That is because Zapdos Galar is a Flying type, and airborne pokémon don't receive the effects of misty terrain.
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AAA Almost Any Ability
- Thread starter UT
- Start date
It's kind of funny that I'm here talking about why I want Magic Bounce banned after I wrote a whole essay explaining why mbounce sucks 2 years ago, but I think the meta has developed and changed enough over the course of all the DLCs and bans to actually get rid of it once and for all (Atha saw the future, perhaps).
Generally, I just think being able to make progress with hazards/status should be preserved rather than subverted. Some of the ways mbounce interactions play out are (I'm gonna refer to hazards as "rocks" or "rocker" even though I know [t]spikes exist; it's the easiest way to do it):
> Team A has a bouncer that can "infinitely" switch into the rocker/spiker on Team B (e.g.
vs 
or even vs ):
> Team A has a bouncer, but Team B has moldy hazards (e.g. 
vs 
):
> Team A and Team B both have bouncers and neither has moldy hazards:
These are just examples to give a general idea of how I think mbounce impacts games, but the point of my post is to explain why I think it's worth getting rid of, so I'll just respond to a couple of counterarguments I'm aware of:
Just run rockers that beat bounce
Magic Bounce Pokemon would rather use other abilities
In short, ban magic bounce. The variability it adds to something [that should be] as simple as putting up hazards ->/<- removing them is a net negative for the meta. Even in less favorable matchups, players should be able to at minimum use things like hazard/status to pave out paths to a win rather than being shut out even further (or screwed over because they misjudged an opposing team and tried to get up rocks as a bouncer switched in).
Generally, I just think being able to make progress with hazards/status should be preserved rather than subverted. Some of the ways mbounce interactions play out are (I'm gonna refer to hazards as "rocks" or "rocker" even though I know [t]spikes exist; it's the easiest way to do it):
> Team A has a bouncer that can "infinitely" switch into the rocker/spiker on Team B (e.g.
vs or even vs ):In a lot of situations, this creates an early game where clicking the hazard-setting move is more of a risk than potential reward because of the unrevealed potential bouncers on the opposing team (see: 
turn 1 vs a team with Blissey and Mew). Some would say this is healthy and/or that you should just scout by using an attack/pivoting move/switching, but I don't really consider it scouting when one of the options is giving the opponent 1. free hazards when the bouncer switches into the rocker and 2. better positioning on top of that. This is usually even worse for the hazard-setting team in situations where the matchup might generally not be in their favor, and they need hazard chip to try and even things out. The vs matchup is an extreme example, but not exactly an unlikely or unrealistic matchup. This contributes to prolonging games because if neither team can reliably get up hazards (without guessing right on a turn where they happen to not bring in the bouncer), then regen mons can just dance around [almost] forever without having to worry about being punished much.
turn 1 vs a team with Blissey and Mew). Some would say this is healthy and/or that you should just scout by using an attack/pivoting move/switching, but I don't really consider it scouting when one of the options is giving the opponent 1. free hazards when the bouncer switches into the rocker and 2. better positioning on top of that. This is usually even worse for the hazard-setting team in situations where the matchup might generally not be in their favor, and they need hazard chip to try and even things out. The vs matchup is an extreme example, but not exactly an unlikely or unrealistic matchup. This contributes to prolonging games because if neither team can reliably get up hazards (without guessing right on a turn where they happen to not bring in the bouncer), then regen mons can just dance around [almost] forever without having to worry about being punished much. vs ): In this matchup, usually the moldy setter can consistently set up hazards without fear (for obvious reasons). Although Heatran is virtually the only one using moldy hazards, it also has additional utility in beating Flash Fire mons. However, I don't think having a single mon (no matter how good) capable of doing this defeats the argument in support of banning mbounce--especially since Heatran's recovery is limited to Leftovers.
> Team A and Team B both have bouncers and neither has moldy hazards:
There are a couple of ways this can play out: 1) Team A also has hazard setter(s) that threatens Team B's bouncer (e.g. 
vs ) 2) Team A and Team B both have hazard setter(s) that threaten the opposing bouncer (e.g. both teams have a vs a ).
vs ) 2) Team A and Team B both have hazard setter(s) that threaten the opposing bouncer (e.g. both teams have a vs a ).These are just examples to give a general idea of how I think mbounce impacts games, but the point of my post is to explain why I think it's worth getting rid of, so I'll just respond to a couple of counterarguments I'm aware of:
Just run rockers that beat bounce
I actually think this argument is CRAZY because other than moldy tran, which rockers actually? ferrothorn is useless vs mew other than clicking knock (which btw, isn't a hazard move), regen LO Garchomp can't even 2HKO Chansey without a boost, and swamperts usually have to either risk clicking rocks or flip turning. This shows itself in the fact that more than once during OMPL, Ferrothorns ran Swords Dance just to have something else to click vs Mew (which btw, doesn't even do anything if it's wisp mew + your hazards and status are still getting bounced for free). <- someone else can find the replays, I don't want to dig that deep for it.
Magic Bounce Pokemon would rather use other abilities
I would argue that it's because common mbounce users can have other abilities that it's so dangerous. I feel like in general, we underestimate how big an impact the early game of AAA has on the rest of the battle. [Taking aside using context clues to guess at abilities] In the early game, there's no way to know that you're playing against mbounce: Even at lead, a Blissey/Chansey could just as easily be Regenerator or something. But what if you need rocks to get an edge vs [insert threat] on the opposing team? Now it's a game of odds where you don't even know what you're weighing because for all you know, this is a waste of time and they aren't bounce (or perhaps you click the hazard and give up momentum at the beginning with your only reward being information).
In short, ban magic bounce. The variability it adds to something [that should be] as simple as putting up hazards ->/<- removing them is a net negative for the meta. Even in less favorable matchups, players should be able to at minimum use things like hazard/status to pave out paths to a win rather than being shut out even further (or screwed over because they misjudged an opposing team and tried to get up rocks as a bouncer switched in).
hiAAA Sample Teams
[Last updated July 28th, 2022]
Submissions: Closed
Koko + Moltres Balance by beauts + The Number Man
Koko + Gapdos Offense by xavgb
RegenScarf Latias Balance by astralydia
Double Band Bulky Offense by UT
Double Boom Hyper Offense by beauts
Inteleon + Chandelure Balance by The Number Man
Suicune +BIG ZYG Fat by beauts + The Number Man
Doublade + Bounce Koko Fat by beauts
Talonflame + Lele Balance by xavgb
Koko + Zarude Bulky Offense by UT
Charizard Screens Hyper Offense by Grim_Blazer
BirdSpam+Garchomp by UT
Sharp Beak Zapdos Balance by Quantum Tesseract
Cobalion Balance by Quantum Tesseract
Work Up Pixilate Tapu Koko + Bulk Up Zarude Balance by The Number Man
Triage Tapu Bulu + Download Terrakion Bulky Offense by UT
Screens Boom Hyper Offense by Grim_Blazer
Magic Bounce Volcarona Stall by astralydia
Guts Genesect + Skill Link Garchomp Screens by ItsChew.
Facade Pixilate Koko + Facade Guts Mew Hyper Offense by atha
Primordial Sea Zapdos + Aerilate Lando-T Bulky Offense by Osake
Sub Prankster Corviknight + Sub Iron Defense Kommo-o Balance by Think
Calm Mind Magic Bounce Tapu Koko + Curse Pixilate Entei Balance by The Number Man
Choice Band Adaptability Terrakion + Shift Gear SFLO Genesect Bulky Offense by UT
Regenvest Garchomp + Mold Breaker Heatran Balance by Think:
Swords Dance Triage Pangoro + Choice Band Adapt Zygarde Balance by aesf:
Magic Guard Life Orb Talonflame + DesoLand Heatran Balance by The Number Man:
Choice Scarf Magic Guard Blacephalon + Magic Bounce Taunt Zarude by Think:
Swords Dance Regen Garchomp + Heal Bell Unaware Mew Balance by aesf:
Flash Fire Iron Defense Ferrothorn + Choice Band Adapt Terrakion Balance by Heracross2.0:
Belly Drum Unburden Kommo-o + Quiver Dance Desoland Volcarona Screens Offense by MZ:
Choice Specs PrimSea Primarina + Magic Guard Life Orb Entei Bulky Offense by xavgb:
Choice Band Technician Beat Up Weavile + Choice Band Desoland Cinderace Balance by Atha:
MGuard Latias Balance by Think
MGLO Arcanine Hazard Stack by xavgb (stresh)
ChompVally Balance by The Dragon Master (Advt)
Zarude Balance by Thinkerino
Permaweather Webs Hyper Offense by motherlove
Hazard Stack Balance by xavgb
Trick Room by rozes
Naganadel Bulky Offense by xavgb
Zygarde Bulky Offense by Thinkerino
inteleon+chandy balance dont have the link
Well, I was trying to proof read those before announcing them, but since you caught me anyways...
New Sample Teams!
We have 11 shiny new sample teams for you to peruse
While I have your attention, I wanted to address Isaiah's post. The council has been having internal discussions, as always, about what tiering action (if any) should take place, and Magic Bounce has indeed been at the center of recent discussions. If anyone else has anything to say about Magic Bounce, or other tiering action you would like to see happen before World Cup, please post/let us know! And don't forget to check out the replays in the Change Happy Tour if one of the changes you want to talk about is related to one of those rounds!
I think Isaiah put it pretty perfectly as well as UT in the discord, MB doesnt seem directly overpowered but it does seem to make games a bit less competitive. Its real goal on anything other than CP mew/ Double dance lati, is to try to get a matchup where it can perfectly negate hazards, and in matchups where that cant happen its role is almost useless. The ability to 100% reliably prevent hazards in certain matchups really removes a key part of making progress especially in a tier where regen is so good. On the flip side, in matchups where the rocker can reliably get up rocks vs the MB user, it is now a complete waste of an ability where smth else would have filled the spot much better. Normally, unreliable=bad but in this case the only mons that rlly make it unreliable are tailored to beat MB and would also like to be using smth different ie moldbreaker tran. It just seems like MB increases matchup problems and Id totally be down to see a metagame where its gone even if temporary.
I really don't get why people are complaining about Magic Bounce. People who focus heavily on the interactions that Magic Bounce makes forget that AAA is a 6v6 meta, not a 1v1 one. Mons that run Magic Bounce give up a more useful ability like Regenerator, Dauntless Shield, or one of the many immunity abilities that could help cover the weaknesses of some uncommon Magic Bounce users (e.g Corviknight, Skarmory), and doing this means it's easier to overwhelm and chip down. Often, I don't think the opportunity cost of running Magic Bounce on, say, Blissey is worth it over other abilities unless the team lacks any removal, in which case it probably sucks. And if you're really worried about a possible Magic Bounce mon on the opposing team, you can always scout it. Abilities pretty much reveal themselves when they switch out and in again. Entry hazards are also not necessary for teams to make progress; things like Knock Off, status from attacking moves like Scald and Sludge Bomb, and even just running a strong breaker with nuclear power can make progress just as well, and if your main way of making progress is passive damage, then you're just asking to get denied by Magic Bounce. I think removing Magic Bounce from the AAA metagame would be a bad move, as it provides a unique niche in the meta that prevents offensive teams from becoming too powerful. Just imagine if Terrakion had almost guaranteed Rocks up. I shudder to imagine how overpowered breakers would be in a metagame with more entry hazards.
tl;dr l2p (sorry if this sounds rude, I am just very adamant against banning Magic Bounce)
tl;dr l2p (sorry if this sounds rude, I am just very adamant against banning Magic Bounce)
the goal of banning magic bounce is to re-introduce an element of consistent, reliable progress, i.e. hazards. instead of aaa games degenerating into lategame regen stall where both teams only form of progress is pp stalling, i would much rather a smartly played terrakion or tapu lele team break through a dauntless shield mew / regenvest jirachi respectively and respectfully.
yes, aaa is a 6v6 tier, but the prevalence of magic bounce users like blissey and mew in top level games clearly shows it's not a significant drawback to run magic bounce over other defensive abilities when you can easily make up for that with your other slots; in your own words, aaa is a 6v6 meta.
even if it WAS a significant drawback, "they're using magic bounce instead of flash fire corviknight, so their team is 6-0d by talonflame" is exactly the kind of situation i would not want to see becoming more common; there are already far too many games where only one team is capable of making progress against the other team's defensive core without huge chokes being made, and i do not find those games fun to play or fun to watch.
"And if you're really worried about a possible Magic Bounce mon on the opposing team, you can always scout it."
magic bounce does not announce itself on entry, so it's not actually that easy into some bouncers like corv and blissey. but lets say it is easy; mew has switched in on ferrothorn, so clearly it's bounce. what does that information actually do for you? you've scouted it, now what? we now have a pokemon that only has 2 clickable moves and won't do anything in the game except take hits, while they have a mew that can still do mew things, using body press for chip, slow pivoting with teleport, throwing out a will-o-wisp every now and then, etc.
refer back to isaiah's post for a more detailed run-through of this; it was really well written imo.
"Entry hazards are also not necessary for teams to make progress; things like Knock Off, status from attacking moves like Scald and Sludge Bomb, and even just running a strong breaker with nuclear power can make progress just as well"
knock off is barely progress unless you're able to use it in conjunction with hazards. id like you to expand on the rng status from scald/sludge bomb because technically it's true and i've seen it in action, but never in AAA. regenerator, desolate land, steel types etc. make these extremely inconsistent strategies and i actually can't think of a single pokemon that uses scald or sludge bomb as progress makers to any reasonable degree.
nuclear power
"I think removing Magic Bounce from the AAA metagame would be a bad move, as it provides a unique niche in the meta that prevents offensive teams from becoming too powerful."
it's not a "unique niche", it's an incredibly warping presence in the tier and massive enabler of cheesy regen stalling strategies (which id love to ban but this is reportedly not an option). also, offensive teams love magic bounce! every screens team is running bounce tapu koko and benefitting from mons that hate chip like bellyzard and life orb genesect. facade tapu koko practically mandates a bouncer as a partner. a statement like "a magic bounce ban only hurts defensive mons" is nothing but deceit and distrucity and i can't see a magic bounce ban as anything but a net positive for the competitive integrity of every playstyle
As I’ve said in a previous post around late May of this year, ban Magic Bounce. I’m sure this is nothing new, but I’ll offer some scenarios to justify how unhealthy Magic Bounce can be throughout a game.
Let’s take a scenario commonly cited here: Ferrothorn gets bounced by a Mew, and is thus restricted to two moveslots. On the surface, this is already bad. You need to have it be what is basically a Knock Off machine, lest it be actively harmful or just plain inconsequential. However, this is not the full picture. The turn where Ferrothorn has two moves is turn 0 in every single game with Mew, until that Mew has been revealed. By forcing the Ferrothorn to never click Spikes, Leech Seed, or whatever other status move it is running, you are forcing Ferrothorn to explore ridiculous options that wouldn’t be necessary without Magic Bounce, mainly Swords Dance.
There’s other cases of this, too. It’s not uncommon for a Mew to run a set similar to Ice Beam/Soft-Boiled/Rocks/Will-o, or something like this. If your opponent has another Mew, which they likely will, the same situation with Ferrothorn occurs. You cannot get rocks up or throw out burns until that Mew comes out and reveals it is not Magic Bounce. If you don’t risk this, you will make it extremely easy for your opponent’s breakers to come in with zero issue.
And the worst part is, Mew is not the only bouncer. Various defensive Pokémon can run it freely. The worst part is, you have no idea what ability they will be. Corviknight already has an immense amount of diversity, so you must assume it’s Magic Bounce or potentially risk being in a disadvantage. This can be the other way around, but if it’s not Magic Bounce, it’s already going to be extremely prevalent throughout a game.
I’ll edit this post as I put more thoughts into the whole bounce situation. However, just because I think it’s cool, I wanna highlight a potentially decent mon I’ve not seen anyone use: Magic Bounce Celebi.
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 184 SpD / 72 Spe
Careful Nature
- Leech Seed
- Recover
- Aura Sphere / Giga Drain
- U-turn
The whole goal here is to ruin a Heatran. If it comes in on you, it risks eating a Leech Seed, Aura Sphere, or being U-Turned on. It doesn’t rely on Leech Seed’s easily bounceable recovery, either; Recover helps it stay stalwart in the face of some common bouncers like Mew or Garchomp. Finally, its own bounce lets it be an incredible check to Garchomp, Ferrothorn, and Swampert. It’s not flawless; the vulnerability to Genesect is extremely bad; but I think it has a really cool niche nothing else can replicate and should be explored more.
tl;dr:
Bounce ban, affects from preview/teambuilding, Celebi is kinda cool
Let’s take a scenario commonly cited here: Ferrothorn gets bounced by a Mew, and is thus restricted to two moveslots. On the surface, this is already bad. You need to have it be what is basically a Knock Off machine, lest it be actively harmful or just plain inconsequential. However, this is not the full picture. The turn where Ferrothorn has two moves is turn 0 in every single game with Mew, until that Mew has been revealed. By forcing the Ferrothorn to never click Spikes, Leech Seed, or whatever other status move it is running, you are forcing Ferrothorn to explore ridiculous options that wouldn’t be necessary without Magic Bounce, mainly Swords Dance.
There’s other cases of this, too. It’s not uncommon for a Mew to run a set similar to Ice Beam/Soft-Boiled/Rocks/Will-o, or something like this. If your opponent has another Mew, which they likely will, the same situation with Ferrothorn occurs. You cannot get rocks up or throw out burns until that Mew comes out and reveals it is not Magic Bounce. If you don’t risk this, you will make it extremely easy for your opponent’s breakers to come in with zero issue.
And the worst part is, Mew is not the only bouncer. Various defensive Pokémon can run it freely. The worst part is, you have no idea what ability they will be. Corviknight already has an immense amount of diversity, so you must assume it’s Magic Bounce or potentially risk being in a disadvantage. This can be the other way around, but if it’s not Magic Bounce, it’s already going to be extremely prevalent throughout a game.
I’ll edit this post as I put more thoughts into the whole bounce situation. However, just because I think it’s cool, I wanna highlight a potentially decent mon I’ve not seen anyone use: Magic Bounce Celebi.
