AAA Almost Any Ability

[Uninteleon]

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

my thoughts:

Wouldn’t hurt the tier, but it wouldn’t be very healthy either. All of CB sets, Regen sets, Scrappy sets, and more may be a bit overwhelming for the tier in its (albeit very boring and stale) balanced state because this mon is very much just a ^2

No

No

Lol no

Maybe

Poison Heal: Fuck no

The hell????? NO

Maybe

Considering this is Without item lock, ability lock, or the steel typing, I think it’d be fair to say this would break the meta in a way wishes it could.

Depends, could definitely be balanced, however the guessing games and its sheer force may be too much for the tier.

Maybe (Likely no, tho)

 

[pannu]

12:30 am thoughts in bed on phone, sorry for bad formatting ill only discuss what I care abt

Tusk would be nice to add more options to the tier. I liked it when it was in the tier and frankly I think the meta has developed to the point where u won't mindlessly slap it on every team. Free my tusk

Zac seems cool, the meta can handle it between scarfers / physdef mons (heavy on intim and fluffy on mons like corv, quaq, etc when talking abt this). I think item lock and IS being bad is amazing here. Definetly give it a shot considering Zama is very, underwhelming.

Dnite should've never been banned, it wasn't broken whatsoever without access to shed tail support. Free him.

Pheal seems nice and can't hurt to try, it's broken abusers are mostly gone anyways

Wake and the ghosts seem nice, I'm on the fence abt sneasler, zama and Enam.


Also it wasn't mentioned but ban triage free bellydrummers etc etc won't beat that dead horse anymore, would also like a Pontential ban on rage fist discussed, if primate gains a niche cus of the move, maybe it's a tad bit overpowered.

At the end of the day, it's worth giving these guys a try, if they're broken you can just ban them again! Fuck Tera tho.

 

[Blitz]

TUSK BEING FREED

I can come back…

Also, Zac-C is MEGA overrated, it’ll be fine in this tier lol

 

[Kinetic]

maybe, i just think it's too centralizing in not a good way

dire claw is stupid

too hard to switch into + too fast

it'd probably be fine

maybe, would have to see how it does

should be suspected imo

didn't really play enough when these guys were around to have an opinion on them

 

[Hera]

enam, sneaseler, zoro-h, and zama should all stay banned. decently fast breakers with strong stabs, a bunch of coverage options, and niche techs to beat their best counters never end up being balanced. worst case scenario is they become "balacnced" but then end up overcentralizing the tier around them, which isn't fun.

idk why people are saying zac-c is overrated, that mon would be hella busted cause it kills literally everything after an sd + has no offensive counterplay barring scarfers that can rarely hit its weaknesses. if it somehow ended up being balanced it would probably centralize the tier around itself because only a dedicated core of phydef mons like fluffy hippo, intim qua, and whatever big wall we get with dlc will be able to handle it, and running those on every team sounds very unfun.

pheal was stupid when it was here and it would be stupid now. in a tier with 8 pp recover and prank haze being nonexistent suddenly every single bulky setup mon under the sun becomes busted, especially if you add dragonite back into the mix. like imagine bu quaq just boosting past all its counterplay and never dying, or anything that can beat scream spiraling out of control cause they never die. lol no thanks

that leaves tusk, ghold, wake, gar, and dnite, all of which i think should be given a chance. tusk may still end up being broken but it's been a while since it's been around and the meta has changed a lot, while taking up your regen slot is much more of a punishment now than back then. ghold has a hard counter now in sball melo and doesn't get to use scales and fur coat anymore to create stupid mindgames, and dlc seems like it will nerf it even further. wake is a lot more linear that the other breakers on the slate and suffers a lot from the rise of regenvesters in the tier; the same goes for gar. finally, dnite is the one i'm most iffy on cause not a lot has been added to make it balanced, but it's just that the general power level of the tier has risen which may make it harder for it to setup. if it doesn't end up being balanced then we just ban it after aaapl and move on.

also we're most likely gonna have to ban triage when dlc rolls around unless the fabled policy review post about drum ever exists.

 

[Don Vascus]

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

Add groudon, since you still think we're in april

Cmon, zacian? Really? When its terrible brother is a somewhat contentious pokemon?

 

[Blitz]

AAA COUNCIL EXCLUSIVE

And y’all scared of Zac-C?

 

[Greybaum]

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk
yeah this mon is fine imo especially if mons like gholdengo and dragonite are also freed
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
there are definitely sets that are already viable and can switch into this like volt absorb corv and a menagerie of fluffy sets (zapdos, volcarona, landorus-i,rotom-wash), and it has 4mss where it's going to struggle to hit all of heatran, skeledirge/ceruledge, corv, etc. but i'm against trialing zacian-crowned purely because of its limited offensive counterplay. 92/115/115 is really good bulk uninvested and i can't see this being anything short of overwhelming unless we maybe ban light clay to limit screens. it's faster than almost every mon and has enough natural bulk to trade really comfortably.
Enamorus
speaking of offensive counterplay, geez a lot of you guys are being exposed for your lack of creativity rn. people seem to think that regenvest is the only viable way of beating any attacker and it shows so much. this thing isn't that much faster than already near-unwallable magic guard/sheer force breakers (and slower than some like thundy) and has plenty of midground resists like cinderace, talonflame and iron treads than keep it in check comfortably, on top of the obvious hard-walls people overrate like ee skeledirge and wbb corviknight. trade damage. take advantage of it with your own breakers. do something except "find regenerator click uturn" and this mon will become so much easier to deal with i promise.
Sneasler
keep it banned imo. sword of ruin/adapt sets are insane for breaking and people are going to keep pretending serene grace is bad until their midgrounds get paralysed/slept and lose on the spot. serene grace cheese is the actual problem with this mon imo but it's compounded by the mon actually being a viable breaker outside of those sets.
Gholdengo
this is probably broken through sheer set variety but there are definitely enough mons that answer each one so i'm gonna say keep it free initially.
Walking Wake
initially i wanted this free but after going through the mons list yeah the tier doesn't really have enough answers to dragon/water coverage. both of its STABs are pretty spammable and i don't see much switching into both except for otherwise unviable specific-ct sets like water absorb fairies.
Poison Heal
protect stalling is degenerate especially w/ the recovery pp nerfs. potentially more broken than regenerator and more importantly nobody actually seems to like it being legal so freeing it would just waste time better spent tiering other things.
Zoroark-H
Gengar
i disagreed with both of these being banned in the first place, and we've only had more checks like meloetta drop since then. free them both.
Dragonite
might be broken because espeed is degenerate for removing offensive counterplay but it's also stonewalled pretty hard by a lot of common defensive mons (think corv, stail, ee tran etc.)
Zamazenta
this is an interesting one but it's also basically a souped up zamazenta-crowned which is a mon i already consider borderline broken. keep this banned for now and revisit it later when we have a better idea of how good zama-c is IMO. same for ice scales tbh!

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

i added my thoughts :)

 

[Giagantic]

Gholdengo is fine to release, it may eventually get banned again but at the same time it has stronger spdef mons to work through and thus I think it would be fun and who knows the metagame may be able to adapt to it this time, though the versatility regarding abilities will always remain. I know some will quote sets such as MGLO or maybe even more niche breaker sets but we already have some extremely potent breakers as is, so I don't think this changes much.

Zamazenta I thoroughly doubt will be balanced but I wouldn't be adverse to it being released initially so we can guage it beyond theorycrafting.

Great Tusk is centralizing indeed and doesn't easily die but I feel that it should definitely be released if only to re-access it within a new meta.

Zacian either form would be so broken... I don't see a scenario this doesn't basically break the back of the metagame similar to how Bane broke Batman. I compare this to the idea floated earlier to unban Xerneas (still stupid but slightly less so if Zacian-c is free) as both have overwhelming qualities that put them head and tail above anything else in the metagame even without the ability to change abilities. They are just built differently.

Unban the Ghosts, Zoroark-H and Gengar deserve another chance considering the greater preparation we have against specials.

Don't unban Poison Heal.

Unban Annhilape ban Rage Fist ;-;

May as well unban Sneasler, Enamorus, Dnite, and Walking Wake while at it, though I don't know how long they will remain it can't hurt much to reban them later.

 

[Tsar Nikolai]

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

- all good to be unbanned should fit in fine with the meta.

