ORAS OU Alison Wonderland <3 (top 10 peak, much success)

[Clair]

Introduction
​

This will not be a long RMT because we are all busy people. I have come to enlighten Smogon about two things.

The first is Alison Wonderland, who is a DJ from my native country of Australia. Not gonna lie she's p good. You should check her out. Also, even though she's not conventionally incredibly attractive and we're both girls I find her super hot. I'm talking 9/10.

The second thing is Altaria. Regular Altaria is much more hipster than Mega Altaria, so that's the main reason I'm using it. It's also a full Zard-Y and Keld counter with Natural Cure (fuck Scald), Heal Bell (fuck Scald), and Perish Song, all without taking the Mega slot or being a fat pink shit, so I saw a niche and decided to build a team around it.

This leads into the teambuilding process, but unfortunately, this is a stall team, so there isn't one. I started with M-Sableye and Altaria, obviously, avoided using Chansey because it takes away a lot of the point of using Altaria, tried a few Rotom-H builds which were average, and came up with this team. This was quite a few months back, pre-Hoopa.

Since then I've laddered twice with the team and made top 10 once, and more recently I decided to share it around for suggestions on refurbishing it for the new meta.

All Six Pokemon At Once
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Deets

Cold (Skarmory) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Impish Nature
- Toxic / Whirlwind
- Iron Head
- Roost
- Stealth Rock

Physically defensive Skarm because otherwise I lack a dedicated physical wall and get torn apart by M-Meta, LO Exca, random Choice Banders, etc. Rocky Helmet for M-Meta, to stop Excadrill spinning for free, and all the other usual uses. I can't fit Spikes unfortunately without using an inferior Fable set. Iron Head covers M-Diancie and M-Gardevoir, which are two of my biggest threats. Toxic hits Torn-T, which is another threat, and can sometimes help pressure opposing stall in Heal Bell PP-stalls. Whirlwind stops physical set-up of course, but Toxic plus two Unaware mons usually does the job better. Not much else to say, Skarm + Quag is an almost perfect physical walling combination.

U Don't Know (Quagsire) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Scald
- Toxic
- Earthquake
- Recover
​

Most anti-meta Pokemon right now imo. Walls whole teams. I had to use Quag over another bulky ground for M-Scizor, but considering how popular Scizor, Zard-X and Bish are I have no ragrets. Standard stuff, I wanted to use my innovative god set Waterfall / Curse / Amnesia / Recover but on this team which has literally zero offensive presence it's more important to be able to pressure things like Latis with status. Notably walls problem mons like CB Victini and Entei, and perfectly blocks Volt Switch. Yusss

Lies (Sableye) @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 80 Def / 180 SpD
Careful Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Fake Out
- Knock Off
- Recover
​

Sabs is pretty well-prepared for but it's still a solid mon. Lots of teams have no recourse against it except going for Clefable, which means a free switch to Tenta or Skarm. I don't honestly know why I have these specific EV's, but it's specially defensive to check special Hoopa-U (while in theory Skarm beats physical Hoops) and help out against Latis, Heatran, Torn, Gengar, Zam, etc. Sableye is almost always my lead, and I tend to stay in against opposing Heatran to remove Lefties (or nasty surprises like Power Herb) and put them on a timer for the rest of the match. Moveset is just standard, with Fake Out so I don't need to guess against Charizard or worry about being played around.

I Want U (Tentacruel) @ Leftovers
Ability: Rain Dish
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Toxic Spikes
- Scald
- Rapid Spin
- Rest
​

I usually like Tentacruel but it's the worst performer on this team, mainly because Altaria and M-Sableye together cover all the special threats it usually handles. I've considered replacing it, but I really like having Toxic Spikes as an automatic win vs certain teams; I've tried Forretress instead, and various things in place of Skarmory, but nothing seems to click (also Forry has terrible Rock-blocking synergy with Sableye). That said Tenta still does a solid job. TSpikes, Scald and Rapid Spin are all standard, but Rest is nice for winning PP-stalls and taking pressure off Altaria's Heal Bell PP. The EV spread is just max SDef to help vs offensive Heatran, which would otherwise be a massive threat, and I don't see much benefit in extra physical bulk on this team.

