Well played to SSSSS you were by far the better team of the finals and most of you are really cool guys I appreciated your presence throughout the tour tbh, and sorry to Virizzions for stealing you and then make this awful performance in finals
This season was a bit weird as I managed to pull-up a good record, going from 2-5 two years ago (not counting my stab loss cuz I would lose against everyone in stabs anyway) to 6-3 now, but I've never been satisfied with my builds and I didn't really reach a point where I thought this team was good (and I also played awfully in finals and I'm so mad and sorry for that but yeah I'm not a good player)
I'll put the songs I used for the next weeks each week, they're all french but my fellow fan
pannu loves it so
w1 vs shiloh -
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Well I kinda explained this team in the first AAA review of this OMPL so I won't explain much, but it was standard pre-home stuff (as
Siamato mentionned, very boring team) as I expected shiloh to not know the meta well and be weak to Chien-Pao, which is what happened. Otherwise the team is just Moth U-turn to bring Pao against regenvest / garchomp / fire immunity (could work today too with WBB Lando and stuff like that) and RH Chomp to weaken Corviknight and put it in the range of Chien-Pao. The team kinda lacks a Knock Off user to be fully efficient but I can't use Treads all the time..
The game itself was just Pao and Quaquaval winning so nothing much to explain.
w2 vs MZ -
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After Week 2
LordBox stole my reviews :c so I couldn't explain my builds anymore which made me sad, esp since there was a team I wanted to share but I've never been able to so I'll do it now.. Anyway MZ had a bad W1 but it was also the last week before Home and everyone was building boring af Corv - Moth - Chomp builds so I decided to prove that it was possible to build good teams without those. It obviously was hard and less consistent overall but I decided to use Volcarona which is a mon that saw suprisingly low usages (outside of the HOs) despite being an absolute monster on paper, and I chose to take the path of an HO-mon in a balanced team (which I already did in 8G with BD Kommo-o and is really interesting bc it's less fishy and do or die than HO). I obviously needed a very good spinner so I chose Treads which is one of the best mon both pre-home and post-home, Rotom was there to burn Chomp and bc it was a cool pick at the time to soft check Pao alongside with Intim Slither Wing and Tinkaton. The team is really cool and has a lot of techs, but it was obviously frail on many sides, I was quite weak to Water-types (Quaquaval, Inteleon) and a lot of other things (my own Volcarona could 6-0 me lol), but I was confident in MZ not bringing things that could 6-0 me and in my ability to outplay dangerous threats.
Volcarona had a winning MU and was a really good call, Inteleon was threatening but I was never rly in danger since I could always setup Volcarona to win on the spot if needed and I played really safely (maybe too much as I was helped by MZ staying with Inteleon on Tink's TWave and letting Slither Wing die when it could still make progress), but I was really happy to win with this and it's probably the coolest team I've made (even though Siamato called it trash)
The other team I had (featuring a similar concept but with even less answers to the threats I couldn't handle) but it was OMPL and not OMFL so I didn't bring it..
Isaiah told me Tough Claws was better than Neuroforce on Tink which is true cuz I never realized Ice Hammer was boosted (the idea is to bait Chomp so Mism has a shot, it's not good, don't use it) but it's funny and it actually won games. I'm sad I've never been able to use Protosynthesis +Speed stuff, it's funny
w3 vs stresh -
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I'm not good enough at MnM to explain this, I tried, I failed, my MU was a complete disaster, I hate complaining about MUs and my prep was certainly not good enough but I tried my best in game to have a chance despite the MU and lost to CM Ground-ceus, ppl made fun of me for losing my Ghold like that but I needed to make absurdly risky plays to even have a chance
w4 vs Ivar57 -
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Ivar is a really interesting opponent as I know I'll never be 6-0'd by a random threat because he usually builds classic teams, and therefore I'm often confident in winning long-term games because I don't rate his playing skill as high as shiloh or atha (in theory lol), even though he's really good and his ability to have strong builds meant unlike my first two wins I probably won't be able to have a mon that was just winning and it was def my first true test in the tour (outside of stresh obviously) since I faced shiloh for the first week and he was discovering the meta. My first idea was to bring imprison trap Mew as when I was using my Decidueye team back in the time he was struggling against it, but I discovered that Imprison couldn't work against Dark-types and although I was unsure Ivar would know it I decided that it was too restrictive (Fire Spin as a trap move instead of Infestation sucks too) and changed my mind, so I brought a classic core of Special Breaker pivoting on the RegenVest and broken Physical breaker. I don't remember exactly why I chose Inteleon, maybe bc Goodra-H wasn't that popular at the time. Zapdos-Galar + Kingambit was there to break through Corviknight, Tinted was there to surprise Quaquaval which Ivar used a lot pre-home, and the rest of the team is classic with a weird Sandaconda as my Ground-type which is both bad and cool. Looking back it probably wasn't a really good pick because it's just too passive, but I kinda wanted/needed Glare to have some sort of Speed control and I also really like to bring fun stuff in my games, but Palossand there or something like that was probably better.
