Shroomy's tips on stalling in RBY.

[magic9mushroom]

So Raish and I had a game tonight, and he thought some of what I said about stall was good, so I figured I'd write it down. Because hey, you never know, it might help somebody, and the response to it might help me.

So, without further ado:

Stall.

What is stall?



Most people have a vague idea of what stall is, but vague definitions lead to misconception. So, I'll define it: Stall is the strategy of playing to not lose.

Does this mean using Reflect and Amnesia everywhere?

No. Reflect and Amnesia don't tend to be good stalling moves. Critical hits ignore defensive boosts, and given sufficient time anything will crit. They are useful moves if they allow you to KO an opposing Pokemon before it KOs you... but that's an aggressive take on the situation. We aren't playing to win, we're playing to not lose.

How can a stall team ever win?

If you successfully play a stall game, racking up status and damage while taking very little yourself, at some point there will be one of your Pokemon that your opponent can no longer threaten. For instance, if you have an unparalysed Cloyster and their remaining team consists of a paralysed Tauros without Thunderbolt, Snorlax, and Rhydon, they can no longer threaten Cloyster. At this point, you can stop stalling, and simply sweep with that pokemon.

If stall teams are so viable, why doesn't everyone use them?

Well, firstly, because a lot of people find it boring, and secondly, because if you aren't very good at stalling or get terribly unlucky your stall can be played around and defeated. Hopefully, you'll be slightly better at stalling after reading this essay, and a lot better after you've gotten some practice at it.

How do I avoid losing?

Know Thine Enemy

To know how to not lose, you must first know why you would lose in the first place. There are a few main things which cause losses:

- Freezes
- Walls that can hurt you
- Team weaknesses
- Being forced into bad switches
- Plain bad luck or stupid mistakes

Blocking Blizzard

Blizzard and its cousin Ice Beam are really, really good moves. They have high base power, they have incredible super-effective and neutral coverage, but worst of all for a staller is the 10% chance of a freeze. A frozen Pokemon can't do anything, and if you've already lost one Pokemon to sleep and one to Snorlax's Selfdestruct or a sacrifice to Tauros, you'll be left with three active Pokemon - at which point it's highly likely that your opponent has something you can't do anything about (this is also known as LOSING).

So, you need some way to avoid being frozen. Getting rid of the Pokemon trying to freeze you works, but a) this isn't stalling, b) your opponent can switch out their freezer as soon as you bring in something that can KO it. A paralysed Chansey works, but you can't guarantee that your Chansey will be paralysed, and if it is, it's a giant "hit me" sign for Snorlax. You don't want to switch into Snorlax. So, you need something which can sponge Blizzards without being statused first, and this means an Ice-type. Dewgong's terrible and Articuno doesn't resist Blizzard, so they're out. Jynx does okay, but is also a giant "hit me" sign for Snorlax and Tauros, and in case you needed reminding, you don't want to switch into Snorlax or Tauros. That leaves Lapras and Cloyster.

Lapras



Lapras eats Blizzard all day. In fact, Chansey can empty its entire PP of Ice Beam into Lapras without killing it. Lapras also has incredible bulk due to its high HP and good Defense and Special, and quite an excellent movepool including STAB Blizzard.

Since you're planning to not lose, and Blizzard can make you lose, you generally want to keep Lapras around to sponge it, and since most things with Blizzard also have some other form of attack, you'll want a way to keep its HP high - that is, Rest. Lapras is a good Rester because there are plenty of things it can wake up on - physical attacks aren't all that effective, it laughs at Ice or Water attacks, and even most Thunderbolts aren't assured of a 3HKO. To turn "good" into "reliable", you'll want as many turns as possible in which your opponent's Pokemon can't do anything, and gee whizz! Lapras has the tools of parafusion at its disposal. Since STAB Blizzard scares off so many possible adversaries, it's a shoe-in as well, rounding out the Staller Lapras set:

Lapras
- Blizzard
- Body Slam
- Confuse Ray
- Rest

Cloyster



Cloyster shares Lapras's 4x resistance to Ice, and is even bulkier on the physical side due to its ridiculously high Defense. Unfortunately, it lacks Lapras's special bulk, and will rapidly fall to STAB special attacks that it doesn't resist, or any Thunderbolt. These would make it a pretty terrible choice for a stall team, but it has a secret weapon in its signature move, Clamp.

