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I'll keep this short: With OMPL starting in a few weeks, we've decided to open up sample submissions again before the tour starts and people start keeping all of their teams a secret! They will remain open for the next two weeks, and submissions must be posted in this thread following this format:
Pokepaste link: https://pokepast.es/8d7693ed9640c831 Brief description of team: Sticky Hold Glastrier stall build. Beats every team that it doesn't lose to.
https://pokepast.es/cbd332b1fac2e32f
physical offense that can break through most checks to physical walls like intim corv. if zarude down, struggles against bulky waters
https://pokepast.es/4ceb459a7383e4eb
Cobalion Balance, the one I've been using for a while and runnign over ladder with. Theoretically it has issues with some genesect sets but in practice that mon is overrated as hell and you usually just win anyway without needing to make plays. There arent that many shutout matchouts but it's also almost always got tools to win whatever it is, the only exception is sflo lele which can be a bit of an uphill battle if the rest of their team is well prepped for yours.
https://pokepast.es/7b5d195743ade43b
Sharp Beak Zapdos Balance. Sharp Beak is great on zapdos, makes it pretty easy to overwhelm a lot of would-be checks. The rest of the team is great at making progress and supporting your breakers, plus there's volcarona to act as a funny triage / koko check. The mew set is almost certainly suboptimal in some way but it works and I'm too lazy to change it.
Description: A Double Triage balance team featuring Regenerator Toxapex built by me and a friend of mine not on Smogon forums with which we've had decent success on ladder. Might be a little too nutty to be a sample, but I thought it was worth a shot/worth sharing; very fun to use regardless. Tapu Bulu's item is really up to the player (so you can opt for standard LO if you can play towards Moltres well/keep it as healthy as possible if the opponent has Dhelm on their team and you know when to get Lele in safely). I chose Eject Pack so to lure in CC/Intimidate switchins to pivot to Lele with the CC drops/Intimidate Atk drop when Lele can start cleaning up after +1 or +2. Also, and more primarily, it doubles as a Dhelmise answer since no one on the team enjoys switching in on an LO Poltergeist. Honestly think Regen Pex, while not as insane as it is in OU, is pretty solid--especially paired with Hippo. Can usually stay in on SE or strong physical attacks (though for the former, the player should still scout for things like Choice Band and/or Adaptability) and poison/knock them while getting HP back via switching instead of burning a bunch of Recovers to stay above half (not to imply that Prank isn't better on the majority of other builds). Personally went against an irregularly high amount of stall/semi-stall teams when using this, but Pex, Rachi, and Moltres alone in my experience kinda ran circles around them by shuffling between each other with little thought involved--especially if they walled even their hard wincon.
As mentioned, you can run LO on the Bulu if you feel you can pressure Dhelm well with Moltres. SD Talonflame and opposing MGLO Moltres can be tough to deal with, so you may run Rock Slide > Whirlwind on Hippo; beware, though: the ZyGod matchup might be harder. Another excellent option over Bulu is Grassy Zarude (LO BU or Banded) with High Horsepower > EQ on Hippo if you struggle with things like demon Mew or PsySurge mons foiling your Triage shenanigans; it also mitigates EQ damage on Pex and Rachi which they greatly appreciate.
Pokepaste link: https://pokepast.es/44b517215766916b Brief description of team: BirdSpam + Offensive Regen Garchomp. Garchomp and Talonflame each put tremendous pressure on opposing physical defensive cores with their coverage, high base power attacks, longevity, and access to Swords Dance. Hippowdon is the primary physical wall, with Corviknight backing it up, and Blissey is the catch-all special wall. The team is able to play fairly fat despite having three strong attackers thanks to Regenerator and/or reliable recovery on all six mons. Fire- and Water-type immunities take a lot of pressure off Blissey as well. Known weaknesses include some breakers (Dhelmise, Zarude, and Tapu Lele) and opposing setup (mainly Genesect), but there is counterplay with offensive pressure, good positioning, and denying entry points.
Unusual techs include: Water Absorb Corviknight (which patches up an otherwise dire Water-type weakness), Shadow Ball and Fire Blast Blissey (catches opposing Chandelure and Genesect off guard, as it is otherwise the best entry point for both), and Volt Switch Zapdos instead of U-turn or Thunder (I like this tech if you can punish Swampert, which Corviknight can, as it lets you get all three coverage options, Roost, and pivoting).
I'm back to submit another screens HO team for samples, I hope y'all like it even if it doesn't end up making it to samples
Link: https://pokepast.es/b298c46f9e74abf1
The basic overview of this team is screens HO going for a sorta physical overload strategy, with some triage lele to top it off, I'll justify my sets below.
I already know that y'all are going to have A LOT to say about this but hear me out, this is a very funny screener that has the bulk to setup screens multiple times if needed and a good defensive typing in mono-water. Though it does have the ability to setup multiple rounds of screens if needed, I really like the momentum you get from clicking memento. Prankster taunt is self explanatory of why it's good but just in case, defog=bad and taunt usually stops it from happening.
Classic HO wincon here, not much to say. It sets up very reliably with screens up and you can even stack a memento on to be sure.
Again, tinted genesect doing tinted genesect things, beating lots and going boom on anything it doesn't wanna deal with.
I love this lando on the team since it can reliably beat pex and does a good job of luring corv. Most things slower than it either get nuked or allow it to set up an SD or 2, faster things might be a problem if screens are down but it can usually at the very least click boom if screens are still up.
Tough claws lucario is apparently pretty good, I replaced gapdos with this thanks to a suggestion from Osake (thank you btw) and it has proven to be much more effective. Now that we have 2 forms of strong priority on the team we don't really have a need for scarf gapdos anymore, this benefits more from screens too with SD.
My other form of speed control here is triage lele, it beats pex and can usually setup at least 1 calm mind thanks to screens being amazing
Now, I know that the AAA council generally doesn't want to promote the sets that I create so I took the liberty of making a list of alternate screeners that you can sub in for pyukumuku if that will help it become a sample team.
Edit: Replaced Zapdos-Galar with Lucario thanks to a suggestion from Osake
Whilst going through building this meta, I've had many problems with weather breakers, certain SF breakers, and in general had a lot of issues with trying to sustain an offensive playstyle. Some mons were just too easy to exploit defensively, and it did not feel like the cores in general were very rigid, especially given the prevalence of Kommo-o and Genesect, which made these teams even harder to build properly. In response to that, I've been messing around with stall / heavy balance playstyles, and in trying to hone my building skills for these, came up with this Volcarona stall. The main gimmick that this team has going for it is that it's very strong against most offenses as well as capable of slowly stacking hazards to make progress vs opposing stall, albeit at a very slow pace due to Regenerator's prevalence. Chansey and Mew can both also force ties very easily, as forcing these Pokemon to waste PP in a passive vs passive build situation is very tough. I've found this to be a pretty consistent pick vs my testing buddies as well, as most special threats are blanked by Chansey, and most physical threats are dealt with by Mew + Kommo-o. In general, this team has a lot of ways to counterplay other teamstyles, even if it does play slow, and that's why I've come here today to submit this team as a sample. However, there are a few decently common Pokemon that cause this team some grief:
Threatlist:
Garchomp : SD Regen Garchomp can be a very difficult mon to mediate, doubly so for Dragon Tail variants, which even though they aren't as good at pressuring Mew, can easily beat the rest of the team's forms of counterplay and more importantly, punish Volcarona. Checking this mon is pretty much as simple as using Mew for its intended purpose - if you're running low on HP, just trick the Garchomp, and it will promptly be unable to do anything to the team of note. As for defensive sets, these aren't really an issue other than potential trading of hazards, which you can just respond to with your own.
