GSC has always been one of my favourite metagames, and probably ther metagame where I have had more dominating results in both ladder and tournaments.
I will post here my favourite and most succesful teams over the years, how they worked, why I liked those teams, the impact they had over the metagame and how they have evolved over the time. I will also include replays (in both tournaments and ladder) to show how the teams worked.
1) The Netbattle Days (2004 - 2006)
When I started playing pokemon competitively, the main simulator was called Netbattle, and while the main generation at the time was ADV, Netbattle also supported RBY and GSC. Back at that time, there wasn't a good GSC level in the servers I used to play (I didn't join Smogon until 2008), as we used to focus in ADV, which was the main gen.
However, there were some small GSC tournaments (although the level of those tournaments sucked, compared to the ADV ones).
One important thing was that HP Electrics were banned, so Zap and Kou were much less dangerous mons, and grounds could easily wall them.
Sadly, I don't really remember the teams I used and I don't have any GSC log of that time.
This wasn't very relevant because I only played GSC in a couple of small tournaments back then with a very low level. I wasn't very involved in GSC and I think I never played any good GSC player in those tournaments I played in.
2) Learning GSC again (2010 - 2011)
Sadly, when DPP became the main gen, Netbattle developers left the project and Smogon's new simulator was never released. Fortunately for us, someone decided to make a new simulator to support the new gen (DPP). However, the bad news were that old gens (1-3) were not supported in that simulator, and it wasn't until 2009 when Netbattle Supremacy was created, giving us the chance to play old gens again.
However, what really made me want to play old gens again was the creation of a tournament that changed Smogon forever: SPL, and with SPL a change in the GSC rules that completely changed the meta: HP legends were unbanned, and what is known as "modern GSC" started.
This time however, I had grown a lot as a player since the netbattle days, and I had made myself a name in Smogon, playing and doing well vs top players in both ladder and tournaments.
SPL 1 was amazing and I was lucky to share team with great players like Earthworm, Enz0, Bad Ass, Locopoke, Umby (in spite of his bad record), makiri, etc. Umby and I used to talk a lot about GSC during that SPL, and that is when I started to think a lot about GSC and to play a lot of GSC games.
During 2010, I spent a lot of time in ATQ's Netbattle server, where I met a lot of great old gen players such as Astamatitos (although I already knew him from Shoddy ladder), Fear, DM, VIL, Giga Punch, Borat, Floppy, Spies, Pirotechnix, dookie (Tamahome's old nickname), majin...
Borat helped me improving my GSC skills, and players like Giga Punch and VIL were a big influence when building the first teams I will include in this team compilation.
Also, I would like to make a clarification about what used to be considered a stall team and what I considered a stall team at that time. In the old days (when GSC was the current gen), a stall team was a team with 6 mons that did nearly nothing offensively (stall did not even use Spikes). In fact, a team with 6 defensive mons that had Spikes wasn't considered a stall team by some people, because they considered Spikes to be an offensive move. Things changed a lot since those days: Spikes everywhere, and using either Spikes or at least Rapid Spin is mandatory in nearly any kind of team, especially defensive teams (some offensive teams are perfectly viable without Spikes or Rapid Spin, although they were a minority).
Because of how common Spikes teams are in "modern GSC", Spikes and Spikes control became a central part of GSC stall. The other thing is Snorlax: Snorlax was not used in old stalls (Bliss was used instead), something that eventually changed (most stall teams already had Snorlax in the Netbattle days) because of how good it is and how much it provides offensively and defensively. Also because Growtheons being a massive threat for those old do nothing stalls.
Basically, old stall only had one strategy: playing not to lose (instead of playing to win), while current stall even if its main goal is also the same (not losing), also has an offensive plan (passive damage is an offensive plan, as obviously is something like BDLax, for example).
Note that I didn't built any of the teams here, I just made my own variations.
These were the most relevant ones:
Although I never really used this team much, I am including Borat Vaporeon team because it is a great example of what offensive explosion teams were.
This kind of teams were based on luring certain threats for a pokemon we have with the move Explosion. Do you need Starmie removed because it stops your Machamp sweep? lure it with Cloyster's explosion while it is trying to spin. Do you need Suicune removed because it is stopping your Nidoking, Tyranirar or Marowak? Use Explosion Steelix to kill it after 1 Curse. Do you want Raikou removed? Use Gengar. Zapdos? Use Exeggutor or Steelix. Need Miltank or Umbreon removed? Self-Destruct Snorlax. That is how these teams work.
Explosion teams were (and still are) the most common and effective way to play offense in GSC. The move Explosion is just that good. However it has an obvious problem: if you mispredict your explosion... your pokemon is gone. Learning when to boom and when not to boom is not easy, and that is the key to master these teams. They are also the best kind of teams to start learning GSC, especially if you already know other gens and you are good at them.
In this Explosion team, Vaporeon is the star of the show. A restalk pokemon that is one of the few in the game to get Growth, a move to boost its special attack. In order to support it, the team can potentially have up to 4 explosions (usually 3). Vaporeon biggest threats are usually electrics, Snorlax and Exeggutor. The team tries to remove or disable them to give Vaporeon better changes to win in the late game.
Zapdos is the glue of the team. After the HP legends unban, Zapdos became a monster in offensive teams, walling half of the meta with a Restalk set, while hitting very hard with Thunder, and hitting the grounds that are immune to Thunder with Hidden Power (and also Egg).
I started with one of the best GSC teams ever created, the main team VIL used in his 2 Smogon Tour wins.
This team features one of the most dangerous GSC mons: BDLax. In my version, I use Lovely Kiss in order to sleep phazers such as Skarmory, making my sweep easier, although Fire Blast or Flamethrower are also good options. The rest of the team supports it: Kou sets up reflect, Starm keeps the spikes away, TTar pursuits the ghosts that wall mono normal Snorlax, and Miltank allows BDLax to quickly wake up after a rest with Heal Bell.
Defensively this team is really solid and can cover most of the threats: Skarm + TTar + Miltank can wall nearly every physical threat, and Starm covers Machamp as well as obscure threats such as Charizard, Rhydon or Tentacruel, while having a strong Status Control with Heal bell. Raikou covers electrics and a lot of mixed sweepers, and Snorlax is Snorlax. Against BP, this team is well covered as well because it can have up to 3 phazers (although in my version, Raikou is Reflect + Tbolt + HP Ice + Rest). Tyranitar is also great vs explosion teams because the combination of typing + bulk + resisting Explosion.
Offensively this team heavily relies on Snorlax to win games. If Snorlax dies early for whatever reason, the best strategy is to play not to lose to try to get a tie, because it is literally the only offense this team has, since the other 5 mons cannot really break things and the team has no Spikes.
Other versions of the team had Cloyster instead of Tyranitar, but I never really use those versions much. The strategy was similar, but BDLax needed EQ to be able to do something to ghosts, losing the ability to sleep Skarm (BDLax #1 check) or to 2HKO it with Fire Blast, in exchange of getting Spikes.
Another variation I didn't mention is the absolutely standard for stall in the Netbattle days, which had Suicune > TTar and Cloy > Starmie, but that is again something I never really used.
The reason why this team has Starmie instead of Cloyster is Machamp. If this team had Cloyster, Machamp would be a huge threat, since Machamp would hit 4 mons super effectively with CC with no safe answer (because Skarm isnt one)
This is a variation of stall that combines 2 of the most dangerous threats to any defensive team: BDLax and SD Marowak.
The idea of this team is heavily pressuring the opposing Skarmory with Body Slam BD Lax and SD Rest Marowak, especially if the Skarmory didn't have the move Curse, with Heal Bell support.
This team works exactly like the last team, but it adds a secondary huge threat at the cost of losing Pursuit.
Earthworm used this team a lot.
This team was originally built by Giga Punch. GP and I talked a lot about this team and about how it could be optimized. This was my favourite version of that team.
The main idea was abusing how a lot of teams are very Quagsire weak (something that is still true in current GSC meta). Keep in mind that HP legends had recently been released and Zapdos offensive teams (following Borat's Vaporeon team archetype) were everywhere.
Since Quagsire is a great electric counter, Raikou is not really needed in this team, and Zapdos can help "fixing" the fighting weakness these teams usually have (only Skarm could really switch in into Machamp), while providing better coverage vs threats like Nidoking.
Quagsire can also check mixed threats such as Gengar or Tyranitar, that can be annoying for the other 5 mons of the team.
Snorlax set can be really anything, and I changed it from time to time. Nearly every Snorlax set I used in this team had Body Slam to para Skarmory, or had LK to sleep it, helping Quagsire.
The Tyranitar was the slot GP was always most unsure about, but I think Tyranitar is the best option in that slot because of its ability to pursuit Exeggutor, as well as to slowly chipping out Skarmory, something that helps Lax and Quag a lot. TTar is also a great answer to Fire Snorlax and to some obscure threats such as BD Clefable. Skarm + TTar is a great defensive combo in general.
Tyranitar is also one of the best pokemons in the game when facing Explosion teams, being immune to Psychic and resisting Explosion, while having a lot of bulk to easily take Gengar attacks and trap kill it.
Another version of this team had Starmie instead of Cloyster, which provided better Spikes control and a more reliable Machamp answer and being able to paralyze things with TWave, at the cost of losing Spikes and having a worse Marowak MU. I never really used this version much, which is why I didn't include it.
