AAA Almost Any Ability

[Isaiah]

This is true but the thing is that you can also hide whether this set is Sub or Band by keeping hazards off, or by not even running Lefties and instead running something like Sitrus or Muscle Band. Now imagine a Great Tusk comes in on a mon it forces out and reveals it's SoR. Do you really want to go your switch-in, in this case Regen Tusk, and risk getting 2HKOed because it's Band and not Sub? This excludes even more possibilities like it being Adamant, it being TC/Adapt and not revealing that it's SoR and still doing around the same damage (in TC's case you switch on Quake for Headlong though), and it having TSpikes support having prepped for this and now your Tusk is taking constant damage AND just took 42 min from switching in. Even in the worst-case scenario it seems to me like Tusk can just break this over time rather than immediately with only a few tweaks to the set/minor support for teammates.

All of this is just conjecture. Defensive Great Tusk is always the best primary switch-in to any opposing one because it eats literally every attack for lunch as a scout (you still have 5 other teammates): 252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 260-306 (59.9 - 70.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

This world where people are running the best Pokemon in the tier and suddenly too afraid to use it to check itself doesn't exist. The one where the foe is also somehow freely getting up TSpikes and Stealth Rock and Spikes and everything else is also just theory; considering how easy a Corviknight + Rapid Spin core is to use (See how Corviknight and Great Tusk are consistently the top 2 mons in usage) and how good Iron Moth is [as a TSpikes absorber], it's not that likely. In any case it doesn't even matter which set is the best or worst; Great Tusk is broken one way or another, and that's all I intended to elucidate.

 

[QT]

The idea of Great Tusk being balanced with regen is one only enabled by a preponderance of playing short games. When we say "Great tusk will always win the game eventually, as long as you can keep playing until then" it's not an exaggeration, and the worst part is Great Tusk is really good at making the game take a long time as well. Isaiah talked about how it worked a bit above, but I'm going to zero in on the one set I think is the absolute best: physically defensive BU Knock Off Earthquake Rapid Spin, with leftovers. Other sets, like body press AV have better splashability (which is absolutely insane, since lefties BU tusk is already one of the most splashable mons in the history of AAA) but while it doesn't offer quite as much role compression as that or even helmet, what it does do is win the game.

Here is an example of this in practice, from a game I just had while I was writing this post. The moment I was able to keep their breaker - Iron Jugulis - from beating my team in the first few turns, I was immediately in a position where the game was mine to lose; as long as I didn't throw away someone critical or make a long series of bad plays in a row, great tusk was going to end up winning eventually. The worst part is, this wasn't even an immaculate Great Tusk! I got unlucky and got it poisoned by Toxic Spikes on a whirlwind, and then still ended up being able to use it to grind down my opponent's team until they ran out of health and recovery and died. No other pokemon in the metagame can do this, or even really come close; the next most similar candidate, Gholdengo, is on a strict timer to do so before it runs out of recovers (and also is wildly broken itself). And unlike all the other setup sweepers in the tier, it does so while bringing a frankly absurd amount of utility to the table. Between Knock Off, hazard clearing, volt blocking, and being basically the most physically bulky pokemon in the tier, Tusk can take a break from winning itself to stop your enemy from winning and enabling all your other pokemon to threaten a win - and then once that's done with, go right back to winning.

Here's a few more replays for examples of how this plays out:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1813622732 Great tusk just sets up and wins on the spot.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1814409735-bobcuurgdd3ffyvf1mulet593d3cz6lpw Great Tusk provides utility and then would win the game if it doesn't get crit
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1805716171-d990ralwrds0cl5ct2atocmqe7l3xn3pw Great Tusk 1v1s slightly damaged Baxcalibur

 

[IchorBloom]

Unsure if this has been mentioned at all but why is stench + loaded dice legal while king's rock + skill link isn't? Stench does the same thing as king's rock and dice does the same as skill link. Especially since greninja is in the format and water shuriken has +1 priority. It's pretty much identical but loaded dice makes multi-hit-moves hit 4-5 times instead of the guaranteed 5 from skill link. I was scrolling through "unviable abilities" and spotted this interaction.

 

[QT]

Unsure if this has been mentioned at all but why is stench + loaded dice legal while king's rock + skill link isn't? Stench does the same thing as king's rock and dice does the same as skill link. Especially since greninja is in the format and water shuriken has +1 priority. It's pretty much identical but loaded dice makes multi-hit-moves hit 4-5 times instead of the guaranteed 5 from skill link. I was scrolling through "unviable abilities" and spotted this interaction.

It's not that skill link + kings rock is illegal, it's kings rock that's illegal in general. For an example of the difference, there are moves like beat up that will always hit 6 times, no item or ability needed, so long as the conditions are met. On these pokemon, with kings rock + serene grace, the chance of being flinched is not 38%, like loaded dice stench, but rather a wopping 78%. This is the difference between something comparable to iron head or air slash and something with no equivalent, outstripping even serene grace. Kings rock also had the advantage that even if you ran it without multi hit moves, you could still fish for a flinch, whereas with stench the opportunity cost of not running a different ability is much higher than the opportunity cost for an item.

There's a case to be made, that stench is still uncompetative enough that it should be banned, but for reasons like these that it has to have its competitiveness considered on its own merits.