Pixilate Tapu Koko + : A good player can get off many volts with this thing whilst chipping the main Regen answers. You have to be very careful not to let it Facade too much or get Volcarona down to a low range. Additionally, it is also fairly difficult to chip Facade Koko with this team, as this team does not have a single move that can OHKO it.
Dhelmise : Trick Dhelmise can be a major problem, as it can cripple otherwise good answers like Kommo-o and can easily get in on Chansey, making it tough to deal with long term. SD LO can also cause this problem if Kommo-o is too heavily chipped. If desired, running itemless Corviknight can get around the issue, but it makes matchups to the above two a bit worse.
Jirachi : Certain breakers, like Cinderace and Terrakion, can be very difficult to handle if paired with Future Sight support. Jirachi is the most annoying of these partners, being very difficult for the team to KO and potentially causing disruption to the other members of the team. The team can make some decent midgrounds with Scarf Mew and Kommo-o, but don't be surprised if one of your mons gets overwhelmed.
https://pokepast.es/c071800989831bd4 Description: The team is a fairly standard hazard stack balance based around Talonflame. The team thrives on outlasting teams, while also having very counterstyle picks (talon vs fat, koko vs offense, chomp vs everything really :P) that give it some really clean matchups.
A COLLECTION OF BROKEN AND BUSTED THREATS THAT EVERY TEAM SHOULD BE PREPARED TO ANSWER (#2)
DISCLAIMER: This is entirely my opinion and isn't an official resource.
Making another one of these before OMPL to put down all of the things I perceive to be notable threats right now. I won't be including sets this time since the Viability Rankings has relevant ones for the most part. I'm also only doing abilities this time because I feel like the VR does a decent job of elucidating which particular Pokemon are important enough to prep for.
Regenerator
Permaweather
Random Immunity Abilities
Magic Guard
Triage
Terrain
Regenerator (regen)
If you build a team that loses to regen cycling (switching back and forth between mons with regen over and over while the opposing team flounders around hopelessly) you're already fried. It's not an exaggeration to say that regen is the most important ability in the meta: it enables every one of its users to become extremely annoying to underprepped teams.
Who? - scarf, rocky helm/lefties - physdef w/ rocky helm/lefties, spdef w/ lefties, regenvest - HDB, rocky helm if they're cool - annoying - scarf - SD, can be offensive or spdef - scarf - rocky helm/lefties - regenvest - regenvest, scarf - lefties/rocky helm - leftovers annoying guy
Counterplay
> Abuse damage amp--stuff like adapt, SFLO, MGLO + setup, etc. to make it so the regen cycling is resulting in a net loss of HP (they can only get 1/3 per switchin)
> "Steal" the regen with Wandering Spirit
> Switch into your own regen and gameplan so you can get momentum back
Permaweather
Pretty self-explanatory in that these mons are nullifying attacks from an entire type (usually one they are weak to), meaning their type matchup changes quite a bit and requires some actual thinking from the opponent. For example: Heatran in regular play is cool, but what do you do when magma storm is always doing an extra 50% damage and solar beam only takes one turn to activate? If your only fire resist is Swampert, ggs.
Who? - primsea (dland) - lefties, sometimes specs or scarf (primsea) - usually HDB offensive (sometimes modest), can also be specs or scarf but less common (primsea) - specs (primsea) - specs (dland/primsea) - specs (dland) - HDB QD (primsea) - CB (dland) - CB or HDB
Counterplay
> permaweather beats permaweather sometimes: use primsea zap to cook dland tran, dland volc to beat primsea barraskewda
> tanky regens: fini can check the water-types kinda sorta, blissey sits on all of the special ones
> immunity abilities: flash fire/water absorb and co. can do the job
Random Immunity Abilities
One of the worst feelings in AAA is getting fried because an opposing mon is immune to one or more of the attacks from your strongest breakers. If you're stacking attacks that immunities exist for, don't be surprised if you randomly run into a matchup(s) where you can't do anything.
Who? - volt absorb, flash fire - water absorb, flash fire - volt absorb - levitate - bulletproof - bulletproof
Counterplay
> Have alternative ways to break so that your team doesn't autolose to random immunities when your breaker can't break--otherwise, just hope for the best
Magic Guard (MGLO = magic guard life orb; mguard)
Hazards and chip moves like Toxic and Will-O-Wisp become bad forms of chip vs these guys (duh), so generally you will need to pack things to either wall them forever or nuke them. In the past when poison heal was allowed, people used to run things like Gastro Acid and Worry Seed more often, but that's far less common now (although still somewhat effective). Counterplay is pretty self-explanatory here, so I won't add an extra section for that.
Who? - MGLO (can carry calm mind and sometimes carries wild charge) - MGLO (SD + 120 bp STAB move spammer) - MGLO (thunderous kick + uturn spammer) - MGLO (not the most common thing anymore, but cosmic stored power + body press can be pretty annoying) - MGLO (the former can do wild charge + espeed stuff to wreck pex, the latter can do toxic + stomping tantrum to wreck pex) - assorted examples of random MGLO (MG + thick club in maro's case) mons that I think are bad but can take advantage of surprise factor and decent team support (see the VR for sets)
Magic Bounce
"Isn't Mew the only good mbouncer?" Yeah, pretty much.
Who? - annoying: can be calm mind, cosmic stored power + body press, hazard stacker, hazard removal, support mon w/ wisp, etc. - Mew but base speed of 0 and water resist - regen is better most of the time, but they can still be pretty annoying bouncers vs things like non-moldy heatran - not the best set but it kinda sorta exists, so be wary
Counterplay
You kinda just have to either scout by clicking moves that can be bounced when it's low risk (for example, trying to set rocks with your swampert in a position where you can easily swap out to your defogger right afterwards), clicking moves that you don't care about being bounced (e.g. ferrothorn clicking leech seed or heatran clicking toxic), or holding your bounceable moves hostage until all doubt can be eliminated (e.g. mew reveals regen or dshield).
Triage
Tosses speed tiers into the trash can, aggravating everyone involved.
