Since we now have a new dedicated forum I suppose I should commemorate it by finally finishing off the teamdump of the OMPL teams and some other stuff I've made in the meanwhile + some thoughts that I've been sitting on for a while now (and hey look it's also my 500th post which is pretty cool).
Week 1:
O1 vs shiloh [W] 
by DFM + LordBox
There were quite a few builds floating around in discussion for what to bring versus shiloh, they were a pretty flexible player and had a lot of aaa players so we generally expected some weird balance. I think we tested around with some No Guard Zapdos and Regen Ting-Lu teams but the NG Zappy teams did feel a bit generic and weak at times while the Lu structures were pretty clunky in tests so we just began testing random stuff, eventually after sifting through some concepts O1 noted they liked a MGLO Meow team Glory had made so I combined that with a Specs Ghold which we agreed was a pretty strong mon that could take advantage of Spikes + passive Corv coming in on Meow, a generic Corv/Mana/Lando core and a Deoxys-S last for speed control. The MGLO Meow did feel a bit bad though and DFM threw out a 6 mon core with Scarf Meow and Zama and I eventually finished the paste swapping out Lando-T with Lando-I to secure the IDBP Zama MU. The Scarf Meow ended up proving pretty clutch as Shiloh loaded a big HO team which looked crazy scary on preview with the offensive Moth/Garchomp but O1 managed to play well with the Meow to secure the W against some misplays.
Glaliegoesboom vs matte [W] 
by Glaliegoesboom
I wasn't really involved in building this team and it was a mostly independent build from Glalie, I think we had discussed Regen Lu as being an interesting mon as our discussion and building between the slots would overlap a lot and Glalie just took it in a very interesting direction with the Vest. Not much to say but it managed to work well against matte.
Week 2:
O1 vs Siamato [W] 
by O1
This week was versus Siamato, again there wasn't a very clear idea of what to bring though we did expect some funny offense from them given the scout, there were a few ideas tossed around like Zama + Gambit for priority and Stall though O1 disliked the archetype. Eventually I think we came to test a lot around NG Zappy to blow up Mana cores but settled on defensive Zapdos and also ended up testing one of my NP Hadron Engine Deoxys-S teams where it managed to blow up an atha team in testing, though the core around the mon was sus so O1 ended up working out a core around the mon which I mostly approved. Into the game Siamato did indeed bring some funny offense with a very shaky defensive core and physattacker spam though annoyingly enough a Vest ICrown that can check the Deoxys-S. This however does not matter as O1 piloted the team well to pressure the Lando with Zama and kill the Crown and Treads, letting Pecha basically 1v3 the RMoon, Meow and Zama lol.
Glaliegoesboom vs Lana [W] 
by Glaliegoesboom
Similar to last week I was not too involved with the builds here, I did know Lana liked more BO-ish styles from their history and disliked Corviknight a lot and Glalie went from there to experiment with Zarude and also Stall. Both concepts were pretty difficult to work with, DFM worked on some Zarude/Cobalion stuff and I made
my own Zarude-Cob variant while Stall always sucks to build with the matchup variance and Glalie ultimately ended up loading a modified version of last weeks team with Zarude > Meow since they liked the team enough into Lana. Fortunately for the game the Gholdengo put in respectable work once again, landing a big crit on the Treads and pressuring the Enam (though we did pivot a bit badly around it) and otherwise Gholdengo bulldozed through with Zarude managing to come in clutch and revenge the +2 RMoon as well.
Week 3:
O1 vs Atha [W] 
by LordBox
Against atha and pyu support we once again expected some weird offense or solid BO again. DFM suggested Ace which I think is a nice mon against some of their Gliscor teams that can vomit hazards though I had a lot of trouble creating a solid core around Ace that was defensively sound enough or was aggressive enough to work well. We did consider Zarude/Meow again as it also seemed ok but we decided not to run it for the 3rd time in a row. Eventually I put out some pastes with this very generic balanced core with Garchomp breaker as I think the mon is strong and Atha's BOs could struggle into them with a Molt-Swamp core to change it up vs our Mana usage recently. I was unsatisfied with the team since it was a bit passive and reliant on Chomper as well as other issues like opposing Chomper/Pao but ultimately O1 found it fine and we ran with it. For the 2nd time O1 ended up facing big Screens HO however luckily we managed to catch out Proto Mana with SBeam Molt which was a tech which I put in out of paranoia of Surge Surfer Mana which I remember cooking my builds and O1 managed to pilot well around the rest of the threats to clean up with Scarf Latios and Chomper.