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 184 SpD / 72 Spe
Careful Nature
- Leech Seed
- Recover
- Aura Sphere / Giga Drain
- U-turn
The whole goal here is to ruin a Heatran. If it comes in on you, it risks eating a Leech Seed, Aura Sphere, or being U-Turned on. It doesn’t rely on Leech Seed’s easily bounceable recovery, either; Recover helps it stay stalwart in the face of some common bouncers like Mew or Garchomp. Finally, its own bounce lets it be an incredible check to Garchomp, Ferrothorn, and Swampert. It’s not flawless; the vulnerability to Genesect is extremely bad; but I think it has a really cool niche nothing else can replicate and should be explored more.
tl;dr:
Bounce ban, affects from preview/teambuilding, Celebi is kinda cool
I was gonna respond to the post in full but statements like this showcase to me how unconvincing the pro-ban arguments for Magic Bounce are imo. Not only did I not say that a Magic Bounce ban would only hurt defensive mons, but the idea that a ban would only be a positive for all playstyles is simply incorrect. Off the top of my head, stall is nerfed because it has to dedicate more resources to keeping hazards off, screens HO is nerfed because it can no longer block Rocks or Defog safely with Tapu Koko, and bulky offense is nerfed because Pokemon with Spikes are harder to fit on bulky offense than it is on more balanced teams. The only playstyles I can see benefiting from a Magic Bounce ban are hazard stacking balance and non-Screens HO; the former for obvious reasons, and the latter because leads no longer have to run Mold Breaker to ensure hazards go up. Again, I do not see a Magic Bounce ban as a positive thing, and would argue that a Magic Bounce ban would already exaggerate the issues in the metagame.
I think most people here can agree there is some semblance of an issue with AAA. However, I believe that the issue is the numerous breakers in the tier that centralize the defensive metagame and mandate a certain set of answers in order to not auto lose on team preview. You can play around Magic Bounce with the right tools, or play well enough to bypass not having hazards on the opposing side in the (rare) situation that your Rocker is stonewalled by a Magic Bounce mon; you cannot outplay Pixilate Tapu Koko if you don't have a PhyDef Volt immune/RegenVest Jirachi, or Power Construct ZyDog if you don't have DShield Mew/Mandibuzz
Again, I'm sorry if I sound overly forceful and aggressive. I just sincerely believe that targeting Magic Bounce for a ban is a well meaning but misguided stance that misses the larger issue of being unable to deviate from certain defensive structures without feeling unsafe versus a decently sized portion of the meta, and that Magic Bounce is only a symptom of this bigger issue. Personally, I think suspecting Genesect, like I've been saying for over a year, would be the best move to alleviate this issue, as I feel it is the main culprit of the defensive centralization due to its splashability, it's many equally viable sets that require different counterplay, and how difficult it is to discern what set it is.
Magic Bounce ban seems unnecessary in my eyes for two main reasons.
1) Magic Bounce mons are easily exploited by setters.
Unless your setter is incredibly passive like Skarm (which fwiw should never be your sole setter if you’re reliant on hazards to break) they should have a way to break past setters. Ferro can force Knocks and has good options like SD to punish attempted blocks, also Regen Ferro is going to stick around like a mf and get its chance eventually. Garchomp regularly runs SD which helps it wear down bouncers besides incredibly rare (and pretty bad) ID Bounce Corv/Skarm. Heatran has a multitude of amazing options like Desolate Land and Mold Breaker for guaranteeing rocks but also it is infamously good at breaking fat overtime with any set really. Examples like this go on. I don’t buy into the idea that “if my setter is walled by the bouncer I lose” for reasons I’ll elaborate more on in the next point.
A quick aside on “opportunity cost.” I’ve always found this argument flimsy when defending broken shit because regardless of cost people will run what they want but I think in this case it is notable. Defensive mons are significantly worse without defensive abilities in this tier which in turn makes teams with bouncers that much easier to break. Offensive mons in this tier are boosted you often need that +1 def, 33% healing, immunity ability, etc. to actually keep up as a defensive mon.
2) Hazards are not necessary to break and give less value than perceived.
I think this point is valid to every SS tier where boots are viable but it is even more notable in this tier. Realistically the only valuable defensive mons shafted by hazards are Pex and Corv. Bliss Mew Fini etc are often boots, mguard, or regen which makes getting value out of hazards difficult. MGuard is also an absurd ability, I honestly consider it broken but that’s a post for down the line. Keeping off the natural way w Defog or Spin is also not impractical w buffed removal like Dhel Lugg Corv Mew etc. Additionally, you can run boot spam, mguard, flying mons (some w the aid of levitate), and rock resists to mitigate the effect that hazards have without even bothering w bounce or removal.
I think the way hazards function in AAA is vastly different that most tiers and I don’t think banning MBounce solves anything. MBounce mons are not very good to begin with, they are wildly inconsistent at the one job they have. Good MBounce mons to me are Latias and Koko which are not problematic. If you want to speed up this tier and buff hazards I think
you ban Magic Guard. I intend on making a megapost on this tier after ssnl concludes but the tldr on Magic Guard is that it makes pivots (Koko Gene) comically strong and difficult to punish while doubling as an excellent defensive choice for some mons like Blissey.
1) Magic Bounce mons are easily exploited by setters.
Unless your setter is incredibly passive like Skarm (which fwiw should never be your sole setter if you’re reliant on hazards to break) they should have a way to break past setters. Ferro can force Knocks and has good options like SD to punish attempted blocks, also Regen Ferro is going to stick around like a mf and get its chance eventually. Garchomp regularly runs SD which helps it wear down bouncers besides incredibly rare (and pretty bad) ID Bounce Corv/Skarm. Heatran has a multitude of amazing options like Desolate Land and Mold Breaker for guaranteeing rocks but also it is infamously good at breaking fat overtime with any set really. Examples like this go on. I don’t buy into the idea that “if my setter is walled by the bouncer I lose” for reasons I’ll elaborate more on in the next point.
A quick aside on “opportunity cost.” I’ve always found this argument flimsy when defending broken shit because regardless of cost people will run what they want but I think in this case it is notable. Defensive mons are significantly worse without defensive abilities in this tier which in turn makes teams with bouncers that much easier to break. Offensive mons in this tier are boosted you often need that +1 def, 33% healing, immunity ability, etc. to actually keep up as a defensive mon.
2) Hazards are not necessary to break and give less value than perceived.
I think this point is valid to every SS tier where boots are viable but it is even more notable in this tier. Realistically the only valuable defensive mons shafted by hazards are Pex and Corv. Bliss Mew Fini etc are often boots, mguard, or regen which makes getting value out of hazards difficult. MGuard is also an absurd ability, I honestly consider it broken but that’s a post for down the line. Keeping off the natural way w Defog or Spin is also not impractical w buffed removal like Dhel Lugg Corv Mew etc. Additionally, you can run boot spam, mguard, flying mons (some w the aid of levitate), and rock resists to mitigate the effect that hazards have without even bothering w bounce or removal.
I think the way hazards function in AAA is vastly different that most tiers and I don’t think banning MBounce solves anything. MBounce mons are not very good to begin with, they are wildly inconsistent at the one job they have. Good MBounce mons to me are Latias and Koko which are not problematic. If you want to speed up this tier and buff hazards I think
you ban Magic Guard. I intend on making a megapost on this tier after ssnl concludes but the tldr on Magic Guard is that it makes pivots (Koko Gene) comically strong and difficult to punish while doubling as an excellent defensive choice for some mons like Blissey.
Gonna toss my two cents into the bowl right here; I believe Magic Bounce is fine for the tier, and I'll go into a few reasons why this is the case.
1. Hazards are less important in AAA compared to other tiers.
Just like in zioziotrip's post, hazards are much less punishing in AAA than standard tiers. This is due to the fact things can freely run Boots, Regenerator, Magic Guard, or just be resistant to rocks or not even be affected by spikes. Even things such as Talonflame can get away with Magic Guard, which doesn't just completely screw with hazards but gives benefits to Talonflame as a Pokemon. (No Recoil on Blitz/Brave Bird) If Mons like Talonflame were forced to run Magic Guard for only rocks, you'd just end up running boots and cope with not having MG.
2. It doesn't decide the winning or losing matchup just by team preview.
If your stealth rock setter is walled by a magic bounce user, it's not the end of the world. Forcing the Bouncer into the rocker can be exploited, and can be taken advantage of by a teammate. This can ultimately lead to more progress being forced, and can lead to a more dynamic tier.
3. Banning Magic Bounce could lead to an insane increase in Hyper Offense.
Say you're running Sticky Web. Magic Bounce wouldn't even matter due every Web Setter running Mold Breaker or one of its ten thousand clones. However, I would wonder how the meta would adapt to Webs if Magic Bounce was banned. Spikes would definitely shoot up in Popularity as an offensive teamstyle due to Magic Bounce being gone. Considering how high the power level of AAA is already, I believe Magic Bounce being banned and leading to a huge rise in Hyper Offensive teams would be bad for the tier, as we'd want at least some diversity in teams. If we were to ban Magic Bounce, Webs would be very hard to stop due to techs such as Prankster or Aroma Veil to block Taunt, possibly leading to one of the most offensive and fast paced metagames of all time. This isn't DPP LC, after all.
These are just a few points I wanted to bring up and back up other points some other people have stated.
1. Hazards are less important in AAA compared to other tiers.
Just like in zioziotrip's post, hazards are much less punishing in AAA than standard tiers. This is due to the fact things can freely run Boots, Regenerator, Magic Guard, or just be resistant to rocks or not even be affected by spikes. Even things such as Talonflame can get away with Magic Guard, which doesn't just completely screw with hazards but gives benefits to Talonflame as a Pokemon. (No Recoil on Blitz/Brave Bird) If Mons like Talonflame were forced to run Magic Guard for only rocks, you'd just end up running boots and cope with not having MG.
2. It doesn't decide the winning or losing matchup just by team preview.
If your stealth rock setter is walled by a magic bounce user, it's not the end of the world. Forcing the Bouncer into the rocker can be exploited, and can be taken advantage of by a teammate. This can ultimately lead to more progress being forced, and can lead to a more dynamic tier.
3. Banning Magic Bounce could lead to an insane increase in Hyper Offense.
Say you're running Sticky Web. Magic Bounce wouldn't even matter due every Web Setter running Mold Breaker or one of its ten thousand clones. However, I would wonder how the meta would adapt to Webs if Magic Bounce was banned. Spikes would definitely shoot up in Popularity as an offensive teamstyle due to Magic Bounce being gone. Considering how high the power level of AAA is already, I believe Magic Bounce being banned and leading to a huge rise in Hyper Offensive teams would be bad for the tier, as we'd want at least some diversity in teams. If we were to ban Magic Bounce, Webs would be very hard to stop due to techs such as Prankster or Aroma Veil to block Taunt, possibly leading to one of the most offensive and fast paced metagames of all time. This isn't DPP LC, after all.
These are just a few points I wanted to bring up and back up other points some other people have stated.
These debates are very interesting and structured, and, more importantly, they take place with respect for each other. Bravo ! However, I would like to point out a major flaw in your exchanges, which comes up almost every time in this kind of debate: the lack of concrete data, i.e. the non-use of replays and statistics.
While abstract reasoning has its place and its merits, it only makes sense in the context of the game. The arguments made must be supported by replays or statistics explained and commented. It is not enough to say "x talked about situations where a hazard setter is walled by a bouncer, but it is rarely the case", or "without hazards it is ppstall that decides the games" : it must be shown by examples or statistics. Otherwise the arguments lack strength: anyone can answer "this is not the case in practice" and the debate can go on forever. I don't blame any of you, since this practice is somehow almost unseen (I myself used to argue like this), but this should change probably. I don't claim either that concrete data have an implacable force: they only make sense as long as they are interpreted, and interpretations can differ; it is possible that a player played badly, that one of the teams is badly constructed, etc. (statistics are to be handled with particular care). But they give an additional degree of strength to the more abstract arguments.
If you consider that the amount of replays is insufficient, or that the meta is not developed enough for some statistics or examples to be meaningful, then one wonders what you are referring to when you talk about a "metagame". If you don't have examples to offer to support your point, I wonder what criterion for validity you assume your point should have.
While abstract reasoning has its place and its merits, it only makes sense in the context of the game. The arguments made must be supported by replays or statistics explained and commented. It is not enough to say "x talked about situations where a hazard setter is walled by a bouncer, but it is rarely the case", or "without hazards it is ppstall that decides the games" : it must be shown by examples or statistics. Otherwise the arguments lack strength: anyone can answer "this is not the case in practice" and the debate can go on forever. I don't blame any of you, since this practice is somehow almost unseen (I myself used to argue like this), but this should change probably. I don't claim either that concrete data have an implacable force: they only make sense as long as they are interpreted, and interpretations can differ; it is possible that a player played badly, that one of the teams is badly constructed, etc. (statistics are to be handled with particular care). But they give an additional degree of strength to the more abstract arguments.
If you consider that the amount of replays is insufficient, or that the meta is not developed enough for some statistics or examples to be meaningful, then one wonders what you are referring to when you talk about a "metagame". If you don't have examples to offer to support your point, I wonder what criterion for validity you assume your point should have.
Yoyo figured I'd share my teams and thoughts on the meta after AAA ssnl cuz woo meta development.
Good Teams
"and that's I why I don't drink anymore" Teams
VR Noms
I agree with most of the VR, I'm not gonna do nitpicks on mons I think can go up/down a rank I mainly just want to bring up stuff I think is underrated.
+ UR -> B-
I already wrote about these mons above if you want reasoning. B- seems to be the tier where mons that fit particular builds end up.
UR -> B
Blanks all Kokos and actually punishes non-MG sets. Sits on some spikers like Ferro/Mew with some easy-to-give support like Knock or hbell/arom. Decent one-time pivot for a lot of offensive threats and can midground into Gene which is cool. I doubt it has any other sets than Regen but w/e, it's a pretty slappable set that provides a fair bit of role compression.
UR-> C+
It's a fkn Landorus Incarnate it can literally just run Sheer Force and be better than shitters like Diancie and ZamaC. I think it also has some potential w Gravity and Regen sets, I also fucked around w BU Gravity Tinted set but it's probably bad.
A -> A+
Ik I said I wouldn't make minor nitpicks but I LIED!!! Corv is amazing in this tier on basically every build that isn't offense. Between all its incredible immunity abilities and Intim it is super flexible for a team's needs. Regen MBounce Wandering Spirit seem ass don't run those u really want an ability that hard walls smth. Corv at A is a crime is there was an S- I would put it there.
Meta Thoughts
To get the balance of the tier out of the way, I do not currently support any tiering action in this tier. For reasons I listed in an above post, I doubt MBounce ban actually does anything except worsen HO. To Atha's point, which I think is a fair one, it's hard to look at recent replays and say MBounce is banworthy. It barely had any use in AAA SSNL (both times it was brought in top 16 it was never revealed iinm) and looking at OMPL it didn't show up in poffs (if it was there, it did not do anything.) The argument that MBounce is a builder issue doesn't hold water to me either. Fringe MBounce mons like Bliss, Corv, Hippo, etc. mean you can account for your breaker not having to put up with a defensive ability which means hazards either won't be necessary or you can play into a position where they are forced. Breakers in this tier are already pretty broken, there is not really a need for the extra 12% especially considering relevant targets like Bliss/Mew/Mandi can easily opt to not take them. I also still stand by MBounce mons being super easy to exploit by setters. Yeah, you won't find many cases outside of Mold Breaker dogshit where the hazard setter always beats the bouncer but big whoop. This isn't exactly a fast tier, you have a ton of chances and if you are getting consistently outplayed/positioned then it's not the fault of the ability.
Building a 100% consistent team in this tier is probably impossible but I don't see what you do to fix that. A ton of SS tiers have the issue of threat overload and the tier being fairly unexplored doesn't help either. There is some really high variance bullshit like ZygC, Zard, Shift Gene, Tinted Lens fish mons, MG/MBounce CM sweepers, and I'm def forgetting other stuff. I don't think any of this is really actionable tho, they all have very defined and easy-to-fit counterplay it is just often overwhelming to prepare for cheese+the core of the meta which has a ton of viable shit. I think HO is very underexplored and difficult to prep for. Some of the aftermentioned sweepers are very hard to deal with bar PrankPex so a lot of teams end up relying on outplaying. That being said I don't think nerfing HO is good for the meta at all, a much slower tier is one that makes it even easier to overrun every team w voltturn and run the same broken defensive core on every build. I think any action at this point would be too little too late.
This tier is pretty fun and I'm looking forward to w/e jank gen9 is. There is some broken stuff in this tier but I honestly think that is the appeal of OMs. Going into Gen9, I would free everything (bar like wonder guard obv) and try to balance from there. I don't agree w the idea that if you ban all the great defensive abilities like Regen/MGuard/PHeal the tier is better, it's just more volatile cuz offense vs offense metas are terrible. I will, unfortunately, be dead for OMWcup but I hope to play more OMs in the future, I have had a lot of fun learning and the community has been fun.
Good Teams
One of my favorite archetypes in SS OU has always been two grounds w SD. The gist is together they gradually wear down checks or provide opportunities for progress. Together Exca and Chomper also have p decent defensive synergy not actually sharing any weaknesses despite the shared ground type. Bulu provides a much-needed secondary dark/ground resist so Mandi doesn't get overwhelmed, also benefits from fliers and steels being worn down by the grounds. Admittedly this team is not amazing at covering the meta. Chomper being the quickest mon is fucking ass, it's made somewhat better by double prio obv but it's not gonna be enough in offense MUs. The was the team I was least confident in going into finals, its balance/ho MU is quite good and bo/stall are p playable but voltturn teams heavy in cindy/gapdos/zap are a massive pain in the ass. The defensive mons on this team are pretty prone to being overwhelmed and it takes some creative pivoting/smart sacks to keep the boat afloat most of the time. Bulu is incredibly underutilized rn and I think balance builds are where it belongs. It is very awkward to fit on HO and there are simply way better breakers for reg offense/voltturn.
Koko voltturn is obnoxiously strong rn. In the majority of MUs there is no need to make actual plays cuz you can just pick up kills by spamming uturn forcing progress for an inevitable koko clean. Volcanion seemed like a very strong enabler of this idea, Koko invites in a lot of grounds and steels that blow up to Volcanion. Volcanion's checks are very limited by a burn/poison so getting free turns for Volcanion is massive for it, it's gonna fail to get past MG Chansey/Dragonvally but I was confident Heracross 2.0 would not load either and I feel generally those teams hate spikes+knock so w/e it's playable. Another cool thing about this team is every mon is spike immune and only two take rocks. It is absurd for voltturn to be able to so easily negate the influence of hazards while retaining offensive items. HO MU is probably awkward but otherwise, I feel very good about this team. Its few defensive flaws are negligible by aggressive play.
Looking at common defensive cores I saw a ton of them get blown past by Blaziken. The few things that can handle a +2 Blaziken attack are Daunt mons that can't actually threaten it back and get 2hkod. Not taking Flare Blitz recoil or status is also huge for its longevity. Blaziken is by no means an unstoppable breaker or anything. It is at a bad speed tier, Daunt mons can often trade for it over time, and you have to call a ton of turns. Regardless, I do think it does fit quite well. Its randomly good typing allows it free turns on annoying shit like gene/zarude. If you do want to use this team, I suggest making one of Scizor/Mew Defog. This was simply an oversight, Chomper and Pex taking Spikes is horrible for the longevity of the team which makes the breaking core's job much harder. Otherwise pretty happy with this team, it's the type of team that doesn't really get super good or bad MUs which is nice.
