Stall in the Base-Fossil Format

Decks in Base-Fossil: Stall

Before talking about individual decks, it's important to talk about the bigger branches that they fall off of. In this metagame, the most relevant archetype is definitely stall, but there are also relevant examples of aggro, combo, mid-range, and even some semi-viable rogue strategies.

Granted, a lot of cards see play in multiple strategies, but when you only have a little over 200 cards you just have to make do with what you have! We'll go over each major branch in order and talk about some of the most relevant information for each, including key cards, variations, and playstyles. For this blog post, the focus is stall.

Building Blocks of Stall

This metagame begins and ends with stall. Any duel involving a stall deck will turn into a slow, painful war of attrition. Stall decks move along at a plodding pace, completely oblivious to the concept of being knocked out.

Their primary game plan is to run you out of cards and eventually win the game via deck-out. This may seem like a daunting task in a metagame with only one dedicated milling effect, but you don't need mill if your big meaty Basics just never go down in the first place.

Cards that prevent damage, remove damage, control tempo, and/or have massive HP stats all fit in comfortably with this archetype.

One of the core tenets of stall is to never let the opponent take a prize unless it's absolutely necessary. One of the most powerful tools in a stall player's arsenal is the unassuming Scoop Up.

At first glance, just an emergency eject button for your 'mon. But when the card being ejected is a 120 HP Chansey or a 90 HP Lickitung, things can get very obnoxious, very fast.

Keep in mind that Item Finder can be used to retrieve recovery cards like Scoop Up and Pokémon Center, so you're in for a long game.

But of course the real workhorse of the deck is Super Energy Removal and its little brother, Energy Removal. These two cards ensure that the opponent will never, and I mean never, be capable of safely breaking through your walls.

Save Super Energy Removal for the moment when it would really screw someone over, like right after they fully charge up a Wigglytuff or a Scyther. The more unfair it feels, the better.

Meta decks do naturally try to play around these cards, but they're still the backbone of stall decks and an auto-include every time.

If there's any one Pokémon that single-handedly represents this archetype, it's definitely Chansey. 120 HP on a Basic with a retreat cost of 1. If there were no attacks printed on this card, it would still be broken. Chansey is so OP that you can improve most decks just by finding space for it.

Don't assume it's just a harmless sponge, either. You'll be in for a rude awakening when Double-Edge suddenly deletes one of your 70 HP Haymakers out of seemingly nowhere.

Healing Chansey with Scoop Up once can delete several turns of hard work.

The most popular variants of stall right now are PsyStall decks, and one of the more interesting options you get from this is Psyduck's Headache attack.

Headache can keep your opponent away from useful deck-refilling cards, so it's usually saved for the late game. The worst case scenario when playing stall is for your opponent to put cards back in their deck, so you want to keep that from happening by any means necessary.

Remember that you can Scoop Up Psyduck if you need to. It can be prudent to save an extra copy of Scoop Up for this purpose if you can afford to do so.

While aggro decks have largely moved over to Dodrio as their pivot of choice, stall decks remain staunchly loyal to the tried and true Scyther.

And this isn't a stylistic choice. Scyther takes up less deck space, making it easier to fit all of the walls and utility cards that the relatively complex stall decks need to function. It's also a Basic, meaning it can benefit from the constant abuse of Scoop Up more than Dodrio can.

There are even variants of the strategy that run Grass Energy instead of Psychic, just to take advantage of the constant threat of Swords Dance.

Reloading the Deck

Three of the most important cards for a new player to learn are the three members of the deck refilling engine. These are used by stall players to keep themselves in the game, and used against stall players to stay afloat. These are also the cards that Psyduck is meant to counter.

Mr. Fuji can shuffle a 'mon that's no longer needed back into the deck. Take note that any other cards attached to it are also shuffled in. A fully charged Chansey that you don't need anymore can put several cards back in your deck in one simple motion. And, like with Scoop Up, you might get to deny your opponent a prize.

If Mr. Fuji is a pleasant exchange, then Lass is an insult. The idea is to first save as many Trainer Cards as possible. Anything you don't need should be saved up, and you should be playing conservatively in a format like this anyway.

This frees you up to return a handful of cards to your deck all at once, while disrupting your opponent. Mind the timing, though. If you use it poorly, you might help your opponent stall you out instead!

Bonus points if you shuffle back that one card they really wanted to play.

Players who aren't familiar with the format may read Gambler and tilt their heads in confusion. Shuffle all my options away to potentially only draw 1 card? What kind of lunatic deal is that!?

Well, therein lies the magic. Your goal with Gambler isn't to draw cards, although you can take that bet in a pinch. No, no. You're using it to purposely give cards back to your deck. If you flip tails, that's awesome! But you can also just wait until you have more than 8 cards in hand to guarantee some degree of success. With how long this game will go on, you'll get there.

The Deck to Beat: PsyStall

Now let's finally talk about the cards that put the Psy in PsyStall.

