OU GSC Teams Through The Ages

M Dragon

The north wind
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World Defender
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 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.



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.



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.





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.





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




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 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 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.



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 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.




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.


-----
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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M Dragon

The north wind
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 17 Championis a defending World Cup of Pokemon Championis a Past SPL Champion
World Defender
4) SPL, Wcop and Classic (2015 - 2017)
Until SPL 6, I had always played ADV SPL (which was the only tournament that had GSC), so even if I used to play GSC in PO ladder and in PO tournaments (including official ones), that wasn't the case in Smogon Tournaments.
That changed in SPL 6, where I played GSC for the Sharks with a very positive record.
Another very important event was the introduction of GSC in Wcop, and while I still played ADV in Wcop, I helped both Colchonero and FAFUS to prepare their GSC games, and I played some GSC very big GSC games, such as semifinals vs IFM and the next year vs Conflict (in the tie break).
Also, shortly after that SPL, a new tournament featuring old gens was created: Smogon Classic, which also included GSC games.
That meant that GSC went from only having representation in Smogon in a team tournament where I already played in other tiers to being represented in 3 different tournaments.

Also, in 2016 PO was stopped being used in Smogon tournaments for GSC games. This sadly meant that I don't have most of the replays of that time, since Pokemon Showdown (the current sim) didn't have a way to automatically save replays. This means that I don't have logs or replays of a lot of the teams I will include in this part.

These were my favourite teams at that time:


This is probably the team I used the most at that time, and one of my most succesful creations.
The idea is very similar to the original Missy team, but this team uses Umbreon instead of Suicune. This has a very important advantage: Pursuit.
Because of Pursuit, this team has an easier time removing Spikes, as well as adding another defense against Boom Gengar, which could be problematic to the original Missy Cune team if well played.
However, having Umbreon instead of Suicune could make the team a bit weaker to Marowak (which is why I have Cloyster and not Forry) and to Roar Steelix (when Spikes are up). One way of fixing this issue is using Thief Misdreavus. If you manage to steal Leftovers from Steelix, it will be much less dangerous, and it is especially good in combination with Curse Restalk Snorlax.

I used to change the sets of the team a lot, which made this team more unpredectible. For example: lax could be Curse Fire, Curse Restalk, Curse LK, Toxic, BD, Thunder; Misdreavus could be perish trap, thief, toxic, hypnosis, dbond, etc; Umbreon could be Mean Look, Restalk, Toxic...

Other than that, it works in the same way than the other toxic stalls. The only thing that changes is that it has both pursuit AND a ghost to block Rapid Spin while having a better Exeggutor and Gengar MU, at the cost of having a worse MU vs grounds like Marowak and Steelix, and also probably vs Fire spam (Moltres, etc).



This team represents very well an archetype I really liked using at that time, which was: Sleep Talk Raikou + Para spam + Curse Boom Snorlax + Late Game Cleaner with Explosion support. In this version Raikou is Roar because I don't have any other Roarer.
Exeggutor is a great partner for both Vaporeon and Machamp, since it can easily paralyze Zapdos, which helps both of them a lot.
This team works in a very similar way than the Machamp + Marowak team, with 2 key differences: the first one is boom Snorlax, and the second one is Vaporeon instead of Marowak.
Having both, Vaporeon and Machamp gives the team a lot of flexibility, because depending on the situation or on the other team, you can plan the game to try to win the game with Vaporeon or with Machamp, using the other to open holes (for example one could lure Exeggutor, allowing the other to win).

This team has no normal resist, and it is probably one of my few teams that don't have one. For that reason, playing agressively vs Curselax is very important for this team. That is also one of the main reasons why Snorlax has Self-Destruct in this team, to have a backup plan to deal with opposing Curselax.

Trading Snorlax for Snorlax is not a bad thing for this team because it still has a Raikou to deal with most special threats, and mons such as Raikou, Exeggutor and Vaporeon are even more threatening when their Snorlax is already down.



Double electrics. This team is very similar to last one, and it works in the same way, but with Zapdos as another pokemon that can paralyze instead of Vaporeon.

