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MGLO Ursa is kind of like the Turboblaze Ursaluna I have posted before that trades in the ability to beat EE Dirge for having a better button to press and more longevity. This goes around TurboUrsa's weakness of being somewhat easy to switch around by having double edge not only deal more damage, but also not have any drawback nor flying types be immune to it. You can try to hard switch around it so that it doesnt SD, but doing so might result on it clicking double edge and getting a lot of dmg or straight up a KO. Its a guaranteed ohko on Av meloetta and basically every offensive mon that isnt straight up immune to it, and of course the higher damage also affects the matchup against more defensive mons. +1 Fire Punch into Edge is a guaranteed KO on corv, and Edge does 50 minimum to Big Jigglypuff. You also deal about as much damage to fluffy lando as it does to you when unboosted, and being slow here was actually of use because it meant lando couldnt pivot for free. Bear can 1v1 basically anything, but has to use its Hp to do so most of the time, which means after doing that it can be tough to keep making it work with hazards up in regular circumstances. Magic guard giving it immunity to Hazards means that it can still enter the field given pivoting and click double edge after their main switchins has been dealt with by itself.
Ursa could be more than a matchup cheese, it could also be a matchup consistent. You guys just were blinded by the cheese smh
Here's my sample submission featuring fluffy rotom-wash:
It's built around rotom-wash will-o-wisping physical attackers for scream tail to abuse along with slither wing to make a volt-turn core. Iron treads was used on this team to make sure hazards aren't too much to deal with. Also note that goodra is used to avoid the weaknesses the steel typing from goodra-hisui brings (thanks isaiah for the suggestion). Slither wing's speed allows it to outspeed 0 speed garchomp. Goodra's evs allow a very small chance of beating cinderace.
Let's talk about fluffy rotom wash.
I theororized this set like a week ago but I never really made a team with it until now. I hesistated about this set until I was told in omcord that I could run protect to maximize leftovers recovery. What does this set do you may ask? It helps against foes like chien pao, talonflame, kingambit, zamazenta-c, arcanine-h, and to some extent slither wing and zapdos-g. It can be a momentum gainer with volt switch since it threatens ground types with hydro pump and any physical attackers that stay in on it will get burned by will-o-wisp. Of course you absolutely want to pair this with corviknight to help with its earthquake weakness.
Edit: I found out how horrible this team is against zapdos and other stuff so I decided it is not sample worthy, don't use it.
This one set has been carrying my pathetic excuse of a ho team and cheesing me some wins. A normalized stored power after a shell smash can pick up a surprise ko on most offensive dark types, and you always have to option to pass normalize to anything you can’t beat. You can also bluff dazzling to setup on triage users before revealing normalize.
This is not a sample submission, I just want to share a fun team:
This team features double explosion in Azelf and Regieleki just in case you find your opponent defensive core too annoying to deal with. Most of the time, your idea is explode on your opponent RegenVest with Azelf as it can OHKO most RegenVesters (Garchomp needs some chip first). The psychic damage into a resist might trick your opponent to thinking Azelf might have an specially offensive ability. After you have removed the RegenVest, your Regieleki should have a free time Volt Switching around and chip everything. It also have explosion in case you have to deal with like Ting Lu since it is to bulky for Azelf to handle. To round out the team you have a strong defensive core. It can answer most of the strong threat in the game but be careful set up sweepers as Scream Tail's ability is not Unaware. Fluffy Tail is to counter strong threats in the meta rn like Zamazenta, Gapdos, Slither Wing,... It is very passive, however. You can sometimes bluff Unaware with it but once your opponent knows that it is not Unaware, don't try to bring it in against the set up sweeper. VA Corv is not very neccessary but I hate things that keep volt switching around so I put it on my team. If you don't worry about those, you could use Intimidate IronPress Corv with Rapid Spin on Quaquaval to have a better matchup into set up sweepers.
Replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1898652903-3h4e4oa7ui2vbgbxqt3oqcj6ke0qccepw
I forgot to save some other replays but this one is a good one. It shows how this team can utilizes explosion to remove annoying defensive pieces from your opponent's team. Azelf put in a lot of work this game as it was able to put rocks up to finish the Corv of and explode on Moon. My opponents team was a bad matchup for my team as normally most players would only have one specially defensive wall.
I faced Atha at the first pairing of an AAA tour in the OM room yesterday and we joked in voc a few days ago that we might bring dumb HO against each other for OMPL with the 5 dumbest sets of HO, so I decided to build an HO in 3 minutes featuring Belly Drum Chesnaught bc as long as dumb fish is allowed I might as well use it.
