SS OU Stall Redefined: Shedinja + Toxic Spikes Stall Team (peaked 1855, seeking feedback and advice)

[Botted_Jevil]

Hello Smogon. For this RMT, I decided to forgo an anti-meta stall team in order to check many prominent OU threats. I settled for a Toxic Spikes stall team (featuring Shedinja) with my main strategy being forcing switches and punishing switch-ins with poison.

I’m sorry if I’m being another annoying stall player, but I personally find stall to be an effective team structure, so I like using it and tinkering with it. (I also posted another stall RMT three months ago featuring Transform Mew and Coalossal.)

Proof of Peak:

THE TEAM

Sans (Shedinja) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Wonder Guard
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Lonely Nature
- Protect
- Poltergeist
- Will-O-Wisp
- Toxic

I thought of using Shedinja in OU to counter prominent threats to stall teams like Toxitricity, Regieleki, Magearna, Tapu Koko, and even Zygarde. These mons (usually) lack the coverage to hit Shedinja for super effective damage (unless Regieleki has Ancient Power), so Shedinja helps check a myriad of mons and can force them out while inflicting burns or poison on switch-ins. Overall, it is one of the key teammates in spreading Toxic, which is the main way this team triumphs over hyper offense and balance. Poltergeist is to punish threatening switch-ins like Alolan Marowak and Latios while Protect is to scout out status moves.

Bane (Buzzwole) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Beast Boost
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Drain Punch
- Toxic
- Ice Punch

As the most durable, viable physical wall, Buzzwole is simply amazing in OU. It manages to check Therian Landorus, Garchomp, both Urshifu forms, Rillaboom, Tapu Bulu, and Pheromosa; and it can punish them with Ice Punch and Toxic. It can easily force many offensive threats out, allowing other opposing mons to be poisoned by Toxapex’s Toxic Spikes.

Heat Man (Heatran) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Taunt
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock

I added Heatran to this team in order to deal with Toxapex (which removes my Toxapex’s Toxic Spikes and can’t be poisoned, making it a pain to deal with) by trapping it with Magma Storm, Taunting it, and damaging it with Earth Power. Heatran can also trap and kill Clefable and force out nuisances like Corviknight, further forcing opposing mons to switch into Toxapex’s Toxic Spikes.

The Medic (Blissey) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Soft-Boiled
- Toxic
- Heal Bell

With Spectrier running rampant (despite its horrid movepool), Blissey is practically essential to a stall team. I know what you’re all thinking: Why would you use a Taunt-bait Blissey? The truth is, all its moves are essential for Blissey to act as a staple on this stall team; Wish heals Heatran (which lacks reliable recovery outside of Leftovers), Soft-Boiled heals itself, Toxic threatens Spectrier and switch-ins, and Heal Bell is used to cure and poison inflicted on my team. No other mon can check Spectrier and Volcarona, clear status, and learn Wish, so I was left with this set. However, I am open to any suggestions for how to resolve this dilemma.

Yoshi (Dragonite) (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Multiscale
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Defog
- Earthquake
- Dual Wingbeat
- Roost

Say hello to this team’s tech: a physically defensive Dragonite. Dragonite is mainly here for role-compression; it acts as a Defogger and a check to Heatran, Rillaboom, and Blaziken (courtesy of its resistive typing). A Heatran check is essential to stall teams, as otherwise, opposing Heatran can trap and kill my team with Magma Storm and Taunt (just like my Heatran does). I chose Dual Wingbeat over a phasing move because I needed a way to offensively threaten Rillaboom, as otherwise, Rillaboom can keep chipping away at Dragonite whenever it switches into it. Earthquake is essential to dish out massive damage to Heatran and to possibly OHKO it.

Toxic Tent (Toxapex) (F) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Scald
- Knock Off
- Recover

Toxapex is here to set Toxic Spikes in order to punish the switch-ins that the other mons on this team are designed to force. It is one of the few reliable defensive checks to Tapu Fini (aside from Shedinja, which I already have) because Tapu Fini’s Misty Surge cannot ignore Toxapex’s Toxic Spikes, as Toxic Spikes activate before Misty Surge. Recover is to heal itself when necessary, Scald is to punish Toxic-Spikes-immune switch-ins (like Ferrothorn and Moltres), and Knock Off removes annoying items like Heavy Duty Boots (allowing mons like Moltres to be damaged by Heatran’s Stealth Rocks). Furthermore, Toxapex is one of the few checks to Cinderace, as it doesn’t take too much damage from Zen Headbutt and resists all of Cinderace’s high-base-power moves.