Double Electrics is a very powerful strategy in GSC. Other than Snorlax, Zapdos and Raikou are the best pokemons in GSC since they were allowed to use Hidden Power back in SPL 1, and for a good reason. Zapdos and Raikou are both very dangerous offensively: with a very powerful Thunder that has a high para chance and the ability to hit grounds super effectively with Hidden Power. But not only that, they both wall nearly half of the metagame, and since Zapdos is part flying, they have different weakness.

Machamp abuses the fact that Snorlax is a very common answer to electrics, so it can use those predicted switches to get free turns and try to sweep.

This team works in a similar way then the last one: paralyze as much as you can and clean in the late game with Machamp.



This is a team I used in week 1 of SPL 6 (2015), using an idea Conflict had: Rapid Spin Golem.
Golem is a pokemon that I had always overlooked: it was an inferior Rhydon as a sweeper, and an inferior Steelix as a boom support (because Steelix can take a Surf and explode vs Suicune and Vaporeon, killing them when it is at +1, something Golem cannot do)
However, Golem can do 1 thing that no other pokemon can do: it can Spin, it can threaten ghosts with an OHKO or with a 2HKO, and it can explode. But not only that, it could also use Fire Blast to toast Forry and Skarm, as well as to hit.

The rest of the team is a similar archetype than the earlier teams: Restalk Kou, Paralysis and explosions.



This is a variation of the Steelix + Machamp team.

Tyranitar brings a lot of positive things to the team. The first thing is the possibility of running Pursuit to trap and remove ghosts from the game, allowing me to run mono normal Snorlax (with Curse + LK or Boom, or with both), making the team more versatile. The other big advantage is the big movepool Tyranitar has, that allows it to run many different sets, with different options to lure common counters: for example, Tyranitar could be using a Surf or IB TTar to hit grounds that are usually good answers to ttar, a mixed set with EQ could surprise a Raikou (which helps Zapdos a lot), it can force switches with Screech + Roar...

However, having no Steelix makes the team slightly more Zapdos weak, since I lose my electric immunity. For that reason, paralyzing Zapdos is very important, as a paralyzed Zapdos is very easy to deal for this team, and cannot really stop Cursechamp anymore, since a +1 RS will 2HKO it, plus para chance and flinch chance.



The team I used vs Conflict in the tiebreaker of the semifinals of wcop in 2015, which was probably the biggest GSC tournament game I have ever played, because we were long time friends and rivals, and at that time we were 2 of the best GSCers at the time.
Again, same archetype: Restalk Kou, Curse Boom Lax (in this game with LK), paralysis support and a cleaner (Vaporeon in this game).
Tyranitar supported the team with Pursuit, and ended up being key in that game, because it killed Conflict's Snorlax with a surprise DPunch.

The reason why I used Raikou instead of Zapdos in this team was because i felt that with Vaporeon in the team I needed a reliable electric switching. A variation of this team that also worked well had Zapdos instead of Kou and Restalk Lax.



This team featured a third powerful Misdreavus set: Hypnosis + Mean Look + Nightmare.
This Misdreavus set was very annoying to face, not only because of the strategy, but because you had to guess the Misdreavus set or you are going to probably lose a pokemon.
If you think the Misdreavus is Perish Trap and you go to your Roar Raikou, you can see how Missy traps it in the switch and then sleeps it while it is trying to Roar.

This version of the Missy stall has Zapdos instead of Suicune, which makes the team stronger vs threats such as Vaporeon or Machamp, but it also makes you weaker to Tyranitar and also a bit weak to Mixed Lax.

After Sleep Trap was banned, I changed Missy set to Thief, and it probably became a better team, because Thief is great for this team, making mons like Steelix, Tyranitar, Raikou or Snorlax easier to beat.

Another version of this team was based around paralysis + perish trap. Zapdos, Raikou and Snorlax are good at paralyzing common Roarers (Skarm, Steelix, Raikou, TTar, etc), something Misdreavus uses to have a better chance of succesfully trapping one of those mons.