BoltBeam is eternally broken offensive coverage so Arctozolt seemed like a prime canidate for innovation. AAA gives Arctozolt a lot of buffs compared to OU. Good scarfers that are faster like Lele/Kart/Blace are either banned or bad so it's at a less contested speed tier. Terrain is way better than weather. It is not easily reset by opposing weather, gives Arctozolt a notable power increase, and no longer forces teammates to take free chip. You can run an actually good pokemon with Electric Surge which spares you from having to find a slot for rocks (albeit Arctozolt is not super reliant on hazards chip.) Volt Absorb mons are basically the only hard wall to Arctozolt. A lot of things that can take one attack are easily brute-forced as Arctozolt is suprisingly hard to OHKO. I think this team has a lot of room for optimization, the ho MU is abysmal and it is a little awkward to get Arctozolt in. You can also def find better secondary breakers than Tran/Zarude for punishing Volt Absorb mons. It's a very interesting concept that I wish I had more time to explore, hopefully someone smart optimizes this idea.
"and that's I why I don't drink anymore" Teams
Believe it or not, there was actual thoughts behind this team. Linoone is a sweeper that can OHKO Pex (more reliably after rocks) w espeed and steels take a fuck ton from dedge (some like gene usually die to espeed LOL.) The idea is hwish it gets two goes but this just isn't practical. Sitrus healing is not enough for a BD, it's stopped flat by status, and even behind screens it's pretty frail. I def played ass in the game I brought this team but I just don't think Linoone is worth it. There are much better ways for HO to own Pex (see: the other two sweepers on the team stupid ass zioziotrip) so I just don't think Linoone was a good idea. Guts Chomper+Lele proved to be pretty absurd. Guts Chomper w two goes around is very tough to deal with and the steel-heavy builds that Lele struggle with usually just lose to Guts Chomper. I think Guts Chomper+Lele can be good but they'd be better on a traditional koko HO w broken shit like Gene/Zard that make risking Pex much harder. I do think HWish is potentially very valuable for HO tho, dealing w the same broken shitter twice is often impossible. Just hard to fit Latias which is much slower than Koko and lacks Taunt.
This team is bad. Tinted Terrak was better in my head than in practice. Pex still walls it and leaves Daunt/Intim shit that previously lost to Terrak hard walling it. I honestly don't have much to say about this team, it was my first proper attempt at an AAA team and it just has no real way to make progress. It's probably not unusable but meh, just pasting this team in case ppl are curious.
VR Noms
I agree with most of the VR, I'm not gonna do nitpicks on mons I think can go up/down a rank I mainly just want to bring up stuff I think is underrated.
+ UR -> B-I already wrote about these mons above if you want reasoning. B- seems to be the tier where mons that fit particular builds end up.
UR -> BBlanks all Kokos and actually punishes non-MG sets. Sits on some spikers like Ferro/Mew with some easy-to-give support like Knock or hbell/arom. Decent one-time pivot for a lot of offensive threats and can midground into Gene which is cool. I doubt it has any other sets than Regen but w/e, it's a pretty slappable set that provides a fair bit of role compression.
UR-> C+It's a fkn Landorus Incarnate it can literally just run Sheer Force and be better than shitters like Diancie and ZamaC. I think it also has some potential w Gravity and Regen sets, I also fucked around w BU Gravity Tinted set but it's probably bad.
A -> A+Ik I said I wouldn't make minor nitpicks but I LIED!!! Corv is amazing in this tier on basically every build that isn't offense. Between all its incredible immunity abilities and Intim it is super flexible for a team's needs. Regen MBounce Wandering Spirit seem ass don't run those u really want an ability that hard walls smth. Corv at A is a crime is there was an S- I would put it there.
Meta Thoughts
To get the balance of the tier out of the way, I do not currently support any tiering action in this tier. For reasons I listed in an above post, I doubt MBounce ban actually does anything except worsen HO. To Atha's point, which I think is a fair one, it's hard to look at recent replays and say MBounce is banworthy. It barely had any use in AAA SSNL (both times it was brought in top 16 it was never revealed iinm) and looking at OMPL it didn't show up in poffs (if it was there, it did not do anything.) The argument that MBounce is a builder issue doesn't hold water to me either. Fringe MBounce mons like Bliss, Corv, Hippo, etc. mean you can account for your breaker not having to put up with a defensive ability which means hazards either won't be necessary or you can play into a position where they are forced. Breakers in this tier are already pretty broken, there is not really a need for the extra 12% especially considering relevant targets like Bliss/Mew/Mandi can easily opt to not take them. I also still stand by MBounce mons being super easy to exploit by setters. Yeah, you won't find many cases outside of Mold Breaker dogshit where the hazard setter always beats the bouncer but big whoop. This isn't exactly a fast tier, you have a ton of chances and if you are getting consistently outplayed/positioned then it's not the fault of the ability.
Building a 100% consistent team in this tier is probably impossible but I don't see what you do to fix that. A ton of SS tiers have the issue of threat overload and the tier being fairly unexplored doesn't help either. There is some really high variance bullshit like ZygC, Zard, Shift Gene, Tinted Lens fish mons, MG/MBounce CM sweepers, and I'm def forgetting other stuff. I don't think any of this is really actionable tho, they all have very defined and easy-to-fit counterplay it is just often overwhelming to prepare for cheese+the core of the meta which has a ton of viable shit. I think HO is very underexplored and difficult to prep for. Some of the aftermentioned sweepers are very hard to deal with bar PrankPex so a lot of teams end up relying on outplaying. That being said I don't think nerfing HO is good for the meta at all, a much slower tier is one that makes it even easier to overrun every team w voltturn and run the same broken defensive core on every build. I think any action at this point would be too little too late.
This tier is pretty fun and I'm looking forward to w/e jank gen9 is. There is some broken stuff in this tier but I honestly think that is the appeal of OMs. Going into Gen9, I would free everything (bar like wonder guard obv) and try to balance from there. I don't agree w the idea that if you ban all the great defensive abilities like Regen/MGuard/PHeal the tier is better, it's just more volatile cuz offense vs offense metas are terrible. I will, unfortunately, be dead for OMWcup but I hope to play more OMs in the future, I have had a lot of fun learning and the community has been fun.
Hello. Since my adventure in the AAA Happy Change tour is ended, I have decided to write down my thoughts about the various rounds.
Round 1 VS Grim Blazer
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1622863375-avi7w7jbsd3njcisrz40bbj9vdv7ugtpw
G1, loss
The team
https://pokepast.es/68b8501638ad82ed
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1622868040-3jhfhqgpl337x8c0ax1xr162qamskjxpw
G2, win
https://pokepast.es/9bd6d371ebfc282f
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1622870561-18kfevzi88ekto9q2m7ny6nn9pcxbxfpw
G3, win
https://pokepast.es/9bd6d371ebfc282f
Round 2 against Tanny89k
Blacephalon and Weavile unbanned. I'm writing this part before even playing. I'm not going to re-write all that was said about both of them. This round's teambuilding feels and is even more restricted than the first one. Keep them banned, please and thank you, teambuilding is hell already.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1629324035
G1 Win
https://pokepast.es/994711436cf20d7d
To be honest, with a change or two this could be a fun team in the actual meta!
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1629329777
G2 Loss
https://pokepast.es/b6bb6810c94c8d49
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1629333690
G3 Win
Same team as turn one. The third team had a mistake, I had to correct it and then Showdown went back to the first team and I clicked SO FAST and mistakenly (but luckly) used the first one again.
Round 3 vs Queenzz
Who would have thought that I would win two rounds? But also, Blace again? And, funnily enough, it's not even the worst thing. ARCHEOPS? MG is banned, ok, but still? Crazy people. Head Smash being gone means its best set is gone, but it's not that Adapt/Tough Claws//CB/HDB/Scarf are not problematic.
In general I expected both mons, a lot of hazards and a bunch of good hazards control.
I didn't realize that in general the players would have thought that the two mons would have been unusable and would not have tried that much to make them work. Only five teams iirc had either mon. I was too focused on stopping those mons to make team that would have stopped others.
As I watched Beauts vs Eli, Cityscapes talked about Rock Head. WHO REMEMBERS IT? Anyway, what a neat change to my Arche sets. I was Tough Claws + Dual Wingbeat/KOff/Heat wave/U-Turn on the HDB set and the scarfed set was Adaptability, with Stone Edge. In the end, keeping both "og" sets could have worked a bitt differently, at least i think. Oh well.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1633776560-me9p0v8baqzt800ztuc8kyif5n0lurppw
G1 Lost :(
https://pokepast.es/4340afd8f6d7f032
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1633786688-mf29h87r5ut1x7rccgncjgsc0ussjsrpw
G2 Loss
https://pokepast.es/4004aec88c4d6b3d
TL;DR: I have no strong opinion for or against SAC, never ever free any of the freed mons again this gen, MB ban made me realize that I need to diversify my defoggers, MG ban made me realize that a LOT of stuff uses it (what a nice ability) and yes, I still am only comfortable with teambuilding following the formule DefWall + SpdefWall + 4 mons.
Round 1 VS Grim Blazer
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1622863375-avi7w7jbsd3njcisrz40bbj9vdv7ugtpw
G1, loss
I didn't think that Mew would survive a +6 Charizard so I didn't click Soft-Boiled. My mistake, I would have probably survived a bit more. Not sure about winning, though. Also, U-turn on Mew instead of Teleport because I defaulted to the pivot move I remembered it had and didn't check for a better one.
https://pokepast.es/68b8501638ad82ed
Poison Heal is going to show up, how do I beat the main utilizers of this ability? Grass kills Suicune and Fini, Fighting kills Snorlax. Mew could be PH, so Nature's Madness helps and Tough Claws Brave Bird hits really hard so it would help too, plus I never tried this Gapdos set. Then I filled the rest of the team. I like to have at least one special wall and one physical wall; swampert was the easiest choice (i already play it and I know it works) and mew... i don't even remember why I chose it. It's a good mon, I like the Dauntless Shield set. Heatran went in to avoid to lose to stall and random stuff that needs to be taunted. I needed hazard removal and I still had no grass type for Suicune and Fini so Dhelmise went in with the Swords Dance set with Rapid Spin. And also probably because it finished the accidental Water/Fire/Grass “core”.
I didn't use any PH mon because I wanted to test this on the ladder.
I didn't use any PH mon because I wanted to test this on the ladder.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1622868040-3jhfhqgpl337x8c0ax1xr162qamskjxpw
G2, win
I got nervous at the preview because I knew that Azelf was going to be the only one to outspeed Koko but it would not have been able to ohko this set. And i though that at +1, without Tinted Lens, Genesect would not have been able to beat Corviknight. Ops. But luckly Zarude simply cleaned at the end.
https://pokepast.es/9bd6d371ebfc282f
Still no PH because I wanted to test this on the ladder too. I also didn't want to have the same mons/sets of any other team. Tough Claws Zarude hits Suicune, Fini, Mew AND Snorlax all in one compact package. Amazing. So I felt pretty free after that. Scarf Azelf is a set that I know and love. It's fast, it hits decently hard, it can stop devil mew and random defensive mons. Corviknight is my physical wall. I wanted to punish random regens (eg Jirachi) so I went with a Wandering Spirit set. I never really tried Chansey and I needed a special wall so that went in. Tapu Koko went in to have a secondary check to bulky waters and I also wanted to try the Adaptability set. Cinderace is yet another backup for some of the PH mons and a fire, which is nice to have. I don't really like this set, sometimes I felt in the past that It didn't really hurt that much (eg, it's not a ohko on defensive Fini iirc) but hey, who cares, we're here to have fun.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1622870561-18kfevzi88ekto9q2m7ny6nn9pcxbxfpw
G3, win
nothing to say, apart from the fact that I was happy that mew worked. Then I was also “down a mon”, but who cares, free sack fodder. I most likely didn't play that well, especially against mew. But I thought I needed to use Tkick against it, at +1 def it would not have gone down easily. And the crit on Zygarde probably mattered, depending on how much HP evs it had.
https://pokepast.es/9bd6d371ebfc282f
I wanted a third team and made this in like 15 minutes right before the first game started XD I didn't have any idea (at first I wanted to try another no regen team but the time was against me), so I slapped this mew's set to beat PH users and called it a day. Then I decided to go with PH Gapdos, a set that I thought about the first time I tried to create this team but decided against at the time, also I would not have been able to test anything anyway. Well, now I simply had no time to think, so whatever, let's try a bulk up version. Corviknight and Swampert (and these sets specifically) are my default walls so they went in. I then wanted to try Skill Link Garchomp as my rocker and No Guard Genesect as speed control. BoltBeam combo is one of the two coolest in the game, Explosion on a non TL set is strange, but i don't care, I liked the idea. Probably not advised. Oh yeah, forgot to make it shiny to bluff shift gear, but that's pro level strat so It's obvious that I forgot it XD
It didn't feel particularly different than 2AC. Yeah, no regenerator shenanigans, of course, but it felt kind of similar. Probably because we usually do not slam 2 copies of three abilities each team and call it a day. But the presence of PH was felt, I did bring 2-4 mons to check it in the first two teams, lmao. I think that was mainly because I was too nervous AND it was going to show up for sure and that changed a bit my teambuilding. I did expect to fight 3 teams with PH in it for sure. It was a nice challange to make sure I didn't have the same ability on different mons, which diversified the team a bit more than usual, that part was definitely cool.
In general, I'm neither for it or against it. PH is a strong ability and I saw a lot of matches end when the PH mon couldn't be beaten without supereffective attacks.
In general, I'm neither for it or against it. PH is a strong ability and I saw a lot of matches end when the PH mon couldn't be beaten without supereffective attacks.
Round 2 against Tanny89k
Blacephalon and Weavile unbanned. I'm writing this part before even playing. I'm not going to re-write all that was said about both of them. This round's teambuilding feels and is even more restricted than the first one. Keep them banned, please and thank you, teambuilding is hell already.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 108 Atk / 120 Def / 32 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Spikes
- Gyro Ball
- Knock Off
- Protect
First, this set. I ended up not using it, but I want to showcase it anyway. It barely survives the 2hko by MGLO Shadow Ball and ohkos Blacephalon with Knock off -together with this many Atk evs-. It ALSO survives Adaptability CB Triple Axel (just one though!) and ohkos Weavile with Gyro Ball -that can be done without atk evs-.
I created it with the idea that no team would have had both mons, so I just needed to check one of them.
In the end, I decided this wasn't going to check Weavile well enough to risk it. I ccould have checked offensively like I do in the first two teams (maybe a bit more), but it's not worth it at my skill level.
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 108 Atk / 120 Def / 32 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Spikes
- Gyro Ball
- Knock Off
- Protect
First, this set. I ended up not using it, but I want to showcase it anyway. It barely survives the 2hko by MGLO Shadow Ball and ohkos Blacephalon with Knock off -together with this many Atk evs-. It ALSO survives Adaptability CB Triple Axel (just one though!) and ohkos Weavile with Gyro Ball -that can be done without atk evs-.
I created it with the idea that no team would have had both mons, so I just needed to check one of them.
In the end, I decided this wasn't going to check Weavile well enough to risk it. I ccould have checked offensively like I do in the first two teams (maybe a bit more), but it's not worth it at my skill level.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1629324035
G1 Win
https://pokepast.es/994711436cf20d7d
We will find Weavile here. Tapu Fini was the only real counter at the time. Bar like 7 niche mons that I found out myself that all lost to the technician CB BU set. I almost used one of those mons in the third (unused) team. I used defog on another mon so
We will ALSO find Blacephalon here. Blissey, Chansey, AV Incineroar, Regen Nihilego are my only walls. There goes Chansey, loses to Knock Off/Trick but Counter is more reliable and I plan to beat Blace offensively anyway (so no Shadow Ball.)
This core loses to Zarude. In goes Corvi. Wandering Spirit so I can have fun against regen mons that use u-turn/flip turn and also kind of check Terrakion with it and fini IF Mew faints. Plus a bunch of other mons, Wandering Spirit is a really fun ability.
My own Zarude. Grassy Glide beats both Blac (ok, after a bit of a chip, really difficult to do I know - alternatively I can paralyze it to beat it) and Weavile; AND the mons that I expect to see on opposing teams to counter those mons.
Barraskewda: Yes, I am scared of both mons and I want the highest amount of my own pokemon possible that can beat them. It can also beat Corvi, who stops my Zarude.
Mew: Before Chansey I had a Magic Bounce Blissey, so this Mew was scarf regen, but after a bit of testing Blissey became Regen Chansey so I had MB free. Plus I wanted a special attacker (albeit this team does not hit on that side of the spectrum hard) that could also hit Corviknight if Barra were to faint. Spikes are there to soften a bit the opposing team (Barra can miss a bunch of 1/2hkos; Zarude a bit less, but kind of the same), Psychic to have another attack, recovery, Volt Switch for flying stuff and momentum.
We will ALSO find Blacephalon here. Blissey, Chansey, AV Incineroar, Regen Nihilego are my only walls. There goes Chansey, loses to Knock Off/Trick but Counter is more reliable and I plan to beat Blace offensively anyway (so no Shadow Ball.)
This core loses to Zarude. In goes Corvi. Wandering Spirit so I can have fun against regen mons that use u-turn/flip turn and also kind of check Terrakion with it and fini IF Mew faints. Plus a bunch of other mons, Wandering Spirit is a really fun ability.
My own Zarude. Grassy Glide beats both Blac (ok, after a bit of a chip, really difficult to do I know - alternatively I can paralyze it to beat it) and Weavile; AND the mons that I expect to see on opposing teams to counter those mons.
Barraskewda: Yes, I am scared of both mons and I want the highest amount of my own pokemon possible that can beat them. It can also beat Corvi, who stops my Zarude.
Mew: Before Chansey I had a Magic Bounce Blissey, so this Mew was scarf regen, but after a bit of testing Blissey became Regen Chansey so I had MB free. Plus I wanted a special attacker (albeit this team does not hit on that side of the spectrum hard) that could also hit Corviknight if Barra were to faint. Spikes are there to soften a bit the opposing team (Barra can miss a bunch of 1/2hkos; Zarude a bit less, but kind of the same), Psychic to have another attack, recovery, Volt Switch for flying stuff and momentum.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1629329777
G2 Loss
https://pokepast.es/b6bb6810c94c8d49
Weavile will be there, so Fini. Blac will be there, so at first I had Incineroar, but I used it in the third team because it had a higher attack. I needed more hazards (because why not), a way to hit flying types and funnily enough Nihilego can survive Blac without AV. Free status moves!