Glaliegoesboom vs Irene [L] 
by Glaliegoesboom
Glalie wanted to face pyu and had been toying around with Stall with weeks and now we were facing pyu who was the offense merchant they finally committed to running the archetype. I was a bit hesistant given I thought it could be a bit predictable but Glalie wanted to run it and it could still work vs most BOs then it should be fine. The weird Avalugg was actually put into the team to try to check Chomper which was a predicted bring though unfortunately it was not enough to handle Chomper long-term in game without any resist despite its very large bulk so a tough loss.
Week 4:
DFM vs violet river [W] 
by DFM
DFM had been wanting to be let out of the PiC dungeon for a while to play AAA and since we were going to play Glory I let them sub in to play against the big man since we had other PiC subs. Unfortunately for DFM this was the one week Glory was going on vacation so they ended up playing a sub. I decided to mostly leave DFM to build what they want since my builds didn't fit their preferred playstyle much. Unfortunately this ended up being a mistake since it turns out DFM was too busy to build at all and we ended up frantically trying to scramble some teams before the match but DFM ended up just reusing a team they knew was good which I agreed with. Ultimately we didn't get punished as we faced some weird Scarf Latios - Zama team with a Exca/Mana core that DFM managed to beat down over the game with Crown/Cha/Zapdos, though the Latios did get a bit close at the end once Crown was low.
O1 vs feen [L] 
by LordBox
We expected to play against some big Zama BO even though Glory was on holiday still and so a few ideas were chucked around in mind like Specs Crown and Ace but both builds still felt pretty awkward. Glalie suggested using offensive Moldy Tusk with Spinner that could punish their heavy Levitate and Gliscor usage and I thought it was pretty cool so I ended up building around it with Pao as a partner and a big Intim Pecha for Zama, the rest of the core I didn't really love and I tinkered around with some other cores like Ace-Zapdos last second but O1 just loaded the one they were most comfortable with. Unfortunately we faced big HO for the 3rd time in 4 weeks and lost to the Proto Mana under webs pretty badly with the lack of speed control given the Pao as fast mon and Intim Pecha > Prank.
Week 5:
O1 vs Iride [L] 
by LordBox
Against Iride we saw a fair few Psychics and Fairies on their teams with some pretty high Crown and Scream Tail usage so decided on the old reliable Specs Ghold as a fine pick and since we had gotten cheesed out by HO 3 times now it was paired with Scarf Meow to try to help with that MU. We had also ran double Swamp and Mana now and decided to try out a new Prima and WBB Sinistcha core however after some testing we decided that Sinistcha was too much of a momentum sink outside of HStack when it didn't land the good MU so I cobbled together a more aggressive build with -Spe Moltres to beat other Moltres and a more aggressive comp with mixed Chomp. Unfortunately the swap to Prima didn't pay off well with the presence of the rare Desolate Land Heatran providing very annoying especially since Moltres was always scared of a possible PGem, the mix Chomp put in work though and the game came very down to the wire with a slight misplay under timer pressure tilting the game in favour of Iride in the end.
Glaliegoesboom vs Maybca [W] 
by Glaliegoesboom
Originally there was some idea to use AoA Hadron Engine Iron Moth into Maybca but the cores were quite generic and unsatisfactory in testing, Glalie insisted quite a bit on using a double Screens idea though I was quite skeptical or replacing a sweeper for another screen setter. Ultimately they ended up running the Screens since the Moth idea wasn't working out too well and they could still fish with the sweepers. Originally the team was made with a setup Manaphy and Tinted Lens WP Agility Latias that got swapped out for Corviknight to check Scarf Meowscarada and the RMoon was just chosen out of the random setup sweepers I mentioned as being strong I think? In the game it was pretty scary to see an Ace vs the screens but it never got in to CC properly and Garchomp and Roaring Moon put in work against the very Pecha-reliant defensive core to pull off a win with Prima 1v1'in the Ace in the endgame.