Clamp gives you free switches, and since you're playing to not lose, you'll be doing a lot of switching. This move is therefore a godsend, because it tightens your defense immeasurably and gives you plenty of room to manoeuvre. The big problem is that Cloyster can't use Clamp if it's asleep, and there are plenty of things that force it out when it's asleep. So Rest isn't nearly as effective on Cloyster as it is on Lapras, and is only really for use in mop-up when you've already won. Thus, Explosion should be used if Cloyster is severely damaged or paralysed before that point. STAB Blizzard is again a no-brainer, and Hyper Beam is the best filler if Rest isn't used, so the staller's Cloyster is fairly standard:

Cloyster
- Clamp
- Blizzard
- Hyper Beam/Rest
- Explosion

Which to use?

Cloyster's ability to hard-wall Snorlax and switch out for free is incredible on defense, but Lapras's Body Slam and Confuse Ray give many more persistent problems to the things it switches out of. Lapras is also much sturdier against unexpected Thunderbolts and minds paralysis a lot less. I'd say go with Lapras if you want pressure and Cloyster if you want control.

Working around Walls

I'll put this bluntly. Alakazam and Chansey are really annoying. They can use Thunder Wave, they can Recover (or Softboiled), and they can sponge special hits. They can even use Reflect to stop you hitting on their weak physical side, while they chip away at your Pokemon's HP. The aggressive answer to these is to paralyse and kill them with Tauros or Rhydon or something, but we're playing to not lose, and thus we instead need to neuter them, stopping them from effectively spreading paralysis or killing anything. The key, in both cases, is the same:

Exeggutor



You're probably used to the so-called "standard" Exeggutor set with Sleep Powder and Explosion. Forget that. It gets worn down, and while it'll make a dent, we're not trying to make a dent. We're trying to not lose. Like Lapras, Exeggutor has the bulk to execute Rest successfully, and like Lapras, it has both a move that can paralyse (Stun Spore) and a move that can force switches or annoy switch-ins (Leech Seed) to back it up. Its best attack is Psychic, so that's also an automatic inclusion. A note: Exeggutor can use Mega Drain instead of Rest as a recovery move - this makes it less useful against Chansey and Alakazam, and more vulnerable to paralysis, but more useful against Starmie and less of a target in general. Use with caution. Anyway, this is the staller's Exeggutor. Get to know it well, because your opponents certainly will:

Exeggutor
- Stun Spore
- Leech Seed
- Psychic
- Rest/Mega Drain

There aren't really any alternatives to Exeggutor in this slot. It's an absolute must for a stalling team.

The True Threats

This is obvious, but I'll say it anyway: there are things that can kill both your Ice-type and Exeggutor. And since you don't want to lose, you don't want these things to kill your Ice-type and Exeggutor, so you need safe switch-ins to them.

BoltBeam

Starmie and aggressive Lapras have the nasty ability to beat staller Lapras or Cloyster via Ice resistance and Thunderbolt, as well as staller Egg via Blizzard combined with Starmie's crit rate and Lapras's STAB. Your options for dealing with these two Pokemon are pretty limited; your main choices are Chansey or the Electric-types Jolteon and Zapdos. Chansey's normally the safest.

STAB Thunderbolt

STAB Thunderbolt is a serious problem for Lapras and (especially) Cloyster, and the two best users in Jolteon and Zapdos also have ways to deal massive damage to Exeggutor via Pin Missile and Drill Peck respectively. Putting Reflect on Chansey is a rather shaky answer to these, so it's recommended to use a Rock-type. Use Golem, not Rhydon, because Rhydon's advantage over Golem is in offense - which you don't care about - and because Golem can Explode if you don't need it.

Nullifying Normals

I'll be blunt; you can't wall Tauros. Snorlax can be walled by Cloyster's Clamp, but Cloyster doesn't want to switch into Snorlax many times. Generally, your objective here is not flawless victory, but merely to remove them with minimal loss of capability. Generally, this means you sacrifice something less useful (your lead, or whatever niche counter you don't need) to get Lapras or Egg in safely to dispose of them. Switching directly is something you don't generally want to do, although Exeggutor does switch into a paralysed Snorlax relatively safely.

Pushing the Panic Button

You are not a god. At some point, something will happen that you didn't expect. Maybe the opposing Chansey had Sing, or Tauros just blasted your Cloyster with a critical Thunderbolt. You need backups to salvage a game from this sort of disaster if you are to Not Lose. Two panic buttons is optimal; you may only have room for one. Cloyster and Golem, mentioned above, can be useful for this with Explosion, but be sure they're not needed first.

