Snorlax Without Rotom, Your Ticket To The Top

Cyrus takes an in depth look at Snorlax Stall in the Stellar Crown metagame. Showcasing a new build that has been popping up lately that doesn't include Rotom V!

Hey folks, welcome back to Schemanske’s Corner! Today, I have a very cool deck to talk about with you and that is Snorlax Stall without Rotom V.

Rotom V has always felt like a necessary evil in Snorlax decks; it gives up 2 prize cards, gives your opponent opportunities to break Block lock, and is relatively frail.

Lately, with Dusknoir in the format, Rotom V feels like more of a liability than ever, especially in matchups where Mimikyu plays a pivotal role. Additionally, Spiritomb has been making its way into more and more decks lately to counter the many top decks that have a heavy reliance on Rotom V and/or Lumineon V.

So what if we didn’t need Rotom V, what if Snorlax could establish a board and find key resources throughout the game just fine without it?

Well as it turns out, it can! Sander Wojcik recently finished top 16 at the Lille Regional Championships with this list that focuses on using Boxed Order and a heavy draw Supporter count to build up a powerful hand. This is a list with a lot of very strong ideas, that gives us a new core to Snorlax Stall. There’s a lot of things that we can do differently though, so I’ve made some changes of my own to this build.

The Engine

Arven
Arven of course still plays a very important role in the deck, finding us key specific cards at specific times like Nest Ball and Counter Catcher, while also giving us access to important Tool Cards that can otherwise be difficult to find when we need them.

Grusha
Grusha is a powerful draw option in the deck in the early game especially or after our opponent has used Cursed Blast and Iono to put us to a low hand size. Since we don’t use any Energy, Grusha will always refill our hand up to a fresh 7, giving us lots of options to work with.

If I were to add an additional copy of any of our draw Supporters, it would be Grusha, but since it doesn’t have any value once we’ve built up a large hand, just the single copy is best.

Colress’s Experiment
Colress’s Experiment is a card that has been notoriously undervalued outside of Lost Zone decks. Of course, Professor’s Research is the easiest way to reach as deep as possible into the deck, but the card doesn’t fit into a deck like Snorlax where we want to build up a large hand of options, often reaching 20+ card hand sizes later in the game.

Colress’s Experiment is deepest we can dig into our deck without discarding everything that we’ve already accumulated. I’ve chosen to just play the single copy over the 2 copies that Sander played in his list, because in a deck like Snorlax sending 2 cards to the Lost Zone can be quite a heavy cost.

Choy
Choy is here primarily just to draw 3 cards, a surprisingly powerful effect when we just want to build a large hand and fill the role of Instant Charge.

There are many Supporters that allow us to draw 3 cards but Choy fits really well here since looking at our opponent’s hand can give us information for following turns on whether or not to use Erika’s Invitation or Eri.

Worker
Like Choy, Worker is here primarily to draw 3 cards, but Worker serves a different secondary application of getting rid of potentially pesky stadiums.

Playing this split of a single copy of multiple different Supporters that all serve the same primary purpose of drawing a few cards but have slightly different effects, opens up our options to choose which additional effect is optimal for every situation, allowing us more flexibility.

Boxed Order
Boxed Order is 1 of 2 cards that replace Rotom V’s ability to draw cards and then end our turn. Boxed Order is an incredibly powerful card in this deck since there is no cost really to having to end our turn, since we don’t attack anyways, and any 2 item cards that we want should usually set us up to do whatever we would like to on our next turn.

Jubilife Village
Jubilife Village is the 2nd card that is here to fill in for Rotom V, allowing us to end the turn by refreshing our hand back up to 5 cards. Jubilife Village definitely isn’t as strong as Boxed Order, but it has a lot of value in the early game while we are still trying to set up, it stays in play allowing multiple uses, and it can offer important protection against Dusknoir decks that will try to Iono us to low hand sizes later in the game.

Make sure to use Worker or Artazon to remove Jubilife Village from play later in the game so that your opponent can’t take advantage of it to avoid decking out.

Lucky Helmet
Lucky Helmet is the last piece of our draw package, giving us a few extra cards on a knockout which offers important protection against Iono.

Other Tech

Prime Catcher
Prime Catcher (brought to a top 4 finish in Lille by Rone Nielsen) is sort of a funny card in this deck since in a lot of matchups it feels like a 5th Counter Catcher. While having 5 Counter Catcher is already strong in its own right, Prime Catcher is here more for Dusknoir matchups.

Smart Dusknoir players know how to use their resources at just the right times to create situations on key turns where you are at even prize cards and thus can’t use Counter Catcher. Prime Catcher allows you to get around this with an Item rather than a Supporter which allows you the precious opportunity to combine it with a Supporter.

Of course Hero’s Cape is a strong Ace Spec option but not especially necessary. Secret Box is also a strong consideration for the deck for consistency but currently I prefer the Prime Catcher.

Luxurious Cape
Luxurious Cape can is primarily in the deck as a replacement for Hero’s Cape and serves a lot of the same purposes. Primarily, the card is here to bring Mimikyu out of range of Cursed Blast.