Week 6:
O1 vs Stareal [W] by DFM + O1
Following in the steps of the other weeks the prep was a bit wonky, when we looked over the scout I didn't come up with too much though they liked their bulky Goodra-H balances quite a bit. DFM threw out Heatran as a suggestion and I began to build around with the mon because I didn't have many other great ideas. In conclusion, Heatran fucking sucks mon is too slow at doing anything whether it's the actual speed or making progress and its defensive utility is pretty mid, this is hyperbole but yeah we didn't really love it. DFM ended up throwing out a Cobalion-Deoxys-S spikestack idea and O1 approved, though they did end up changing the Cob to a RMoon since they didn't like the team being so slow (also s/o word for the Psysurge Deo-S). There were some worries about Chomp fucking owning the team and also Pao kind of since Cobalion got replaced but we ended up balling and it managed to work fairly well even since they used a predicted Goodra-H balance build though the Corviknight was kind of worrying since the Deoxys-S couldn't actually hit it but it seemed they just assumed TBolt until the very end where it was too late and Deoxys-S had already done work with its mixed set otherwise.
MZ vs ghostlike [W] 
by Glaliegoesboom
For ghostlike originally the plan we had settled on mostly was to use Brambleghast finally after a few weeks of discussing it in the backdrop, however unfortunately while I was unavailable to test I told Glalie to go test with other OMPL players and they ended up testing with someone on the Heart Takers so we had to scrap that idea. Instead we switched from one funny out of left field breaker to another one, that being Mamoswine and Glalie carved out this pretty generic core for MZ to test around with. We did create some variants with Moltres/Zama to help alleviate the reliance on Mamo and help annoying Prima but MZ had gotten comfortable with the original team so they just ended up loading it. On the preview honestly it was pretty worrying as they had two Steels that could've definitely been Ground immunity and fuck up the Mamo but thankfully the Ground immunity was GWeezing and Mamo did its work, also Glalie's puttig Jolly on the Mamo as well came in pretty clutch for the Modest Specs Gholdengo as well.
Week 7:
Glaliegoesboom vs Kinetic [W] 
by LordBox
We couldn't use Brambleghast last week however that didn't mean we weren't going to use it eventually and with Kinetic's pretty high usage of Fluffy Corviknight/Lando cores we began with this concept in mind. At first I tinkered around with some Fluffy SD Landorus builds since we agreed they worked somewhat well into Kinetics build but they always felt very flimsy so I made a pretty generic comfy pivotspam balance into Brambler, pretty similar stuff to last weeks build. Very fortunately for us the team loaded a god MU vs Kinetic, with the Brambleghast doing work and the rest of the core completely stuffing Kinetics breakers which led to a very easy W to break the undefeated streak.
O1 vs Mada [L] 
by LordBox
Like I mentioned above we thought SD Lando was a pretty good mon into Kinetic's builds and because of their pretty high Fluffy usage I thought Wogerpon would be a pretty interesting mon to fuck around with. Originally there were some ideas to build Spikestack with Ogerpon but when I was talking about Ogerpon with O1 they brought it up having Rock Tomb and I thought that was pretty funny so I made this amalgamation of concepts with SD Lando and Zama to spam the physical side to win and a generic Mana-Corv core. Unfortunately the team was a bit flawed with its core without a solid Ghost resist and speed control which let Scarf Ghold wreak havoc over the core, though the Wogerpon did do its job in sniping the Moltres and doing damage as well which managed to make it close but wasn't enough.
Semifinals:
O1 vs ghostlike [W] 
by O1
There wasn't a really solid sense of what we wanted to bring against ghostlike again, we knew they liked their BOs and the Goodra-H balances though we doubted they'd bring it again after their losses last week. I bounced around some concepts and O1 mentioned they liked some generic Hands/Moltres balance builds with Specs Ghold the only issue is we couldn't remove Treads from it because that mon sucks to use and we went around some more concepts and they ended up liking a
MG Mandibuzz-Pech-Hands core with Brambleghast and eventually we said fuck it lets go Brambleghast and built around with it more. Eventually we did decide that relying on Brambleghast is a bit sus because it can miss Poltergeist, get traded out with DBond and whatever so I mentioned pairing it up with WOgerpon for entry vs Pecharunt (and trading is fine) as well as pressuring their checks a lot. O1 cobbled together this core from the concept and while I didn't love the idea of having three mons that could get pivot blocked they ended up balling with it and Brambleghast did its magic once again quite nicely for the win.
Glaliegoesboom vs Stareal [L] by Glaliegoesboom
Similar to above there wasn't a solid sense of what to bring for quite a bit, I threw around quite a few concepts for use but Glalie decided they wanted to Stall vs Stareal and built this team. I can't say much about this build since I only left a few comments about Pao and Deoxys-S being sus but they ended up committing. We did roll I think a pretty good MU with the WBB Skarm into Hearthflame but getting Pecha forcibly knocked blocking the Treads then trading all of its recover to weaken the opposing Pecha and then getting the Chesnaught Sticky-Barbed did leave us pretty weak to the Zama, we got a very fortunate burn against the Zama but due to some misplay around the opposing Skarm it left the Skarm a bit low which let the Burnt Zama crit to win the game which was a very unfortunate way to have to close out the season for us but I guess this is what we get for loading Sticky Barb Stall again...