Snorlax



It's big, it's bulky, it explodes, and it hits damned hard. Snorlax is overall one of the best Pokemon in RBY, and should be treated as such. It's a great panic button because almost nothing can win against it 1v1.

Tauros



Not as bulky as Snorlax, but it's much faster, which can make a difference against things with recovery or self-KO moves.

Slowbro



Yeah, this thing. Not great because there are a bunch of things it doesn't like to face, but it's notable for being able to switch into Tauros and paralyse it. Don't bother using the Reflect or Withdraw sets - those are for sweeping, and you don't need a sweeper.

Starting your Stall

You need something to lead with. Ideally, you want it to take sleep, or otherwise block attempts to sleep you. Exeggutor doesn't work because you need it, Gengar has a tendency to get KOed when trying to take sleep, and Starmie has trouble switching into Gengar. That leaves:

Jynx



Can take sleep from Egg and Gengar safely, and if it sleeps or freezes something, that's a bonus. It's a giant target, though, so don't be overly reliant on it.

Alakazam



Yay for sleep absorption! Unfortunately, it doesn't have as good a matchup against Egg, and can't sleep or freeze. Still quite a safe play.





Concluding Comments

So, in general, a stall team should look something like this:

Jynx/Alakazam (lead)
Exeggutor
Lapras/Cloyster
Chansey/Jolteon/Zapdos
Snorlax/Tauros/Slowbro
Golem/extra panic button

I hope I've been helpful.

[WaterWizard]

Some good advice here! Nice job.

A large element of stalling in RBY is draining the foe's Ice and Psychic PP. This is where Lapras and Exeggutor pair very well, especially with Chansey and Zam helping out. With the right control, you can nullify opposing Jynx, Zam, and Chansey, allowing you to sweep later with someone like Rhydon, Zapdos, or Tauros. A stalling team is usually going to be better equipped to beat the opponent's specialists, so the main challenge will be to cripple the foe's Snorlax and Tauros so they are manageable.

I recommend (lead) Zam/Zapdos, Tauros, Chansey, Lapras, Exeggutor, and one of Snorlax/Gengar/Golem/Rhydon.

Sing on Chansey is probably your best bet for sleeping, since Eggy won't have room for Sleep Powder, and Gengar's Hypnosis is iffy.

[Raish]

This article was the product of about 4 hours of very interesting conversation. You summed it up extremely nicely and presented it in a pleasantly readable package (The pictures help to break up the text). I'm definitely planning on using this article when I teach others to play. Great job!

[jorgen]

So, playstyle aside, the only thing different aboout the team here is the lack of Tauros and more sets with Rest on them. I'm not too keen on the notion of "stall" in RBY, but hey, if this works for you, power to ya.

[Raish]

It actually doesn't feel that boring to play against since there's a lot of exciting switching going on in most cases rather than the Chansey or other specialist dittos that seem to pop up all the time. I've never played with it, but playing against both magic9mushroom and WaterWizard's stall teams in this past week has been an exciting experience.

[Crystal_]

If you want closyer to hard wall snorlax, then why slash Hyper Beam as an option over Rest?

[magic9mushroom]

Mar 28, 2013 10:31:29 GMT -8 jorgen said:

So, playstyle aside, the only thing different aboout the team here is the lack of Tauros and more sets with Rest on them. I'm not too keen on the notion of "stall" in RBY, but hey, if this works for you, power to ya.

You can run stall without Rest. You just need to be using Cloyster and Mega Drain on Exeggutor. And you can run Tauros - I used it in the game against Raish that led to this conversation.

The big difference in team composition is the use of an Ice-type and the very different Egg set.

Mar 28, 2013 11:14:02 GMT -8 Crystal_ said:

If you want closyer to hard wall snorlax, then why slash Hyper Beam as an option over Rest?

Because a) Cloyster's Rest isn't needed to hard-wall Snorlax (it has Clamp), b) Cloyster's Rest is a giant target for basically every specialist (particularly since it can't ease its Rest via paralysis or confusion like Lapras) and thus allows your opponent to gain tempo (whereas Lapras can accept a special attack to wake up).

