Ignore that I'm like a week late with this shush
I can't recall ever doing one of those teamdump + big rant about whatever posts, so I thought now would be a good time with both the recent survey as well as the fact that I'm out of AAALT, So fuck it, big teamdump + my personal thought on the metagame at the moment:
(Regarding Teambuilding, I didn't really scout any of my opponents nor had I any clue what either would bring, so all teams here are just created from general ideas, and are not designed to specifically beat certain playstyles)
Vs Bijou:
Ever since Iron Hands dropped and people started to talk about Surge Surfer Hands, I wanted to make a bait-esque team with a Hadron Pivot, in this case Sandy Shocks. Idea is simple; you get up terrain, pivot into Hands. The opponent is likely to switch into their Great Tusk or other Ground-type to check it since they think its Surge Surfer, and boom, free setup opportunity. What ended up happening most of the times though was that EE Hands is simply too broken and won games without the whole "fooling the opponent" idea, but it was a cool idea to me none the less. Rest of team is extremely basic; Scarf Moon to clean up after Hands, Defensive Pivot core with Corv + Melo, and Deo-D as the obligatory fuck setup mon. Overall, very consistent ladder team from my experience and one of the teams I'm more prouder of.
I've always liked the idea of Fat structures with an unwallable breaker, and Dragon's Maw Wake is literally impossible to switch into consistently, and is especially good now with so few viable Fairy-types around. Regen Tusk is also something I'm a big fan of, as it literally soft-checks almost all physical attackers and annoys defensive mons. Una Blissey + VA Empoleon form a nice SpDef core, and remaining is just Physically defensive mons, with the classic Fluffy + Fire Immunity while also bringing Spikes + Spinblock. Colbur Ghold lets you almost always get a Twave off on Roaring Moon, letting Wake outspeed. Itemless is an option to completely wall Ceruledge, but since Roaring Moon's much more common I like Colbur.
This wasn't brought
thankfully, but the idea was some type of Special Offense, where you bait in Special Walls with Eleki and Boom on them, letting Proto Manaphy and Scarf Ghold clean up. As you can see though, the rest of the team is honestly just a random defensive core + Zapdos, and yes, this gets 6-0ed by Empoleon, so it's definetly not a good team. I run Pixilate over Refrigerade mostly since it allows you to actually OHKO Roaring Moon unlike Refrigerate, since most Scarf variants disrespect Extreme Speed. You still hit eveything relevant that Refrigerate hits (Great Tusk, Dragonite, even stuff like Iron Hands, Walking Wake, and Zamazenta) and you can even Boom on Manaphy more easily (Yes this is just MnM Regieleki I don't care).
Vs Atha:
This team is yet another rendition of the idea of Special Offense, this time though its not based around Explosion. I realized that Knock Off on literally any Special Attacker is fucking broken, as you can easily force AV removals for easy cleanup later, and why not stack 2 of them if its so good? SFLO Deo-S is also quite underrated imo, as you can easily pick your checks, and is overall bonkers. The lame core of Corv + Melo returns, this time with a Scream Tail that can both take advantage of AV removals, but can also wishpass to Great Tusk, which isn't running Regen here. Flame Body is here to mostly shut down Roaring Moon, as it can otherwise overwhelm this team, but it can also fish against both Zamazenta, Dragonite (to an extent) and any mon overall that spams U-turn. Static could honestly be a cool alternative as well to punish the special attackers harder, as Melo helps bait U-turns from the likes of Azelf, Iron Moth, and Walking Wake. Another team I'm proud of, and it also made its way as a sample team so
If anyone has seen me playing recently they would know I have a weird obsession with making Trick Room work, and this isn't necessarily my best work, but it's an idea atleast. I was kinda sad first when Iron Hands & Ursaluna dropped since I'd hoped that they would help, but they were in fact, terrible on TR, as they can't really bruteforce through their checks. Enamorus-T however, is a different beast, and can pretty easily steamroll most teams with SFLO Moonblast alone. Semi-Room also feels more consistent imo, since it allow you to fall back onto a defensive core after TR ends instead of hoping that you can get it off again, and the main plan here was to have Enam break walls, with Scarf Ghold cleaning up. I originally ran Grass Knot, since you KO AV Swampert with Moonblast + Grass Knot, but I swapped it out last second which kinda sucked for the match, but oh well. This team might not be it, but trust me, I'll be back with more mediocre Semi-room teams.
yeah... this team is pretty bad in hindsight, but I hadn't found much time to test it and kinda had to rush it, but it's still unexcusable of how bad it actually is. I wanna say tho that Kommo-o is actually quite underrated imo, as it helps check all Ogerpon formes, Barraskewda, Iron Hands (kind of), Cinderace, and annoy Great Tusk. Counter Deo-D is also a nice tech to either bait & KO Roaring Moon, or to absorb a U-turn and then blow up whatever switches in. I think the team had some techs, but was overall lacking.
...I found this in my builder after my match, and I wonder if this could've maybe given me better odds of winning, as Normgar kinda owns slower, pivotless teams. I also had hazard removal, which would've been nice to have in the former team, and the general plan is to trap Azelf checks with Normgar and then slowly sweep with Azelf. I haven't actually played much with it, but I wonder... oh well, no need to cry over spilled milk.
Overall, I gotta say that AAALT has kind of changed how I both view and play AAA currently. There was a reason that qualifying for me took so long; playing ladder games really sucked, and I had like 0 motivation to actually put any effort into building. Maybe I just prefer building for Tournaments, as you are more free to pick what matchups you win versus lose againt, while also being able to bring cooler surprise techs. This tour also kind of showed me that I was lacking more in the teambuilding department in comparison to how I played. Naturally, I might've not played the greatest at times, but I felt like some of my teams were either subpar or lacking, which for me is fine, as I want to prioritize being a better builder in contrary to being a better player. In any case, huge shoutout to
cat and
Gimmicky for hosting this, was a really cool idea and I hope to see it return in the future.
As for survey stuff, I don't really have any big opinions on Native Ability clause, if it gets implemented, cool I guess? if not, that's fine by me, I don't think it will have any major impact outside of Gliscor / Gholdengo, but if it gets freed then that's neat I guess. Ceruledge is definetly not a problem and should probably never be banned, as you often have to build around it rather than slotting it in freely. I originally voted 4 on Chien-Pao, but in hindsight that was probably stupid and should've been lower. Chien-Pao might lack defensive checks, but it takes waaaay too much effort to just get it in, only for it to click the wrong move and die. Like, most teams might not have a hard counter to it, but running it means that you need to play around Hazards perfectly while also not bringing it on stuff it can't reliably beat. Overall, its kinda like Ceruledge, high risk, high reward to use, neither should be banned.
Welp, that's all for me, if something's confusing with what I said then so be it, peace.
Regenerator the GOAT 
People started using temporary items on Tusk and friends, making Ceruledge less appealing than it used to be. It's still threatening but you'll need to get more 50/50s right which I think is not worth trying with such a slow and weak to rocks mon with no defensive utility.
Not a fan at all 
Yes 
Underused as fuck, very strong mon :format(webp)/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8846551/Screen_Shot_2017_07_13_at_1.09.20_PM.png)