This team also insta loses to HO, which Ivar brought the week prior and lost with it so I figure out he wouldn't try it again (but he did W5 lol), but it obviously folded to Ursaluna and stuff like that.
Against all odds I did manage to once again have a mon that had no checks in the form of Inteleon, so maybe I'm just really lucky or super good in my preps. However I didn't play it super well and while I made some great plays near the end to bring it on the field, I lost literally all the 50/50 in the game (with Sandaconda, clicking Glare two times into H-Electrode and then all the VS / Chloroblast plays from H-Electrode) which made me lose the game, as well as the scarf Chomp that I figured out only at the end and I should've thought of it earlier. Interesting game though despite not being my best, it also meant Ivar defeated Atha and me and was the french slayer :(
w5 vs tier -
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This team was also not super interesting (as it's said in the title) and it's not super good as it doesn't have reliable breakers and bad hazard pressure but I had less time this week and tier wasn't the opponent I feared the most. I saw in their last game that they got owned by Zam-C and Goodra-H against TNM and since SSSS lacked support at this time I kinda stole the core, used STail / Corv cuz I'm boring (Corv being Fluffy with Zama being a check to Pao and Meow alongside with Wish support), WBB Lando to cover my weaknesses, and SD Triage Ursaluna as a set that they might under prep for and who was surprisingly efficient since it lives way longer than BD sets and can surprise with the priority. Even today I don't really know which moves I want to use on that Luna, Facade is really funny to bait some burn/toxic alongside with Scream Tail Wish but is not really reliable, Crunch means you can luck through usual walls like Cresselia / Scream Tail and you can hit EE Dirge (which is the fakest Ursaluna check ever btw, everyone said it was a check but no one used it), but Heavy Slam might have been better here with Scream Tail popularity. This team is outdated anyway and not the best so I will stop the explanations here.
I once again got a good MU but I obviously had HO in mind since it's a common pick when you're facing a supposedly better/more experienced player, got a lucky freeze against Corviknight early but I don't think it mattered that much (it obviously killed the game early, but Triage Luna + Unaware Scream Tail + Zamazenta was just so good that it was almost unwinnable for Tier I think) and the Zamazenta being slower than mine for no reason meant I won a bit too easily.
w5 MZ vs hariyana grande -
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As you can figure out in the replay I wasn't playing this game, but aftet MZ's rough start in 0-3 ponchlake asked me to help their AAA slot since their support cancered and since he was my friend I obviously agreed and helped for the last 4 weeks, but I'm posting this team bc I basically made it (while for the other weeks I was giving advices etc but not building the whole team) and ponchlake / MZ made some minor changes (so this is not the team that was brought but my version), so I kinda defeated hariyana grande twice hehe. The team has holes but is probably one of the easier to use as everything is straight forward with 2 main ideas : Regen Scream Tail is hard to use because you always want a RegenVest, and this team is in fact weak to Special attackers, but it can also soft check a shit ton of thing, and Treads/Tran/RMoon is probably the best core to consistently make progress, since Treads can Knock Corviknight, Heatran can put Rocks against it, and RMoon can then come and spam Crunch / Fire Fang and might get some drops. Scarf Inteleon is also another of my recurrent building trends, having a random scarf on something that is usually not to trade power for speed (and it's actually really usefum on stuff like Inteleon that will anyway OHKO everything that isn't a check but be hard walled by RegenVest / some DesoLand users so the diff in power isnt that dramatic) and it can bait things.