- CM LO, has to hit focus blast to beat non bulletproof heatran/ferrothorn, though - SD LO, grass/fighting/dark/rock coverage options hit a large portion of the meta super effectively or just hard in general, and +2 horn leech is incredibly potent at cleaning up teams (esp. since prankster pex can't haze you before taking a boosted horn leech) - NP HDB, can run combinations of fire blast/psyshock/aura sphere for coverage or even just be support set with heal bell (the latter is underwhelming, though) - rejoice if you see triage Kommo-o, since it means the opp is running 5 mons
Counterplay
Psychic Surge [Azelf] is really good at offensively checking Triage, but has a hard time killing Lele on its own. Resists that do damage back are also generally powerful (e.g. intim corv, [regen] genesect) and unaware stuff sits on everything (e.g. Mandibuzz for Bulu w/o stone edge, Chansey and Mew for everything).
Terrains
We've already seen how cracked terrains are in standard play (see: Koko, Lele, Rillaboom), so it's only natural that they're just as good in a meta where you can put them on even more Pokemon.
- gterrain, CB or sometimes bulk up LO gterrain, SD LO or CB switcheroo (of note is switcheroo + SD, which forces the opponent to have an item so that you can poltergeist them) - pterrain, very potent speed control option w/ scarf and trick, can also just be specs or twisted spoon
Electric Terrain - assorted bad eterrain teams that are bad (xurkitree is cool though)
Counterplay
Just bring good resists or pivot between your regen slots. Mandibuzz is a fake Zarude answer in the sense that it just eats uturns and loses momentum in most cases, so you will want other things to make plays with. Intimidate Corviknight can generally keep both Zarude and Dhelmise at bay, but can't OHKO either with brave bird so it risks losing to recoil + repeated attacks if you don't uturn. Azelf is notoriously powerful because of expanding force + pterrain boost, and it also threatens to knock assault vests off of opposing teams (while still threatening trick), but it's pretty frail and can be blanket checked by fat regen mons like blissey/chansey, regenvest swampert, etc.
Stuff I could've listed but didn't for various reasons: Unburden (Kommo-o land, sometimes seed users on terrain teams too) Adaptability/Sheer Force (you should already be prepped for dmg amp in this meta, you don't need a blueprint for that) Power Construct (I'm a zyg-complete hater and I think it's bad) Tinted Lens (Shift Gear Genesect is cool sometimes, specs Lele is sorta kinda cool, otherwise this is typically just slapped on random breakers--often physical fighting-types like Heracross and Mienshao--to try and beat resists)
Thanks to everyone that voted in the April Survey! We were able to gather over 30 responses :]
This one was the first survey we left open for 2 weeks, and in total it got around 20 responses less than January's survey (38 vs 62). As usual, we'll also try to keep the surveys to happening once every 3 months unless massive meta changes/shifts happen.
I'll be sharing the results followed by how the council will act (or not act) on them moving forward.
On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? (How much do you enjoy playing it?)
On a scale of 1-10, how good do you find the current metagame? (Do you find it competitive?)
On average, the metagame is rated 8/10 on being enjoyable and7.6 on competitiveness--both higher proportionally than the previous survey results of 7.52 and 7.39 respectively. This means that for the most part, people find the metagame both enjoyable and competitive, and it's worth noting that 84.21% of respondents find the metagame at least moderately (5 or higher) competitive regardless of how much they enjoy playing it.
That being said, nearly 1/4 of respondents rated the metagame a 5 or lower in enjoyability, and nearly 1/5 rated it a 5 or lower in competitiveness, which is something we can hopefully improve by the next survey.
In terms of team structures, the metagame generally:
Surprisingly, only ~24% of respondents consider the metagame to be balanced between offense and defense. In comparison, 52.7% consider the metagame to be offense-favored overall, while just 23.7% consider it to be defense-favored overall.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Genesect in AAA?
Out of the 38 responses, 31.6% of respondents support action being taken on Genesect. Comparatively, only 15.8% of respondents consider Genesect to be entirely balanced and 34.2% consider it to be generally balanced but wouldn't be against taking action on it.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Kommo-o in AAA?
Out of the 38 responses, 36.8% of respondents support action being taken on Kommo-o. Comparatively, only 15.8% of respondents consider Kommo-o to be entirely balanced and 26.3% consider it to be generally balanced but wouldn't be against taking action on it.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Tapu Lele in AAA?
Out of the 38 responses, 55.3% of respondents do not believe action should be taken on Tapu Lele. Comparatively, only 18.4% support action being taken on Tapu Lele, while 23.7% wouldn't be opposed.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Garchomp in AAA?
Out of the 38 responses, 76.3% of respondents do not believe action should be taken on Garchomp. Comparatively, only 5.2% (2 responses) support action being taken on Garchomp while 15.8% wouldn't be opposed to action.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Triage in AAA?
Out of the 38 responses, 60.5% of respondents do not believe action should be taken on Triage. Comparatively, 10.6% (4 responses) do believe action should be taken on Triage whereas 23.7% wouldn't be opposed to action on Triage.
Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Power Construct in AAA?
Out of the 38 responses, 42.1% of respondents do not believe action should be taken on Power Construct. Comparatively, only 23.7% believe action should be taken on Power Construct whereas 18.4% wouldn't be opposed to action on Power Construct.
What's most notable about these results is the fact that in every case, there isn't a super majority of people voting for action, and as seen with Garchomp and Triage, there are even cases were the vast majority of people feel comfortable leaving those elements in the meta. That being said, while the metagame was rated overall more competitive and enjoyable this time, it's worth noting that this survey had only around two-thirds as many responses as the one back in January.
(Optional) Is there anything (Pokemon, Ability, Move, etc.) that you would like to see unbanned or suspect tested back INTO the tier?
Some of the [actually serious] responses to this question:
- Generally, there were quite a few responses asking for things like Blacephalon, Buzzwole, Dragapult, Fluffy, Magerna, Magnet Pull, and Victini to be suspect tested back in or outright unbanned, but considering how centralizing/powerful each of those were when they were allowed, it's difficult to seriously consider any of them at this point. Another suggestion was giving Weavile another chance through a suspect test, which could be interesting but would have to wait until post-OMPL at the earliest to prevent disruptions.
- Recently, there's been a lot of talk about making progress in AAA and discourse on whether or not the metagame is lacking consistent means of doing so. Some proposed solutions to this include implementing Single Ability Clause (AKA SAC or 1AC), banning Magic Bounce, or revisiting some previous bans (like Weavile and Blacephalon). Since going through with any of these would result in pretty significant changes to the meta (see: 1AC), it's unlikely that any of them would actually happen before OMPL is concluded--but stay tuned for potential forum tours/suspect tests afterwards depending on how the council votes go!
As for the elements in the main survey (Genesect, Kommo-o, Tapu Lele, Garchomp, and Triage), since none of them had an outright majority in support of of tiering action/suspect, the council will continue to observe the meta over the course of OMPL and vote on what course of action is best afterwards.
