A (very) late OMPL team dump, although an on time seasonal team dump. I am happy with this experience and it was a great way to get into team tours. I have to give s/o's to
Kinetic and
Jrdn as these two were the ones I worked with the most for testing, building, and general feedback. They are the actual goats and put up with a lot of terrible builds I made so thank you two sm could not have done it without y'all. S/o to
pannu Chessking345 and
cat for their testing and feedback as well, towards the end we stopped testing as much but in the beginning it was really helpful to get to know y'all and made me feel more comfortable with the team so thank you.
Clas thank you for using my abysmal surge surf ghold team I did not cook mb for selling you on that but I had a really great time being in call building the lu team with you and seeing it put in work was so nice. S/o to
Ivar57 for convincing me to even sign up for this thing, initially I thought I was either going to get drafted by the Takers or not at all since after window shopping the AAA slot looked kind of on lock from either the managers or the pool being that stacked with much more established players. I was surprised when I got drafted to the Wokes because I didn't really know anyone on it and had only joined the discord before draft as I had done with all the other public ones. However this worked out for the best and am really grateful for the opportunity
Evie and Cat gave me you two were the best managers and always supportive even when I wasn't getting the wins so truly thank you! Finally s/o to some of the people who joined later on to help
Racool LordBox Slither Wing BoingK
Week 1: vs Atha (L)
This was a team full of good ideas that ended up not going the distance. It had a really poor mu into offensive ghold and set-up dnite, two mons I found myself facing. This team did pretty well into most balance builds, but in general struggled against HO. I wanted to make an HO-proof team at the beginning of the week but got so worked up/psyched out ab being in OMPL I just ended up trying to cover for nearly everything defensively but still having holes in the comp. It also did not help that I was facing Atha, who had beaten me in open. I think if I had covered for my two problem mu's (that I knew about) I could have faired a bit better. Good brings from Atha though and that sub BoR ghold was probably the coolest thing to me.
Week 2: vs Shiloh (W)
I was very disappointed in my build from the previous week, and really wanted to focus on building a cohesive offensive core, which I felt the previous team lacked quite a bit. I realized now that Wake was banned regen moon was much better, and on top of that most offensive cores were being built with mana/pert in mind, so more grass/electrics would most likely be used which it resists. It's also one of the few regenvests that can actually provide speed control. T-wave on the dnite was to facilitate hex on ghold and mid ground things like psysurge deos and other dnite checks they might bring, also status's the steels that moth could not. Hex ghold is really nice as it is able to 2HKO both pert and phys def mana. There is no need for trick on the ghold as the it was always gonna need its scarf to outspeed things and hex kind of negated the need to get rid of AVs. This team is also really cool to me because each member has some form of recovery and even the offensive mons have some sort of defensive utility. Loaded into a Racool mana/pert overload team, and was able to eliminate the ace, probably the biggest threat to my team as that was the one fire the team really struggled into.
Week 3: vs MZ (W)
Meowscarada had a really great mu into the builds that they had been bringing. It puts in work against the tusk/moon/water regen cores, though really struggles into corviknight. Mglo was because the removal on this team was pretty abysmal and I didn't like having to do the 50/50 with boots sor on helmet mons and slowly get chipped/guess wrong and die. Due to the corv mu zap was brought to help create a great vortex. Meow also really struggles into dnite, so I wanted a way to handle that, and because I needed a better fairy answer than Corv Iron Crown fit the bill perfectly. It also had great synergy with meow as it could help take out the perts crown really struggles into. Originally the corv was fluffy but as I had just made my chien/boulder post I chose intim instead as that covered for both of them, and although fluffy would've worked better against the boulder intim was definitely the correct call. I got an unlucky freeze on zap after removing the emp, but I could've easily gone meow and not risk the mana being timid. Really happy with this build and how the game turned out, the focus blast miss chance was there, but I felt the risk was the worth it/necessary to get out of the volt-turn loop where I was gaining very little momentum.