P.S. Dragonite and Toxapex were the last mons to be added to this team. I was originally creating a Shedinja stall team featuring a (Sand Force) Hippowdon-Zapdos core, but this was replaced with Dragonite and Toxapex because I wanted to add Toxic Spikes to threaten switch-ins even more. Hippowdon and Zapdos didn’t check Blaziken nor Tapu Fini too well, so I added Dragonite to deal with Blaziken and Toxapex to deal with Tapu Fini.

LIST OF THREATS

• Future Sight + strong physical attackers
  • Buzzwole is my main check to strong physical attackers and cannot stomach a Future Sight.
• Blacephalon w/ Substitute
  • Normally, I use Blissey to either force out Blacephalon or to poison it, but Substitute blocks poison and allows Blacephalon to set up as it pleases.
• Opposing stall
  • Opposing stall teams can easily PP stall Heatran’s Magma Storm, preventing it from trapping opposing mons and killing / forcing out Corviknight.
• Sand + Regieleki
  • Shedinja is my only check to Regieleki and dies to Sandstorm.
  • Blissey cannot stomach a terrain-boosted Rising Voltage.
• Regieleki w/ Ancient Power
  • Shedinja is my only check to Regieleki and dies to Ancient Power.
• Sun Venusaur w/ Earth Power
  • While Blissey can wall Venusaur, Venusaur can easily exhaust Blissey’s recovery moves.
  • Heatran is immune to Sludge Bomb and Weather Ball (fire) and resists Giga Drain, but is killed by Earth Power.
  • This leaves me with no consistent checks to Venusaur.
• Diggersby
  • Huge Power Diggersby hits way too hard and frequently carries Fire Punch, which is bad news for Shedinja.
• Tornadus w/ Taunt
  • Blissey is my only true counter to Tornadus and is shut down by Taunt.
• Mixed Tornadus w/ Superpower
  • Blissey is my only true counter to Tornadus and is beaten to a pulp by Superpower.
• Shed Shell Toxapex
  • This variant of Toxapex cannot be trapped and removed by Heatran unless my Toxapex manages to Knock Off its Shed Shell.

Thank you for taking the time to view my RMT (I know it was a long read). I am open to any feedback or suggestions to improve this team. Feel free to try this team out if you wish.

 

[Botted_Jevil]

(bump)

 

[Smashburn]

I really like the team, I have used it for a few matches and I would say the defense against a lot of things is decent and it is very fun to play! I found an issue with the Shedinja's Poltergeist, which was a physical contact move so Ferrothorn or any Rocky Helmet mon could switch into it and kill. It also doesn't collect much value on protect since Urshifu is common and its ability allows it to hit through protective moves, plus Shedinja's role isn't to be a free switch-kill for the opponent or a waste of a turn I think, it is best when your opponent doesn't have many answers to it and they have to switch out, that being said you want either conditions or stat drops (even both at times) for the pokemon switching in to receive, and if they already have a condition I want to punish with as much STAB as possible. I decided to go with HEX for this instead of Poltergeist as previously mentioned for several reasons, mainly though as previously said Hex doesn't hit physically so Shedinja can get switch-in killed by Rocky Helms and Iron Barbs, and it also doubles on power. This pairs quite nicely with Toxapex's Toxic Spikes and the other mons with toxic on the team for a good hit onto the new mon. On the subject of stat drops, I added String Shot, which lowers speed on entry so my Timid Nature Shedinka 252 speed set could potentially outspeed on slower or moderately fast mons and get a Toxic or Wil-O-Wisp off before switching out. This made a lot of sense against most of what I faced outside of it being completely nullified by Sandstorm teams, Hail teams, and Tapu Fini (although in a 1v1 it would certainly win due to Tapu Fini's terrain only lasting so long and the Toxic + hex being enough to bring it down).

P.S.

I forgot to talk about the Shedinja I had being 252 SpA as well, remember it is Hex and you will need all the SpA you can to make those hits chip / count.