- I actually believe that it will get checked quite well with only a few minor adaptations from the meta, it will probably still be a very solid option but absolutly not without counterplay

- dire claw is just stupid please keep this thing banned

- should probably just remain banned id imagine it would run Dauntless Shield or Vessel of Ruin + lefties to be just overall a better mon than -sidenote there are (presumably) going to be more viable ghost types to wall body presses from Zamazenta and Zamazenta-C barring it is not Scrappy

- originally quickbanned before I had even tried it so I'm not quite certain how it would be, but Id imagine that it would get checked by the assortment of good regenvesters we have

- Poison Heal would probably need to have some specific counterplay similar to something like Triage Drain Punch

Overall I support the unbannings because of the wild and unpredictable shifts in the meta that we would see. While I'd imagine that some things will just have to be quickbanned, I do think that the meta will be able to adapt to most of the things that are on this slate here.

Some things that possibly should still be considered:

Fur Scales - its been talked about before I think now might be the time to try testing it again
Magic Bounce - I never thought it was ever that broken, would be great anti-hazard
Orichalcum Pulse - Maybe? might not be that bad?
Baxcalibur - depending on what gets released and then not quickbanned it shouldn't be that broken

 

[Gwanian]

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

I’m quite surprised at how many people are saying that Zac-c is going to be fine. This thing will force unaware, fluffy/unaware hippowdon, or fluffy-ironpress corv onto every team to check it reliably. There is not a single other check it can’t tech for or just beat outright (the next best check, fluffy lando t, will get 2hko’d by +3 ice fang and can’t ohko back reliably).

Besides corv, abundance of fluffy in the meta is not going to help in the slightest - even max-max fluffy zap is not a switch-in. Barring hax or back-to-back max rolls on heat wave, a +3 Zac-c will always win the 1v1.

Calcs

+3 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fluffy Zapdos: 163-192 (42.4 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

+5 252 Atk Zacian-Crowned Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fluffy Zapdos: 228-269 (59.3 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Zapdos Heat Wave vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 146-174 (42.3 - 50.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO
(80 hp is from speed creeping zama-h)

Zac-c just sds on the roost turn and wins the 1v1, even if you go for heat wave instead

Beyond fluffy zap, sub sd sets will beat most other mons trying to answer Zac-c passively, which is why ironpress is necessitated on fluffy corv. This mon forcing specific fluffy or unaware checks is a massive red flag.

 

[Hpdsd]

Thoughts:



I didn’t think this was broken when it was banned, just unhealthy due to how centralizing it was but with the new Home mons that beat this, and the stuff that are coming with the DLC I think this is perfectly balanced and should be unbanned.


Imao, I haven’t the idea what Tranquility was smoking when they suggested this but jokes aside this could be tested and I personally support testing it but if we unban this you need to choose between playing fat/stall or HO and prey your Zacc wins the speed tie. It’d be fun to try it out. Realistically this is getting QB’ed day 2.


I didn’t play the meta while this was legal but I know how good its Turtle form is and this is that but fast so keep this in AAAUbers.


As long as Dire Claw is legal this is the last thing on this list that should be unbanned. I don’t think an explanation is necessary here.


I want this unbanned because its such a versatile mon and an excellent glue but its simply too strong, it achieves these calcs while not dying to anything these can throw at it or in Muks case just OHKO it after SR.

2 Attacks NP Recover Gholdengo vs Special walls

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Beads of Ruin Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Muk-Alola: 331-391 (79.9 - 94.4%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Beads of Ruin Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 278-329 (68.8 - 81.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Beads of Ruin Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Goodra-Hisui: 165-196 (45.3 - 53.8%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after
Stealth Rock
Bliss wins if it has Calm Mind, if it doesn’t +6 MIR OHKO’es/2HKO VoR variants

I didn’t face or try Wake out either but I ran some calcs and this mon does a lot of damage but its also super predictable as every set that isn’t Primo can’t beat special walls at all and if you stumble in to Hoodra or Blissey you are playing a game 5v6 so I think its worth testing. Afterall its a slightly weaker but far faster Volcanion. This probably ends up being broken though.



PHeal is that funny ability that makes bulky set-up a little too good. I don’t think this should be freed if we don’t want to ban a bunch of mons but I don’t have a strong opinion on this.


Horoark is something I’d prefer staying banned as the standard SFLO set beats every Regenvester and it can run other stuff like BoR as well. It isn’t getting any hard counters out of the DLC either so


I think Geng should be unbanned though as Geng has a negative matchup against every RegenVester that was intruduced, making it a lot harder for it to break and with the new DLC drops it might end up being balanced.


I am uncertain about unbanning Dragonite, it is quite strong but isn’t strong enough to bypass defensive counterplay. If this was it it would be an easy unban but the issue with Dragonite is that Espeed makes offensive counterplay be flying resists that can kill it back which feels too restrictive while teambuilding so I think that this could be freed but probably shouldn’t be.


Zamazenta is incredibly overrated. People forget that this faces serious competition from Gapdos who hits harder, has a secondary STAB, U-Turn and actual resits and an immunity outside of Dark which makes Zamazenta’s higher bulk pretty much irrelevant. Its also really prediction reliant as nearly every team packs a mon that can stomach its CC pretty well. I guess it could be argued that CC is too strong in to offensive teams but good offensive fighting resists exist and a Zama locked in to Stone Edge or Psychic Fangs is free set-up for so many different things. IronPress is straight up outclassed by Zamac. I think this should have been unbanned with Home. And if someone says that it hits too hard I’m posting Chien-Pao and Gapdos calc walls to compare them to Zama. I can’t wrap my head around the hate against fast and decently strong mons.



Also to the people who say unban Ape, I don’t get why you want something that effects the meta in such a unhealthy way that even offensive monsters like Zacc, Baxcalibur and the Triage Drummers can’t replicate.



I don’t really think FurScales should be unbanned, if it were limited to defensive mons it would be awesome, alas bulky set-up exists and no one would like to deal with that.



Finally; screw Tera, I prefer not having random offensive threats changing types on my revenge killer or using Same Type Tera to brute force through stuff.

 

[Ren]

People who are gunning for unbanning Zacian-C are absolutely not considering the amount of damage it can do with any amount of support, that thing is a long-term mon if you want it to be.

 

[Gimmicky]

unbanning zac-c is a good idea because the aaapl replays will be hilarious to explain to anyone in a months time

 

[BandAI]

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

Maybe?, provides a spinner to AAA, BUT I worry that these super min-maxed defensive stats on a pokemon which already is a immediate threat unlike causes problems.

No opinion.

SFLO is still pretty strong, especially when you threat level isn't capped by your abysmal speed stat. I'd imagine its a pain in the ass to find switchins.

can consistently throw out of status, I'd imagine a move that can inflict sleep in a metagame where it bans sleep is pretty unfun to fight against.

blah blah insert calcs with MGLO/ SFLO whatever. It's never fun trying to guess what immunity ability it has since it can all viable run Bulletproof, WBB, EarthEater/Levitate. however, its annoying at best and is prolly fine.

I say at least suspect Mr. White. Goodra-h exists and balance is always gonna be popular as ever.

Pheal... We should probably test it at least, since it gives more defensive counterplay to a metagame famous for 600 different threats. The cheesy shit that you could is nerfed ALOT like spamming roost/recover etc to always win the exchange. The only thing untouched I guess is cheesing with sub protect...

& Cool ghosts, prolly fine.

I dunno? I'd imagine unaware just walls it (maybe?) But I can also see that CB aerilate e-speed is simply too strong.

I'd imagine it breaks AAA open with a plain and simple CB set with SoR?

 

[cat]

Great Tusk
personally, i never saw this mon as broken per say. it no longer monopolizes the regen slot as hard now with the popularity of regenvests and offensive regen which imo has a lot of potential, but no one is trying it out yet. offensive sets will still hit very hard but defensive zappy and qua wall it, will be an excellent cleaner nonetheless. utility sets will obviously be the best one especially with pheal, which ill talk more about later.

Zacian-Crowned
im not sure why people think zacc is fine. it is still a zacc. it fits very well on HO with its traits of arguably best typing, good bulk, speed and attack, good coverage and access to SD. you can reasonably run ada which gets outsped by chien, skewda, helec and leki, all of which do not like the prospect of sacking themselves for relatively minor chip, especially on screens where it will be a mainstay. ada allows you to have good odds to 2hko fluffy zappy with pr while also destroying defensive quav, wild charge removes corv, behemoth hits everything. under screens you can just run sd / sub / stabs and just click buttons to win. this mon realistically has no counterplay apart from unaware hippowdon which is unaware hippo.