The Gengar version of the last team.
Gengar works really well with Zapdos, because Gengar can remove Raikou from the game, which is Zapdos biggest counter.
Thief Gengar is also especially good in this team, because it can make Raikou much easier to beat.



Remember the Nidoking + P2 team?
This is the same team but using Gengar in the last slot.
Gengar works really well in this team because it blocks spin, something Nidoking likes a lot because it is much more effective when there are spikes, and it has a good synergy with Zapdos, as explained in the last team.
This is one of the teams I used to spam the most at this time.


The Tyranitar version.
With Tyranitar instead of Gengar, I lose the spin blocker but I make the team stronger vs explosion teams.
This is the team I used vs Heist in Classic 1 POs game



This was an interesting experiment that ended up working really well, winning a lot of games.
This is the result of mixing the Raikou offense archetype I was spamming at that time with Stall.

Restalk Raikou, Curse EQ Boom Snorlax, Toxic Boom Cloyster, Thief WW Skarmory, Curse Machamp and Sleep HP Fire are the sets used in this team, although the sets could change: for example, Exeggutor could be Stun to para Zapdos instead of sleeping it.

Cloyster is needed in this team to lure Starmie.



Another team that acts as a stall and as an offensive team at the same time.
Gengar gives this team a lot of speed control, and it can explode on things like Umbreon to help Snorlax and Tyranitar. Alternatively, it could also explode on Raikou or Snorlax, cleaning the path for Raikou.
I constantly changed Raikou, Snorlax, Tyranitar and Gengar sets of this team.



Vaporeon Stall.
It worked surprisingly well, because nobody expected last mon Vaporeon.
Forretress was used in this team because the team has pursuit support, can cover grounds well and Forry can Spin and explode at the same time.



This team was used by Conflict in SPL 7 Semifinals vs Bomber (2016)
This was a new concept I thought about. The idea was using a stall team without Skarmory, with Miltank walling most Curse users and most mixed sweepers (such as Nidoking, Tyranitar, etc), Meganium walling Vaporeon and ground attackers (Marowak, Quagsire, etc), Starmie walling mons such as Machamp or Rhydon, Tyranitar trapping ghosts and Exeggutors.
The offensive strategy is trying to break teams with BDLax + SD Wak with Heal Bell and Screens support.



This is Conflict's Heracross team.
This Heracross team is very solid and has answer for nearly every threat. This team has Starmie instead of a Spiker, which gives the team more speed and a reliable check to Charizard, Rhydon and Tentacruel, mons that would have been very annoying if the team had a Spiker instead of a Starmie.
Heracross covers mons such as Nidoking, Quagsire and Marowak, that give a lot of the stalls a lot of trouble.

In my version of this team, I use either Curse BD D-E Snorlax or BD Fire Blast Snorlax as the win condition.
Something important to know, is that a discovery of how stats up worked in GSC changed the mechanics. The result of that disvory was that Skarmory after 1 Curse did no longer tie with Snorlax, it had exactly 1 point less, which means that Snorlax always outspeeds -1 Speed Skarmory.
Because of that reason, Curse BD D-E became a solid way of breaking Skarm + Umbreon/Miltank teams.
Early game Snorlax used Curse, to make the opponent think you are Curse and not BD, and at the right moment, Snorlax uses BD, and the opponent is in trouble, because D-E 2hkoes Skarm and if Skarmory curses after taking a D-E in the switch, it would be slower in the next turn and would die before being able to Rest.

Heracross can also easily force Skarmory to Rest by using Seismic Toss, as I explained in the Heracross stall, and TTar can chip some damage with Pursuit.



You probably have noticed how I have mentioned Charizard several times when talking about stall teams.
That is because Charizard is a great and often overlooked threat for defensive teams.
This team follows the same archetype of Raikou offensive I was using at that time, based around paralysis and with Explosions support (4 boomers in this team).

Usually, vs typical stalls where Raikou is the fastest mon, the easiest way to win is forcing Raikou to rest and then BD with Charizard when the team is a bit weakened.