 

[Osake]

Great Tusk is 100% broken and def needs to go, it's both super centralizing (see usages) and super strong, and each set of tusk is stupid.
The very fact that a lot of games start by both tusk Knocking each other into Earthquake is like... not healthy at all lol the best answer to tusk is tusk but that just creates unhealthy interaction because the basic set of tusk (aka regen knock, the rest of your moves aren't that important they depend of your team) does MAD progress ALL the time and pretty reliably, because tusk has infinite life, insane bulk and utility, and can wear down its "answers" pretty reliably (the only reason you don't see a tusk winning 100% of the time is bc the opposite tusk can middleground most of its moves and it just means your tusk will take more time to pp stall corviknight lol).
But if it was "only" regen tusk with 4 attacking moves (so either AV or lefties, I think Rocky Helmet sucks), which is the most reliable set to me (bc no matter the MU you'll just be good lol) it wouldn't be that broken, it would just be centralising and strong but not broken and would not deserve a Quick Ban. But Great Tusk isn't only a stupid fat mon that can make progress, it's also a silly breaker and/or sweeper as Isaiah and QT stated, and even if I disagree with Heracross' set as being the best offensive Tusk (you'll always check the set of a tusk with a tusk, if it's banded that's fine you just regen your health and you certainly have a switch-in to a fighting or ground move in your team (or your team sucks but that's on you) + SoR has the big flaw of revealing your ability which is annoying), his point is valid : offensive tusk is also stupid. Many sets exist, Adaptability, SoR, Mold Breaker, Scrappy, Tough Claws, even just regular 252+ Tusk does silly damage and even if it's harder to build around because you lose utility it's actually quite hard to answer. BU + Spin with like 5 or 6 abilities possible is also a threat.
Last but not least, the fact that Great Tusk exists makes many mons bad because they will just lose their 1v1 vs Tusk all the time and your opponent will totally freely regain the momentum whenever they're on the field. See : Iron Treads, Ting-Lu, Blissey, even Kingambit kinda, are just free switch-in for Great Tusk, and when your job is to setup hazards (the first 3), you just do nothing for a whole game bc this mon exists and is unhealthy.

Also, I guess I can answer to Hyper-go-ons since I'm doing this post, but almost all the sets you posted are bad (Filter Farigiraf ? hello ?) all your mons just lose to Knock Off + chip and/or don't switch-in on Tusk anyway ; yeah Armarouge kills it, that's not the point, cuz you're not switching it on Tusk anyway). If you're using any of those sets (except like Gardevoir and Armarouge but once again you can't come on tusk so lol) you're both still losing to it (Pex is farmed by Taunt Tusk btw) and running a bad set that will do nothing otherwise, don't do that.

anyway, Tusk is stupid, defensively, offensively, it's cringe, ugly, and needs to go with Gholdengo and Baxcalibur and maybe Shed Tail ?

first post on this forum wooo

love y'all

 

[Hyper-Go-ons]

Special Aerilate Dragonite can counter a Physically defensive Great Tusk and OHKO it.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Aerilate Dragonite Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Great Tusk: 476-564 (109.6 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

This is a bit of a Overkill here:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Aerilate Dragonite Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Great Tusk: 894-1052 (205.9 - 242.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[Isaiah]

Special Aerilate Dragonite can counter a Physically defensive Great Tusk and OHKO it.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Aerilate Dragonite Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Great Tusk: 476-564 (109.6 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

This is a bit of a Overkill here:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Aerilate Dragonite Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Great Tusk: 894-1052 (205.9 - 242.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I think the point being made is that while it's true that Special Aerilate Dragonite can destroy a Great Tusk, somebody using such an inconsistent/unreliable set in the first place shows how unhealthy Great Tusk is. Unviable sets becoming viable to beat something tends to mean that thing is broken.

 

[APOGRAPHA]

Hitting Top 10 on AAA
Talking about ladder, meta, and the team I used:
​

I've never been this high on any ladder before (my only other peak is Gen 7/8 Doubles OU and hitting top 100) so I felt it was worth a forum post. The goat Ivar57 passed me lots of teams, and with his post-game analysis I learned a lot. I'm going to make some general statements about the metagame, and it will inform a lot of my teambuilding.
Below is two rants, and the team itself, to save you from the wall of text. I need to credit a practice partner I asked to friendlies with in chatroom, whoever you are please claim credit for the basis of this team.

The Metagame

Usage stats don't lie, but building to snipe Corviknight doesn't make a lot of sense, considering it's mostly passive presence on teams. Let's talk about some real threats:

• Great Tusk and all its variants​
• Specs Dhengo​
• Baxcalibur​
• Sandy Shocks​
• Dark types*​

Specs Gholdengo breaks most teams. Don't have to expand on much there. Great Tusk, esp with how often it's regenerator, is a mon that almost always goes late unless its caught out. Baxcalibur can sweep most times after one DD, and a la Mamoswine has disgusting coverage with EQ/Icicle Spear. Sandy Shocks is the bane of Corviknight, unprepared Tusks, and many MANY other mons. Dark types are almost a must have, as plenty of Ghost types are haunting the ladder as we speak.

I don't think I've ever complained about a mon more than Sandy Shocks. Volt Absorb Corv completely shuts it down, but without Delta Stream, Bax runs a train on Corviknight. A lot of teams I used featured Quaquaval, which is an Ivar staple, and for good reason. Water-types have very few counters, and Deso land sees less and less use outside of Iron Moth. Adamant Aqua Step, or MGLO variants absolutely rip through Great Tusk, Corv, and some sets even make Dozo cry. Aqua Paldea Tauros serves a similar role, but I don't see it ever.

Moving on, while WBB was all the rage post Furscales ban, I've seen less and less of it. Earth Eater is theoretically more consistent, but still can be quite annoying to navigate around. I heavily encourage people to run WBB on their steels, but I don't with this team. Why? Great Tusk. Pointless to spin block Tusk if you can't deal with a follow up EQ. While Corviknight is a natural switch-in, it's hard to tool your set to consistenly deal with Tusk.

Shocks and Dhengo both had their respective answers on older teams, but I found an option that covers them both, Regenvest Tusk. While it's not a hard answer to certain mons, it patches the pressure of Volt Switch, and can live any Dhengo set to at least lick a Knock or EQ back. Even if you run into a phyiscally heavy team, natural bulk + regen still does what it needs to do (Spin and Knock)

Dark types started running more freely after Iron Hands was banned, but considering whats available with that typing, I would argue a dedicated counter is always overkill. Meows, Roaring Moon and Kingambit are the most common dark types. Meows dies to U-turn from nearly anything, while Moon struggles against the same thing, or a Tusk CC. Kingambit more of the same, but add a earth/fire weakness (or both, if they go full aggro). I used to run Mega Launcher Lucario, but I had a much more elegant solution on hand.

