Gen 1 [Stadium OU] Shades of a Super Saiyajin

Lutra

Spreadsheeter by day, Random Ladderer by night.
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Lutra's Stadium OU Team #1: Shades of a Super Saiyajin


Introduction

Time for a RMT in the other tier I'm most associated with, Stadium OU. Stadium OU has virtually the same bans as RBY OU, but different mechanics — most notably: Substitute blocking all status; shortened sleep (1-3 turns); Hyper Beam always needing to recharge and Focus Energy actually working! These 4 changes are very much reflected in the team, with Substitute on 5/6 Pokémon, no Sleep Powder on Exeggutor, no Hyper Beam on Tauros and Golem around to keep critical hit happy Jolteon in check.

The theme of the nicknames is based on Super Saiyan forms, most of which were introduced in the newest DBZ movies and Dragon Ball Super. Gold refers to the regular Super Saiyan forms with the golden aura, while SSJ Rosé, Red (God), Berserk, Rage and Blue are forms used by Goku Black, Goku, Kale, Trunks and Vegeta&Goku respectively in Dragon Ball Super.

History

Pokémon Online Era

The PO Stadium OU tier started off with a very powerful bug where Light Screen and Reflect would last infinite turns for all Pokémon, instead of just the user. When Stadium mechanics were finally working well, I decided to try one of my standard RBY OU teams, which used Persian in place of Snorlax, in Stadium. Gradually, I decided on Starmie as a lead, and a few moveset changes took place, such as spamming Substitute on most Pokémon, famously on Chansey. I had a really fun time in Stadium, and Stadium OU was the only PO ladder I had achieved over 1500 in.



Pokémon Showdown Era

Fastforward to 2015 on Pokémon Showdown! when old gen developer Joim implemented Stadium, it'd take over another year before I could give it attention with a tournament, and even the interest for that fell below my expectations. Nevertheless it was a chance for me to play skilled opponents, which I rarely played on the Stadium PO ladder back in the day. Researcher froggy25 also discovered that critical hit rates were different in Stadium. In addition, Team Preview was now a thing, better simulating in-game, and Focus Energy finally worked (it didn't on PO if I remember correctly). Team-wise, I switched out Starmie for Sub Alakazam, and Persian for Sub Snorlax.

In forum tournaments, I finished joint 1st (7-3 record) on my own forums and had a 12-2 record in the Stadium OU World Championship tournament on Smogon, before I suffered a terrible cruel hax fate at the hands of a frenchman, no not RBY ace linek as a couple of people might assume, but none other than highly revered Peasounay. Peasounay managed to freeze Tauros on 3 consecutive occasions, which to this day, still leaves me with an enduring sense of bitterness. Defeat to him incremented my record by 1-3, which took it to 20-8. Since that day however, I've successfully used the team in room tournaments, without too much difficulty. Given the fairly good record, I feel it is worthy of an RMT, even if another part of me feels this tier is still relatively new and in need of more exploration.



Team Strategy

Step 1: Choosing your lead

Most of the time, you will be going with Alakazam. If you suspect they will lead with Snorlax, you want to lead with Exeggutor. Likewise if you suspect they will lead with Alakazam you can go Snorlax, however Substitute Snorlax wants to stay unparalyzed ideally, so leading with your Zam might be ultimately in your interests. Snorlax has nearly double the critical hit rate of RBY though, so it certainly does pose more of a threat to an unparalyzed Chansey switching in, one of the techniques used to brush off an early Snorlax assault.

Step A: Thunder Wave & Substitute

Generally, you want to paralyze and abuse Substitute as much as you are allowed to. When to use Substitute involves a lot of prediction. The ideal time for you is when your opponent wants to paralyze you and is slower than you. If you lose a speed tie or they are faster than you and they paralyze you (think Alakazam, Chansey), and you don't paralyze them back with say Thunder Wave, you've lost your opportunity for a while if they can then use Substitute to block your following attempts.

