Introduction
I like stalling in sandstorm so I made a team that can stall in sandstorm. However, I've often heard that stall teams require no skill to use. In order to ensure that this team is dependent on the user's skill I added a glass canon to the team. This makes the team fit well with me because I have a lot of skill. I am quite pleased with the results. With this team I reached the top of the ladder mostly due to my great skill; but that's good because being dependent on the user's skill is a goal of this team. However due to the dependence of this team on the user's skill, you won't be able to have as much success with this team as that I did.
Team Overview
Team in Detail
Hippopotas (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Stealth Rock
Hippopotas is necessary for permanent Sandstorm. Since he's my lead anyway for easy permanent sandstorm I made him my Stealth Rock setter as well because that means I can get Stealth Rock up quickly. Otherwise he does not do much for the team. His Defence and HP are maxed to make the best of him as a physical wall but he's not a great wall. Earthquake allows his meager Attacks stat to do some good, and Roar is to prevent him from being set-up fodder. At first I wanted to go with Yawn instead of Roar but that gets him souped by Substitute users.
Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Curse
- Iron Head
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Registeel helps with dealing with Ice and Grass attacks from the opponent and he's a great wall. He can set-up on cheap stallers such as Restalk Spiritomb. In addition to that he also looks cool, especially in his old sprite where he raises his arm.
Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Psychic
Claydol is included as Rapid Spinner instead of Donphan mainly because he resists Fighting. Claydol not being affected by Spikes and Toxic Spikes is quite nice as well. Ice Beam is for other ground types and hits many Stealth Rock Setters for Super Effective damage, and Psychic and Earth Power give good all around STABed coverage.
Cradily (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Suction Cups
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Rock Slide
- Toxic
- Recover
- Giga Drain
Cradily has great Special Defence in sandstorm and he's also got recover so I wanted to include him. He's got a lot of Defence EVs so that he can come in on Swords Dance Feraligatr and have a good chance to be able to weaken him enough to allow Cacturne to be able to beat him. His Defence EVs also help him serve as mixed wall.
Clefable (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Encore
- Heal Bell
- Knock Off
Encore is necessary to prevent Clefable from being set-up fodder. Wish is to heal the team. Knock Off is good for having Sandstorm do chip damage instead of having it just cancel out Leftovers. Heal Bell is to heal the team of status. I had no space left for Protect but that does not matter much because Clefable is very bulky against special attackers so he can often wait for his Wish to come true without Protect.
Clefable's EVs and Nature maximise special resistance and speed creep some other clefable and Pokémon with a base Speed of 60.
What's really unfortunate is that Clefable shares a Fighting weakness with Cradily and Registeel granting this team somewhat of a weakness to special attackers with special Fighting moves. I wish that GameFreak would make up some new type that resists Fighting and retyped Clefable to be of only that type—but that's crazy talk. Anyway the Fighting weakness did not matter much because my skill compensated for it.
Cacturne (M) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Leech Seed
- Sucker Punch
I thought that Rhyperior would fit well in this slot but Rhyperior stacks weaknesses too much with the rest of the team and —most importantly— he's bulky and thus too close to being a stall Pokémon. According to many people stall does not require skill. Since skill is my best quality I needed to use a team that does benefit from skill; so I decided to add in a glass canon to maximise this team's dependence on skill.
Cacturne's has the maximum amount of Attack and Speed EVs (as far as it matters) and a Timid Nature for maximum skillful offense. 4 of the EVs are put into Special Defence because even players that are dependent on skill do not have to waste EVs.
He Subpunches because it's a good offensive strategy and thus requires a lot of skill.
He Subseeds in order to get back HP so that he can live longer and thus help me get the most out of my supreme skill for a longer time, and because he knew Substitute already in order to Subpunch so it's an effecient usage of moveslots granting me 2 strategies that both need 2 moves for the price of 3 moveslots.
