After winning ndaaa ssnl, wanted to make a team dump as I pushed myself to build something new every round, and am pretty proud of my output each round. S/o to tbp lightniong lordbox and DBD, as I ran tests game with these individuals that helped me clean up the theory of the builds. For the most part though I built by myself, especially in the later rounds, and just thought about what my lines/winpaths would be since getting a game for this tier is harder than pulling teeth.
Want to give some thoughts first as this informs the building decisions I made throughout the tour:
Overall, I think this meta needs a shake-up, in my mind there are two incredibly restricting aspects of team building and gameplay, that I find quite nightmarish to build/play around.
Z-moves:
While the ceru ban helped open up teams and get rid of one of the worst offenders for z-move abuse, it still actively feels like z-moves are an insane issue that are still somehow under-explored. Set-up mons with either tinted/whatever damage amp abil is needed thrive off of z-moves dusting any check, especially resists. Things such as z-fly adapt dnite, z-steel tinted ghold, z-rmoon, z-koko destroy most team comps with minimal effort. This is especially apparent in my finals set vs glalie, where after realizing z tinted rmoon doesn't beat tusk, I just switched to z-fly, and it literally 6-0'd in the second set. Z-moves are reaching the point where they are the main cause for multiple mons being banned, and will continue to be a pain for this meta, with no real counterplay as mons can easily tech coverage for checks to lure, mid-ground the z-bait and still do hella damage, or catch opps off guard and win.
and Pursuit:
If the move pursuit isn't on the table due to 'tiering policy' then bisharp should probably go. Comically busted mon with just a choice band, but SD sets are also under explored and can put in quite a bit of work on certain structures. Pursuit puts you in so many dumb situations, and makes using ghost or psychic types a complete pain. You end up having to run some bum spreads on ghold just to outpace the mon, and either forced to expend z at +2 (which won't kill without spatk invest or run fblast (which can miss!), all for it to end up just sucker punching u anyway. Pecharunt has felt completely unviable to me because of this mon, as sequencing with intim/fluffy and pshot was shaky, as you still take an insane amount, and they could always crit you. Outside of ghost/psychics being severely nerfed, pursuit lets Bisharp check any non-physical wall, and can enable special breakers to an unhealthy degree. Realistically, tiering should focus on the mon first, as the next best user would be something like ttar/metagross? Which pech and ghold can threaten decently meaningfully and aren't put in very awkward 50/50s due to sucker punch. However, I think pursuit is unhealthy in this tier due to damage amp abilities, and longterm should be looked at if ttar/meta prove to be similarly annoying.
An even better mon here than in sv, this is because one doesn't even need to run mixed sets for it to gets its game plan off. I believe this is due to 2ac necessitating double regen, making 2 mons basically fodder for dnite, couple that with the fact you want your own ways of winning and it becomes hard to fit unique ways of checking dnite that it can't easily circumvent with team support or muscling through itself. Exploration of mono-flying sets similar to the ones in OU is something to consider, as its access to moves like return, facade, and fly allow it to run non-espeed sets unlike in SV. Items could also be explored, with boots and life orb being standard, but things like z, cloak, lefties, and even helmet being very viable brings imo. What it forces in builder and in-game is very strong, definitely borderline, but it offers such a unique defensive and offensive profile to builds it would be hard to play this meta without. However, if z-moves go this mon would be much more bearable.
One set I want to highlight that I think is a great example of this is Adaptability z-fly dnite, it is an incredible lure and nukes the regular checks that come in, and can easily get set-up opportunities as it is a dnite.
This was one of the sets, and my first foray into z-nite, really happy with the team synergy and cleaning ability:
Dragonite @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Adaptability
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Extreme Speed
- Outrage
- Fly
and this was one I had theory'd and had a build centered around it for glalie, but decided to change gears for the builds last minute so it didn't make the cut, but this still seems like an incredibly powerful set (inspo from a lax masters game)
Dragonite @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Adaptability
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 24 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance
- Fly
- Roost
Too lazy to provide calcs but the +1 z-fly damage on many defensive cornerstones in this meta is ridiculous, and like I previously said why I think z-moves are broken. Too much reward for too little effort.