I then just decided that I wanted to also check both offensively, so I simply slapped onto the team all three main mons that can outspeed and hit both. Talon kills both without any problem. Azelf can't kill Weavile with U-Turn but it does enough and I always have Fini/Koko. Speaking of which, it can't kill Blacephalon without either being at +1 or being Adapt LO (if special, and Facade is not a sure ohko.) Therefore CM was the way. Stabs because yeah, Roost over U-Turn because surviving is more important. Mew is there to not die to Terrak, which is not ohkoed by either Koko and Talon (both at +0 at least). Plus I also wanted spikes (tbh Nihi came after I put mew on the team) AND defog.
Could be better, for sure. It was fun to say “f it, let's go FAST”.
I then just decided that I wanted to also check both offensively, so I simply slapped onto the team all three main mons that can outspeed and hit both. Talon kills both without any problem. Azelf can't kill Weavile with U-Turn but it does enough and I always have Fini/Koko. Speaking of which, it can't kill Blacephalon without either being at +1 or being Adapt LO (if special, and Facade is not a sure ohko.) Therefore CM was the way. Stabs because yeah, Roost over U-Turn because surviving is more important. Mew is there to not die to Terrak, which is not ohkoed by either Koko and Talon (both at +0 at least). Plus I also wanted spikes (tbh Nihi came after I put mew on the team) AND defog.
Could be better, for sure. It was fun to say “f it, let's go FAST”.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1629333690
G3 Win
Same team as turn one. The third team had a mistake, I had to correct it and then Showdown went back to the first team and I clicked SO FAST and mistakenly (but luckly) used the first one again.
https://pokepast.es/433e6683bbc28e2a
This team had THREE mistakes. One, the Genesect wasn't shiny. Oh well, That was the mistake that saved me. And the second one, I asked Tanny89k to battle for fun to try it and I realized, thanks to their Heatran's Earth Power, that I had Levitate on Azelf. Last mistake in the rationale. Oh well, the team fared horribly.
Rationale behind the team: I am out of ideas, just slap scarf Blac (since it sounds cool as an counter-speed control option) and Technician BU Weavile on a team and go from there. Change the two walls (but fini is still there because I needed defog; i know that Cobalion loses to Low Kick but whatever, I also forgot to make it Anti-Fighting berry for that reason but whatever), add two random things with high ATK.
Azelf kind of ensures that I do not lose to priority, Gene is there because I needed something to beat I don't remember which mon. One of my worst teams in general, except those I created when I really didn't know what I was doing.
This team had THREE mistakes. One, the Genesect wasn't shiny. Oh well, That was the mistake that saved me. And the second one, I asked Tanny89k to battle for fun to try it and I realized, thanks to their Heatran's Earth Power, that I had Levitate on Azelf. Last mistake in the rationale. Oh well, the team fared horribly.
Rationale behind the team: I am out of ideas, just slap scarf Blac (since it sounds cool as an counter-speed control option) and Technician BU Weavile on a team and go from there. Change the two walls (but fini is still there because I needed defog; i know that Cobalion loses to Low Kick but whatever, I also forgot to make it Anti-Fighting berry for that reason but whatever), add two random things with high ATK.
Azelf kind of ensures that I do not lose to priority, Gene is there because I needed something to beat I don't remember which mon. One of my worst teams in general, except those I created when I really didn't know what I was doing.
Round 3 vs Queenzz
Who would have thought that I would win two rounds? But also, Blace again? And, funnily enough, it's not even the worst thing. ARCHEOPS? MG is banned, ok, but still? Crazy people. Head Smash being gone means its best set is gone, but it's not that Adapt/Tough Claws//CB/HDB/Scarf are not problematic.
In general I expected both mons, a lot of hazards and a bunch of good hazards control.
I didn't realize that in general the players would have thought that the two mons would have been unusable and would not have tried that much to make them work. Only five teams iirc had either mon. I was too focused on stopping those mons to make team that would have stopped others.
As I watched Beauts vs Eli, Cityscapes talked about Rock Head. WHO REMEMBERS IT? Anyway, what a neat change to my Arche sets. I was Tough Claws + Dual Wingbeat/KOff/Heat wave/U-Turn on the HDB set and the scarfed set was Adaptability, with Stone Edge. In the end, keeping both "og" sets could have worked a bitt differently, at least i think. Oh well.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1633776560-me9p0v8baqzt800ztuc8kyif5n0lurppw
G1 Lost :(
https://pokepast.es/4340afd8f6d7f032
Hippowdon is the only mon that stops CB Adapt Archeops. Heavy Slam to kill it. Nihilego can stop Blace without an AV (but loses to Psyshock variants. I tried a set with iirc 252 HP/152 def/the rest in Spdef to survive Flame Charge + Psyshock but it was too niche.) Barra and Zarude outspeed both freed mons. Corvi is a secondary PhyWall and the defogger, Heatran ensures I have a Psea switchin (kind of) and has taunt.
G2 Loss
https://pokepast.es/4004aec88c4d6b3d
Hippo is mandatory, Incineroar stops all Blace variants albeit is annoyed by trick, Archeops because i was even more stressed by this week's teambuilding than the other two weeks so I wanted to try it, Zapdos is a nice mon, Corvi has defog (i really need to try different defoggers) and Volt Absorb because otherwise I autolose from Koko -I learned afterwards that without Bulk Up that's kind of useless- and Azelf is speed control.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8almostanyability-1633796604-qxvzkbxn7fr71fq2g1ty0geusordahcpw
G3 (because why not) another loss
https://pokepast.es/f6b34fe3fc25d81c
This time, since I expected so much defog (mainly Corvi, Fini, Mandi) i tried a gimmick. Competitive mew with a modest nature and LO ohkoes/2hokoes all three mons. It comes in on defog and starts blasting. SR is to make them come in on it. I wanted to try Archeops as speed control, Chansey is used to stop Blace with TW and Archeops with Counter, Corvi is the defogger, Barra is yet again used to outspeed both Arche/Blace, Genesect was a mon I threw in because I was too pressured and I wanted to stop thinking about the team, plus I wanted to try the Tinted set.
G3 (because why not) another loss
https://pokepast.es/f6b34fe3fc25d81c
This time, since I expected so much defog (mainly Corvi, Fini, Mandi) i tried a gimmick. Competitive mew with a modest nature and LO ohkoes/2hokoes all three mons. It comes in on defog and starts blasting. SR is to make them come in on it. I wanted to try Archeops as speed control, Chansey is used to stop Blace with TW and Archeops with Counter, Corvi is the defogger, Barra is yet again used to outspeed both Arche/Blace, Genesect was a mon I threw in because I was too pressured and I wanted to stop thinking about the team, plus I wanted to try the Tinted set.
TL;DR: I have no strong opinion for or against SAC, never ever free any of the freed mons again this gen, MB ban made me realize that I need to diversify my defoggers, MG ban made me realize that a LOT of stuff uses it (what a nice ability) and yes, I still am only comfortable with teambuilding following the formule DefWall + SpdefWall + 4 mons.
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So here's my 2 cents regarding the Magic bounce discussion, I'm not really in favor of banning magic bounce. Even though it can be a polarizing ability, in most cases this doesn't end up dominating the match. I feel like that if you need the hazards you should run a moldy/terravolt mon and if you don't it's just a case of the Pokemon rock, paper, Scizor effect. Matchups can be heavily favored in team preview, belikethatsometimes.
I said most cases: There is certainly a scenario where it is polarizing, and this is with a regen core team with Mew. With any of the other common Magic bounce Mons, I feel like they invite in a breaker or they have very little offensive momentum. With Mew I feel like this is not really the case, it's fast, has good bulk and is completely unpredictable with move sets. As for the magic bounce set it's also very hard to break in my experience. It gets Will-o-wisp to shut down physical breakers, teleport/u-turn to keep momentum and roost/soft-boiled to not get worn down, plus the added risk of knock-off, Toxic, it's own hazards, and a variety of nasty moves.
In my experience Mew can completely shut down progress and leads more often to the frustrating part where you get out-stalled by a regen core. (#limit regen to 1 max, #SAC)
All of that in conjunction with the possibility of the cosmic power set, no guard set, dauntless shield set, sheer force set. I feel like it can just do too much. I'm not sure if this has been suggested before or tried out, but I would be more in favor of suspect testing Mew in conjunction with Magic bounce to see where the problem lies.
Take my opinion with a grain of salt, but it might be worth considering.
//edit: bit late to join the discussion, my bad, been away for a while.
I said most cases: There is certainly a scenario where it is polarizing, and this is with a regen core team with Mew. With any of the other common Magic bounce Mons, I feel like they invite in a breaker or they have very little offensive momentum. With Mew I feel like this is not really the case, it's fast, has good bulk and is completely unpredictable with move sets. As for the magic bounce set it's also very hard to break in my experience. It gets Will-o-wisp to shut down physical breakers, teleport/u-turn to keep momentum and roost/soft-boiled to not get worn down, plus the added risk of knock-off, Toxic, it's own hazards, and a variety of nasty moves.
In my experience Mew can completely shut down progress and leads more often to the frustrating part where you get out-stalled by a regen core. (#limit regen to 1 max, #SAC)
All of that in conjunction with the possibility of the cosmic power set, no guard set, dauntless shield set, sheer force set. I feel like it can just do too much. I'm not sure if this has been suggested before or tried out, but I would be more in favor of suspect testing Mew in conjunction with Magic bounce to see where the problem lies.
Take my opinion with a grain of salt, but it might be worth considering.
//edit: bit late to join the discussion, my bad, been away for a while.
I have been meaning to write up a longer post going over my views on current AAA and possible changes for a while. It's no secret that I haven't particularly enjoyed the meta for a while now, although I can't help but feel responsible for the meta as it is, given that I've been on the council for 2 years now. The Poison Heal ban decision was the big vote I was flip-flopping on and was never really sure I'd made the right call.
This post is going to cover 2 topics, first a concrete look at current AAA, its issues and possible solutions and second a more broad look at balancing philosophy for OMs, taking into account what make people gravitate to them in the first place. Of course, this is just my opinion and should be taken as such.
1) AAA currently suffers from a variety of building constraints which restricts successful building into a narrow scope of teams and reduces the set of viable offensive mons.
Minimizing matchup variance is almost impossible, as the offensive mons that provide defensive utility and shore up bad MUs vs certain HO threats tend to be more easily hard-countered, meaning that you're either fishing for no defensive counters to your breaker (ie Cinderace), or fishing for no [insert MUfish threat] and running Terrakion instead. This means that building 50/50 balance or bulky offense is very difficult, so at some point you just have to accept the possibility of bad to unwinnable matchups, which makes for a less than enjoyable tournament experience.
The only sure-fire way to avoid losing to the various offensive fishes is to run toxapex, a fire type that can check genesect AND a garchomp counter on your team. There simply aren't enough viable HO stoppers to allow for varied builds if your goal is something resembling consistency. Part of this ease to fish for the right matchup with HO, is (imo) the accumulating reduction of offensive speed in the meta. Fast breakers are a natural deterrent to HO, getting rid of them makes HO more and more attractive because teams need to increasingly go out of their way to counter it effectively.
Tapu Lele is in a similar position to weavile before the ban. It has a few hard counters and a bunch of "checks" that easily get overwhelmed. Meaning that its either useless, or it punches holes in the opposing team. This type of mon, is imo, bad for the meta. We want breakers that can do something in every game, where it comes down to a player leveraging superior skill in order to enable it to ultimately make progress in a less than ideal matchup. Blace was such a mon, due to its varied movepool, consistent progress making and lots of short-mid term checks that got overwhelmed in long games. Weavile and Lele either punch holes immediately, or never.
Koko is the premier fast breaker of the meta, but its most likely too powerful for current AAA. I've been hesitant to outright say it because I believe fast breakers are an integral part of the meta, but as it is now, one of your regen slots basically needs to be a pixi koko check. This is too much of a constraint.
Banning Kommo did nothing to solve the unburden issue. We banned the best abuser, but all that accomplished is to shift unburden into even more of a matchup fish. Kommo at least centralized the "unburden meta", making it more easy to prep for it. Now we have zard and gdarm, frailer and harder to set up, but requiring more diverse checks. This is why I advocated for an unburden ban, Kommo had significant defensive utility and non-broken offensive sets, the only real matchup fish was the unburden set. As is we kept the fishing, lost defensive utility.
Genesect is an important defensive pillar, but Schrodinger's Genesect is extremely dangerous in HO matchups, especially in a tournament setting. Some teams outright lose to the right set, others might lose bcause the player guessed wrong. As the meta stands, it should likely be banned - of course that makes KokoLele more oppressive, but those should go as well.
Double Regen prolongs games making progress much harder to accomplish in games where you don't have an easy avenue of denting the opposing team. Double regen is one of the things that necessitates consistent and resilient progress makers such as pixi koko and blacephalon. If your breaker can't make progress fast, it better make consistent progress and have some sort of longevity so that it can fight a war of attrition versus regen cores. But, the power of regen cores is also a consequence of no good punishes for overswitching. In this sense, magic bounce does contribute to the degeneration of games into slugfests, but only in theory. In practice, I haven't seen magic bounce decide a game since probably last year's OMPL. I don't remember it warping games last WC, nor in my OM champs run, nor this years OMPL. This is why I'm against a bounce ban. Hazards are one form of deterring switches, another is bulky setup. If you just switch around bulky setup forever, you will lose, unless carrying unaware/haze. In this sense the existence of Poison Heal gives balance teams another way to punish infinite switches, as a PH mon is accumulating value from sitting on the field while the opponent is switching around. Admittedly, I believe regen cores are the least of the issues plaguing current AAA.
Again, to sum up my views on the most salient problems: the scope of viable strategies, teams and mons is too narrow, because of the constraints i outlined above. Too many fishy offensive threats, either of the autowin variety or of the pick 1 everytime or do nothing variety and not enough defensive glue options. At the same time, some matchups run into the opposite problem, where breakers get outlasted (passive damage or PP stall) by regen cores.
2) Going forward?
Retired user Siamato fortunately still enjoys takling about the game with me. A while ago he presented his case for the way to go forward with the meta and attempt to solve the issues outlined in the above post. Quoting from discord:
This is a very radical approach but I think it gets more things right than wrong. I don't personally love it, but I think it's good and I would endorse its implementation. If we wanted to be more conservative, we could ban just the mons without implementing the changes to abilities, or just do one of SAC/bounce ban + ban the mons. But in general I think this approach is good, because it serves to level the playing field. One factor contributing to the lack of balance is probably uneven balancing - we hit most of the outliers, but kept others, so now there's a clear but narrow set of top threats that eclipse everything else (Koko, Gene, Lele, arguably Gapdos, arguably Garchomp).
3) Going back?
Another approach is to go back - unban Poison Heal and some offensive threats that terrorized the meta following its banning. Both approaches seek to level the playing field, this one by increasing the power level accross the board instead of decreasing it. A big part of what made Weavile and Blace broken is Knock Off and a restriction of passive recovery from 4 to 2 slots. The lack of Poison Heal makes Knock Off insane, as it basically guarantees progress, especially for Blace since it gets rid of pesky assault vests. In PH meta however, there's usually at least one Knock absorber on the team. Additionally, when one of your regens has to check blace and the other Weavile (or you're running Intim Corv/Daunt Skarm), you're severely restricting build variety. Poison Heal nerfs both of them to a managable level and allows for more varied defensive cores.
I think a reasonable start would be to revert the PH, Weavile and Blace bans, see what happens and then go from there. Of course reintroducing PH massively shakes up the meta, so I can understand if people aren't fans of this option.
4) Shifting the meta for World Cup
Whatever avenue we pick, I don't think small scale changes will do much to improve the meta. To balance the meta, I think we need to trim the outliers or free the brokens. With WC coming up, this is potentially a good time for a large scale change. A tournament offers high level play and lets us see how the changes affect the meta, mainly whether they make tournament play less matchup fishy and more consistent, as well as more enjoyable for the players. While I'm not one to discount the perspectives of casual players or ladder players, tournament play is what gives OMs prestige and brings in new blood from other parts of Smogon - its thus important to cultivate a healthy tournament meta.
With this in mind, I endorse a large scale meta shift before WC, as long as the community gives us the OK, preferably in the direction that both the council and the community can agree will lead to a positive outcome. Moreover, we can use this as a trial run. If it turns out this change wasn't the way, we can reassess things and revert the change before playoffs of WC. Either way, we will gain useful info going into gen 9.
I know there's talk of a Magic Bounce ban, but personally I'm not in favor of it. I don't think a lone bounce ban will do much. I'd much rather make a larger change.
5) What makes OMs attractive?
This post is already long, so I'll try to be as brief as possible. Judging from personal experience, I was drawn to OMs because of the potential for experimentation and a higher power level than OU (with exceptions, NFE doesn't fall into the second category). I'd think that most people can empathize with this perspective, although some people might lean more to one side than the other.
Regardless, I think it's our job as OM council members to strike a balance between ensuring a competitive and skill-rewarding metagame as well as retaining the element of being distinct from (and often more powerful than) OU. Part of that is getting to use mons that are lackluster in OU because the mechanic of choice brings them up to par with the rest of the threats, but another part is also improving and innovating on top tier OU threats. Banning too many fast offensive threats risks diluting the power level of OMs and turning them into UU+ instead of OU+. I don't know about you guys, but when I can't use any OU staples like Weavile, Koko, Pult, Zera, Lando etc. in an OM, the whole thing loses some of its luster. With that in mind, maybe we should try to be more liberal with restricting the main mechanic as opposed to targeting mons, in situations where it makes sense. There is a very delicate balance to be struck, so this is more of a discussion starter than a concrete suggestion.
Applying this concept specifically to AAA, we get abilities like ISword, RillaTac, NGas etc. that are clearly too strong. But then there's borderline abilities, usually offensive, that contribute to pushing a large number of mons over the edge, but are considered balanced without them. But is that really the right way to look at it? Most Sheer Force abusers were banned - Pult, Gengar, Kyurem, Spectrier being the main ones, both Lele and Gene are controversial in the current meta. Pult, Gar, Kyurem, SPectrier were no banned solely because of SF, but perhaps they would not have been banned if Sheer Force was banned instead? Tinted Lens is in a similar situation - it breaks powerful mons, but once those powerful mons are gone, its pretty much useless and nothing runs it. Maybe we should just ban it, and proceed to balance a meta where it doesn't immediately break mons with a 125+ attacking stat and high BP stabs? Unburden is another example)
If we banned a few more abilities (mainly Tinted Lens, to be honest), I think we could justify keeping a larger portion of offensive mons free, hopefully resulting in more team variety.
This post is going to cover 2 topics, first a concrete look at current AAA, its issues and possible solutions and second a more broad look at balancing philosophy for OMs, taking into account what make people gravitate to them in the first place. Of course, this is just my opinion and should be taken as such.