So I made this team which became this bc one BD user isn't enough, and I managed to defeat him and actually won the whole tournament with this team. I then decided to ladder with it to see how good a 3-min build could do against the ladder since I never use HO, and I reached quite easily the top 50 with a GXE of 77.6 which, while not good, is still better than a lot of players and is normal when you're using this kind of team.
I saved a bunch of replays during my run and, guess what, many of them feature a Belly Drum win. Were my opponents good ? Not really, it's ladder. I did beat some great players though, and I've been told that Electrify was banned cuz Helioptile was used on the ladder so I'm doing the same.
I know that a Belly Drum ban isn't happening, but well I'd like to at least get rid of the preominent abusers that can actually do work and be dumb fish. Yeah, regular Slowbro prob won't be used as Belly Drum user and I guess you can let that happen, and I find it very sad to ban fine mons that are only broken bc of that combo, but I believe that it's better than having them freed bc it's the most uncompetitive way to lose. This post also advocates for a Quick Draw + Quick Claw ban, because it's also uncompetitive and it also has enough potential to win (nearly 50% chance to attack in first is way too much). It's obvious with Belly Drum sets, but Nasty Plot or Swords Dance on anything are also obnoxious, even if you have more outs because you aren't suddenly OHKOing everything.
Quickly saying than thinking the unhealthy part is something else than Belly Drum is something I can't understand. I def understand the policy thing, I regret it, but then we aren't debating on the same field and it's logical that we can't agree, it's fine. But saying or thinking that Triage is the problem when literally all the abusers that were problematic with Triage, now or in the past, were using Belly Drum and when we have perfectly fine mons using Triage without Belly Drum is just not solving the right issue. One can't compare belly drum to any other move (outside of Shell Smash and Fillet Away I guess): clearly belly drum is the broken part in a Belly Drum + Drain Punch combo lol (if we're looking at moves), and you can't compare a regular attacking move like Drain Punch or Shadow Ball with a +6 instant boost. It's just not the same thing.
Anyway I don't have much to say, you can just look at the replays (you just have to skip to the end and you'll most of the time see a +6 mon alone on the field) and figure out that after Ursaluna ban Belly Drum fish still exists (it doesn't even need Drain Punch on Slowbro-G, even though it's obviously a nice add, but you could argue that QDQC is the most unhealthy part in that set. I disagree, but I could hear it), so yeah I guess this post advocates for Chesnaught ban and QDQC ban (will I use Triage Drain Punch GBro then ? maybe..)
They aren't good Pokemon, I know it. But most of the teams can easily fold if they don't carry Scream Tail (and gbro wins the 1v1 vs Scream Tail anyway), and it is annoying to have that kind of fish in the tier, both BD and QDQC.
Zangoose @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Anger Shell
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Belly Drum
- Power Trip
- Fire Punch
- Close Combat
Add this to the list of viable belly drum abusers. After one turn of setup, Zangoose ends up with +6 attack, +1 spa, and +1 speed, giving power trip (which it learns for some reason) 180 base power. Anger shell in itself seems like a pretty broken ability that I haven’t seen anyone use (probably bc everyone forgot about it). Fire punch/power trip ohkos fluffy/WBB corv and close combat ohkos physically defensive ting lu.
Zangoose @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Anger Shell
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Belly Drum
- Power Trip
- Fire Punch
- Close Combat
Add this to the list of viable belly drum abusers. After one turn of setup, Zangoose ends up with +6 attack, +1 spa, and +1 speed, giving power trip (which it learns for some reason) 180 base power. Anger shell in itself seems like a pretty broken ability that I haven’t seen anyone use (probably bc everyone forgot about it). Fire punch/power trip ohkos fluffy/WBB corv and close combat ohkos physically defensive ting lu.
No one use anger shell bc it is bad. You don't need more boost if you are already using a belly drum mons. It just makes you lose harder to Scream Tail. Use an actual good set instead like Mold Breaker.
No one use anger shell bc it is bad. You don't need more boost if you are already using a belly drum mons. It just makes you lose harder to Scream Tail. Use an actual good set instead like Mold Breaker.