Enamorus
Sneasler
i dont really have a lot to say about these mons. i dont see that many returning checks based on speculation and the meta doesnt feel as prepared as it for them again.

Gholdengo
gholdengo still has insane breaking power, versatility and a tinge of unpredictability. MGLO will always hit hard and just needs to slot in focus blast last for the bad hoodra, defensive NP sets are splashable and hit hard, choiced is cool. its still relatively slow meaning it gets outoffensed pretty quickly though. i dont really see it as broken apart from when you have to do some bad mindgames.

Walking Wake
wake is an interesting one. its like hydreigon, but without np and thus has to run specs, coverage to smack the stuff it needs to like regenvesters while being faster, bulkier and has a better defensive typing. it probably cant afford to go modest meaning its dracos dont hit as hard as hydrei's. there should be sufficient defensive cplay to it, looks fine to free imo.

Poison Heal
PH is still PH. it will enable stuff like tusk, garchomp, etc. maybe we find a way to break primeape with it tho :o. personally i think its worth a shot and we can just nuke tusk anyways.

Zoroark-H
Hizo lacks any and every form of defensive counterplay. nothing has changed for it, it will still run the normal sflo / mglos sets. sflo preys on regenvest by 2hkoing all of them with either body slam or focus blast. yes, there is offensive cplay to it like tinted slither, the returning aerilate dragonite, faster threats like meow, gren but those require a safe switch-in otherwise they risk getting ohkoed by a predict. slow pivots sound like a good idea at first but they get chipped by slam in melo's case and shadow ball renders corv, quaqua useless. this isnt really a mon worth freeing imo. and thats not considering how MGLO slowly but surely wears down its checks and becomes a pain to deal with.

Gengar
gengar isnt too far off from hizo but it is a one trick pony with a straightforward special set (barring ice punch or whatever). this has more defensive counterplay however and is probably worth freeing?

Dragonite
dragonite is still dragonite. you could make the argument that "oh dnite keeps hizo, sneasler, etc in check!" but broken beats broken is not a good statement at all. this thing still shreds through offense and can fit whatever coverage it wants in its 4 move. eq, low kick, ice beam, tbolt, you name it, if it beats something that otherwise walls dnite, it probably works. the same arguments from its suspect can probably be repeated here again.

Zamazenta
i dont see how zama is overrated. sure, lack of bb and 5 less attack compared to gappy, but it gets an incredible speed tier, new coverage and bulk that allows it to live hits while uninvested. have fun switching into cc with corv when ive done even the smallest chip on it and i get my good odds of 2hkoing you. zappy? stone edge. slam melts fairies while crunch removes ghosts. it is still a zama-h at the end of the day.

 

[Siamato]

I) Team sharing

Well, even though not being really active here anymore and even on Smogon and PS, I played a fair amount of games in the post-home metagame. A few month ago I had some time so I decided to enter the AAA SSNL to get the chance to play some friends. It was not so great cuz I lost a coinflip R1 making me play so many games (perhaps twice the game Career Ended played?) that was annoying because I didn't have any time for this with summer job and my new job starting at the end of August. I think people realized I had no time for this and did the least in terms of prep so it was perhaps not fun to see me bring the same teams again and again... I apologize for viewers but this is not my will.
I still did my very best in my game against Atha because I respect it as a player and a friend (even though he's washed and says non sense smh) but the ending was not what I was looking for. Already talked about this to him but I should also kind of apologize to Career Ended for our final I didn't really prep for and play kinda hastily. Unfortunately I had no time for this and could have just dropped out especially considering Kris wasn't particularly understanding about our issues to get the game done considering our irl priorities while trying. But by respect for Career who deserved to play this final and for who winning by forfeit would def not have the same flavor, I still really tried to get the game done and we made it.
Congratulations again to Career Ended for winning the AAA SSNL! Sorry it couldn't be better because I just wanted this tour to end and go to sleep lol.

Anw, now that this is said, something I'm still proud about and from which I do not deviate is using only my teams. And here we go:


THE Gzap Tspikes support BO

One of my first build post-home and perhaps one of my best team. You all know about this team now. The idea is to put a tremendous pressure on Corv with Gzap, Tbolt Melo, Chien-Pao and Flamethrower Chomp so it ends up being overwhelmed. This team is quite solid and really cool to play because you have a way to deal with pretty much anything (Fluffy Zap became quite popular recently and I recognize it's annoying). You're often quite in control because you get a lot of momentum and Tdebris Garchomp acts as a momentum controller preventing the opponent to enter anything after a U-Turn due to the Tspikes. Really cool team to play even though it aged a bit. I spammed it during the SSNL until SammyCe123 beat it with a CT making me stop recycling.


THE Gsurge Muk-A Volt-turn spam BO

The second team I played the most during the tour. We will come back on that later on but yeah, I always believed there was something to do with Gsurge. I had this funny idea of trying it with Muk-A because it doesn't really mind losing a moveslot for Protect (but it minds not getting the bulk of Regenvest). The basic idea was to use Gsurge Muk-A as a SpD mon to free the Regenslot for something that could abuse it differently, Mew. It's a mon that dissapeared a bit this gen because of the SAC and because it lost many tools anw but I believe it could still do the job with the Scarf utility set. I put H-trode which is really good with Gsurge support being able to 2HKO max SpD Chomp or OHKO Treads for instance. Treads likes quite a lot Gterrain recovery and is the Fire and Elec immunity I needed while getting all the stuff you want with Knock and Spin. No Vswitch kinda sucks but I wanted SR... Not sure what's the best tbh. Slither pairs well with Htrode and I love this bug. Then Intimidate Moltres might feel weird but I didn't want to add Corv making the Fire MU really solely handled by Treads which is not great. I also wanted some real Ground and Fighting resist that also don't instantly lose to Chien-Pao... Not like I have many options lol.
Overall the team is cool but the Water MU really sucks and especially Volcanion or offensive Quaquaval one (I don't mind Intel cuz Hoodra made this mon not so great and dropped in usage). This easiest way to fix that it to go Dland Moltres but then you alsmost outright lose to Chien-Pao considering Intimi Moltres is already not so good. Ironically I played several Quaqua with this team but my opponents never managed to make it work correctly.


Some standard Sticky HO

Everything is in the name really lol. Ceru Dland prevents Quaqua from spinning and forces 50/50 against Treads to keep the Sticky (Treads is slower and dies to pretty much any mon so it can't really spin). Quaqua is really good in Sticky and offers Rapid Spin support. I chose Encore over SD at a point where people still spammed Unaware Stail without thinking but SD would prob be better (even though Encore can save you from difficult situation and is generally unexpected). The dog because dog. MB Chomp is something I took from Osake but SoR might be better especially with the fall of Stail recently. ThunduT is the only but necessary special sweeper of the team.

vs Pociekmociek


Volcanion BO

First team I built after I decided to stop spamming the same 2,5 ones. Just wanted to try Volcanion myself cuz it's so heat. I remember I wanted to diversify the mon I was used to use for not getting a chance to be counter-teamed. I chose Fluffy Zap that just started to become popular because I found myself quite weak to ZapG usually and because the mon looked fine with Volcanion. Iron Treads because I need the utility it provides and I didn't want to play either Corv or Quaqua there. Still no Vswitch but rocks which is something I don't like but I hate even more going with no hazard especially with a team that will end up being weak to Chien-Pao. At least Corv trying to Defog is an open door for Volcanion and this is good. Goodra over Hoodra because I didn't want to stack Steel and because getting this Fire resist is good (not losing to Volcanion). Enam made sense a lot to me being a Fairy preventing Specs Hydrei to just click DM and pick against my team and kinda alleviate some pressure on Zapdos thanks to its bulk and resists. Because I didn't see any Stail in my opponent teams I decided to go double dance and was pretty sure this mon will autowin (it autowon after a single play). This is another tool to not autolose against Chien-Pao and I remember having many internal conflict about choosing LO to OHKO Pao for sure or going Lefto in game I encountered a Chien-Pao and didn't get that roll so EnamT died and Pao not. I still managed to win because I had SR. Hydreigon is the last, not particularly good but I just remembered wanting a "real" speed control that provides momentum. Other things would have worked ig and perhaps I had a true reason to go Hydrei but forgot it.

vs SammyCe123


HK9 BO

We stay on the same line: diversify my teams and become quite unpredictable so I can maybe try to recycle again but my opponent will not be able to know which team I'm gonna bring and get a good MU. I wanted to try HK9 at some point and when I saw Sammy play quite a lot Corv or Fluffy Zap without too many Chomper, I decided it was time. The LandoT Fluffy + Hoodra core looked quite nice because LandoT U-Turn on some stuff HK9 like to switch into (Corv and Fluffy Zap). Finally decided to fix my recent Chien-Pao weaknes by going Intimi Quaqua. EnamT provided again some speed control and a great wincon while still providing some defensive utility. Scarf Rotom-W Hadron is the last because I wanted another way to burn Chomp or just to lure in RegenVester for HK9 to enter the field. Cool team tbh but HK9 is hard to put in work without the right MU tbh. The ascent of Intimi Quaqua doesn't help it. In-game Sammy brought both Corv and Fluffy Zap so that was just perfect lol.