Week 4: vs Stareal (L)
MB Great Tusk had a great mu into the builds that Stareal had been bringing. After that I kind of lost the juice/didn't really know how to build around it so I just went with previous build from w2 because I really enjoyed it. I also tried to bring a tspike team against someone who had been bringing hazard ignore teams, idk what I was cooking but hindsight is 20/20 it happens. I think with just a few tweaks this team would've been much better/more diverse from what I had initially brought. I think two simple changes would've made this team much stronger defensively and offensively. Firstly, changing Corviknight to vabs would've given me an actual electric immunity (as looking at the previous three teams hectrode/most electrics actually do kind of cook), and secondly making moth more offensive to not get walled by wbb steels with discharge. I think these would've been enough to make the team much stronger, but of course I can say that after the fact.
Week 5: vs Sylvi (L)
This triple steel core is really cool. They each naturally cover the others weaknesses really well and the abilities are customizable enough to further facilitate this. I was pretty sure Sylvi would bring a volc so that is why wbb corv. Unfortunately did not have anything faster than deos and that kind of 6-0'd on preview, probably could've played health on the tran and moon better to give myself a better shot in the endgame but it happens. Another simple change of scarf on moon would've made this mu much better, tho it would've been tough if the bee got webs down. Double scarf was an idea I had but thought 2 scarfers was weird/not a good team comp; though we would revisit this idea later in the tour to more success.
Week 6/7: vs Heart Takers &
SSSSS (W)
At this point I was feeling pretty burnt out and disappointed with my play the past two weeks so I asked to be subbed out. I think this was actually for the best as it helped me chill a bit and focus on building. I was annoyed I had lost to deos and made sure this team had a mon faster than it. If it ain't broke don't fix it was basically the idea since scarf rmoon is a terror for HO. Kinetic had much more input into this build and I'm glad that was the case as we built around regen treads, something I never used before. Rmoon, Zam, and Zap have great offensive synergy and can overload corv tusk water regen structures pretty well. I was a bit worried about the dnite mu/not too good of a special member and wanted zelf instead of moon but good call from Kinetic to stay the course w moon and upon reflection I think it is a great fit here. This was originally going to be for the Takers but then we won the week before Kinetic played. This still had a good MU into the builds the SSSSS had been bringing, and since we hadn't built anything that week we went with the only serious team we had as #1 seed was preferred.
Semi's: vs Sylvi (L)
Originally was going to bring the heatran one, as it helped patch up the teams fairy/ghold weakness, but I woke up to my team clutching the week and I decided to use the ace one in case I loaded into webs. Sylvi then proceeds to bring screens defiant Zam so like all I can say is respect. The wisp miss was unfortunate in the end game but I definitely should have had a more robust way of handling ghold on the ace team/could've played the early game better. VoR moon is actually pretty cool and can act as a 'second regen', though I don't think I fully realized its potential here.
Finals: vs Lana (W)
This build is so sick. I noticed that there was no weather ball switch-ins anywhere and thought that specs prim would be a great bring as it would nuke whatever is in front of with the combo of weather ball/moonblast. Treads was for the ghosts/zap/stail that Lana had been bringing, as well as provide role compression with rocks, pivot, and spin. This mon is so good but doesn't fit on every build, but when it works it is great. Scarf Zam was there because it beat their usual speed controls of scarf moon and deos, and is a great surprise pick. TC to make it a bit harder to tell what the ability is when it first comes in. Ghold was a bit of a placeholder but actually had great use because it could potentially get rid of a mana vest with trick, which was the biggest stop gap for prim to 2HKO everything. Body Press on Intim Corv because it has a better mu into the things you want to be intimidating, and you really only use brave bird for dnite/tusk, but intim loses to dnite anyway so it wouldn't matter and tusk gets worn down by helmet + teammates so corv doesn't need to be taking the extra recoil damage. s/o Racool actually giving me some confidence in building with double scarf. Kinetic played it wonderfully and we had the build on lock when it really counted so I'm really happy for that.