The speed boost is what makes it worth using. There are so little abilities that give speed, and the ones that do depend on unreliable circumstances. The whole point of unaware scream tail is to wall setup sweepers, and even without factoring the atk boost, 180 bp power trip does 30-35%
Also i realized that anger shell doesn’t activate on self inflicted damage so zangoose would have to setup on something it’s faster than
The speed boost is what makes it worth using. There are so little abilities that give speed, and the ones that do depend on unreliable circumstances. The whole point of unaware scream tail is to wall setup sweepers, and even without factoring the atk boost, 180 bp power trip does 30-35%
Also i realized that anger shell doesn’t activate on self inflicted damage so zangoose would have to setup on something it’s faster than
On another note, playing this meta just feels like a competition of who can bring in their breaker safely when not running HO / Stall. I know this is how AAA has been for a while now, but honestly it just feels like the same thing over and over. Level 99 Corv, U-turn out into Slither Wing / Gapdos / Volcanion / etc, it does huge damage, pivot out into defensive pivot, repeat. I'd be down to see a 2AC suspect / FurScales resuspect, although those have their drawbacks.
this is not a sample submission, but rather just a fun team i use on the ladder. it features pixilate boomburst scream tail as a offensive "wallbreaker". (yes i know it has 65 base spatk but its just has high base power) when you see scream tail at preview, you always assume its a defensive ability like unaware and what not(especially when you see ting-lu and corv next to it and think its balance), but Scream Tail either messes with special walls by tricking them with the glasses or just straight up beating "traditional" fairy checks. The team especially revolves around messing with popular Corv Sets as much as possible. Before you say anything, yes this team is single-handled dissected by IDBP Zam-C , but hey, "just play around it bro".
(click on sprites for team)
edit: you can also sub kilowattrel for zapdos is you really wanted more speed on the team
aaa politics section:
2AC is a certaintly a MAYBE option.
NAC is a bad choice.
Chien Pao, Gapdos, Slither Wing are potentially unhealthy cause they do funny stuff with power.
Triage is potentially unhealthy, but Rampardos Theorem applies blah blah blah.
I am noticing a lack of full stall teams in this tier so I made one for sample submission.
I started with moltres. Fluffy is one of the most valuable defensive abilities, only being held back by its weakness to fire and non contact moves. By giving it to moltres, it nullifies the fire weakness and provides an immunity to the most common contactless move earthquake. Moltres also gets access to reliable recovery in roost, status in willowisp, and decent enough bulk and typing to barely be able to wall the tiers physical wallbreakers. Ancient power is the only coverage option it has to chip fire types.
Next I needed something i counter physical fire types that moltres can’t burn. Corviknight is pretty much a staple on every team, so I added it with WBB. With two flying types, I needed an electric answer. I chose to go with regen iron treads. Knock off and rapid spin are both valuable rare utility, and since most electric mons are special, I eved max hp and spdef. I wanted spikes, and TingLu is pretty much the only viable setter. I chose to go unaware to help with bulk up talonflame and polteageist. Blissey is the blanket special wall, and leppa berry harvest allows it to spam soft boiled and seismic toss in front of other walls and special attackers. It also sets up along other cm sweepers, and can tank stored power, barring crit. Utility umbrella toxapex walls desolate land sweepers such as cinderachi and ceruledge, but more importantly beats specs primordial sea which blissey can only do if it avoids a burn. It also sets and absorbes toxic spikes.
Tornadus-T is one of the fastest viable pokemon with Swagger. So naturally, pairing it with Opportunist + Mirror Herb can lead to some saucy sweeps. Especially since you have a powerful move in Acrobatics. And the opponent has a harder time retaliating, because they have to deal with Swagger's confusion.
Won't comment my ompl teams and games but here are my teams and thoughts.
My teams
Week 1 vs Ivar57 & Week 7 vs Osake :
Week 2 vs Shiloh :
Week 3 vs Tier :
Week 4 vs MZ :
Week 5 vs The Number Man :
Week 6 vs Hariyana Grande :
And thoughts
Throughout the tournament (with the exception of Week 2) I tried to maintain the style I like best at the moment, i.e. offensive: overloading the defensive cores and relying heavily on soft checks defensively. Given my results, it's obvious that this isn't the right way to build at the moment (to everyone's surprise we can scrap the Siamato theory of "maybe we're wrong to stick to this defensive approach to deal with things and we should go for a more offensive approach"), and that the right way to build is more or less, to my dismay, check off the boxes on your threat list until you have a defensive response for each pokémon, and possibly add a breaker and speed control at the end if you have the space (you can try to start with the breaker, but there's no guarantee that the team will be possible to finish). Osake and TNM have applied this policy with great success. The benefit/risk balance of an overload type of build is (I think) heavily unfavorable, because you create defensive holes in your own team and still crash into a lot of defensive cores. For example, my week 1 team has Kingambit + Chien-Pao to overload intimidate Corv, but it's basically screwed into defensive Quaquaval + Corv ; and I don't think there's a way to make up for that. My week 6 team has Will-o Volcanion + Specs Chi-Yu to pressure regenvesters, but they might have a Volcanion counter like Desoland Moltres, in which case you just can't break (also I ended up not being able to cover Thundurus, which is basically an unwinnable matchup, ran into it and lost). AAA players are used to this and I don't think the meta is fully developped yet but we're clearly heading towards a meta centered around this type of team : + Regenvester ( or or or or ) + Fast pivot ( or or something else) + Immunity (mostly to Fire) + Breaker or additional wall (Fluffy or other immunity). I personnally dislike it a lot cause it's extremely counter heavy (I'd like to try 2AC at least) but it's maybe just a sign I'm not disillusioned enough about AAA yet. See you in AAAPL hopefully.