At this time, I started to use non LK Nidoking to surprise my opponents.
This was probably my favourite Nidoking team at the time, featuring Thief Nidoking to steal Snorlax, Zapdos, Suicune or Vaporeon Leftovers.
The tyranitar set changed a lot, but the version of this team I liked the most had Screech + Roar T-tar.



While last team featured Thief Nidoking, this team features Counter Nidoking.
Counter Nidoking is a great Zapdos lure, because in GSC Counter works against Hidden Power, it doesn't matter the type, so if Zapdos is a bit weakened (for example it it has taken an IB), Counter will kill it.
Tyranitar traps and kills Exeggutor (especially when combined with Zapdos, so Zapdos takes the sleep / stun and then TTar can freely trap it), which is the other big Vaporeon counter in typical offensive teams.
This team has Rapid Spin Forry to be able to spin and boom.



One of the teams I spammed the most, and probably one of the most dangerous teams I had.
The idea of the team is paralyzing everything and then cleaning with SD Marowak, one of the most threatening mons in GSC, being able to get max attack stat after just a single SD.

One of the versions of this team had Light Screen Zapdos + SD Marowak with Fire Blast.
With Light Screen support, SD Marowak becomes a much more dangerous threat, being able to beat waters.
Fire Blast is a very good move in Marowak, especially with Pursuit Tyranitar on the team. With Fire Blast, Marowak will beat Skarmory 1vs1, especially if paralyzed, and not many defensive teams are prepared to face a +2 Marowak that can 3HKO Skarmory.


Other interesting teams I had at that time:

Toxic Encore Alakazam stall
Meganium stall with Missy
Meganium stall with TTar
Spin Tentacruel Stall
Moltres stall
Growth Rest Jolteon Stall
TWave Dnite + Counter Zap Cannon Roar Rhydon + BDZard. Very effective vs stall.
SD Tentacuel with GGar + Egg to lure electrics
Kangaskhan team
BD Encore Clefable, a very dangerous threat for stall (especially umb stall)
Heracross + SD wak + Curse Thunder Lax combo, a lot of pressure for Skarmory
Restalk Machamp parastall

I also had many variations of explosion teams with steelix, tyranitar, gengar, etc. I posted the ones I liked / used the most.

5) Jynx and Golem invasion (2018 - 2019)
After more than 1 year without really playing GSC, after I qualified for Classic 4 POs, I started preparing new teams.
The metagame had changed a lot: pokemons that were very rarely uses such as Rhydon and especially Jynx and Golem had become much more popular, and I had to prepare for them, because some of the teams I had were very weak to them (for example my old reliable Steelix Machamp team was now destroyed by Jynx, and some Tyranitar offensive teams were Rhydon weak).
Golem is something I had already used in 2015, and I already explained in the Golem team I posted what are its advantages. However the set everybody was using was slightly different: it had Roar instead of Fire Blast, so it behaves like a Steelix that can't really lure water types (one of Steelix main advantages) and that is weak to Ice but that can spin, something huge in an offensive team where a lot of times the Cloysters die early.

Some new teams I built or I liked using:


This is probably the most standard Jynx team, originally built by Cased (I think).
In my version of the team, Jynx leads and threatens with sleeping something, but instead of using Lovely Kiss, this Jynx will steal the Leftovers of something (usually a sleep talker like Suicune, Vaporeon, Snorlax or Umbreon). And then Nidoking takes advantage of their sleep talker not having Leftovers, being much more dangerous.
Gengar blocks Spin and could also use Thief.
The team also features 4 Ice Beam / Punch users, so freezing something is not uncommon.

I also recently built another version of this team, which I used vs Earthworm in the last SPL, with Cloyster lead and featuring Reflect Roar Zapdos + Perish Trap Jynx. The idea is that Jynx can perish trap pokemons such as Suicune or Snorlax (with Reflect support), making a Nidoking sweep much easier.