Gaming vs atha


The insane HO

I remembered Career Ended beating our ass with a Beat Up Techni Sash Weavile lead a while ago and decided to bring the tech myself. Aerial Ace felt so fun to lure Quaqua (it doesn't kill Intimidate one at +1 rip) and make it unable to check Drednaw anymore. Quaqua was MGLO initially but I wanted MG more on Drednaw so I changed it to Psea Mystical Water double Dance that I believe could still works and perhaps even better. EnamT my beloved and dog stapples shit on offensive playstyle. Then another hot tech with Protosynthesis (s/o Osake) Lando-I that I think could be an emergency revenge killer and surprise atha. In-game it was really tense but every tech managed to put in work and I got it.


Roaring Moon Band BO-Offense

It's been a long time since I played Strong Jaw Band Roaring Moon so just decided to go with it. Treads is the perfect partner being able to remove Corv's RH and chip it with Vswitch to put it in range of 2 Crunch of Roaring. Meloetta because I really wanted a dynamic team. Lando-I is perhaps better than LandoT thanks to mixed coverage. Then Htrode cuz Volt-turn speed control yk now. And finally Quaqua even though I already have a spinner because Chien-Pao and I'm fine with double removal. Full pivot team that prob loses to any sort of setup HO but really good against some balanced-like playstyle.
In-game I got a so called "perfect MU" where Atha couldn't do anything even though he tried his best to outplay. It was a disappointing win but so is AAA sometimes.


Stail Regen Screens HO

Double immu Balanced

Teams I had for g3. The first is a variant of what Career brought against him last round with Taunt Rock Slide Jolly Ches in case of no speed Fluffy Zap or Fluffy ID Corv.
Last is a bulkier team based on WA Garganacl + EE Skel I thought could be fun and surprising.

Final vs Career


Gsurge Volt-Turn BO

I thought to a core that might be cool to try, Gsurge Rotom-Wash and Tinkaton. Both are mon I like a lot and because Rotom-Wash runs Protect anw, Gsurge seemed fine especially to stay on Ground users without needing Regen to stay alive. Slither is another mon I love and it pairs just extremely well with Rotom-Wash luring things like RegenVest Hoodra/Melo. Then I added the Mesprit tech of the new star of SV AAA, ojr the goat. It's some really basic Fsight + Fighting which is a difficult combination to switch into. Then Corv because Corv lol (Fluffy because I thought it was fine with both Rotom-Wash and Tink somehow dealing with Pao... haha). And finally again Htrode to abuse Gterrain and provide the team some great speed control outside from Slither not-so-reliable priority.
In-game I was up against Skel that wasn't great and I regretted a lot to not be Scrappy Slither that was just autowinning the game (everytime I play Adapt Slither I'm up against Skel and when I try Scrappy ofc I run into Fluffy Zap lol). Still I managed but got hasty entering Htrode that was a really nice wincon there on Garg and dying from Ice Punch (could have been Body Press and still kill tbh). Then I made something that can be viewed as another mistake by assuming Career will not risk to lose Chien-Pao against Rotom-Wash and decided to double on Mesprit to catch a switch on Chomp or Skel. Unfortunately Career's Chien-Pao was Adamant and got a roll to kill Rotom-Wash and he decided to try getting it. I lost Mesprit that was my last chance to win. Should have just Protected and switch next turn prob but I didn't realize it was Adamant so I didn't want to let him get the momentum by clicking Protect.

g2 I recycled the HK9 team and got caught off guard by the double Scarf while being in a good position after Career made a really bad play staying with Hoodra against Quaquaval earlier on.

Enjoy to perhaps get some inspiration for your next team post DLC!

II) Thoughts on the metagame

I didn't like home meta at the beginning but unlike some people that were left with this first impression, I tried again and started to really enjoyed it. Meta felt diversified and dynamic allowing BO to work quite well and that's what I like. Builder didn't feel to constrained even though I was really annoyed sometimes to see a fine team was just losing to Chien-Pao and sometimes to fishy shield dog. Unlike pre-home I think it's almost impossible to say that we lack defensive options now with the rise of new Regenvesters (Hoodra, Meloetta, Muk-A and even Garchomp coming back), new Fluffy user (Zapdos and Landorus mainly), new Intimidate user (defensive Quaqua really rised to the top) and immunity users.

All of these led me to think we did a great tiering by removing a lot of fishy uncompetitive elements like Dragonite, Hariyama or Ursaluna freeing the builder from the pink ball that was just not fun to use. Overall it's still a complete utopia to believe you can cover everything defensively which is true in any metagame but especially in AAA with all this diversity. However it feels we can take into account most of the metagame with a large panel of available options and still manage to deal with others with offensive means.

So to conclude, the post home meta felt good, diversified and competitive and I liked it. I know some found it redundant with the Regenvest + Intimidate + Fluffy + speed control + breaker + filler structure that was quite popular but in any metagame things become redundant at some point where the metagame is well developped. Even though such structure is good and popular, you still have diversity within by changing mons and cores. That's also definitely not the only structure available able to work consistently. So yeah I don't really know why but people seem to get quickly bored whenever the metagame "stagnates". Personally I enjoyed still trying to find new things, playing new cores I didn't try, etc all in a competitive and balanced atmosphere.

Speaking of a thing I tried, it deserves a special mention:

Grassy Surge

This is ofc the main innovation I tried to put in work in AAA. I always believed Gsurge might be viable but kinda hard to use because it doesn't provide sheer bulk we often need to handle insane breakers we have in AAA. However the Grassy Terrain is more than just 12% recovery (including Lefto) per turn. What makes it decent is the ability to support other mons meaning it's an ability "shared" by your mons (but also by the opponent's ones). The idea is then to build a structure that benefits a lot from Gterrain support either by the healing it provides either by both healing and halving of EQ damages. Many mon can benefit a lot from Gterrain while not being the user like Tinkaton, Rotom-Wash, Hoodra, Volcanion, Ceruledge (no longer die to any EQ), Muk-A, Dland Skel or Heatran. Even offensively it's interesting to boost Chloroblast from Htrode and Flower Trick from Meowscarada.
Perhaps I convinced some people to try it like you guys might have seen during AAAPL. Ofc, not saying Gsurge is great and should absolutely by played but I think the ability def have a niche even though it's not easy to build around and has drawacks.

III) Incoming changes

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

I don't know why people are so "free/unban happy" and question months of development that easily even though we ended up doing things right by achieving a balanced and competitive metagame with a great degree of diversity. Is the metagame so bad we have to question every choices that have been made, often, by the community itself through voting? I understand DLC I is going to be an important change but doesn't look bigger than home tbh and we didn't question every actions that have been taken till the begin with home release. It made the tiering easier and allowed to reach a great state earlier.

Now about my thoughts:

Zacian-Crowned, Enam-I, Sneasler should absolutely stay banned. Those mons are extremely restrictive and just broken really. And ofc I'm not interested in living in a metagame where Fluffy is absolutely necessary otherwise you lose to some stupid dog under screens. Poison Heal should also stay banned cuz we still don't have the tools to make it fine-ish (everyday we remember how strong PH were by watching SM and ORAS AAA games lol). The idea to get PH free will be to try freeing Ngas but apparently it "breaks the concept of the metagame" so :shrug:

There is some new counterplay to Dragonite but the mon itself will not really by more healthy tbh. It's a deadly threat for any offensively oriented teams while doing nothing against the right combination of wall. This is just an unbalanced mon in the sense it's extremely polarised between doing too much or doing almost nothing. This is never healthy to have something like that in the metagame cuz you have to take into account otherwise you may just lose (restrictive) but at the same time might be forgotten cuz not necessarily good generally speaking.
And just look back, was the metagame better with Dnite or without?
I leave it to everyone to answer but overall I firmly disagree again with the mind set of "banning things only and only if they are really broken and we can't do something else". This is detrimental for the health of the metagame by letting many borderline elements in the metagame constraining the builder and leading to an exacerbated uncompetitiveness and centralisation.