1) AAA currently suffers from a variety of building constraints which restricts successful building into a narrow scope of teams and reduces the set of viable offensive mons.
Minimizing matchup variance is almost impossible, as the offensive mons that provide defensive utility and shore up bad MUs vs certain HO threats tend to be more easily hard-countered, meaning that you're either fishing for no defensive counters to your breaker (ie Cinderace), or fishing for no [insert MUfish threat] and running Terrakion instead. This means that building 50/50 balance or bulky offense is very difficult, so at some point you just have to accept the possibility of bad to unwinnable matchups, which makes for a less than enjoyable tournament experience.
The only sure-fire way to avoid losing to the various offensive fishes is to run toxapex, a fire type that can check genesect AND a garchomp counter on your team. There simply aren't enough viable HO stoppers to allow for varied builds if your goal is something resembling consistency. Part of this ease to fish for the right matchup with HO, is (imo) the accumulating reduction of offensive speed in the meta. Fast breakers are a natural deterrent to HO, getting rid of them makes HO more and more attractive because teams need to increasingly go out of their way to counter it effectively.
Tapu Lele is in a similar position to weavile before the ban. It has a few hard counters and a bunch of "checks" that easily get overwhelmed. Meaning that its either useless, or it punches holes in the opposing team. This type of mon, is imo, bad for the meta. We want breakers that can do something in every game, where it comes down to a player leveraging superior skill in order to enable it to ultimately make progress in a less than ideal matchup. Blace was such a mon, due to its varied movepool, consistent progress making and lots of short-mid term checks that got overwhelmed in long games. Weavile and Lele either punch holes immediately, or never.
Koko is the premier fast breaker of the meta, but its most likely too powerful for current AAA. I've been hesitant to outright say it because I believe fast breakers are an integral part of the meta, but as it is now, one of your regen slots basically needs to be a pixi koko check. This is too much of a constraint.
Banning Kommo did nothing to solve the unburden issue. We banned the best abuser, but all that accomplished is to shift unburden into even more of a matchup fish. Kommo at least centralized the "unburden meta", making it more easy to prep for it. Now we have zard and gdarm, frailer and harder to set up, but requiring more diverse checks. This is why I advocated for an unburden ban, Kommo had significant defensive utility and non-broken offensive sets, the only real matchup fish was the unburden set. As is we kept the fishing, lost defensive utility.
Genesect is an important defensive pillar, but Schrodinger's Genesect is extremely dangerous in HO matchups, especially in a tournament setting. Some teams outright lose to the right set, others might lose bcause the player guessed wrong. As the meta stands, it should likely be banned - of course that makes KokoLele more oppressive, but those should go as well.
Double Regen prolongs games making progress much harder to accomplish in games where you don't have an easy avenue of denting the opposing team. Double regen is one of the things that necessitates consistent and resilient progress makers such as pixi koko and blacephalon. If your breaker can't make progress fast, it better make consistent progress and have some sort of longevity so that it can fight a war of attrition versus regen cores. But, the power of regen cores is also a consequence of no good punishes for overswitching. In this sense, magic bounce does contribute to the degeneration of games into slugfests, but only in theory. In practice, I haven't seen magic bounce decide a game since probably last year's OMPL. I don't remember it warping games last WC, nor in my OM champs run, nor this years OMPL. This is why I'm against a bounce ban. Hazards are one form of deterring switches, another is bulky setup. If you just switch around bulky setup forever, you will lose, unless carrying unaware/haze. In this sense the existence of Poison Heal gives balance teams another way to punish infinite switches, as a PH mon is accumulating value from sitting on the field while the opponent is switching around. Admittedly, I believe regen cores are the least of the issues plaguing current AAA.
Again, to sum up my views on the most salient problems: the scope of viable strategies, teams and mons is too narrow, because of the constraints i outlined above. Too many fishy offensive threats, either of the autowin variety or of the pick 1 everytime or do nothing variety and not enough defensive glue options. At the same time, some matchups run into the opposite problem, where breakers get outlasted (passive damage or PP stall) by regen cores.
2) Going forward?
Retired user Siamato fortunately still enjoys takling about the game with me. A while ago he presented his case for the way to go forward with the meta and attempt to solve the issues outlined in the above post. Quoting from discord:
This is a very radical approach but I think it gets more things right than wrong. I don't personally love it, but I think it's good and I would endorse its implementation. If we wanted to be more conservative, we could ban just the mons without implementing the changes to abilities, or just do one of SAC/bounce ban + ban the mons. But in general I think this approach is good, because it serves to level the playing field. One factor contributing to the lack of balance is probably uneven balancing - we hit most of the outliers, but kept others, so now there's a clear but narrow set of top threats that eclipse everything else (Koko, Gene, Lele, arguably Gapdos, arguably Garchomp).
3) Going back?
Another approach is to go back - unban Poison Heal and some offensive threats that terrorized the meta following its banning. Both approaches seek to level the playing field, this one by increasing the power level accross the board instead of decreasing it. A big part of what made Weavile and Blace broken is Knock Off and a restriction of passive recovery from 4 to 2 slots. The lack of Poison Heal makes Knock Off insane, as it basically guarantees progress, especially for Blace since it gets rid of pesky assault vests. In PH meta however, there's usually at least one Knock absorber on the team. Additionally, when one of your regens has to check blace and the other Weavile (or you're running Intim Corv/Daunt Skarm), you're severely restricting build variety. Poison Heal nerfs both of them to a managable level and allows for more varied defensive cores.
I think a reasonable start would be to revert the PH, Weavile and Blace bans, see what happens and then go from there. Of course reintroducing PH massively shakes up the meta, so I can understand if people aren't fans of this option.
4) Shifting the meta for World Cup
Whatever avenue we pick, I don't think small scale changes will do much to improve the meta. To balance the meta, I think we need to trim the outliers or free the brokens. With WC coming up, this is potentially a good time for a large scale change. A tournament offers high level play and lets us see how the changes affect the meta, mainly whether they make tournament play less matchup fishy and more consistent, as well as more enjoyable for the players. While I'm not one to discount the perspectives of casual players or ladder players, tournament play is what gives OMs prestige and brings in new blood from other parts of Smogon - its thus important to cultivate a healthy tournament meta.
With this in mind, I endorse a large scale meta shift before WC, as long as the community gives us the OK, preferably in the direction that both the council and the community can agree will lead to a positive outcome. Moreover, we can use this as a trial run. If it turns out this change wasn't the way, we can reassess things and revert the change before playoffs of WC. Either way, we will gain useful info going into gen 9.
I know there's talk of a Magic Bounce ban, but personally I'm not in favor of it. I don't think a lone bounce ban will do much. I'd much rather make a larger change.
5) What makes OMs attractive?
This post is already long, so I'll try to be as brief as possible. Judging from personal experience, I was drawn to OMs because of the potential for experimentation and a higher power level than OU (with exceptions, NFE doesn't fall into the second category). I'd think that most people can empathize with this perspective, although some people might lean more to one side than the other.
Regardless, I think it's our job as OM council members to strike a balance between ensuring a competitive and skill-rewarding metagame as well as retaining the element of being distinct from (and often more powerful than) OU. Part of that is getting to use mons that are lackluster in OU because the mechanic of choice brings them up to par with the rest of the threats, but another part is also improving and innovating on top tier OU threats. Banning too many fast offensive threats risks diluting the power level of OMs and turning them into UU+ instead of OU+. I don't know about you guys, but when I can't use any OU staples like Weavile, Koko, Pult, Zera, Lando etc. in an OM, the whole thing loses some of its luster. With that in mind, maybe we should try to be more liberal with restricting the main mechanic as opposed to targeting mons, in situations where it makes sense. There is a very delicate balance to be struck, so this is more of a discussion starter than a concrete suggestion.
Applying this concept specifically to AAA, we get abilities like ISword, RillaTac, NGas etc. that are clearly too strong. But then there's borderline abilities, usually offensive, that contribute to pushing a large number of mons over the edge, but are considered balanced without them. But is that really the right way to look at it? Most Sheer Force abusers were banned - Pult, Gengar, Kyurem, Spectrier being the main ones, both Lele and Gene are controversial in the current meta. Pult, Gar, Kyurem, SPectrier were no banned solely because of SF, but perhaps they would not have been banned if Sheer Force was banned instead? Tinted Lens is in a similar situation - it breaks powerful mons, but once those powerful mons are gone, its pretty much useless and nothing runs it. Maybe we should just ban it, and proceed to balance a meta where it doesn't immediately break mons with a 125+ attacking stat and high BP stabs? Unburden is another example)
If we banned a few more abilities (mainly Tinted Lens, to be honest), I think we could justify keeping a larger portion of offensive mons free, hopefully resulting in more team variety.
hello, I haven't been voicing my opinions too much in public or even in council, so I'd like to use this post to make them clear since I'm going to be even less active moving forward. I think TNM made some great points above regarding the integrity of OMs, and consequently power levels and ability bans. I don't completely agree with all of his rationale such as freeing PH, which affects many other potential bans/unbans, so I'll try to give some other approach(es) to solving the problem(s).
1. Ability Bans
Going into the Kommo-o quickban vote I wondered if we could ban Unburden instead, but I was told that ability bans are not preferred to a Pokemon ban. I hesitantly complied, thinking there wouldn't be another Unburden abuser as strong as Kommo-o was, but clearly now Charizard has emerged to be another broken threat that sweeps a team without Pex or DShield. Zard's power level definitely isn't the same as Kommo-o's, but rn the community seems to agree that banning Kommo-o, the Pokemon, wasn't the right move.
I have never completely understood why ability bans are so deliberately avoided, or at least I believe the threshold to considering one should be lowered. Unburden is just an example, and perhaps the most agreed one rn, but I would like to emphasize that more often than not the core of a problematic element in AAA lies in the ability and not the Pokemon. Literally, Pokemon are allowed to choose any ability and the naturally stronger abilities will be more widely used. Putting aside the already controversial Magic Bounce and Regenerator, I would like to talk specifically about Magic Guard.
Magic Guard (MG) provides its user with an immunity to all passive damage without any drawbacks. It inherently defeats the purpose of all the recent discussions on consistent progress making if two of your mons can't even be chipped down. It cannot be knocked off like Boots so its user always bypasses hazards as it switches in. Many of our offensive pivots simply slap on MGLO and they can U-turn infinitely, while even Regen cores can be outdamaged by hazards; on the flip side, defensive titans like MG blobs (fell off but I don't think they got worse) cannot be worn down by status or hazards, they don't get 2HKO'd by anything so they can heal up infinitely. Take this opinion with a grain of salt because I'm still malding over MG Chansey, but this replay does show how a mon can never make progress when the opposing check cannot be chipped down by any means.
I know banning MG doesn't directly address the concerns on matchup fishing, but what's the point of banning Bounce if hazards themselves are of low value anyway? Hazards are worse in AAA compared to normal tiers because of Bounce, MG, Regen, and other ways to offset chip, and I don't see a reason to why not improve this way of making consistent progress in the meta? One might say this means offensive mons like Koko will shift to other damage amplification abilities instead of MG, but I don't think that's going to make the tier less healthy. I would even consider MG as a damage amp ability as it lets you hold Life Orb literally for free. Unless those damage amp abilities are broken, then go argue for some Tinted Lens ban, idk, I don't think those are necessary yet. (MG was indeed a core contributor to some broken mons that we banned previously, but they have other broken sets (technician weavile, deso blace) that will keep them banned anyway.)
Quoting zio from cord, this summarizes MG vs other abilities p well
2. Power Level of AAA
This is more of a philosophical thing so I'll keep this part short. I don't agree that we should be necessarily using OU staples like Lando, Zera, and Weavile, not only because we have our own metagame but also because they're massively buffed in AAA. Even if you want to raise the power level of AAA, such as with TNM's approach of freeing PH + Blace + Weavile, some OU staples like Zera and Pult (and Kyurem pre-ban ig) will be way too broken for AAA either way, not to mention PH brings a whole bunch of its own issues back into the tier. I just think we shouldn't too unreasonably lower the power level and I don't think we're falling into that route rn.
3. Pokemon Bans
I'm starting to believe that Koko is broken with its Pixilate set. I did say I'm not on board with banning damage amp abilities like 2 minutes ago, but Pixilate is a special case as Koko will be the one and only mon that can abuse the ability this way. As others have said above, one of your two Regen slots must be a Pixi Koko check or you will automatically lose, and it's not like Koko can't break through these checks with minimal chip: the best Koko check, Excadrill, takes 38-45% from Facade so it's literally forced to click an attacking move. This isn't made better by the fact that Koko can simply Volt out of your Steel type (or U-turn out of Excadrill like some Koko sets have adapted to, though these Koko take additional Helmet chip). The only counter to Pixi Koko is probably Dauntless Hippo which is easily chipped down/overwhelmed/passive etc. Volt Absorb Corviknight literally loses to Taunt. After all this, the Koko could just be MGLO Calm Mind and your physical checks don't work (now Exca can't even use Helmet for chip), i.e. you need two or more Koko answers and it can still consistently make progress in a game by being the best offensive pivot in the meta. Also I still stand by Levitate CM to fuck over all your Ground-types
I also agree that Genesect should also go if Koko does get banned. While 'it's lost its only benefit to the tier so it should get banned' isn't the best argument for tiering action, it really is the reason why action on Genesect has been delayed for like 1.5 years. I believe a suspect could've happened earlier as it has insane unpredictability, ability to snowball, more matchup fishing, but still held the tier together with its Regen Scarf set, but it's better late than never I guess? If Regen Scarf loses its viability it's pretty safe for us to ban Genesect and further reduce matchup variance. Maybe I could've worded this the other way, that Genesect is broken and banning it would also make Koko (further) broken, but it's really the same either way as both of them are already borderline broken and one of them should go as the other goes.
As for Lele, I'm not sure if it would be problematic if Genesect is banned; in past tour games it's put in work most of the time and has very little checks, but I haven't seen many arguments for banning it and none of the games were a 6-0 either. I do see how it is theoretically unwallable and can bypass offense with Triage however.
After all this though, I would be just fine if the meta stays as is. I'm not big on Bounce or the matchup variance argument, and Koko is still an excellent fast pivot that I, like TNM, believe it's an integral part to a metagame. But if anything, I would like to see action on Unburden, Magic Guard, Tapu Koko, and Genesect. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.
1. Ability Bans
Going into the Kommo-o quickban vote I wondered if we could ban Unburden instead, but I was told that ability bans are not preferred to a Pokemon ban. I hesitantly complied, thinking there wouldn't be another Unburden abuser as strong as Kommo-o was, but clearly now Charizard has emerged to be another broken threat that sweeps a team without Pex or DShield. Zard's power level definitely isn't the same as Kommo-o's, but rn the community seems to agree that banning Kommo-o, the Pokemon, wasn't the right move.
I have never completely understood why ability bans are so deliberately avoided, or at least I believe the threshold to considering one should be lowered. Unburden is just an example, and perhaps the most agreed one rn, but I would like to emphasize that more often than not the core of a problematic element in AAA lies in the ability and not the Pokemon. Literally, Pokemon are allowed to choose any ability and the naturally stronger abilities will be more widely used. Putting aside the already controversial Magic Bounce and Regenerator, I would like to talk specifically about Magic Guard.
Magic Guard (MG) provides its user with an immunity to all passive damage without any drawbacks. It inherently defeats the purpose of all the recent discussions on consistent progress making if two of your mons can't even be chipped down. It cannot be knocked off like Boots so its user always bypasses hazards as it switches in. Many of our offensive pivots simply slap on MGLO and they can U-turn infinitely, while even Regen cores can be outdamaged by hazards; on the flip side, defensive titans like MG blobs (fell off but I don't think they got worse) cannot be worn down by status or hazards, they don't get 2HKO'd by anything so they can heal up infinitely. Take this opinion with a grain of salt because I'm still malding over MG Chansey, but this replay does show how a mon can never make progress when the opposing check cannot be chipped down by any means.
I know banning MG doesn't directly address the concerns on matchup fishing, but what's the point of banning Bounce if hazards themselves are of low value anyway? Hazards are worse in AAA compared to normal tiers because of Bounce, MG, Regen, and other ways to offset chip, and I don't see a reason to why not improve this way of making consistent progress in the meta? One might say this means offensive mons like Koko will shift to other damage amplification abilities instead of MG, but I don't think that's going to make the tier less healthy. I would even consider MG as a damage amp ability as it lets you hold Life Orb literally for free. Unless those damage amp abilities are broken, then go argue for some Tinted Lens ban, idk, I don't think those are necessary yet. (MG was indeed a core contributor to some broken mons that we banned previously, but they have other broken sets (technician weavile, deso blace) that will keep them banned anyway.)
Quoting zio from cord, this summarizes MG vs other abilities p well
2. Power Level of AAA
This is more of a philosophical thing so I'll keep this part short. I don't agree that we should be necessarily using OU staples like Lando, Zera, and Weavile, not only because we have our own metagame but also because they're massively buffed in AAA. Even if you want to raise the power level of AAA, such as with TNM's approach of freeing PH + Blace + Weavile, some OU staples like Zera and Pult (and Kyurem pre-ban ig) will be way too broken for AAA either way, not to mention PH brings a whole bunch of its own issues back into the tier. I just think we shouldn't too unreasonably lower the power level and I don't think we're falling into that route rn.
3. Pokemon Bans
I'm starting to believe that Koko is broken with its Pixilate set. I did say I'm not on board with banning damage amp abilities like 2 minutes ago, but Pixilate is a special case as Koko will be the one and only mon that can abuse the ability this way. As others have said above, one of your two Regen slots must be a Pixi Koko check or you will automatically lose, and it's not like Koko can't break through these checks with minimal chip: the best Koko check, Excadrill, takes 38-45% from Facade so it's literally forced to click an attacking move. This isn't made better by the fact that Koko can simply Volt out of your Steel type (or U-turn out of Excadrill like some Koko sets have adapted to, though these Koko take additional Helmet chip). The only counter to Pixi Koko is probably Dauntless Hippo which is easily chipped down/overwhelmed/passive etc. Volt Absorb Corviknight literally loses to Taunt. After all this, the Koko could just be MGLO Calm Mind and your physical checks don't work (now Exca can't even use Helmet for chip), i.e. you need two or more Koko answers and it can still consistently make progress in a game by being the best offensive pivot in the meta. Also I still stand by Levitate CM to fuck over all your Ground-types
I also agree that Genesect should also go if Koko does get banned. While 'it's lost its only benefit to the tier so it should get banned' isn't the best argument for tiering action, it really is the reason why action on Genesect has been delayed for like 1.5 years. I believe a suspect could've happened earlier as it has insane unpredictability, ability to snowball, more matchup fishing, but still held the tier together with its Regen Scarf set, but it's better late than never I guess? If Regen Scarf loses its viability it's pretty safe for us to ban Genesect and further reduce matchup variance. Maybe I could've worded this the other way, that Genesect is broken and banning it would also make Koko (further) broken, but it's really the same either way as both of them are already borderline broken and one of them should go as the other goes.