Once again, thank you to everyone who participated! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to myself or a council member through Discord. See you around :]
Recently, I have become concerned about Tapu Koko and its impact on teambuilding, specifically the Pixilate Facade set that rose during OMWC. Before this set was popularized, I thought Tapu Koko was great offensive glue but not very problematic; in fact, its most common set in MGLO was pretty easy to prepare for, and most teams had common counterplay even without specifically taking into account Tapu Koko. However, the Pixilate Facade set turns most counterplay on its head, abusing their lack of physical bulk in the case of Blissey, or by PP stalling its recovery thanks to the high PP Facade has in the case of Dauntless Shield Mew. Its 4th move is also difficult to prepare for: Nature Madness forces massive chip on Regen pivots like AV Jirachi, forcing them on the back foot, while Taunt shuts down recovery from the likes of Corviknight and non-Regen Ferrothorn. In order to feel safe versus Pixilate Tapu Koko, I currently have to run one of VA Corv, Regen Steels that don't mind a Volt (Ferrothorn, Heatran, Jirachi), PhyDef Swampert (which loses to Grass Knot sets + is having its lowest usage in a while) with offensive counterplay, of which there is little (Barraskewda is the only naturally faster mon I'd say is viable enough to be splashable, and priority such as Triage or Grassy Glide is heavily prepared for in the tier), although Icy Wind Jirachi does increase the amount of available offensive counterplay versus Pixilate Tapu Koko. Even then, out of all of these, only VA Corv and Swampert do not get abused by Volt Switch into a breaker that does beat them (for example, if Regen Ferrothorn is your counterplay, it Volts into U-turn Talonflame and you're immediately losing momentum), and only Regen Heatran and Swampert can threaten it back.
I'm not super convinced Tapu Koko is problematic for the tier in the way some other Pokemon are (coughgenesectcough), it's just something I've been worrying about as of late in a tier where it can sometimes feel like there is too much to prepare for and is something that I feel is very annoying to deal with if you don't have specific counterplay for it. Has anyone else had any thoughts on Tapu Koko as of late? How do you specifically prepare for Pixilate Facade Tapu Koko? And is anyone else concerned about Tapu Koko?
hi UT i am posting on the AAA forum now give me likes
Going off of what Heracross posted above, I also find Tapu Koko, specifically Pixilate to be fairly restricting right now. I do think there is moderate counterplay, more than Heracross made it seem. Almost every Steel-type with Regenerator checks Tapu Koko well (and I'd say more than 2/3 of teams at the moment are running a Regen Steel), especially very common Pokemon such as Regenerator Genesect with Gunk Shot. There are also mons that are on the rise that deserve more usage that are Koko counters, such as Nidoqueen, and the aforementioned Regenerator Steel-types such as Heatran and Doublade which are fairly unexplored. There are also Poison-types that largely counter Tapu Koko outside of Nidoqueen such as Slowking-Galar (very underexplored), Toxapex, and even non-Poisons that are effective Koko checks such as Hippowdon, physically-defensive Volcarona, and others I have not mentioned.
The main issue I have with Koko isn't that it's difficult to answer, it just feels very hard to check in what feels like a complete way. Unless you run a Ground-type that hard-counters Tapu Koko (basically just Nidoqueen, Hippowdon can get chipped very hard by Madness Koko), Koko is able to effectively terrorize your team (in an unhealthy way). You have to worry about many powerful sets, including MGLO (physical and special), Pixilate, Calm Mind (MGLO and Bounce), and PrimSea (this set is bad). Simply having many good sets isn't necessarily problematic, as I do feel Genesect is moderately balanced despite having 5+ good sets, but Koko is very difficult to handle when paired with a good hazard game and other strong breakers. To simplify, it's an enabler. We saw recently in the luisin-MZ game how Tapu Koko when paired with hazard stack and a good secondary breaker such as ZyDog is incredibly difficult to handle. It's effectively impossible to prevent Volt Koko from pivoting (bar running Nido or Hippo) and of course, U-Turn cannot be stopped. It's this aspect of Koko that I find to be unbalanced.
Now, part of that lui-MZ game can be considered a teambuilding issue, and I do think Koko checks are still unexplored, but I do think that if this goes unaddressed in the meta, it's worth potentially considering a Koko suspect. I'm interested to see what other people have to say, so cheers
Shout-out to this match I just had, which ended with a skin-of-my-teeth 1v1. RegenVest Dhelmise is a tank. Also, I have a habit of assuming that every Ferrothorn has Flash Fire until it tries to poison my Glowbro.
Also, Zapdos is the latest addition to my team. I previously had Grim Neigh Porygon-Z, but 90 base speed just isn't enough. Hooray for power creep...
Been mulling over this one for a while, but effective immediately I've decided to step down from TL (and the council). I don't really want to plaster my grievances and sob story-ing all over, so all I'll say is best of luck to everyone!
In replacement, UT will be the new Tier Leader until/unless he chooses to pass it on to someone else. Congratulations :]
Before I begin, I want to give one last huge shoutout to Isaiah! Isaiah's work as tier leader, including a dedication to high-quality resources, active discussion, and always pushing metagame development by building 17,000 teams, is a huge part of AAA growing to be as popular as it is today. He will be sorely missed as tier leader.
First order of business, please welcome beauts and avyrie to AAA council! We're excited to have y'all, and to work with you to improve the AAA metagame!
Now onto the fun stuff...
State of the Union AAA
It is no secret to anyone that opinions on the health, competitiveness, and enjoyability of the current meta are sharply divided. Our two most recent metagame surveys (from January and April) were generally positive, with high average scores for enjoyability and competitiveness, but with a notable block of respondents scoring both fields low. More recently, there has been numerous complaints from players in OMPL, including very well respected and long-time AAA players, about the state of the meta.
A look at the OMPL usage stats for AAA is relatively telling. We see a very consistent pool of defensive mons, but (with the exception of Tapu Koko) a much wider pool of offensive threats to account for. This speaks to the variety of breakers your team needs to be able to handle. And usage stats are, sadly, very imperfect for AAA; it's difficult to tell, for example, how many of those 19 Genesect are Scarf Regen (a primarily defensive set) or a Shift Gear wincon? (anecdotally, I believe they are mostly Scarf Regen, but I am way too lazy to manually count).
I won't spend a ton of time on ladder usage, other than to say that ladder usage continues to be favorable compared to other OMs (excluding BH lol), which I do take as a good sign. We also have more granular data available there for anyone that wants to check it out, and you can see some interesting trends like the of fall of Intimidate Corviknight or the rise of Pixie Koko graphed out well there.
Going Forward With the recent council turnover and the impending end of the largest OM team tour, now is a good time to take stock of where AAA is as a metagame. It has been almost six months since our last ban and three months since our last tiering action, period. We have had plenty of time to get familiar with the current meta, whether for better or worse.