To summarize, using Substitute first in a speed tie situation is a better chance for you to stay unparalyzed, but also a better chance for the opponent to stay paralyzed, since if you win the tie you have avoided paralysis, but have also avoided paralyzing the opponent. Using Thunder Wave first, the standard play, gives you a 50%+ chance of paralyzing the opponent.

At a certain point, it may be beneficial for the opponent to take a Thunder Wave, knowing they can get Fully Paralyzed and use up less PP, in order to try to win the PP Stall war and make you Struggle first. This is is usually the case when the physical threat to Chansey no longer exists or is OHKOed.

Step B: Sleep Absorbing

Sleep is much less worrying than standard RBY, but I would recommend letting Exeggutor take the sleep most of the time if it's a Gengar or Exeggutor doing the sleeping. The worst scenario is Exeggutor is going to take two more turns (additional to the one it got slept in) to wake up, and switching to something that actually deals a lot of damage to Exeggutor is going to take up 1 turn, so you can stay either stay in or switch, at some point your Exeggutor is probably going to wake up ready to do something more, provided you don't let it take ice / fire attacks etc. while it's sleeping – they are best handled by Chansey.

Step C: Tauros vs Chansey (Mindgaming for Survival)

You think it would make life easier for Chansey, with Tauros's crit chance reduced and Hyper Beam having to always recharge. Well that is kind of the case, but Tauros now has gained a very effective way to block Thunder Wave from Chansey with the use of Substitute, so it's now a case of predicting for your life with both Tauros and Chansey. Tauros doesn't want to waste 25% HP with substitutes, and Chansey wants its Thunder Wave to make contact. Tauros especially wants a critical hit when it's got a sub up versus Chansey.

Team Analysis


Gold (Alakazam)
[Psychic | Recover | Substitute | Thunder Wave]

"I absolutely won't forgive you."

Versus other Alakazam, you probably want to Thunder Wave, to increase the odds it won't get back in easily, with every other of your Pokémon having ways to deal significant damage to it. Against Jynx, using Substitute is not a bad idea to block Lovely Kiss, since it wouldn't be unfair to assume a lot of Jynx users don't really know the intricacies of the sub-generation. Even if they know your plan and break your substitutes and you have to use Recover at some point, you know sleep isn't a big deal (lasting only another 2 turns maximum). When facing Exeggutor, you can either try subbing on it or just go to your own Exeggutor anticipating Double-Edge. For Chansey, it's a good idea to paralyze it usually just as you would in RBY, and spam Psychic, and get a substitute up if it lacks Seismic Toss.


Rosé (Chansey)
[Seismic Toss | Soft-Boiled | Substitute | Thunder Wave]

"Rejoice. Son Goku. You have reached the height of beauty at my hand."

Like every Pokémon in this team, you want this unparalyzed, although taking paralysis may be a good option when PP stalling comes in to play, and to avoid getting frozen. I first started using Substitute on Chansey when I lost by getting frozen in a Chansey ditto at the end of a battle. Thunder Waving an opposing Ice Beam Chansey, and substituting as soon as the substitute breaks, ensures you can't get frozen by Ice Beam. If they have both Ice Beam and Thunderbolt, then you have an opportunity at some point to switch-in your Snorlax and substitute on it. Chansey is otherwise a good special wall to absorb the elemental attacks directed at Golem, Exeggutor and Tauros, Snorlax.


Red (Golem)
[Earthquake | Explosion | Rock Slide | Substitute]

"This is gettin' excitin'."

Golem is a important wall to help against Jolteon's new toy: Focus Energy. After a focus energy, Jolteon has over a 70% chance to critical hit. That may sound good for Jolteon, but Jolteon now has a 4MSS issue where it has to replace either Thunder Wave or Pin Missile. The other two moves will surely be Thunderbolt and Double Kick. So if their Jolteon Thunder Waves your Chansey, you can probably safely deduce they have either Focus Energy or Pin Missile. You can test this by switching to Exeggutor one time and then back to Golem, which will help it take one less Double Kick, the primary tactic to wear Golem down. Golem is also good at walling Zapdos, which may put a substitute up now.