The game kinda went as planned, no intim Corv meant Fluffy Lando wasn't a reliable switch-in and Scarf Inteleon cleaned the game, but I'm taking half of the merit of this win :p
w6 vs The Number Man -
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At this point TNM was kinda seen as the best AAA player of the tour (despite his loss against the worst player of the tour) and facing him was a bit like against Ivar, strong player with a preferred playstyle that is unlikely to 6-0 me but that I can outplay in longer games. However I knew TNM liked to bring odds mons (more than Ivar at least) and I struggled a bit to find a team I liked. I wanted to build around Mold Breaker Garchomp as it's one of the most reliable breakers in the long term and TNM liked fat structures. At first I wanted to use it with Wish and Heal Bell support in an
ugly team but it didn't feel right, I also tried to build around Specs Hoopa (which is a beast but slow as hell) but same, I didn't really like it. I was also out with my class and then got drunk 3 days in the week so it was Sunday and I had two teams but none of them seemed good enough. However, on Sunday morning, I had an epiphany and thought : what if I bring DIANCIE ? I immediately figured out the rest of the team, Diancie + Moltres actually checks a LOT of things together, paired with the classic double Steel core of Corviknight and EE Treads, Regieleki was a neat pick that I never use but could be really annoying, and I kept my Chomp since I believed it was a good pick against TNM. I really thought I was a genius, and even though something else over Chomp might have been better bc tbh I'm not sure it's that great (unless you're hard prepping for stall/fat), it felt really good and Diancie did an insane work (I also wanted and tried to not use Goodra-H too much to not be predictable) against many mons, so I went for it. However in the rush of the prep since all of this happened on Sunday, I completely forgot about one mon TNM liked and used a lot : Electrode-Hisui. This thing basically destroys me, and it was a dumb risk to take against TNM tbh.
Fortunately TNM didn't bring it and his team this week didn't feel really good, Chomp was completely useless (although without his weird Ceruledge it would've been better), Regieleki, Moltres, and Diancie were really good so I'm happy those weird picks worked well, and even though I like this team it was a clear mistake to be so weak against Electrode-H (even though I brought Goodra-H twice priors)
w7 vs atha -
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How can I explain this. Hmmm. Well, Atha helped me since the beginning of the tour (well we both helped each other and shared opinions etc) and he's definitely the person who knows my building the best (and also trashs it all the time) and I thought he would try to save his season against me, both for his personal record and for his honour (can't lose against Osake y'know) so I was worried. Even though Fluttermanias were cancering, I thought Atha would be the only one that care bc I was his opponent (idk if he didn't / wanted to bring something funny / thought it was good against me though), so I tried to exploit Atha's weaknesses since I obviously knew them too, particularly the fact that he hates using Scream Tail and often uses offensive builds. My first team had MGLO Mew with Fire Spin and Steel Beam bc I knew he hates to switch-on Mew but it was too slow for his playstyle and it was too hard to trap Scream Tail with it anyway, so I just went with Enamorus-T which is really annoying if there's no Scream Tail and setup Corviknight which is a really bad set but I knew it would work against Atha. Scarf Hydreigon was something I never used and that could be really effective against Atha's offensive teams, Muk + Intim Quaqua soft checks pretty much everything and DesoLand Chomp is a good hazard setter. The team is not good overall, but was made with Atha in mind, and it's funny to use. EVs on Corviknight are supposed to give a shot in a 1v1 vs Scream Tail with Power Trip when you're fully boosted and double poison move on Muk-A was to beat all the enam sets (hopefully)
MU was really good, Hydreigon claimed a kill T1 and Corv was just winning, even though I got baited a bit by atha's changes on his teams (and spent 3 minutes at preview to find the team for nothing sobsob), and atha was humiliated for his last OMPL game..
semis vs hariyana grande -
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However Atha is a good guy and despite his record he helped me for the semis, especially since I had almost no time this week (was travelling from Wednesday to Friday and was busy all day on Saturday) so I needed to build on the first two days. Atha came up with this build on Monday as we agreed that fat/semi-stall owns Virizzions' teams and I didn't have much time to try something else anyway. Atha also pm'd
Isaiah to have his opinion since he's the official stall expert, and Isaiah was also helping Virizzions' so he left their channel and he shared with me a set that he wanted to use against me (bc he knew fat was an obvious pick at this point of the tour, and it was a bit obvious tbh) and it would've won on the spot so.. thanks atha for that I guess lol ? the set is Mismagius Normalize which he shared in an HO team 2 weeks ago. Anyway the team uses Decidueye Fluffy as an anti-spin (which I already used in the past) with stack hazards and no removal (and almost mono boots), Decidueye and Chomp weakens Corviknight and I win long term, with the other idea that Decidueye is often able to Knock two mons in a team since Corv doesn't want to take too much Spites, so it's usually the Regen slot aka the RegenVest, and if it happens Moth is way more threatening (I also didn't use Moth since W1 so it was a good pick). The team is super weak to Fire-types overall, in particular Ceruledge, and probably other things and I don't like it a lot, but once again it was the call and if I had a bad MU well I would just outplay (hopefully).