The version GP used to spam the most in SPL and in tournaments had Misdreavus instead of Tyranitar, which gave the team a way to protect Spikes, making Snorlax and Quagsire more dangerous, but the team lost Pursuit, so Exeggutor offense was a pain to play against.
One of my favourite offensive teams at that time, and in fact I still use some variations of this team.
VIL told me about a team he had with Nidoking + Steelix and last pokemon Curse P2, so I decided to build something like that because I thought it looked like an interesting idea (and I wanted to use P2)
Double ground Nidoking + Steelix is a core that works really well together, because Steelix can remove from the game some annoying sleep talkers such as Suicune, Vaporeon or Zapdos that Nidoking doesn't enjoy facing, while Nidoking can sleep something and can potentially remove Zapdos from the game if well played, since IB has a good chance to 3hko it.
Zapdos is the glue of the team and has a similar paper than in the Vaporeon team. Paralysis is always welcomed as well.
Snorlax has a very important role on this team, since it will open holes in the early and mid games with D-E + EQ + Fire Blas, with SD Snorlax in order to lure growlers.
P2 is a very underrated sweeper (especially nowadays), that can beat Curselax 1vs1 and that has access to one of the best moves in the game: Recover. P2 also has a very high Special Attack, being able to hit mons like Exeggutor, Zapdos or Grounds very hard with IB, and it even has the chance to freeze something that could annoy. Another thing that made this pokemon very good is the fact that Toxic reverts into normal poison after switching out, so a Toxic will not stop P2.
This team has also been evolving over the years, especially Snorlax set, Nidoking set and the last slot of this team, but I will cover that later.
The classic BP team.
Agility BP offense is the third big kind of GSC teams I am featuring (stall and explosion offense being the other 2).
There are some really strong sweepers in the game, such as Marowak (a mon that can do 90% damage to a Suicune at +2) or BDLax. However they have a big problem: they are very slow and nearly everything is gonna outspeed them.
There are 2 ways of solving that. The first one is paralysis (something I will cover later on), and the other is using the move Baton Pass to send them an Agility Boost.
This team follows that second strat, with 3 pokemons that have Agility + BP and 3 abusers. And what is the big problem of this strategy? The move Roar, since there is no way in GSC to prevent phazing. Jolteon is the best pokemon at agility passing, because it only has 1 pure counter: Raikou, since it can hit the other common Roarers hard with Thunder + HP Water. If you manage to force Raikou to sleep (or if you para it with Thunder for example), there are good chances that you will be able to BP to something. The other BPers of this team are Scizor and Smeargle. Scizor has the advantage to be able to SD to also beat Roar Raikou, but has problems with Roar Skarm, while Smeargle has access to Spore + BP.
The Machamp slot could change to other things like Quagsire, Charizard, etc.
3) GSC Ladder and PO Tournaments (2011 - 2014)
The 8th of February of 2011, the main sim at that time (Pokemon Online) implemented GSC. This was a huge step, because the playerbase was much bigger (in Netbattle ATQ server there were never more than 20 users that played GSC), and a lot of people started to learn and play GSC, so getting games was much easier.
There were 2 main advantages over Netbattle: a ladder and a tournaments system. We used to have GSC tournaments regularly (as well as ADV and other tiers), and it was p fun. There were also some great players such as Crystal_ and Jorgen playing GSC in those tournaments and in ladder, so we played a lot of games. It was definitely when I built the most.
Ladder was huge. I cannot express in words how important having a somewhat active GSC ladder was for the development of GSC, because getting GSC games was much easier, and you could face anybody. More games played means that you can test more things, and it is easy to see what works better and what doesn't. For the other part, those GSC tournaments in the PO server and the fact that GSC was in one of the most important tournaments (SPL), made more and people try and learn GSC, including top players that started in DPP, with no available simulator that supported GSC, so the tier became more relevant. This was a golden age for GSC.
Probably my most succesful GSC team. If someone asked me to pick one of all the GSC teams I have ever used, this is the team I would pick.
At that time, nearly every stall team was based around BDLax (like the Miltank team I posted), and their main strategy was to sweep with the Snorlax.
With this team I take a different approach: Toxic Stall. And what is toxic stall? Toxic stall's main strategy is winning via Spikes + Toxic passive damage, with a fast Roarer like Raikou to constantly force switches.
This doesn't mean that Toxic Stall is a do nothing team that does nothing while the other team slowly dies. They key with these kind of teams is playing agressively, double switching and putting yourself in an advantage in the long term.
There are 2 main things a good toxic stall needs in order to be good: having a reliable way to win the spikes war (or at least not to lose it), and having an answer to common offensive threats, which include: curselax (both fire and eq), bdlax, mixed sweepers (nidoking, etc), dangerous set uppers (vaporeon, machamp, marowak), obscure set uppers (charizard, tentacruel, rhydon).
This team has had a lot of tournament success, including a 7-1 record in SPL 3 (only losing to Conflict in an unfortunate game) while being used by Spies, as well as ladder success (it was my main ladder team when I peaked #1 in ladder with over 200 points advantage over #2).
There were 3 things that contributed a lot to this team success:
a) Slower than max speed Raikou. This was something nearly nobody did: since only the slower roar works in GSC, I used to drop Raikou's speed to Gengar speed +1. Because of that reason, I nearly always had the Roar advantage with Raikou.
b) Misdreavus (or Gengar) wasn't common at all in stall teams (in fact, I had only seen 1 missy stall, which was the version of GP team with missy, and that team was very uncommon), and it was huge at removing certain dangerous things and was a good answer against fire lax and was a big explosion blocker, but most importantly: it blocked spin, and I could immediately go to Raikou to threaten the spinner and start a Roar cycle. Being able to protect Spikes is huge in a team whos main offensive strategy is Toxic + Spikes damage.
c) Toxic Snorlax. This was something people back then didn't really understand, and in fact most of the versions other players built based on this team didn't have Toxic Lax. Toxic lax was a huge reason why this team was that succesful: it hits hard with D-E, it threatens Skarm and Steelix with FT, and toxic hits rocks and wastes Heal Bells when Im facing Miltank stalls. Keep in mind that the only Missy was trap missy (rest missy didn't exist), that most Umbreons were Moonlight, and that nearly no TTar had Rest, making Toxic much more effective.
But this team also brought another big innovation that became very popular some years after the team was originally created, in SPL 6 when I played vs MrE using Toxic Misdreavus instead of the regular trap Missy, which was a huge surprise at that time, and that became standard after that (in fact, now the toxic set is much more common than trap set).
Using a more defensive Misdreavus set with recovery and the move Toxic to threaten things like Machamp and forcing Rest mons such as Curselax to rest gave this team another dimension, and only made it better, because now Misdreavus had 2 potential and effective sets that required different answers.
Another take on stall.
This version of Spikes Stall is very good at keeping Spikes out of the field, with the combination of Starmie + Umbreon to pursuit ghosts. The problem is that this team doesn't have a good way of keeping the Spikes vs a Spinner, especially vs a Starmie or a Tentacruel.
This team was extremely good vs the typical Cloyster offenses, easily removing their Spikes, while having a solid defense vs most threats, and abusing the weakness to Curse restalk lax + Pursuit those teams usually have. However, it will struggle vs stalls that also have a good anti spikes strategy..
About Umbreon vs Tyranitar: as you have seen, I have decided to place those 2 versions together, because they work in a very similar way. What are the differences then?
Tyranitar is part rock, which means that it resists Explosion, something that is very helpful when facing all those Explosion teams that were everywhere. Tyranitar also had 2 very different sets: the offensive pursuit set that used the Miltank team, and a Curse Rest set, most of the times with Pursuit. Tyranitar + Skarmory also covered most of the psychic sweepers (such as Exeggutor or Espeon), since Skarmory walled non HP Fire (HP Water Espeon or GD Egg), while Tyranitar walled HP Fire sets. Roar Tyranitar was also a great counter to BP Espeon, which was seen sometimes. Also, since Tyranitar resists normal attacks, it can also wall BD Fire Blast normals (Snorlax, Clefable), which can destroy Umb version.
There is also a very dangerous Tyranitar set that is often overlooked and that its a big threat for a lot of teams, and that is Curse Rock Slide Rest Roar Tyranitar. With Roar, it prevents being phazed even when it is slept.
Umbreon does not resist Explosion and does not have Roar, but it has a lot of bulk and has access to the move Charm, making it a good answer to most Cursers. It can also be a very reliable sleep talker, allowing Snorlax to run non Sleep Talk sets such as Toxic, Curse, Thunder, BD... Another big advantage Umbreon has over TTar is not being weak to Water, Grass or Ground, making it a good counter to mixed threats that can be annoying for this team, such as Nidoking or Tyranitar, as well as being a great switching to Exeggutor, without fearing Giga Drain. Access to Mean look is also great for Umbreon, allowing it to trap and kill stuff. The fact that it has access to Mean Look also makes Umbreon a very good Toxic user, especially if the other team Roarer is not immune to Toxic (TTar, Rhydon, etc).
Miltank is not featured here, but it is also a viable option in the 5th slot. It doesn't have Pursuit, but it has access to Heal bell and it can still beat Curse Fire Lax with Growl.