The team I used vs Bomber in Classic 4 POs game vs Bomber.
This team is based on an old team worms posted with Gengar + Alakazam that I liked.
I replaced Alakazam with a threat that is very underrated atm: Growth Espeon.
Espeon is a pokemon that can wall 2 very dangerous threats such as Gengar and Machamp, and use them to set up with Growth and potentially sweep a weakened team. One of the most underrated threats atm.





Golem stall.
The first team the Golem stall ABR built. It works in a similar way than the Umbreon/Tyranitar Suicune stall team, but Golem gives the team a key advantage: having a better Spikes control thanks to Spin, while still walling Fire Lax. Also, it can explode, being able to take out something annoying.

Golem has some issues though: it is double weak to water and grass, it doesn't resist psychic, it doesn't have pursuit (so it will never be able to really replace Tyranitar or Umbreon), and it doesn't have a reliable recovery.
The fact that it is double weak to water and grass means 2 things: the first one is that it won't be able to actively spin vs any of the spikers, Golem must wait to the opportunity to come (usually vs a Raikou, Snorlax, Tyranitar), and the spikers could easily switch in because Golem can't really touch them (unless Golem decides to run Fire Blast instead of Roar, but then Curse Fire Lax is a threat, or it has no boom, but then you should be using Donphan probably). Because of that reason, the team needs a way to lure the spikers, or at least to Toxic the Cloyster. The second thing is that it is very easy to lure with HP Water or with Surf, and the fact that Rhydon also became popular only makes pokemons like Snorlax or Tyranitar randomly having Surf more likely.

Golem not having a reliable recovery means that if Golem is toxiced, it will be losing 1/8 of its HP every time it enters the battlefield, 1/4 if there are spikes and... as I said earlier Golem cannot directly spin vs any of the spikers, which is not a good thing for Golem, unless you decide to run Heal Bell, like Blissey instead of Raikou.

Golem not resisting Psychic means that this stall fails to do one of the things the Tyranitar / Umb version did the best, which was having a very good MU vs mons like Gengar or Exeggutor (especially HP Fire). "But the Misdreavus or the Gengar versions didn't as well". Yes, that's true, but those versions are good at keeping spikes up, something Golem version can't do. So basically, you get none of those advantages to get a more reliable spin, something the Starmie + Umb/TTar version could already do.

So does Golem suck in stall? No, it is a decent choice because of role compression: it can take the role of the Starmie and of the Fire Lax counter in 1 slot, but it cannot do half of the things ttar / umbreon could do, and since Golem is weak to fighting, you cannot really add Umbreon / TTar in the last slot.

The second team is a version of Golem stall I built in the last wcop, with Missy in the last spot to have a better MU vs Machamp and to be able to block spin, as well as having a secondary Fire Lax counter. Sadly, in the wcop game where I used it, my opponent lucked my restalker early (missy) and then a Nidoking eventually won. I had Toxic lax to toxic Cloyster and at the same time to hit Steelix. This version with Missy is weaker vs Steelix and vs fire attackers.

The third team is another version I built, with restalk reflect Zapdos to deal with Mixlax, Nidoking and with Machamp, as well as having a better answer to Vaporeon than the other versions.




A couple of Rhydon stalls I built.
Gengar can sleep Umbreon (or explode on it) helping both Snorlax and Rhydon, and it also blocks spin, making Rhydon more threatening.
On the other hand, Zapdos version is better defensively, but it cannot block spin.

Rhydon stall has very similar problems than Golem stall, with the difference that it is a bigger threat with Curse.



While I don't think that Golem in stall is that good (other than role compression between fire lax check and reliable spin), I think that Golem in offense is a game changer, because Spikes are a major part of the current metagame, and removing them can give you more freedom to switch and slowly recover things with smart switching, and at the same time it can act as the phazer of the team and explode, which is a similar role of what Steelix used to do, with the key differences that Golem will not be able to threaten stall as much as Steelix can and that it won't be able to lure Suicune, although having a reliable spin in offense is possibly worth of it in some cases.

This is an example Golem offense team. The team that I used vs Colchonero in 2015 also works.