Run (Altaria) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 52 Def / 208 SpD
Calm Nature
- Heal Bell
- Roost
- Perish Song
- Toxic
​

252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 208+ SpD Altaria in Sun: 113-133 (32 - 37.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

Regular Altaria is just about the most niche mon that I think is actually viable in this meta. I don't even think it should be 'D' on the viability rankings, but on this particular team, it fits perfectly. Natural Cure, it's typing, and impressive special bulk all come together to make a mon which comes in and out freely and easily, never seems to be pressured to do what it needs to, and is just all round reliable. Heal Bell is necessary for stall v stall, but with this, Rest Tenta and M-Sableye, it's usually easy to win the Heal Bell PP stalls. Perish Song stops annoying stuff like short Baton Pass, RD Manaphy, and pretty much every other bulky stat booster, right up to +2 CM Clefable. Finally, Toxic over something like Dragon Pulse because it can actually do appreciable damage, and there aren't really better options. If nothing else it means you can actually 1v1 the special threats you wall.

When using this, you do have to remember that it's super passive. Generally, I avoid it in the early game while I try to set up an advantage between Sableye, hazards and status spam, and only once I have an advantageous status quo do I use Alt. However, at this point, I use it as much as possible to sponge status and pretty much any non-SE STAB special attack, keeping pressure off other key mons. In some games, Altaria can't directly do much, but it still makes a good pivot and death fodder.

Ignore (Clefable) @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 248 HP / 132 Def / 128 SpD
Calm Nature
- Moonblast
- Wish
- Protect
- Calm Mind​

I've run out of things to say about standard sets...SDef CM Unaware Clef handles Volcarona, MG Clefable, Manaphy, Serperior, and gives me a way to beat special stat boosters which isn't called Perish Song and doesn't have just 8pp. I wanted Wish/Protect mainly because the alternative, Moonlight, is beyond awful, but the team support is obviously nice as well. EV's stop me from being 2HKO'd by LO Serperior, give me some physical bulk to help against Weavile, CB Dragonite and such, and avoid a possible 2HKO from non-Iron Head LO Kyu-B.

Threats etc​

Hoopa can be a problem, since the team was built before it's introduction, but in general the combination of Sableye and Skarm will handle most of its movesets. M-Gardevoir and HP Fire M-Diancie are the two biggest threats in practise...LO Tornadus-T looks difficult, but has actually been pretty easy to deal with. Obviously Gothitelle is dangerous, but I get around that by abusing the opponent for using cancerous shit and ragequitting. Finally you have the usual crap like M-Heracross where you just have to make plays and hope for the best.

The big thing when using this team is to understand that everything has a very specific purpose, and that if you lose a wall, often you'll just get swept. Because of that, very careful play and forethought is necessary to get anywhere with this team. I also can't really recommend using it at all because any match against another bulky team will drag out for 100-300 turns, but whatever.

Thank you very much for reading all this way, god bless <3

 

[Biskit]

You mentioned you it at the start, but you have a MASSIVE gardevoir weakness. Even without rocks, it beats OHKO's everything except skarm and clef. Even skarm gets 2HKO'd. Thus I would recommend switching your spdef tentacruel for a spdef jirachi. While this would get rid of your spinner, you could put rocks on jirachi and run defog on skarm. Plus jirachi can provide either wish support or healing wish support. I would recommend a set like this:

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- Healing Wish/Wish
- Substitute/Toxic/Thunder Wave/U-turn

and then simply replace SR on skarm for defog.

 

[Snowy]

Hey Clair! Awesome team you have here, using a very niche Pokemon in regular Altaria, backed up by some really solid Pokemon commonly seen in a great stall team. I think this team cant honestly be changed that much, as removing anything would dis-balance the great synergy and general uniqueness of the squad. In saying this I have one recommendation that I think would benefit this team greatly so I'll jump right into it!

Ok, so the change I would recommend would be to run Max SpD on Skarmory (you can probably drop like 8 evs into speed for Azmarill). I recommend this because your team is bodied by Mega Gardevoir very easily, as you literally dont have a switch in at this point. Making it Max SpD allows you eat any hits and have a 75% chance to be 3hko after rocks, which is great! You dont lose to much by not being Max Defense either, as you have answers to the majority of physical attackers in the meta-game right now. The only thing that could be a problem, is SD Mega Pinsir with Close Combat, but with Unaware Clefable, Quagsire and Skarmory (assuming sturdy is in tacked) all being able to take a hit, you shouldn't be two badly off.

