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Mainly a defensive core. Starmie deals with Machamp, lures Gengar, and statuses Snorlax for Miltank, while Miltank deals with Snorlax, Non-DP Tyranitar, and cures Starmie of otherwise-incapacitating status. Seen a lot on Stall teams, including the infamous Lax/Kou/Cune/Skarm/Starmie/Miltank stall, but more offensive teams can appreciate their support as well.
As for the spikes/spinblock cores, the main attraction to Forretress + Gengar is the toxic immunity, which means you can go without Heal Bell. Cloy + Missy basically needs Heal Bell support to outlast an opposing stall. Also there's nothing preventing Gengar + Cloy or Forry + Missy; in fact, those pairings tend to happen more organically during the teambuilding process, as Forry and Missy are better suited for defensive teams, whereas Cloy and Gengar are natural fits for offensive teams.
After my game today, I actually decided I rather like Cloyster + Missy. Misdreavus does a nice job of protecting Cloyster from Spin Starmie, which otherwise 2HKOs both Cloyster or a Gengar switching into it with Psychic. Usually the play would be Cloyster has to carry Toxic to annoy Starmie into having to Recover later, so you can boom on it or force it out with an Electric to retain Spikes, or roll with T-Tar to trap it with Pursuit. Pairing it with Misdreavus at least means you're not beholden to running Toxic, and perhaps it's also a little easier to use Missy than TTar who has a lot of exploitable weaknesses to compensate for. Forretress doesn't need help holding Spikes since it can carry HP Bug to beat Starmie directly.
Toxic Forretress. Cloy + Misdreavus go great together, but without Heal Bell support (or mind-reading powers) they will lose the long-term game to a Forry stall. And if you're using Misdreavus to spinblock, you're thinking long-term.
Although I guess you could run Rest on Cloy/Misdreavus... although I find Toxic on Cloy is still pretty necessary as otherwise you have no way to beat Starmie after a Ttar Pursuit (or even switching Missy into one too many Surfs).
Mah boi, Thunder Missy 2HKOs Starmie! The spinblocking thing was incidental to my plans, I just took note of it after the fact. Forretress is at least easier to wear down, because it doesn't normally pack recovery, and is directly threatened by Cloyster's Surf which Starmie switches into all day. But of course, if facing up Forry is a concern then you would support Cloy+Missy with something else too, as you already stated in the first place.
This is my favorite core in GSC
Umbreon is the star of the trio because his ability to trap oposing pokémon is absurdly cheap and very easy to abuse geting a free setup with a Snorlax or a Marowak, for exemple.. Works as a Lead or as a mid game trump card, bluffing a defensive set and geting a free Mean Look + Batom Pass. Monnlight regenerate HP and Confuse Ray shines in this set because it disrupt Phazzers and gives you a chance, with a help from the RNG, to kill the oponent Raikou / Skarmory / Suicune with little effort.
Misdreavus is a awesome partner because it loves geting the Mean Look Pass, automaticaly defeating the oponent with Perish Song. Just note that Misdreavus + Umbreon have a very good defensive synergy. Protect stalls Perish Song and Pain Split is a personal favorite, as it help Misdreavus to get more than 1 KO per match.
Gengar complete the trio as a Explosion hitter and as a emergency buttom versus settup sweepers with Destiny Bond. His function in this core is to disrupt the oposing defenses opening patchs to yours sweepers, like a CurseLax, or to nuke away the oponent Raikou / Zapdos / Snorlax. Thunderbolt + Ice Punch gives a good coverage. Miracle Berry is my favorite item, as it alows Gengar to absorv a Lovely Kiss or a Sleep Powder but Leftovers is efective too.
This core works wonderfully on very offensive teams and generate extremely agressive plays.
I wasn't sure whether this question is more appropriate here or in "Simple Question, Simple Answer", but when running a hard stall core of Raikou, Skarmory and Suicune, what are the pros and cons of using either Spikes user and Ghost-type over the other, and in conjunction with each other and the rest of the team? Can a case be made for all four permutations of Spikes and Ghost, or are some clearly better than other?
cloy + missy: you lose to other stalls' toxic, replace suicune with miltank though and you should be solid (last being snorlax ofc)
cloy + gengar: you can't reliably spinblock starmie and you still need heal bell to beat other stall cloysters long-term. on a more offensive team this combo works really well. it's less good on a stall if your sole aim is to play the long-term spikes game (in that case missy is better) but it does offer more flexibility: you could play the long-term spikes game, or you could blow up cloy or gengar to try to KO a raikou (which can cause mischief via spikes + roar against such a stall team where there are only 2 switch-ins) or use dbond on gengar to KO a ttar (miltank > suicune makes ttar more of a threat) or even run a ptrap gengar to get a surprise KO and make dominoes fall that way.