My biggest goal with this thread is to generate positive, actionable discussion on the state of the metagame. What are the problems with the metagame? How severe are they? And most importantly, what action can be taken to address them? I am, quite literally, begging for feedback here. If there is something you do not like about AAA, I welcome forum posts with arguments, replays, calcs, usage, and anything else you can think of that can show the issue. I would like to emphasize forum posts, as they are easier to follow. And again, what action would you like to see, ban, unban, or suspect test, to address it.
Common Issues General disclosure: these are what I consider to be the common issues that I regularly hear from players. I will be doing my best to present them as well as I understand them, and what potential action I think could be done to address them I mostly intend this as a jumping off point, and am hopeful that further discussion will follow. Also, not all of the solutions are practical, but I am putting them here as a jumping off point.
Matchup Fish (Offensive)
Issue
AAA has numerous strong breakers, not the least of which are these guys. All of them are extremely powerful, and especially in the cases of Genesect and Kommo-o, require very specific counterplay that can be restrictive on teambuilding. Additionally, several of them possess techs to bypass their normal checks, which means anything other than dedicated counterplay risks getting blown past by the wrong set.
Possible solutions
Ban Genesect and/or Kommo-o. They require the most specific counterplay, and removing them from the equation could free up additional building options.
Ban Tinted, Adaptability, and/or Primal Weathers. These are some of our strongest damage amp abilities that most frequently bypass checks, and removing them would allow for more consistent defensive counterplay.
Ban Unburden and/or Triage. Allows for more consistent answers to set up.
Matchup Fish (Defensive) Issue
Conversely, the argument can be made that AAA is too matchup fishy defensively. Unaware or Magic Bounce Chansey, Volt Absorb Corviknight, and the wrong Regenerator core can all invalidate your breaking core and grind your team to a halt. When a random immunity can suddenly stone wall your breaker(s), it can be hard to make consistent progress.
Possible solutions
Ban Unaware. Makes set up more consistent. Prankster Haze still exists, but is much more limited.
Ban immunity abilities. Stops mons from being completely blanked.
Ban Regenerator and/or implement SAC. Would remove/limit the power of Regenerator, but is a drastic option that would fundamentally change the metagame.
Limited Defensive Options
Issue
This was alluded to in the OMPL usage stats, but there is a clear trend of recycling identical, or near identical, defensive cores amongst top teams. It can be hard to deviate from them without feeling like you're opening your team up to dramatic weaknesses to specific breakers, and this can force similar structures on builders.
Possible solutions
Free Poison Heal/Fluffy. Dramatic option, but would give defense more tools.
Free banned defensive mons. Ngl, I have zero clue who we could free looking at the banlist, but I'm open to talking about it.
Ban more breakers. Likely looking at Tapu Koko, but open to other suggestions as well.
idk what mon to put here Inconsistent Progress Issue Progress can be very hard to force in AAA. Powerful abilities like Magic Bounce, Magic Guard, and Regenerator stand out for their ability to negate hazards and passive damage, forcing you to deal with them via direct damage. This is obviously extremely detrimental to passive teams, but can also be problematic for offensive teams that really want Rocks damage on that one check...
Possible solutions
Ban Magic Bounce. At least hazards go up, and chip is happening.
Ban Regenerator or SAC. Touched on above and below, but weakens anti-passive counterplay without eliminating it.
Quick Note About Single Ability Clause
My goal is to help foster an AAA metagame that is enjoyable and competitive for everyone, and all cards are on the table. That being said, some of the larger changes, most notably SAC, I am reticent to implement so late into a generation. It would also be very difficult to test; SAC without other bans/unbans would likely be an unequivocal disaster, and testing multiple things at once would be difficult. While I won't go so far as to say it is off the table, this is much more likely to be seriously considered or happen to start Gen9.
Survey I know forum posts are a lot of effort; while it is still my preferred method of discourse here, there is also going to be a survey to also give feedback. This will also, hopefully, be helpful for gathering a larger range of data; it will go out in a bit once others have had time to give feedback on the state of AAA, so we can see if there are other options that should be included.
Closing Thought
The biggest challenge I see in AAA is the inability to have constructive discourse about the metagame. We are all on the same side here; we want the best metagame possible, and want to see it enacted. Too often we talk past each other, dismiss each other, make ad hominem attacks, and let anger and frustration get the better of us. We focus on being right/winning, not trying to understand and bridge build. I say we, cause I have been guilty of this too, and we must do better. Listen to people who disagree with you, and weigh their arguments not to rebut them and prove you're smarter, but to understand and try to find consensus. Some of the rhetoric has gotten toxic, and I don't like the consequences so far, or what other ones may come. Please consider this an olive branch if you have found me at fault, and a call to do better for all of us.
currently, aaa is my favorite meta of all time, and i cannot wait to see what happens next. with that being said, i can see the very clear flaws in it at the moment, as pointed out here. and i figured i'd suggest changes to them.
Common Issues General disclosure: these are what I consider to be the common issues that I regularly hear from players. I will be doing my best to present them as well as I understand them, and what potential action I think could be done to address them I mostly intend this as a jumping off point, and am hopeful that further discussion will follow. Also, not all of the solutions are practical, but I am putting them here as a jumping off point.
Matchup Fish (Offensive)
Issue
AAA has numerous strong breakers, not the least of which are these guys. All of them are extremely powerful, and especially in the cases of Genesect and Kommo-o, require very specific counterplay that can be restrictive on teambuilding. Additionally, several of them possess techs to bypass their normal checks, which means anything other than dedicated counterplay risks getting blown past by the wrong set.
Possible solutions
Ban Genesect and/or Kommo-o. They require the most specific counterplay, and removing them from the equation could free up additional building options.
Ban Tinted, Adaptability, and/or Primal Weathers. These are some of our strongest damage amp abilities that most frequently bypass checks, and removing them would allow for more consistent defensive counterplay.
Ban Unburden and/or Triage. Allows for more consistent answers to set up.
this is, to me, the most polarizing part of the tier. offense is a style i used to think of as a joke, something that simply couldnt work with all the fats running around. but at this point, its just too much. and i believe there's only one way to nerf offense: ban koko. the main reason i say this is due to precedent of strong, fast breakers with few switch-ins forced onto most teams being banworthy in noivern.
"Both in the builder and in play, not very many other Pokemon if any have as large an impact on the metagame as Noivern does. Virtually every team is required to carry a Pokemon that not just resists Boomburst, but is capable of actually tanking multiple on the switch if need be." it feels like the same situation shown here is happening with pixikoko. you cant just have a pixilate facade resist; you need one that can last throughout the game and take several. even if something does do this, its easily pivoted on with volt switch/u-turn, or is too passive to do anything to koko aside from let it roost any chip it may have taken. however, im not confident that koko is actually too much for the tier. i think it may be, but that could be due to me just having teams that are worse against it. i feel like a suspect test would be much, much better than a quickban for koko.