Overall: Water types are broken, but see little play. Sandy Shocks should see more play, and Baxcalibur abuses too generalized teambuilding. Specs Dhengo is stupid strong, and you always need a Great Tusk answer to go anywhere. Amazed you made it this far.

The Team

Great Tusk @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin

Tusk eats. And eats. And eats. Sometimes he feasts! Knocking Ghosts, Spinning away spikes, or speeding yourself up. Hit everything else for STAB. A great pivot, great switch in, and has a lot of offensive presence even with no investments there. As aforementioned, shuts down Shocks and most Dhengo sets. Gets shit on by physical Waters, but I saw very few that weren't on my side of the board.


Corviknight @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Delta Stream
Level: 99
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- U-turn
- Body Press
- Defog / Iron Defense
- Roost

So standard it's almost boring. Brave Bird is worse and worse as Slither Wing sees almost no play, and Steel types are spammed endlessly. 0 spe lvl 99 guarantees a slower U-turn in the mirror, as pivoting is it's primary function. Delta Stream lets you eat rogue Electric coverage, 1v1 Pao, and deal with Bax decently well. Iron Press is a slightly better set in that regard, so I would encourage the experimentation.


Iron Moth @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Desolate Land
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 16 HP / 252 SpA / 240 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fiery Dance
- Solar Beam
- Discharge
- Morning Sun

Ivar Moth-pilled me. I thought this mon was mid for so long, but now I can't live without it. Modest max solar beam one taps physdef Tusk, and Fiery Dance -> Beam deals with Vest Tusk. It 1v1s Dhengo (non WBB, but throwing out Discharges can get progress), and it laughs at Greninja. Careful against Dozo and Qua, they can still catch you off guard. Iron Moth has won me so many games by just nuking whatever is in front, or chunking switch ins. Deadly.


Gholdengo @ Leftovers
Ability: Earth Eater
EVs: 180 Def / 240 SpA / 88 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder Wave
- Hex
- Make It Rain
- Recover

Beats Tusk. Twaves their switch in. Spam Hex or a near max Make it Rain. Simple as. Jokes aside, if you're not running specs, this is the set to go. Cripple most common switch-ins (Dark Types), and as you're clicking Make it Rain more often than not, Hex lets you hit some mons harder while having more synergy with the set. 88 spe lets it outspeed most threats after a Twave, and creeps Tusk enough to not get ran over by some 20 spe nonsense. Rest in Defense to shore up some 1v1 ranges.


Meowscarada @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sword of Ruin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Flower Trick
- Trick / Spikes

I ran Trick but honestly wish I ran Spikes instead. This is your ultimate speed control. Knock Off and U turn still hit hard thanks to SoR, but without having to worry about a rogue +1 boost from a Rapid Spin or a random scarf set cheesing you. Flower Trick helps with the aforementioned Waters, but also is your weapon of choice against set up spammers. Trick is great to cripple passive threats like Bliss, Corv, etc. but I rarely felt good about clicking it considering how slow of a play it is, I would rather click Spikes in the future.

And finally,


Talonflame @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Roost
- Bulk Up
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz

What's a ladder team without a little cheese yourself? After +1, almost everything dies. With Magic Guard and Roost, there's a lot of setup fodder at your disposal. Rock-type coverage is extremely rare outside of Garg, and naturally outspeeds everything that's not scarfed. Brave Bird 2hkos physdef Tusk cleanly, with only WBB Dengo being a serious problem.

Piloting this team is mostly straight forward. Meows U-turns on everything, with Corv and Tusk being your hard switches. Tempo is key, forcing mons out to find better angles. Iron Moth can run away with a game on just a coin flip, Dengo can cripple or break, Talonflame is a great janitor, and Meows does what dark types do and snipes Ghosts.

This team isn't perfect. It was made mostly in a rage getting cheesed by Specs Hydreigon, and then Scarf the next match the next day. I simply put two well-established threats with the fastest scarfer, a barebones defensive core, a slice of jalapeno cheddar, and clicked Find Match. I'm certain that this team can be further improved, or used as a basis for other successful ladder teams.

Relevant calcs: (On mobile, will edit with some later)

The Ladder

This is just me complaining.
The ladder kinda sucks, but it's also really fun. The match quality is on the low end overall. All my best, most memorable matches were against Ivar's alts when I was floating around 1500, or against the more active 1600s. The majority of my climb between Friday night and Saturday morning were against 1300s who all had some form of cheese, because this is the sucky part of the ladder.
The AAA metagame tends towards offense, it only makes sense, but instead of finding beefcakes to temper out broad swaths of eager hitters, players seem to instead opt into a lateral arms race. Instead of developing stronger offense, it seems to be just shuffling around cheese and different mons who fill the same role to try and edge against other HO/Offense mid-ladder teams. I see very little aggressive fighting types (Paldea Tauros, Qua, Lucario) and threats designed to break defensive cores, and instead teams that boil down to "Orthworm & The Furious Five". And to put my money where my mouth is, I'll post some breaker sets in the near future.
There's some very real potential in Hazard Spam + GAG + Spin Blockers, yet not a lot of development. Maybe I'll work on that again.
Thanks for reading.

Also as I'm writing this I dropped to like Rank 12, but oh well.

Thanks for reading.

 

[BugGoBrrrrrr]

You know what, if Isaiah and UT won’t free double regen, I’ll do it myself.

Thingamabob

BLANK SET NUMBER FIVE (Great Tusk) @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Rocky Helmet / Leftovers
Ability: Wandering Spirit / Trace
Tera Type: Haha Tera Banned
EVs: Do Your Own EV Set I’m Lazy
Whatever Nature You Need Honey
- Body Press / Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock / Bulk Up / Taunt / Whatver Tf You Want Ig

Also the fact I’ve actually been able to find some success with wspirit/trace tusk is absurd…ban this shit

 

[UT]

In addition to Gholdengo (by suspect), Great Tusk (4-2 quickban-suspect), Houndstone (6-0 quickban), and Baxcalibur (6-0 quickban) have been banned from Almost Any Ability!

