i’ve been using a sand rush ursuluna that often makes people rage quit- fast luna is no joke. might steal your moveset lol
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Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
AAA Almost Any Ability
- Thread starter Isaiah
- Start date
give a replay pls im interested
| Isaiah | UT | QT | DFM | LordBox | atha | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enamorus | BAN | BAN | BAN | DNB | BAN | BAN | 5-1 BAN |
| Ursaluna | DNB | DNB | BAN | BAN | BAN | DNB | 3-3 ??? |
| Triage | DNB | DNB | DNB | DNB | DNB | DNB | DNB |
Enamorus is now banned! Tagging Kris and Marty for implementation.Sheer Force + Life Orb sets had limited defensive counterplay and could circumvent offensive counterplay on screens teams--most importantly, it was able to use coverage like Superpower and Play Rough to adapt. While Enamorus didn't last long enough for this to become commonplace, Choice Specs + Tinted Lens was able to power through even sturdy would-be counters like Earth Eater Skeledirge.
Since this vote ended 3-3, no action will be taken on Ursaluna at the moment; however, the council is discussing whether or not this should result in a suspect test (which would effectively keep Ursaluna legal in OMPL for 2-3 weeks at minimum) or just keep observing how the post-Enamorus metagame develops and vote only if deemed necessary. Stay tuned for an update on this decision :P
I know I’m about to get flamed, but why would we not suspect test ngas?
https://pastebin.com/L0x2Hn7e
I know it was a 5-0 suspect vote, but this is a wholly different meta, and most importantly, Single Ability Clause is now implemented. I struggle to see in what mons it would be broken, apart from being a slightly better mold breaker, trading a relative power upgrade and ignoring climates for fire types hitting fluffy not as hard.
https://pastebin.com/L0x2Hn7e
I know it was a 5-0 suspect vote, but this is a wholly different meta, and most importantly, Single Ability Clause is now implemented. I struggle to see in what mons it would be broken, apart from being a slightly better mold breaker, trading a relative power upgrade and ignoring climates for fire types hitting fluffy not as hard.
As someone who actually played when ngas was allowed, I can say very comfortably that completely disabling the entire tier's main mechanic every time your Pokemon is on the field is far more than "a slightly better mold breaker". This functionally disables Regenerator when used even half decently, can make Magic Guard Pokemon self-KO for no reason (Using Steel Beam and losing 50% on the spot sounds awful), and frankly takes the fun out of trying to give Pokemon "Almost Any Ability". A Neutralizing Gas unban is pretty much off the table because it directly contradicts the premise of this OM.
It doesn't matter how different the metagame is; after all, every "strong" Pokemon added is just another potential Neutralizing Gas user or teammate to abuse the ability with, and even on less strong Pokemon is just an uncompetitive element.
Jrdn
Not a promise, I'm just gonna call it.
Also Ngas on set up sweepers was utterly insane. Sturdy, Dazzling, Unaware all irrelevent. Sounds like Mold Breaker sure, but what about prank-haze? Suddenly that's unviable. Intimidates, Dauntless Shield, the Ruin abilities, all not proccing. Hell I know ditto aint allowed, but if it was, too bad for ditto. It literally nullifies ANY counterplay for set-up. Extremely broken, and extremely antithetical to the metagame
Team Dump - Home and Post-Enam
Laddered to top 10 with these teams, they aren't some flawless teams but should be able to handle a number of scenarios.
Team featuring Fluffy Lando and MGLO Talonflame
Team featuring Strong Jaw Roaring Moon and Intimidate Tinkaton (Yes, that is Screen Cleaner Zapdos... you can change it to Delta Stream or PrimSea)
Team featuring Intimidate Tinkaton and Triage Enamorus-t
Team featuring Fluffy Polteageist and scarf SoR Slither Wing
Thoughts on the meta?
Weird, I am not sure how to word my impression of the meta but will try my best thusly.
The meta is a weird cacophony of elements as is per usual post-introduction of new Pokemon and it is hard to say that things will remain as anything less then unstable for the near future, however, screens has arisen as a somewhat problematic element beyond the usual suspects that people point fingers at (cough*ursaluna*cough). Screens enables plays that fly in the face of game balance which is further exasperated by the presence of Pokemon with unreasonable bulk an example is the following calc that I experienced:
252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Slither Wing Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna through Reflect: 387-456 (83.4 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is an insane calc as anyone that's played against and with Slither Wing knows of it's power, yet Ursaluna behind Screens actually is able to eat it and retaliate. Is this ban worthy? No clue, that is for the council to decide and I don't think it is egregious enough yet but it is definitely something that has precedence in AAA with Hariyama a normally mediocre pokemon being able to sweep when behind screens and should be watched out for. We definitely do not want to see a meta that is defined by Screen Cleaner pivots.
Outside of this, Ursaluna is a mixed bag in my experience, on one hand that bulk and power is insane is somewhat kept in check by a well built team yet even I can't deny it is a pokemon that is very borderline in terms of balanced within AAA.
Beyond this, I don't think there are many outliers that seem need of immediate action, stuff like Slither Wing, Chien-Pao, Quaquaval, Talonfalme and so forth are scary physical attackers as per usual but there exists counterplay for them though it is often tenuous in nature and dependent on the players ability to read (or get lucky). In terms of special attackers, Home has definitely eased the worries we previously had regarding a lack of good special sponges with Meloetta and Hoodra but even then things like Hydreigon can throw a wrench into this but I think we are in a pretty good place with Enamorus being banished.
Laddered to top 10 with these teams, they aren't some flawless teams but should be able to handle a number of scenarios.
Team featuring Fluffy Lando and MGLO Talonflame Team featuring Strong Jaw Roaring Moon and Intimidate Tinkaton (Yes, that is Screen Cleaner Zapdos... you can change it to Delta Stream or PrimSea) Team featuring Intimidate Tinkaton and Triage Enamorus-t Team featuring Fluffy Polteageist and scarf SoR Slither WingThoughts on the meta?
Weird, I am not sure how to word my impression of the meta but will try my best thusly.