Matchup Fish (Defensive) Issue
Conversely, the argument can be made that AAA is too matchup fishy defensively. Unaware or Magic Bounce Chansey, Volt Absorb Corviknight, and the wrong Regenerator core can all invalidate your breaking core and grind your team to a halt. When a random immunity can suddenly stone wall your breaker(s), it can be hard to make consistent progress.
Possible solutions
Ban Unaware. Makes set up more consistent. Prankster Haze still exists, but is much more limited.
Ban immunity abilities. Stops mons from being completely blanked.
Ban Regenerator and/or implement SAC. Would remove/limit the power of Regenerator, but is a drastic option that would fundamentally change the metagame.
this is also an issue that i find to be prevalent. as shown in OMPL usage stats, there are currently three defensive mons that see a high winrate(above 60%): blissey, mandibuzz, and ferrothorn. toxapex and mew are also close, having above a 50% winrate. all of these mons share one thing in common: they're ridiculously hard to stop for your standard team. take a standard core of blissey, mew, and ferrothorn. blissey can run unaware to stop any and all special set up, mew can run magic bounce to negate the existence of hazards and toxic, and ferrothorn can run regenerator to constantly stay healthy without even using PP. lydia's pointed this out on the discord, but regen/mbounce/unaware is a very stupid defensive core. theres not exactly an easy way to stop this, but if i had to pick one, it'd be banning magic bounce as it stops progress from being made passively against these defensive teams.
since i feel like a koko ban would be beneficial for the defensive part of the meta, i wont comment on the limited defensive options. however, i would like to highlight that if a koko ban happens, non-regen ferro may see a resurgence, and thats always a good thing. the last part, inconsistent progress, may also be solved through a magic bounce ban. if you disagree with anything, let me know either on discord or by replying to this.
Hi, i want to express my opinion about the tier, but first congratulations UT , beauts & avyrie :)!
I don't think it's a secret for anyone that i think that the tier is in a bad statement since months, but especially at this moment, there are too much offensive threats to deal with, it's just impossible to deal with everything without having to outplay with a risky play to prevent the threat for coming or each time the threat is here, but it's also very difficult to break when you don't have the right breakers (here few examples: lydia vs mz w1 (lydia had cinderace that easily take a kill when it comes on the field, on the other hand volcanion had to break Toxapex + Garchomp SpD, and Gapdos had to break Mandibuzz DS + Koko + Toxapex) | shiloh vs beka w2 (Tapu Koko CM can easily win this game, it can setup on Gapdos, Jirachi, Mandibuzz, & Slowbro, the only way to deal with it for Beka was to win the tie with his own Tapu Koko, and he can't really break in return, since every of his breakers are walled by Mew DS) | tnm vs mz w3 (both cannot really break the other in short-term, tapu koko being walled by Jirachi + Corviknight, and Barraskewda/Kommo-o are hard walled by Toxapex, Chandelure can't break Garchomp AV and TNM has enough tools to deal with MZ's Mew, with Gunk Shot Mew + Heatran + Koko) | beka vs pdt w3 (Offensive Chomp + Talonflame vs Mew DShield, on the other hand, Thundy vs Ferrothorn, Volcanion vs Chansey + Toxapex, & Garchomp vs Ferrothorn + Mandibuzz, again, a game where both can't really break the other in short-term, and had to wait that the other choked or haxed to have the game over)) i just looked at the first three weeks of OMPL but i'm sure we can find some replays more recently in the last weeks of OMPL or of the aaa ssnl
I don't think a SAC would be that beneficial to the tier, yes, it would be much easier to break, but it would be really much harder to deal with offensive threats, so u would basically just play HO or pray even more than now to not face one of the wallbreaker that almost 6-0 your team. SAC + Poison Heal would be even worse than just SAC since you now have to deal with PHeal users too (hi Snorlax, hi Tapu Fini)
A Single Ability Clause would restrict the building even more than now, which is very annoying when you see that even with 2 Regenerator, every team can't be prep to some strong breakers.
To me, the council should more consider banning abilities than banning Pokemons, sure, you can ban offensive threats to reduce the pressure of the defensive core, but others offensive threats will become more powerful, and we'll have the same issue again & again, just look at how strong is Gapdos right now, and how it was before the OMPL, we just discover new broken mons to use, and it's almost always because they have Sheer Force, Adaptability, or even Tough Claws, i think it's important to consider banning abilities over banning pokemons like Terrakion, Tapu Lele....
I also think that because, if these kind of offensive abilities are banned, we will be less dependant of Regenerator in the builder, and i think that Regenerator needs to go, i definitely think that Regenerator helps these core to be so hard and annoying to break.
Magic Bounce is also an ability that some people want it to be banned, but i don't think it would change something in the builder to be honest, it's hard to put a Pokemon with Magic Bounce without having a weak defensive core or a weak offensive core because the defensive core would be with 4 Pokemons, but i see why people want it banned and how it could increase the current meta.
However, i think some Pokemons are unhealthy, even if some abilities are banned, and i'm especially thinking about Genesect & Kommo-o at this moment.
Genesect has been a hot topic for a year now, extremely restricting in the teambuilder, but hard to build around due to it being a bit matchup fishy and inconsistent, and i think that, when people constantly complain about a Pokemon, even if the council disagrees, they should let the community decide if it's really broken or not, it's not like if we are saying that Genesect is broken because we decided that it's broken, we brought arguments & replays and counter-arguments were like "l2p" "it's overrated" "it's fishy" "u can't have every move on it" "in this replay, your opponent played badly/had a bad team, that's why Genesect was so good in this game", nice so we should pretend that we'll never face one of the set that destroy our team, that we know the Genesect's set since preview and that we will play around like god ? I'm sorry if i irritate some people with this paragraph, but that's how i understood your arguments each time you said that Genesect is fine most of the time
Kommo-o is an incredible breaker & sweeper, while being also a good defensive presence in the metagame. It has usually 2 offensive sets hard to answer in the teambuilder: Galvanize & Belly Drum + Unburden.
The first one is the easier to deal with in game, it loses to Tapu Koko & Zapdos which are very good at this moment. However, without having Tapu Koko or Zapdos in every team, it's not that easy to deal with it, it can break cores like Corviknight + Chansey/Blissey, Ferrothorn + Mandibuzz + Toxapex, that we saw a lot during OMPL games, & if your Tapu Koko is weakened enough, it can easily sweep an entire team
+2 252+ SpA Galvanize Kommo-o Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Koko: 211-248 (75 - 88.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Galvanize Kommo-o Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 108 SpD Zapdos: 324-382 (84.3 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(Clangorous Soul + Throat Spray)
+1 252+ SpA Life Orb Galvanize Kommo-o Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Koko: 205-242 (72.9 - 86.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ SpA Life Orb Galvanize Kommo-o Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Zapdos: 324-382 (84.3 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(Clangorous Soul + Life Orb)
I don't think this set alone is broken, since Tapu Koko is the best Pokemon at this moment, and Zapdos is really good too, but it's hard to not be very weak to this set without having one of these two.