Anyway, I know this was short, but I hope I was able to help you out a bit! I'm a really big fan of stall in general, but this is a really nice and cool team, so well done!

 

[Clair]

Hey Clair! Awesome team you have here, using a very niche Pokemon in regular Altaria, backed up by some really solid Pokemon commonly seen in a great stall team. I think this team cant honestly be changed that much, as removing anything would dis-balance the great synergy and general uniqueness of the squad. In saying this I have one recommendation that I think would benefit this team greatly so I'll jump right into it!

Ok, so the change I would recommend would be to run Max SpD on Skarmory (you can probably drop like 8 evs into speed for Azmarill). I recommend this because your team is bodied by Mega Gardevoir very easily, as you literally dont have a switch in at this point. Making it Max SpD allows you eat any hits and have a 75% chance to be 3hko after rocks, which is great! You dont lose to much by not being Max Defense either, as you have answers to the majority of physical attackers in the meta-game right now. The only thing that could be a problem, is SD Mega Pinsir with Close Combat, but with Unaware Clefable, Quagsire and Skarmory (assuming sturdy is in tacked) all being able to take a hit, you shouldn't be two badly off.

Anyway, I know this was short, but I hope I was able to help you out a bit! I'm a really big fan of stall in general, but this is a really nice and cool team, so well done!

Thanks Snowy :) I actually started out with SDef Skarmory but found it was just too easily worn down by certain physical attackers. On paper this looks like a sensible change, but in practise it just means I'm under a lot more pressure to keep Skarm healthy.

You mentioned you it at the start, but you have a MASSIVE gardevoir weakness. Even without rocks, it beats OHKO's everything except skarm and clef. Even skarm gets 2HKO'd. Thus I would recommend switching your spdef tentacruel for a spdef jirachi. While this would get rid of your spinner, you could put rocks on jirachi and run defog on skarm. Plus jirachi can provide either wish support or healing wish support. I would recommend a set like this:

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- Healing Wish/Wish
- Substitute/Toxic/Thunder Wave/U-turn

and then simply replace SR on skarm for defog.

I was actually considering Heatran the other night, because I can easily afford to just spikestack instead of Rapid Spinning on this team, but unfortunately neither Heatran or Rachi work (too weak to Keld/Keld and Heatran respectively). I did come up with this variant instead:

Specially defensive Spikes Skarm, CM Roar Suicune (for M-Gyara, WoW Zard-X and so on), and standard SR Lando. This actually looks pretty good, although Altaria is probably no longer optimal, and it's pretty Bisharp weak (even though the team can now afford to use physically defensive Sableye). Poliwrath instead of Suicune would cover Bish, but opens up a CB Azu weakness unfortunately, plus it's just inferior in general.

 

[Biskit]

I think suicune is fine as a defensive set doesn't get 2HKO'd by banded azu. Sableye + suicune should be enough for bisharp.

 

[FlamingVictini]

Hey there,
This is a really cool team, I've always thought of using regular altaria (I actually have my own RMT with mega altaria and regular sableye lol) and this team, despite being stall, is pretty creative and nice. You listed tentacruel as one of your worst performers but you still want the toxic spikes support, and in your second variant you removed it but you lack those t-spikes that are extremely useful and sometimes allow you to beat things that otherwise just roll through you. You may want to try a physically defensive nidoqueen > tentacruel / cune+lando stuff. This is a little better than the lando-t as you still get t-spikes while not making you super bish weak and then cune > quag can effectively work with it by pressure stalling + cm sweeping and burning bulky steels. I also prefer some special bulk on skarmory, while still attempting to maintain some physical bulk with its natural stats and some investment to soft check attackers along with cune and nidoqueen. A spread of 248 HP / 72 Def / 188 SDef with a careful nature lives 2 focus blasts from timid gardevoir while retaining some physical bulk (232 SpA Mega Gardevoir Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 188+ SpD Skarmory: 149-176 (44.7 - 52.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery). If you have tspikes (Nidoqueen can tank a psyshock + focus blast and you can also stall out with tspikes + fake out /protect stuff if you face a modest gardevoir or if they get their hazards up). If you feel like you don't need the physical bulk though you can just go more specially bulky, or if you feel you find you lose to more common stuff than gardevoir then just revert back to physdef and try to play around it the few times you may face it (my RMT is also weak to gardevoir, but SDef skarm just isn't worth it as i lose to so many other things if i make that change, so its subjective).