Dnite should've never been banned, it wasn't broken whatsoever without access to shed tail support. Free him.

This is how democracy works buddy. "shouldn't have been banned" is only what you think but more people estimated the contrary. Between you and Greybaum (below) it's surprising to see how people think to be right and have something to say about a suspect test that didn't end the way the wanted. Just learn to respect the outcome of a suspect test (and that's not some ND-tera like situation lol). No one's the wiser.

Walking Wake was completely dumb when released because our Regenvesters were all Dragons (bar Tinkaton maybe) and some other tools we had specially defensively speaking were Iron Moth (dies to BoR DM for sure) and SS Garga (dies from Water move + is bad nowadays). Now we have new Regenvesters that deal better with this shit and perhaps new counterplay with redacted Empoleon returning. Is that enough to unban it? I don't know. I don't like the idea to let such thing forcing even more some RegenVest freed in nature. Also let's remind unlike many other insane special breakers, this one is really fast and had one of the best coverage in game.

About Gengar and H-Zoro now. Let's quote a funny phrase first.

i disagreed with both of these being banned in the first place, and we've only had more checks like meloetta drop since then. free them both.

Yeah... Meloetta the famous SI to H-Zoro. I just learnt Meloetta don't mind taking Knock + U-Turn from MGLO or Body Slam from SFLO one. Funny to see how people talk without knowing anything tbh.

Anw, considering the counterplay we got with home, I can see Gengar being freed, the big 3 RegenVest gang (Hoodra Melo Muk-A) is a relevant counterplay to Gengar that give much more options that what we had previously. Also RegenVest Chomp and Lando works decently.
However H-Zoro is not on the same boat this time. This had insane diversity and just got better now people really rely a lot on RegenVesters by its ability to knock the AV. SFLO Body Slam breaks both Muk-A and Melo as I said unless you run a lot of def which is ofc restricting.

About Zamazenta, why not. Not saying it's fine or anything but unlike others, we never gave it a chance. That's why I'm open to see and then ban it if we realize it's indeed too much for the metagame.

Great Tusk is a tricky question but yeah, might be fine? If we assume Regen set will be much harder to use cuz you want your Regenslot for something else that's much better? idk. It just means people are going to run more offensive sets that are not particularly healthy. Anw Tusk will again be a corner stone if it comes back. Don't really like that it terms of diversity cuz Tusk just kills so many things that had a niche because Tusk didn't exist but, at the same time, it's prob not a reason for it to be banned either right? The point will be to know how centralizing it's gonna be and if setup sets combined to Band ones will be too annoying to deal with (I'm not hearing every argument based on FluFFy CorV IrON DefEnSe and FlUfFY ZaPdOS because finding something that beat a mon shouldn't be a reason for it to stay). You can reastically find a counter to pretty much everything so it's not what matters. What matters is how many ways we have to deal with this (diversity of counterplay), what's the cost of running them (restrictiveness) and how competitive is it (competitiveness).

Finally, Gholdengo. This one is probably the trickiest one. On one hand it provides some great defensive utility with a lot of compression but on the other it centralizes the metagame a lot around a unhealthy guessing game. Overall, we can do without Gholdengo, we don't "need it". Tiering and balancing is about banning stuff the metagame can't handle correctly or unhealthy for it, not unbanning unhealthy/brokens things to deal with some other ones. If the only reason for some things to stay is Ghold which is itself really borderline, then they should prob both go.

ghold has a hard counter now in sball melo

I keep learning things here lol. First Melo checks Ghold only and only if it runs Shadow Ball which is already restrictive considering the move is somehow useful only against Ghold making Melo worst against anything else that testifies to a strong impact on the meta restricting what's viable or not. And then:

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Gholdengo Steel Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 243-289 (60.1 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Metal Coat Steelworker Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 289-342 (71.5 - 84.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Gholdengo Make It Rain over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 270-320 (66.8 - 79.2%) -- not a KO

Not really what I call a hard counter tbh. Note that Sball might not 2HKO so some TW Gholdengo can try some yellow magic moment without much to lose to break through Meloetta. And let's say Bulletproof Ghold doesn't exist anymore... right?

So yeah I don't think Gholdengo should come back and still constitutes a unhealthy presence because even the "new counterplay" fails to answer this or that set making Ghold MU playing a big role.

About those 2, I think the metagame became much more interesting when we stopped spamming CorvGholdTusk with insane usage and then adding fillers. It was much more healthy and fun to not play guessing game or randomly lose to some offensive Tusk and opened the builder way more by allowing many things to shine and stuff to get banned.

Oh btw can we finally ban BD now that we get 2 new DrumTriage abusers (Kommo-O Poliwrath)? Yeah yeah banning Triage is the way I know... this way we could try Proto Booster BD, Surge Surfer BD or new ones to continue the fish forever! Triage is usually fine in any situation but BD but yeah this is what's going to be targeted even though it's more harmful for the metagame... at least we can keep using BD Marill let's goooo!!

Quoting some random bad AAA player you may know:

One direction is "the rules are the rules because they are the rules", the other is "the rules have a purpose and when they don't fulfill the purpose we change them"

I hope this is really one of my last post in this thread and perhaps the last one because I don't have time to play anymore. Will still try to support a bit Charizzards for AAAPL even though they absolutely don't need my help cuz they're so broken lmao. See you in another life or in a Camomons maybe so in another life anw cuz it's been killed.
Cheers

 

[Atha]

 

[Greybaum]

And just look back, was the metagame better with Dnite or without?

with

I leave it to everyone to answer but overall I firmly disagree again with the mind set of "banning things only and only if they are really broken and we can't do something else". This is detrimental for the health of the metagame by letting many borderline elements in the metagame constraining the builder and ledding to an exacerbated uncompetitiveness and centralisation.

but have you considered that banning everything you find annoying is not only subjective, impractical (aaa is primarily made up of borderline broken sets), and prevents players from being forced to adapt and evolve the metagame, thus resulting in tier stagnation? too many things have been banned because people just want to spam the same 3 mons on every team.

centralisation is also a good thing and i'm tired of pretending it's not.

This is how democracy works buddy. "shouldn't have been banned" is only what you think but more people estimated the contrary. Between you and Greybaum (below) it's surprising to see how people think to be right and have something to say about a suspect test that didn't end the way the wanted. Just learn to respect the outcome of a suspect test (and that's not some ND-tera like situation lol). No one's the wiser.

brother we're not pretending the suspect didn't happen nor are we blaming council. just because the suspect ended with a ban result doesn't mean we have to respect the outcome. i also have no idea why you're bringing up the natdex suspect when the only criticism anyone's been able to bring against it has been "a lot of chinese people voted"...

Yeah... Meloetta the famous SI to H-Zoro. I just learnt Meloetta don't mind taking Knock + U-Turn from MGLO or Body Slam from SFLO one. Funny to see how people talk without knowing anything tbh.

you're being mighty condescending for a guy who think it's free to click knock off with a mon that has a 55/60/60 defensive statline. yeah ok you can do 80% to a meloetta before it switches out back to 50%, good for you, but it's still deterring horoark from clicking its only good move. i direct you to my later statement: "trade damage. take advantage of it with your own breakers. do something except "find regenerator click uturn" and this mon will become so much easier to deal with i promise."

this all applies to your goofy body slam set as well. it's not 2HKOing meloetta in the first place unless you're dropping your spatk investment and even then you still have to get multiple turns right. that's not broken. it's like you're sitting there putting the round peg in the round hole and refusing to acknowledge that there are other ways you can play the game; it fits in the square hole too buddy.

I keep learning things here lol. First Melo checks Ghold only and only if it runs Shadow Ball which is already restrictive considering the move is somehow useful only against Ghold making Melo worst against anything else that testifies to a strong impact on the meta restricting what's viable or not. And then:

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Gholdengo Steel Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 243-289 (60.1 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Metal Coat Steelworker Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 289-342 (71.5 - 84.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Gholdengo Make It Rain over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 270-320 (66.8 - 79.2%) -- not a KO

i don't understand how multiple people now have posted a +2 gholdengo, using gigachad abilities like beads of ruin and steelworker - which, let's be real, were rarely even used over far more cheesy abilities like levitate and wbb - and think "you can click nasty plot and fail to kill a regenerator assault vest mon. this shows it's broken". great job doing 80% to that meloetta, too bad it's now at 50% and you're facing down literally any breaker faster than base 84 speed which has been given free entry onto the field. how many times do you have to give your opponent a free nasty plot with their... metal coat steelworker gholdengo... before it becomes your fault?