Kommo-o Belly Drum + Unburden is hell in the teambuilder, with very limited answers: Togekiss & Tapu Lele Triage, & Mew Prankster, which aren't answers anymore if Azelf is paired with Kommo-o (and it's often the case), Wondering Spirit users like Skarmory or Corviknight, but it's very hard to justify this ability over another (i don't even know if this ability has been use a single time during this OMPL), fast scarfers that can OHKO it (mostly Azelf), but they are really hard to fit at this moment because people use a lot of fat & slow teams, the fastest Pokemon of a team is usually Tapu Koko or Genesect/Mew/Tapu Fini Scarf, and finally, Toxapex, which is the only answer easy to fit that can deal with Kommo-o without Psychic Terrain. If you don't have one of these Pokemons/abilities, then it's very hard to deal with Kommo-o because unless you have a strong super effective STAB or a Fairy move on every Pokemons, Kommo-o will setup Belly Drum not that hard thanks to his good bulk (75/125/105) and the plethora of useful resistances it has (it's especially easy to setup Kommo-o when screens are up too, and it's often the case since this set fits well in screens HO)
Zygarde-Complete has seen little use during OMPL because you can't fit it in every team, it's better to have a cleric with it so you are sure it can do its job most of the time. Indeed, cleric users are rare and sometimes not easy to build around, like Vaporeon, or Blissey/Chansey, you'll always have the same kind of team with a Zygarde-Complete, i built some teams with it and there's always 3 or 4 mons that are in every team with it. However, it does his job very well, Glare the opposing answer and later in the game, click sub, wait that the opponent is paralysed, and then you can setup with Coil and even take down the opponent Pokemon. Unlike some people can think, it's actually very easy to transform Zygarde-10% into Zygarde-Complete, with bulk investment, can take a hit from every Pokemons that are not Choice Band/Specs or that don't carry a super effective move.
few examples: (i use this spread: 132 Def / 252+ SpD / 124 Spe)
252+ SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252+ SpD Zygarde-10%: 153-181 (61.4 - 72.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 0 HP / 252+ SpD Zygarde-10% in Harsh Sunshine: 108-128 (43.3 - 51.4%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after trapping damage
252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 132 Def Zygarde-10%: 183-216 (73.4 - 86.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
But getting hit by one of these mons is in the worst case scenario, because most of the time you just can sub on every Pokemons slower than you, and spam sub, or when you are behind your sub, you can click glare, and then setup, and you're gonna have paras at some point anyway, so it becomes even easier to setup and that's incredibly hard to deal with it without having Tapu Fini, Mew DShield Ice Beam, an Unaware user or Dhelmise/Zarude + Synthesis (and they can still lose to it because para is such a balanced status)
AAA Open Final - crying vs PandaDoux - Vaporeon works really well with Zygarde-Complete (healed 37% with a Wish, and i think i had HP investment on zygod in this game, so it can possibly give more HP)
AAA SSNL - a loser vs PandaDoux - Zygarde-Complete doing crazy things alone
I also don't think that could do the same thing with a similar set, yes, it has regenerator and 130 Atk (vs 100), but it lacks what make Zygod unhealthy imo: the huge bulk (108/95/85 Chomp vs 216/121/95 Zygod), Glare, which offers free turns to setup, this is really huge to have a free turn to setup another coil or a sub, and also having the boost in Defense from Coil is useful too to make you as bulkier as possible, so it becomes really hard to break you after one coil.
(i'm lazy for this one so it's short)
I would agree that Tapu Koko is an unhealthy presence in the current metagame if it wasn't the speed control needed to almost every team, i think that we need to have less dumb wallbreakers before considering to ban Tapu Koko. Too early to see if this mon is really broken or if it's just because it is centralizing the meta atm.
So, what i think is the best for the tier?
I think the only way to solve the tier is to ban Regenerator, but before banning Regenerator, offensive threats need to be nerf, that's why i think that Adaptability, Sheer Force, and probably Tough Claws need a ban so we can ban Regenerator and have a look on a very different metagame and then see how is the meta.
However, i understand if some people disagree with me and prefer to ban Pokemons before consider banning abilities, but as i said in the abilities section, we will find others broken pokemons to use to replace those we banned.
If the council decide to ban these abilities (i would be surprised), i don't think any pokemons should be banned or unbanned, because we would have a meta very different than now and we would just see how the meta is going. If the council decide to not take this way, i think that genesect & kommo-o banned, at least kommo-o, would be a great way to make the build more free and enjoyable.
This is a totally different discussion but why are abilities banned instead of restricted? I don't know if it would be good for the tier or not, i don't really have an opinion on this, but it add more variety when building and it can be cool (for example, we could use Magnezone with Magnet Pull and it could pair well with something like Zarude Band to trap Corviknight, but it would not be broken because you know this when you see Magnezone at preview, Ditto would also be viable and a good option to deal with offenses ect...) (darm-g gonna be dumb though)
I like surveys and i appreciate that the council care of his community like that, but i don't like when people say that the survey is the truth when literally anyone can participate, if i participate to an OU survey, should my opinion be as valued as Finchinator's opinion when i know almost nothing about the tier? Defintely not. I don't think surveys should be restricted to a few people, but i think high-level players thoughts should be more valued than more casual players because of their more well knowledge of the tier and their experience.
Add a question like "Did you participate in a high-level tournament recently?" would be great so we can differenciate the more casual thoughts of what think the competitive players (however, both are still important)
People seem to think the tier is too offensive and defensive leading mu's to be pretty fishy. Idk about the offensive side just like ban the best things ig. But for the defensive side banning magic bounce sounds pretty neat. People complain about making consistent progress and if you could get guaranteed hazards up that works well. It would also free some hazard setters that lose hard to bounce (like kommo? Bad example but you can think of one). God Ferrothorn would also become better. Theres still magic guard mons but spike stack and such definitely breaks Regen Unaware cores. You can also play to pp stall defog as a wincon
Hey, I plan on making a longer post in a week or two depending on how OMFL goes, but I just wanted to quickly write down some thoughts I had.
Firstly, while I agree that AAA has felt more matchup dependant as of late (and it's something I said but phrased really poorly a few months ago in this thread), I feel that the claims of the tier looking bad are being overblown a bit. This is due to OMPL and its inherent nature. While of course OMPL is a pretty prestigious (when it comes to OMs) tour, it is also one that's prone to counter teaming due to the 1 game a week format as well as every game being public. If you get a bad matchup in a PL style tour, I would think less that the tier is flawed and more that the winning player was just able to scout better. I can testify to this myself; in my W4 game vs adem, I faced a Specs Xurkitree I had very little counterplay towards, and I lost the game because of that. However, in the previous weeks, the only sturdy special Electric resist I brought was a SpDef Chomp in W3, which is cleanly 2HKOed by Dazzling Gleam. While it sucks not having the tools to deal with something in a PL game, I would often chalk this more to the nature of single games allowing you to bring random shit and win, as well as being able to scout your opponent. I think we should wait until AAA Seasonal allows replays in order to see if AAA continues to be as heavily matchup dependant as some people say.