Matchups

Raging Bolt ex (Very Favorable)
Raging Bolt ex only has a few switch cards, one attacker that can deal with Mimikyu, and quite a few Pokemon that can not attack efficiently if stuck in the active position.

Your primary win con is trapping Squawkabilly ex, Radiant Greninja, or Fezandipiti ex. If your opponent doesn’t start one of these Pokemon, try to bring them into play with Accompanying Flute.

Those aren’t the only Pokemon that you can trap though as most Raging Bolt ex lists only have enough Energy to set up 2 Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, so using Eri and Miss Fortune Sisters, you should be able to run your opponent out of ways to set up new attackers one way or another and then trap a Teal Mask Ogerpon ex.

In the meantime while you wait for the perfect target to trap to come into play, you can use Mimikyu to buy time against an active Raging Bolt ex, forcing a 3 Energy retreat into Slither Wing or Sandy Shocks before simply bringing the Raging Bolt ex back up.

Regidrago VStar (Favorable)
Regidrago VStar can be a closer matchup, especially with Canceling Cologne. You have multiple win conditions against Regidrago VStar though depending on which resources you’re able to discard, especially if your opponent doesn’t even play Canceling Cologne.

Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex can be used to buy time as well here, particularly if your opponent doesn’t have Canceling Cologne. However, Mimikyu is generally the better wall in this matchup since it can only be damaged by Radiant Charizard which forces very heavy commitment from your opponent to deal with it. The issue with using Mimikyu in this matchup though is that we don’t run Mist Energy, so you can’t protect a benched Mimikyu from Phantom Dive, which makes it difficult to play around a Canceling Cologne knocking out a lone Mimikyu in the active spot. That being said, if you know that your opponent no longer or never did have access to Canceling Cologne, you can buy significant time with a Mimikyu.

There are lots of Pokemon that you can trap with Snorlax though after finding them with Accompanying Flute like Cleffa, Fezandipiti ex, Hoothoot, Hawlucha, Kyurem, or really any Pokemon that doesn’t have Energy on it yet in the late game once you’ve bled out a lot of your opponent’s resources.

Lugia VStar (Very Unfavorable)
If your opponent has any idea how to play against Snorlax at all you have virtually no shot in this matchup.

Your best bet against weaker players is to use Mimikyu to force a retreat out of Lugia VStar and then trap Archeops.

Generally speaking in this matchup though you just want to try to use as many Accompanying Flute as you can before Summoning Star is used to try to lock Archeops out of play by filling your opponent’s bench.

If your opponent mismanages their Energy, especially Jet Energy, then you may find the opportunity to trap something at that point.

Charizard ex (Very Favorable)
Against Charizard ex you should alternate between Snorlax lock and locking with walls. When your opponent doesn’t have any easy trap targets in play you can wall out their Charizard ex with Mimikyu and Cornerstone Mask Ogerpon ex.

While your opponent tries to deal with your walls you can use Eri, Miss Fortune Sisters, and Erika’s Invitation to get Pokemon into play like Rotom V, Lumineon V, Cleffa, etc.

Just make sure to play around Thorton allowing your opponent to use multiple Cursed Blast in the same turn, because if you forget about it you could end up getting unexpectedly benched out. You should also be mindful of a potential Canceling Cologne tech.

Dragapult ex (Favorable)
This is another one of your slightly closer matchups since Dragapult ex is really good at making the most of the few switching cards they have to take as many prize cards as possible.

Your opponent will use Phantom Dive to set up for key turns whey they can use Cursed Blast, switch into Dragapult ex, and Iono you to a low hand size to clear multiple Pokemon from your board at a time while disrupting your hand.

Make sure to use Accompanying Flute early to find a Pokemon that you can trap that way your opponent gets as few prize cards as possible before you begin to Block lock them.

You can also use Mimikyu with Luxurious Cape to buy time if your opponent hasn’t left themselves with the Pokemon in play to easily knock it out like Drakloak and Dusknoir.

Palkia VStar/Dusknoir (Even)
This is a very fast matchup where your opponent can quickly take knockouts with Dusknoir and then spend the rest of the game disrupting your hand with Iono.

You want to play the game very aggressively, setting up as many Snorlax as you can and looking for Accompanying Flute to find a Pokemon that you can trap.

Once you have found a target to trap, use Eri and Miss Fortune Sisters as much as possible to exploit the item heavy nature of their deck and quickly dispose of their few switching cards while also limiting how many Cursed Blast they can use during the game by getting rid of Rare Candy and Night Stretcher.

Final Thoughts

Snorlax Stall is incredibly well positioned into the current metagame with even to favorable matchups against basically every deck except for Lugia VStar. This new build of the deck offers less liabilities than the Rotom V build while still being very consistent. If you are looking to succeed in the Stellar Crown format and this deck is up your alley, it’s an easy choice right now, this deck is incredibly powerful.

I hope you enjoyed this month’s read from me. If you want to reach out to me for coaching or other inquiries or to check out my other content, you can find all of my information on my Linktree below. Thank you for reading!

https://linktr.ee/cyrusdavis