Could this version of the team be viable with a Ghost (aka the missy team with Starmie instead of cune)? Probably yes with a sleep talk non curse Lax set, but that is something I definitely didn't use (or considered) at that time.
Later versions of this team usually had Forretress, because Marowak became a rarer pokemon (while it was a very common threat at this time)
This version of Toxic Stall sacrificed the ability to block Spin to have a better MU vs typical offensive explosion teams, giving myself a good Gengar switching that isn't Raikou or Snorlax, minimizing the risk of a well played Gengar to explode vs any of them to open a hole in the stall, and also giving me a reliable answer to threats such as HP Fire Exeggutor or Fire Lax + Pursuit, at the cost of having a much worse MU vs another defensive team (similar problem than the last team).
The reason why this version of the Toxic Stall had Forretress instead of Cloyster is that I already had good Marowak coverage with Suicune + Skarmory and because since I don't have a ghost in this version of the team, Forretress can hit Starmie or Forretress hard with the right Hidden Power (it can't hit both at the same time, though)
If we compare the last team with this one, the main difference (other than the Spiker, which I already explained) is Suicune vs Starmie. While Starmie allows me to have a much better Spikes Control and it is a great way of controlling some threats such as Rhydon, Charizard or Tentacruel that are usually annoying for a stall team, Suicune can wall a lot of the metagame, but what is more important: it can be the sleep talker of the team.
In the Tyranitar version, having another Sleep Talker frees up the Snorlax set: it could be Curse, Toxic, BD, Thunder... while in the Umbreon version, I have 3 potential Sleep Talkers, so I can change the sets from time to time to make the team more unpredictable, sometimes using mean look umbreon, sometimes using toxic roar cune, etc.
One of the pokemons I usually hated to face the most was Machamp, because with the right support it can easily dismantle nearly every team. For that reason, I decided to build an offensive team with it.
The team ended up being very similar to the Vaporeon team Borat had, although it is played in a different way: the team is focused on supporting Machamp so it can sweep in the late game: Cloyster booms on Machamp's biggest counter: Starmie, while Exeggutor can sleep or para (depending on the version of the team) other exeggutors or zapdos, Steelix can remove annoying pokemon such as Suicune or Zapdos, and Snorlax can hit Skarm hard with FBlast, or paralyze it with BSlam (if it has BSlam and not D-E). This team also introduced another concept: paralysis based offense, where I try to paralyze fast threats such as Zapdos to allow a slower sweeper (Machamp in this case) to outspeed those threats that would otherwise be very annoying.
I used to change a lot the sets of this team in order to be impredictable: Steelix between Curse and Body Slam, Snorlax between Boom 3 attacks and Curse Fblast with either BSlam or D-E, Egg sometimes had sleep and sometimes had stun, and if Snorlax didnt have bslam it had HP Fire, etc.
This was probably my favourite offensive team in 2011 / 2012. In fact, when people asked me to learn GSC, I usually gave them this team, because this kind of offensive team is easy to learn and is very effective.
This was probably my second most used team in this period of time, and one of my favourite GSC teams to use. In fact, it was also one of my main teams years later when Classic 1 (in 2015).
The main idea of the team is paralyzing stuff with Raikou's Thunder, Exeggutor's Stun Spore and Snorlax BS and then clean in the late game with either Marowak or with Machamp, or with a combination of both.
This is a very aggressive team that featured really cool and fun to use sets such as Curse + LK + FBlast Lax or FBlast Wak, something that gave a lot of trouble to most of the stalls.
This team also features Raikou offense. Raikou has several advantages over Zapdos, such as being a 100% wall to opposing Zapdos, being able to hard wall Gengar (a very annoying and dangerous pokemon for typical offensive teams), and it allowed me to run Snorlax sets without Rest (including Boom, LK + 2 attacks, etc). The main problem of using Raikou instead of Zapdos is that you lose the ground immunity and the fighting resist, so you have to cover threats like Nidoking, Marowak or Machamp with other mons, or have a way to play around them.
Exeggutor was probably the most important pokemon in this team because of the move Stun Spore. This team was based around paralysis, and Exeggutor is a great pokemon to para threats like Zapdos or Skarmory, that the team really wants to see paralyzed.
Snorlax was a huge pain for typical Stall teams, with LK to sleep the growler and Fire Blast to hit Skarmory. The teams that relied on things like Skarmory + Miltank or Umbreon to beat Curselax struggled a lot vs this set.
Marowak is a great pokemon that hits extremely hard because of item without the need of a boost. In this team, Marowak had 4 attacks (and no SD): EQ, RS, Fire Blast and HP Bug. It's role was opening holes for Machamp, by removing mons like Exeggutor, and sometimes bulky waters as well.
Machamp was usually the cleaner of this team, with Curse + CC + RS + EQ (sometimes HP Ghost).
Not many teams can deal with Curselax + Marowak + Machamp.
However having so many offensive threats comes at a price, and that's a weaker defensive structure, with mons such as Nidoking being annoying to face.
This is a more offensive version of the Misdreavus team that is played in a very similar way.
The main difference is that Gengar is a faster ghost that still has access to most of the support movepool Misdreavus has (excluding Pain Split) while being able to threaten with Explosion and being much more dangerous offensively, at the cost of being weak to Psychic and Ground. Being part poison hurts Gengar a lot in GSC.
They seem similar: a ghost that can block spin with a lot of support options, but they are played in a different way.
While the Misdreavus version is more focused in Toxic + Stall, slowly weakening the other team and forcing switches, the Gengar version is played more agressively, because Gengar's speed and power allows it to outspeed a big part of GSC and threaten a lot of things, especially when facing offensive teams.
One of the best things of Gengar is its versatility: it is probably the most unpredectible pokemon of the tier.
Hypnosis is a move that can help Curselax with FB a lot, because it sleeps Umbreon and Tyranitar, giving Curselax a chance to beat them, and Dynamic punch Gengar works p well with ToxicLax.
One of the most dangerous moves Gengar has is Ice punch, especially at the time I used this team, because there was no freeze clause. Every time Ice Punch is used, there is a 10% chance of freezing something, and freezing something like Raikou, Umbreon or Snorlax is a huge game changer.
Lastly, Gengar has the ability to remove any pokemon from the game with the move Explosion or with the move DBond: for example, removing Umbreon from the game in the typical Umbreon Starmie stall means that Curse Fire Lax can easily clean the other team.
However, Gengar also has several disadvantages over Misdreavus. Gengar being part poison is a curse, because it makes it weak to EQ and Psychic, so it cannot wall mixed lax as Missy can, and it is not a reliable switching to Starmie, because Psychic does a lot of damage. Gengar also doesn't have access to recovery (excluding Rest), while Missy can easily recover health with Pain Split.
I have always liked heracross, I think it is a very unique pokemon that is very solid defensively and that at the same time it is very threatening offensively thanks to Megahorn. It is also the only reliable pokemon that can wall ground attackers such as Marowak and Quagsire without being weak to pursuit (Exeggutor) or being a 0 offensively (Meganium). It is also one of the best Nidoking counters in the game (unless it has the rare Fire Blast).
Tyranitar, Gengar, Umbreon and Misdreavus are all viable in that 5th slot. I already explained in the previous teams what are the advantages and disadvantes of each one. Miltank is probably viable too, but I wasn't a Miltank fan at that time. The 2 versions featured are the ones I used the most, but all 4 are viable.
The reason the teams had Forry instead of Cloyster was the ability to hit Starmie and Forry hard with the right HP, and being able to spin and explode in the same set, as well as being able to spike and spin vs electrics. Cloyster covers Steelix better and isn't afraid of random fire attacks.
About the Snorlax and Heracross sets, I had 3 main variations:
a) ToxicLax and ST Hera. Toxiclax annoys Miltank, which helps Heracross a lot. This is the most defensive version of the team, and is played in a similar way than the Missy stall.
b) BDLax + ST Hera. ST Hera forces Skarm to Rest. If you double switch in the turn the Skarm uses Rest, they won't be able to stop BDLax with their Skarmory, giving you a big advantage vs another stall team. Reflect Raikou can help BDLax in this version of the team.
c) Curse EQ Lax with SD (or BD Boom Lax) + Curse Hera. The idea is to lure Skarmory, so Curse Heracross has a chance to win in the late game.
Thief Stall.
This team adds another layer to the Toxic Stall: the move thief.
Thief can be a very devasting move, because it removes one of the most important things for a stall pokemon: leftovers. The impact of the item leftovers is huge in GSC, and is what makes a lot of the defensive pokemon last much longer avoiding key XHKOs, and slowly recovering health via smart switching when there are not spikes on the field.
Removing that item is a huge handicap for any pokemon in GSC. That means that a Raikou can only switch in 8 times with spikes before fainting, 4 if it is toxiced, which means that simply double swithing, you can easily weaken an important pokemon like Raikou, losing a lot of its value. It also means that, for example, Zapdos cannot longer wall Exeggutor, because Psychic 3HKOes without leftovers.
This team is designed to abuse the move Thief: Exeggutor, Skarmory and Gengar all have the move Thief (although you don't need all 3 to have Thief). The team also has Spikes to abuse the lack of leftovers of key pokemons, Gengar to avoid Spin, and a Snorlax set with D-E + Thunder, so it can kill Cloyster early in the game.