For anyone who has played AAA over the last few months, Great Tusk's place on this list should need no introduction. In general, it is probably the most splashable Pokemon in the metagame, with multiple sets that each individually would earn it a spot in the A-to-S ranks. Both Isaiah and Quantum Tesseract made longer posts on the subject here and here, but the essential brokeness comes down primarily to its use of Regenerator. With Regenerator, Knock Off, and Rapid Spin, Great Tusk offers unprecedented team support to essentially every playstyle. Offense appreciates it keeping hazards off without removing its own, especially while maintaining offensive presence, while balance uses it as a backbone of the playstyle and stall makes happy use of its effectively infinite health to stay on top of the hazard game. With an Assault Vest and Body Press, Great Tusk can also check some special threats and 1v1 super effective physical attackers like Meowscarada or slightly chipped Baxcalibur for its team. With Leftovers and Bulk Up, Great Tusk turns into a sweeper par excellence that can end up winning almost any game given enough turns to operate. Together, these made it essentially mandatory picks for most teams, and even on teams that absolutely cannot spare Regenerator it can make use of options like Scrappy or Sword of Ruin to good effect. Taken together, Great Tusk is simply too strong for the metagame.

Houndstone, on the other hand, takes the precise opposite role. It does exactly one thing, exactly once during the game, and can be difficult to fit on teams. With that said, however, the sheer power of this option is enough to put it on this list. With Supreme Overlord and a Choice Scarf, Houndstone outruns and OHKOes nearly the entire metagame once it's the last pokemon on its team thanks to the absurd base power of Last Respects. While there are pokemon that live a hit, most either rely on a roll - such as physically defensive Great Tusk - or cannot kill back in one hit - such as Ting Lu. This leaves counterplay to take the form of an immunity, mostly Blissey, Sucker Punch users like Meowscarada or Kingambit, and a bare handful of faster Pokemon such as Chien Pao and Choice Scarf users of your own. In such matchups, it often comes down to a binary check; either you have such an answer and can beat it without issue, or you do not and all 6 of your Pokemon will faint in rapid succession. To make matters worse, Houndstone can pair up with Hadron Engine users such as Sandy Shocks to run an Adamant Choice Banded surge surfer set, which trades ease of use for the ability to reliably pick off the likes of great tusk and outrun Chien Pao or slower Choice Scarf users. Between these two sets, the difficulties in preparing for Houndstone are too much to reasonably expect in the builder.

Baxcalibur, the third ban, charts a middle path. Like Houndstone, it has one main set with a handful of possible variations, and like Great Tusk, it's an extremely splashable setup sweeper that can easily fit on many teams and viably run more niche sets should its team require that. It's also had a handful of posts about it, such as this one by LordBox, but its broken qualities are fairly straightforward. Baxcalibur is reasonably bulky, setting up with only moderate difficulty on much of the metagame, and is able to threaten out a wide variety of others via more agressive play. After a Dragon Dance, it outruns the entire unboosted metagame, and several of the faster scarfers - like Meowscarada and Sandy Shocks - are easily picked off by a Technician boosted Ice Shard. When paired with Loaded Dice, Technician also boosts Icicle Spear to absurd levels, allowing it to perform feats like OHKOing max defense Corviknight nearly half the time. On top of this, it also has an absurd 48 PP, which means Baxcalibur can easily afford to fire it off without thinking prior to setting up to wear down switch-ins or punish attempts to stay in and stop it from setting up. Just Dragon Dance and Icicle Spear cover almost everything, allowing it to pick from options like Ice Shard, Bite, Earthquake, and Glaive Rush to pick and choose which answers to completely annihilate, not to mention alternate abilities like Sword of Ruin or Life Orb Sheer Force. In response to this, a handful of specialized answers have emerged like Curse BPress Tablets Dondozo, Earth Eater Gholdengo, and IronPress Delta Stream Corv, but most of these can still lose given chip or should they find themselves facing the wrong set unexpectedly.

 

[Uninteleon]

Finally! We have been freed from the curse of Great Tusk!

I can finally run Slither Wing in peace!

 

[DeepFriedMagikarp]

So a lot just happened. Heres my predicted mons who have stocks up ^^^ now



The biggest winner of this change i think. Great Tusk was this mons biggest roadblock, and now its gone. Corviknight might stop running body press now with Baxcalibur gone too. While he was a good defensive answer to the other 3 banned mons (gholdengo, houndstone, baxcalibur), gambit no longer needs to run very defensive sets and be wary of its longevity.



Various physical attackers that were a bit too easily blanket checked by Great Tusk, these and many many more may see more usage and viability now
Honorable mention to which often had to contest with Great Tusk being a common ground type.



Every other regenerator pokemon, tough to say which ones will be good or not but Tusk no longer monopolizes your one regen ability slot. It also means theres no more Regen Great Tusk on the opposing team to shutdown your own regen mon, as Tusk generally outlasted and beat all of the other options

X X

Fluffy corviknight stocks are at an all time high now, along with every other fluffy mon i think. The biggest downside of fluffy was that it left you utterly helpless vs Baxcalibur, now theres much less non contact moves to worry about. Another consideration was Houndstone's Last Respects being non contact also gone.



Lost a very common check, immunity gholdengo.



Gholdengo absolutely kept the various Fairys in the tier down like no other



A huge bane(s) for these passive fat mons are now gone, may they be better now? Especially Garganacl.

Theres probably more but thats all i can think of off the top of my head for right now. Anyways, exciting times brand new metagame expect huge shifts who knows whats good now, go out and experiment! stonks to the moooooooon^^^^^^^

 

[Skieflier]

Ok, I would like to just put something here to avoid new people falling into the inevitable trap of using something horribly inconsistent.