[lilith]

Mar 28, 2013 5:51:36 GMT -8 magic9mushroom said:

Jynx
Can take sleep from Egg and Gengar safely

gengar's explosion is quite an issue if you're relying on jynx to get slept

Mar 28, 2013 13:56:51 GMT -8 magic9mushroom said:

Mar 28, 2013 11:14:02 GMT -8 Crystal_ said:

If you want closyer to hard wall snorlax, then why slash Hyper Beam as an option over Rest?

Because a) Cloyster's Rest isn't needed to hard-wall Snorlax (it has Clamp), b) Cloyster's Rest is a giant target for basically every specialist (particularly since it can't ease its Rest via paralysis or confusion like Lapras) and thus allows your opponent to gain tempo (whereas Lapras can accept a special attack to wake up).

wut happens when cloyster gets paraslammed switching into snorlax?

[magic9mushroom]

Mar 28, 2013 16:20:32 GMT -8 lilith said:

Mar 28, 2013 5:51:36 GMT -8 magic9mushroom said:

Jynx
Can take sleep from Egg and Gengar safely

gengar's explosion is quite an issue if you're relying on jynx to get slept

Gengar isn't sleeping anything after exploding. And if they do kill your sleep bait, that's what your panic buttons are for. Tauros and Slowbro are pretty good at absorbing sleep in a pinch, I find.

[LucasBM]

Great article! I've been practicing with a stall team and getting some results. I'd say keep Lapras and Exeggutor no matter what it takes (unless it is late-game and you are in position to sweep).

Besides, lacking a sleeping move makes me feel very uncomfortable. Sing chansey works sometimes, BUT its accuracy is iffy.

I would just want to make a point on the definition of stalling. As there are no draws in RBY, playing not to lose turns out to be playing to win. So this definition doesn't make much of a sense to me.

I would define stalling as "a playstyle that plans and takes advantage of matches with lots of turns". That is: when being offensive, the amout of pp is not important, because the match will be quick; however, when stalling, pp is an issue because you (and your opponent) will use a lot of it. The same is true for freezing.

The rest of the article itself, i'd say it is close to perfection. Just that this definition fits better to bring the conclusions the article presents.

[magic9mushroom]

Apr 17, 2013 8:59:32 GMT -8 LucasBM said:

Great article! I've been practicing with a stall team and getting some results. I'd say keep Lapras and Exeggutor no matter what it takes (unless it is late-game and you are in position to sweep).

Besides, lacking a sleeping move makes me feel very uncomfortable. Sing chansey works sometimes, BUT its accuracy is iffy.

I would just want to make a point on the definition of stalling. As there are no draws in RBY, playing not to lose turns out to be playing to win. So this definition doesn't make much of a sense to me.

I would define stalling as "a playstyle that plans and takes advantage of matches with lots of turns". That is: when being offensive, the amout of pp is not important, because the match will be quick; however, when stalling, pp is an issue because you (and your opponent) will use a lot of it. The same is true for freezing.

The rest of the article itself, i'd say it is close to perfection. Just that this definition fits better to bring the conclusions the article presents.

Well, this is why I put that first pic in, the one from Star Trek. It's from the TNG episode "Peak Performance".

See, the episode's B-plot is that this arrogant grandmaster at a strategy game plays the android Data and beats him, causing Data to question his own programming and blah blah blah imperfection angst. At the very end of the episode, Data plays Kolrami again, and after the longest match ever recorded, Kolrami (the grandmaster) throws down the controls, accuses Data of having made a mockery of him, and storms out. Much rejoicing ensues among the crew, and at the end Data says the following lines:

I simply altered my premise for playing the game. Working under the assumption that Kolrami was attempting to win, it is reasonable to assume that he expected me to play for the same goal. I was playing for a standoff, a draw. While Kolrami was dedicated to winning, I was able to pass up obvious avenues of advancement and settle for a balance. Theoretically, I should be able to challenge him indefinitely.

This is the key difference between stall and aggro. The priority of aggro is to make progress. Deal damage, freeze Chansey, set up Slowbro, whatever. The priority of stall is to prevent your opponent from making progress. Now, obviously, the ultimate way to prevent your opponent from making progress is to faint all six of his Pokemon, which happens to be the victory condition, but the key is that you are trying, as far as possible, to play for "safety" over "gain", and let the win take care of itself.

[jorgen]

Apr 17, 2013 17:18:17 GMT -8 magic9mushroom said:

the key is that you are trying, as far as possible, to play for "safety" over "gain", and let the win take care of itself.