The team also has 3 explosions, which is another good way of opening holes. For example, vs a typical Zapdos offense, Thief Exeggutor can steal Zapdos leftovers and threaten to 3HKO it with Psychic. That means that Snorlax is probably the only "safe" switching, which is an easy target for an explosion, making Gengar or Raikou much more dangerous.
This is a very fun team to use and very effective.
This is probably my most iconic GSC team: the Dragonite Para Stall.
This team has a similar idea than the Miltank one I postead earlier, and the idea is the same: winning with BDLax, but it has some key diffences: it has Blissey as the Heal Bell mon and it features Reflect Haze Dragonite.
Blissey has 2 main advantages over Miltank: it can easily heal bell vs any special threat (without boom), and it has Light Screen, which helps the team a lot. With Light Screen threats like Vaporeon are not an issue, Skarmory can easily WW any Snorlax without being afraid of a fire or an electric attack, and Lax can easily BD in front of Zapdos since Thunder will be doing around 14% damage.
However, what made this team iconic was the Dragonite. Dragonite is a beast, being able to spread para with BSlam or with DBreath, and completely wall a lot of the metagame with Reflect + Haze.
This team had 2 different variations: one with umbreon and another one with gengar.
The first variation was defensively more solid, with Zap Cannon + Pursuit Umbreon paralyzing and killing Exeggutors and Gengars, as well as walling a lot of dangerous mixed threats such as TTar or Nido.
The other version had Gengar + Screens. If Gengar is already a dangerous threat, Gengar behind screens is even more dangerous. I used to change its set a lot as well, to make it even more unpredictable.
Snorlax is the only offense this team has, and in order to sweep, the team supports it with paralysis (Snorlax, Starmie, Umb/GGar and Dnite can paralyze) and Screens.
There is a version of the team (with Umbreon) that features BD LK EQ Return Snorlax, which is a huge threat for any stall.
Most of the times, the strategy with this team is trying to paralyze as many mons as you can, and waiting for a good chance to BD with Lax, while walling your opponent.
This is a less known version of the Paralysis + Screens BDLax team.
This is a more offensive version with Spikes and with Zapdos instead of Dragonite. The reason why it has Zapdos is because I needed a pokemon with Reflect that could threaten Starmie.
Gengar can block Spin and is very dangerous with Screens support, and works very well with Zapdos, since it can lure Raikou.
The idea of the team is the same: paralysis + screens to try to sweep with BDLax, this time with Spikes support.
This features another kind of stall: Spikes + paralysis + BDLax, although a toxic stall version with these 6 mons was also perfectly viable.
In fact, another stall I used some years after this had Toxic Misdreavus instead of Gengar, and the team was played as a Toxic Stall.
The second featured team is nearly the same team than the last one, but with 2 key differences: it has Toxic Cloyster instead of Forry and it has Curse Pursuit TTar instead of Gengar.
The reason for Toxic Cloyster in this team is to have a more reliable Marowak switching. Another reason is that Cloyster is easier to send in, because it doesn't have to live afraid of random HP Fires or Fire Blasts killing it, and since I don't have any way to block Spin, the best way is Toxicing Cloyster and playing between Cloy and Zapdos to slowly damage the Starmie.
The other difference is TTar instead of GGar, and the reason is having a pursuit user so I can use BD LK Snorlax.
This team is the Blissey version of the Miltank team I posted at the start of the team compilation but with Spikes support.
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Now I will list other teams I used sometimes and that I also want to include here:
Sandstorm Team.
Example replay vs Conflict: https://pastebin.com/EWtPg5RR
Another team without Snorlax. This time with screens + Growth Vap
Example replay vs Tiba: https://pastebin.com/LzFymfYQ
Growth BP team.
Example log vs Jorgen (POCL game): https://pastebin.com/0LvD6SEn
A variation of the Nido P2 team with Growth BP Espeon instead of P2. I still use that team sometimes. Espeon is probably the only Growth BPer that can beat Roar Raikou.
Example log vs Ojama (2011): https://pastebin.com/6it8cyTP
Offensive team with Dragonite.
Example replay vs Jorgen: https://pastebin.com/qc8jWj0H
Team featuring Sunny Day Houndoom. Originally built by VIL (I think). Pokemon Professor used it in Smogon Tour 2 (the one he won)
Example log vs Soulwind: https://pastebin.com/dAPRhTXX
I will post here my favourite and most succesful teams over the years, how they worked, why I liked those teams, the impact they had over the metagame and how they have evolved over the time. I will also include replays (in both tournaments and ladder) to show how the teams worked.
1) The Netbattle Days (2004 - 2006)
When I started playing pokemon competitively, the main simulator was called Netbattle, and while the main generation at the time was ADV, Netbattle also supported RBY and GSC. Back at that time, there wasn't a good GSC level in the servers I used to play (I didn't join Smogon until 2008), as we used to focus in ADV, which was the main gen.
However, there were some small GSC tournaments (although the level of those tournaments sucked, compared to the ADV ones).
One important thing was that HP Electrics were banned, so Zap and Kou were much less dangerous mons, and grounds could easily wall them.
Sadly, I don't really remember the teams I used and I don't have any GSC log of that time.
This wasn't very relevant because I only played GSC in a couple of small tournaments back then with a very low level. I wasn't very involved in GSC and I think I never played any good GSC player in those tournaments I played in.
2) Learning GSC again (2010 - 2011)
Sadly, when DPP became the main gen, Netbattle developers left the project and Smogon's new simulator was never released. Fortunately for us, someone decided to make a new simulator to support the new gen (DPP). However, the bad news were that old gens (1-3) were not supported in that simulator, and it wasn't until 2009 when Netbattle Supremacy was created, giving us the chance to play old gens again.
However, what really made me want to play old gens again was the creation of a tournament that changed Smogon forever: SPL, and with SPL a change in the GSC rules that completely changed the meta: HP legends were unbanned, and what is known as "modern GSC" started.
This time however, I had grown a lot as a player since the netbattle days, and I had made myself a name in Smogon, playing and doing well vs top players in both ladder and tournaments.
SPL 1 was amazing and I was lucky to share team with great players like Earthworm, Enz0, Bad Ass, Locopoke, Umby (in spite of his bad record), makiri, etc. Umby and I used to talk a lot about GSC during that SPL, and that is when I started to think a lot about GSC and to play a lot of GSC games.
During 2010, I spent a lot of time in ATQ's Netbattle server, where I met a lot of great old gen players such as Astamatitos (although I already knew him from Shoddy ladder), Fear, DM, VIL, Giga Punch, Borat, Floppy, Spies, Pirotechnix, dookie (Tamahome's old nickname), majin...
Borat helped me improving my GSC skills, and players like Giga Punch and VIL were a big influence when building the first teams I will include in this team compilation.
Also, I would like to make a clarification about what used to be considered a stall team and what I considered a stall team at that time. In the old days (when GSC was the current gen), a stall team was a team with 6 mons that did nearly nothing offensively (stall did not even use Spikes). In fact, a team with 6 defensive mons that had Spikes wasn't considered a stall team by some people, because they considered Spikes to be an offensive move. Things changed a lot since those days: Spikes everywhere, and using either Spikes or at least Rapid Spin is mandatory in nearly any kind of team, especially defensive teams (some offensive teams are perfectly viable without Spikes or Rapid Spin, although they were a minority).
Because of how common Spikes teams are in "modern GSC", Spikes and Spikes control became a central part of GSC stall. The other thing is Snorlax: Snorlax was not used in old stalls (Bliss was used instead), something that eventually changed (most stall teams already had Snorlax in the Netbattle days) because of how good it is and how much it provides offensively and defensively. Also because Growtheons being a massive threat for those old do nothing stalls.
Basically, old stall only had one strategy: playing not to lose (instead of playing to win), while current stall even if its main goal is also the same (not losing), also has an offensive plan (passive damage is an offensive plan, as obviously is something like BDLax, for example).
Note that I didn't built any of the teams here, I just made my own variations.
These were the most relevant ones:
Although I never really used this team much, I am including Borat Vaporeon team because it is a great example of what offensive explosion teams were.
This kind of teams were based on luring certain threats for a pokemon we have with the move Explosion. Do you need Starmie removed because it stops your Machamp sweep? lure it with Cloyster's explosion while it is trying to spin. Do you need Suicune removed because it is stopping your Nidoking, Tyranirar or Marowak? Use Explosion Steelix to kill it after 1 Curse. Do you want Raikou removed? Use Gengar. Zapdos? Use Exeggutor or Steelix. Need Miltank or Umbreon removed? Self-Destruct Snorlax. That is how these teams work.
Explosion teams were (and still are) the most common and effective way to play offense in GSC. The move Explosion is just that good. However it has an obvious problem: if you mispredict your explosion... your pokemon is gone. Learning when to boom and when not to boom is not easy, and that is the key to master these teams. They are also the best kind of teams to start learning GSC, especially if you already know other gens and you are good at them.
In this Explosion team, Vaporeon is the star of the show. A restalk pokemon that is one of the few in the game to get Growth, a move to boost its special attack. In order to support it, the team can potentially have up to 4 explosions (usually 3). Vaporeon biggest threats are usually electrics, Snorlax and Exeggutor. The team tries to remove or disable them to give Vaporeon better changes to win in the late game.