Although my record wasn't the best I'm still very happy that I was able to squeak by with not one but two wins playing, my personal goal was to actually just get one, but I ended up doubling that so lets go. I'm mostly happy with my builds from this tourney, and think my bigger issue was my play. This can only come with more practice/experience though so with time this will (hopefully) become better. I think I 'overbuilt' a quite a bit; early on in the week I had the ideas but then it would get muddied the more I tested and other ideas came to my head. I tried to curb this towards the end but wasn't the best. I'm going to put this down mainly to nerves/overthinking and psyching myself out on my initial thoughts and trying to find other options that ended up being worse. Oddly enough I was fine with it in seasonal, and usually just stuck to the first or second build I made of a team with no major overhauls. I think this was because I actively tried to stick to my original builds, and due to the lower stakes of the tourney I felt more comfortable if a build didn't work out.
Seasonal
I initially reused OMPL/Open builds, but as the tour went on I didn't want to get c-teamed and also used it as an outlet for more 'creative' team ideas that I didn't feel comfortable using for OMPL. Bo3 allowed for more flexibility in these brings and for me to have more fun with it. I also used it as a way to hone my scouting abilities, as I feel that was another weak spot in my game plan.
Round 1: vs Matte
Although I mostly reused builds in the beginning, Matte had been asking me and talking ab what I was going to bring and how he should prep for it. Due to this I felt that I should start the set with a different build, it was a bit rushed and I loaded into a pretty rough mu but I was able to pull through with a lucky para at the end. The simple change of tran to ep over gem would've shaved about 120 turns off this game, but I was for some reason worried about the zap mu when I had a pert on the team? Idk either.
Round 2: vs Lightniong
Reused OMPL builds for this, though I made the change I mentioned in my Stareal blurb to the corv being Vabs. Happy the team was able to get a win after losing in OMPL.
Round 4: vs Spell
My attempt at building a mana team in forever. Mana is so incredibly mid. I genuinely don't understand how this mon is a top tier regenvester, it just gets bullied by so many things and all the offensive and defensive cores feel like they are built to punish your entire existence for even thinking of this mon in the builder. Anyway... it was also my first foray with scarf stail as I was 'experimenting' a bit more with different scarfers since I didn't realize how truly splashable scarf wake was until it was gone. Lots of teams are built to handle stail, but not scarf, this is due to many teams either relying on faster mons or regenvests to check stail, but scarf + trick completely negates this combo. It also has the added benefit of being faster than modest deos, and even if you do run into a timid one you are still an stail so you can check it quite nicely. Team was doing good until Stone Edge missed and I completely floundered against the prim setting up. Prob should've just gone into stail earlier and spammed burst but it happens.
Going to use this as an opportunity to talk about this team as Kinetic had said 'I want a double ghost team' and this is what came to be. Based if off of Atha's build against Frankjosh because why wouldn't I copy from the person who was undefeated? Adjusted it a bit to fit our build/playstyle's a bit more. Looking back not particularly sure why the zap is bulk invested due to their being a pech and tusk. Probably because I still didn't like the team's moon mu and wanted to keep it on the bulkier side bc of this tho can't remember exactly. I do know max HP on Tusk was for moon. In my game against spell this mon got a crucial knock on the prim, opening up my ghold and zap in the endgame. This was the closest I got to going to losers, and I got bailed out by a full para on the prim when I should have sacked my moon and come back in to MiR, otherwise I was putting everything on stone edge hitting after I had crucially missed it the first game.
Round 6: vs Ghostlike
I had built quite a bit with Ivar during open and ghost was an opp he took pretty seriously and since I had never played them in tour before I decided I had to come in with completely new builds as I did not know if I would get prepped for or not. It was also deeper into the tournament and my opponents were only going to get tougher so I decided to build new teams from here on out.
I think the core of ace-pech-fairy is a great one and a bit more progressive. These mons have flexibility in item, EV spread, and movepool that can keep things fresh in builder and in game. I reused the Clef team g3 because I felt the biggest issue during g1 wasn't the team but my play and I really wanted a win with Clef. Vanilla Clef because rocks + knock + Moonblast + reliable recovery is at worst mediocre. Clef is able to take on tusk quite well, and even against Corv's can have some use in getting rid of its item. It also has a pretty nice mu into moon, hands, and dnite. Magic Guard I think is the best ability on it, fluffy and intim are kind of useless because you'll just get knocked and then lose to hazards and getting pivoted on unless you have a pretty robust way of dealing with rocks/spikes, but even then its just easier to have mg. Scarf Tusk because Racool had been using it and had just joined the team cord spreading the gospel ab it. It also helps as a great surprise pick and late game cleaner, which is what it was successfully able to do after the fluffy tusk was KO'd in g3.