And therein lies the problem with stalling in Pokemon, especially in RBY. Wins generally don't take care of themselves, in fact playing passively and leaving the game to its own devices ultimately leaves one of your walls maimed by a crit or some other "bullshit". You gotta attack at some point, although balance is needed because it is similarly unrealistic to ignore defense and just assume you can always be on the attack. Admittedly, you do acknowledge this in the OP with your concept of the "oh shit" Pokemon.

[magic9mushroom]

Apr 17, 2013 18:30:02 GMT -8 jorgen said:

And therein lies the problem with stalling in Pokemon, especially in RBY. Wins generally don't take care of themselves, in fact playing passively and leaving the game to its own devices ultimately leaves one of your walls maimed by a crit or some other "bullshit".

Well, I've been leaving stall alone for a bit since I wrote this (gotta have some variety, and stall isn't very accepting of my two favourite Pokemon in OU). But I've found that a lot of stall games have turned into fairly boring but effective Cloyster/Lapras or Chansey sweeps once my opponents' checks to them have racked up enough damage trying to break me.

[Dre]

I think stall and slow-paced are two different things.

I think non-wrap RBY is fast but stally. Non-wrap teams are usually very solid defensively, and it's a matter of countering the pokemon the opponent currently has out, and relying on hax and forcing mispredictions to break through them. It's the fact that hax is so common and that mispredictions can be so costly is what makes the game fast, but really the meta is played with a stally mentality.

Wrap on the other hand is slow but not stally. Wrap is more offensive because you give up defensive synergy (if you use wrappers that is) to try and maintain momentum and pressure, and try to set up offensive plays such as a free hit from snorlax/rock or status and weaken everything for a sweep with dragonite/tauros. It's just slower because there's a lot more switching and less hax.

[magic9mushroom]

Apr 18, 2013 20:24:13 GMT -8 Dre said:

I think stall and slow-paced are two different things.

I think non-wrap RBY is fast but stally. Non-wrap teams are usually very solid defensively, and it's a matter of countering the pokemon the opponent currently has out, and relying on hax and forcing mispredictions to break through them. It's the fact that hax is so common and that mispredictions can be so costly is what makes the game fast, but really the meta is played with a stally mentality.

Wrap on the other hand is slow but not stally. Wrap is more offensive because you give up defensive synergy (if you use wrappers that is) to try and maintain momentum and pressure, and try to set up offensive plays such as a free hit from snorlax/rock or status and weaken everything for a sweep with dragonite/tauros. It's just slower because there's a lot more switching and less hax.

Well, I'm in kinda the odd position of being a "wrap player" who doesn't actually use wrap much, but I can certainly tell the difference between my mindset when playing hyper-offense (in which I'm always on the lookout for opportunities to bring in Slowbro) compared to when I'm playing stall (in which I'm always looking for opportunities to get off a Rest turn or paralyse their sweepers).

I would actually characterise most RBY playstyles as "defensive aggro", in which one attempts to chip walls, spread status, and gain tempo for later finesse plays for KOs. It's this playstyle that most benefits from Tauros, because it's the best thing in the game at converting an advantage in tempo into an advantage in material.

[Dre]

You don't need to be resting or recovering to be stalling. Stalling is just making sure you cover yourself defensively without having any plan of breaking through the opponent. In non-wrap you don't really need an offensive plan because you can just rely on RNG to do that for you. If you played non-wrap the same way people do now, but removed the RNG elements the game would be incredibly stally and probably come down to PP stalls. In non-wrap it's the RNG that brings offece to the game.

I wouldn't say tauros is the best ensuring a win from an advantageous position, unless everything is in revenge range. Tauros is a luck-based pokemon, it could lose you a game from a good position or it can pull a win out of its ass. It's a simple pokemon that doesn't really take much skill outside of revenging.

I'd say dragonite is the best at what you're talking about. Dragonite is the best at reliably winning the match from an advantageous position that you've set up, but it'll almost never win you a match from an unfavourable one.

[magic9mushroom]

Apr 20, 2013 3:52:26 GMT -8 Dre said:

You don't need to be resting or recovering to be stalling. Stalling is just making sure you cover yourself defensively without having any plan of breaking through the opponent. In non-wrap you don't really need an offensive plan because you can just rely on RNG to do that for you. If you played non-wrap the same way people do now, but removed the RNG elements the game would be incredibly stally and probably come down to PP stalls. In non-wrap it's the RNG that brings offece to the game.

