I'm posting this to serve as a starting point for people to get into GSC. If one team, the offensive or defensive, of the two I posted were to be considered "the" standard team, it'd be this one, the defensive team, even though I personally prefer the offensive one. DISCLAIMER (this also applies to the offensive standard team): These are not "my" teams. They are versions of age-old team archetypes, perhaps with my own personal preferences subtly mixed in, but they're not ideas I pioneered or anything. This is just me relaying the ideas of standard teams to y'all so you have a place to start playing GSC. At a glance: Nidoking (M) @ Leftovers - Earthquake - Thunder - Ice Beam - Lovely Kiss Nidoking leads us off and does a couple things for this team. He's the main source of instant offense so that this team isn't totally in predictable stall mode all the time. He's also the team's Sleeper and also carries a crucial Ground typing to give me a Thunder immunity and therefore another thing to stay in against Roar Raikou (which works best against stall teams). Thunder on Nidoking is used to allow for a 3HKO and paralysis against Suicune. Thunderbolt is just too weak, even if it's good for dealing with Cloyster without the fear of missing. Raikou @ Leftovers - Thunderbolt - Hidden Power [Ice] - Rest - Sleep Talk Raikou here serves an almost entirely defensive role. He is the team's sleep talker that allows me a switch-in of some sort against Exeggutor Sleep Powders. He's also the main line of defense against Gengar, Vaporeon, Zapdos, and a whole host of other speedy threats that some teams just aren't fast enough to deal with. Zapdos could work here, too: it would allow me to switch something in to take opposing Nidoking's sleep in addition to giving me another pseudo-check to those scary Ground-types. However, having only Nidoking + Snorlax as my true Electric counters is a dicey situation, so I prefer Raikou. I prefer Thunderbolt over Thunder on this team because Raikou's purpose is more defensive glue than wallbreaker. Having that accurate STAB is crucial when it comes to putting away threats such as Tyranitar or Exploders such as Gengar and Cloyster. Plus Thunder misses can give Vaporeon an opening to luck its way into a sweep or opposing Snorlax an opening to set up and do its thing, and Thunder can cause PP issues, too. Snorlax (M) @ Leftovers - Frustration - Earthquake - Belly Drum - Rest Drumlax is how I can smash past opposing stalls. Get Nidoking to put in some chip damage, coupled with this team's Toxics and Spikes, and eventually enough of the opposing team will be slept/statused/weakened to where you can drum up and attempt a sweep. When you aren't sweeping, you're either attacking (STAB Frustration is still really strong even without boosts) or dozing off to get your health up/wall something important. Speaking of Frustration, that's my STAB of choice on this set since Body Slam misses out on a lot of OHKOs whereas Double-Edge drains way too much of your health when sweeping. Drumming is typically a very risky endeavor, but you can try to pull it off early to surprise your opponent or force them to Explode their Spiker early or something. Normally, though, you're better off waiting for some chumps to be caught Resting or Paralyzed so you can be certain that Snorlax won't be facing a counterattack after giving up half its health. Cloyster (M) @ Leftovers - Surf - Toxic - Rapid Spin - Spikes Cloyster sets Spikes. He also spins them to allow the team more leeway to switch Nidoking and Snorlax in to do damage. However, no Explosion makes stopping sweeps, particuarly by Vaporeon and Snorlax, more difficult. Toxic can allow you to wear down opposing Cloyster and Starmie over time, and can also nail Snorlax, too. Miltank (F) @ Leftovers - Body Slam - Growl - Milk Drink - Heal Bell The cleric, it wakes Snorlax up from its naps quickly to allow it a chance to drum up again after restoring its health, in addition to clearing away paralysis, poison, and other inconvenient statuses. It also can spam Body Slams to get para on key threats and Growls to deal with Fire Blast Snorlaxen and the Hard Cursers (Tyranitar, Rhydon, Steelix). Miltank is a pretty basic Pokemon, but it's effective, although in my experience it's very vulnerable to critical hits and other such "bad luck", so I typically don't like to stall with it unless I have to, and even then I like having that Lax Toxic'd so he's forced to Rest at some point instead of spamming DE nonstop hoping for the crit or Bslam hoping for the parahax. Skarmory (F) @ Leftovers - Drill Peck - Toxic - Whirlwind - Rest Stops Snorlax/Heracross/Marowak/Exeggutor, can maybe abuse Spikes (if they're up) to WW shuffle once the field is filled with nothing but Pokemon it resists. Plus WW just allows it to serve a necessary niche and counter threats like Umbreon and non-Thunder Missy and Snorlax for the team. I like Toxic because it can nail Fire Blast Lax that might stay in, and it can also catch Cloyster and Roar Raikou and Mixed Tyranitar that might be aiming to capitalize off of Skarm. Can't stall last-poke Curselax