How do you break stall?

[champagnepapi]

Even while new offensive threats continue to emerge, stall remains a prevalent force in the metagame and is always something that should be accounted for during teambuilding. What I'm asking with this thread is how you guys personally take steps to break stall with their team. One combo I'm liking as of recent is Charge Beam LO Alakazam+Spikes+Spinblocks, I dont use a spinner because Alakazam has magic guard and all I need to do is assure my Spikes get up. Basically once I get my stuff up I just double switch in Alakzam and start wreaking havoc on their team; Focus Blast and Charge Beam assure I can mess up whatever switches in either with a Spa boost or heavy damage. Another cool combo is Scarftar+Reuniclus+Hazards, almost all of Reuniclus counters [stallbreaker mew psong celebi scizor latias rachi] all hate hazards and/or are pursuit weak, so basically I just get my spikes up quickly send in rank to lure it's counter in and then either force them out or double switch in tar when I predict them to bring in the counter and then pursuit or Crunch them so that Reuniclus can get an easy sweep, as most stall/balance teams only bring 1 reuniclus counter.

 

[darkfighter]

Considering that my team is pretty much a stall team itself, my strategies to break walls are rather simple.

A Jellicent with Taunt can stop walls from doing their thing, and then attempt to use toxic if the decide to stay in.

Skarmory and Heatran can also be effective stall breaker, given the right moveset. Skarm can setup spikes, and then blow away whatever wall tries to get in the way. Heatran is similar, except I like to burn before using roar to phaze things.

The best way to break stall is to outstall. At least, in my opinion.

 

[Lila.]

Yeah, it honestly depends on what sort of stall you're talking about. Although basically, an essential part of not getting destroyed by stall it to make sure that your team is not hurt by entry hazards a lot. Having multiple places where skarmory can set up for free very easily is usually not beneficial to lots of teams. If you happen to run offense, then something like swords dance lucario + terrakion can easily break stall provided that you play correctly (or if you're facing a very average stall player). Honestly, stall teams are like a stack of dominoes, once you take out their listed "counter" or "check" (or at least weaken it), then you generally won't have a problem breaking through the rest of the time provided that you don't play like an idiot. If you're facing a great player it makes it much different though, as more seasoned stall players are very aware of this fact and can take advantage of it through smart play and finding more places to set up hazards to take the momentum of the game. Making sure that your team can withstand the long haul when facing stall teams is obviously a huge part of it too though..

Prediction and smart play is probably the biggest weapon against stall. Typically, slower teams tend to have a hard time picking up momentum (especially without lots of entry hazards). If one manages to make enough correct switches, and the opposing stall team does not get up enough entry hazards, then they will crack under pressure. This is especially prevalent with the huge power creep that B/W has brought to the game. Before, it was difficult to break stall with only a few offensive threats, but now with stuff like lo terrakion (who can weaken or ko everything on a standard stall team) it is harder to run a bog standard stall team without some adjustments to deal with these sorts of threats. I usually just deal with stall teams through correct prediction and smart play. If I happen to have a good offensive combo (like cb tyranitar + reuniclus or whatever) then it just makes winning against a typical stall player even easier.

 

[Anti]

For awhile I just wasn't skilled enough to break it. I'm probably still not. But one thing that did work for me when i played some Gen 4 was just putting in a dedicated stallbreaker and surrounding it with a little support. My favorite was:

Heracross @ Life Orb
Trait: Guts
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Megahorn
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

With SR and screen support (the latter mostly useful vs. offense teams) it would handle stall pretty well. Since people had stopped packing Aerial Ace on Gliscor because Hera was irrelevant by then, you could use Hera's number one counter as set-up bait. Good times. It does has longevity issues but as Lila said you just need to knock down the first few dominoes and you'll be good as long as you don't totally screw up!

Agreeing with a lack of hazard weaks. It's especially helpful for "buying time" to wear down and eventually overcoming a few key members, and then the flood gates open more often than not.

Regardless, against a good player I find stallbreaking frustrating at the best of times. I think your ability to break it is a pretty good indicator of your battling skill though.

 

[Dark Azelf]

By being a stall player last gen i actually dont believe stall is viable this gen. Every single stall team has some huge flaw that ive seen which makes them easy to pick apart. I.e no spinblocker teams, teams without spin, teams that are weak to weather etc.

Its essentially impossible to have a near fool proof stall team like last gen and cover every major threat like you could back then. Which brings me to my point, just use something that hits hard (i.e Double Dance Haxorus) and/or is anti metagame. For example, Specs Heatran in the sun destroys essentially everything on standard stall. Trapping is also a great way to bring down walls and turn the match on its head. Special walls are the easiest to target because for the most part are easy to exploit and easy to break with any respectable special attack stat (Gastrodon) or easy to Trap (Sp.Def Jirachi, Ferrothorn [Both make your whole team essentially Sub Charge Beam Magnezone weak], Blissey). Speaking of trapping, Dugtrio also removes Heatran and Tyranitar so you can just overwhelm with the foe with weather after. If you aren't retarded its pretty easy this gen and takes next to no skill at all to break stall.

Another good way to not be total stall bait is to not use Pokes that are set up fodder. A good example is Porygon2 and awful choice users, they makes your entire team weak to stall so its best to think when adding those sort of Pokemon to teams.

 

[champagnepapi]

Tabloo sucks ass but I feel like you can play stall this gen if you focus on checking threats rather than stall functions and winning through skill. A rain stall team like IR [although there are more effective builds than this have no trouble checking the majority of the metagame's threats, albeit they lack spinblocks, they can beat other stall by attacking the other tenta ferociously while keeping their own safe, or running subcm rachi or stallbreak mew etc.