I had been playing a bit more Ubers at this point and thought spikes are unbelievably broken here I need to build with this in AAA, especially now that tusk is the #1 remover in the tier and spikes actually punish it unlike rocks. Thundy-T was originally a zap but I wanted knock on my strong electric to further facilitate the hstack of the team. The tink set is something I had on the back burner for a bit and is a great check to tusk, rmoon, hands, dnite, and zam (if it doesn't CC you). It also showed itself to be a nice stail answer. Treads was there for zap and spin, and could help pivot in the zam and thundy. Scarf zam is a great fit on spike stack, as the reduced damage output is made up by the 25% most mons are taking on switch-in. Wabs on the pech because this team just gets smoked by any water type otherwise and prankster isn't necessary to take on moon when ting is there.
Round 8: vs Abriel
Still on the spike stack train and it had a great mu into what abriel had been bringing. Originally the scarf boulder was a scarf zam, but this was OMPL finals week and I did not want to bring the same offensive mon same week and have that be apart of their scout. Scarf boulder feels like the truth for this mon and is a great cleaner and even a nice dnite check at full health. The ting-lu switch-in on the zam cc still makes me cringe so hard when I watch it back why did I do that? Corv was right there as a sack and without Lu Ceru actually had a chance to clean with sneak + bitter blade. Very bad play from me but Zap was able to get a lucky para on the stail and clean the game up.
I had been scrolling through open builds and saw
Ghostlike's post (6th team down from the top but also here is the
paste) saying how regenvest moon and lev emp was a good defensive core and I wanted to give it a go. I also wanted to rebuild with scarf stail as I had really been enjoying that and it had an amazing mu into the builds that Abriel had been bringing. Really happy with how this game turned out; stail forced a KO nearly everytime it was in and rmoon getting a knock on the mana early on was really big. From there it was really me trying to get stail in as much as possible and keep the mana low. Chien getting a KO everytime it came in actually kind of helped as it allowed me a free stail entry point.
Round 10: vs Damflame
This round I was most nervous about. I knew Dam as a good player but I had never played them before and that is the scariest thing to me. They were also a player who used quite a bit of stall, and due to that I made sure that all the teams I built had a dedicated stall killer.
Probably my favorite build in the whole tournament. Garganacl is a mon that I could never figure out but felt it had to be good because rocks + salt cure just bullies corv and water regens. I had experimented with sand stream before OMPL and although it helped mitigate scald + ice beam from mana's, it still struggled heavy when burnt. Body Press on garg is near mandatory due to the prevalence of mglo moon, which would otherwise sit on this mon. Originally I had it as fluffy, but hated how mana + pert were able to either scald spam or use it as pivot fodder. Most opps were clicking EQ against this mon anyway, so fluffy wasn't too helpful. This is when I decided whatever I will just use wabs because the mana pert mu are just that important for it. Due to needing a good moon, dnite, and fighting answer, I went with Weezing-Galar. I have always liked EE weezing, but instead ran lev because I didn't want to run boots + EE bc of the amount of spike stack Dam had brought. These two mons were great in testing, though I unfortunately loaded into a terrible mu for geezing and the unconventional flash cannon hoodra, though geezing was able to get a crucial pain split off that kept hoodra within dnite EQ range for the rest of the game. Now onto the offensive core. Again after playing Ubers I really liked the idea of check overloading. This is the classic mixed dnite set that I used during ladder tour, one of the original stall killers, not much to say it just gets the job done really well into stall and balance builds. Mglo Tusk is a mon that saw a bit of use/experimentation with during open, but I think this set paired with dnite is a deadly offensive combo. It is basically is a mini dnite but due to eq + head smash you get the deadly edgequake coverage. This dnite set is almost never breaking through a pech and vabs corv, but paired with a mon that beats both of those things (head smash does a good chunk to spdef vabs corv too lazy to calc) it leads to situations similar to the one in my game where the pech was forced to choose between sacrificing itself to the tusk to stop it from getting a KO basically everytime it was in or try and save itself for the dnite that could now pick it off with espeed if it wasn't able to find a recover. I originally had a mglo ace there, but I did not like how many WBB mons Dam had brought and needed a hazard remover + status absorber so I pivoted to tusk. It also gave me a key rock resistance otherwise boulder would 6-0. It filled so many roles in one from being a check overload, rock resist, hazard remover, and breaker really happy with how it turned out.