Sucker Punch goes well with Focus Punch; those who are too cowardly to attack get hit by Focus Punch and those who are foolish enough to attack get hit with Sucker Punch. Truly the opponent's only wise option against me with this Cacturne is to forfeit.
Bright Powder and Sand Veil help Cacturne to stay alive despite him being an offensive (and thus skill-dependent) glass canon. Maybe a bulky Pokemon would have been more reliable at staying alive but that would have been less skill-dependent since bulky Pokemon are too defensive so for the sake of going offensive —and thus skill-based— I had to opt for Bright Powder and Sand Veil as my tools to stay alive. They also help Cacturne keep his Substitutes up so that he can Subpunch and Subseed better.
Conclusion
With this team I have shown that playing stall can be very skill-dependent activity as long as the used team increases it's dependence on skill by including an offensive glass canon. And I have also shown that such a skill-dependent stall team can be succesful as well. However, note that because this team is very skill-dependent it's success does depend on the user's skill. I had great success with this team mostly because my skill far exceeds that of all other people and therefore you cannot have as much success with this team as that I did.
Supplementary
Here are a few replays that show how my skill combined with Cacturne resulted in spectaculair victories:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4uu-1075598433 (This one shows how glass canons like Cacturne greatly reward exellent mindgames.)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4uu-1074506539 (This one shows my opponent getting impressed by my skillful use of Cacturne.)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4uu-1074142689 (Here I get brought down to my last Pokémon while my opponent still had 4 Pokémon left. Luckily that last Pokémon was Cacturne which allowed me to make a comeback by outskilling my opponent. This comeback was another great demonstration of how glass canons greatly reward skilfull play.)
Here is the export of my team:
I like stalling in sandstorm so I made a team that can stall in sandstorm. However, I've often heard that stall teams require no skill to use. In order to ensure that this team is dependent on the user's skill I added a glass canon to the team. This makes the team fit well with me because I have a lot of skill. I am quite pleased with the results. With this team I reached the top of the ladder mostly due to my great skill; but that's good because being dependent on the user's skill is a goal of this team. However due to the dependence of this team on the user's skill, you won't be able to have as much success with this team as that I did.
Team Overview
Team in Detail
Hippopotas (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Stealth Rock
Hippopotas is necessary for permanent Sandstorm. Since he's my lead anyway for easy permanent sandstorm I made him my Stealth Rock setter as well because that means I can get Stealth Rock up quickly. Otherwise he does not do much for the team. His Defence and HP are maxed to make the best of him as a physical wall but he's not a great wall. Earthquake allows his meager Attacks stat to do some good, and Roar is to prevent him from being set-up fodder. At first I wanted to go with Yawn instead of Roar but that gets him souped by Substitute users.
Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Curse
- Iron Head
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Registeel helps with dealing with Ice and Grass attacks from the opponent and he's a great wall. He can set-up on cheap stallers such as Restalk Spiritomb. In addition to that he also looks cool, especially in his old sprite where he raises his arm.
Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Psychic
Claydol is included as Rapid Spinner instead of Donphan mainly because he resists Fighting. Claydol not being affected by Spikes and Toxic Spikes is quite nice as well. Ice Beam is for other ground types and hits many Stealth Rock Setters for Super Effective damage, and Psychic and Earth Power give good all around STABed coverage.
Cradily (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Suction Cups
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Rock Slide
- Toxic
- Recover
- Giga Drain
Cradily has great Special Defence in sandstorm and he's also got recover so I wanted to include him. He's got a lot of Defence EVs so that he can come in on Swords Dance Feraligatr and have a good chance to be able to weaken him enough to allow Cacturne to be able to beat him. His Defence EVs also help him serve as mixed wall.
Clefable (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Encore
- Heal Bell
- Knock Off
Encore is necessary to prevent Clefable from being set-up fodder. Wish is to heal the team. Knock Off is good for having Sandstorm do chip damage instead of having it just cancel out Leftovers. Heal Bell is to heal the team of status. I had no space left for Protect but that does not matter much because Clefable is very bulky against special attackers so he can often wait for his Wish to come true without Protect.