I wouldn't say tauros is the best ensuring a win from an advantageous position, unless everything is in revenge range. Tauros is a luck-based pokemon, it could lose you a game from a good position or it can pull a win out of its ass. It's a simple pokemon that doesn't really take much skill outside of revenging.

I'd say dragonite is the best at what you're talking about. Dragonite is the best at reliably winning the match from an advantageous position that you've set up, but it'll almost never win you a match from an unfavourable one.

What Tauros does is reliably exploit a gain in tempo for immediate material gain because there aren't any good switches into Tauros and thus you're basically guaranteeing that something will die once you get Tauros in on something that can't stand up to it. On the other hand, literally everything switches into Dragonite, it's just an issue of whether it'll be able to do anything.

[Crystal_]

Every comment and post in this thread has been all praises and positive stuff, but look, I feel the need to stop this trend so that nobody takes wrong conclusions from this article despite the fact that I'm aware of all the work that magic9mushroom has put into it.

So the thing is, in the end, the team you suggested as "stall" is the same Exeggutor / Chansey / Snorlax / Lapras (or Cloyster) / Alakazam / Tauros team everybody and their mothers use. Okay, maybe you suggested Golem over Tauros, but that's definitely not a very good idea regardless of what the reasoning is. I certainly don't think that changing Exeggutor's set from sleep/explosion to a seed set changes the archetype of a team and the playstyle the player should perform so drastically all of a sudden. So I change a move or two on Exeggutor and suddenly I should play not to lose instead of to win? You have probably taken the concept of not losing from Borat's GSC guides but RBY is completely one dimensional and for some reason you (and Dre) like to overthink about the RBY metagame and don't want to (or can't) get over the fact there are not differentiated playstyle archetypes in RBY no matter if I use a wrap user or leech seed/rest on egg. Because of how limited the RBY playerbase is nowadays you make up your own metagames and archetypes just by yourself, but the reality is that if you played a tournament where all the good players and veterans take part, or roll back in time to RBY when a lot of good players played it, you would see how things are completely different and a lot simpler compared to all the differentiated archetypes you have in your mind.

When Borat talks about not losing he means to switch to a 100% safe counter everytime in the sense that even a computer program can do it. It's A go B, it's C go D etc. The thing is, strictly playing not to lose will only work when the match is already over that as long as you don't make a dumb mistake it doesn't matter because your opponent has no offense able to break you. As you stated in your article, doing this is not possible because from freezes to Tauros including crits explosion fps etc a team playing 0 offense will eventually be broken. You acknowledge it (albeit diffusely), since you talk about the fact that Normals freezes and explosions will wear you down and that you need offense of your own to counterattack and to actually have a chance to win.

Okay, so, in the "stall" team you suggested, you have two defensive/bulky pokemon in the form of Exeggutor and Lapras / Cloyster, two offensive pokemon choosen between Snorlax / Tauros / Golem, the typical Zam / Jynx lead, and the omnipresent Chansey. In addition, you acknowledge the fact that you should play your own offense. So now, for God's sake, how is it supposed to be a different team to the point that it belongs to a completely differentiated playstyle? Because Exeggutor has seed? Because for some unknown reason you have decided that Exeggutor shouldn't have Explosion to make a dent? Look, this gets to the point that you are implying that you shouldn't use Explosion Exeggutor on a standard team or that an Ice-type is a must, since itt you present a standard team (that is, one of the few variations of THE RBY standard team, which doesn't change the fact that it is the same standard team) and then say things like "no, you should not use Explosion Exeggutor on these kind of teams", "you should always use an ice-type to absorb blizzards on these kind of teams" or "don't use Reflect Slowbro on these kind of teams".

In short, for some reason you want to call this team differently to the rest and make up a differentiated playstyle, when it simply is the same standard team. Just to make you think a bit, according to what your article says, if we, for example, now focus on this sentence So, you need something which can sponge Blizzards without being statused first, and this means an Ice-type., the conclusion we take after reading the whole article is that dropping Lapras/Cloyster for Starmie/Slowbro either makes for an inferior team, or for a team of a completely different archetype that plays utterly differently. Yeah, just some food for thought.

