Id like to bring up something that has been bothering me for a long time. This is going to be a long post as I am pretty adamant about this, and I dont see myself continuing playing this tier competitively anymore as long as this «problem» still exists in the tier. The problem I am refering to is none other than the face of stall, the big fat pink blob ofc. In this post Im going to do my best to make the case that Blissey is extremely unhealthy for the tier.
First off, making the case that Blissey is broken is certainly harder than doing so for other threats that we have banned before. Typically defensive mons arent banned as its seldom as obvious they are problematic. Arguing that offensive powerhouses are too good is usually pretty easy. Usually it goes along the lines of «it has no counters» and «hard to revenge kill». When you try to make the case that a defensive pokemon is too good obviously you have to attack it from a different angle. What constitutes a broken «defensive» pokemon? Its hard to answer really. If it walls 90% of the tier its obviously broken. But you would have to have Ferrothorn down in PU for that to be a realistic scenario. To make the argument that Blissey is too good you have to look at what it does for the stall archetype, because that is where it shines. Before I get to that Id like to adress the negative aspects of using Blissey, and why I ultimately dont think they matter in the slightest under the right cirumstances.
Blissey is as everyone knows slow, weak and a complete momentum suck. If youre building a team and just slap Blissey on there its probably going to be terrible. While it provides a guaranteed switch in to nearly every special attacker in the tier, it also invites in very powerful physical attackers, hazard setters etc without any way to apply any sort of meaningful pressure to the opponents team. This admittedly sounds terrible. It is by no means splashable. Which is why its not super high up on the viablity rankings. Which makes sense. However, when you are using stall, none of these things matter much. On stall all of your mons are momentum sucks. Stall doesnt rely on momentum at all. The playstyle is all about staying around until the opponents team is worn down enough until defeat is inevitable. What Blissey brings to these kinds of teams is extremely valuable. Whereas on other teams you have to account for type effectiveness when trying to check different type of threats, Blissey with its enourmous special bulk and neutrality to every type except fighting (a type in which special attackers are severely lacking anyway) covers too much of the metagame to the point that any stall team not using Blissey will always be worse than stall teams that do.
This is by no means controversial as you generally never see stall teams without Blissey. Now, is this a problem in itself? Surely just because something is used on 100% of one type of team doesnt automaticly make it broken. Sharpedo is also the face of HO, and that isnt broken. Yes, thats true. But you can make very good HO voltturn teams with lets say Manectric>Sharpedo aswell. Sharpedo doesnt outsclass manectric in any way. If you opt for something like sp def sylveon or umberon instead of blissey you are objectively worse off in 99% of MUs.
Ok so Blissey is too valuable to pass up when using stall. But what specifically makes it too good? In order for me to make a case for this I have to talk about the typical teammates used together with Blissey aswell. This might be frowned upon, but as I said earlier, in order to argue that a defensive mon is broken you have to look at it from a very different angle than when looking at offensive threats. The cookie cutter stall team has Blissey/alomomola/quagsire and then 3 other pokemon to counter the rest of the metagame. These work so Incredibly well together its not even funny. Blissey takes care of all sp attackers bar dedicated stallbreakers, alomomola takes on all non setup physical attackers except from a those with favorable typing’s (grass/electric) like Zeraora or Tsareena, and Quagsire takes care of the physical attackers that try to setup with swords dance. Just with these three you have covered a huge amount of the metagame and it is left to the rest of the three other members to cover the aforementioned stallbreakers, hazard setters, grass types etc. Obviuously im not saying you have to use quag and alo. You have other options like pyukumuku and slowbro, but the result is the same. One insanely bulky water and one unaware user. Blissey ofc is always there tho. In order to break the problem down and make the it more concrete im going to present a to you the following stall team:
Blissey/Quagsire/Alomomola/Mega altaria/Scizor/Nihilego
This team has been Pif aka Pokemonisfuns go to team as he made his recent return to the UU ladder after a long hiatus. Now for my next point lets move down the viablity rankings and list all the offensive pokemon that have any sort of chance of breaking through this team:
LO mix Hydreigon, SD fight z Terrakion, NP Lucario, Mix LO kommo-o, SP Nidoking, sub CM chandelure, Decidueye, Haxorus.
Maybe if you look very hard you can find a couple more. Now if you sigle out the ones that are somewhat splashable and see consistent usage (talking about the mon + the actual set here, not just the mon) the list narrowes down to:
Terrakion, Lucario, Hydreigon, Kommo-o.
If you also consider the fact that you have to support these pokemon really well in the stall MU as you dont want to just throw them nillywilly into toxic and whatnot, you need mons that can consistently switch into blissey and alomomola. As they are the pokemon on stall that typically come in the most and thow out toxics and knock offs here and there.