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Not going to dump every team I have in my builder (because most are unfinished or boring) but here are some of the teams with some more novel concepts that I made. Most of these are unpolished and are pretty sus in their own ways (hence why they didn't get used) but still feature some cool stuff worth talking about.
Specs Tinted Crown/Zapdos:
Both Specs Tinted Crown and Specs PSea/NG Zapdos feel similar enough to me that I just grouped the teams under this one distinction as both mons really are basically the same in their role in click a button to release dopamine. With so many teams having so pretty giga-centralised specially defensive cores + a lot of physdef Vests roaming around I found these special clickers appealing to exploit these less sound cores though even then both breakers were not that strong and needed a lot of support so they weren't useless into say Swamp/RegenVest RMoon cores.
First team is a more aggressive core with Spikes Gliscor and a mixed Knock Deoxys-Speed that tries to overload your SpD walls + RMoon to help pivot in your two special breakers while helping with Specs Dengo, there is a variant below with Specs Ghold and WBB Cha to spinblock but that core is more balanced. Team is pretty cooked by some Deoxys-Speed though with the Prima core and Chomp is very annoying to play around but there's precious little you can do with this type of Prima-Gliscor core against these mons. I also tried making a variant with TrickScarf Ghold as support but that has been a bit too wonky to work with so far.
Second and third teams try a different approach with WSprit to try to cripple the bulkier Vests, Tusk is really the only mon with the freedom to run WSpirit and a I built a fairly generic core around it with MGLO RMoon but I also wanted to try a weird WSprit Mana core because why not (though Treads/Hand core still sucks and is only shored up by Cha to annoy the Ground cores)
Surge Surfer Sinistcha:
A fairly known quantity but still a pretty interesting mon to work with with its mix of offensive and defensive utility. The first team is a pretty tenuously constructed balance with a lot of pivot spam that leverages it as a progress maker as well as a CB Zama + WOgerpon check. Tusk honestly doesn't need to be there but was just there because I liked experimenting with offensive Moldy Tusk and I still think the mon is fine as a fat progress maker despite so many people flaming me over it smh (make it CB and no one would care if it wasn't Spin...) Second team is kind of 5-minute slop but has some random novel ideas with Fluffy STail + Levi Tinkaton being a funny core and Sinistcha serves more as a Ground and WOgerpon check but is offensive to shore up the lack of speed control which is pretty sus but kind of works. Hands-Treads core kind of sucks because it can be such a blackhole of momentum though Cha being around to Spinblock and troll Tusk does at least help + Knock Tinkaton.
Levitate Empoleon:
Levitate Empoleon is a pretty interesting mon I stumbled upon while racking my head to find Garchomp checks cause that mon sucks to account for in most teams (though even as a Chomp check it's sus), aside from Garchomp it also compresses some decent utility in checking Stail/Primarina and being very hazard resilient and a bevy of random utility like Rocks/Roar/Pivot/Knock so I decided to try tinkering around with the mon a bit.
The first team here isn't really focused around Levitate Empoleon moreso I wanted to go full Superman with no removal and started with a RegenVest Landorus-Therian core and Levi Empoleon fit pretty naturally as a Prima check (and helps with Latios as well) and being basically immune to hazards while the rest was pretty obvious stuff for a full hazard immune team with the Boots Cha and Skarm core. The team is pretty fucked if you see a Deoxys-Speed or Specs Ghold though and there's not really much you can do about that without compromising the full hazard immune thing though even then Lando hates Rocks with its pretty bad neutral bulk but still it's a neat concept and can feel pretty satisfying to play outside of your doomed MUs. MGLO HElectrode is also a pretty funny mon though it's absolutely cooked by the more frequent VA Corvs (I've actually run more Worry Seeds > TWave the few times I do run HElec) it can absolutely cook some MUs like
Lana vs Iride with how many Regen Water teams there are and people just not caring about the mon.