A mon one has to dance incredibly well around, with tinted leaving very little in the way to consistently check it. Due to this mon I believe it is necessary to have a dark type on every team, otherwise psychic + psyshock is literally unwallable. I believe Lele is actually one of the more restricting mons in terms of building, as you have to have a strong psychic and fairy answer, as well as have consistent options to outpace the ridiculously strong 317 benchmark. Does this always come out during the game? No, but it can easily 6-0 unprepared teams. To me the only set that is scary is tinted, as psychic fairy is the perfect combo for this ability. I only made one build with this mon but it was one of my favorite/most consistent in tests/tour. I think Lele fits incredibly well on paraspam and pivot heavy teams, as these give it the most opportunities to come in, and para slows down the mons used to offensively threaten it.
Anyway here are the builds, I initially built a bunch of teams at the beginning as I was coming off of NDAM and AAAPL, where I had a lot of fun w the tier, and still needed to scratch that building itch. It wasn't until the later rounds I built specifically for my opps.
Built pretty basic dnite balances at the beginning, as I was happy to be building with the mon again, here the idea is victini breaks the steels and dtail on dnite (s/o dfm) phases out any mon trying to set-up in tandem with it. No z-moves yet because I wasn't tapped in.
Trapper fini takes out opposing fini and allows dnite and wake to go stupid, and hopefully you catch another mon like bliss so z-ghold can go stupid. Wake is really only viable on spike stack but with 2ac double hazards lu is completely fine.
Really fun team and the one I discussed earlier. Wbb ferro is great role compression and still has great longevity, really underrated abil on it. Spdef intim glisc is also great, as it can act as a secondary koko check and is just a great blanket answer to the meta. It's just ss lando but better.
A natdex redux of the build I brought vs April in AAAPL, very strong and consistent team similar to the sv build.
Again the set I talked about above, ace and fini clear out any hazards for dnite, and overall have great synergy with the mon.
Zama + dark is a very strong and consistent core in all tiers, and with this team I wanted to subvert what was expected with Z-steel Bisharp. Steel is necessary to one-shot max bulk Great Tusk at +2. I kept it pursuit on this build as Pecharunts might expect you to not have it since you are SD, but knock isn't too necessary as there is pert and ferro to provide this.
vs o1
The first round I decided to build specifically for my opp, as o1 was someone I knew would be tough, we were getting deeper into the tour, I had a good shot at winning the whole thing, and they had been reusing pretty aggressively.
I lowkey flamed off tran to tbp after he 6-0d me w it in a test game and I was just malding, but realized afterwards mon is actually rlly great, especially in this meta filled to the brim w water regens not many people running hard fire checks. Looked good into the o1 scout so I sent it.
Initially this build had a mega medi on it, and I didn't rlly want to build with bisharp again and thought regen muk was an interesting compression as a fairy check and pursuit mon. Honestly forgot how weak this team was on the phys def side, and rmoon was a b of a mu. I tailored this build a bit more to o1, as they had rlly only been using fluffy mons as dnite tech, so I just used lorb fpunch to break thru.
vs Tbp
Similar to o1, I tailored these builds specifically to tbp, and decided to go with broader ideas as I tbp has a pretty streamlined aaa build philosophy thanks to racool and jrdn. I was expecting some new builds so didn't laser focus on certain mu's like I did w o1 but I knew my gameplans would focus on breaking down/luring water regens to facilitate the win.
z-elect ghold is cool, I'm annoyed this team didn't get the win as it does just simply get 6-0d by bu lando, and I had made the last minute change to fluffy>EE because of my shaky moon mu from the previous week. Should have stuck to my gut and kept it EE, otherwise, this set is pretty cool.
mg meow seemed great as it covered for the spike stack and water regens they had been spamming, with moth creating a nice synergy. Pretty standard balance imo that is one of my strongest and most consistent builds.