The meta is a weird cacophony of elements as is per usual post-introduction of new Pokemon and it is hard to say that things will remain as anything less then unstable for the near future, however, screens has arisen as a somewhat problematic element beyond the usual suspects that people point fingers at (cough*ursaluna*cough). Screens enables plays that fly in the face of game balance which is further exasperated by the presence of Pokemon with unreasonable bulk an example is the following calc that I experienced:
252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Slither Wing Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna through Reflect: 387-456 (83.4 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is an insane calc as anyone that's played against and with Slither Wing knows of it's power, yet Ursaluna behind Screens actually is able to eat it and retaliate. Is this ban worthy? No clue, that is for the council to decide and I don't think it is egregious enough yet but it is definitely something that has precedence in AAA with Hariyama a normally mediocre pokemon being able to sweep when behind screens and should be watched out for. We definitely do not want to see a meta that is defined by Screen Cleaner pivots.
Outside of this, Ursaluna is a mixed bag in my experience, on one hand that bulk and power is insane is somewhat kept in check by a well built team yet even I can't deny it is a pokemon that is very borderline in terms of balanced within AAA.
Beyond this, I don't think there are many outliers that seem need of immediate action, stuff like Slither Wing, Chien-Pao, Quaquaval, Talonfalme and so forth are scary physical attackers as per usual but there exists counterplay for them though it is often tenuous in nature and dependent on the players ability to read (or get lucky). In terms of special attackers, Home has definitely eased the worries we previously had regarding a lack of good special sponges with Meloetta and Hoodra but even then things like Hydreigon can throw a wrench into this but I think we are in a pretty good place with Enamorus being banished.
I condensed my little 2 cents on bringing back 2ac intspoilers so I don’t flood out everyone else’s posts :)
if it wasn’t obvious already, I really want 2ac back
Well while we’re on the topic of 2ac I might as well chime in. I’ve been a supporter for gen 9 to be 2ac ever since I heard the council was getting rid of it, I will say I did support 1ac but only during fur scales meta, which imo was the last time this gen where there was a stable, competitive, and most of all consistently fun meta for aaa. I feel the decline of gen 9 aaa happened directly after fur scales ban and at that moment we really started to feel the impact of no regen cores. Is 2ac a bit of a random number? Yes. Does it really only effect regen? Sometimes it can feel like that but honestly, no. Let’s say that it does only effect how we use regen in the meta, is that really a big enough problem to justify disliking 2ac? Looking back at gen 8 aaa there was double regen on basically every team that wasn’t one of the 2 extremes of play styles (Hyper Offense and Stall), but I’d argue this caused the meta to be more stable and way more competitive. I’ll speak my mind on the 3 main arguements people use for why they dislike to try and explain why I think it makes for a better meta.
In order to break regen cores you have to get several turns of play right.
While this is true in a sense I A. don’t think it’s the entire truth and B. even if it is the truth I don’t feel like being forced to actually play the game well is a bad thing. For my first point I would like to say first how yes you have to get plays in order to break regen cores, but also that it doesn’t take nearly as many correct plays to break them as people seem to think. All these people who go around saying “you have to get 7-10 turns right in a row to break past regen cores blah blah blah” just sound like they never played gen 8 aaa. Usually all it takes is 2-3 maybe 4 good turns in a row and you can put your opponent so heavily on the back foot it doesn’t matter their regen core, they are going to struggle to get out of the hole you put them in. You can also just play brain dead and break them p easily tbh, if you just spam hazards and pivot regen cores will eventually fall, especially with how shitty removal is in aaa now more than ever and how many mons get hazards along with the fact a lot of regen mons don’t love to use their item slot on boots. For my second part everyone always acts like being forced into these situations where you have to get several turns right is bad but imo it just makes it so skilled players and plays are more rewarded than ever and benefits skilled players who know how to break down regen cores more than people who just want to try and brain dead click funny breaker button and win without having to think and actually use skill to win.
Double regen just takes away creativity in the builder.
For this I’d like to reiterate what LordBox said earlier that involved gen 8 aaa and how there were so so so many teams to come out of that meta. Ofc there was the cpb (corv pert bliss) core that could be slapped on teams easily with 3 offensive mons and call it a day, in theory, but overall there were a lot of creative things you could do with your regen cores imo. From golisopod + lando to lando + lati to exca + fini to any regen mon + scarf mew, there were loads of options for how you could handle your regen core and how you could tailor it to fit your teams needs. There were even offensive implications that thrived with the main big example being offensive regen chomper. The main thing stopping people from being creative in the builder with there regen was them not thinking outside the box enough to find other ways to use regen that would fit their team better than the same core they’ve been putting on all their teams. And I’d also argue having double regen actually allows for more creativity in the builder due to what I had just mentioned and the fact that having access to 2 regen pokemon alleviates so much pressure off of your other 4 mons to check threats in the meta giving more wiggle room for cool interesting teams that maybe use neat sets that they wouldn’t have been able to fit on their team otherwise.
Double regen causes for boring stagnant play.
No, no it doesn’t. I think it only causes for boring stagnant play if one player doesn’t build correctly tbh. There were very few cases in gen 8 where I found a game to have boring or stagnant play and for the most part that was due to either my team having a horrendous matchup or my team was just subpar and after I did some fixing it was just fine. I think double regen being in the meta just forces people to learn how to better their building in order to combat it and this brings me back to the point about it causing people to learn a meta more and learn how to play better and build better and grow skill wise in these aspects. And no, it will not turn the meta into constant stall fests, aaa has been Balance/BO centric for as long as I can remember with or without 2ac so I don’t see that as a valid reason to dislike adding back 2ac.
if it wasn’t obvious already, I really want 2ac back
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Isaiah UT QT DFM LordBox atha Enamorus BAN BAN BAN DNB BAN BAN 5-1 BAN Ursaluna DNB DNB BAN BAN BAN DNB 3-3 ??? Triage DNB DNB DNB DNB DNB DNB DNB
Sheer Force + Life Orb sets had limited defensive counterplay and could circumvent offensive counterplay on screens teams--most importantly, it was able to use coverage like Superpower and Play Rough to adapt. While Enamorus didn't last long enough for this to become commonplace, Choice Specs + Tinted Lens was able to power through even sturdy would-be counters like Earth Eater Skeledirge.