[jorgen]

It plays differently enough and is effective enough, though. I get where you're coming from Crystal_, I mean earlier in this thread I said something to the same effect. But I'm all for trying to stake out different playstyles, and I kind of like this since it isn't the ol' Garrin Red "I'll just park Reflect Chansey in front of you and try to freeze you" stall of 2011. This team is built less to force PP stalling and more to just outlast the opponent's threats (the Blizzards, Psychics, and Para help to chip away), and it does it quite effectively because, surprisingly enough, of Lapras's Cray shenanigans. Without that, it crumbles easily over time like you'd expect.

[magic9mushroom]

Apr 20, 2013 8:39:33 GMT -8 Crystal_ said:

Every comment and post in this thread has been all praises and positive stuff, but look, I feel the need to stop this trend so that nobody takes wrong conclusions from this article despite the fact that I'm aware of all the work that magic9mushroom has put into it.

Eh, I didn't put enough work into it, that's obvious.

So the thing is, in the end, the team you suggested as "stall" is the same Exeggutor / Chansey / Snorlax / Lapras (or Cloyster) / Alakazam / Tauros team everybody and their mothers use. Okay, maybe you suggested Golem over Tauros, but that's definitely not a very good idea regardless of what the reasoning is. I certainly don't think that changing Exeggutor's set from sleep/explosion to a seed set changes the archetype of a team and the playstyle the player should perform so drastically all of a sudden. So I change a move or two on Exeggutor and suddenly I should play not to lose instead of to win?

We're both aware that the amount of viable 'mons in RBY is limited and that therefore differentiation comes from movesets and playstyle. I meant to write more about playstyle, but I typed this whole thing up after midnight while on sleeping pills, which started getting to me after a while.

You have probably taken the concept of not losing from Borat's GSC guides but RBY is completely one dimensional and for some reason you (and Dre) like to overthink about the RBY metagame and don't want to (or can't) get over the fact there are not differentiated playstyle archetypes in RBY no matter if I use a wrap user or leech seed/rest on egg. Because of how limited the RBY playerbase is nowadays you make up your own metagames and archetypes just by yourself, but the reality is that if you played a tournament where all the good players and veterans take part, or roll back in time to RBY when a lot of good players played it, you would see how things are completely different and a lot simpler compared to all the differentiated archetypes you have in your mind.

This is a rather wordy way of saying "you're wrong, this doesn't work".

When Borat talks about not losing he means to switch to a 100% safe counter everytime in the sense that even a computer program can do it. It's A go B, it's C go D etc. The thing is, strictly playing not to lose will only work when the match is already over that as long as you don't make a dumb mistake it doesn't matter because your opponent has no offense able to break you. As you stated in your article, doing this is not possible because from freezes to Tauros including crits explosion fps etc a team playing 0 offense will eventually be broken. You acknowledge it (albeit diffusely), since you talk about the fact that Normals freezes and explosions will wear you down and that you need offense of your own to counterattack and to actually have a chance to win.

No, you don't, unless you're extending the definition of "offense" to "anything which has any damaging moves". So, yes, you have to use damaging moves to kill Tauros and stop it being a threat, because there's like one thing that can safely Rest-loop it and it needs setup to do so. I'm not sure how offensive this is.

Okay, so, in the "stall" team you suggested, you have two defensive/bulky pokemon in the form of Exeggutor and Lapras / Cloyster, two offensive pokemon choosen between Snorlax / Tauros / Golem, the typical Zam / Jynx lead, and the omnipresent Chansey. In addition, you acknowledge the fact that you should play your own offense. So now, for God's sake, how is it supposed to be a different team to the point that it belongs to a completely differentiated playstyle? Because Exeggutor has seed? Because for some unknown reason you have decided that Exeggutor shouldn't have Explosion to make a dent? Look, this gets to the point that you are implying that you shouldn't use Explosion Exeggutor on a standard team or that an Ice-type is a must, since itt you present a standard team (that is, one of the few variations of THE RBY standard team, which doesn't change the fact that it is the same standard team) and then say things like "no, you should not use Explosion Exeggutor on these kind of teams", "you should always use an ice-type to absorb blizzards on these kind of teams" or "don't use Reflect Slowbro on these kind of teams".

In short, for some reason you want to call this team differently to the rest and make up a differentiated playstyle, when it simply is the same standard team. Just to make you think a bit, according to what your article says, if we, for example, now focus on this sentence So, you need something which can sponge Blizzards without being statused first, and this means an Ice-type., the conclusion we take after reading the whole article is that dropping Lapras/Cloyster for Starmie/Slowbro either makes for an inferior team, or for a team of a completely different archetype that plays utterly differently. Yeah, just some food for thought.

