hey i had a ton of fun playing/building aaa for this tour so figured id make a post going over the teams i used as well as other builds/sets i wanted to use/that i think are cool.
for my first game i was getting back into the tier after not playing seriously for a while, so i wanted to see what had changed/what trends i could maybe try to take advantage of. off the bat, snaq didnt really have any replays or much to go off of in terms of what he likes/has a tendency to use so i decided to just go with a build centered around taking advantage of standard balance teams since thats what i figured would be most comfortable for someone playing this tier. i started w/ the idea of using zydog here since post-zygarde ban people may tend to get a bit lazy w/r/t ground resists and figure that smth like a levi-pex or skarm/steela would be enough since there wasnt rlly anything major spamming tarrows. adapt cb was the obvious set choice here, and then i just built around pivots that could get it in, as well as ways to break down its switchins. pex was the main way i figured i could do this, as tspikes messed w/ any grass types/bug types like a bulu/buzz that would want to switch in on tarrows. the next two mons were the pivots, rachi/mandi. rachi gave me rocks, as well as a solid steel type w/ access to regen, while mandi got me hazard control as well as a solid pivot into psychic/ground types. pod was added as a mon that could take advantage of zydog busting through a build in the midgame, as it just requires chip on some mons in order to sweep. koko was the last mon on the team because i was looking for some speed control, and i figured a scarf pixi koko is as good as you can get for this team, as it provides another pivot as well as another triage check for buzz.
now in terms of the game itself, this was a weird way to start since snaq caught me off guard right away w/ the team choice and then by getting rid of my water resist t2 via a tinted lens volcanion that did over 80 to a pex. from there i basically had to work my way out of it, and once he reveled it was va steela it became a lot harder to see my exact win condition. once i was able to get rocks up however, i realized that if i force in steela w/ my z water pod post-psysurge i may have a shot w/ koko late game since he didnt really have anything faster. him sacking kingler t13 was also a huge relief, as well as letting me weaken the steela the next turn as it gave me a fairly easy path from there w/ koko and rachi pivoting into it.
now w/ sabella i knew right from the get go what type of team/mons he would use as i built quite a bit for him in his previous aaa tours. i knew he had a fondness for one mon in particular, snorlax, so i decided to go w/ a team that could mess w/ a build that relied on snorlax as the sweeper/attack sponge. this led me to the hazard core of skarm/rhyp, both of which switch in and set up on lax. i chose a teravolt skarm here bc i hate playing against magic bounce and it lets me spike up vs mons like zap/steela. rhyp was chosen bc it has crazy bulk, as well being able to run regen here in order to be a better pivot throughout the game. sd was picked as a last move in order to give me an out vs a last-mon lax as that would be able to muscle past ww-skarm as well as the rest of the team. from there i wanted hazard removal, but defog was out of the question w/ skarm so i decided to use an old oras set i loved in regen tenta. it gave me spin as well as knock off, so that i could further push a longer-hazard centered game that i would be able to come out on top w/ the next mon. triage celebi is one of my favorite mons to use in aaa, as it catches people by surprise since the other 99% of triage users are all physical. metronome was chosen as the item of choice here as celebi ends up spamming giga most lategames that z-ground/grass really wouldnt do it much justice w/r/t the role i wanted it to serve on this team. tran was added as a secondary volc check, as well as a mag. pull user to bring in and beat steela/skarm/ferro etc. weav was the last mon added on the team, and i put scarf on bc it helped me outspeed and check mega-zam which would get in the way of me abusing triage w/ celebi.
once team preview went up i realized that i basically had the perfect mu i wanted, as i had answers for most of his mons, and zap as his removal meant i would be able to keep rocks up throughout the game. deso-tran was a bit worrying if he was timid and we had a tie, would require some weird maneuvering if he won that, but once it died he pretty much lost his only shot @ winning the game as i was able to get up hazards -> wear down and trap zap -> get up hazards again and eventually win w/ the combo of skarm and celebi.