About those 2, I think the metagame became much more interesting when we stopped spamming CorvGholdTusk with insane usage and then adding fillers. It was much more healthy and fun to not play guessing game or randomly lose to some offensive Tusk and opened the builder way more by allowing many things to shine and stuff to get banned.

you mean when we started spamming CorvStailChomp?
i don't like calling people out but this isn't the meta being stale this is people being uncreative builders. that core stopped being good as soon as ompl started because people realised "oh hey this actually loses to a bunch of stuff" and started bringing the stuff in question. people will spam regentusk for a while and then have to switch up their core when it becomes a liability. or they'll complain until it's banned again.

Oh btw can we finally ban BD now that we get 2 new DrumTriage abusers (Kommo-O Poliwrath)?

no. get back inside your barrel, diogenes.

 

[Gimmicky]

Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

I've done a lot of complaining on Smogcord and OMcord, but never collected my thoughts in one place yet.

the thing about great tusk is that it probably wont be broken. it'll probably be fine. but is the tier really a better place with something like tusk legal? tusk is too versatile and too stale at the same time. the novelty of having a ground type spinner that isn't also a steel type will wear off fast and we're gonna realize that seeing regen tusk on almost every team and some other variant of it on the other teams hasn't improved the meta at all.

the dog might not have an ability. it's still a damn zacian-crowned. swords dance sets will basically demand fluffy zapdos AND a secondary check on any team that doesn't want to lose to screens, 4 attacks will be a deadly revenge killer that destroys opposing offense, and imprison mindgames are infuriating. Yes, there's answers and counterplay to it. It's still Zacian-Crowned..

we aren't getting the tools necessary to handle this.

sneasler should not be freed under any circumstances. serene grace dire claw isn't the main problem and never has been, sneasler is just too fast and too strong with SoR, Tough Claws, etc.

hera worded my thoughts well

pheal was stupid when it was here and it would be stupid now. in a tier with 8 pp recover and prank haze being nonexistent suddenly every single bulky setup mon under the sun becomes busted, especially if you add dragonite back into the mix. like imagine bu quaq just boosting past all its counterplay and never dying, or anything that can beat scream spiraling out of control cause they never die. lol no thanks

read siamotos essay, don't free this

is just a weaker, faster hydreigon honestly. we have regenvesters now that don't immediately drop dead to it, and its coverage, while good, isn't going to be anything special. Wake will help enable serious weather teams, which I think will actually be a beneficial change to the metagame, diversifying the often stale Bulky Offense teams that dominate the tier right now. we can free wake

don't free this, sflo and mglo are both overbearing on their own, and this isn't taking into account the other viable sets that take advantage of the usual counters. Meloetta and Alolan Muk really don't want to take a SFLO Body Slam. we don't have tools for this.

yeah this will be fine, it's zoroark-h but if it was actually reasonable. ice punch isn't a real move, our regenvesters deal with this well enough.

nat worded my thoughts well

dragonite is still dragonite. you could make the argument that "oh dnite keeps hizo, sneasler, etc in check!" but broken beats broken is not a good statement at all. this thing still shreds through offense and can fit whatever coverage it wants in its 4 move. eq, low kick, ice beam, tbolt, you name it, if it beats something that otherwise walls dnite, it probably works. the same arguments from its suspect can probably be repeated here again.

No? why are we even considering this. this is Sneasler with an even better speed tier and no dire claw shenanigans. very few things consistently switch into SoR, PHeal is bulky enough to use Howl effectively, WBB is a terrifying physical tank, and this isn't taking into account niche options like ScarfRegen, Tinted Lens, Mold Breaker, MGLO, etc. Zama shouldn't be let anywhere near the tier for that alone.

This isn't the biggest issue with Zamazenta. The biggest issue with Zama is that it shares a slot with , who plays completely differently. Until your opponent reveals their Zamazenta set, you have to play like they have both. Both of these mons are terrifying as is, but the fact that you, for a significant part of the battle, have to play as if you're fighting both of them, makes it unreasonable. Zamazenta-Crowned is fine as-is, but when it's allowed to share a slot with , it becomes way too much to reasonably handle in both builder and in-battle

 

[Career Ended]

Howdy
Giving my thoughts cause there seems to be a lot of traction towards unbanning a bunch of stuff.

unban ! keep banned ! on the fence = keep banned until we can make a more informed decision.

Hi guys, it's been a while

The council has been voting (and debating with gnashing of teeth) on what to unban with DLC 1 next week (September 13th).
Here's the list of candidates so far:
Great Tusk

The most obvious one right? Gives the tier more reliable removal. Though the last time it was allowed it was very centralizing, perhaps it could stay this time. I do think the setup sets have the potential to still be too strong, regen in the long run or stuff like armor tail against offense. Would have to see the potential move tutors coming, but this one would probably be alright to just reintroduce and monitor carefully.

Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)

Surprised I even have to talk about this one. I'm fairly certain the council will just vote to keep it banned so won't waste my time. It's too good at trading, 4 attacks or SD, its too fast, would just be dumb.

Enamorus

This one is kind of interesting, but ultimately I think its too fast and too strong. Has too great of coverage options to check defensively and offensive counterplay is kind of limited. I think I'd prefer to just keep it banned with maybe a resuspect at some point if we really think the meta is prepared to deal with it, (like if we got an influx of a trio viable poison types, potentially).

Sneasler

Completely unsalvageable IMO. Dire claw, SD, Switcheroo, good stabs and coverage, this thing really has some too tools that make it far too strong. Couldn't imagine how insane it would be to deal with this if the DLC gave it toxic to enable corrosion sets as well.

Gholdengo
Yea this one I have some doubts about. Set variety is the name of the game here. I still think the offensive sets have too limited of counterplay honestly. MG, beads, adapt and steelworker are still incredibly strong breakers when enabled by specs or nasty plot. This is just enhanced when you factor in the defensive sets like WBB, earth eater, bulletproof, or purifying salt. Your hard counter regenvest melo or hoodra looks mighty silly when its just taken a boosted stab move and the ghold takes 0 from a shadow ball or gets a +2 defense boost. probably best to keep this one banned.

Walking Wake

Yea sorry gonna be a no on this one as well. Still no ferrothorn, no tapu fini. I see some people saying that Hoodra checks this? Draco meteor outdamages Regen by like 10% and this thing just has no switchins on offense. Water absorb Fairies are way too niche and would just be centralized towards checking this thing. Maybe in a ferrothorn or fini drop we can talk about it, but for now its just too dumb.

Poison Heal

12% recovery per turn + status immunity is absurd, this is never going to be balanced when all of the ability removal options we have are too niche. I really don't see how anything has changed since this was banned.

Zoroark-H

Seeing a lot of Pro Horuark arguments and I think Siamato kind of hit the nail on the head. Beads, MGLO, SFLO are all incredibly strong and this thing has a lot of different utility it can use to bypass its checks. Wisp, Knock, NP, SD, CM, Trick, U-turn, priority in Sneak, decent stab coverage and the ability to go Mixed with decent stabs on both spectrums. Now imagine if this thing gets poltergeist... yea sorry no chance.

Gengar

As much as I was for giving this guy another chance, the more I think about it, the more on the side of it staying gone. SFLO is still probably dumb, but its in the same vein as a Thundurus (Albeit with a much more spammable stab combo). NP +2 SFLO still has a 12% chance to OHKO Hoodra and It's hard to find sball switch ins in the current meta. Meloetta is a good check but there are ways gengar can punish relying solely on it. Normalize skill swap, Destiny Bond, Sub disable, Encore, Wisp, Toxic spikes? Not to mention the coverage like dazzling gleam or icy wind. I've talked myself out on this guy, nope.

Dragonite

Aerilate Extremespeed is just really, really strong. People are saying this gen 1 pokemon doesn't have the ability to bypass its checks? Corv can get hit by any of the elemental punchs on a DD set or just get nuked by a life orb thunder or fire blast. Armor tail great tusk? hurricaned on lol bop. EQ any kind of coverage you like. Not to mention roost and encore. It's really only unaware scream tail, which sure is still a great set, but do you really want to go back to needing that pokemon on nearly every team? Still a no from me chief.
Zamazenta

Giving this guy an ability would be dumb. IHowl SoR is faster then the whole meta and just crushes everything outside of Fluffy mons. I really don't see it as much worse than base Zacian.