Unfortunately I didn't like running into Landorus-T very much ( Same for all ground types outside of Garchomp which is manageable, Hippowdon is the biggest pain to face out of any mon without argument because of Sand Stream :-/ ) the Buzzwole set does have Icepunch but that doesn't make it any easier to take an EQ and potentially a OHKO stone edge to the face off of Landorus-T (Can't forget Hippowdon's Whirlwind or Toxic just to force more damage in). It was also difficult to face Blaziken, as its protect/swords dance, access to EQ and Thunder Punch, and the STAB of fire and fighting typing to Close Combat and Flare Blitz were awful because I was switching out my team so often they almost always got a Swords Dance off and they would certainly outspeed me under any condition because nothing even outsped base 252 Adamant/Jolly Blaziken. On the note of speed, I did alter the Buzzwole set to the typical OU set (104 Speed), the Toxic isn't very necessary in this team on Buzzwole as it is usually better to setup with Bulk Up rather than Toxic, and most other mons carry Toxic or in the case of Toxapex, Toxic Spikes, to get poison off easier anyways.

I gave Heatran Air Ballon (To dodge Spikes and possibly Stealth Rocks plus ground type moves, I think at least), and Blissey Seismic Slam instead of Heal Bell. Air Balloon was already explained, but I think Seismic Slam would be a lot more useful than Heal Bell. Most of the mons on the team are slow and don't have an issue with being paralyzed, and Toxapex and Heatran are already pretty much immune to Wil-O-Wisp and Toxic anyways. Plus Blissey is often predicted mid match or double switched on so I figured as long as they want to do that and I have Stealth Rocks or Toxic Spikes to chip and Seismic Slam to chip away at them too, as Seismic slam deals a decent amount of damage. Even if you run into a Ghost type mon you will usually have a response and it isn't like Heal Bell would do much against a Ghost type right now in OU anyways.

Lastly, I wanted to say it is a good concept for a team, keep improving on it and thinking! I really like the team core as well, so I will be editing and using this team for a little bit until I feel I have it down.

P.S.

Sorry for another post send here, but I also think that Spectrier would be a good sub for Shedinja higher up with a similar set against condition teams, just without stat drops as Spectrier doesn't really learn any, it's more of Shedinja's thing. Spectrier is a powerful Ghost type and it's Hex STAB on its ghost typing make it a real threat, as I go up I might run Scarf support / or Substitute Spectrier (Both Timid 252 Speed, 252 SpA, 4 SpD) and keep the Speed stats lower without the scarf.

 

[Arkahique]

Hello ! Here to help

#1 : You'll appreciate running Swords Dance Shedinja, along with Poltergeist, Shadow Sneak and Toxic. It's really more helpful as it can sweep when you get the opportunity to setup, which can happen quite often considering it's ability.

#2 : Buzzwole is really outdated in your team, as the 2 mons he was used to wall got banned (Zygarde & KyuremB, the second one not deserving a quick ban imo but anyway aha). You could put Ditto as it's very consistant and be very helpful against potential setup threats to Stall, or Corviknight which is very helpful in certain battles.

#3 : Put Shadow Ball on Blissey. Spectrier is almost everywhere, you'll need to have something to beat it or it'll pp stall you. How many times I've seen people switching Blissey on Spectrier while running Toxic + Seismic Toss only, and getting pp stall by Spectrier easily behind a sub spamming Nasty Plot and recovery thanks to it's leftovers.

I think that's all. With these changes, your team is gonna be alot stronger to face the current metagame.

Have a great day !

 

[Botted_Jevil]

I found an issue with the Shedinja's Poltergeist, which was a physical contact move so Ferrothorn or any Rocky Helmet mon could switch into it and kill.

Poltergeist is actually not a contact move, but I really like your suggestion of running Hex on Shedinja to synergize with Toxic Spikes. I also liked the Bulk Up Buzzwole you proposed as well as the Air Balloon Heatran. Thank you for your suggestions!

You'll appreciate running Swords Dance Shedinja, along with Poltergeist, Shadow Sneak and Toxic.

I really like this set as well. I will experiment with both of your Shedinja sets.

Buzzwole is really outdated in your team, as the 2 mons he was used to wall got banned

Buzzwole is actually my only counter to Urshifu, which would rip this team apart otherwise. If Urshifu didn't exist, I'd probably use a different physical wall like Hippowdon or, like you mentioned, Ditto.

I am not sure if I want to sacrifice Heal Bell for Seismic Toss / Shadow Ball because if Buzzwole gets poisoned, it's a goner after taking chip damage throughout the match. However, I will consider both these moves as I tinker with this team further. Thank you.

 

[RaikouLover]

Neat team.

Physically defensive Dragonite is cool but generally is outclassed by Salamence (Intimidate grants much more consistent physical bulk and team support) or Moltres (due to Flame Body) as the Rillaboom / Heatran / Blaziken check. Salamence also could potentially free up Blissey as it is an alternate option for Wish.