Zapdos is the glue of the team. After the HP legends unban, Zapdos became a monster in offensive teams, walling half of the meta with a Restalk set, while hitting very hard with Thunder, and hitting the grounds that are immune to Thunder with Hidden Power (and also Egg).
I started with one of the best GSC teams ever created, the main team VIL used in his 2 Smogon Tour wins.
This team features one of the most dangerous GSC mons: BDLax. In my version, I use Lovely Kiss in order to sleep phazers such as Skarmory, making my sweep easier, although Fire Blast or Flamethrower are also good options. The rest of the team supports it: Kou sets up reflect, Starm keeps the spikes away, TTar pursuits the ghosts that wall mono normal Snorlax, and Miltank allows BDLax to quickly wake up after a rest with Heal Bell.
Defensively this team is really solid and can cover most of the threats: Skarm + TTar + Miltank can wall nearly every physical threat, and Starm covers Machamp as well as obscure threats such as Charizard, Rhydon or Tentacruel, while having a strong Status Control with Heal bell. Raikou covers electrics and a lot of mixed sweepers, and Snorlax is Snorlax. Against BP, this team is well covered as well because it can have up to 3 phazers (although in my version, Raikou is Reflect + Tbolt + HP Ice + Rest). Tyranitar is also great vs explosion teams because the combination of typing + bulk + resisting Explosion.
Offensively this team heavily relies on Snorlax to win games. If Snorlax dies early for whatever reason, the best strategy is to play not to lose to try to get a tie, because it is literally the only offense this team has, since the other 5 mons cannot really break things and the team has no Spikes.
Other versions of the team had Cloyster instead of Tyranitar, but I never really use those versions much. The strategy was similar, but BDLax needed EQ to be able to do something to ghosts, losing the ability to sleep Skarm (BDLax #1 check) or to 2HKO it with Fire Blast, in exchange of getting Spikes.
Another variation I didn't mention is the absolutely standard for stall in the Netbattle days, which had Suicune > TTar and Cloy > Starmie, but that is again something I never really used.
The reason why this team has Starmie instead of Cloyster is Machamp. If this team had Cloyster, Machamp would be a huge threat, since Machamp would hit 4 mons super effectively with CC with no safe answer (because Skarm isnt one)
This is a good example of how this team worked in a stall vs stall game. In this game, Colchonero was using a stall team consisting on Kou + Cune + Spikes + Lax + Skarm + Umbreon, which is very solid overall, but this team is designed to beat that kind of team with our Snorlax: Snorlax can come in in a predicted Rest or in a double switch, Belly Drum, threaten the Umbreon and sleep the Skarmory. The only way Colchonero could have won this game is predicting perfectly with Suicune + Skarmory, and probably saccing something like Cloyster.
This is a variation of stall that combines 2 of the most dangerous threats to any defensive team: BDLax and SD Marowak.
The idea of this team is heavily pressuring the opposing Skarmory with Body Slam BD Lax and SD Rest Marowak, especially if the Skarmory didn't have the move Curse, with Heal Bell support.
This team works exactly like the last team, but it adds a secondary huge threat at the cost of losing Pursuit.
Earthworm used this team a lot.
This team was originally built by Giga Punch. GP and I talked a lot about this team and about how it could be optimized. This was my favourite version of that team.
The main idea was abusing how a lot of teams are very Quagsire weak (something that is still true in current GSC meta). Keep in mind that HP legends had recently been released and Zapdos offensive teams (following Borat's Vaporeon team archetype) were everywhere.
Since Quagsire is a great electric counter, Raikou is not really needed in this team, and Zapdos can help "fixing" the fighting weakness these teams usually have (only Skarm could really switch in into Machamp), while providing better coverage vs threats like Nidoking.
Quagsire can also check mixed threats such as Gengar or Tyranitar, that can be annoying for the other 5 mons of the team.
Snorlax set can be really anything, and I changed it from time to time. Nearly every Snorlax set I used in this team had Body Slam to para Skarmory, or had LK to sleep it, helping Quagsire.
The Tyranitar was the slot GP was always most unsure about, but I think Tyranitar is the best option in that slot because of its ability to pursuit Exeggutor, as well as to slowly chipping out Skarmory, something that helps Lax and Quag a lot. TTar is also a great answer to Fire Snorlax and to some obscure threats such as BD Clefable. Skarm + TTar is a great defensive combo in general.
Tyranitar is also one of the best pokemons in the game when facing Explosion teams, being immune to Psychic and resisting Explosion, while having a lot of bulk to easily take Gengar attacks and trap kill it.
Another version of this team had Starmie instead of Cloyster, which provided better Spikes control and a more reliable Machamp answer and being able to paralyze things with TWave, at the cost of losing Spikes and having a worse Marowak MU. I never really used this version much, which is why I didn't include it.
The version GP used to spam the most in SPL and in tournaments had Misdreavus instead of Tyranitar, which gave the team a way to protect Spikes, making Snorlax and Quagsire more dangerous, but the team lost Pursuit, so Exeggutor offense was a pain to play against.
One of my favourite offensive teams at that time, and in fact I still use some variations of this team.
VIL told me about a team he had with Nidoking + Steelix and last pokemon Curse P2, so I decided to build something like that because I thought it looked like an interesting idea (and I wanted to use P2)
Double ground Nidoking + Steelix is a core that works really well together, because Steelix can remove from the game some annoying sleep talkers such as Suicune, Vaporeon or Zapdos that Nidoking doesn't enjoy facing, while Nidoking can sleep something and can potentially remove Zapdos from the game if well played, since IB has a good chance to 3hko it.
Zapdos is the glue of the team and has a similar paper than in the Vaporeon team. Paralysis is always welcomed as well.
Snorlax has a very important role on this team, since it will open holes in the early and mid games with D-E + EQ + Fire Blas, with SD Snorlax in order to lure growlers.
P2 is a very underrated sweeper (especially nowadays), that can beat Curselax 1vs1 and that has access to one of the best moves in the game: Recover. P2 also has a very high Special Attack, being able to hit mons like Exeggutor, Zapdos or Grounds very hard with IB, and it even has the chance to freeze something that could annoy. Another thing that made this pokemon very good is the fact that Toxic reverts into normal poison after switching out, so a Toxic will not stop P2.
This team has also been evolving over the years, especially Snorlax set, Nidoking set and the last slot of this team, but I will cover that later.
This game shows how dangerous a Steelix can be for a defensive team. I lure his Umbreon with my Boom Snorlax and then, after killing his Cloyster, Steelix destroys the stall team.
P2 is the star of this game, after Lavos mispredicts and allows my Steelix to kill his Gengar. It manages to find an opportunity to set up and it breaks through Lavos team.
In this version of the team, I switched Snorlax and Nidoking last attack to surprise some of their common counters: Snorlax had D-E + Thunder to kill Cloyster, and Nidoking had Fire Blast to beat Heracross.
P2 is the star of this game, after Lavos mispredicts and allows my Steelix to kill his Gengar. It manages to find an opportunity to set up and it breaks through Lavos team.
In this version of the team, I switched Snorlax and Nidoking last attack to surprise some of their common counters: Snorlax had D-E + Thunder to kill Cloyster, and Nidoking had Fire Blast to beat Heracross.
The classic BP team.
Agility BP offense is the third big kind of GSC teams I am featuring (stall and explosion offense being the other 2).
There are some really strong sweepers in the game, such as Marowak (a mon that can do 90% damage to a Suicune at +2) or BDLax. However they have a big problem: they are very slow and nearly everything is gonna outspeed them.
There are 2 ways of solving that. The first one is paralysis (something I will cover later on), and the other is using the move Baton Pass to send them an Agility Boost.
This team follows that second strat, with 3 pokemons that have Agility + BP and 3 abusers. And what is the big problem of this strategy? The move Roar, since there is no way in GSC to prevent phazing. Jolteon is the best pokemon at agility passing, because it only has 1 pure counter: Raikou, since it can hit the other common Roarers hard with Thunder + HP Water. If you manage to force Raikou to sleep (or if you para it with Thunder for example), there are good chances that you will be able to BP to something. The other BPers of this team are Scizor and Smeargle. Scizor has the advantage to be able to SD to also beat Roar Raikou, but has problems with Roar Skarm, while Smeargle has access to Spore + BP.
The Machamp slot could change to other things like Quagsire, Charizard, etc.
I will post some replays with BP teams, in games where it worked and in games where it didn't:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2ou-167782 => a wcop game where conflict destroys a bp team with roar kou + roar cune
http://pastebin.com/JpnQfDFy => Jorgen BP team vs Roar Raikou + Sleep Powder Egg + Cloy. A good example of Jolteon slowly weakening Raikou before Colchonero had a chance to set up Spikes and how given a minimal opportunity to set up because either a mistake or luck (sleep powder miss + RS flinch vs Cloy), JoltWak can be deadly.
http://pastebin.com/9BNcMXKT => Very similar MU, but this time Jorgen cant find any opportunity to set up vs Kou + Egg and can do absolutely nothing. This shows the inconsistence of this strat. With practically the same MU, in the last log Jorgen won because he managed to find a set up situation + got a bit lucky, while in this game he never had any chance.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2ou-167782 => a wcop game where conflict destroys a bp team with roar kou + roar cune
http://pastebin.com/JpnQfDFy => Jorgen BP team vs Roar Raikou + Sleep Powder Egg + Cloy. A good example of Jolteon slowly weakening Raikou before Colchonero had a chance to set up Spikes and how given a minimal opportunity to set up because either a mistake or luck (sleep powder miss + RS flinch vs Cloy), JoltWak can be deadly.
http://pastebin.com/9BNcMXKT => Very similar MU, but this time Jorgen cant find any opportunity to set up vs Kou + Egg and can do absolutely nothing. This shows the inconsistence of this strat. With practically the same MU, in the last log Jorgen won because he managed to find a set up situation + got a bit lucky, while in this game he never had any chance.