for this game i noticed that mark had gone w/ two fatter skewed teams for his phase 1 games so i wanted to bring out lax for this game. i felt lax w/ the right support would be able to switch in -> facade a wall -> pivot out -> repeat. in terms of support for this i added a regen-doub bc i feel its pretty splashable for a fatter-skewed team in terms of all the things it brings to the table. skarm was also added next as a way to pressure some teams w/ access to spikes. i went w/ intim here bc i was more afraid of a cb weav for this game esp w/ the core i finished w/ which is why i went with it over teravolt. also helps me better pivot into certain triage mons in case doub gets knocked/is weakened, and w/ bb its able to threaten out all of the common triage mons. gligar was added as the second part of the hazard duo, and i added it as a tini check as well as a easy mon to pivot into for getting lax in safely. tenta was added as the hazard control for this team since lax hates taking spikes, and i decided to go w/ haze on this version bc i didnt feel tspikes were as necessary for this build and the added ability to haze smth like a fini/volc sounded better than the benefits of tspikes. scarf weav once again rounded out this team as just amazing speed control for this meta, as well as giving me pursuit support for defoggers/spinners/etc.
got kind of caught off guard w/ this game again as mark brought some mons that i hadnt rlly seen before in aaa, namely venu/donphan so i was a little curious as to what they would be doing here. he managed to quickly catch me off guard w/ a magic bounce skarm into a block corrosion venu on my tenta early so i would have to play extra cautiously since i lost access to my hazard control fairly early on. curse skarm also further blocked my lax from doing anything early this game, and i wasnt able to break w/ it as well as i had planned. however i was eventually able to get rocks up w/ my gligar and set up my doublade on the venu (i guess he forgot he lost corrosion on mega), and since doub was able to power through the skarm w/ sacred sword i got myself in a fairly good position. the only worrying part came when the weav came in and sd'd up into a galvanize return on my own skarm, and if i didnt have my own scarf foul play weav i would be in a lot of trouble. but since i had that i was able to kill it, and eventually just clean the rest of his team w/ doublade.
this was the game i had the most trouble preparing for as i was thinking that sylveon would try to counterstyle me in some way, which led me to try to build smth different than what i had brought before. i started this build around cb lando bc its damage output is crazy just by spamming return, being able to 2hko/ohko a large majority of the metagame, including offensive steels. i put lucario on the team next as it does a good job of partnering w/ lando in terms of what checks both of them, and can take advantage of the ways ppl are forced to play around cb lando. i went w/ aerialate here as well bc it gets around the fast mons i needed it to, mainly blace/weav/tini which a lot of other -ate types would leave me open to. for my defensive core i turned towards tran/pex both of which i felt complimented each other in their roles. prankster pex keeping things like volcarona/magearna/fighting types in check, while tran handled ground types as well as being able to get up rocks. the team finished w/ koko and weav, koko being the scarfer here as good speed control, as well as emergency hazard removal if needed. cb weav was added as another nuke similar to cb lando, just a bit faster and w/ just as much power to force switchs just due to how power the knock offs from it are.
ill start off by saying i played this game pretty sloppy, and overall i just wasnt as happy w/ the prep and team i had made so i was in a bad mindstate going into this game. early on i lose my tran which would have been a great pivot vs his gligar as it was non-ff and i had levitate. from there i didnt really go that aggresive, even though i really needed to as my matchup wasnt that great unless i went aggro w/ my lando weav early. not being able to remove rocks also made the game a lot harder for myself, as i was forced to take rocks chip w/ probably my best breaker in cb weav making me less willing to pull doubles/switch into it out of fear of my opponent attacking into it. cb lando getting walled by gligar and taking a lot of toxic damage also eventually opened me up for the end game i reached, where i just lost to the combo of thund/buzz since there was nothing much i could really do w/ the board position i had made for myself. i also really didnt manage my sacks well this game, and overall there were a lot of regrets that i was hoping to make right w/ the tiebreak game that never got played.
at this point i had tested just about every aaa team i built/used vs jrdn so i felt we both had a good idea of what each of us liked to use. i decided to just start w/ a mon that would take advantage of his love for defensive water types, as a majority of his teams had av mana/fini so this is where desotran came into play. desotran has just about no switch ins, and is able to switch in on just about every water type in the tier and scare them out w/ solarbeam. i put on a hazard duo i liked using next, with ff ferro being able to handle fire types that desotran allows in like tini, and regenhelm lando is able to handle fighting types the core is weak to, namely buzzwole. i decided to just go all out w/ the balance breakers at this point, and added on a cb pixi koko and mega-medi w/magpull that can work together to beat common checks for each other. weav was the speed control of choice here as i couldnt throw on scarf koko, and weav had become the scarfed and speed control i knew i could rely on at this point.
