Hello stall players.
I would like to bring my view on the style and ask some questions, some of which I will also answer for myself.
I play stall on ladder often so I guess I can try to answer some of these.
Are we playing with stall or just playing not to lose?
I'm not really sure what this means? Every team is playing not to lose, and stall, just like others, relies on keeping mons on the board while they're important to answer your opponent's pokemon. You can generally force a win through some combination of hazardspam, knock, and statuses.
Are we able to build teams or are we just accumulating 6 "required" Pokémon to fill as many gaps as possible? (Has always been)
For the most part you're building to account for the threats in the tier, but given the uptick in stall RMTs (
and
stall being the most prominent of them) after DLC2 I would say there's still a good deal of teambuilding to be had in stall teams.
Defog/Rapid Spin is no longer an alternative? Losing your own progress with hazards in the case of Defog, in addition to the difficulty and cost/benefit of losing a turn using the move, which compromises positioning, there is Gholdengo. It seems more viable to perform 1 or 2 Knock Off absorbers and fill the rest of items with HDB.
Boots spam is mandatory, but keeping hazards off the field is still valuable if your knock absorbers are put in a precarious position (ex.
and pre-tera
against an antilead
forcing you to eat the hit with a physdef mon like
/
or risk losing a mon to taxel.). I really don't think Defog is that bad when removing your own hazards due to
usually being able to come in and set spikes multiple times per game. Corviknight, Cyclizar, and Talonflame all see moderate use on stall teams for hazard removal in spite of Ghold existing. Having Knock absorbers and boots on most if not all your mons (excluding
and flyings that are neutral to SR).
How much do you currently rely on Tera in your build?
Not especially. I run dragon
, ghost
, and Grass
, but generally don't tera them that much unless I need to beat a specific MU like wellspring. Tera dark
is usually my tera of choice if my opponent has stored power sweepers or reveals Psyshock
.
I think your first three tiers are pretty accurate, but there's more stallmons in use than just the last tier. I generally think the
stall bible by knex & quacc/supag is a reliable metric for stall pokemon viability in the tier (and probably the best one as of right now), though of course you can draw your own conclusions and disagree with certain tiered pokemon.
What's your favorite niche?
Tera Fairy
, notable stall shitmon. While it's held back by its reliance on Leftovers, it is a remarkably reliable answer to any
set, and consistently threatens physical mons with SC chip + setup, while having rock-solid special bulk if invested. However, if you have an especially tera-reliant mon such as
on your team, it's not worth running due to its base typing being atrocious. I just find that most of my mons have really solid base typings, and it functions as a status absorber with a remarkable defensive profile and strong longevity.
Poor Toxapex. Due to the halving of almost all PP recovery moves except Wish and the moveset rework removing Toxic and Status Heal from several mons, will Pressure Stall still be viable in the long term future?
The lack of heal bell/aroma isn't really relevant because
would probably be the best cleric to run on stall regardless of if anything else got the moves distributed, and HB Bliss is still a viable set, especially in conjunction with any mons that need Rest for recovery. The pokemon Stall currently has are also very viable at Toxic stalling despite its reduced distribution, with
and
being some of the best inflictors of the status currently. Locking your opponent into Struggle was never going to be a viable option this generation with how fast-paced the metagame is, but Pressure
does still serve the important role of draining PP from moves with a low amount of uses (such as CC/HLR, make it rain, and Leaf Storm, among others), neutering the mons they're on when they run out of PP.
Any virtually impossible matchups? CB Gouging Fire in Sun, Hoopa-Unbound, GASTRO ACID Subs Serperior, etc?
I think
is a slightly overrated matchup, but I won't deny it's effective at breaking stall and you can lose to it if you aren't prepared. The stall default bad matchups are Swords Dance
and
(although the latter is meme counterpick territory). They simply hit like trucks after the slightest boost, with Facade on the former pushing through
unless it commits a tera and Mold Breaker completely negating Unaware in the first place, letting it go on a rampage. Aside from that, not really. Stall generally attempts to cover as many bases as possible in the tier so that no matchup completely screws it over.