Thoughts? I won't show the votes yet since voting won't be over until probably sometime this weekend, but personally I'm voting to unban everything because I'm interested in trying out a new slate (even if it's only temporarily with DLC 2 coming 2-3 months after) and trying to balance from scratch--especially with all of the changes we'll have gotten from Home and DLC combined.

So all in all, I'd leave all those on the shelf, with the exception of Great Tusk.

I'll also team dump a little bit here, stuff from my AAA SSNL run.

Balance:
Greybaum 's Protect Pivots + Chien Pao balance

https://pokepast.es/c6bb911437911bc8
Probably one of my favorites right now, Either Jolly or Ada Pao works. It just kills everything its too strong for the tier use it before the council comes to their senses! Garg is very underrated rn it annoys a lot of structures, just doesn't have fun into certain MG pokemon. Protect Spam is super strong into a lot of the tiers breakers, also comes in handy to rack up Leftovers recovery and vs Future Sight.

Gap Intel Vortex Bulky Offense

https://pokepast.es/92261a5cd050ca92
Another pretty standard set of mons, Inteleon and Gapdos really form a strong U-turn core with lots of breaking power. Scarf inteleon can be used here to patch up speed control issues as its a strong revenge killer, but you give up breaking power that will feel significant into non Hoodra builds. Heatran set is very strong right now! Hoodra chomp Corv make up a sound defensive core which allows this team lots of avenues to victory. Gapdos Set could be changed to preference honestly.

Offense

Hax + Hamu + Immunities Bulky Offense

https://pokepast.es/a3f1030837726e08
Immunity spam defensive core + Scarf regen quaq for chien pao. Shocks is still super strong and underprepared for. Haxorus is really good at picking up kills after Hamurott chunks a corv with a hydro. Grass knot on hamurott always 2hkos quaq and getting up spikes is really good duh.
I'd recommend switching cannon to pump tho, I mostly ran that as a meme (atha doesn't run setup mons to punish it) but the difference in rolls is pretty noticeable. Dry skin Treads is really nice in contrast to water absorb since it makes dealing with primsea zapdos a lot easier (Kilowattrel too)

Screen Tail and Debris Offense featuring BU MB Lando-T

https://pokepast.es/f3224315f9322453
LordBox pointed out that greybaum had been using this scream tail, (later found out he stole it from atha lol!) and thought it was super busted. I wanted to pair it with Debris Chomp since the two seemed good into atha and as I was looking for a catch all fat breaker I ran into the Lando-T set (probably Lordbox suggested it) Anyway the rest of the team is filled out to just do good things. pretty one dimensional team, but can catch good matchups and just auto win vs a lot of structures.

pannu 's Surfer Hydreigon Offense

https://pokepast.es/1f2642e0ebd60df0
the return of surge surfer. Hadn't used that ability since ursaluna got banned for lack of good abusers. Cotta made this team featuring surge surfer hydreigon and the ever dangerous SFLO volcarona. The darkspam core wrought by adding kingambit gives this team plenty of breaking power. Eleki and Lando are added for hazard control as well as forming a good pivoting core with hadron rotom-w the surge enabler.




BONUS!
Nuts HO

https://pokepast.es/6c5904861c70dd73
didn't end up bringing this but I wanted to bring some funny stuff so I threw this together and it was pretty good in tests. The team has many different win paths but needs to be played very precisely vs a lot of stuff. the hamurott is bizarre and dumb and should honestly be sashed. leading lucario and then double gambiting with hamurott opens up greninja a lot as even with just 2 down it has a lot of breaking power. This team matchups up tremendously vs opposing offenses when you open up games 4-4 with a destiny bonder, explosion azelf, gren and a slither wing. has problems with stuff like tdebris or fat builds that can outlast greninja

BELLY DRUM HO

https://pokepast.es/a502df0f3e0386b2
This one never got brought but its a variant of what I did bring vs Atha. Cetitan is really good fish rn since if their plan vs chesnaught is going scream tail, it probably means thats their plan vs cetitan too so you usually pick up a kill depending if you get entrain turns right. if they let scream tail die, your chesnaught probably wins! belly drum is a balanced move trust.

So yea those are my thoughts and some teams, I'm looking forward to the new meta! pce

 

[Codename C.A.T]

Great Tusk
Zacian-Crowned (it can only have intrepid sword)
Enamorus
Sneasler
Gholdengo
Walking Wake
Poison Heal
Zoroark-H
Gengar
Dragonite
Zamazenta

thoughts on the "recent" voting slates(?) from a guy who hasnt played this meta since home dropped

maybe we could pretend this is balanced if poison heal wasnt also unbanned. i guess all the new spatkers give it a hard time but like...dude. poison heal tusk.
isnt it incredible how this is only the 3rd most broken unban? honestly, i think yall are downplaying the hell out of zacc in this meta. those stats with that movepool are simply too much for this tier. you think dengo switches in until you get up rocks once and now assurance is doing like 85 to physdef dengo at +0. unless you want to run fluffy dengo(the only reason youd run this is for zacc btw), have fun beating this.
with gholdengo this one is absolutely balanced, but if dengo ever gets banned, enam is getting insta deleted. ik greybaum says "oh just revenge it dw" which is valid but i think ideally, a balanced mon should have some viable defensive and offensive counterplay. the only exceptions to that are cases like sflo lele where their bulk and speed are not exactly great. enam's got 11something speed, not at all slow, and it's got all the coverage it could ask for. im saying this is unhealthy if dengo gets banned, but healthy with dengo around.
ban this one first thanks bye
im split on this one. on one hand, yeah, a lot more stuff can beat dengo 1v1, but not much more can actually 1v1 mglo sets still. its a very awkward position tiering wise imo, because its a great glue for a ton of teams that probably isnt that unhealthy but then theres mglo and bor just killing everything. i wont say whether or not to ban him, but i just really like the string cheese man tbh.
unless we magically get fini and ferro in the dlc, this shit has no chance of staying. we're basically dropping palkia 0.5 onto the tier and seeing how it would go. we already saw how it would go and banned it like 3 days into that meta.
this is the change im most vehemently against. i personally think poison heal is the most overpowered abilities that was legal in gen 9 aaa, and i was around for the furscales era. this is far more broken than furscales, though. why is that? well, to put it simply, you can't hurt the setup sweeper. imagine zamazenta but its now immune to burns, paralysis, actually its got double leftovers every turn, and now it set up to +4 and sweeps you because you dared to not use prank pex to pp stall it. fuck this ability, actually hate it more than ngas.
its like gengar but better. maybe theres a reason aaa bans every ghost, idk. bproof dengo is an ok check i guess but you just get knocked and then die like all the other checks to zoro-h(regenvesters). sflo is even worse for every non-bproof dengo, you just die to bslam if sball or knock doesnt kill you.
im up for unbanning this one honestly. gar loses a lot from not being in gen 8 tbh, meta doesnt seem like itll suit it that well with how absurdly fast its gonna be. not much more to say tbh, just seems like a really strong mon thats not gonna be strong enough to be banned(at least immediately)
still a dragonite. this guys been banned from like every aaa meta since gen 6 because of aerilate, and i think its gonna stay that way going into this one. maybe it wont be as immediate because its kinda necessary to beat stuff like enam/sneasler/zamah but my god that shit is way too strong for a priority move.
lolmao

 

[Atha]

Some comments on the heated debate going on

I leave it to everyone to answer but overall I firmly disagree again with the mind set of "banning things only and only if they are really broken and we can't do something else". This is detrimental for the health of the metagame by letting many borderline elements in the metagame constraining the builder and ledding to an exacerbated uncompetitiveness and centralisation.

but have you considered that banning everything you find annoying is not only subjective, impractical (aaa is primarily made up of borderline broken sets), and prevents players from being forced to adapt and evolve the metagame, thus resulting in tier stagnation? too many things have been banned because people just want to spam the same 3 mons on every team.

centralisation is also a good thing and i'm tired of pretending it's not.

• In the banlist, it would need to be clarified what the "too many things" that "have been banned because people just want to spam the same 3 mons on every team" are. In most cases, it was precisely because people did not want to spam the same 3 mons that they supported a ban. In the case of Dnite it didn't have anything to do with wanting or not wanting to spam the same 3 mons.
• On subjectiveness about banning borderline broken mons, what would be subjective isn't the degree of brokenness/centralizingness/unhealthiness, but the position of the line that demarcates bannable and not bannable mons. For example the metagame is now fairly stabilized and it's still a matter of debate whether Chien-Pao deserves a ban or not - certainly has nothing to do with forcing the players to adapt.