As for Lele, I'm not sure if it would be problematic if Genesect is banned; in past tour games it's put in work most of the time and has very little checks, but I haven't seen many arguments for banning it and none of the games were a 6-0 either. I do see how it is theoretically unwallable and can bypass offense with Triage however.
After all this though, I would be just fine if the meta stays as is. I'm not big on Bounce or the matchup variance argument, and Koko is still an excellent fast pivot that I, like TNM, believe it's an integral part to a metagame. But if anything, I would like to see action on Unburden, Magic Guard, Tapu Koko, and Genesect. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.
Hi AAA win or lose I wanted to post my teams for the recent AAA change tour because I was pretty proud of some of the teams I made, I realize that this post will probably be entirely for my own entertainment, but considering these teams are going right into the garbage I thought memorializing them would be fun.
Week 3
Unbans were garb so I just recycled r1 teams with changes
Very fun tour, was sad to lose 0-2 in finals after having such a good personal run but such is life. Ty to friends who helped me out. Might edit later to include thoughts on meta but that seems quite daunting right now at near midnight.
https://pokepast.es/63c235c0e29b733e
I didn't have too much time to build so I used my favourite and most consistent team I've built, it could handle common PH mons like snorlax, fini, and chomper decently and I was super comfortable with how it plays so I thought it would be a good pick r1
https://pokepast.es/24748c4cf65b8e7a
This is a version of a team I built with Snorlax over toxapex, pex was from the kommo era and it still works v well with this team however, its definitely the most changeable mon, and snorlax provides so much defensive and offensive pressure it was pretty easy to slap on an already existing team and find success with. This team aims to keep up rocks and hammer away on things with banded zarude. Sd chomper and firepunch lax aim to weaken corv for zarude to 2hko with lariat. Zarude also provides a way out vs a lot of jank mons like polteagiest, cp mew/lati, while also providing a blanket check to many offensive mons by a near guaranteed revenge kill with priority gglide. Jirachi+Corv+chomp provide the defensive backbone of the team and are super tough to break. Corv+jirachi blanket check a ton of the meta while chomper switches into things like volc, talonflame, and heatran. Zapdos provides a better check to things like cinderace as they can wear down chomp easy while also giving an actual way to hurt fini and corv. U-turn zap has great synergy with zarude because they bait in each others counters and can punish them heavily with their powerful stabs.
I didn't have too much time to build so I used my favourite and most consistent team I've built, it could handle common PH mons like snorlax, fini, and chomper decently and I was super comfortable with how it plays so I thought it would be a good pick r1
https://pokepast.es/24748c4cf65b8e7a
This is a version of a team I built with Snorlax over toxapex, pex was from the kommo era and it still works v well with this team however, its definitely the most changeable mon, and snorlax provides so much defensive and offensive pressure it was pretty easy to slap on an already existing team and find success with. This team aims to keep up rocks and hammer away on things with banded zarude. Sd chomper and firepunch lax aim to weaken corv for zarude to 2hko with lariat. Zarude also provides a way out vs a lot of jank mons like polteagiest, cp mew/lati, while also providing a blanket check to many offensive mons by a near guaranteed revenge kill with priority gglide. Jirachi+Corv+chomp provide the defensive backbone of the team and are super tough to break. Corv+jirachi blanket check a ton of the meta while chomper switches into things like volc, talonflame, and heatran. Zapdos provides a better check to things like cinderace as they can wear down chomp easy while also giving an actual way to hurt fini and corv. U-turn zap has great synergy with zarude because they bait in each others counters and can punish them heavily with their powerful stabs.
https://pokepast.es/d5a94a1d789e308a
This was inspired by an old sample team that used AV pert and Cobalion back in the weavile meta, I thought this fit perfect for this week as they provided checks to the unbanned remons while being perfect pivots for banded weavile. Zapdos baits in ground types that weavile eats for breakfast, and mandibuzz is a defogger that doesnt lose to Zydog (This should be using dauntless shield I didnt realize how shaky a check this was at the time), which was super needed as it 2hkod the whole team. I knew this team had some flaws defensively so I added scarf blace in hopes that it could muscle its way out of tough situations which ended up working perfectly. It gives the team some playability as checks to weavile tend to be eaten up by blace, while blace can also weaken something like tapu fini and force kills for the incoming weavile.
https://pokepast.es/1efb6842a0af00a9
I was much more confident in this team until I saw I loaded it into Bisharp+weavile, I was heavily relying on Tapu fini to counter opposing weavile so I instantly was a little worried it might get overwhelmed. I started by checking the unbanned mons with chansey+fini, chansey was later changed to unaware counter to beat genesect. Chomp was added and proved very useful as it was a defensive mon that got rocks and most importantly, could reliably switch into desotran. Weavile and blace were added once again as an offensive duo that really cannot be stopped. I ran into flashfire blissey which rendered blace literally useless but banded weavile was far to hard stop backed by a sturdy defensive core that allowed it turns to wallbreak. Finally, Ferrothorn was added for its ability to switch into fini and tapu koko which both are some of the fews things that stop weavile, opted for magic bounce as I was already 2/2 for regen users and appreciated no rocks for weavile+chansey+two regen users
This was inspired by an old sample team that used AV pert and Cobalion back in the weavile meta, I thought this fit perfect for this week as they provided checks to the unbanned remons while being perfect pivots for banded weavile. Zapdos baits in ground types that weavile eats for breakfast, and mandibuzz is a defogger that doesnt lose to Zydog (This should be using dauntless shield I didnt realize how shaky a check this was at the time), which was super needed as it 2hkod the whole team. I knew this team had some flaws defensively so I added scarf blace in hopes that it could muscle its way out of tough situations which ended up working perfectly. It gives the team some playability as checks to weavile tend to be eaten up by blace, while blace can also weaken something like tapu fini and force kills for the incoming weavile.
https://pokepast.es/1efb6842a0af00a9
I was much more confident in this team until I saw I loaded it into Bisharp+weavile, I was heavily relying on Tapu fini to counter opposing weavile so I instantly was a little worried it might get overwhelmed. I started by checking the unbanned mons with chansey+fini, chansey was later changed to unaware counter to beat genesect. Chomp was added and proved very useful as it was a defensive mon that got rocks and most importantly, could reliably switch into desotran. Weavile and blace were added once again as an offensive duo that really cannot be stopped. I ran into flashfire blissey which rendered blace literally useless but banded weavile was far to hard stop backed by a sturdy defensive core that allowed it turns to wallbreak. Finally, Ferrothorn was added for its ability to switch into fini and tapu koko which both are some of the fews things that stop weavile, opted for magic bounce as I was already 2/2 for regen users and appreciated no rocks for weavile+chansey+two regen users
Week 3
Unbans were garb so I just recycled r1 teams with changes
https://pokepast.es/709fc215bf3293dd
With no Regen I was trying to think of what benefited from no regen, I settled on heatran and lele, as both of their counters need regen to really beat them long term and they also really hurt teams that rely on bulky furscales mons to wall them. Heatran reliably gets up rocks while excelling at crushing slow bulky teams that cannot use regen pivots. The lele set was suggested by UT and I found to be really cool, Taunt+NM crushed defensive mons while SHFLO crushed any of the midspeed mons that wanted to come in on it. The rest of the team really just filled in defensive needs with chansey+Chomp+corv as a defensive core with a cute little set Isaiah suggested of icescales chestoresto to set up on things like fini but in hindsight I find it lacks a lot of powerneeded to muscle through things even with an SD. MB Zap was a fun find of mine that would annoy things that relied on furcoat like mew and corv and with Thundykick it could easily abuse the fact they bypass other defensive abilities.
Intimidate on corv was used over furcoat because I assumed moldbreaker would be popular on breakers and things like moldbreaker terrak could 2hko even furcoat skarm which would leave this team in a horrible spot.
https://pokepast.es/d74f220bf8d07fc8
This team I thought was pretty good and I was quite proud of. I thought latios would be great in this meta as it loved rachi being eradicated while also being able to bypass furscales mons by hitting on either def or spd. Fini trapped def mons like ferro or mew that would want to come in while doubling as a hard counter to things like chomp and terrak even with mold breaker. Ferro+mew was the teams defensive backbone with Moldchomp being able to abuse the fact that corv would rely on furcoat to counter it and defog. Azelf, I thought, would be a great pick and form a psyspam core with lati being able to trick icescale mons+chansey that could annoy or status lati
With no Regen I was trying to think of what benefited from no regen, I settled on heatran and lele, as both of their counters need regen to really beat them long term and they also really hurt teams that rely on bulky furscales mons to wall them. Heatran reliably gets up rocks while excelling at crushing slow bulky teams that cannot use regen pivots. The lele set was suggested by UT and I found to be really cool, Taunt+NM crushed defensive mons while SHFLO crushed any of the midspeed mons that wanted to come in on it. The rest of the team really just filled in defensive needs with chansey+Chomp+corv as a defensive core with a cute little set Isaiah suggested of icescales chestoresto to set up on things like fini but in hindsight I find it lacks a lot of powerneeded to muscle through things even with an SD. MB Zap was a fun find of mine that would annoy things that relied on furcoat like mew and corv and with Thundykick it could easily abuse the fact they bypass other defensive abilities.
Intimidate on corv was used over furcoat because I assumed moldbreaker would be popular on breakers and things like moldbreaker terrak could 2hko even furcoat skarm which would leave this team in a horrible spot.
https://pokepast.es/d74f220bf8d07fc8
This team I thought was pretty good and I was quite proud of. I thought latios would be great in this meta as it loved rachi being eradicated while also being able to bypass furscales mons by hitting on either def or spd. Fini trapped def mons like ferro or mew that would want to come in while doubling as a hard counter to things like chomp and terrak even with mold breaker. Ferro+mew was the teams defensive backbone with Moldchomp being able to abuse the fact that corv would rely on furcoat to counter it and defog. Azelf, I thought, would be a great pick and form a psyspam core with lati being able to trick icescale mons+chansey that could annoy or status lati
Very fun tour, was sad to lose 0-2 in finals after having such a good personal run but such is life. Ty to friends who helped me out. Might edit later to include thoughts on meta but that seems quite daunting right now at near midnight.
Hi everybody, I didn't want to take part on the recent discussion about the metagame because yeah, you know, I'm RETIRED!! But since The Number Man (I hate you friend) quote me like that without asking for my consent, I have no choice to get out from the shadows to precise things smh.
So yeah, while being retired I enjoy talking about AAA with friends especially TNM, Atha and the small Osake (while he's retired as well now and doesn't want to talk about AAA with me anymore
). I played a lot AAA early and mid gen (when Camomons was so bad) and honestly enjoyed it a lot at a point it becomes my favorite OM. Since then, while I stopped playing it, I followed the changes and the AAA games while playing sometimes friendlies. But enough talking about me and the past.
As TNM, I don't like current AAA at a point where watching AAA games becomes boring and I'm less and less interested in following it while it was my prefered meta.
As TNM explained well in its post, I think AAA has issues with both consistency (MU) and fun (fat teams meta and long games due to how hard it is to make progress sometimes).
Fat meta and long games
Well, nothing news here right? I don't remember exactly when the meta shifted to this state which is, to my point of view, not ideal but it's impossible to contest that, while there's some diversity in teams, fat dominates.
If we try to adress this, the question to answer will likely be: why?
This is my point so yours might differ and ofc one can disagree but let me explain.
Why people start playing fat teams? Is it because defensive stuff is better than offensive one so, the best style is to abuse from defensive things? Well, let's be clear, both offensive and defensive stuff are strong. Nevertheless, a thing above everthing is running the meta and favorise mainly fat styles: regecores. Regecores are a consistent way to prevent progress while trying to make some. Based on my experience, it's so hard to overwhelm a regecore with a less favorable MU because you will need to play almost perfectly, something that a human (and even a machine?) cannot do.
Regecores are practically everywhere and you can even find one Regenerator in offensive style. I honestly think that Regenerator is fine and essential for the meta BUT this is not the case for Regecores which are more of an unhealthy presence in the meta leading to a fat (and quite boring) style.
The other reason to play fat teams is to deal with many offensive (and overpowered sometimes) threats. Why this? Well, if there's too many great threats to deal with BUT the offensive threats are somehow inconsistent, the only style that offers enough space to support the pressure while trying to make progress is the fat style.
Consistency and MU related elements
To introduce this point and discuss it I love to start with an exemple, the fish
Barraskewda is a terrifying mon ngl. One of the fastest threat in the meta with super busted Water moves. What makes Barraskewda interesting compared to other Water mons like Inteleon is physical Water moves. Because Barraskewda hits physically, "usual" ways to deal with busted special Water (Regenvest mon or Blissey) are innoperative. But it's also hard sometimes to deal with it using "classic" physical defensive mons like DS Corvi/Mew due to busted Flip Turn chipping them too hard while preventing them to recover with the help of a partner threatening them.
So, why Barra isn't one of the greatest mon of AAA? Inconsistency. And we all know that, if Barra has all these tools making it powerful and threatening, it can be completely shutted down by a Water immunity. Water Absorb/Dry Skin being the absolute counter while Desolated Land can conduct to primal weather war and suffers sometimes from Weather Ball.
One of the only way to deal with Barraskewda consistantly is using the combination of high/mid Def stat + resist + Regen = Fini/Ferro mainly.
In practise there's altough more ways in Scarf Regen Def Mew, RH DS/Intimi, hazards, etc but that's not the point here.
Barra is thus often half insanely strong half shit. A mon too good in the right MU but null in the bad one. So now I can reach the conclusion: a fish fishing. Haha. Hmm hmm... forgive me. Fishing also goes in the other side. If you put a Water immunity without utility (ie: Water Absorb) but the opponent don't play any Water move, it's a useless ability which is, in general, a heavy burden.
Barraskewda is just an example of something deeply rooted in AAA. I will not pretend to have the solution to that because I even don't know if one exist but if the lastest point is adressed through the SAC, this point will have to be adressed as well. If it's positive for the meta to me, the removal of regecores is also detrimental in the sense that you will lack from space to defensively answer things. So yeah to reach a balanced state, SAC only isn't sufficient and we need to go forward banning overpressuring threats (especially those you can't check without hard defensive mons).
Now you can maybe better understand my point quoted by TNM.
Single Ability Clause (SAC): To me that's the starting point. When writing this, I saw avyrie's post talking about Magic Guard (and honestly I talked about that with my AAA friends too while it was not discussed by TNM) as a potential unhealthy element for the metagame. I nevertheless think that banning MG atm isn't the play. SAC both ends the Regecore but also MG cores (less numerous than the later but which exist ngl) which are the two main elements involved in the issue of "making progress in AAA".
But yeah, SAC as the only tiering action will not improve the meta because, it will solve this issue I think but another one will emerge due to the lack of space to defensively answer things. The below ban will be needed.
Honestly the more I see it in games the more I find you have to be blind to think Koko is balanced. The fish being inconsistent, Koko is basically the fastest mon in AAA. But with the Pixi set, it's also one of the strongest mon in the meta. Because it pressures well usual DS/Intimi mons, you often forced to dedicate a Regen slot to check Koko. But Pixi Koko is certainly not the only Koko set and CM MG, CM Bounce or Physical MG are also around meaning that, you often dedicate 2 mon to properly try to answer Koko if you don't want to run a hard counter like Regen Exca or Nido. Koko put a huge pressure on defensive core but also in more offensive style due to how fast it is. This mon is just too restrictive and should go (with or without SAC tbh).
We all see how stupid this mon was in Blace meta benefiting from the fact that it scares away people from running Jira or Gene as check to things. If banning Blace acted as a nerf to Lele, is still think this mon is particularly borderline. So I don't know about now but in SAC meta this thing should go due to how "precious" your Regen slot will be meaning you can't that easily fit something for Lele. Koko being banned, Jira and Genesect are also less useful making Lele even more unhealthy.
If it hasn't this utility part in checking threats with it's Regenscarf set, Gene would have been banned since a loooong time and I will not explain why. Well, following this order in banning things, the utility of the Regenscarf set dropped a lot without Koko and Lele meaning Gene is more broken that anything now. And broken mons are banned ofc.
About Magic Bounce, let's be clear. I don't think it is broken. I think it's an unhealthy element relying on MU to get a significant advantage preventing some fat teams to put hazards. It's an interesting point to say that, anyway, hazards are kinda nerfed in AAA due to how common MG is and Regecore being able to overcome the pressure exerting by hazards at a time. But now, let's see in SAC meta. 1 Regen and 1 MG per team at most. What does it mean? Hazards should be better. And if hazards are better, Magic Bounce too. And finally, if Magic Bounce starts to be more reliable, it will not be a good thing because it means that more games will suffer from this MU based element. With this simple reasoning, banning Magic Bounce is also something to do with SAC.
Moving forward
Finally offensive pressure will need to be nerfed to a reasonable point. Do you know what makes AAA so different from other metagames (some OMs include)? To me, one point is how polarised both defensive and offensive mons are. Offensive mons are too strong with ability like Adapta/TC/SF so the only way to support that is using too fat defensive mons with ability like DS/Intimi or Immunities. I will not dot it here because I'm too busy but, if you want to be convinced by that, you can check how many mons are able to get a OHKO (or OHKO roll) on Mew (without invest), a mon with a natural good bulk, with a neutral move (change its typing if needed). This can be done for OU and OU-based meta (AAA, STABmons and Camomons). OMs like Sketch doesn't count if typing is ignored (coverage and boost ignored) and Inhertiance has the same issues than AAA. What you will see is how strong AAA threats are meaning that, standard ways to deal with threats like synergy and checking early-mid terms is impossible. One can check Heatran with SpD LandoT in OU while the opposite is impossible in AAA due to the increased damage output from Dland set. You have no choice but to brings something closer to a counter, Regenvest, Regen resists, Immunity, etc. This point is hard to adress if you fear banning many things that could lead to the lose of the identity of AAA and honestly I can understand that.
But if you're not fearing banning things after SAC, you should take a look at too powerful abilities or abusers to open the teambuilder to more balance teams. Actually either you try HO/Offense teams or fat because they're the 2 only playstyles that work when offensive pressure is too much. HO/Offense because you kill before being killed and fat because, unlike balance, you have enough space (enough defensive mons) to support the pressure.
If you don't really like the state of the current meta, don't fear doing things and especially bans, as we say, later is better than never. You can't know if you don't try.