Since this vote ended 3-3, no action will be taken on Ursaluna at the moment; however, the council is discussing whether or not this should result in a suspect test (which would effectively keep Ursaluna legal in OMPL for 2-3 weeks at minimum) or just keep observing how the post-Enamorus metagame develops and vote only if deemed necessary. Stay tuned for an update on this decision :P
| Suspect test? | Isaiah | UT | QT | DFM | LordBox | atha | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ursaluna | NO | YES | NO | NO | NO | ABS | 1-4-1 DNS |
With this, there will not be an Ursaluna suspect test at this time.
Full disclaimer: It's unlikely that there will be another council vote before the survey is closed (most likely next weekend). Don't want to be too trigger-happy :P
try using a spatker that doesnt get hurt by sand like heatran or maybe even try a primsea user like specs volcanion
most corvs run wbb tho…
No? I've always thought most corvs run either Intimidate of Fluffy because WBB is kind of bad.
i must be unlucky then, every corv i’ve encountered is wbb. then again i’m bad at the game so it might just be low ladder players lol
sand team i've been doing just ok with, but it's a ton of fun :D
https://pokepast.es/fd82ab099b006152
if someone let's me know how to do the little mon symbols i can go in depth on why i think this team is a solid A-, maybe A on a good day in heels
https://pokepast.es/fd82ab099b006152
if someone let's me know how to do the little mon symbols i can go in depth on why i think this team is a solid A-, maybe A on a good day in heels
What does Goodra do on this team? It is such a weird set.
eviolite carbink? does that even work? also sand spit goodrah?? the team looks fun, but i dont understand those two
:Pokemon: is how you do it
Some notes:
> Carbink doesn't evolve, so eviolite is completely useless on it. It's also unclear what dauntless shield realistically accomplishes if the carbink ever gets forced out (and it certainly will by many common pokemon). If you're really set on this kind of thing, a Diancie with Diamond Storm / Body Press / Iron Defense / Moonblast does the same thing a lot more effectively, can have Leftovers, and hopefully will run a more useful ability like Water Absorb (or even Earth Eater) or something.
> Considering this team's very uncomfortable matchup versus Desolate Land/Primordial Sea users, that Goodra-H set doesn't make a ton of sense. If anything, I'd recommend running RegenVest so you at least have some counterplay to Pokemon like Iron Moth and Volcanion.
> The team is also kind of slow (even with Sand Stream active, +2 Ursaluna isn't particularly fast). Thus, I suggest either using Choice Scarf Sandy Shocks or another fast Pokemon entirely (to combat opposing weather, maybe even switch to PrimSea Kilowattrel or a Choice Scarf PrimSea Greninja or something).
These are just some suggestions made while trying to preserve the team structure, though. My personal take is that weather-based teams aren't very good and plateau pretty quickly (permaweather moment), but if you're truly set on it then hopefully this helps :p
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Gonna double post to fit this in as well, actually.
Unweighted (0) stats:
"Average player" stats:
"Standard competitive player" stats:
Top of the ladder stats:
So yeah, if you're only playing in the upper parts of the ladder, Corviknight's most common ability is Intimidate. But you can see that for most of the ladder up until that point, Well-Baked Body is its most common ability. I don't know what elo ranges you guys typically ladder at, but I figured this was a good opportunity to talk about usage stats and how where you are in the ladder can warp your perception of what people actually use.
tl;dr neither of you is wrong; you might just be playing at different elo ranges.
(Well-Baked Body Corviknight isn't a bad set, either. It's just prone to resulting in teams that are weak to physical attackers you normally want Intimidate or Fluffy for)
As you predicted, it depends on where you are in the ladder. Quick reminder of what the ratings at https://www.smogon.com/stats/ mean:
So looking at last month, here is Corv's moveset usage:
Unweighted (0) stats:
"Average player" stats:
"Standard competitive player" stats:
Top of the ladder stats:
So yeah, if you're only playing in the upper parts of the ladder, Corviknight's most common ability is Intimidate. But you can see that for most of the ladder up until that point, Well-Baked Body is its most common ability. I don't know what elo ranges you guys typically ladder at, but I figured this was a good opportunity to talk about usage stats and how where you are in the ladder can warp your perception of what people actually use.
tl;dr neither of you is wrong; you might just be playing at different elo ranges.
(Well-Baked Body Corviknight isn't a bad set, either. It's just prone to resulting in teams that are weak to physical attackers you normally want Intimidate or Fluffy for)
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carbink doesn’t evolve. i am such a fool lol. changing that to diancie rn. goodra-h was supposed to reset sand, but never worked too well. overall the team was very experimental, and i appreciate all the feedback
In defense of 2 Ability Clause
Btw, SAC = single ability clause; 2AC = 2 ability clause
I think there is sufficient room to argue that a 2 ability metagame is better than the single ability one we're currently playing, so I've decided to post some of my actual reasoning for why I think so>
Disclaimer: I think a large portion of what will determine any given person's perspective on SAC vs 2AC has to do with answering the question, "Do you want 1 regen, or more than one regen?" There's even a third option of just having no clause at all and balancing the tier around unrestricted ability caps, so this is all stuff that's worth keeping in mind. Anyway...
1. Teambuilding in an SAC metagame feels more restrictive than one with 2AC.
One of the reasons switching to SAC was initially proposed was to diversify the types of cores and structures people build with. Well...remember pre-home when most balance teams were running at least 3 of Corviknight / Garchomp / Scream Tail / Iron Moth? Or take a look at the early post-home metagame, where you're almost certain to need to spend your Regen slot on a spdef/Assault Vest user or sign the contract to get thrashed by special attackers. Let's be realistic: if anything, SAC restricts teambuilding more than expands it. Part of the reason it's difficult to justify dropping Corviknight is because other would-be defensive options like Dondozo have to cope with Rest for recovery since your team probably already spent regen on something else. If you don't use your regen defensively (and are bold enough to opt for something like regen scarf Mew), you are volunteering to play hard mode, where you must now find a way to generally account for all the biggest threats in the metagame with a piece of paper and a pocket full of lint. I admit that "CorvBlissPert" was a very standard, ubiquitous core in the later third of last gen, but let's not pretend as though this gen has been any different so far. "CorvChompTail" has hardly been less common.