The most infamous and reviled of these is Mr. Mime. Oh sweet horrible Mr. Mime. This thing is nearly impossible to one-shot because of the obnoxious Invisible Wall power. In fact, every deck has to purposely include at least one attacker that can do 20 or less damage just because this guy exists!

So if you've ever wondered why Rain Dance runs Lapras or why Venusaur decks sometimes leave an unevolved Ivysaur in play, this is why. And using Mr. Mime in a deck that runs multiple ways to remove damage counters? Ugh.

Every good Base-Fossil deck needs at least one pivot, and one of the premier pivots for stall decks is Fossil Gastly. No retreat cost, a Fighting resistance, Paralysis, and the ability to recover Energy Cards as needed. This is a one-stop shop for everything stall wants in a pivot.

That Fighting resistance is more noteworthy than it might first appear. As powerful as stall decks are, they hinge on the success of your Colorless walls, which are all weak to Fighting. Gastly gives you a much needed buffer to deal with a stray Machop or Hitmonchan that might wander into your lair.

This last addition to our Psychic roster may seem weird. Promo Mewtwo? In a stall deck? Well, he's just that good, frankly. Any deck that has access to Psychic Energy should be running this card by default.

It's also worth noting that even the most diehard stall decks aren't against winning via the more traditional method of just beating the lunch money out of you. And Mewtwo, as you may imagine, is very good at that.

He also fits right in with Scoop Up and Mr. Fuji as a big Basic that can retrieve Energy Cards on demand any time you're running low.

Milltres the Firewall

Fossil Moltres, aka Milltres, provides an impressive incentive to play Fire Energy instead of Psychic. While Wildfire's effect of discarding energy to discard cards off the top of your opponent's deck at a 1:1 ratio may not sound super viable at a glance, it's actually one hell of a finishing move.

Moltres can be played fairly straight into the midgame, maybe even going for a cheeky Dive Bomb if the opportunity presents itself. But the big burst of dopamine kicks in when you use Wildfire right as your opponent is running low on cards to put them on a tight clock. Unfortunately you do need to make room for quite a few Energy Cards, but Energy Retrieval can help to alleviate the burden.

And if you're playing Fire Energy, you're naturally playing Fossil Magmar. It's secretly one of the best cards in the format.

Smokescreen is great for stalling and Smog is your typical slightly better attack, but the real secret sauce is that low retreat cost. Magmar can comfortably get out of situations that cards like Hitmonchan and Electabuzz would be stuck in. This extra mobility makes it a great fit for any deck that features its favorite Energy Cards.

Think of it as a more aggressive, more mobile Lickitung with slightly less HP.

The Old Ways: Damage Swap

Before discussing the key cards of Damage Swap, I should point out that it doesn't function like the above stall decks. It doesn't Scoop Up big Basics. It has almost no interest in attacking, although more offensive variants are doable. Damage Swap has its own agenda and is really its own deck, preserved from an ancient time when stall was less about Lickitung and more about synergies.

Alakazam was the original face of stall. Damage Swap, on paper, is very simple. It just shuffles damage counters around. Yet this simple power has more interactions than maybe any other card in the format.

Putting damage counters on something with Rage or Flail. Removing damage from Machoke to keep Karate Chop online. Using Mr. Mime to soak up damage bit by bit. But the main and most iconic use of this power is to stack all the damage up on some big 'mon that has HP to spare (usually Chansey) and forget the damage ever happened.

Pokémon Center. "Remove all damage counters." It's hard to believe a card that says these words was ever allowed to exist. Of course, it only gets better when you understand the loopholes. Because of how it's worded, you only have to remove energy from your damaged 'mons.

So if you swap all that damage away to something that didn't have Energy Cards attached to begin with, you get to remove all the damage but keep all your energy. Venusaur uses a very similar trick, but since it actually hits pretty hard and isn't strictly interested in decking out the opponent, I decided it doesn't really fit in with the stall archetype.

Okay, so most Damage Swap decks don't actually bother with Tentacool, but if I don't talk about it right now, I might never get the chance. Basically you move 2 damage counters to Tentacool with Damage Swap, then use Cowardice to bounce it back to your hand. This lets Tentacool function like a reusable Potion. It's a gimmick, but a damn fine gimmick.

It's just a crying shame that Tentacool doesn't evolve into anything worthwhile. But at least it'll always have this one oddly specific interaction with a meta-relevant card to brag about.  I think that should count for something.

Closing Thoughts

While the stall mirror match may not be the most engaging thing in the world, it is an inevitability when players are actually trying to win. The Base-Fossil format arbitrarily features the most insane assortment of defensive Trainer Cards ever released in a single format, so it's no wonder that stall ultimately became one of the go-to strategies.

Note that there are some loosely related strategies that I left out, such as Fossil Stall and VenuCenter. While these decks are tanky in their own ways, I ultimately decided that they don't quite fit in with my personal definition of stall. I'll circle back to cover most or all of them as we get into the mid-range and rogue decks instead.