Asking another question because I freaking love this metagame and if SuMo goes to hell I'm going back to my gen 4 roots.
I completely forgot about how to make semi stall teams effective. I've heard Hitmontop stall is very effective, how does one build that? I know Spikes Skarm is mandatory there.
Generally speaking, you need Stealth Rocks and want Spikes. There are dozens of viable Stealth Rock users, but Spikers tend to be limited to Skarmory, Roserade, and Forretress (that order is also the order of how common they are, roughly, but Roserade might be more common on stallier builds tbh). A Spinner (such as Hitmontop, which you mentioned, but alternatively Starmie is one of the most common Pokemon in general while Forretress and Tentacruel are also viable on some teams) is a good thing to have seeing as semi-stall teams don't pressure opposing entry hazards too well and removal of them grants you increased longevity and more effective defensive counterplay. A spinblocker, especially if you're running Spikes, is used on pretty much every DPP semi-stall team and the options here are pretty limited (Rotom tends to be the most common because it's a generally effective Pokemon and it can run a solid Wisp set, that gets it out of being trapped from time to time while providing defensive utility, and an effective Scarf set for revenge killing purposes, but Gengar is a more fragile, but threatening, alternative and Spiritomb has seen sporadic usage in the past, but I wouldn't go around slapping that onto teams). Additionally, a Choice Scarf user is pretty much mandatory in order to serve as a revenge killer and gain control of the pace of the game (Tyranitar is a very common user as it can also trap Starmie, which essentially lets you control the hazard game, Rotom-W, which can be irksome to deal with, Gengar, which can break or annoy most stall teams, and various other things depending on the situation, but Rotom, Jirachi, and some other typical scarfers can be used, too, depending upon the team). Finally, you need to cover all of the necessary defensive checking/countering bases like any other team (things like Breloom, MixNite, generic strongmons, etc tend to do well against semi-stall - lately I've seen a lot of Clefable, RestTalk Gyara, Nidoqueen, Zapdos, etc. as solid defensive components to a bulkier team) and make sure your team isn't too passive (sometimes this is done by using something like Taunt + 2A + Roost LO Aerodactyl, but other things that provide offensive presence or doing consistent damage in general can be used, too).
Basically, you either need to include or should consider including the following elements to a semi-stall team:
- Stealth Rocks
- Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Spinblocker
- Choice Scarf user
- Offensive presence / means of doing damage (essentially, make sure your team doesn't just sit there and do nothing all game)
Fuck BKC for sorta snyping this