Contrast that with last generation, where there plenty of different possible regen combinations one could use to sufficiently both feel like you had counterplay to most things and mix it up if you wanted: Blissey + Swampert, Nidoqueen + Kommo-o, Mew + literally anything are a few examples. Of course, this isn't limited to just Regenerator. Don't forget that there were plenty of teams making use of double Primordial Sea, double Desolate Land, and double Magic Guard as well.
2. More bans are necessary when you have less counterplay to things.
Something I've asked myself quite a bit while going through this gen's banlist is, "Would this really have been that broken if we weren't limited with SAC?" Two really good examples of this (imo) are Great Tusk and Gholdengo, which I feel would be significantly easier to handle in a metagame where you're allowed to run Regenerator on a much larger scope/combination of Pokemon and can even better fight against chip damage tactics by stacking Magic Guard. Now, is it possible that they end up broken in a 2AC meta as well? Sure, but it would certainly be easier to handle them than it is now.
3. Gen 9 has nerfed some of the "stally" ways to take advantage of double regen.
With gen 9, we got:
> Teleport and Flip Turn being removed from basically everything worth using it on.
> Recovery moves mostly nerfed to 8 PP.
> Increased distribution of entry hazards (although unfortunately paired with decreased distribution of Knock Off).
> Decreased distribution of entry hazard removal (painful, but arguably has some positive aspects in this context).
Note that the vast majority of games last gen did not devolve into regen stalling to begin with; it happened very rarely and was almost always a result of one or both users either bringing unreliable means of making progress (in the given matchup) or allowing their most useful tools to faint early on. That being said, regen stalling was enabled even further by how easy it was to spam slow pivoting moves and marinate on the field with 16 PP of Roost, Soft-Boiled, and Recover on their respective users. If you want to build a pivot-heavy team, it's not going to be as simple as throwing a Teleport Blissey and Flip Turn Swampert on and calling it a day; doubling around is much easier to punish when so many viable Pokemon can put up hazards nowadays.
At some point we'll probably need to make a formal decision on if the plan is to stick with SAC or switch to 2AC (or no AC, I guess)--likely with a big suspect test--so the community's overall stance is clear and there's no more back and forth. Personally, I don't think it would hurt to at least try; after all, previous surveys have shown that there's at least some support.
Btw, SAC = single ability clause; 2AC = 2 ability clause
I think there is sufficient room to argue that a 2 ability metagame is better than the single ability one we're currently playing, so I've decided to post some of my actual reasoning for why I think so>
Disclaimer: I think a large portion of what will determine any given person's perspective on SAC vs 2AC has to do with answering the question, "Do you want 1 regen, or more than one regen?" There's even a third option of just having no clause at all and balancing the tier around unrestricted ability caps, so this is all stuff that's worth keeping in mind. Anyway...
1. Teambuilding in an SAC metagame feels more restrictive than one with 2AC.
One of the reasons switching to SAC was initially proposed was to diversify the types of cores and structures people build with. Well...remember pre-home when most balance teams were running at least 3 of Corviknight / Garchomp / Scream Tail / Iron Moth? Or take a look at the early post-home metagame, where you're almost certain to need to spend your Regen slot on a spdef/Assault Vest user or sign the contract to get thrashed by special attackers. Let's be realistic: if anything, SAC restricts teambuilding more than expands it. Part of the reason it's difficult to justify dropping Corviknight is because other would-be defensive options like Dondozo have to cope with Rest for recovery since your team probably already spent regen on something else. If you don't use your regen defensively (and are bold enough to opt for something like regen scarf Mew), you are volunteering to play hard mode, where you must now find a way to generally account for all the biggest threats in the metagame with a piece of paper and a pocket full of lint. I admit that "CorvBlissPert" was a very standard, ubiquitous core in the later third of last gen, but let's not pretend as though this gen has been any different so far. "CorvChompTail" has hardly been less common.
Contrast that with last generation, where there plenty of different possible regen combinations one could use to sufficiently both feel like you had counterplay to most things and mix it up if you wanted: Blissey + Swampert, Nidoqueen + Kommo-o, Mew + literally anything are a few examples. Of course, this isn't limited to just Regenerator. Don't forget that there were plenty of teams making use of double Primordial Sea, double Desolate Land, and double Magic Guard as well.
2. More bans are necessary when you have less counterplay to things.
Something I've asked myself quite a bit while going through this gen's banlist is, "Would this really have been that broken if we weren't limited with SAC?" Two really good examples of this (imo) are Great Tusk and Gholdengo, which I feel would be significantly easier to handle in a metagame where you're allowed to run Regenerator on a much larger scope/combination of Pokemon and can even better fight against chip damage tactics by stacking Magic Guard. Now, is it possible that they end up broken in a 2AC meta as well? Sure, but it would certainly be easier to handle them than it is now.
3. Gen 9 has nerfed some of the "stally" ways to take advantage of double regen.
With gen 9, we got:
> Teleport and Flip Turn being removed from basically everything worth using it on.
> Recovery moves mostly nerfed to 8 PP.
> Increased distribution of entry hazards (although unfortunately paired with decreased distribution of Knock Off).
> Decreased distribution of entry hazard removal (painful, but arguably has some positive aspects in this context).