Don't bother with Flinch Maushold
​

Maushold @ Wide Lens
Ability: Stench
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Tidy Up
- Population Bomb
- Beat Up
- Super Fang / Filler

In theory, this set works by just chaining flinches so the opponent isn't allowed to move, so you get to spam moves and KO them. In practice, this doesn't work so well.
One important thing to note is that the chances to flinch are not additive - you don't have a 100% chance to flinch with PopBomb because it's 10 hits at 10% for each hit. This is basically just going into probability - the odds are never really in your favour relative to the amount of effort you need to put in to actually have this potentially do anything. Maushold can't boost Accuracy (and Baton Pass is banned) so you're always working with 90% accurate PopBomb.

For one layer of flinching (King's Rock or Stench - they don't stack), the chance of 10-hit Population Bomb flinching is about 65.1%. This is because any amount of activations will mean you flinch the target, so you can basically do 100% - (chance they don't get flinched as a %) to get what you need. The chance each hit doesn't flinch is 90%, so 0.9 ^ 10 is 0.3486..., which you then subtract from 1 to get your 0.6513... or 65.1%.

For two layers of flinching (King's Rock and Serene Grace), the chance of 10-hit Population Bomb flinching is about 89.3%. The same calculation process can be used here, except that the chance to dodge a flinch is 80% or 0.8 instead. Chance of dodging a flinch is about 10.7%.

In theory, these seem like appealing numbers - if you grab a Tidy Up on the switch, you can attack into whatever's in front of you, and if you don't OHKO it then they have to play the flinching game. However, there are 3 key flaws in this logic - Accuracy, Rocky Helmet, and Covert Cloak.

In case you weren't aware, Population Bomb makes contact - this means that if you attack into a Rocky Helmet user, you take chip damage for each individual hit, essentially meaning the user instantly faints if you aren't bailed by a low amount of hits. This is generally difficult to manage with Knock Off support, since if the opponent sees a Maushold, they instantly know that preserving the Rocky Helmet makes their life significantly easier. Covert Cloak disruptive to a lesser extent in that it prevents the flinch from ever happening. Moreover, since you need the item slot to either hit your moves or to actually be able to flinch, you're really going to struggle to justify Protective Pads.

However, and this is the main reason i'm making the guide, the primary issue is that you're relying on actually hitting the move to get the gimmick to work. This is less than ideal, and i'll do the maths in the spoiler below:

The Maths

Population Bomb works by following the logic of "It hits until it misses", same as Triple Axel - after every hit, there's a new accuracy check for if the next hit connects. This makes it "easy" to work out the chances of landing a given number of hits, and thus the chances of a successful flinch.

Chance for 0 hits = 0.1 or 10%
Chance for 1 hit = Hit -> Miss = 0.9 * 0.1 = 0.09 or 9%
Chance for 2 hits = 2 Hits -> Miss = 0.9^2 * 0.1 = 0.081 or 8.1%
3 hits = 0.0729 or 7.29%
4 hits = 0.06561 or 6.561%
5 hits = 0.059049 or 5.9049%
6 hits = 0.0531441 or 5.31441%
7 hits = 0.04782969 or 4.782969%
8 hits = 0.043046721 or 4.3046721%
9 hits = 0.0387420489 or 3.87420489%
10 hits = 0.9^10 = 0.3486784401 or 34.86784401%

From here, you can individually work out the chances that an amount of hits both occurs and gets the flinch.

0 hits -> 10% chance to occur -> never flinches
1 hit -> 9% chance to occur -> 10% to flinch -> 0.9% to one-hit flinch
2 hits -> 19% to flinch -> 1.539% chance to 2-hit flinch
3 hits -> 27.1% to flinch -> 1.97559% chance to 3-hit flinch
4 hits -> 34.39% to flinch -> 2.2563279% chance to 4-hit flinch
5 hits -> 40.951% to flinch -> 2.418115599% chance to 5-hit flinch
6 hits -> 46.8559% chance to flinch -> 2.490114635% chance to 6-hit flinch
7 hits -> 52.17031% chance to flinch -> 2.495289755% chance to 7-hit flinch
8 hits -> 56.953279% chance to flinch -> 2.451651911% chance to 8-hit flinch
9 hits -> 61.2579511% chance to flinch -> 2.373258537% chance to 9-hit flinch
10 hits -> 65.13215599% chance to flinch -> 22.71017855 chance to 10-hit flinch

Adding these up, you get that the accuracy-accounted flinch chance is only 41.6% to one decimal place. This is if you wanted just Stench or King's Rock.
(41.60952689%)

If we account for King's Rock + Serene Grace, flinching is now 20%:
0 hits -> no flinch
1 hit -> 9% to occur, 20% to flinch -> 1.8% for 1-hit flinch
2 hits -> 36% to flinch -> 2.916% for 2-hit flinch
3 hits -> 48.8% to flinch -> 3.55752% for 3-hit flinch
4 hits -> 59.04% to flinch -> 3.8736144% for 4-hit flinch
5 hits -> 67.232% to flinch -> 3.969982368% for 5-hit flinch
6 hits -> 73.7856% to flinch -> 3.921269305% for 6-hit flinch
7 hits -> 79.02848% to flinch -> 3.7799077% for 7-hit flinch
8 hits -> 83.222784% to flinch -> 3.582467964% for 8-hit flinch
9 hits -> 86.5782272% to flinch -> 3.354217912% for 9-hit flinch
10 hits -> 89.26258176% to flinch -> 31.12393777% for 10-hit flinch

Adding these up, you get that the accuracy-accounted flinch chance is 61.9% to one decimal place. This is for Serene Grace + King's Rock.
(62.87891742%)