forry + missy: probably the hardest-core spiker-spinner pair in gsc. which also means the least flexible. filling out the rest of the team is going to feel weird and incomplete, but in return you get a toxic-immune spiker and a spinblocker that can block starmie. you probably want rest on missy so you don't need to run a heal beller to win the spikes war (and the game) against teams that do use one, though.
forry + gengar: fully toxic-immune, and forry can run hp bug to cover for gengar's inability to spinblock starmie. less synergy in terms of non-spikes roles than cloy + gengar though. the reason is that cloy & gengar both converge on raikou for explosion kills, whereas forry doesn't really force anything to take its explosion. i've used it before but I won't lie, it feels mad awkward to try to use gengar on a stall team that wants to use forry spikes as a wincon. because gengar wants a teammate to help it converge on stuff with its KO moves - it doesn't want to be a full-time spinblocker.
I got excelents results with CurseLax + Exeggutor (Sleep Powder + Explosion win games) + Raikou (Rest + Reflect).
Other very good option is Jolteon + Marowak + DrumLax, fun to use but more dificult to bluff a defensive Umbreon.
Zapdos pairs well on the core too and the Spikes imunity annoys stalls. Rest is a must in this team so Zapdos / Raikou and the Snorlax need it to playout in a Stall MU.
My personal sugestion to complete the team is a electric type, a mon with Sleep move and a Snorlax.
A very interesting factor is that you don't need to run a Phazzer because Perish Song do the job. You only lost to Setups Sweepers if you badly choke in the match. Is hilarious to see Batom Pass chains geting destroied by Missy.
I could answer with a simple yes, but I don't know how indicative the players I've played so far are of the totality of the player pool. It isn't too uncommon to see Thunder Snorlax work in even the tournament games I've watched, so I don't really understand the skepticism; the "core" merely drops Toxic on Cloyster, a Pokémon with incredibly high usage on offense teams already, for Rapid Spin.
Charizard @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Bashful Nature
- Belly Drum
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Fire Blast
exeggutor uses stun spore, making some pokemons slower than charizard (raikou and zapdos), in addition to using explosion as a way to eliminate other threats (snorlax, raikou,zapdos) , giga drain for Tyranitar, rhydon, golem who resist explosion, in addition to pressing vaporeon, starmie, suicune and marowak. Psychic for gengar, machamp.
GSC has changed a bit over the last couple of years and one of those changes includes the introduction of one rocky boi to the metagame. Golem has gone from a niche pick to an important metagame component. Cloyster gets them up and Golem spins them away. Not only does this mean that you have two ways of approaching the Spikes war, but you free up Explosion on Cloyster, as it is incompatible with Rapid Spin. Golem's difficulty in removing Spikes lies in the fact that it loses to Giga Drain Forretress (it also dislikes being Toxiced) and Cloyster one-on-one. The idea with Cloyster is to Toxic opposing Cloyster early on so that over time Cloyster can't keep coming in to set them up again once Golem has removed them. With Forretress, Cloyster does a decent job at hitting it hard with Surf, and Earthquake is still hitting it decently hard on the switch with Spikes up also. Golem is difficult to Spin-block also, as the two Ghosts in OU dislike switching into Earthquakes. Once you've won the Spikes war, you still have two booms for you to trade 1-for-1 with your opponent if need be. They also do an OK job of checking Snorlax for offensive teams too, as Golem is a Fire and Normal resist with Roar, and Cloyster has Toxic and high Defence while both threaten our sleepy lad with booms.
These guys have all the moves, and you can never be quite sure who has what in terms of coverage. And OFC one typically fills the role of sleeper, and the other as normal-resistant phazer.
Nido can put lax to sleep and Tar can them roar him out safely. Ttar can also use pursuit to chip away at pokes like Egg and Zap to improve the matchup for King later. In addition to sleep, Nido is an underrated spreader of paralysis AND even the rare freeze with his two most common coverage moves. When he's on. And a paralyzed Starmie is much easier for Tar to handle than a non-paralyzed one.
Also given Nido's immunity to toxic and thunder, and Tar's immunity to psychic, that's a lot of potential free switch-ins between the two of them.