Note that the vast majority of games last gen did not devolve into regen stalling to begin with; it happened very rarely and was almost always a result of one or both users either bringing unreliable means of making progress (in the given matchup) or allowing their most useful tools to faint early on. That being said, regen stalling was enabled even further by how easy it was to spam slow pivoting moves and marinate on the field with 16 PP of Roost, Soft-Boiled, and Recover on their respective users. If you want to build a pivot-heavy team, it's not going to be as simple as throwing a Teleport Blissey and Flip Turn Swampert on and calling it a day; doubling around is much easier to punish when so many viable Pokemon can put up hazards nowadays.
At some point we'll probably need to make a formal decision on if the plan is to stick with SAC or switch to 2AC (or no AC, I guess)--likely with a big suspect test--so the community's overall stance is clear and there's no more back and forth. Personally, I don't think it would hurt to at least try; after all, previous surveys have shown that there's at least some support.
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I realized that ChainChomp is really good rn.
Garchomp @ Leftovers
Ability: Adaptability
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
The ubiquitous Corv-Chomp-Moth core gets fried by this. Most commons special walls like Muk-Alola and Goodra-Hisui can't take an EQ. Most Corvs are not WBB. Most mons running WBB or EE can't take on both Fire Blast and EQ which also means Treads can't safely remove hazards. Strong special dragon types are really hard to wall rn and this is the fastest one. The only thing to worry about is Scream Tail but I think most people have developed counterplays to it. (This can be Regen with LO but I don't want to waste the Regen slot)
Garchomp @ Leftovers
Ability: Adaptability
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
The ubiquitous Corv-Chomp-Moth core gets fried by this. Most commons special walls like Muk-Alola and Goodra-Hisui can't take an EQ. Most Corvs are not WBB. Most mons running WBB or EE can't take on both Fire Blast and EQ which also means Treads can't safely remove hazards. Strong special dragon types are really hard to wall rn and this is the fastest one. The only thing to worry about is Scream Tail but I think most people have developed counterplays to it. (This can be Regen with LO but I don't want to waste the Regen slot)
Like the annoying person I am, I must add my grain of salt on this topic 
It's been not even 2 weeks since home release and you already want to completely change the metagame again? That's not serious. Posts supporting 2AC have been quite numerous since home-release although that's a complete different metagame that is certainly not yet mature! Before even looking at the option to come back or not to 2AC, perhaps it would be good to let to this metagame more time to develop. It means let the council take necessary actions against broken or unhealthy to an unreasonable degree elements*.
Once the metagame gets a more defined shape, then perhaps it will be time to talk about it.
*Ofc I'm not of the side thinking something should be banned in last ressort ; this reasoning feels harmful to the metagame health. Hopefully when people get the opportunity to vote, so far, no suspects ended with a DNB in AAA yet. But let's leave these questions aside for the moment.
We heard a lot people complain during pre-home about how we lack specially defensive options but we just get 3, Goodra-Hisui, Meloetta, Muk-Alola and even stuff like Mew, Heatran, Slowking-Galar, Cresselia, Uxie, Landorus-Therian or Diancie. This reshuffles the deck when it comes to special defensive options even though I'm on the side special attackers were fine with the options we had in home meta especially after Ghosts removal.
However a good point have been raised: most of them are reliable special walls if and only if you play them RegenVest. The issue being obviously to take your Regen slot. Because people feel constrained to use their Regenslot to this end, they feel oppressed in the builder. Multiple things in fact lead to this feeling:
- AAA is an extremely violent metagame. The concept of check is often abused due to the increased power leading to transform 3HKO in 2HKO, 4HKO in 3HKO, etc. A Garchomp (without Regenerator or something ensuring long term recovery) is a very poor choice to deal with Desolate Land mons like Iron Moth, Heatran, Ceruledge, Cinderace or Typhlosion-Hisui because you need some huge invest just to avoid being 3HKO by a resisted Fire move. A Corviknight is no longer able to deal with Zarude, Roaring Moon, Slither Wing or Kingambit without Intimidate because they can all run a damage boosting ability. Basically your only options are to take something closer to a counter (RegenVest, Intimidate/Fluffy, immunity) if you want to deal defensively with something. This is not something new and an aspect that can be seen as positive or negative within the search of a balanced metagame. Is a metagame with nuclear defensive and offensive options is balanced or is that something reached when things are less polarized? Vast question that can that could change the very fundations of AAA. But at the end of day, it's also about what people want? Do they search well balanced metagame and competitivity like OU or perhaps they want to trade a part of that to more fun? As a (retired hehe) competitive player, I walked the path of competitiveness and balance because that's where I find "my fun". This is subjective.
I could live in a metagame without damages boosting abilities (MG is included there) because it would feel less oppressive and MU reliant although less "diversified". In such a meta perhaps SAC is perfectly fine because the pressure to support isn't that big.
- Power creep. This takes into account not only the new quite dumb mons but also the healing moves pp nerf, the removing of some great defensive options and even the simple loss of recovery on mon like Mew. We should however mention that, the nerf of healing moves doesn't really play a role. Who's ever found themselves in a situation where they've used up all their healing pp? In my experience, it happened so rarely to me and considering the typical duration of a game, it seems my case is not alone. The power creep then mainly comes from the new busted abilities we got as well as the introduction of always more broken stuff. Hopefully they got banned because free dumb things like Ice Scales or Fur Coat to "balance" things is not realistic even if the idea has some merits. The issue will always be bulky setup being dumb and uncompetitive.
- SAC. Well of course if you're looking for defensive options, SAC is not the way lol. Things were violent last gen too but you had this magic option called Regecore to distribute offensive pressure. At this stage, Regecore are a positive addition to the metagame. The issue about Regecore stated last generation doesn't originate from this defensive enabling possibilities. It's an issue of Regecore themsleves stemming from their ability to go back and forth nullifying progress easily. It's way easier to nullify progress with Regecore than making some against them because you need to play some almost perfect sequences sometimes (win an unreasonable number of 50/50 in a row) while not losing at preview. At this point, the line between getting every predicts right against a great opponent being skill or mere luck is unclear.
Regecore were also known to often push the game at an annoying point especially when it came to some balanced/fat vs balanced/fat MU making AAA boring, feeling shared by some people at the end of the 8th gen.