I will stop here because I'm busy and retired but I just wanted to clarify my point because TNM only quoted the tl;dr from our debate smh. Hope it helps a bit and good day everybody
So yeah, while being retired I enjoy talking about AAA with friends especially TNM, Atha and the small Osake (while he's retired as well now and doesn't want to talk about AAA with me anymore
As TNM, I don't like current AAA at a point where watching AAA games becomes boring and I'm less and less interested in following it while it was my prefered meta.
As TNM explained well in its post, I think AAA has issues with both consistency (MU) and fun (fat teams meta and long games due to how hard it is to make progress sometimes).
Fat meta and long games
Well, nothing news here right? I don't remember exactly when the meta shifted to this state which is, to my point of view, not ideal but it's impossible to contest that, while there's some diversity in teams, fat dominates.
If we try to adress this, the question to answer will likely be: why?
This is my point so yours might differ and ofc one can disagree but let me explain.
Why people start playing fat teams? Is it because defensive stuff is better than offensive one so, the best style is to abuse from defensive things? Well, let's be clear, both offensive and defensive stuff are strong. Nevertheless, a thing above everthing is running the meta and favorise mainly fat styles: regecores. Regecores are a consistent way to prevent progress while trying to make some. Based on my experience, it's so hard to overwhelm a regecore with a less favorable MU because you will need to play almost perfectly, something that a human (and even a machine?) cannot do.
Regecores are practically everywhere and you can even find one Regenerator in offensive style. I honestly think that Regenerator is fine and essential for the meta BUT this is not the case for Regecores which are more of an unhealthy presence in the meta leading to a fat (and quite boring) style.
The other reason to play fat teams is to deal with many offensive (and overpowered sometimes) threats. Why this? Well, if there's too many great threats to deal with BUT the offensive threats are somehow inconsistent, the only style that offers enough space to support the pressure while trying to make progress is the fat style.
Consistency and MU related elements
To introduce this point and discuss it I love to start with an exemple, the fish
Barraskewda is a terrifying mon ngl. One of the fastest threat in the meta with super busted Water moves. What makes Barraskewda interesting compared to other Water mons like Inteleon is physical Water moves. Because Barraskewda hits physically, "usual" ways to deal with busted special Water (Regenvest mon or Blissey) are innoperative. But it's also hard sometimes to deal with it using "classic" physical defensive mons like DS Corvi/Mew due to busted Flip Turn chipping them too hard while preventing them to recover with the help of a partner threatening them.
So, why Barra isn't one of the greatest mon of AAA? Inconsistency. And we all know that, if Barra has all these tools making it powerful and threatening, it can be completely shutted down by a Water immunity. Water Absorb/Dry Skin being the absolute counter while Desolated Land can conduct to primal weather war and suffers sometimes from Weather Ball.
One of the only way to deal with Barraskewda consistantly is using the combination of high/mid Def stat + resist + Regen = Fini/Ferro mainly.
In practise there's altough more ways in Scarf Regen Def Mew, RH DS/Intimi, hazards, etc but that's not the point here.
Barra is thus often half insanely strong half shit. A mon too good in the right MU but null in the bad one. So now I can reach the conclusion: a fish fishing. Haha. Hmm hmm... forgive me. Fishing also goes in the other side. If you put a Water immunity without utility (ie: Water Absorb) but the opponent don't play any Water move, it's a useless ability which is, in general, a heavy burden.
Barraskewda is just an example of something deeply rooted in AAA. I will not pretend to have the solution to that because I even don't know if one exist but if the lastest point is adressed through the SAC, this point will have to be adressed as well. If it's positive for the meta to me, the removal of regecores is also detrimental in the sense that you will lack from space to defensively answer things. So yeah to reach a balanced state, SAC only isn't sufficient and we need to go forward banning overpressuring threats (especially those you can't check without hard defensive mons).
Now you can maybe better understand my point quoted by TNM.
Single Ability Clause (SAC): To me that's the starting point. When writing this, I saw avyrie's post talking about Magic Guard (and honestly I talked about that with my AAA friends too while it was not discussed by TNM) as a potential unhealthy element for the metagame. I nevertheless think that banning MG atm isn't the play. SAC both ends the Regecore but also MG cores (less numerous than the later but which exist ngl) which are the two main elements involved in the issue of "making progress in AAA".
But yeah, SAC as the only tiering action will not improve the meta because, it will solve this issue I think but another one will emerge due to the lack of space to defensively answer things. The below ban will be needed.
Honestly the more I see it in games the more I find you have to be blind to think Koko is balanced. The fish being inconsistent, Koko is basically the fastest mon in AAA. But with the Pixi set, it's also one of the strongest mon in the meta. Because it pressures well usual DS/Intimi mons, you often forced to dedicate a Regen slot to check Koko. But Pixi Koko is certainly not the only Koko set and CM MG, CM Bounce or Physical MG are also around meaning that, you often dedicate 2 mon to properly try to answer Koko if you don't want to run a hard counter like Regen Exca or Nido. Koko put a huge pressure on defensive core but also in more offensive style due to how fast it is. This mon is just too restrictive and should go (with or without SAC tbh). We all see how stupid this mon was in Blace meta benefiting from the fact that it scares away people from running Jira or Gene as check to things. If banning Blace acted as a nerf to Lele, is still think this mon is particularly borderline. So I don't know about now but in SAC meta this thing should go due to how "precious" your Regen slot will be meaning you can't that easily fit something for Lele. Koko being banned, Jira and Genesect are also less useful making Lele even more unhealthy. If it hasn't this utility part in checking threats with it's Regenscarf set, Gene would have been banned since a loooong time and I will not explain why. Well, following this order in banning things, the utility of the Regenscarf set dropped a lot without Koko and Lele meaning Gene is more broken that anything now. And broken mons are banned ofc.About Magic Bounce, let's be clear. I don't think it is broken. I think it's an unhealthy element relying on MU to get a significant advantage preventing some fat teams to put hazards. It's an interesting point to say that, anyway, hazards are kinda nerfed in AAA due to how common MG is and Regecore being able to overcome the pressure exerting by hazards at a time. But now, let's see in SAC meta. 1 Regen and 1 MG per team at most. What does it mean? Hazards should be better. And if hazards are better, Magic Bounce too. And finally, if Magic Bounce starts to be more reliable, it will not be a good thing because it means that more games will suffer from this MU based element. With this simple reasoning, banning Magic Bounce is also something to do with SAC.
Moving forward
Finally offensive pressure will need to be nerfed to a reasonable point. Do you know what makes AAA so different from other metagames (some OMs include)? To me, one point is how polarised both defensive and offensive mons are. Offensive mons are too strong with ability like Adapta/TC/SF so the only way to support that is using too fat defensive mons with ability like DS/Intimi or Immunities. I will not dot it here because I'm too busy but, if you want to be convinced by that, you can check how many mons are able to get a OHKO (or OHKO roll) on Mew (without invest), a mon with a natural good bulk, with a neutral move (change its typing if needed). This can be done for OU and OU-based meta (AAA, STABmons and Camomons). OMs like Sketch doesn't count if typing is ignored (coverage and boost ignored) and Inhertiance has the same issues than AAA. What you will see is how strong AAA threats are meaning that, standard ways to deal with threats like synergy and checking early-mid terms is impossible. One can check Heatran with SpD LandoT in OU while the opposite is impossible in AAA due to the increased damage output from Dland set. You have no choice but to brings something closer to a counter, Regenvest, Regen resists, Immunity, etc. This point is hard to adress if you fear banning many things that could lead to the lose of the identity of AAA and honestly I can understand that.
But if you're not fearing banning things after SAC, you should take a look at too powerful abilities or abusers to open the teambuilder to more balance teams. Actually either you try HO/Offense teams or fat because they're the 2 only playstyles that work when offensive pressure is too much. HO/Offense because you kill before being killed and fat because, unlike balance, you have enough space (enough defensive mons) to support the pressure.
If you don't really like the state of the current meta, don't fear doing things and especially bans, as we say, later is better than never. You can't know if you don't try.
I will stop here because I'm busy and retired but I just wanted to clarify my point because TNM only quoted the tl;dr from our debate smh. Hope it helps a bit and good day everybody
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yh you enjoy talking you also enjoy being 6-0'd by Swampert and then use shady arguments about Regenerator being broken...
I think y'all should l2p there are a lot of tools to beat everything you're complaining about you just are focusing on the things you know and you've learned to know but come on if it doesn't work one way try another one, the day you'll be stuck in life bc you're in a situation you haven't learned at school you'll cry and call life broken? nah you will find another way, another tools to go through, everything is in ur mind you're just blocking urself in the patterns u know, stop being afraid of the unknown, of the match-up, of the set, adapt urself and play w/ it. not that i care anyway, but yh think on ur feet;
Luke 6:41
Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?
To meditate
anyway hf gl to the council and to my friend UT, AAA is not a long quiet river but you'll go through all of this I trust in u
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Hello friends!
As always, the council has been keeping a close eye on the metagame and any further tiering action that may be required. At the end of OMPL, there were significant complaints about the state of the metagame, mostly centered around two points: the belief the metagame is overly matchup dependent, or fishy, and progress is too inconsistent. We have already taken a first step to addressing the matchup dependence with the quick ban of Kommo-o, but that did little to address consistency of progress. With that in mind...
Magic Bounce and Unburden are banned from AAA, and Kommo-o is freed!
Why take action against Magic Bounce?
The council believes a Magic Bounce ban addresses both common complaints. While most abilities, such as Adaptability, Regenerator, and Intimidate, are very consistent and do the same thing every single match, Magic Bounce's effectiveness varies widely match-to-match. If your opponent brings Spikes, Stealth Rock, and Toxic on three different passive mons, you can effectively wall half their team with very little counterplay. On the other hand, against teams that forgo hazards entirely, Magic Bounce is often a wasted ability slot, contributing to the high level of variance between matches.
Secondly, entry hazards have for generations been one of the most consistent ways to force progress and pressure the opposing team, and especially with the removal of Pursuit, are one of the few ways to punish switches. Magic Bounce severely complicates setting entry hazards; in order to effectively get them up, mons either need to run Mold Breaker, a huge sacrifice when almost every other ability is available as well, or run what are in many cases sub-optimal movesets except for their ability to beat Bounce. Swords Dance Ferrothorn and Mold Breaker Heatran are two examples of sets that exist primarily to beat Magic Bounce, while other mons that would frequently run Spikes like non-Choice Scarf Mew and Skarmory either have dropped it from their moveset or are rarely seen.
What about all the other ways to bypass entry hazards?
It is absolutely true that AAA has many tools to negate entry hazards, but most of them come at a cost. Heavy-Duty Boots, in addition to being Knockable, require forgoing Life Orb, Choice Band, and Choice Scarf. Magic Guard is still a powerful ability, but comes at the expense of being able to run a damage amp ability; additionally, many of our Magic Guard users like Tapu Koko, Cinderace, and Volcarona have other abilities that they would have to give up. Regenerator in most cases can offset entry hazard chip, but at the cost of recovering less net health per switch--a direct nerf to Regenerator as well.
The key elements that set Magic Bounce apart is it provides team support--one Magic Bouncer can support 2-3 other hazard weak Pokemon--and the degree that it punishes incorrect predictions. If you set Spikes into a team full of Magic Guard and Heavy-Duty Boots, you only wasted a turn. If you set Spikes into a Magic Bouncer, you wasted a turn and now need to spend 2-3 more getting the hazards removed. The cost/benefit to bringing entry hazards in AAA, let alone trying to set them, has been heavily skewed; banning Magic Bounce is an attempt to even the scales.
Won't this make AAA completely overrun with hazard stack?
Probably not! There are many viable Defoggers in the current meta--Corviknight, Tapu Fini, Mandibuzz, Mew--and while our spinner situation is kinda dire, Excadrill and Dhelmise are still possible. Removing Magic Bounce just returns the hazard/hazard control battle to a more normal position: they take 1-3 turns to set, and 1 turn to remove. Not to mention Magic Guard, Heavy-Duty Boots, and Regenerator all still being around to mitigate hazards.
Doesn't this heavily favor offense?
In my opinion, absolutely not. Magic Bounce is extremely common on hyper offense, as dual screens Koko is the most common lead, as well as on balance and offensive teams. Just going through the post-OMPL team dumps, a huge number of teams used Magic Bounce, all of which I would classify as balance or offense.
It is important to remember that many of our most dangerous wallbreakers--Galarian Zapdos, Terrakion, Pixilate Tapu Koko, Zarude, Dhelmise, Latios, Tapu Lele--all want to run items and abilities that prevent them from running Magic Guard and Heavy-Duty Boots. Yes, entry hazards give them better rolls to get KOes in some situations, but they also limit switch ins. Others, like Cinderace, Heatran, Zapdos, Volcarona, Genesect, and Volcanion, can avoid hazards with their items or abilities, but it still limits their power if they do. Magic Bounce may be a defensive ability, but it heavily benefits offense as well by giving them more ways to extend the longevity of their wallbreakers.
What if Heatran, Genesect, or something else is more broken by this change?
Heatran can now reliably get Rocks up, even if Desolate Land. Fire types are indirectly nerfed, which benefits Genesect. There are probably other consequences we have not seen yet; Magic Guard, in particular, may get stronger and warrant a look as well. If any of these elements end up being broken, we will deal with them then. We will be active both during and after World Cup to try and continue balancing the metagame; this is the next step, not the last step.
Why take action against Unburden?
In the wake of the Kommo-o ban, other BellyBurden users like Charizard and Galarian Darmanitan have risen up to take its place on hyper offense. While they are much harder to use, much more restricted in team styles they fit on, and lack the luring ability of Galvanize Kommo-o, it's the council's view that Unburden is still an unhealthily uncompetitive element and should be banned. Related, the council was 4-0 that with Unburden banned, Kommo-o could be freed, so it will be freed as well.
Why are these quick bans?
Almost all of my points above are theoretical. We do not know what a post-Bounce metagame will look like because we have never seen it. Since most of the impacts of Magic Bounce occur in the builder and not on the field, it's hard to get a grasp of how broken it is while playing. While my preferred method of handling ability bans is suspect testing, since they are a big deal, a suspect test will not show us a post-Bounce meta. Also Unburden to be in time for World Cup.
Hence, it is being quick banned before World Cup so we can observe high-level play, see what the metagame looks like, and then potentially test it back into the tier afterwards. This is tentative; if it's clearly a better or worse metagame, we may skip the suspect test, but if it's borderline we can test it back in.
That's the update! Play the meta, let us know what you think, and of course, play in and watch WCoOMs! As always, enjoy playing AAA!
Tagging Kris toimplement accept my pull request (ban Magic Bounce and Unburden, unban Kommo-o)
As always, the council has been keeping a close eye on the metagame and any further tiering action that may be required. At the end of OMPL, there were significant complaints about the state of the metagame, mostly centered around two points: the belief the metagame is overly matchup dependent, or fishy, and progress is too inconsistent. We have already taken a first step to addressing the matchup dependence with the quick ban of Kommo-o, but that did little to address consistency of progress. With that in mind...
Magic Bounce and Unburden are banned from AAA, and Kommo-o is freed!
| Quick Ban... | UT | The Number Man | beauts | avyrie | Total |
| Magic Bounce | BAN | DO NOT BAN | BAN | BAN | 3-1 BAN |
| Unburden | DO NOT BAN | BAN | BAN | BAN | 3-1 BAN |
Why take action against Magic Bounce?
The council believes a Magic Bounce ban addresses both common complaints. While most abilities, such as Adaptability, Regenerator, and Intimidate, are very consistent and do the same thing every single match, Magic Bounce's effectiveness varies widely match-to-match. If your opponent brings Spikes, Stealth Rock, and Toxic on three different passive mons, you can effectively wall half their team with very little counterplay. On the other hand, against teams that forgo hazards entirely, Magic Bounce is often a wasted ability slot, contributing to the high level of variance between matches.
Secondly, entry hazards have for generations been one of the most consistent ways to force progress and pressure the opposing team, and especially with the removal of Pursuit, are one of the few ways to punish switches. Magic Bounce severely complicates setting entry hazards; in order to effectively get them up, mons either need to run Mold Breaker, a huge sacrifice when almost every other ability is available as well, or run what are in many cases sub-optimal movesets except for their ability to beat Bounce. Swords Dance Ferrothorn and Mold Breaker Heatran are two examples of sets that exist primarily to beat Magic Bounce, while other mons that would frequently run Spikes like non-Choice Scarf Mew and Skarmory either have dropped it from their moveset or are rarely seen.
What about all the other ways to bypass entry hazards?
It is absolutely true that AAA has many tools to negate entry hazards, but most of them come at a cost. Heavy-Duty Boots, in addition to being Knockable, require forgoing Life Orb, Choice Band, and Choice Scarf. Magic Guard is still a powerful ability, but comes at the expense of being able to run a damage amp ability; additionally, many of our Magic Guard users like Tapu Koko, Cinderace, and Volcarona have other abilities that they would have to give up. Regenerator in most cases can offset entry hazard chip, but at the cost of recovering less net health per switch--a direct nerf to Regenerator as well.
The key elements that set Magic Bounce apart is it provides team support--one Magic Bouncer can support 2-3 other hazard weak Pokemon--and the degree that it punishes incorrect predictions. If you set Spikes into a team full of Magic Guard and Heavy-Duty Boots, you only wasted a turn. If you set Spikes into a Magic Bouncer, you wasted a turn and now need to spend 2-3 more getting the hazards removed. The cost/benefit to bringing entry hazards in AAA, let alone trying to set them, has been heavily skewed; banning Magic Bounce is an attempt to even the scales.
Won't this make AAA completely overrun with hazard stack?
Probably not! There are many viable Defoggers in the current meta--Corviknight, Tapu Fini, Mandibuzz, Mew--and while our spinner situation is kinda dire, Excadrill and Dhelmise are still possible. Removing Magic Bounce just returns the hazard/hazard control battle to a more normal position: they take 1-3 turns to set, and 1 turn to remove. Not to mention Magic Guard, Heavy-Duty Boots, and Regenerator all still being around to mitigate hazards.
Doesn't this heavily favor offense?
In my opinion, absolutely not. Magic Bounce is extremely common on hyper offense, as dual screens Koko is the most common lead, as well as on balance and offensive teams. Just going through the post-OMPL team dumps, a huge number of teams used Magic Bounce, all of which I would classify as balance or offense.
It is important to remember that many of our most dangerous wallbreakers--Galarian Zapdos, Terrakion, Pixilate Tapu Koko, Zarude, Dhelmise, Latios, Tapu Lele--all want to run items and abilities that prevent them from running Magic Guard and Heavy-Duty Boots. Yes, entry hazards give them better rolls to get KOes in some situations, but they also limit switch ins. Others, like Cinderace, Heatran, Zapdos, Volcarona, Genesect, and Volcanion, can avoid hazards with their items or abilities, but it still limits their power if they do. Magic Bounce may be a defensive ability, but it heavily benefits offense as well by giving them more ways to extend the longevity of their wallbreakers.