Something like Nido, Vap, Machamp, Steelix, etc replacing either GGar or TTar would probably work too.


Another kind of Golem offense, followint the Raikou offense archetype I used to spam in 2015 - 2017.
Snorlax with curse boom eq can lure Skarm, while Egg can lure Zapdos, making Heracross very dangerous.
Defensively this team is very solid, especially if there are no spikes on your side.
This team was already featured by Lavos.




Vaporeon offense with Gengar.
With Jynx popularity, Vaporeon teams are more popular now.
The first version has Pursuit TTar and can Pursuit Egg, while the second version is more solid vs electrics, and Steelix can paralyze Zapdos with a surprise BSlam, something that can help Vaporeon a lot. This second version was the team Earthworm used against me in Wcop.
Gengar is a really good pokemon in the current metagame.

6) Closing Words
It has been nearly 10 years since I started seriously playing GSC, and in these 10 years a lot of things have changed.
This is a compilation of the teams I used across all these years, and I have really enjoyed reading old logs after so much time looking at old teams and seeing how I have been evolving as a player, and how the GSC metagame has been evolving during these 10 years.
 
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in gsc, it is unnecessary for importables bc u seldom need to give mons' evs. u can copy some samples first, have ur own understanding of the tier, then read this thread for further interest.
It's not so much the movesets or evs I am concerned with, but for some reason the first time around I haven't even seen the sprites of the mons so I had to make out what the team was. For some reason that issue is gone and I see all the teams so Woohoo

Also "counter ZC"??? I am not sure I know what M Dragon means.
 

M Dragon

The north wind
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 17 Championis a defending World Cup of Pokemon Championis a Past SPL Champion
World Defender
It's not so much the movesets or evs I am concerned with, but for some reason the first time around I haven't even seen the sprites of the mons so I had to make out what the team was. For some reason that issue is gone and I see all the teams so Woohoo

Also "counter ZC"??? I am not sure I know what M Dragon means.
There was a problem with the sprites and I fixed it, that's the reason why you couldn't see the teams.
Also ZC means Zap Cannon. I edited it in the original post
 
First of all thank you for your post M Dragon.

I have many things to add here:

First of all most of your teams that are "getting destroyed by jynx" can be fixed easily and that is by adding a resttalk snorlax to the lot. Unfortunately you won't be able to counter both perish trap jynx and the standard set with the same pokemon, especially If you don't know the set! But playing aggressive and not giving too much momentum to your opponent can limit these problems. Unfortunately not all your teams can afford to have a resttalk snorlax set but your machamp steelix team works incredibly well with a resttalk snorlax set, for instance and has no true counter (just have to be careful of gengar maybe).

Secondly, I don't find curse porygon2 to be underrated at all. It doesn't really deal enough damage to be considered a "sweeper" and has a lot of issues dealing damage to a lot of popular OU mons.

For example:

Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Misdreavus: 79-93 (24.4 - 28.7%) -- 99.4% chance to 4HKO
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Gengar: 85-101 (26.3 - 31.2%) -- 12.8% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Skarmory: 90-106 (27 - 31.8%) -- 42% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Steelix: 92-109 (26 - 30.8%) -- 4.2% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Forretress: 48-57 (13.5 - 16.1%) -- possibly the worst move ever
+2 Porygon2 Double-Edge vs. Tyranitar: 105-124 (26 - 30.7%) -- 3.4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Porygon2 doesn't beat curselax and never beats a resttalk curselax set. If you try to spam recover It will end up with a crit.

Also porygon2 hates ANY status (even poison). It hates poison because It will take a lot of damage when switching in with spikes + poison making Its entry very difficult to time correctly. Paralysis straight up shut down porygon2 because It won't be able to recover consistently. Status is everywhere and avoiding it is a very difficult but even If you manage to do so, you won't even deal enough damage to a lot of pokemon and curselax will be able to beat you. Also It won't participate at all before the late game because of how much It fears status.