- Perhaps, our playstyle isn't suited to the true nature of the current metagame. If you look at official metagames and especially OU, it should be clear that this generation is completely different from the previous ones. This generation is much more offensive and oriented towards Offense/BO rather than balanced or fat. The dynamic is completely different and people adapted. If the metagame doesn't allow to go for bulkier playstyles with a defensive approach, then you should not try to make it work and accept the fact you should play more offensive playstyles.
This feeling of "lack of defensive options" is also built by a reject of the current state of the metagame and a will to try to come back to a more balanced/fat state-like AAA was previously.
I don't claim to know everything about the metagame and perhaps, even myself, I know nothing about it. But we should definitely consider our way to play this AAA metagame as an issue and not the metagame itself.
This being said, I would like to come back to a point that I would like to discuss: the pre-home metagame was fun and competitive to me. Again, this is subjective and I heard people complain to this or that so I know my feeling isn't necessarily representative. However, from my point of view as a player and observer, the pre-home AAA metagame seemed well suited for the competition with interesting and dynamic games.
However, a point has been raised by Isaiah above (but realistically any AAA player know about it), teambuilding in AAA has been quite centralized around the top tier, Corviknight, Garchomp, Iron Moth and Scream Tail. However, it should be noted that AAA is not the only metagame in that case. OU, the usual reference in terms of balance, is also quite centralized with greater usage of the top with respect to last gens. That's just what happens when we have some mons that stand above others by a fair margin with an overall lack of consistent options.
Something else I also noticed is the fact some seem to play a different metagame. Yes, CorvChompMothScream are top tier but they're far from being our only options. Perhaps some people are just lazy to try new things and innovate leading to redundant structures?
This has been very clear when l took a look at the last VRs. The AAA council seems to consider the metagame as about fifteen mon viable and many other elements below of somehow much lower viability. On the other side, stats from OMPL or ladder clearly show a broader metagame with many B-ranked mons (Rotom-Wash, Glimmora, Tinkaton, Ceruledge, Hatterene, etc) with usage probably worth A-rank. Therefore, this picture of "CorvChompMothScream" everywhere might have been a bit outdated or, at least, didn't take into account most recent metagame developments.
That's why, even though yeah, of course, you will always find the top tier (in any tier realistically) in your team because they just provide a lot, there was still enough freedom to build effective, interesting and innovating teams.
Now what's about the current metagame? As I said before, we first need more time to develop and explore it before anything else. That being said, are we going to lack defensive counterplay ending up to redundant structures again with limited teambuilder?
It's possible yeah but at this time we don't know. Or again, maybe we're wrong to stick to this defensive approach to deal with things and we should go for a more offensive approach.
About coming back to the 2AC (regecore + some MG core), I am against for now. As someone who played quite a lot SS AAA, sure it wasn't horrible and I managed to enjoy the metagame especially because the teambuilder was quite broad. However, I definitely enjoyed less playing due to regecore spam. I'd like to show some stats between SS AAA and SV AAA, a metagame with 2AC and one with SAC.
I made these stats by using 47 competitive games from SS (OMPL X + WCuP V) and 22 games from SV (OMPL XI + money tour final and semi + ssnl final and semi). The result is quite clear, SV AAA games are much shorter (about 26 turns) than SS AAA games. Of course different parameters may play a role but the presence of Regecore and some MG core in SS will likely be the main element leading to this big difference.
Looking at the standard deviation, SS AAA also seems to fluctuate much more than SV AAA. Either you go for a 30 turns game either you go for a 100 turns game lol. We can see that in several ways. Maybe it's an indicator MU played a big role in SS AAA, either you get it and you manage to break or not break fast either the game will last long. Perhaps it shows SS AAA was more diversified with different archetypes leading to really different outcomes in terms of duration while SV is more consistent.
But anw, from a practical point of view yeah, I rather play about 45 turns than 71 in a quite consistent metagame than a fluctuating one. I'm worried about the nefast aspect Regecores can bring again in the metagame with people spamming RegenVest Goodra-H/Melo/Muk-A/whatever + Garchomp/Ting-Lu/Mew/Dondozo/Slither/LandoT/whatever which is realistically just another type of disease.
If any action should be taken to slow down/come back to a more balanced approach, I will be more open to something else than 2AC. They're 2 options I'm thinking about:
- Suspect test back Poison Heal. The pros and cons are quite obvious. On one hand you get more defensive options but on the other you open the field to some dumb bulky setup (hi Scream Tail, Cresselia, Mew, Diancie, etc). Bulky setup might be in control if the metagame is violent enough to not let those bulky setup sweeper manage to setup easily or win the game by themselves. SAC and Scald removal helpsas well as banning Calm Mind haha just kidding.
- Nerf the power level in AAA. It's about banning several abilities like SoR/BoR, Hadron Engine, Sheer Force and perhaps MG (allows to spam crazy moves for free with hazards, RH or any residual damage immunity), Adapatability or Tough Claws. Those abilities are the biggest issue due to their splashability and the amount of power they provide basically forcing nuclear defensive options like RegenVest, Intimidate Corv or immunities.
The cost is of course the ban of many abilities, something AAA is trying to avoid usually. Target can be abusers but again, what's the best between getting rid of many mons to save abilities or the opposite?
To conclude this post, I don't think coming back to 2AC is something good for the metagame health. Perhaps it allows more diversity because Regen is such an amazing ability enabling so many things to suddently become viable but, at the end of day, we will mainly stick to the same Regenerators we currently have but stacking 2 instead of chosing 1 lol. The only merit this option has is to alleviate some pressure in the builder but the cost is of course a slower metagame with more hazards spam (more effective in long games), double regen and perhaps double MG to aim for long term gameplans. The MU will also likely play a bigger role exacerbating bad MU.
But again, before anything else, we should let (much) more time to the metagame to develop, get rid of the broken/too unhealthy elements, and see where we come in. Basically, this discussion should at least wait for the end of the OMPL XI.