Double Ghost build with double taunt to handle any stall shenanigans and prevent recovery/defog. The moon is bulky because if you are using pert you need a way of checking hectrode and if I'm knock taunt I don't need this thing breaking when it comes in. The game was going really well until I decided to give away my pert (again why do I do this?) to boulder for no reason. I was not calcing and saw it do 45 and did not realize that was actually a pretty low roll, but even then I should've always gone into tusk there. Made the game much harder for myself for no reason. I think I played the ghold really well and to my wincons really nicely after this though.
I also got really lucky with the spdef drop on the emp but shhh The zap spread was so that in the endgame I could potentially have a better knock absorber against moon, as this team just gets droned on by mglo, but it came in clutch to help me live a +1 burst.
Grand Finals: vs QT
I was in winner grands, I could not believe it, and I knew that either way my opponents were going to be tough. Since I had already beat and scouted Dam I decided to go right into building for QT because I could pivot easier to building for Dam if they did win. I was concerned that QT/Dam would bring wildly different builds from what they had previously brought for loser's finals, but when I saw this wasn't the case I knew I had to stick to my build plan for QT.
Regen Tusk to punish the banded moon + regen hands they had been bringing. EQ + knock bc it has a better mu in the triple bird stall and could at least force progress with knock. Bulletproof ghold bc of the Gholdengo's and deos they had brought. Scarf stail because it beats the moon and dnite offensive combos, and could force a trick if it were the stall team. Vabs corv bc of shocks + zap, but also because it's just generally a good phys def regen partner. Psalt on the moon is where it gets a bit crazy but I realized this team had no way of dealing with ceruledge, fires in general, and status. Psalt moon fit this bill perfectly because it prevented burns from the only two fires they had used, and would completely wall the pech on the stall team. 3A Moth because it covers for the stall team + beats the water regens they had been using otherwise. I was really happy that Fiery Dance + Discharge lured the pert in as I was waiting for the +1 to proc because then beam OHKO's. This team was tailored to QTs builds but at the same time this is closer to what I tried to accomplish w1 for OMPL and I'm happy I could successfully revisit this.
A bit of a redux on our OMPL finals build, but with little changes to help in the QT mu instead of the Lana one. The biggest was boots prim as this is actually a great stall killer with psychic noise, weather ball, and moonblast ripping through stall, and even when bliss is on the team Prim can gift it 20-24% with flip turn and/or deny recovery w pnoise. I also switched out the ghold for pech as I wanted the priority pivots/ability to trade with anything if it ever got dicey. Treads has knock over volt due to how common vabs corv and pert were, so I was never going to get that pivot off anyway, and might as well take an item instead. Spdef on fluffy corv because I don't need all that defense with fluff and spdef gives me more breathing room against something like deos or stail. Finally adamant mglo zam. This mon was originally just sor scarf but looking at QT's builds I realized scarf was kind of useless. The only speed control they used was stail, deos, or dnite; all of which I had other ways of dealing with on the team. Also if stail did ever trick then zam would be able to easily handle it. Scarf also had an abysmal mu into the stall team and didn't want to put it all on prim to get the turns right. This was a very last minute change (literally made day of) and was a bit of a risk, but it paid off quite well.
All of these teams I think are sample worthy as outside of the tour games I tested these on ladder and if they weren't able to get me to the top 10 with ease I knew I wasn't cooking. To illustrate this as of right now I have 6 accounts in the top 20, with 3 in the top 10. Again really happy with these builds and hyped to win seasonal, GGs to everyone!
and 
, 
, 
). Just really any setup guy trying to abuse your presence, does this move really come in handy.
- 
, especially now with it's #1 check being gone!