If we now account for Wide Lens' 99% accuracy, and use Wide Lens + Stench:
0 hits -> 1% to occur -> no flinches
1 hit -> 0.99% to occur -> 0.099% to 1-hit flinch
2 hits -> 0.9801% to occur -> 0.186219% to 2-hit flinch
3 hits -> 0.970299% to occur -> 0.262951029% to 3-hit flinch
4 hits -> 0.96059601% to occur -> 0.3303489678% to 4-hit flinch
5 hits -> 0.9509900499% to occur -> 0.3894399353% to 5-hit flinch
6 hits -> 0.9414801494% to occur -> 0.4411389973% to 6-hit flinch
7 hits -> 0.9320653479% to occur -> 0.4862613814% to 7-hit flinch
8 hits -> 0.9227446944% to occur -> 0.5255333603% to 8-hit flinch
9 hits -> 0.9135172475% to occur -> 0.5596019488% to 9-hit flinch
10 hits -> 90.4382079% to occur -> 58.90435464% to 10-hit flinch

These add up to an accuracy-adjusted flinch chance of 62.2% to once decimal place. This is for Wide Lens + Stench.
(62.1848495%)

If my maths is correct, then when adjusted for accuracy:

• King's Rock or Stench has a 41.6% chance to flinch the target.
• King's Rock + Serene Grace has a 61.9% chance to flinch the target.
• Wide Lens + Stench has a 62.2% chance to flinch the target.

So, basically, the best odds you're getting (and the only odds, because King's is banned), is 62.2% flinch - given that + the vulnerability to Rocky Helmet + Covert Cloak + Maushold being a heavy defensive liability + it doing very little damage + priority or scarfers rolling up, I would not recommend using it.

e: i never even realized king's is banned lmao

Don't bother with Maushold

Now I love Maushold, it is one of the funniest Pokémon that Gamefreak has produced. A surface level look at it makes it seem amazing too, "Wow, a STAB base 200 power move mulit-hit move, 111 speed stat, technician, has access to U-turn and bea-upt, as well as a setup option is dragon dance AND that removes hazards on the field against Good as Gold mons!?". While these facts are amazing, Gamefreak balanced this Pokémon with having an abysmal 75 base attack, population bomb being a contact move, and it and population bomb being normal type. You could say it is too balanced, not able to keep a spot in OU as while it could sweep unsuspecting team, its counters are varied and hard. There are three ways to run this mon, flinch (terrible and covered really well by Tea Guzzler), consistency, and damage.

First off, Consistency. While Population Bomb technically has 200 bp, doing this over ten hits and each hit having a 10% to miss and end the move means that only around half of your attacks will hit. this drops it to a 100 bp move, which good when compared to other types moves, is a footnote when normal type moves aren't super effective against any Pokémon and normal type moves already contain the highest base power moves in the game. While many will try and run items like choice band or life orb for the immediate boost to damage, Wide lens is just the better option. making population bomb a 99% accurate move, making it hit around 95% of the hits overall. this gives a 90% damage boost, better than any other item could hope to give this Maus. While many would stop there, in AAA you have the ability to give Maushold the ability No Guard. This frees up the item slot and makes population bomb always hit all ten hits. This frees you to either boost damage with the item slot or boost consistency even more with protective pads. Time to bring up the thing all Maushold players fear. Slightly bumpy skin and helmets. double this up with how most rocky helmet users are steel or rock type (corv) and the opponent simply having one of these Pokémon usually means you start the game a mon down. While protective pads solve this problem on paper, the rocky helmet mons that would switch on Maushold can still just kill it due to Maushold no longer dealing damage. (+1 252 Atk Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fluffy Corviknight: 60-70 (15 - 17.5%) -- approx. possible 6HKO) (252+ Def Corviknight Body Press vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Maushold: 222-262 (76.8 - 90.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO). While Maushold has an underrated tool in the move encore, making it so that if the opponent gives Maushold gets a free turn it can get some free setup, that still doesn't solve much. A consistency built Maus can only 3HKO Corv after a +6 (+6 252 Atk Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fluffy Corviknight: 160-190 (40 - 47.5%) -- approx. 3HKO). Physically defensive Garg also live a hit and does 90% back with body press. (+6 252 Atk Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Garganacl: 300-360 (74.2 - 89.1%) -- approx. 2HKO after Leftovers recovery). While Maushold in AAA theoretically can solve both of its biggest in having to give up an item slot for consistency and its weakness to rough skin/rocky helmet, it just loses the damage that gives it a chance against its many checks.

While the Population Bombs Maushold can send off are devastating in OU, the next problem Maushold faces in AAA is its inability to tera. While in OU it can use normal tera and a single tidy up to do 65% to Corviknight switching in (+1 252 Atk Technician Tera Normal Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 240-290 (60.1 - 72.6%) -- approx. 2HKO after Leftovers recovery), AAA leads to both bulkier mons and a weaker Maus. It goes from doing 65% to a physically defensive corv, to 45% to a fluffy specially defensive Corv at +2. (+2 252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Fluffy Corviknight: 160-190 (40.1 - 47.6%) -- approx. 3HKO after Leftovers recovery). I have already covered why wide lense is the only item you should be running on Maushold if you are running population bomb so I won't be covering items here. The damage maushold can deal against most Pokémon is devastating, but there are still Pokémon that it can barely scratch.

There was a point I was going to make here about ghost types, but Gholdengo and Houndstone are banned (YIPPEE) so the only ghost types you have to worry about is skeledirge (don't worry though maushold can do nothing to it). The rest of the ghost types aren't common enough to warrant a point (ceruledge still kinda just dies to crunch though) or will just straight up die.

Priority. If Maushold had every single flaw already mentioned, it would be pretty bad, but it also loses hard to priority. While the numbers may give you hope in only Espeed Dnite (and mach punch Breloom I guess) OHKOing you (252+ Atk Choice Band Aerilate Dragonite Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Maushold: 354-417 (122.4 - 144.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO), and the rest only 2HKOing, thats not good. Dragonite is a huge meta threat you have to watch out for, so for one that is a large flaw. Threats like Chien-Pao, Greninja, Meowscarada, Scizor, Kingambit, Slither Wing, Lucario, etc. all being able to deal half of you hp plus the combination of common physical walls of Orthworm, Corviknight, and Garganicl being able to live a hit and hit you back hard give Maushold little entrance to the battlefield.