Chad-Yu () @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Dark Pulse
- Nasty Plot
- Will-O-Wisp
BRING HIM BACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Unaware Blissey: 265-312 (37.1 - 43.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (unaware, leftovers negated b/c burned)
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 526-620 (73.6 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (magic guard)
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Vessel of Ruin Blissey: 395-465 (55.3 - 65.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (vor, leftovers situation is same as unaware)
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Goodra-Hisui: 247-292 (67.8 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Muk-Alola: 329-387 (79.4 - 93.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 400-476 (99 - 117.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO (no reason to even go melo on chi yu lmao, if melo is ur only spd wall ur in big trouble)
outside of the now dead garganacl i cant find anymore spdef walls
the team i currently use with this chi yu set, heres a quick rundown:
Main breaker, kills everything on sight. Burns swap-ins with will-o-wisp then swaps out, comes in again then fucking murders them
SR Setter, also helps with answering random threats and blocks volt switches from a variety of mons that shouldnt get it
Fast pivot, leech seed also pairs very well with will-o-wisp's burn chip and can deny regenerator healings in a simple 2 turns
252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. +6 252 HP / 252+ SpD Abomasnow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 140-166 (36.4 - 43.2%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Muk-Alola: 329-387 (79.4 - 93.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage
imma be real i have no idea how i climbed top 100 on ladder without a single "actually real" fire resist on the team, but sure why not make it a sample submission.
SFLO Hoopa Balance : ft. Scarf Gapdos ----- (click little guys for team)
short desc: all you do on this team is remove the generic core of , and obligatory regenvester (, , , , etc) by abusing (aggressive double switches & knock off from ) the absurd power of Nasty Plot SFLO & BoR .
Then you clean up with . Admittedly this strategy is kinda hard if the regenvester is named but it's certainly playable. Also I forgot this isn't ho, you also have the defensive core of & & to switch into many attacks. (that is also weak to volcanion, but no one needs to know that)
ok i usually have fluffy on because im paranoid of Scrappy ruining my day, I'm changing it to Well-Baked Body for the sample submission cause I want players to actually have fun and playable match ups. Also I would've probably used as my regenvester if my OCD brain didn't disliked how the type overlapped more than once.
imma be real i have no idea how i climbed top 100 on ladder without a single "actually real" fire resist on the team, but sure why not make it a sample submission.
SFLO Hoopa Balance : ft. Scarf Gapdos ----- (click little guys for team)
short desc: all you do on this team is remove the generic core of , and obligatory regenvester (, , , , etc) by abusing (aggressive double switches & knock off from ) the absurd power of Nasty Plot SFLO & Nasty Plot BoR .
Then you clean up with . Admittedly this strategy is kinda hard if the regenvester is named but it's certainly playable. Also I forgot this isn't ho, you also have the defensive core of & & to switch into many attacks. (that is also weak to volcanion, but no one needs to know that)
ok i usually have fluffy on because im paranoid of Scrappy ruining my day, I'm changing it to Well-Baked Body for the sample submission cause I want players to actually have fun and playable match ups. Also I would've probably used as my regenvester if my OCD brain didn't disliked how the type overlapped more than once.
Some things:
-The team is pretty slow outside of gapdos and lacks immediate offensive pressure
-Adaptability is better on gapdos when not clicking uturn
-Hydreigon doesn’t beat unaware scream tail
252+ SpA Black Glasses Beads of Ruin Hydreigon Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Scream Tail: 199-235 (45.8 - 54.1%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
-Hoopa doesn’t come close to ohkoing muk
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Hoopa Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Muk-Alola: 259-305 (62.5 - 73.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-Hoopa gets outsped by iron treads with no speed investment
-scarf gapdos hits like wet tissue paper
-I think a special cleaner is better since the point of the team is to weaken all the special walls.