Believe me when I say this makes building offense a true nightmare. Any cool idea you might come up with that you wanna try. If you want the team to be able to beat good stall players. You can just forget it 90% of the time. This is what has lead most ladder players to stick their heads in the sand often completely neglect the stall MU. Which again leads to stuff like this:
Now to my last point. If we look at tournaments none of these infamous stall players on the ladder have exemplary track records. Surely if Blissey was broken, someone like pif would just plow though all his opponents and grab every trophy. Well, it’s not that easy. If you are known for using stall, word is obviously going to get around. Your teams have probably been seen a thousand times, because let’s face it, there are only so many different stall teams you can make. Creativity isnt excactly the cornerstone of the playstyle. Sooner or later someone like pif is going to face that one guy who has his coveted «pif antistall» team ready for action. And here we get to the bottom of why I think Blissey is so unhealthy for this tier. When good players using stall builds with blissey achieve 96% gxe on the ladder, and tour players build 80% of their teams not giving a shit about the stall MU, but instead load up their antistall when they are facing someone known for being able to use stall, then that atleast in my eyes makes it very clear that Blissey is unhealthy.
To prove my point, that counterteaming is the most used method of beating stall, Im now going to list some teams posted by highly regarded users from the thread “sample teams” and some teams from UU majors finals in order to show how even top tour players choose to gamble with match up and neglect that their team loses to Blissey in team preview.
Im going to look at how all these teams fare vs PIFs team as it is the only stallteam I know well atm that does well in the current meta.
PIFs antistall: Blissey/Alomomola/Quagsire/Scizor/Nihilego/Altaria-Mega
First im going to look at the teams used in UU majors finals:
(Edion majors finals r1) : Crawdaunt/Klefki/Gligar/Latias/Manectric/Tentacruel
Ok so this is the first one. Not a single pokemon on Edion team is able to break through PIFs stall by a longshot. I guess he thought banded daunt would suffice as antistall measures but that aint doing shit to max def Altaria. Too bad. Klefki spikes are always instantly removed by scizor and so are gligar rocks. Win = impossible
(Edion majors finals r2): Suicune/Moltres/Blastoise/Diancie/Krookodile/Scizor
In this one he really didn’t give a shit. No variant of suicune is stalling out AloBlissQuag etc ever. The rest of the mons just simply cant do anything.
(Harris majors finals r2): Hippowdown/Empoleon/Aerodactyl/Scizor/Latias/Bewear
Harris brought a reuniclus r1. If it was energy ball it could have 6-0ed PIF stall. I suppose he was fearing Edion would bring stall. G2 however he felt like he couldt screw around with niche stallbreakers anymore though and went with a team that, while not completely helpless, almost guaranteed loses vs stall. SD bewear can never break a well played quag and the rest of the team except empoleon are just stall fodder.
Now to the sample teams thread:
(Sample team aim HO): Crawdaunt/Azelf/Manectric/Starmie/Scizor/Mamoswine
Complete food for PIFs GXE. Do I even need to say anything. Every mon is sashed. The breaking power is nonexistent.
(Sample team adaam HO): Bisharp/frosslass/doublade/latias/sharpedo/Kommo-o
If you are under the Impression mixed taunt Kommo-o singlehandedly beats stall you are wrong. This team is also completely helpless vs any good stall team.
(sample team vivalospride BO): Beedrill/Kommo-o/Rotom-H/Doublade/Krookodile/Primarina
Again, even though these builders seem to think slapping taunt kommo-o makes the stall MU winnable it doesn’t. This one admittedly fares better since it has some support in tspikes and a voltturn core, but if this team were to win vs a well played stall it would be close to a miracle.
If im wrong and Blissey/stall isnt too hard to prep for. Why do all these teams do so poorly vs Blissey. Surely these teams wouldnt be used in UU majors finals or posted in sample teams if they were 6-0ed by Sharpedo HO. Why its it then ok to neglect the stall MU?
Here is a fun little replay between pasy_g and shiba (from snake I think?):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-398082
Here Shiba is down 1-5 and wins with Blissey. Again goes to show pasy_g thought his bewear would be his savior vs stall, but he ended up being 6-0ed by Blissey alone on a Balance build.
Now for my last point lets look at PIFs Grand slam matches vs Adaam:
These players know each other very well btw. So adaam is fully aware PIF is a menace with stall
G1:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-386466
Here both players brought Blissey. Not gonna comment this
G2:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-386478
PIF won G1 and brings the same stall team G2. Adaam is smart though and he has his antistall ready. He knows exactly what he is up against and brings CB Terrakion with rest (lol) and future sight slowbro. Adaam is a good player and the MU is actually in his favor this match, although PIF can certainly win if he plays better. In the end adaam wins.
G3:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7uu-386479
PIF steps out of his comfort zone, brings offense and is almost 6-0ed.
Now that concludes this insanely long post. I hope no one mentioned here gets offended by this. I have not been trying to step on any toes. With this im trying to create a discussion on the matter. I know this is very controversial, which is why ive done my best to argue my case in the best way possible. I think UU is a really, really fun tier, but I cant bring myself to play anymore tours with Blissey in the tier. This probably stems from having both my Grand slam runs being cut short my stall players so there might be some bias involved here. Ill be the first one to admit that. But I still believe my arguments are solid, and Im hoping we can have a constructive debate.
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