep and set up a Quiver Dance, or Life Orb Mesprit gets a couple a Calm Minds, I prolly have to sack a couple of mons to stop them. I thought about a different spread for Missy to better handle them, but I completly suck with EVs and I'd like your help.


Thank you

 

[HJAD]

Hey bro,

Nice stall team you have here. Stall at the minute isnt really a successful playstyle, with all the high powered threats like Gallade, Sneasel and Tauros as well as the usual plethora of mons (Lilligant, Samurott, etc) all need to be walled convincingly for the team to work. Unfortuantely, we dont have too many spaces for each mon to wall, so people like to go with more balanced teams and incorporate these fast, powerful threats to threaten other balance teams, which would otherwise be too long and difficult to wear down. However, im sure semi-stall will fit the bill for you absolutely perfectly, since it incorporates the consistency of stall, with some of the great offensive threats NU has on offer at the minute.

One of the main threats i see to this team is Gallade, but not only Gallade, fighting types in general are you really problematic for you to deal with. Gallade with Life Orb Close Combat easily 2HKOs Quagsire, as does Sawk with its respective Close Combat. With Gallade being the metagame defining threat it is, we must prepare for it. As a result, im going to suggest Colbur Berry Gourgeist-Small > Misdreavus. This generation, misdreavus took a huge hit to its viability with Knock Off becoming the omnipresent coverage option to have, meaning that its extra bulk gained from the eviolite boost is often useless, since its just 2HKOd by Knock Off on the switch in now (see: Sawk). With Gourgeist-Small, you do not only retain the ability to spin block, but you also have a mon that can spread status just like Misdreavus, have reliable recovery in synthesis, regain HP in problematic spots through leech seed, and have the ability to wall Gallade / Sawk and especially in gallades case, is outsped and OHKO'd by Foul Play, should it decide to swords dance on the switch in. You also mentioned opposing Quagsire being problematic, but if you decide to run Seed Bomb, it gets OHKO'd and can pressure switch ins with Leech Seed or Will-O-Wisp

Apart from this, i kind of see few places to go wrong. I would be careful around CM Psychics though, since Psyshock means you often lose and if it has a coverage move to hit Quagsire (e.g. Giga Drain on Xatu) it might turn out bad. So, as a result, we are gonna run a CM Xatu > Current Set. This will help mitigate your CM Xatu Weakness, and although takes a way momentum, gives you an extra tool to pressure your opponent with.

sets

Gourgeist-Small @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Frisk
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 206 Spe
Impish Nature
- Leech Seed
- Will-O-Wisp
- Synthesis
- Foul Play

Xatu @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 176 Spe
Timid Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Roost
- Filler / Heat Wave / Signal Beam / Giga Drain

nice team, hope you have every success with it in the future ^,^
yours in mons,
~HJAD

 

[ryan]

strongly disagree with removing Misdreavus just because of Knock Off because it still fucking owns, but yea Colbur Smallgeist would work better on this team anyways. also agree with CM Xatu because it gives you a way to break opposing stall.

the weird thing for me is the pawniard. although it provides a dark resist for your team which you are currently lacking, it still feels very out of place and really doesn't offer much for your team because every dark-type just knocks it off. i'd recommend running defensive carracosta in its place, as it offers a flying resist and checks most relevant dark-types for your team (esp sneasel, liepard. cacturne isn't a huge deal because garbodor checks the physical set and audino checks the mixed set). I'd also run Signal Beam on Xatu to hit Malamar, which is pretty much the only other Dark-type in the tier and the only one that really threatens your team.

suggested changes:

Signal Beam on Calm Mind Xatu

Carracosta > Pawniard

Carracosta @ Leftovers
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 248 HP / 196 Def / 64 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Scald
- Rock Slide
- Toxic