However, I greatly encourage people to host a Poison Heal free, 2AC or power creep nerf tounament to see in practise what could look like those metagames (like the Change-Happy tour last gen but we don't waste time and rounds freeing broken like Weavile or Blacephalon last gen lol. The idea will be to get at least 2-3 rounds of observation to perhaps see something.
Thanks for reading and have a good day you all
For or against a come back to 2AC?
Before anything else something must be clearly stated:
This is too early!
It's been not even 2 weeks since home release and you already want to completely change the metagame again? That's not serious. Posts supporting 2AC have been quite numerous since home-release although that's a complete different metagame that is certainly not yet mature! Before even looking at the option to come back or not to 2AC, perhaps it would be good to let to this metagame more time to develop. It means let the council take necessary actions against broken or unhealthy to an unreasonable degree elements*.
Once the metagame gets a more defined shape, then perhaps it will be time to talk about it.
*Ofc I'm not of the side thinking something should be banned in last ressort ; this reasoning feels harmful to the metagame health. Hopefully when people get the opportunity to vote, so far, no suspects ended with a DNB in AAA yet. But let's leave these questions aside for the moment.
We heard a lot people complain during pre-home about how we lack specially defensive options but we just get 3, Goodra-Hisui, Meloetta, Muk-Alola and even stuff like Mew, Heatran, Slowking-Galar, Cresselia, Uxie, Landorus-Therian or Diancie. This reshuffles the deck when it comes to special defensive options even though I'm on the side special attackers were fine with the options we had in home meta especially after Ghosts removal.
However a good point have been raised: most of them are reliable special walls if and only if you play them RegenVest. The issue being obviously to take your Regen slot. Because people feel constrained to use their Regenslot to this end, they feel oppressed in the builder. Multiple things in fact lead to this feeling:
- AAA is an extremely violent metagame. The concept of check is often abused due to the increased power leading to transform 3HKO in 2HKO, 4HKO in 3HKO, etc. A Garchomp (without Regenerator or something ensuring long term recovery) is a very poor choice to deal with Desolate Land mons like Iron Moth, Heatran, Ceruledge, Cinderace or Typhlosion-Hisui because you need some huge invest just to avoid being 3HKO by a resisted Fire move. A Corviknight is no longer able to deal with Zarude, Roaring Moon, Slither Wing or Kingambit without Intimidate because they can all run a damage boosting ability. Basically your only options are to take something closer to a counter (RegenVest, Intimidate/Fluffy, immunity) if you want to deal defensively with something. This is not something new and an aspect that can be seen as positive or negative within the search of a balanced metagame. Is a metagame with nuclear defensive and offensive options is balanced or is that something reached when things are less polarized? Vast question that can that could change the very fundations of AAA. But at the end of day, it's also about what people want? Do they search well balanced metagame and competitivity like OU or perhaps they want to trade a part of that to more fun? As a (retired hehe) competitive player, I walked the path of competitiveness and balance because that's where I find "my fun". This is subjective.
I could live in a metagame without damages boosting abilities (MG is included there) because it would feel less oppressive and MU reliant although less "diversified". In such a meta perhaps SAC is perfectly fine because the pressure to support isn't that big.
- Power creep. This takes into account not only the new quite dumb mons but also the healing moves pp nerf, the removing of some great defensive options and even the simple loss of recovery on mon like Mew. We should however mention that, the nerf of healing moves doesn't really play a role. Who's ever found themselves in a situation where they've used up all their healing pp? In my experience, it happened so rarely to me and considering the typical duration of a game, it seems my case is not alone. The power creep then mainly comes from the new busted abilities we got as well as the introduction of always more broken stuff. Hopefully they got banned because free dumb things like Ice Scales or Fur Coat to "balance" things is not realistic even if the idea has some merits. The issue will always be bulky setup being dumb and uncompetitive.
- SAC. Well of course if you're looking for defensive options, SAC is not the way lol. Things were violent last gen too but you had this magic option called Regecore to distribute offensive pressure. At this stage, Regecore are a positive addition to the metagame. The issue about Regecore stated last generation doesn't originate from this defensive enabling possibilities. It's an issue of Regecore themsleves stemming from their ability to go back and forth nullifying progress easily. It's way easier to nullify progress with Regecore than making some against them because you need to play some almost perfect sequences sometimes (win an unreasonable number of 50/50 in a row) while not losing at preview. At this point, the line between getting every predicts right against a great opponent being skill or mere luck is unclear.
Regecore were also known to often push the game at an annoying point especially when it came to some balanced/fat vs balanced/fat MU making AAA boring, feeling shared by some people at the end of the 8th gen.
- Perhaps, our playstyle isn't suited to the true nature of the current metagame. If you look at official metagames and especially OU, it should be clear that this generation is completely different from the previous ones. This generation is much more offensive and oriented towards Offense/BO rather than balanced or fat. The dynamic is completely different and people adapted. If the metagame doesn't allow to go for bulkier playstyles with a defensive approach, then you should not try to make it work and accept the fact you should play more offensive playstyles.
This feeling of "lack of defensive options" is also built by a reject of the current state of the metagame and a will to try to come back to a more balanced/fat state-like AAA was previously.
I don't claim to know everything about the metagame and perhaps, even myself, I know nothing about it. But we should definitely consider our way to play this AAA metagame as an issue and not the metagame itself.
This being said, I would like to come back to a point that I would like to discuss: the pre-home metagame was fun and competitive to me. Again, this is subjective and I heard people complain to this or that so I know my feeling isn't necessarily representative. However, from my point of view as a player and observer, the pre-home AAA metagame seemed well suited for the competition with interesting and dynamic games.
However, a point has been raised by Isaiah above (but realistically any AAA player know about it), teambuilding in AAA has been quite centralized around the top tier, Corviknight, Garchomp, Iron Moth and Scream Tail. However, it should be noted that AAA is not the only metagame in that case. OU, the usual reference in terms of balance, is also quite centralized with greater usage of the top with respect to last gens. That's just what happens when we have some mons that stand above others by a fair margin with an overall lack of consistent options.
