I ALWAYS assume Gaius is running Stoneskin, and the Lightning Orbs being visible on the selection screen tell me you're trying to protect either Immunity or Stoneskin on the other champs. 

The trick will be to deal with the fact I (and others like me) am bringing in multiple ways of debuff protection, riding out the strip and stun with protected buffs and resistance, and just waiting out your stoneskin with a "Go Third" team.

Who are some of the epic options? Cause I don't see Brakus as a viable option.

Anyone epic, really. Is there someone who would work well with that team?

Who are your other two teams? Just so I know what strats you're running there.

I find the most difficult squads to deal with being ones that require me to exhaust my counters in a couple areas, and do that in two+ teams.

I'm mostly thinking about this as a defence team, to be fair. But the other two teams are typically Boragar + Mithrala + Brogni + Mortu, and a Cardinal team with some combination of Brakus, Skullcrown, Rotos, and Serris/Lydia.

The team this new one would be taking the place of is typically Kymar + Kimi + Serris + Rotos/Cruetraxa.

That Boragar team sounds not fun in the slightest. Boragar is TOUGH to deal with.

The Cardinal team I can see the point of wanting to keep Brakus there, otherwise I just bring in Lydia and that team goes down no worries.

I would recommend Rian as the champ to put in. Speed tune her to go DIRECTLY before Gauis, as a second strip after Kymar. She would ruin most of my counters for a Kymar/Gauis team, especially if you've already killed my "stun Kymar" plan with stoneskin. She brings in a Weaken for 25% more bomb damage too. She also brings in a potential second rez so you can get a second set of kersplosions from Gauis.

I will think about other options too. :)

Do I really need a third buff stripper? I already have Kymar, Ukko, and potentially Kimi - and Kimi brings the value of having the ACC up to make it more likely I land Kymar/Ukko moves.

The only thing that really concerns me about the Kimi version is just whether I can actually do enough damage with Gaius alone, to win the fight. Rian does help in that respect, with the aforementioned Weaken debuff, but I'm somewhat concerned about just not being able to protect the Stoneskin with Lightning Cage.

HATE dealing with second strip. I'd say on average these are the teams that are giving me the most problems in the G1-2 range these day by a far margin, including on defense. >_<

Kimi isn't a stripper in that same sense, in that she's not bringing in real strips... instead a random buff removal. I am partial to literally running a 201 Rian with a 200 Gauis.  You get a FULL strip that way + a weaken. It's my belief that two partial strips (in Ukko and Kimi) don't equal a full strip.

I mean, if you're just running a speed Kimi into Ukko into Kymar into Gauis, that team is much more susceptible to me stripping off the stoneskin and ignoring the now out of sequence 50% of your champs that remain.

I thought the goal is to keep Kimi out of stoneskin, so you have her for other places too.

If that's the case, my plan for you would be to Kymar strip and sleep most of the opposing champs, followed by Ukko stealing some of the buffs they reapply, and applying block buffs to prevent an over the top block debuffs, followed by Rian stripping AGAIN, both weakening and clearing the way for sure for those Gauis bombs. The double full strip teams are BRUTAL on the answers someone tries to bring in against Kymar/Gauis. You bring in the extra strippers to ensure that if someone strips your stoneskin, or resists and reapplies buffs since you're gonna have to make some stat sacrifices for stoneskin, that they're still dying. 

Other things you could do is just bring in the OG protector, Sandlashed, and let her keep your team up. Could also run a Skytouched if you wanna get dirty with some team revives and additional ways to keep lightning orbs protecting buff removals.

Also, you sure you don't wanna just run Quad sheep if you've got that many blessings on that team?

So, my thought process behind Lightning Cage is to essentially make the Stoneskin buff unremovable. It isn't quite there, but even at level 1, you only have a 25% chance of removing the Stoneskin. Kimi's role there is mainly the ACC up part, the buff strip is more just icing than anything else. Is this not going to work as well as I'm thinking?

I think on Defense you just want to make things as terribly unpredictable as possible. I'm not sure Kimi/Kymar does that, even in Stoneskin.

When I see Kymar/Gauis and 4 Lightning Orbs.... I just bring in a 900 resistance Mithrala, my own stoneskin stripper, a bolster set, and a block debuffs and go from there. Not sure I win for sure, but I've minimized your chance of winning.

It all might work lovely though. Won't know until you see defense records, really.

The Gauis teams I've had the most trouble with have stripped and slept, stripped again after I cleansed, applied bombs after the second strip, reset, stripped again if I cleansed, applied bombs again, and kersploded me into oblivion. Too much stripping, and sometimes two sets of bombs against bolster shields.

I don't know really, it's just theory really. I have my Gauis working finally, but he goes in with I need a second or third team with a way to ignore Tormin/Hege. 

Kimi and Uuko might be the way to do all that above, she's so strong and brings a lot. Ukko brings a lot. It seems a shame to reduce her stats to less effectual to get her into this Stoneskin setup. Perhaps run her as regular but with Sheep? Hmmm.....