While Maushold can in theory get help from teammates like psychic surge Armorouge to deal with some of its problems, it in the end fails with having to give up so much to get anywhere else.

 

[April]

Regenerator in a Post-Tusk AAA
an incoherent mess of thoughts​

Few people Tusk's brokenness justified to them. Either this thing went, or AAA went. Great Tusk's primary and most splashable sets were all some variant abusing Regenerator. From physically defensive, to specially defensive with AV, to fast and slow, from mixed wall to offensive sweeper. Most of the time, Great Tusk was gonna be using Regenerator, and most of the time, your team needed a Great Tusk. This meant, for the most part, your one regen mon, a valuable slot on most teamstyles, was forced onto Great Tusk by default. With the elephant banned, as well as some other noteworthy threats in Gholdengo, Baxcalibur and Houndstone, a team is going to have many more options with many different niches to fill this slot.


Probably the second most popular Regen abuser. Roaring Moon really had three flaws: It wasn't Great Tusk, it lost to Great Tusk (and +1 Baxcalibur), and mediocre physical bulk. Two of these problems are now non-factors! Roaring Moon, with its wonderfully diverse statspread of 105/139/71/55/101/119, is almost hand-built to take advantage of Regenerator + Assault Vest. With a naturally great speed tier and great bulk, this might become one of the most splashable mons in the metagame.

Great Tusk at home? Iron Treads, similar to Roaring Moon, has naturally good bulk and a great speed tier. With a lot of the same tool Great Tusk had, as well as not having to compete with or against it, this is also going to rise as a good answer to major threat as well as a generally splashable hazard setter, remover and offensive pivot.

What is this, a convergence crossover episode? Garganacl with Regenerator sounds really nasty. Great mixed bulk and Salt Cure to threaten threats like Iron Moth and Chien-Pao depending on your set, while not having to give the opponent a free turn to recover your health? Sign me up! Another good hazard setter with decent field presence, but also relatively passive. Definitely gonna be a bit more niche, but not having to worry about Great Tusk means it's more likely to fit on more fat and balanced teams.

Here is where I ran out of nuanced thoughts, so I'm going to share a few things I think are gonna take advantage of Regenerator, with some brief explanations.

Stall mons that adore free recovery. Makes games even longer :D
Other defensive mons that could abuse the 33% healing, but would rather use a different ability most of the time.
You thought this was annoying before?
(again) Offensive threats that may make use of Regenerator to get in more safely and more often to blow holes in the other team.

All in all, an important team slot has just been opened up to a huge variety of Pokemon, and I'm excited for the state of the tier as a whole moving forward! With so many overwhelming things gone, the tier's going to open up a lot and be, in my opinion, much more varied and enjoyable.

 

[Siamato]

Sharing a set to celebrate the advent of a this new AAA metagame!


Donphan @ Rocky Helmet / Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Spinner / Poison Jab / Stealth Rock

This is the closest (but still far away) thing able to replace Great Tusk as physically defensive spinner with utility! Because it is Ground only, Donphan is able to take neutral damages on Ground and Fighting moves, 2 really common physically offensive coverage, unlike Iron Treads.

Is it good? Hard to tell yet but I think this mon has a niche in the current metagame. Oh and btw, unlike Great Tusk, Donphan is able to deal with Dragonite thanks to Flying neutrality and Ice Spinner!

 

[Tea Guzzler]

Why are we now starting every post with this title format ​

it doesn't make any sense

anyway, now that tusk is gone, i'd like to talk a little about hazard removal in the new meta, since our options are possibly even fewer than last time around.


Corviknight @ Leftovers
Ability: Whatever
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD or 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Sassy / Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Brave Bird / Body Press
- Roost
- Defog
- U-turn / Iron Defense

defog corv is, at least in my opinion, going to almost completely monopolize hazard removal. you're already using it on the majority of teams you make and bulk up sets are niche enough to where they shouldn't be intruding on running defog. the lack of bax also helps, since you aren't forced into running ironpress or intim + idef just to handle it. this will probably be 80% of teams' removal, so good as gold will likely rise in popularity to block it.


Iron Treads @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Volt Switch

probably the most reliable removal option that also doubles as a special wall, and isn't now having to compete with tusk for the regen slot. this thing's main issues are that it's a regenvest that's weak to almost all of the relevant special attackers (gren, kilo, shocks, chi-yu), and that if you don't give it regen then it has no recovery. immune abilities will probably be decently common even if they rely on mono-leftovers for healing (or you can just wait for some madman to roll up with shed skin rest maybe?).


Donphan @ Rocky Helmet / Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Spinner / Poison Jab / Stealth Rock

like siamato says above, this lacks the defensive weakness of its paradox forms and so matches a bit better into the meta, however something it also lacks is BST. 500 BST is serviceable but the stat spread is almost entirely physical, with poor SpD and Spe hindering its ability to actually spin in front of stuff even if it isn't being readily blocked by gholdengo anymore. once again, like with treads, unless you fancy rest shenanigans then it's reliant on the regen slot for recovery.


Quaquaval @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Wave Crash
- Rapid Spin
- Roost


Brambleghast @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Well-Baked Body
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Power Whip
- Rapid Spin
- Spikes
- Strength Sap

lumping these together as they both are relatively frail spinners that make up for their frailty with instant recovery. quaquaval will probably be the main offensive spinner, although it still hates its matchup into moth so many sets with spin will only be able to spin, and bramble can spin + set spikes + wall ace but has to rely on strength sap for recovery which has varying results. i can see quaquaval getting decent use but idk about bramble.


Talonflame @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Brave Bird
- Defog
- Roost

mglo talonflame is unique in that it can actually threaten most things trying to block its defog through good as gold, and if it isn't defogging then it's able to function as an offensive threat. probably the biggest issue with this is that garganacl gets rocks up permanently, and that defog competes quite heavily with wisp or SD, so becoming a mainstay for removal (maybe you go 1 attack/wisp/defog/roost?) is probably unlikely.