Second team is a balanced core that is focused around the Spike Deoxys-S + Intim Pecha to spinblock, Levi Empol came about since again previous iterations of this concept often ended up losing badly to Chomp and it ended up working not too badly as it also shored up the RMoon-STail core as a Prima/STail check itself while Tusk is here as removal and a Dark-check + progress maker all in one though it might be better to run a more defensive set or Fluffy given how much you are relying on it as a Dark-check here. Team is pretty cooked about Chien-Pao which you cant really do much about though the PsySurge Deo-S does try to help + Empoleon (could maybe run more physdef? but meh I'm not an EVs person).
SFLO Glaceon + Static Tusk:
SFLO Glaceon was always a funny mon that can fish vs the centralised SpD cores that the majority of teams run now (Moltres, Manaphy, Primarina, Swampert, Roaring Moon, Treads, SpD Corv) it's just pretty terribly slow so I thought why not pair it up with Static Tusk that sounds like a funny synergy. Zapdos then came pretty naturally for a Ground/Fire check while also baiting in stuff like Swampert for Glaceon to exploit and Scarf RMoon/Pecharunt are pretty easy stand-ins to shore up your defensive core/speed control though maybe Pecharunt isn't that necessary. If you see like a Goodra-H/Blissey Stall then yeah you're packed GG but such is the nature of a fish.
Surge Surfer Ursaluna:
Surge Surfer Luna was a concept from all the way back in Home and I thought it'd be funny to try it again since it's one of the few mons that can properly leverage the Punching Gloves vs Fluffy interaction to decimate stuff like the Fluffy Flying-types with FPunch/IPunch which are very common now as seen in
my game vs Betticus and not get completely owned by Fluffy Tusk (though fat Tusk is still annoying). The rest of the team was just some usual HO candidates with RMoon/Garchomp being easy physical setup sweepers to use that can pressure Tusk/STail that could annoy Ursaluna and can even leverage the Hadron Engine set by Moth, Zapdos is kind of just of there but is a funny sweeper (if you can hit your attacks anyway).
Defensive Sinistcha HStack:
Defensive Sinistcha for a time I really liked for a time since the typing is pretty nice and it can definitely troll some wins with CM especially with WBB but after I've played with it I've seen how the mon can be really passive in less favourable MU so it should only fit on HStack to make sure it can get value.
First team isn't really focused on Cha I just used the mon cause it paired well with Regen Cobalion which I wanted to build with cause it was a funny mon in checking the many Dark-types while being decently bulky, the team eventually morphed into HStack as I liked Chomp and realised it could kind of work as stack with the Cha with WBB Mandi + Empol trying to shore up a defensive core though yes this core does get absolutely rocked by Deoxys-S (Chople Berry is cope).
Spikes Gliscor/Prima/Cha felt like a pretty decent stack core to me paired with broken Specs Gholdengo but the issue remains in Prima opening up a shaky SpD core vs Deoxy-S and also doesn't help that as a WBB mon Cha doesn't handle offensive Moths too well since you don't threaten back Moth very well and can los the 1v1 and hence RMoon is here to help cope against both mons though not very well (also Treads sucks as always but nothing much you can do).
Last is the most balanced of the cores with Skarm as a setter instead the issue is the rest of the core lacking so much in pivot with the Hands-Treads core that you can hardly ever get your broken Specs Ghold in to do much work but otherwise the core is sound enough to work in most balanced MUs.
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Overall I can't say this has been the most enjoyable AAA meta I've had to build and I've definitely experienced a lot of frustration in seeing the same omnipresent set of cores pop up when building over and over again and it's hard to say that these type of building goes punished with how the record sheet went this OMPL (s/o
GlalieGoesBoom and
O1V7O2X9O for being goat players). I definitely don't think I'm alone in this sentiment (at least from what I've seen in OMPL) though it is somewhat hard to tell with the lack of posts recently which I assume is because of AAAPL immediately starting afterwards.
Despite my complaints I think given the circumstances that the meta still remains in a palatable state, this has definitely been the longest AAA meta we've had so far and optimisation of cores seems to me practically inevitable especially with how active the meta has been overall (and it could definitely be a lot worse in terms of balance...) Perhaps a future Deoxys-Speed suspect could help things given how much of a pain it has been for a lot of the teams here (followed by Garchomp and Iron Moth) but it definitely has its merits in reining in offense and limits with its coverage and fragility. For now though I think there still remains novel and cool anti-meta ideas (as seen with all the Brambleghast usage around) and teams I've seen many of the creative builders around make and I'm still sitting on a few interesting sets myself (though a lot of these concepts often end up being far harder to use in practice) and I hope to continue to see cool teams this AAAPL and hopefully some more discussion afterwards.