Clefable's EVs and Nature maximise special resistance and speed creep some other clefable and Pokémon with a base Speed of 60.
What's really unfortunate is that Clefable shares a Fighting weakness with Cradily and Registeel granting this team somewhat of a weakness to special attackers with special Fighting moves. I wish that GameFreak would make up some new type that resists Fighting and retyped Clefable to be of only that type—but that's crazy talk. Anyway the Fighting weakness did not matter much because my skill compensated for it.
Cacturne (M) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Leech Seed
- Sucker Punch
I thought that Rhyperior would fit well in this slot but Rhyperior stacks weaknesses too much with the rest of the team and —most importantly— he's bulky and thus too close to being a stall Pokémon. According to many people stall does not require skill. Since skill is my best quality I needed to use a team that does benefit from skill; so I decided to add in a glass canon to maximise this team's dependence on skill.
Cacturne's has the maximum amount of Attack and Speed EVs (as far as it matters) and a Timid Nature for maximum skillful offense. 4 of the EVs are put into Special Defence because even players that are dependent on skill do not have to waste EVs.
He Subpunches because it's a good offensive strategy and thus requires a lot of skill.
He Subseeds in order to get back HP so that he can live longer and thus help me get the most out of my supreme skill for a longer time, and because he knew Substitute already in order to Subpunch so it's an effecient usage of moveslots granting me 2 strategies that both need 2 moves for the price of 3 moveslots.
Sucker Punch goes well with Focus Punch; those who are too cowardly to attack get hit by Focus Punch and those who are foolish enough to attack get hit with Sucker Punch. Truly the opponent's only wise option against me with this Cacturne is to forfeit.
Bright Powder and Sand Veil help Cacturne to stay alive despite him being an offensive (and thus skill-dependent) glass canon. Maybe a bulky Pokemon would have been more reliable at staying alive but that would have been less skill-dependent since bulky Pokemon are too defensive so for the sake of going offensive —and thus skill-based— I had to opt for Bright Powder and Sand Veil as my tools to stay alive. They also help Cacturne keep his Substitutes up so that he can Subpunch and Subseed better.
Conclusion
With this team I have shown that playing stall can be very skill-dependent activity as long as the used team increases it's dependence on skill by including an offensive glass canon. And I have also shown that such a skill-dependent stall team can be succesful as well. However, note that because this team is very skill-dependent it's success does depend on the user's skill. I had great success with this team mostly because my skill far exceeds that of all other people and therefore you cannot have as much success with this team as that I did.
Supplementary
Here are a few replays that show how my skill combined with Cacturne resulted in spectaculair victories:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4uu-1075598433 (This one shows how glass canons like Cacturne greatly reward exellent mindgames.)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4uu-1074506539 (This one shows my opponent getting impressed by my skillful use of Cacturne.)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4uu-1074142689 (Here I get brought down to my last Pokémon while my opponent still had 4 Pokémon left. Luckily that last Pokémon was Cacturne which allowed me to make a comeback by outskilling my opponent. This comeback was another great demonstration of how glass canons greatly reward skilfull play.)
Here is the export of my team:
Hippopotas (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Stealth Rock
Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Curse
- Iron Head
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Psychic
Cradily (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Suction Cups
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Rock Slide
- Toxic
- Recover
- Giga Drain
Clefable (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Encore
- Heal Bell
- Knock Off
Cacturne (M) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Leech Seed
- Sucker Punch
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Roar
- Stealth Rock
Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Curse
- Iron Head
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Claydol @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power
- Psychic
Cradily (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Suction Cups
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Rock Slide
- Toxic
- Recover
- Giga Drain
Clefable (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Wish
- Encore
- Heal Bell
- Knock Off
Cacturne (M) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Leech Seed
- Sucker Punch