Something else I also noticed is the fact some seem to play a different metagame. Yes, CorvChompMothScream are top tier but they're far from being our only options. Perhaps some people are just lazy to try new things and innovate leading to redundant structures?
This has been very clear when l took a look at the last VRs. The AAA council seems to consider the metagame as about fifteen mon viable and many other elements below of somehow much lower viability. On the other side, stats from OMPL or ladder clearly show a broader metagame with many B-ranked mons (Rotom-Wash, Glimmora, Tinkaton, Ceruledge, Hatterene, etc) with usage probably worth A-rank. Therefore, this picture of "CorvChompMothScream" everywhere might have been a bit outdated or, at least, didn't take into account most recent metagame developments.
That's why, even though yeah, of course, you will always find the top tier (in any tier realistically) in your team because they just provide a lot, there was still enough freedom to build effective, interesting and innovating teams.
Now what's about the current metagame? As I said before, we first need more time to develop and explore it before anything else. That being said, are we going to lack defensive counterplay ending up to redundant structures again with limited teambuilder?
It's possible yeah but at this time we don't know. Or again, maybe we're wrong to stick to this defensive approach to deal with things and we should go for a more offensive approach.
About coming back to the 2AC (regecore + some MG core), I am against for now. As someone who played quite a lot SS AAA, sure it wasn't horrible and I managed to enjoy the metagame especially because the teambuilder was quite broad. However, I definitely enjoyed less playing due to regecore spam. I'd like to show some stats between SS AAA and SV AAA, a metagame with 2AC and one with SAC.
| Statistical parameters | SS AAA | SV AAA |
|---|---|---|
Average number of turns | 71,31 | 44,57 |
Standard deviation | 35,64 | 17,75 |
I made these stats by using 47 competitive games from SS (OMPL X + WCuP V) and 22 games from SV (OMPL XI + money tour final and semi + ssnl final and semi). The result is quite clear, SV AAA games are much shorter (about 26 turns) than SS AAA games. Of course different parameters may play a role but the presence of Regecore and some MG core in SS will likely be the main element leading to this big difference.
Looking at the standard deviation, SS AAA also seems to fluctuate much more than SV AAA. Either you go for a 30 turns game either you go for a 100 turns game lol. We can see that in several ways. Maybe it's an indicator MU played a big role in SS AAA, either you get it and you manage to break or not break fast either the game will last long. Perhaps it shows SS AAA was more diversified with different archetypes leading to really different outcomes in terms of duration while SV is more consistent.
But anw, from a practical point of view yeah, I rather play about 45 turns than 71 in a quite consistent metagame than a fluctuating one. I'm worried about the nefast aspect Regecores can bring again in the metagame with people spamming RegenVest Goodra-H/Melo/Muk-A/whatever + Garchomp/Ting-Lu/Mew/Dondozo/Slither/LandoT/whatever which is realistically just another type of disease.
If any action should be taken to slow down/come back to a more balanced approach, I will be more open to something else than 2AC. They're 2 options I'm thinking about:
- Suspect test back Poison Heal. The pros and cons are quite obvious. On one hand you get more defensive options but on the other you open the field to some dumb bulky setup (hi Scream Tail, Cresselia, Mew, Diancie, etc). Bulky setup might be in control if the metagame is violent enough to not let those bulky setup sweeper manage to setup easily or win the game by themselves. SAC and Scald removal helps
- Nerf the power level in AAA. It's about banning several abilities like SoR/BoR, Hadron Engine, Sheer Force and perhaps MG (allows to spam crazy moves for free with hazards, RH or any residual damage immunity), Adapatability or Tough Claws. Those abilities are the biggest issue due to their splashability and the amount of power they provide basically forcing nuclear defensive options like RegenVest, Intimidate Corv or immunities.
The cost is of course the ban of many abilities, something AAA is trying to avoid usually. Target can be abusers but again, what's the best between getting rid of many mons to save abilities or the opposite?
To conclude this post, I don't think coming back to 2AC is something good for the metagame health. Perhaps it allows more diversity because Regen is such an amazing ability enabling so many things to suddently become viable but, at the end of day, we will mainly stick to the same Regenerators we currently have but stacking 2 instead of chosing 1 lol. The only merit this option has is to alleviate some pressure in the builder but the cost is of course a slower metagame with more hazards spam (more effective in long games), double regen and perhaps double MG to aim for long term gameplans. The MU will also likely play a bigger role exacerbating bad MU.
But again, before anything else, we should let (much) more time to the metagame to develop, get rid of the broken/too unhealthy elements, and see where we come in. Basically, this discussion should at least wait for the end of the OMPL XI.
However, I greatly encourage people to host a Poison Heal free, 2AC or power creep nerf tounament to see in practise what could look like those metagames (like the Change-Happy tour last gen but we don't waste time and rounds freeing broken like Weavile or Blacephalon last gen lol. The idea will be to get at least 2-3 rounds of observation to perhaps see something.
Thanks for reading and have a good day you all
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Yeah this is something I was thinking about too. Speaking of last gen: how many special wall were NOT regenvesters? I genuinely only remember Blissey in that regard. This is a genuine question, I do not remember other non RV special mons.
I generally agree with everything Siamato said. Especially the fact that it's too early to panic and decide to actually do something.
About what Isaiah said: it's true that this meta feels a bit more restrictive to build, but only if we're talking about defensive options. And, in part, I agree that it's because people are generally scared of trying new things (bar the top... 15? 20? people on the ladder)
Anyway, let's try to have some fun!
I disagree with the notion that people (especially some of those on the council) are refusing to try/scared to try/innovate/etc.
People are, people do. Some people make multiple different teams a day. Things have been attempted, if you don't see them then they just weren't able to be successful. Of course there is a bottomless pit of infinite potential to theory but with the past few months of AAA-ing the idea that nobody playing has bothered to try something new is absurd.
People are, people do. Some people make multiple different teams a day. Things have been attempted, if you don't see them then they just weren't able to be successful. Of course there is a bottomless pit of infinite potential to theory but with the past few months of AAA-ing the idea that nobody playing has bothered to try something new is absurd.