Cloyster and Slowbro don't play the same, or anything close to the same, no. One's a way to stop slow things (or Articuno) from doing much to you, the other's a way to directly win.

And yes, stall Egg plays very differently to SP/boom Egg. I was unaware that this was controversial.

[magic9mushroom]

Apr 20, 2013 12:19:23 GMT -8 jorgen said:

This team is built less to force PP stalling and more to just outlast the opponent's threats (the Blizzards, Psychics, and Para help to chip away), and it does it quite effectively because, surprisingly enough, of Lapras's Cray shenanigans. Without that, it crumbles easily over time like you'd expect.

Well, either Lapras's Cray shenanigans or Cloyster's Clamp shenanigans, combined with Egg's Leech Seed shenanigans on the other side. But yes, disruption moves that stop an opponent from maintaining pressure are the key to successfully pulling this off. Golden Gyarados, on the ladder, does a similar thing with Kinesis Zam + Leech Seed Egg, and it does a reasonable job, but without devoting Egg's entire moveset to stalling it's nowhere near as effective, and Zam's very, very vulnerable to status. Still, Kinesis Zam is a good staller and I should probably have mentioned it above - the main reasons I didn't being that a) like I said, midnight while on sleeping pills, b) having something of a distaste for Zam myself, I haven't really examined in detail its defensive synergies, and thus don't have much in the way of advice to give.

[Dre]

Rest/lseed eggy plays slightly differently to boom eggy, but they're still both defensive pokemon.

Crystal- Non-wrap is one-dimensional. Like I said before, all you really have to do is just constantly switch in the right pokemon for the incoming attack and wait for RNG or misprediction to break through. So yeah I agree with you that non-wrap is one-dimensional.

But yeah, standard non-wrap teams are already stally. Using shit like rest+leech seed just lowers your chances of getting favourable RNG. The only truly offensive pokemon in non-wrap OU are probably bro zapdos and tauros, because you just throw them out there and hope for the best, and never really use them to take hits.

Wrap however is a lot more dynamic. The idea of RBY being a hax-filled generation with like 8 pokemon being viable comes from non-wrap. It's far more tactical, and unlike non-wrap you actually need to think 5-10 moves ahead to break through your opponent most of the time. With wrap, you actually need to have a long-term strategy with your team, and have back-up plans because one status or crit can throw that gameplan out the window.

[piexplode]

Okay I can see this has dwindled for ages and I know that RBY is fairly free of the same team archetyping of later generations, so I'm starting to wonder what is supposed to be taken from this article. It does make an interesting read, as do the comments. Dre's final comments about the difference between wrap and non-wrap metagame mentalities is interesting, maybe we could have some sort of elaboration on how wrap has affected the game, and how it affects teambuilding. Does it allow a wider variety of playstyle? Essentially all I've gathered from the thread is that tauros means no stall, which I sort of already knew. It's a pity because it does feel as if this article possesses the ability to lead to generating the concept of a stall team more fullly, something like Zam/Jynx, Lapras, Eggy, Rhylem/Goldon, +2 others? Maybe some in depth analysis of what sort of movesets function best together (For example M9M and someone else I think mentioned Kinesis Alakazam). The concepts running behind it being centered on the idea of not losing, mostly being able to take any attack, with reasonable prediction skill, and to reduce vulnerability to CHs and other hax. Maybe instead of reforming the standard team through an overly complex method by sticking cleaners/sweepers once you have a limited defensive core, maybe look at some possibilities of slightly overlapping defensive synergy, so that when a couple of your walls are neutralised for various reasons, you can still hold off most threats.
 Obviously this all becomes bloody difficult with tauros and snorlax around, and I haven't got the experience anywhere approaching that of the other posters of this thread, but these are my two cents saying that what's going on in here might well just be interesting.

[jorgen]

If you want more on Wrap vs. nonwrap, look at basically any Dre post in any thread. There was a time when he was just downright obsessed with the topic.

Also the key to playing "stall" is to play to avoid the lose, rather than go for the win. Stuff like Rest Egg and Rest Lapras help you stick around vs. powerful threats like Rhydon and Snorlax (especially Lapras with parafusion buying you turns. It should be noted that an RBY "stall" team means more differences in sets and playstyles than it does in the actual Pokemon used.