What if Heatran, Genesect, or something else is more broken by this change?
Heatran can now reliably get Rocks up, even if Desolate Land. Fire types are indirectly nerfed, which benefits Genesect. There are probably other consequences we have not seen yet; Magic Guard, in particular, may get stronger and warrant a look as well. If any of these elements end up being broken, we will deal with them then. We will be active both during and after World Cup to try and continue balancing the metagame; this is the next step, not the last step.
Why take action against Unburden?
In the wake of the Kommo-o ban, other BellyBurden users like Charizard and Galarian Darmanitan have risen up to take its place on hyper offense. While they are much harder to use, much more restricted in team styles they fit on, and lack the luring ability of Galvanize Kommo-o, it's the council's view that Unburden is still an unhealthily uncompetitive element and should be banned. Related, the council was 4-0 that with Unburden banned, Kommo-o could be freed, so it will be freed as well.
Why are these quick bans?
Almost all of my points above are theoretical. We do not know what a post-Bounce metagame will look like because we have never seen it. Since most of the impacts of Magic Bounce occur in the builder and not on the field, it's hard to get a grasp of how broken it is while playing. While my preferred method of handling ability bans is suspect testing, since they are a big deal, a suspect test will not show us a post-Bounce meta. Also Unburden to be in time for World Cup.
Hence, it is being quick banned before World Cup so we can observe high-level play, see what the metagame looks like, and then potentially test it back into the tier afterwards. This is tentative; if it's clearly a better or worse metagame, we may skip the suspect test, but if it's borderline we can test it back in.
That's the update! Play the meta, let us know what you think, and of course, play in and watch WCoOMs! As always, enjoy playing AAA!
Tagging Kris to
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I'm not happy with these quickbans, but I currently tolerate them because Unburden was a matchup fish and Magic Bounce is hopefully being retested after OMWC. Still, I feel like this continues the trend of bans not actually tackling the main issue with the tier: how many games are decided in builder rather than in play. Yes, Magic Bounce and Unburden do a good job at nerfing two of the extremer playstyles, stall (which no one but me and ladder ran) and screens HO. These two playstyles were good at fishing for matchups where they could 6-0 either by walling the opposing team to oblivion or loading BD Zard into a team without Toxapex and autowinning. However, this does not solve the issue when the match is balance vs balance, or balance vs bulky offense, or bulky offense vs bulky offense.
So basically, the issue I see is ultimately the decentralization of offensive breakers in the tier. To illustrate my point, the way I see it, there are 3 tiers of breakers you will find in AAA. The first tier is made of mons that have a solid amount of set diversity, high viability, and the ability to dismantle teams that don't run dedicated checks to it; however, they also have decently rigid and splashable counterplay. Here's a quick list below off the top of my head:
The second tier is made up of slightly-less-viable breakers. They often lack the immediate power or set diversity of the above tier of mons, and they can be difficult to fit on teams because they lack Speed, a defensive profile, or both; however, through either their set diversity, unique STAB combination, or decent power, they award good positioning against teams that lack checks to them. Another quick list below:
(offensive sets)
Finally, the third tier of breakers are arugably super niche. They see consistently little usage because of how badly they can fair into some cores, as well as how difficult they can be to support. However, in the right matchups, they can efficently make progress and decimate teams. They're less consistent that the above two tiers, but more rewarding in the right matchups than possibly even some top-tier breakers. List below:
(probably more I'm forgetting)
For the purposes of the point I'm trying to make, the third tier of breakers is mostly useless outside of a few examples from that tier I might end up using. My main issue is that both the first and second tier are much bigger than they should be. Even within the first tier, Pokemon like Zygarde-10% and Genesect tend to have completely different checks depending on what set they are (e.g DS Mew can handle Glare ZyGod and Band ZyDog but loses to Toxic ZyGod without cleric support which can be difficult to fit on teams, Toxapex beats TL Genesect but gets washed by SFLO Genesect). Ideally, the list of mons in both tiers would be at least a bit smaller. This would allow for more defensive creativity instead of using the same mons over and over again so you don't get 6-0ed by a random top-tier breaker. However, with both tiers being larger than they're supposed to be, this creates some difficult choices when building.
For example, let's say you want to use a DS Mew + Regen Ferro + Regen Blissey defensive core. This is pretty solid into the majority of the first tier barring Triage Tapu Lele, TL Genesect, and Cinderace, as well as some random second-tier mons like Garchomp, Talonflame (real ones run Power Gem on DS Mew), Azelf, Dhelmise (if your Regen Ferro is itemless/Jacoba), and Zapdos. With teams featuring 5 defensive mons + 1 breaker being matchup fishy, teams with 6 defensive mons being near unviable after the Magic Bounce ban, and teams with less than 3 defensive mons overreliant on offensive counterplay to beat breakers it loses to, it makes sense that adding a 4th defensive mon would be a good play. Here is where the issue comes in. Running FF or PS Corviknight to beat Cinderace and TL Genesect seems like a good idea since it also provides removal...except the issue with Tapu Lele is not fixed. Running Regen Jirachi and switching Blissey to Magic Guard fixes the Tapu Lele issue, but leaves you weaker to TL Genesect and Cinderace, not to mention the anti-synergy that having two Fire-weak Steels on a team provides. Running FF Mandibuzz gives you a solid Fire resist, but the issue with Tapu Lele remains. This is just one example of the building issues one can run into in AAA.
Sorry if this sounds like a lot of gibberish. What I'm trying to say is that while the Unburden and Magic Bounce bans solve a couple of the tier's matchup issues, they do not solve the core of games taking place more in the builder than in play. They do not stop me from bringing a Tyrantrum in G3 of WFs and 6-0ing as long as my Head Smashes don't miss, Hydreigon from tearing apart teams that don't use blobs or Tapu Fini, Tapu Lele from blasting through teams that use a Steel that isn't named Jirachi, Genesect from running one of its 7 equally viable sets and winning, or even shit like Suicune and Volcanion pulling good MUs out of their asses and winning. I've played a ton of matches where I used/faced against a breaker that simply had its way with well-built teams because there's just too much at the top to be expected to prep for. Yes, you can't prep for everything, but there's a difference between "okay this breaker is annoying, but I can sorta play around it and deny it openings" and "if this thing gets a single free turn I lose a mon/on the spot", and I feel interactions closer to the latter have been happening more and more often due to the myriad of offensive threats that you need to prep for, but there are too many top-tier breakers that you need to feasibly prep for as well.
I believe the things we should target are Tapu Koko, Genesect, Power Construct, and possibly Magic Guard. I and others have been vocal about both Tapu Koko and Genesect in the above posts, but to reiterate, Tapu Koko, even after a Magic Bounce ban, seems too powerful and too good as an enabler for various breakers for it to be balanced, while Genesect constantly forces a guessing game when you load into it, and guessing wrong can often cost the game (I've been calling it the Red Roulette because of how all Genesect need to be shiny for Shift Gear). Power Construct might not be banworthy, but on top of the set diversity it provides to ZyDog, I feel like it wasn't tiered properly by the council, and would like to see a proper suspect test for it rather than it being unbanned without any notice as it was a year ago. Not sure about Magic Guard since the only really annoying mons that benefit from it without being broken with anything else are the blobs and Volcanion (Zapdos-G is fine), but with the only consistent counterplay to Regen blobs being passive damage at this point, Magic Guard turns that on its head and can make them unkillable behemoths in the right matchup. As for Volcanion, teams can't really resist both of its STABs without something like Dragonvally, so if it gets in, it usually claims a mon. Hopefully further tiering action takes place either before or during OMWC, as I am mildly frustrated with the state the tier is in.
So basically, the issue I see is ultimately the decentralization of offensive breakers in the tier. To illustrate my point, the way I see it, there are 3 tiers of breakers you will find in AAA. The first tier is made of mons that have a solid amount of set diversity, high viability, and the ability to dismantle teams that don't run dedicated checks to it; however, they also have decently rigid and splashable counterplay. Here's a quick list below off the top of my head:
The second tier is made up of slightly-less-viable breakers. They often lack the immediate power or set diversity of the above tier of mons, and they can be difficult to fit on teams because they lack Speed, a defensive profile, or both; however, through either their set diversity, unique STAB combination, or decent power, they award good positioning against teams that lack checks to them. Another quick list below:
(offensive sets) Finally, the third tier of breakers are arugably super niche. They see consistently little usage because of how badly they can fair into some cores, as well as how difficult they can be to support. However, in the right matchups, they can efficently make progress and decimate teams. They're less consistent that the above two tiers, but more rewarding in the right matchups than possibly even some top-tier breakers. List below:
(probably more I'm forgetting)For the purposes of the point I'm trying to make, the third tier of breakers is mostly useless outside of a few examples from that tier I might end up using. My main issue is that both the first and second tier are much bigger than they should be. Even within the first tier, Pokemon like Zygarde-10% and Genesect tend to have completely different checks depending on what set they are (e.g DS Mew can handle Glare ZyGod and Band ZyDog but loses to Toxic ZyGod without cleric support which can be difficult to fit on teams, Toxapex beats TL Genesect but gets washed by SFLO Genesect). Ideally, the list of mons in both tiers would be at least a bit smaller. This would allow for more defensive creativity instead of using the same mons over and over again so you don't get 6-0ed by a random top-tier breaker. However, with both tiers being larger than they're supposed to be, this creates some difficult choices when building.
For example, let's say you want to use a DS Mew + Regen Ferro + Regen Blissey defensive core. This is pretty solid into the majority of the first tier barring Triage Tapu Lele, TL Genesect, and Cinderace, as well as some random second-tier mons like Garchomp, Talonflame (real ones run Power Gem on DS Mew), Azelf, Dhelmise (if your Regen Ferro is itemless/Jacoba), and Zapdos. With teams featuring 5 defensive mons + 1 breaker being matchup fishy, teams with 6 defensive mons being near unviable after the Magic Bounce ban, and teams with less than 3 defensive mons overreliant on offensive counterplay to beat breakers it loses to, it makes sense that adding a 4th defensive mon would be a good play. Here is where the issue comes in. Running FF or PS Corviknight to beat Cinderace and TL Genesect seems like a good idea since it also provides removal...except the issue with Tapu Lele is not fixed. Running Regen Jirachi and switching Blissey to Magic Guard fixes the Tapu Lele issue, but leaves you weaker to TL Genesect and Cinderace, not to mention the anti-synergy that having two Fire-weak Steels on a team provides. Running FF Mandibuzz gives you a solid Fire resist, but the issue with Tapu Lele remains. This is just one example of the building issues one can run into in AAA.
Sorry if this sounds like a lot of gibberish. What I'm trying to say is that while the Unburden and Magic Bounce bans solve a couple of the tier's matchup issues, they do not solve the core of games taking place more in the builder than in play. They do not stop me from bringing a Tyrantrum in G3 of WFs and 6-0ing as long as my Head Smashes don't miss, Hydreigon from tearing apart teams that don't use blobs or Tapu Fini, Tapu Lele from blasting through teams that use a Steel that isn't named Jirachi, Genesect from running one of its 7 equally viable sets and winning, or even shit like Suicune and Volcanion pulling good MUs out of their asses and winning. I've played a ton of matches where I used/faced against a breaker that simply had its way with well-built teams because there's just too much at the top to be expected to prep for. Yes, you can't prep for everything, but there's a difference between "okay this breaker is annoying, but I can sorta play around it and deny it openings" and "if this thing gets a single free turn I lose a mon/on the spot", and I feel interactions closer to the latter have been happening more and more often due to the myriad of offensive threats that you need to prep for, but there are too many top-tier breakers that you need to feasibly prep for as well.
I believe the things we should target are Tapu Koko, Genesect, Power Construct, and possibly Magic Guard. I and others have been vocal about both Tapu Koko and Genesect in the above posts, but to reiterate, Tapu Koko, even after a Magic Bounce ban, seems too powerful and too good as an enabler for various breakers for it to be balanced, while Genesect constantly forces a guessing game when you load into it, and guessing wrong can often cost the game (I've been calling it the Red Roulette because of how all Genesect need to be shiny for Shift Gear). Power Construct might not be banworthy, but on top of the set diversity it provides to ZyDog, I feel like it wasn't tiered properly by the council, and would like to see a proper suspect test for it rather than it being unbanned without any notice as it was a year ago. Not sure about Magic Guard since the only really annoying mons that benefit from it without being broken with anything else are the blobs and Volcanion (Zapdos-G is fine), but with the only consistent counterplay to Regen blobs being passive damage at this point, Magic Guard turns that on its head and can make them unkillable behemoths in the right matchup. As for Volcanion, teams can't really resist both of its STABs without something like Dragonvally, so if it gets in, it usually claims a mon. Hopefully further tiering action takes place either before or during OMWC, as I am mildly frustrated with the state the tier is in.
Just seeking to clarify a few things note i do not speak for the entirety of council, just myself. if i reference council it's things that i would like for us to do not things we will do
Considering we agree on Unburden being dumb I'll be addressing your points on Bounce. Banning Magic Bounce is, imo, tackling what you are saying that you find problematic. The issue with Magic Bounce was that it was largely a builder problem. Say you load your Regenerator Spikes Ferrothorn into Mew Bulky Offense. You would like to be able to spam your hazards in the early game, but you cannot because you have no idea if this Mew is Regenerator, Magic Bounce, or another random niche ability. Being able to make progress was by far the most problematic issue people seemed to have (which fits into this idea of games being decided in the builder). People found the breaker vs Regenerator matchup to be one that was out of their hands, so making the hazards game easier and more free was the least intrusive way that we could go about that (imo). Obviously we're still looking into other Pokemon but we want to see what happens first.
What originally made me want to respond to your post was this comment here. Magic Bounce was in no way a stall ban. You were one of the few people who ran no progress stalll, but plenty of other people were running Magic Bounce Fat (https://pokepast.es/36f924de29046b92) and Magic Bounce Bulky Offense (https://pokepast.es/a1558eef21fb0e98 as one example). Magic Bounce was really best on bulky offense, where it was able to prevent hazard chip on its breakers. Stall wasn't really something that was viewed as a problem at all outside of the Regen - Breaker issue, where we saw people load into basically unwinnable matchup on the basis that it was impossible to make progress versus some Regenerator cores. This wasn't just a fat/stall issue though either, we saw it a couple times in balance vs balance (I'd comb through replays but just believe me when I say there were complaints).
I won't respond to all of this but I just want to ask like...I have to question where we draw the line where it comes to builder issues and outplaying. I agree that at times it feels impossible to check everything, I've had that exact same frustration as you building AAA myself. But at what point is the issue just that you have to play better / win faster? I don't play a ton of non-OMs but in OMs that are much more meta stable, you can't check everything. At some point, you just have to outplay. Part of my reasoning in banning Unburden was that it was impossible to beat without packing multiple checks that were arguably unreasonable asks, and you agree with me. The goal with banning Bounce is that it becomes easier for you to make progress and that it becomes easier for you to play to your wincons. If bans after are necessary, then we ban those. I think your seeming expectation that you should be able to pack checks/counters and beat everything defensively is a bit unreasonable. At some point you have to play proactively and just outplay.
I don't really know what your point about Blobs is? The idea with Bounce is that it prevents you from getting hazards up/wearing them down over time, and that Magic Guard can alleviate that pressure by not forcing you to run Boots Blissey etc. It isn't particularly hard to punish and wear down Blobs, which you should know. Very rarely are blobs unkillable behemoths, unless your blob counterplay is like, MG Volc and you load into Chansey (no shade to avyrie lol was just the first example in my mind). I'm sure MG Chansey will still be annoying, but stuff like Taunt is a lot easier to use as counterplay and it should theoretically be easier to punish Blobs now with moves like Knock Off etc. And yes, further tiering is definitely being considered, it isn't like we're just chilling and sitting on our hands. Very few people really love the state the meta is in right now, nobody is being ignored and we're having debates all the time on what to do next. Just because we aren't posting a ton doesn't mean no work is being done. Hopefully the meta will be in a better place soon. Cheers ^.^
Hi, first of all i'm really happy of how much you (the council) are working on the tier right now, the tier is in a bad statement and you are trying to do your best to make it better for everyone so thanks for this! I'm not gonna do a big post or anything i just want to say some things about heracross + beauts posts.
Like heracross, i'm not really a fan of the unburden + Mbounce ban + kommo-o unban, adding another threat you have to deal with in the builder vs losing unburden, which it never feel like broken to me + Mbounce, which is imo an ability really really hard to put in a team, because otherwise you lose to A LOT of offensive threats or your team will be very very fat, but i understand the tiering action (anyway i don't think everyone could have been satisfied by just one tiering action).
As you may now if u have seen my previous posts, i also think the issue with the tier is the diversity of offensive breakers we have to deal with, which make the "mu issue", sometimes you just can lose or win at preview because you have the right breaker and the opponent doesnt have the right breaker, or sometimes you both have the right breaker but yours is faster so you win.
ban genesect anyway
Like heracross, i'm not really a fan of the unburden + Mbounce ban + kommo-o unban, adding another threat you have to deal with in the builder vs losing unburden, which it never feel like broken to me + Mbounce, which is imo an ability really really hard to put in a team, because otherwise you lose to A LOT of offensive threats or your team will be very very fat, but i understand the tiering action (anyway i don't think everyone could have been satisfied by just one tiering action).
As you may now if u have seen my previous posts, i also think the issue with the tier is the diversity of offensive breakers we have to deal with, which make the "mu issue", sometimes you just can lose or win at preview because you have the right breaker and the opponent doesnt have the right breaker, or sometimes you both have the right breaker but yours is faster so you win.
To be honest, i don't really know where the "line" is, but we definetely didn't cross it. Imagine if your opponent have Zarude Tough Claws Band, and your dark resist is Tapu Fini, except if you win EVERY 50/50 (then dont play OMs, go to SPL idk) your opponent will take at least one kill and you just cant do anything every time zarude is in, and you also cant hard a faster mon which forces it out, because there are like 30 defensive pivots in this tier which can bring zarude on the field very easily (s/o regenerator most of the time): Blissey, took a hit but didn't care because regenerator -> Teleport -> Zarude -> 50/50, Mew, ratio because regenerator -> volt switch -> zarude -> 50/50, you clean hazards sometimes so zarude is not too weaken by hazards and you do this again until the match is over, you can outplay, 2, 3 times, but outplaying each time zarude is in, due to how easy it is to bring it on the field, this is not realistic (Zarude is an exemple but you can say this with almost every offensive pokemons in A+/A/A-/B+ ranks in the VR) (and your team will for sure doesn't have zarude as the only unwinnable MU, in my experience and from what i saw, a team has often at least like 3 offensives threats where the MU is really almost unwinnable).
ban genesect anyway