(Also i have seen this team before I rmb muk nickname)
252+ SpA Black Glasses Beads of Ruin Hydreigon Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Scream Tail: 199-235 (45.8 - 54.1%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
as I've said above ive changed to and imo i think i can afford to be slow on a team style like balance since im trying to remove slower bulky mons and I'm confident in my defensive core.
Brush the dust off your expired Gen 6, 7, and 8 AAA teams (or consider building new ones)...
There is a non-zero chance that signups go up after OMPL :]
That's a harder one to answer since it was a suspect test (i.e. people in the community laddered for reqs and voted on it based on their opinions). So, the best I can give you is the suspect test thread itself, which has discussion/arguments for both sides.
Thanks to everyone that pitched in to share their thoughts! We were able to collect over 70 responses this time around :]
This and the results of any voting slate posted within the next few days will definitely be the last before AAAPL. Any other tiering/survey (including whether or not we hold a 2AC suspect test) will depend on how SV AAA develops during the tour.
Anyway, moving on:
On average, metagame enjoyment is rated as 6.81. This is a slight drop from the last survey, which had an average of 6.84, but this can likely be attributed to the low outlier ratings (2 and 4) as well as the survey having more total respondents this time around.
On average, metagame competitiveness is rated as 6.62. Again, we see a slight drop since the last survey.
The next part of the survey had a section dedicated entirely to ability clause. It's no secret that a majority of the council (and some portion of the community) is in support of at least suspect testing a change to the current Single Ability Clause. Since a change of this magnitude would significantly alter the tier, a similarly impressive amount of support would be necessary to even consider a suspect test.
Here are those results:
The graphic isn't very helpful but I posted it just to be transparent. The breakdown is as follows:
> 78% of users rate SAC as "healthy".
> 14% of users rate SAC as "unhealthy".
> 8% of users were either unsure or chose neutral ground.
> 58% of users are interested in a suspect test of 2AC.
> 32% of users are NOT interested in a suspect test of 2AC.
> 10% of users are neutral/unsure.
> 21% of users are interested in a suspect test of NAC.
> 73% of users are NOT interested in a suspect test of NAC.
> 6% of users are neutral/unsure.
Almost 80% of respondents consider SAC to be healthy. Almost 60% of respondents are interested in at least suspect testing 2 ability clause. NAC seems to lack sufficient support for a test with over 70% of players expressing their disinterest.
Chien-Pao was rated at 3.41 on average. This means Chien-Pao is at minimum considered to be potentially unhealthy (leaning more towards unhealthy), so the council will internally discuss how best to proceed.
Galarian Zapdos was rated at 2.95 on average. This is still below the threshold for what could be deemed as action being necessary, but is still worth continuing to monitor.
Zamazenta-Crowned was rated at 3.52 on average. This means Zamazenta-Crowned is at minimum considered to be potentially unhealthy (leaning more towards unhealthy), so the council will internally discuss how best to proceed.
Triage was rated at 3.27 on average. This means Triage is at minimum considered to be potentially unhealthy, so the council will internally discuss how best to proceed.
Other notes:
> There were a few mentions in support of suspect testing Zamazenta-H into the tier.
> In terms of banned abilities, there were some mentions of retesting Poison Heal and Magic Bounce. Each of these totaled less than 10 responses, so it's unlikely that such action will be considered in the near future.
> Great Tusk and Gholdengo received 5 mentions each, which is notably less than in the last survey. Considering most of the council's position on them, honestly unlikely that either of them gets a suspect test until either another significant metagame change (e.g. ability clause changing or DLC).
> Gengar/Zoroark-H were mentioned with examples of RegenVest Meloetta and Alolan Muk as counterplay. It's unlikely that these will be retested soon simply because teams shouldn't require such a small pool of answers to handle them.
> Fluffy: This hasn't seen a ton of debate on the forums or even Discord, but several responses mentioned its similarities to Fur Coat as potentially problematic.
> Sword of Ruin/Beads of Ruin: There were a couple of responses looking to bring down the tier's power level a bit by banning some offensive abilities, and these were the two mentioned.
> Corviknight: ?
AAA is in an interesting place now where we actually have the ladder activity to opt for suspect tests rather than quickban votes for controversial elements. In practice, this means it might take more time to address these elements than in the past (since suspect tests take no less than 14-21 days, whereas a quickban decision either way can be wrapped in less than a day), but you can be assured that all of your feedback is being heard and addressed :] AAAPL HYPE
If you have thoughts about any of the survey results, please post them in this thread (even if you're also discussing in Discord)! I don't really want to sift through hundreds of messages just to find out that you "told [me] so".
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