3) GSC Ladder and PO Tournaments (2011 - 2014)
The 8th of February of 2011, the main sim at that time (Pokemon Online) implemented GSC. This was a huge step, because the playerbase was much bigger (in Netbattle ATQ server there were never more than 20 users that played GSC), and a lot of people started to learn and play GSC, so getting games was much easier.
There were 2 main advantages over Netbattle: a ladder and a tournaments system. We used to have GSC tournaments regularly (as well as ADV and other tiers), and it was p fun. There were also some great players such as Crystal_ and Jorgen playing GSC in those tournaments and in ladder, so we played a lot of games. It was definitely when I built the most.
Ladder was huge. I cannot express in words how important having a somewhat active GSC ladder was for the development of GSC, because getting GSC games was much easier, and you could face anybody. More games played means that you can test more things, and it is easy to see what works better and what doesn't. For the other part, those GSC tournaments in the PO server and the fact that GSC was in one of the most important tournaments (SPL), made more and people try and learn GSC, including top players that started in DPP, with no available simulator that supported GSC, so the tier became more relevant. This was a golden age for GSC.
Probably my most succesful GSC team. If someone asked me to pick one of all the GSC teams I have ever used, this is the team I would pick.
At that time, nearly every stall team was based around BDLax (like the Miltank team I posted), and their main strategy was to sweep with the Snorlax.
With this team I take a different approach: Toxic Stall. And what is toxic stall? Toxic stall's main strategy is winning via Spikes + Toxic passive damage, with a fast Roarer like Raikou to constantly force switches.
This doesn't mean that Toxic Stall is a do nothing team that does nothing while the other team slowly dies. They key with these kind of teams is playing agressively, double switching and putting yourself in an advantage in the long term.
There are 2 main things a good toxic stall needs in order to be good: having a reliable way to win the spikes war (or at least not to lose it), and having an answer to common offensive threats, which include: curselax (both fire and eq), bdlax, mixed sweepers (nidoking, etc), dangerous set uppers (vaporeon, machamp, marowak), obscure set uppers (charizard, tentacruel, rhydon).
This team has had a lot of tournament success, including a 7-1 record in SPL 3 (only losing to Conflict in an unfortunate game) while being used by Spies, as well as ladder success (it was my main ladder team when I peaked #1 in ladder with over 200 points advantage over #2).
There were 3 things that contributed a lot to this team success:
a) Slower than max speed Raikou. This was something nearly nobody did: since only the slower roar works in GSC, I used to drop Raikou's speed to Gengar speed +1. Because of that reason, I nearly always had the Roar advantage with Raikou.
b) Misdreavus (or Gengar) wasn't common at all in stall teams (in fact, I had only seen 1 missy stall, which was the version of GP team with missy, and that team was very uncommon), and it was huge at removing certain dangerous things and was a good answer against fire lax and was a big explosion blocker, but most importantly: it blocked spin, and I could immediately go to Raikou to threaten the spinner and start a Roar cycle. Being able to protect Spikes is huge in a team whos main offensive strategy is Toxic + Spikes damage.
c) Toxic Snorlax. This was something people back then didn't really understand, and in fact most of the versions other players built based on this team didn't have Toxic Lax. Toxic lax was a huge reason why this team was that succesful: it hits hard with D-E, it threatens Skarm and Steelix with FT, and toxic hits rocks and wastes Heal Bells when Im facing Miltank stalls. Keep in mind that the only Missy was trap missy (rest missy didn't exist), that most Umbreons were Moonlight, and that nearly no TTar had Rest, making Toxic much more effective.
But this team also brought another big innovation that became very popular some years after the team was originally created, in SPL 6 when I played vs MrE using Toxic Misdreavus instead of the regular trap Missy, which was a huge surprise at that time, and that became standard after that (in fact, now the toxic set is much more common than trap set).
Using a more defensive Misdreavus set with recovery and the move Toxic to threaten things like Machamp and forcing Rest mons such as Curselax to rest gave this team another dimension, and only made it better, because now Misdreavus had 2 potential and effective sets that required different answers.
A very good ladder game I had vs Jorgen. He was using the Miltank TTar BDLax stall, which is always very threatening. The game didn't start well for me because I lost Raikou early, but Toxic Lax showed how good it can be.
Tournament game for the ROA challenge, where you had to beat Hipmonlee in RBY, G80 in GSC, Loki in ADV and Earthworm in DPP in order to win. G80 was undefeated before the game and he only lost 1 or 2 games in all the challenge.
This game starts very well for me because I can set up spikes early and I block his spin, so I can pressure him since the start. The game is shorter than what it should have been because I get a well timed crit to kill his Miltank, although I think I already had a big advantage at that point with Toxic Lax + Spikes advantage + Roar Kou.
SPL game where I use this team with Toxic Missy. I was also using Roar Sleep Talk Cune in this version of the team because with Toxic Missy, I could have another Roar user in case of BP or in case of Vap, although it is probably suboptimal. MrE never had any change in this game.
Tournament game for the ROA challenge, where you had to beat Hipmonlee in RBY, G80 in GSC, Loki in ADV and Earthworm in DPP in order to win. G80 was undefeated before the game and he only lost 1 or 2 games in all the challenge.
This game starts very well for me because I can set up spikes early and I block his spin, so I can pressure him since the start. The game is shorter than what it should have been because I get a well timed crit to kill his Miltank, although I think I already had a big advantage at that point with Toxic Lax + Spikes advantage + Roar Kou.
SPL game where I use this team with Toxic Missy. I was also using Roar Sleep Talk Cune in this version of the team because with Toxic Missy, I could have another Roar user in case of BP or in case of Vap, although it is probably suboptimal. MrE never had any change in this game.
Another take on stall.
This version of Spikes Stall is very good at keeping Spikes out of the field, with the combination of Starmie + Umbreon to pursuit ghosts. The problem is that this team doesn't have a good way of keeping the Spikes vs a Spinner, especially vs a Starmie or a Tentacruel.
This team was extremely good vs the typical Cloyster offenses, easily removing their Spikes, while having a solid defense vs most threats, and abusing the weakness to Curse restalk lax + Pursuit those teams usually have. However, it will struggle vs stalls that also have a good anti spikes strategy..
About Umbreon vs Tyranitar: as you have seen, I have decided to place those 2 versions together, because they work in a very similar way. What are the differences then?
Tyranitar is part rock, which means that it resists Explosion, something that is very helpful when facing all those Explosion teams that were everywhere. Tyranitar also had 2 very different sets: the offensive pursuit set that used the Miltank team, and a Curse Rest set, most of the times with Pursuit. Tyranitar + Skarmory also covered most of the psychic sweepers (such as Exeggutor or Espeon), since Skarmory walled non HP Fire (HP Water Espeon or GD Egg), while Tyranitar walled HP Fire sets. Roar Tyranitar was also a great counter to BP Espeon, which was seen sometimes. Also, since Tyranitar resists normal attacks, it can also wall BD Fire Blast normals (Snorlax, Clefable), which can destroy Umb version.
There is also a very dangerous Tyranitar set that is often overlooked and that its a big threat for a lot of teams, and that is Curse Rock Slide Rest Roar Tyranitar. With Roar, it prevents being phazed even when it is slept.
Umbreon does not resist Explosion and does not have Roar, but it has a lot of bulk and has access to the move Charm, making it a good answer to most Cursers. It can also be a very reliable sleep talker, allowing Snorlax to run non Sleep Talk sets such as Toxic, Curse, Thunder, BD... Another big advantage Umbreon has over TTar is not being weak to Water, Grass or Ground, making it a good counter to mixed threats that can be annoying for this team, such as Nidoking or Tyranitar, as well as being a great switching to Exeggutor, without fearing Giga Drain. Access to Mean look is also great for Umbreon, allowing it to trap and kill stuff. The fact that it has access to Mean Look also makes Umbreon a very good Toxic user, especially if the other team Roarer is not immune to Toxic (TTar, Rhydon, etc).
Miltank is not featured here, but it is also a viable option in the 5th slot. It doesn't have Pursuit, but it has access to Heal bell and it can still beat Curse Fire Lax with Growl.
Could this version of the team be viable with a Ghost (aka the missy team with Starmie instead of cune)? Probably yes with a sleep talk non curse Lax set, but that is something I definitely didn't use (or considered) at that time.
Later versions of this team usually had Forretress, because Marowak became a rarer pokemon (while it was a very common threat at this time)
A game vs a typical offensive team, where I keep Spikes out of the field, I set up my Spikes and I prepare the game to win with my Curse Snorlax in the late game
Classic 4 POs game.
