Horizontal stack (ho stack) is a slightly more complicated offensive set-up, but has become adopted by many North American teams as their choice of offense. It was designed to work around the pitfalls of the vertical stack. It is called a horizontal stack because the cutters (1 through 4) form a line horizontally across the width of the field. In the basic set-up, the handlers (5 through 7) are also lined up much the same way.
Unlike vert stack where the cutters separate the field into break and open side, the cutters in the ho stack have space for deep cuts (cuts towards the far endzone), and under cuts (cuts towards the handlers).
Because the cutters are lined up horizontally, for cutters just being introduced to the horizontal stack, it is easiest to keep your cuts vertical along the field. This way, there is less of a chance of you cutting off someone else's cut/running into the same space. However, with some experience, non-vertical cuts will become extremely effective.
Cutters 1 and 4 are called wing cutters, and 2 and 3 are called primary cutters. They are primary cutters since they are the two cutters in the middle of the field and advancing the disc into their cutting lanes is ideal. Either 2 or 3 will initiate (they will make the first cut) and the other will make a move off that initial cut.
One of the most basic cuts for the primary cutters is one of them will cut out, and the other cuts in.
And then they cut the opposite way.
When the disc gets to a primary cutter, the closest wing cutter fills into the cutter's spot (4 has moved into 2's primary spot). and then the closest handler fills into that wing handler's spot. 2 now fills the role of a handler until he/she can switch back with the handler who filled in (7). This maintains the overall shape of the offense so that the team remains organized.
As shown in the following steps, horizontal is fairly free flowing without any real preset cuts. There are many parts moving at the same time and thus can be somewhat chaotic. You just have to maintain your composure when you have the disc, and when moving without the disc, do your best not to cut off other people's cuts.
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