now w/ this game i was a little worried about how i would be able to break his team, as off of preview he had checks to just about every mon on my team, and with what looked to be a magic bounce steela i would have a very tough time getting up my hazards since both land and ferro lost to it. he caught me really off guard w/ the block steela but i realized that he had no way to touch ferro and once i scouted that in fact it was magic bounce i just chipped it down w/ knock off as he really didnt want to switch anything into the ferro. at first i thought he would scout out the hp flying potential on lando (since i had shown it to him before, or at least thought i did), but once he eq'd the lando i realized that my hp flying was free and i was able to get rid of it right there. from there i had rocks up, and once i was able to get tran in on his pex i could force kills, and the only thing that would be able to stop me is if he was able to set up zard w/o having to mega. luckily i had koko to stop that, and once that happened i was able to win w/ tran and lando.
now vs sabella the second time around i wasnt as confident w/r/t my team selection and what he would use compared to the first time around, as he had picked up a lot of wins after and was getting a lot of support. i decided in the end just go build a mon i felt was underrated in the meta, and that was ph cune. its something i hadnt seen in a while, and i felt w/ the right support could be deadly. in terms of the right support, ferro was the mon i felt would give it the most support bc you gain access to spikes in order to take advantage of roar to its full capabilities. va tran was the next mon i put on the team to round out my fwg core, as well as give me a solid rocker as well as an elec immune since teams w/o them tend to have issues w/ quite a few mons. this noiv was something ive been wanting to use for a while, and its a great mon that forces a lot of switches, and can get chunks off big walls w/ super fang. tect-lefties lets it bypass weav, which i think is one of the biggest weaknesses specs noiv has to deal with at the moment. goli was added bc it synergizes well w/ cune, and is able to either break early for cune or clean up late game once cune has chipped down all of the checks. scarf weav was once again added because its the best speed control in the tier, and helped me w/ a pursuit mon just incase something like blacepheon started going crazy.
now w/ the final game vs sabella i was fairly happy w/ the matchup i saw at team preview as i thought the combo of cune + noiv would be great, and it didnt look like he had any way to stop my rocks from going up. he caught me off guard w/ a magic bounce ferro, that i probably should have seen coming as he had av mana for fire types already. i made a pretty big slip up w/ not tecting vs the hippo and letting cune get roar'd w/ spikes and rocks up and no pheal activated. since all the hazards were up i had to let go of my pod early, but it also let me grab my pheal a few turns later safely vs the manaphy w/ knock off. from there i was basically able to get around his koko w/ tect cune+va tran, and forcing damage w/ my noivern vs his ferro/mana. turn 34 basically decided the game, as i was able to okho the talonflame w/ foul play right there. if he had switched out and gone manaphy, the game would have come to a 50/50 at a later point where it would be boomburst or tect vs a brave bird or sd. however i did catch him off guard w/ the foulplay, which resulted in a pretty easy win with noivern and cune.
originally i was planning on going over a lot of other sets/teams that i built/planned on using over the course of this tournament, but this post is already super long and i cant really put off studying for my finals that much longer. i will share the team i planned on using if we faced oceania in the finals, as i noticed they didnt really have an aaa player and could get away w/ something a bit more fun vs them.
this is a pretty simple hyper offense build that i really wanted to use w/ the tini set as it was something i saw someone else post about/use and it was a mon ive always enjoyed using. tera lando + mb koko were chosen as the dedicated leads since they are great at getting up sr + screens, and i really disliked the hail chip and inability to use other abilities that came w/ using a mon like veil mew. the rest of the team is pretty simple and just supports each other for one of them to sweep in the late game, w/ doub providing role compression in a steel/lax check/as well as emergency button with prankster dbond.
overall i was super happy w/ the record i got, though i obviously would have loved the clean sweep. s/o to
Jrdn GL Volkner and
Eternally for testing a lot w/ me.