The metagame had changed (I will cover that later), and I had to cover well threats that I knew Lavos was probably gonna try to use such as Rhydon or Jynx, or even something like Charizard to try to surprise a possible stall team I could be bringing, and Starmie was a perfect answer for all those things. For that reason, I decided to bring this team with some tweaks in the sets (and Forry instead of Cloy to cover Jynx better).
The game went as I had predicted it would go, with an unfortunate crit that killed my Lax, but I managed to keep the control of the situation.
Classic 4 POs game.
The metagame had changed (I will cover that later), and I had to cover well threats that I knew Lavos was probably gonna try to use such as Rhydon or Jynx, or even something like Charizard to try to surprise a possible stall team I could be bringing, and Starmie was a perfect answer for all those things. For that reason, I decided to bring this team with some tweaks in the sets (and Forry instead of Cloy to cover Jynx better).
The game went as I had predicted it would go, with an unfortunate crit that killed my Lax, but I managed to keep the control of the situation.
This version of Toxic Stall sacrificed the ability to block Spin to have a better MU vs typical offensive explosion teams, giving myself a good Gengar switching that isn't Raikou or Snorlax, minimizing the risk of a well played Gengar to explode vs any of them to open a hole in the stall, and also giving me a reliable answer to threats such as HP Fire Exeggutor or Fire Lax + Pursuit, at the cost of having a much worse MU vs another defensive team (similar problem than the last team).
The reason why this version of the Toxic Stall had Forretress instead of Cloyster is that I already had good Marowak coverage with Suicune + Skarmory and because since I don't have a ghost in this version of the team, Forretress can hit Starmie or Forretress hard with the right Hidden Power (it can't hit both at the same time, though)
If we compare the last team with this one, the main difference (other than the Spiker, which I already explained) is Suicune vs Starmie. While Starmie allows me to have a much better Spikes Control and it is a great way of controlling some threats such as Rhydon, Charizard or Tentacruel that are usually annoying for a stall team, Suicune can wall a lot of the metagame, but what is more important: it can be the sleep talker of the team.
In the Tyranitar version, having another Sleep Talker frees up the Snorlax set: it could be Curse, Toxic, BD, Thunder... while in the Umbreon version, I have 3 potential Sleep Talkers, so I can change the sets from time to time to make the team more unpredictable, sometimes using mean look umbreon, sometimes using toxic roar cune, etc.
Game vs a typical Explosion team.
After a bad start where I lose my Snorlax (at the cost of his Cloyster), I spin, I set up my spikes and I slowly win.
Semifinals of Wcop vs IFM.
Thorlax kills his Cloyster early game and I slowly win after I have the Spikes advantage
After a bad start where I lose my Snorlax (at the cost of his Cloyster), I spin, I set up my spikes and I slowly win.
Semifinals of Wcop vs IFM.
Thorlax kills his Cloyster early game and I slowly win after I have the Spikes advantage
One of the pokemons I usually hated to face the most was Machamp, because with the right support it can easily dismantle nearly every team. For that reason, I decided to build an offensive team with it.
The team ended up being very similar to the Vaporeon team Borat had, although it is played in a different way: the team is focused on supporting Machamp so it can sweep in the late game: Cloyster booms on Machamp's biggest counter: Starmie, while Exeggutor can sleep or para (depending on the version of the team) other exeggutors or zapdos, Steelix can remove annoying pokemon such as Suicune or Zapdos, and Snorlax can hit Skarm hard with FBlast, or paralyze it with BSlam (if it has BSlam and not D-E). This team also introduced another concept: paralysis based offense, where I try to paralyze fast threats such as Zapdos to allow a slower sweeper (Machamp in this case) to outspeed those threats that would otherwise be very annoying.
I used to change a lot the sets of this team in order to be impredictable: Steelix between Curse and Body Slam, Snorlax between Boom 3 attacks and Curse Fblast with either BSlam or D-E, Egg sometimes had sleep and sometimes had stun, and if Snorlax didnt have bslam it had HP Fire, etc.
This was probably my favourite offensive team in 2011 / 2012. In fact, when people asked me to learn GSC, I usually gave them this team, because this kind of offensive team is easy to learn and is very effective.
M Dragon vs Demonikuski - October 2012
This replay shows p well how this team works: I sleep his Exeggutor with mine, I remove the things that other things that can be annoying for my Machamp (Zapdos and Vap) and then I win with Machamp. This was part of a bo3 of a GSC tournament,
This replay shows p well how this team works: I sleep his Exeggutor with mine, I remove the things that other things that can be annoying for my Machamp (Zapdos and Vap) and then I win with Machamp. This was part of a bo3 of a GSC tournament,
This was probably my second most used team in this period of time, and one of my favourite GSC teams to use. In fact, it was also one of my main teams years later when Classic 1 (in 2015).
The main idea of the team is paralyzing stuff with Raikou's Thunder, Exeggutor's Stun Spore and Snorlax BS and then clean in the late game with either Marowak or with Machamp, or with a combination of both.
This is a very aggressive team that featured really cool and fun to use sets such as Curse + LK + FBlast Lax or FBlast Wak, something that gave a lot of trouble to most of the stalls.
This team also features Raikou offense. Raikou has several advantages over Zapdos, such as being a 100% wall to opposing Zapdos, being able to hard wall Gengar (a very annoying and dangerous pokemon for typical offensive teams), and it allowed me to run Snorlax sets without Rest (including Boom, LK + 2 attacks, etc). The main problem of using Raikou instead of Zapdos is that you lose the ground immunity and the fighting resist, so you have to cover threats like Nidoking, Marowak or Machamp with other mons, or have a way to play around them.
Exeggutor was probably the most important pokemon in this team because of the move Stun Spore. This team was based around paralysis, and Exeggutor is a great pokemon to para threats like Zapdos or Skarmory, that the team really wants to see paralyzed.
Snorlax was a huge pain for typical Stall teams, with LK to sleep the growler and Fire Blast to hit Skarmory. The teams that relied on things like Skarmory + Miltank or Umbreon to beat Curselax struggled a lot vs this set.
Marowak is a great pokemon that hits extremely hard because of item without the need of a boost. In this team, Marowak had 4 attacks (and no SD): EQ, RS, Fire Blast and HP Bug. It's role was opening holes for Machamp, by removing mons like Exeggutor, and sometimes bulky waters as well.
Machamp was usually the cleaner of this team, with Curse + CC + RS + EQ (sometimes HP Ghost).
Not many teams can deal with Curselax + Marowak + Machamp.
However having so many offensive threats comes at a price, and that's a weaker defensive structure, with mons such as Nidoking being annoying to face.
POCL game.
This log is a good example of how this team works vs a stall team.
The start of the game is really bad for me: a Thunder para + FP vs my Exeggutor and Spikes disadvantage (although I manage to kill his Cloyster) puts me in a very bad situation, which is even worse when his Raikou gets a Crunch crit vs my Marowak in the switch.
However this is when the Curselax set shines: it sets up on his slept Raikou, it sleeps Suicune and it Fire Blasts Skarmory, suddenly turning a bad situation for me into a situation where Curse Machamp is in a very good situation.
Classic 1 game.
Curselax + Marowak vs a Miltank + Skarmory stall team.
The game starts very well for me, because I can remove Machamp's biggest counter: Starmie, and shorty after that I also manage to remove Snorlax at the cost of my ground resist (Exeggutor), which gave me an advantage because Raikou was gonna be a huge threat for the rest of the game.
After that, Raikou + Snorlax + Marowak won the game for me.
This log is a good example of how this team works vs a stall team.
The start of the game is really bad for me: a Thunder para + FP vs my Exeggutor and Spikes disadvantage (although I manage to kill his Cloyster) puts me in a very bad situation, which is even worse when his Raikou gets a Crunch crit vs my Marowak in the switch.
However this is when the Curselax set shines: it sets up on his slept Raikou, it sleeps Suicune and it Fire Blasts Skarmory, suddenly turning a bad situation for me into a situation where Curse Machamp is in a very good situation.
Classic 1 game.
Curselax + Marowak vs a Miltank + Skarmory stall team.
The game starts very well for me, because I can remove Machamp's biggest counter: Starmie, and shorty after that I also manage to remove Snorlax at the cost of my ground resist (Exeggutor), which gave me an advantage because Raikou was gonna be a huge threat for the rest of the game.
After that, Raikou + Snorlax + Marowak won the game for me.
This is a more offensive version of the Misdreavus team that is played in a very similar way.
The main difference is that Gengar is a faster ghost that still has access to most of the support movepool Misdreavus has (excluding Pain Split) while being able to threaten with Explosion and being much more dangerous offensively, at the cost of being weak to Psychic and Ground. Being part poison hurts Gengar a lot in GSC.
They seem similar: a ghost that can block spin with a lot of support options, but they are played in a different way.
While the Misdreavus version is more focused in Toxic + Stall, slowly weakening the other team and forcing switches, the Gengar version is played more agressively, because Gengar's speed and power allows it to outspeed a big part of GSC and threaten a lot of things, especially when facing offensive teams.
One of the best things of Gengar is its versatility: it is probably the most unpredectible pokemon of the tier.
Hypnosis is a move that can help Curselax with FB a lot, because it sleeps Umbreon and Tyranitar, giving Curselax a chance to beat them, and Dynamic punch Gengar works p well with ToxicLax.