Secondly, please do not ban Regenerator. I completely understand wanting it gone, as it looks like an easy scapegoat. Not only it is easy for scouting, but it also allows for players to slowly (or quickly) negate progress made by the opposing side with proper management. However, I have two reasons for keeping it here. The first is that the "with proper management" part matters a lot in AAA; against good players, you can't willy-nilly switch in your Regen mon into what it checks, as many mons and teams have ways of neutering Regen recovery (pivot into a breaker that forces it out, entry hazards, Toxic/burn because clerics suck, raw power) that don't feel specifically for Regen. The second is that I think that banning Regen would do more harm than good. Shared Power is in no way the perfect metagame, but it took a similar method when progress became impossible to make. When Regen was legal, defensive teams were popular and super easy to build, while offensive teams had to rely on niche options in order not to get walled to oblivion. Now, it's the opposite: offensive teams are popular and braindead, while defensive teams have to rely on niche options in order to get steamrolled by offensive teams (this isn't even including the fact that balance is basically non-existent). I feel this will happen with AAA if it bans Regen. I don't think offensive metas are inherently bad, and applying Shared Power's scenario to a different meta is flawed, but it's hard to deny that banning Regen would make things much more tilted towards offense, which many players feel already has enough juiced up breakers.
Finally, ban Genesect. Yeah, haha, #BanGenesect and all that, but I would argue Genesect is the main reason why so many teams feel constrained defensively. Having to prepare for 7 different sets (not a joke, Tinted SG/MGLO/SFLO/NGLO/Scarf/PSea/AoA can easily fuck up unprepared teams) with minimal opportunity cost and still have the capability to run stuff like Galvanize ESpeed for Prankster Pex or Flash Fire for DLand Heatran is just idiotic. It also forces a massive guessing game on team preview. Is that Genesect Scarf (manageable), NGLO (annoying), or Tinted SG (hope you don't get flinched lol)? You're pretty much forced to guess, hard in one of your Genesect answers, and hope you guessed right, or you lose. And with the way many teams are built with defensive options that cover many mons as well as breakers that support each other, if you don't lose to Genesect after guessing wrong, you're probably losing to something else. I have been saying Genesect is broken ever since I've started playing AAA, and am completely willing to go into detail about how unhealthy, absurd, and broken Genesect is if/when I get the chance. It's the mon with the most polarizing opinion in the AAA community outside of maybe Broken BDer Kommo-o, and if not a quickban, I would at least recommend and support a suspect ASAP.
Thanks for reading! My phrasing is probably ass again so I can clarify stuff if need be.
If you ban the big unwallable threats people will just use other unwallable threats. If you ban Regenerator then everything will be even more stupid and broken. If you want to get rid of something unique you could get rid of Genesect, I just don't really see it making a huge difference in the long run. That kind of scarfer also keeps several threats in check as much as it enables offense. You could also maybe try Koko but I just don't see it, and definitely can't imagine removing Cinderace or w/e improving anything. Same for defensive styles. Either ban the tier down to AAA UU power level or accept this is how AAA is and it's still fairly fun all things considered.
I already know that y'all are going to have A LOT to say about this but hear me out, this is a very funny screener that has the bulk to setup screens multiple times if needed and a good defensive typing in mono-water. Though it does have the ability to setup multiple rounds of screens if needed, I really like the momentum you get from clicking memento. Prankster taunt is self explanatory of why it's good but just in case, defog=bad and taunt usually stops it from happening.
Classic HO wincon here, not much to say. It sets up very reliably with screens up and you can even stack a memento on to be sure.
Again, tinted genesect doing tinted genesect things, beating lots and going boom on anything it doesn't wanna deal with.
I love this lando on the team since it can reliably beat pex and does a good job of luring corv. Most things slower than it either get nuked or allow it to set up an SD or 2, faster things might be a problem if screens are down but it can usually at the very least click boom if screens are still up.
Tough claws lucario is apparently pretty good, I replaced gapdos with this thanks to a suggestion from Osake (thank you btw) and it has proven to be much more effective. Now that we have 2 forms of strong priority on the team we don't really have a need for scarf gapdos anymore, this benefits more from screens too with SD.
My other form of speed control here is triage lele, it beats pex and can usually setup at least 1 calm mind thanks to screens being amazing
+ 
: A good player can get off many volts with this thing whilst chipping the main Regen answers. You have to be very careful not to let it Facade too much or get Volcarona down to a low range. Additionally, it is also fairly difficult to chip Facade Koko with this team, as this team does not have a single move that can OHKO it.
: Trick Dhelmise can be a major problem, as it can cripple otherwise good answers like Kommo-o and can easily get in on Chansey, making it tough to deal with long term. SD LO can also cause this problem if Kommo-o is too heavily chipped. If desired, running itemless Corviknight can get around the issue, but it makes matchups to the above two a bit worse.
: Certain breakers, like Cinderace and Terrakion, can be very difficult to handle if paired with Future Sight support. Jirachi is the most annoying of these partners, being very difficult for the team to KO and potentially causing disruption to the other members of the team. The team can make some decent midgrounds with Scarf Mew and Kommo-o, but don't be surprised if one of your mons gets overwhelmed.
Cobalion Balance by Quantum Tesseract
Pixilate Koko Offense by The Number Man
- scarf, rocky helm/lefties
- rocky helm/lefties
- regenvest
- leftovers annoying guy
(primsea) - specs
(primsea) - specs
(dland/primsea) - specs
(primsea) - CB
(dland) - CB or HDB
- MGLO (thunderous kick + uturn spammer)
- MGLO (the former can do wild charge + espeed stuff to wreck pex, the latter can do toxic + stomping tantrum to wreck pex)
- assorted examples of random MGLO (MG + thick club in maro's case) mons that I think are bad but can take advantage of surprise factor and decent team support (see the VR for sets)
- Mew but base speed of 0 and water resist
- NP HDB, can run combinations of fire blast/psyshock/aura sphere for coverage or even just be support set with heal bell (the latter is underwhelming, though)
- pterrain, very potent speed control option w/ scarf and trick, can also just be specs or twisted spoon
luisin vs panda w3
lydia vs mz w1
Zygarde-Complete has seen little use during OMPL because you can't fit it in every team, it's better to have a cleric with it so you are sure it can do its job most of the time. Indeed, cleric users are rare and sometimes not easy to build around, like Vaporeon, or Blissey/Chansey, you'll always have the same kind of team with a Zygarde-Complete, i built some teams with it and there's always 3 or 4 mons that are in every team with it. However, it does his job very well, Glare the opposing answer and later in the game, click sub, wait that the opponent is paralysed, and then you can setup with Coil and even take down the opponent Pokemon. Unlike some people can think, it's actually very easy to transform Zygarde-10% into Zygarde-Complete, with bulk investment, 