without Curse, but then again, that's what Miltank is there for. Skarm is also cool for catching stuff like Cloyster Explosions in addition to its other defensive duties. I make it female to avoid being screwed over by the odd Attract Missy; it's not like Drill Peck is ever killing anything anyway. Keep in mind that justifications of moves in certain slots are more me describing why I prefer those moves and NOT me describing why they're definitively better. You could definitely use Thunder on Raikou, Curse on Skarmory, or Explosion on Cloyster and not necessarily be worse off for it. You could also use different mons in some of these slots: for example, Cloyster could be replaced by Starmie and, while the team might function differently due to the lack of Spikes, it would ultimately still be a good team. Ultimately, I would say that this team is somewhat weak to stuff like Thunder Misdreavus and Growth Jolteon because Skarm is the only Phazer. However, having Nidoking and Snorlax around allows for some counterplay against these threats, so ultimately it just comes down to smart play to avoid being screwed over by these guys. Aside from that, this is a version of the standard stall team that actually has a lot of attacking moves, so it doesn't just roll over to an offensive team's will all the time (although the lack of Explosions makes it a lot more difficult to close out a game when using this team). Finally, the importable: Spoiler Nidoking (M) @ Leftovers - Earthquake - Thunder - Ice Beam - Lovely Kiss Raikou @ Leftovers - Thunderbolt - Hidden Power [Ice] - Rest - Sleep Talk Snorlax (M) @ Leftovers - Frustration - Earthquake - Belly Drum - Rest Cloyster (M) @ Leftovers - Surf - Toxic - Rapid Spin - Spikes Miltank (F) @ Leftovers - Body Slam - Growl - Milk Drink - Heal Bell Skarmory (F) @ Leftovers - Drill Peck - Toxic - Whirlwind - Rest[/HIDE]
Spoiler [/HIDE] I remember you Jørgen.. I stole a team of you because I wanted to join a GSC OU tournament xD Great team and it's well balanced, you made a team with the three most annoying defensive walls in the metagame. I love the movesets and Nidoking as a lead. But I think your team will have a threat if it battles a similar team.. I'd prefer to change EQ on Snorlax for Fire Blast to OHKO Skarmory users, because you already have EQ on Nidoking.. Anyway, as always you're a GSC legend that I'll always respect. You did well to share your teams with us to present this under-used metagame to new players like you did to me a long time ago :)
Spoiler 1.] "I'm posting this to serve as a starting point for people to get into GSC." Hes posting this to help others, not to show off. 2.] He specifically said that these weren't his teams. Anyway, this a very solid team with a strong defensive core. The only thing that looks really threatening to me is explosion offense, if gengar /exeggutor catchs raikou with it then stuff like Vaporeon / Electrics instantly become big trouble so I would think you would have to play carefully vs explosion. Starmie also looks slightly annoying as it spins easy vs this team, taking away spikes so you won't be getting any passive damage off. Only change I'd make is curse on Skarmory to make life simpler vs curselax / curse machamp / sd marowak, but in the end that's just personal preference. Great team and thanks for rmting!
Hahaha, did you really take it seriously? A meme is always used for fun I know he's not trying to show-off :p He said he didn't make the Pokemon's EVs and movesets but he mixed the Pokemon together, so it's STILL his team. ^__^
Yep. Explosion can be a big deal, and you do need to be pretty careful about it. It's why I like having Explosion on my own Cloyster for this team a lot of the time, since it gets me out of a jam against Vap if Raikou takes Gengar's boom, or against Fire Lax if Miltank goes down for whatever reason. Egg isn't usually too much trouble, though, Skarm shuts him down pretty easily. Another thing I forgot to mention is LK Drumlax. That guy can easily decimate this team. In fact, any LK Snorlax has its way with the team as is. It's why I liked using Ttar or Misdreavus over Nidoking or Miltank for a while so that I'd have another normal resist to work with. Ttar would also help by adding Explosion-resistant redundancy against Gengar and Exeggutor, and offers Pursuit services if you'd rather run LK Drumlax yourself. With Ttar over Nidoking, though, you'd have to replace Cloyster with Starmie to avoid having more than 3 Fighting weaknesses, lest Machamp roll all over you. Misdreavus, on the other hand, solves the problem with opposing Starmie (although Starmie isn't too difficult to play around, especially considering that if they're running Starmie, you don't have to worry about Spikes yourself). Note that if Miltank is replaced in either scenario, you'll probably want to go with Zapdos + Steelix rather than Raikou + Skarmory so you're better-guarded against opposing Nidoking. Of course, this adds a Fighting weakness and reduces your team's Speed (i.e., the stat) by a lot, so you'd likely have to swap out Cloyster for Starmie in this case, too.