One of the most dangerous moves Gengar has is Ice punch, especially at the time I used this team, because there was no freeze clause. Every time Ice Punch is used, there is a 10% chance of freezing something, and freezing something like Raikou, Umbreon or Snorlax is a huge game changer.
Lastly, Gengar has the ability to remove any pokemon from the game with the move Explosion or with the move DBond: for example, removing Umbreon from the game in the typical Umbreon Starmie stall means that Curse Fire Lax can easily clean the other team.
However, Gengar also has several disadvantages over Misdreavus. Gengar being part poison is a curse, because it makes it weak to EQ and Psychic, so it cannot wall mixed lax as Missy can, and it is not a reliable switching to Starmie, because Psychic does a lot of damage. Gengar also doesn't have access to recovery (excluding Rest), while Missy can easily recover health with Pain Split.
I have always liked heracross, I think it is a very unique pokemon that is very solid defensively and that at the same time it is very threatening offensively thanks to Megahorn. It is also the only reliable pokemon that can wall ground attackers such as Marowak and Quagsire without being weak to pursuit (Exeggutor) or being a 0 offensively (Meganium). It is also one of the best Nidoking counters in the game (unless it has the rare Fire Blast).
Tyranitar, Gengar, Umbreon and Misdreavus are all viable in that 5th slot. I already explained in the previous teams what are the advantages and disadvantes of each one. Miltank is probably viable too, but I wasn't a Miltank fan at that time. The 2 versions featured are the ones I used the most, but all 4 are viable.
The reason the teams had Forry instead of Cloyster was the ability to hit Starmie and Forry hard with the right HP, and being able to spin and explode in the same set, as well as being able to spike and spin vs electrics. Cloyster covers Steelix better and isn't afraid of random fire attacks.
About the Snorlax and Heracross sets, I had 3 main variations:
a) ToxicLax and ST Hera. Toxiclax annoys Miltank, which helps Heracross a lot. This is the most defensive version of the team, and is played in a similar way than the Missy stall.
b) BDLax + ST Hera. ST Hera forces Skarm to Rest. If you double switch in the turn the Skarm uses Rest, they won't be able to stop BDLax with their Skarmory, giving you a big advantage vs another stall team. Reflect Raikou can help BDLax in this version of the team.
c) Curse EQ Lax with SD (or BD Boom Lax) + Curse Hera. The idea is to lure Skarmory, so Curse Heracross has a chance to win in the late game.
M Dragon vs Isa - October 2011
Curse TTar + Toxic Lax version. This team had Cloyster, but as I explained, both Forry and Cloyster are viable.
Curse TTar + Toxic Lax version. This team had Cloyster, but as I explained, both Forry and Cloyster are viable.
Thief Stall.
This team adds another layer to the Toxic Stall: the move thief.
Thief can be a very devasting move, because it removes one of the most important things for a stall pokemon: leftovers. The impact of the item leftovers is huge in GSC, and is what makes a lot of the defensive pokemon last much longer avoiding key XHKOs, and slowly recovering health via smart switching when there are not spikes on the field.
Removing that item is a huge handicap for any pokemon in GSC. That means that a Raikou can only switch in 8 times with spikes before fainting, 4 if it is toxiced, which means that simply double swithing, you can easily weaken an important pokemon like Raikou, losing a lot of its value. It also means that, for example, Zapdos cannot longer wall Exeggutor, because Psychic 3HKOes without leftovers.
This team is designed to abuse the move Thief: Exeggutor, Skarmory and Gengar all have the move Thief (although you don't need all 3 to have Thief). The team also has Spikes to abuse the lack of leftovers of key pokemons, Gengar to avoid Spin, and a Snorlax set with D-E + Thunder, so it can kill Cloyster early in the game.
The team also has 3 explosions, which is another good way of opening holes. For example, vs a typical Zapdos offense, Thief Exeggutor can steal Zapdos leftovers and threaten to 3HKO it with Psychic. That means that Snorlax is probably the only "safe" switching, which is an easy target for an explosion, making Gengar or Raikou much more dangerous.
This is a very fun team to use and very effective.
M Dragon vs Picollo - December 2013
This replay shows how Thief can be so annoying for a stall team, especially if they cannot spin and healing mons like Raikou becomes much harder.
This replay shows how Thief can be so annoying for a stall team, especially if they cannot spin and healing mons like Raikou becomes much harder.
This is probably my most iconic GSC team: the Dragonite Para Stall.
This team has a similar idea than the Miltank one I postead earlier, and the idea is the same: winning with BDLax, but it has some key diffences: it has Blissey as the Heal Bell mon and it features Reflect Haze Dragonite.
Blissey has 2 main advantages over Miltank: it can easily heal bell vs any special threat (without boom), and it has Light Screen, which helps the team a lot. With Light Screen threats like Vaporeon are not an issue, Skarmory can easily WW any Snorlax without being afraid of a fire or an electric attack, and Lax can easily BD in front of Zapdos since Thunder will be doing around 14% damage.
However, what made this team iconic was the Dragonite. Dragonite is a beast, being able to spread para with BSlam or with DBreath, and completely wall a lot of the metagame with Reflect + Haze.
This team had 2 different variations: one with umbreon and another one with gengar.
The first variation was defensively more solid, with Zap Cannon + Pursuit Umbreon paralyzing and killing Exeggutors and Gengars, as well as walling a lot of dangerous mixed threats such as TTar or Nido.
The other version had Gengar + Screens. If Gengar is already a dangerous threat, Gengar behind screens is even more dangerous. I used to change its set a lot as well, to make it even more unpredictable.
Snorlax is the only offense this team has, and in order to sweep, the team supports it with paralysis (Snorlax, Starmie, Umb/GGar and Dnite can paralyze) and Screens.
There is a version of the team (with Umbreon) that features BD LK EQ Return Snorlax, which is a huge threat for any stall.
Most of the times, the strategy with this team is trying to paralyze as many mons as you can, and waiting for a good chance to BD with Lax, while walling your opponent.
Finals of a MtSilver (the main GSC forum at that time) tournament.
I start well killing his Cloyster thanks to Umbreon's Zap Cannon, and I can spin relatively early, making this MU much easier.
The game ends with a BD LK EQ Snorlax sweep
SPL game. I use the Gengar version this time.
This game is a good example of how this team worked.
Wcop game. I use the Gengar version again.
In this game, I lose Dnite early because a surprise IB. However, I slowly prepare the field for a BDlax win which is what happed in the end.
His nidoking is also annoying in this game, but I think I play around it p well.
I start well killing his Cloyster thanks to Umbreon's Zap Cannon, and I can spin relatively early, making this MU much easier.
The game ends with a BD LK EQ Snorlax sweep
SPL game. I use the Gengar version this time.
This game is a good example of how this team worked.
Wcop game. I use the Gengar version again.
In this game, I lose Dnite early because a surprise IB. However, I slowly prepare the field for a BDlax win which is what happed in the end.
His nidoking is also annoying in this game, but I think I play around it p well.
This is a less known version of the Paralysis + Screens BDLax team.
This is a more offensive version with Spikes and with Zapdos instead of Dragonite. The reason why it has Zapdos is because I needed a pokemon with Reflect that could threaten Starmie.
Gengar can block Spin and is very dangerous with Screens support, and works very well with Zapdos, since it can lure Raikou.
The idea of the team is the same: paralysis + screens to try to sweep with BDLax, this time with Spikes support.
This features another kind of stall: Spikes + paralysis + BDLax, although a toxic stall version with these 6 mons was also perfectly viable.
In fact, another stall I used some years after this had Toxic Misdreavus instead of Gengar, and the team was played as a Toxic Stall.
The second featured team is nearly the same team than the last one, but with 2 key differences: it has Toxic Cloyster instead of Forry and it has Curse Pursuit TTar instead of Gengar.
The reason for Toxic Cloyster in this team is to have a more reliable Marowak switching. Another reason is that Cloyster is easier to send in, because it doesn't have to live afraid of random HP Fires or Fire Blasts killing it, and since I don't have any way to block Spin, the best way is Toxicing Cloyster and playing between Cloy and Zapdos to slowly damage the Starmie.
The other difference is TTar instead of GGar, and the reason is having a pursuit user so I can use BD LK Snorlax.
This team is the Blissey version of the Miltank team I posted at the start of the team compilation but with Spikes support.
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Now I will list other teams I used sometimes and that I also want to include here:
Sandstorm Team.
Example replay vs Conflict: https://pastebin.com/EWtPg5RR
Another team without Snorlax. This time with screens + Growth Vap
Example replay vs Tiba: https://pastebin.com/LzFymfYQ
Growth BP team.
Example log vs Jorgen (POCL game): https://pastebin.com/0LvD6SEn
A variation of the Nido P2 team with Growth BP Espeon instead of P2. I still use that team sometimes. Espeon is probably the only Growth BPer that can beat Roar Raikou.
Example log vs Ojama (2011): https://pastebin.com/6it8cyTP
Offensive team with Dragonite.
Example replay vs Jorgen: https://pastebin.com/qc8jWj0H
Team featuring Sunny Day Houndoom. Originally built by VIL (I think). Pokemon Professor used it in Smogon Tour 2 (the one he won)
Example log vs Soulwind: https://pastebin.com/dAPRhTXX
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