And lastly, golem isn't weak in stall, but It's weak AGAINST stall (big difference). It's weak against stall, simply because a lot of popular stall mons counter it (especially toxic stall) and forretress will switch-in and put spikes back in front of golem, unless you run the (very) rare fire blast. It's countered by toxiclax (and you're in big trouble If your opponent run toxiclax because golem is probably your only firelax check and misdreavus threaten it with toxic or thief). A poisoned or a golem without leftovers is a dead golem. It fears status a lot and the strategy of wearing down cloyster with spikes+ toxic won't work.

However against most cloyster offensive teams with weak spikes protection golem is actually good because of role compression.
 

M Dragon

The north wind
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 17 Championis a defending World Cup of Pokemon Championis a Past SPL Champion
World Defender
First of all thank you for your post M Dragon.

I have many things to add here:

First of all most of your teams that are "getting destroyed by jynx" can be fixed easily and that is by adding a resttalk snorlax to the lot. Unfortunately you won't be able to counter both perish trap jynx and the standard set with the same pokemon, especially If you don't know the set! But playing aggressive and not giving too much momentum to your opponent can limit these problems. Unfortunately not all your teams can afford to have a resttalk snorlax set but your machamp steelix team works incredibly well with a resttalk snorlax set, for instance and has no true counter (just have to be careful of gengar maybe).

Secondly, I don't find curse porygon2 to be underrated at all. It doesn't really deal enough damage to be considered a "sweeper" and has a lot of issues dealing damage to a lot of popular OU mons.

For example:

Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Misdreavus: 79-93 (24.4 - 28.7%) -- 99.4% chance to 4HKO
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Gengar: 85-101 (26.3 - 31.2%) -- 12.8% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Skarmory: 90-106 (27 - 31.8%) -- 42% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Steelix: 92-109 (26 - 30.8%) -- 4.2% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Porygon2 Ice Beam vs. Forretress: 48-57 (13.5 - 16.1%) -- possibly the worst move ever
+2 Porygon2 Double-Edge vs. Tyranitar: 105-124 (26 - 30.7%) -- 3.4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Porygon2 doesn't beat curselax and never beats a resttalk curselax set. If you try to spam recover It will end up with a crit.

Also porygon2 hates ANY status (even poison). It hates poison because It will take a lot of damage when switching in with spikes + poison making Its entry very difficult to time correctly. Paralysis straight up shut down porygon2 because It won't be able to recover consistently. Status is everywhere and avoiding it is a very difficult but even If you manage to do so, you won't even deal enough damage to a lot of pokemon and curselax will be able to beat you. Also It won't participate at all before the late game because of how much It fears status.


And lastly, golem isn't weak in stall, but It's weak AGAINST stall (big difference). It's weak against stall, simply because a lot of popular stall mons counter it (especially toxic stall) and forretress will switch-in and put spikes back in front of golem, unless you run the (very) rare fire blast. It's countered by toxiclax (and you're in big trouble If your opponent run toxiclax because golem is probably your only firelax check and misdreavus threaten it with toxic or thief). A poisoned or a golem without leftovers is a dead golem. It fears status a lot and the strategy of wearing down cloyster with spikes+ toxic won't work.

However against most cloyster offensive teams with weak spikes protection golem is actually good because of role compression.
Hi, first of all thanks for your reply.

About the Jynx issue:
Yes, I know that making Snorlax restalk can potentially fix the "Jynx" issues. My point however was that some of those teams were designed for a metagame where Jynx wasn't used, and will have problems dealing with it. Of course, you can always adapt those teams changing a set or replacing a mon, but keep in mind that some of those teams greatly benefited from other snorlax sets such as fire blast to weaken a skarm, or boom lax, etc
Basically, most of those older teams will still work, but some need to be adapted to be able to deal with jynx better.

About P2 being underrated:
When I say that P2 is underrated I mean that it is very rarely used (for example, in this SPL it was only used once in 47 GSC games.
It is not the same being underrated than being bad.