The MU looked really good at preview, however Heatran being MGLO and not Earth Eater as I thought (which meant the team had only 1 ground resist/immunity which is uncommon) made it way harder as it was a Fire-type that could break through Chomp. The MU wa really good outside of that though and Decidueye managed to Knock Roaring Moon, and then I got a good read with Iron Moth and it snowball'd through hariyana's team although I sacked Chomp at the end for no reason but Blissey managed to put Heatran in range of Iron Moth.
finals vs pichus -
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I'm posting this right after we were eliminated so I'm still pretty angry and my comment isn't objective at all maybe I'll edit and make something cleaner later but I just went to get rid of this post but yeah I wanted to use Tinted Cinderace to kill basically everything that is not named Unaware, with LO to kill Garchomp and offensive Zapdos and stuff and I paired it with Toxapex which as a mon I never use and that could set up Toxic Spikes to weaken Scream Tail while being a surprise, rest of the team is classic with Fluffy Zapdos to take Pao's Crunch even though it takes way too much and Slither Wing CC and stuff as well as checking Quaquaval which is a pain for that team and yeah boring goodra-h treads core with quaqua to help the Pao MU and spin and stuff
I think I had a really good match-up, Cinderace had no answers but I refused to use it cuz I thought I would be fine with the rest of the team which would've been true if I didn't make a lot of mistakes and finished to lose to Chien-Pao because without being bad my MU against it needs all my mons to be full since I can't Intimidate it or anything and I forgot that, lost a couple of 50/50 and made too many mistakes and lost which also made lose our team, sorry for ending our season with terrible plays
As I mentionned at the beginning I've never been satisfied with my teams and I don't think my record reflects anything, I've just been very lucky on my MUs and my loss in finals just shows that I'm nowhere near the level of the others 6-3, but as a whole I didn't enjoy that much AAA during the tour (I enjoyed it way more 2 years ago when I did my 2-6, records are just good for the ego but the pleasure is completely different) and I might take a break of it, I will see, I feel like the tier is often revolved around hoping to get the right MUs and I often did during this tour but I knew my teams always had flaws and it's annoying to play like this (when I mean flaws I mean straight losing to something if the opponent plays good, I love having tools to outplay a hard MU like Pao with my finals' team) and
Atha mentionned (even though he sucks) that you're often fishing for not having a particular mon on the opposite team (i.e. not having quaqua when you use pex or garg and stuff like that) which I feel is really hard to build around. Anyway I'll make a longer post in the AAA chan with other teams and idea I had and complete thoughts on the meta when I have time and when I won't be mad anymore
quick shoutouts to my team, I do not think we deserved to make that far and I know we've been very lucky for that but you guys still made it possible, special s/o for my managers
Dragonillis and
Palapapop I was not
super happy to be with you because I'm always with Drago in team tours and I want to try other experiences of managing (not Redflix though this man's a bitch) but you're my friends and it was cool as always, sorry if I've been too negative on our team pala I'm somewhat of an Archeops sometimes (s/o Siamato for that joke) and
ojr for being a really cool and strong teammate, it was always nice to talk with you in PMs and I'm actually super impressed with your creativity in the builder and your plays and one of the players I respect the most, sorry that the finals had to end that way though :(
don't really want to do heavy shoutouts but thanks
Redflix Siamato Atha hayedenn Lyna ponchlake SFG TheCoastsOfToast and everyone I forgot for being good friends, there to test, insult me, anything, and my fellow AAA testers
LordBox Isaiah Career Ended Ivar57 The Number Man
last shoutouts for SSSSS, well played for winning,
pichus Icemaster tier you're really cool and good persons I appreciated having you as opponents (directly or not) and I'm glad I got to know you during this tour !
Goodbye everyone
give a Like on this post for
Gman <3