Initially had tusk as mglo, but felt in my gut tbp would just rebring g1 team, so I made last minute change to EE. Threw by letting the tusk get poisoned, spinning, and assuming the lando was fluffy (it turned out not to be) and got bailed, but thats the way it goes sometimes.
vs Glalie
Yea I prepped out the butt for webs and stall, and expected rebrings so ofc none of this happened. Coupled with me running fishier teams these honestly were not my strongest builds, but felt I could get the job done. However after losing set 1, I realized I needed to pivot and made the 3 teams for the second set right after I lost. Overall happy with the output but these builds are definitely less consistent and tailored more to what I thought Glalie would load. The best build out of all these are probably the z-fly rmoon and the bootspam hazard stack teams. The stack team I based off my samurott research project team, so that is probably why. The z-fly team idk that just came to my mind after z-tinted moon couldn't get the job done in set 1. Didn't even realize the mon got fly, but thats all you need when z-moves are around.
Below are the 3 builds I used + The original 3 I was planning on bringing set 2.
Yea Tapu koko was always gonna be hard, but I didn't mid-ground properly and let some mons go that I needed to keep around to win the endgame. Unfort as I had good momentum in the early game.
Really fun team, I think hamu is underexplored here due to the idea of fini walling it, but setting spikes and knocking creates guaranteed progress and leads to predictable and exploitable game sequences. Mg stail is already something I have played around with, as the mon is literally just clef, but ice beam twave seemed much better than the usual dgleam that non-pixi runs, this is because beam 2hko's dnite, something very needed here. Z-fight ghold was another fun tech, as I was expecting some fat normal/steel to be the ghold check, which there was, and was able to muscle through a chople ferro (fun and balanced mechanic). Fast encore dnite fits better here as I already have phasing on moth and need something to stop set-up sweepers consistently.
Honestly I really like this team but I think I trolled with the stail and bliss spreads. Did not realize pursuit was cooking me that hard (I made the spread for z-ghold) and stail not being max spatk let the bisharp live, basically sealing the ee koko win. Def could have played my lines better here but it happens. I think set-up lefties encore non-espeed dnite is cool, would have been rlly nice into any other mu that wasn't haze prank pex.
A fun offense team that I made based on one of
lax's masters sm bring, whole team facilitates the dnite win. However after loading into haze prank pech I reconsidered and wanted to use something more comfortable.
The core of wake + stail were a known power couple when wake was still allowed in SV, diancie turns that up to 11 with bounce and spikes. Body press for hoodra/bliss switching in. Otherwise this was some weird fat that seemed different enough from what I had been bringing, but again didn't seem too consistent as some lines vs certain mu's seemed hazy (especially the bisharp one), so I put it back on the shelf.
Another unexpected z-mon, as sub chomp is hella annoying in natdex, I decided to just use z adapt here to nuke whatever, no speed boost required. However I then proceeded to load into ee koko so I got scared and reworked this build.
Set 2:
z-fly rmoon beats any tusk variant, wanted to build around that. Hands had good synergy and was a good blanket check, stail has flamethrower otherwise ferro and corvi wall team.
Yea ngl I completely forgot I was wabs on corvi and foddered off my muk for no reason, although I should have been payback instead of pursuit (again another last minute change I made), either way I trolled that game hard
A weird build for sure, initially the empoleon was a wbb mega scizor, but I got scared of the koko/wb zap mu more. Thundy I should have just let the z rip vs tran, but was expecting a protect. Anyway, the idea w this build was EE tran traps the grounds and clears for z-thundy to click rising voltage. Double removal since thundy doesn't have boots, and the lu set I decided to change to be sand tomb just for the extra fun of two trappers. Scarf fini for speed control and another disruptor to let thundy win. The empoleon was definitely troll and it should be a dedicated fire check but hey it happens sometimes, EE tran clutched up so can't rlly complain.
Hopefully more plays happen with the potential aaa circuit, there is so much to explore with this tier, but as of right now I think that exploration is hindered by the previously mentioned offensive options. Either way though this tier is fun with its own unique identity, which is all one can hope for. Thanks for reading.