About the P2 vs Snorlax MU:
P2 CAN beat curselax 1v1 via PP stall. It is also true that a lot of the times curselax just lucks P2 and manages to beat it 1vs1

About golem:
Thing about Golem is that its a pokemon that is typically better in offensive teams, because its a much more agressive spinner than Starmie (which is too passive for most offensive teams), and playing offense without spikes hurting your mons is a big advantage. However this changes in stall teams, where while Golem has good things (role compression), it also has some big problems and limits your team, but not only when facing stall as you mentioned, but also when facing offense.
Im not saying that Golem is bad in stall, but if you use it (which is not a bad option), you should know that its role compression comes at a price.
In a stall team, if you want spin, Starmie + fire lax counter will be more solid most of the times (covers obscure threats such as charizard, moltres or tentacruel, covers machamp, etc) than golem + filler, but because of that role compression there are more viable options in that filler slot.
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
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While we're griping about Porygon2, I agree with Supreetin (to an extent) about its matchup against Curselax. The conventional wisdom that "P2 beats Curselax" seems a little too enthusiastic about P2's prospects. Lax actually has more turns in a pure 1-v-1 scenario (P2 has more PP, but Lax gets to nap), P2 can't actually realistically threaten a KO with its "classic" Return set, and it's hard for P2 to find turns to go for a freeze without opening itself up to a possible crit-kill. Granted, it seems easy for P2 to essentially trade itself for Snorlax in a pure 1-v-1 (via mutual PP exhaustion: if P2 spams Recover every time Lax uses DE, the Lax is going to need to hit 2 crits in relatively short succession). This is a bad trade for your opponent so they should still avoid the matchup if they can, but it's not a clear-cut "victory" for P2 the same way it is for Curse Skarm vs. (most) Curselax. This is important because it makes playing for, say, a P2-vs-Snorlax endgame a lot trickier than the common-wisdom evaluation makes it out to be. Plus, as Supreetin mentioned, if P2 gets statused, it makes playing for even a trade complicated. The Lax has realistic chances to muscle its way past a Poisoned or Paralyzed P2, for instance: Poison reduces the rate at which Porygon2 recovers from a crit DE, thereby expanding your window for getting a second one; and Paralysis obviously denies you Recover turns.

The most plausible way I see P2 outright beating Lax is by being able to "hide" for more turns in the middlegame and thereby come into the endgame matchup with far fewer spent PP than Snorlax (and having avoided status to boot). In this case, P2 needs support from other Lax checks to waste its PP; it's a complicated matchup, and it seems ill-advised to just throw P2 in against Snorlax willy-nilly because "Cursegon2 beats Curselax".

(EDIT: after thinking on it more [thanks lockdown!], P2 gets more chances to ice beam than I originally gave it credit for. The chance to freeze after EQ turns is roughly 3 times higher than the chance of getting crit-killed, and the odds that the freeze converts into a kill before Lax can thaw are at least 3/5, so using Ice Beam after low-roll EQs tilts in P2's favor to the tune of roughly 9:5 odds. This matchup still has loads of twists and turns, so the more general point that P2 vs. Snorlax is pretty complicated still stands. It does seem like it ends in P2's favor more often than not, though.)

And for something completely different: I like your growthpass team. That's a concept I've wanted to see become more of a thing for a while. It's more capable of playing defense than the all-in AgiPass team can (mostly by virtue of being able to use Water and Ice STABs against opposing Ground-types). And Jynx as a recipient seems really strong. Unfortunately, it looks like ST Lax and Blissey are becoming more popular, which doesn't kill this sort of team, but definitely make its life a lot more complicated.
 
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Fantastic post. I learned more about GSC in this single post discussing team builds than I have found anywhere else. It not only shows your history of team building and growth along the way, but how the metagame has developed over the last decade. Learning an old metagame isn't as simple as "what is everyone using let me just use that." You miss out on all the collective knowledge that comes before it and reasoning as to why people use certain sets / all the old gimmicks along the way. It's like learning chess theory. If you try to imitate what the best players are doing, somewhere along the way some guy is going to come out using an old trick from 5+ years ago leaving you clueless.
 

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