Originally I had Body Slam over Rock Slide, but I feel now there's plenty of paralysis support and doing some nice damage with Rock Slide is more beneficial. The rest of the moves are fairly standard, Explosion providing support against Slowbro and Substitute being even more useful in Stadium, blocking the sleeping moves and Stun Spore.


Berserk (Exeggutor)
[Double-Edge | Explosion | Psychic | Stun Spore]

"Son Goku. Son Goku..."

Sleep Power is no longer needed, since sleep is pretty poor. Stun Spore acts as the replacement Sleep Powder and lets you keep your 4th slot attack, which in this case is Double-Edge to hurt Alakazam and frail friends, but you can go Mega Drain for use versus Slowbro, and to regain a bit more HP to last longer. Double-Edge has the additional benefit of not taking recoil damage when the opponent is KOed by it. Just like RBY, this wants to go in to wall other Exeggutor to protect Chansey from boom, and Alakazam from Double-Edge, as well as be the standard switch-in to Golem and Rhydon.


Rage (Tauros)
[Blizzard | Body Slam | Earthquake | Substitute]

"[Goku] Black! You... You..."

Tauros has lost the ability to do extreme damage with Hyper Beam, and instead its mindgames shift to substitutes, particular against Chansey, as mentioned in Team Strategy. In Tauros dittos, you now either have the option of Body Slamming ~4 times or using Blizzard and going for the freeze, but beware it does miss and can be a 5HKO if you keep getting minimum damage. Tauros now has a harder time against Snorlax because of lacking Hyper Beam.


Blue (Snorlax)
[Body Slam | Earthquake | Self-Destruct | Substitute]

"You never knew, but I too can turn into that which surpasses the legendary Super Saiyan."

Fairly standard Snorlax, but it can put substitutes up against a Chansey which may stay in to Thunder Wave or Counter it and get an extra attack (and possible chance of paralysis) in assuming Chansey doesn't break the substitute or something else switches in. Hiding behind a Substitute is also a good way to shift the focus from a potential boom you might decide to do. Explosion/Self-destruct sacrifices the user on substitutes now though, so Tauros can now use Substitute to avoid a potential boom.* Remember, you generally don't have to worry about Hyper Beam from Tauros, so can cut it even closer with deciding when to boom, but watch out for critical hits nevertheless.

Strengths and Weaknesses

This team is very standard, using the big 4 & Zam. Chansey acts a special wall, Golem, Exeggutor, Tauros and Snorlax help out on the defensive side. Golem is the Zapdos/Jolteon counter while Exeggutor is a strong check to the rocks. Both Tauros and Snorlax are physical sweepers which take advantage of paralysis spreading, with Substitute potentially being used until the opponent FPs.

The team does lack an ice resist, so can be vulnerable to freeze and powerful ice attacks. Substitute does somewhat help, but the attacks either break the subs or come from a faster Pokémon a lot of the time. The team entirely lacks thunderbolt, so Kingler (and Gyarados to an extent) has the potential to deal a lot of damage if it takes advantage of paralysis support and Slowbro finds it easier to set up.

Gold (Alakazam)
- Psychic
- Recover
- Substitute
- Thunder Wave

Rosé (Chansey)
- Seismic Toss
- Soft-Boiled
- Substitute
- Thunder Wave

Red (Golem)
- Earthquake
- Explosion
- Rock Slide
- Substitute

Berserk (Exeggutor)
- Double-Edge
- Explosion
- Psychic
- Stun Spore

Rage (Tauros)
- Blizzard
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Substitute

Blue (Snorlax)
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Self-Destruct
- Substitute
Conclusion

This tier is known for its stall, which puts off plenty of the mainstream RBYers. It's probably a more centralized tier also, with plainer looking movesets being the result of having to make room for Substitute. Having said that, I still encourage you to explore it and innovate it. There's a chance you could make it seem less boring with an exciting set discovery. I had plenty of fun times in the PO era against weaker opponents.

*Due to a bug on PS as of writing, boom users are still surviving when they boom on substitutes.

 
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