Your response isn't on point here.

Yeah... Meloetta the famous SI to H-Zoro. I just learnt Meloetta don't mind taking Knock + U-Turn from MGLO or Body Slam from SFLO one. Funny to see how people talk without knowing anything tbh.

you're being mighty condescending for a guy who think it's free to click knock off with a mon that has a 55/60/60 defensive statline. yeah ok you can do 80% to a meloetta before it switches out back to 50%, good for you, but it's still deterring horoark from clicking its only good move. i direct you to my later statement: "trade damage. take advantage of it with your own breakers. do something except "find regenerator click uturn" and this mon will become so much easier to deal with i promise."

this all applies to your goofy body slam set as well. it's not 2HKOing meloetta in the first place unless you're dropping your spatk investment and even then you still have to get multiple turns right. that's not broken. it's like you're sitting there putting the round peg in the round hole and refusing to acknowledge that there are other ways you can play the game; it fits in the square hole too buddy.

• Agree that MGLO Zoro-H will never be broken and shouldn't come up in pro-ban arguments.
• Body Slam SFLO Zoro-h isn't goofy though, it would be the main set here, 2hkoing every Regenvester except Goodra-h unless they run defense investments. It wasn't really a thing when Zoro-h was allowed because Regenvesters weren't so common, but now Zoro-h is clearly more of a threat than Gengar and an unban is harder to justify.

• Won't comment in detail on the Gholdengo debate. What I'll say is that in a meta similar to the current one (ie centered around BO/Balanced), letting an offensive Gholdengo go +2 even repetitively would definitely not always be the players' fault. In general I think Siamato's more aggressive tiering style will always favor BO/Balanced teams and deter Offense (or more offensively leaning BO), creating a meta where Gholdengo is bond to be broken. It's not entirely clear to me yet if a more minimal tiering style like Greybaum suggests can possibly lead to a meta that's both more offensive and decently balanced. I would like to try.
• Comparing CorvGholdTusk with CorvStailChomp isn' fair, since the latter was only abandoned as soon as people understood how bad Unaware Scream Tail is. I don't think we're soon to realize that one of Corv, Gholdengo and Tusk are actually bad and easily countered.

• Ban BD. I can live with the fact that the tiering policy will never change, but I will keep arguing against anyone who pretends we're getting rid of Triage and not banning BD for a good reason.

I think there are two mutually exclusive attitudes that can guide decisions in this vote: an aggressive and a minimal tiering attitude. The basic premise remains the same in all cases: when a pokémon is too centralizing and/or too difficult to manage reliably, it is banned. What varies is the scope of the word "too".

The aggressive attitude is, in my opinion, the classic attitude in aaa and the one that has been followed so far in gen 9. It sets the bar relatively low on the conditions to be met to justify a ban. The Ursaluna ban and the Dragonite ban are examples of this approach. The minimal attitude sets the bar much higher, and is more recalcitrant about banning pokémon.

Given that the nature of the game and the policy applied by Smogon lead almost exclusively to offensive pokémon bans, it's clear that adopting the minimal attitude would lead to a meta containing more offensive mons. This does not necessarily mean, however, that this meta would be more offensive. If we look at it from the builder's point of view, the presence of a greater number of difficult-to-manage threats can lead in two radically different directions: either you try to manage everything, even if it means adopting a repetitive and potentially more passive style, or you abandon the idea of managing everything cleanly and opt for offensive counterplay to threats.

It is a well known fact that AAA tends to favor the more passive and counter-heavy approach, because the breakers in this tier are generally considered too powerful to view offensive counterplay as a viable option. It will definitely be the case if the unbans stay shy, and if we follow some of the guidelines proposed by recent posts. In order to (maybe) force a more offensive style in the builder, a genuine explosion of the meta is needed. Is it realistic ? I don't know. Both tiering attitudes can be justified imo.

Last but not least, a Neutralizing Gas unban litterally solves everything. More about it in another post, maybe.

Now here's a table of what my votes would be depending on my attitude

	Aggressive	Minimal
	UNBAN	UNBAN
	BAN	BAN (LOL)
	BAN	UNBAN
	BAN	UNBAN
	BAN	UNBAN
	BAN	UNBAN
	BAN	BAN(?)
	UNBAN	UNBAN
	BAN	UNBAN
	BAN	UNBAN
	BAN	BAN(?)

 

[Gwanian]

Suppose I should give my own 2 cents on all of the mons that may or may not be freed


Would love to see this guy back, even for a little bit. Still could be broken, but I enjoyed the meta a lot more when it was around. Honestly, with more contention in the regen slot to deal with mons like Enam-T and Volcanion, I can see it being a bit less centralizing.


I've already said what I had to say about this dogo. Stupid stats + forcing fluffy/unaware/both = immediate QB.


Didn't play much with this one, but if she was broken upon the release of home, I'm going to argue she will still be broken with dlc 1, unless the new abilities for Ogerpon aren't form locked and function like old dauntless - then maybe Enam can stay. As it stands though, I don't see us getting any new checks that are better than the ones we already have.


Please no, Dire Claw is such a stupid move, especially on a mon like that.


This one is probably still broken, it just has so much brute-force potential offensively, on top of an amazing typing + recovery that lets it check basically anything it wants defensively.


Maybe our new regenvesters check it? It certainly has a hard time with hoodra. I support a retest cause it hasn't had a chance to play in this environment.


No. I don't like the setup sweeper shrugging off any and all chip; it just makes bad matchups all the more unplayable.


Definitely still broken, with its ability to cripple regen mons w/ knock or wisp and outright beat the ones that aren't named Goodra-Hisui (and chomp ig) on switch.


It's absolutely not the worst thing in the world, but as of now all of our favorite regeners can't switch into mean look normalize sets (not even melo, as gar can afford to just run another attacking move instead of Shadow Ball if it's gonna get to +6 anyway). This set isn't particularly broken, but it means that we have 2 viable (or semi-viable) gengar sets with 2 completely separate counterplay flowcharts. I don't hate it being re-introduced to the meta, but I don't like it either.


Beats whatever it wants. Aerialate is obviously the most broken set, but mixed or special sets are extremely good at baiting would-be checks, and it really has no answers beyond unaware mons and dengo if it's freed.


Didn't play with it when it was legal, but I'm gonna go on a whim and say it's still gonna be broken.

Honestly, I don't hate any of these mons being re-introduced, as the overtly brokens will get banned pretty quick and also running Zacian Crowned for the 4 minutes it's legal is objectively funny.

 

[BandAI]

Amongst the DLC unban discourse, I'd like to share my favorite team I use on the ladder before its gets absolutely outdated when DLC actually releases on September 13.



Fsight CB Pao Bulky Offense:


To give context, I used to play a lot of Gen 8 OU and nothing else before Gen 9 AAA came out. One of my favorite team styles is BO, especially the ones with Future Sight . Just the fundamental idea making your opponent take two attacks is very intriguing. So I basically took a gen 8 team and changed one mon and viola! Gen 9 AAA team.

Team Breakdown:

- Plain and simple and SoR. Does a lot of stupid stuff including bullying Intimidate with flinches. Pairs well with Future Sight Support.

- You need speed control besides ? Eleki is your guy! Provides secondary hazard removal while also pivoting on special walls to get in.

- U-Turn is a very cool move that forces momentum and pairs well with Future Sight support. Simple MGLO set with Taunt forces funny damage with Thunderous Kick and stops setup and healing attempts with Taunt.

- U-Turn is still a very cool move and provides glue to them. Shitty fire immunity compaction aside, It can also smack down and ensure rocks do stay up.

- Does Corviknight things. U-Turn, Defog, ETC.

- Future Sight is very underrated move in my opinion. It limits the dangerous fighters such as & from coming in. Nothing really else to say, except Focus Blast is very funny to catch and off guard.


Threats:

Volcarona just presses Quiver Dance a lot. Your best bet is limiting its opportunity by aggressively doubling in . Also maybe hope that checks it? I dunno.

Triage fisherman. Do I need to explain why this is a problem?

IRON DEFENSE BODY PRESS SUBSTITUTE. Your best bet is going and peppering it with Thunderous Kick until you die and then finishing it off with either or .

SFLO set is devastating. Nothing much else to say besides pivot into then U-Turn into .

and PrimSea do a lot of damage to Slowking-Galar. Try using rocks and to stop it.