Stoutland through the years

[Spyro190]

Stoutland through the years

Type:
Damage Taken
Resistances: N/A
Weaknesses: (2x)
Immunity (0x)
Base Stat Total (BST): HP 85 / Atk 110* / Def 90 / SpA 45 / SpD 90 / Spe 80

*100 first of XY

 

VGC11
Stoutland @ Chople Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustation
- Crunch/Wild Charge/Fire Fang/Thunder Wave
- Helping Hand/Thunder Wave
- Protect

The story of how our loved doge has been used in the competitive side of pokèmon games started in a metagame lacking Intimidaters: only Stoutland, Krookodile and Scrafty were viable. Sadly they were all weak to Fighting (a very common type of attack in BW) and that similarity made the protagonist of this 3d more valuable. With a movepool including a nice STAB, great coverage moves and a lot of useful support options it fastly reserved a little place in its first VGC, even if Roar and Yawn were inferior to Spore, a move spammed by the evergreen Amoonguss.
 

("early") BW OU
Stoutland @ Life Orb/Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustation
- Wild Charge/Superpower/Crunch/Pursuit/Ice Fang/Fire Fang
- Wild Charge/Superpower/Crunch/Pursuit/Ice Fang/Fire Fang
- Wild Charge/Superpower/Crunch/Pursuit/Ice Fang/Fire Fang

Stoutland has been the only viable pokèmon with Sand Rush in BW OU from Exadrill's ban (October 2011) to its unban (September 2015) becoming a good patner for Ttar and sometimes even Hippodown. The Move Tutors in BW2 brought Superpower, wich cover perfectly its Normal STAB when paired with Crunch. Despite Ttar was a better user of it even Pursuit was a nice option to trap Alakazam and Lati@s, while Wild Charge, Fire Fang and Ice Fang were useful to hit harder bulky Water types, Scizor and LandoT.
 

VGC12
Stoutland @ Life Orb
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustation
- Wild Charge
- Ice Fang/Crunch
- Protect

In VGC12 Ttar's presence made Sand Rush usable for the joy of Excadrill. Even if the mole has always been undoubtedly superior to Stoutland, in this case there were so much bulky Water types that EQ/Drill Run wasn't always enough. For who didn't want to add Gastrodon to their Sand team increasing its weakness to Grass our doge's Wild Charge was a godsend. Stoutland was also able to OHKO regular Garchomp with LO Ice Fang, another common threat to be prepared for when using Ttar.
 

ORAS STABmons
Stoutland @ Silk Scarf
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Extreme Speed
- Superpower
- Rapid Spin

Even if outside of OMs Scrappy has never been useful in STABmons Stoutland could used it to spam Fake Out+Espeed vs Ghost types like MLopunny, but without the need of the Mega slot.
 

ORAS PU, ORAS NU, SM RU and SM UU
Stoutland @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustation
- Superpower
- Crunch
- Pursuit/Facade/Ice Fang

Thanks to Sand Rush Stoutland has always been a unique patner for Sand Streamers in Smogon's low tiers. Frustation, Superpower and Crunch remained fundamental, while in the fourth slot there are "utility" moves with the only exception of Ice Fang, wich is required to 2HKO EvioGligar.
 

VGC17
Stoutland @ Life Orb/Normalium Z
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Frustation/Giga Impact
- Fire Fang/Wild Charge/Ice Fang
- After You
- Protect

Five years after VGC12, Stoutland came back in the Doubles format with VGC17. Excadrill and LandoT's absence, Gigalith's new ability, introduction of Z Moves, low popularity of Fighting and power ups received in sixth gen (+10 Atk and After You) created a very good situation for our loved doge... but something went wrong. Despite all this benefits Stoutland had insignificant usage, and VGCers preferred P2 as Normal type patner for Gigalith.



In conclusion, Stoutland is clearly better as meme than memeber of a competitive team nowadays, even if in past things were a bit different. The fact is that it does well what it has to do.

[Kris]

This is really well put together, do you plan to do more of these?
As a side note, I'm really sad poor Stoutland didn't get used this year.

[Reis]

Wow that is a quality meme

[wartty]

Really nice man, your by far the best analyst this site has xD I'd be happy to read as many of these as your willing to put out !! Had some serious fun with sand rush stourtland over the years ~

[Spyro190]

Yes, probably I'll post new memes 3ds of this kind.