Altaria @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Fluffy / Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Brave Bird
- Will-O-Wisp
- Defog
- Roost

FLUFFY BIRD
this can remove stuff but i think wisp is the only advantage this has over anything else in this list. fluffy provides good physical bulk but it's unclear what fluffy lets you wall which max physdef wouldn't do for you already, especially now that tusk is gone. this is probably a side/downgrade corv unless you specifically want the fire resist, at which point vessel provides lower physdef bulk than fluffy but works on everything and presumably you 1v1 SD ace with it.


Drifblim @ Leftovers / Colbur Berry / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Magic Guard / Well-Baked Body / Volt Absorb
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Will-O-Wisp / Thunder Wave
- Hex
- Defog
- Strength Sap

drifblim's high HP is both a blessing and a curse. on the one hand, it helps make up for drifblim's very poor defenses and grants it similar phys bulk to thundurus (which isn't a lot but it's something at least) / special bulk to shocks. on the other, strength sap heals for proportionally less than brambleghast gets. twave or wisp spread status and buff hex (meaning this isn't entirely passive) but can struggle to safely land and actually impact the thing you're hitting, and this mon gets ultra bullied by good as gold.


Glimmora @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Power Gem
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock / Sludge Wave
- Mortal Spin

mortal is not reliable but theoretically mglo gives it enough power to not be spinblocked by corv (power gem 2HKOes physdef), though the typing is riddled with weaknesses and the speed leaves something to be desired for an "offensive" mon.

tl;dr - removal is not looking good

 

[UT]

Good morning friends! In what will surely be some of the least surprising news of the day given their frequent and high-level contributions to our resources, showing not only great metagame knowledge but also an eagerness to improve the tier, LordBox has been added to AAA Council!

Everyone please congratulate them and yell at them about tiering action you don't like!

 

[Uninteleon]

Magic Bounce NEEDS to come back

With the recent ban of Great Tusk, stall teams have become increasingly more popular, mainly utilizing entry hazards and GaG mons like Skeledirge, Garganacl, and others. There is no current good way to remove hazards, and if something isn’t done about hazard stacking, then this meta will fall apart. Magic Bounce is one of the hardest counters to entry hazard stacking playstyles. Notable users in the past were Garganacl and Hippowdon.

…

I can’t keep this post long. Magic Bounce returning would this meta’s saving grace. The meta is horrible and unfriendly rn.

 

[BugGoBrrrrrr]

you know I had to

Set

Lycanroc @ Choice Band
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Close Combat
- Play Rough
- Accelerock

Calcs

252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Lycanroc Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garchomp: 268-316 (63.8 - 75.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Lycanroc Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu: 296-350 (57.5 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Lycanroc Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 210-247 (52.5 - 61.7%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Lycanroc Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Iron Treads: 408-480 (106.2 - 125%) -- guaranteed OHKO

With tusk and ghold going bye bye rock types as a whole have become a lot more spammable and lycanroc is the one that caught my eye having great coverage for every common rock resist in the current meta

 

[Isaiah]

With the recent ban of Great Tusk, stall teams have become increasingly more popular, mainly utilizing entry hazards and GaG mons like Skeledirge, Garganacl, and others. There is no current good way to remove hazards, and if something isn’t done about hazard stacking, then this meta will fall apart. Magic Bounce is one of the hardest counters to entry hazard stacking playstyles. Notable users in the past were Garganacl and Hippowdon.

First, this:

More serious answer though: We don't unban or ban abilities just to nerf or buff a playstyle; we wouldn't say "Spidops's Sticky Web is a problem, so let's unban Magic Bounce". If this was really the case, then we'd quickban or suspect test Spidops. Not gonna leak anything about a Magic Bounce re-suspect, but reasoning for unbanning it should be because we believe it isn't broken in the context of the meta--not just to counter any playstyles we don't like playing against :P hope that clears things up

If Good as Gold is a problem, then it should be evaluated on its own as a controversial element in the metagame. Using "we need to buff/nerf X playstyle" as reasoning to unban something is fragile framework for justification, especially in a post made only 2 days after the latest changes. Also, there are other decent Rapid Spinners: Quaquaval, Iron Treads, and Donphan can all get the job done. In fact, here's a team I threw together to try out the post-ban metagame that's currently 33-2 on high ladder. It's got Refrigerate Quaquaval (not even a great set) and is still relatively consistent.

Corviknight might be the only good Defogger, but it did the job just fine before Good as Gold comps became more common. I'm inclined to think the issue there is less that hazards are unbeatable and moreso that our already short list of options is made even shorter by such an incredible ability. I don't know what the meta will look like in a week, but I have definitely done plenty of testing with said stall teams featuring GaG and...it's pretty free. When you can block Corviknight so easily, solving Rapid Spin is often as simple as running Brambelghast and calling it a day. I wouldn't be surprised to see Good as Gold become the next target of debate/discussion for sure.

Whether or not Magic Bounce gets suspect tested back into the tier should be separated from whatever impact Good as Gold is having on the metagame.

 

[cat]

Continuing this text format that Tea pointed out
I did a small unofficial vote on magic bounce in the aaa channel and got a pretty eh result, 3 support an unban while 6 (including me :D) support no change. I won't go too far, Isaiah did more than enough to explain but in my opinion, I dislike the 5/6 base chance of getting rocks up without even adding other modifiers such as switching out. This is fairly uncompetitive and in my opinion, should remain banned.

Next on the list: Why Good as Gold isn't very healthy for the meta

>hey look my team has spikes on the floor
> i love my team and i will defog always those hazards
Corviknight used Defog!
[The opposing Skeledirge's Good as Gold]
It doesn't affect the opposing Skeledirge...
>wtf
>dies
That surely was painful (to read). We all have experienced this before wondering "how tf do i remove hazards now?" Premier spinner Great Tusk has been yeeted, defog dexited from many, and this combines into a very very very tiny amount of hazard controllers that are actually good. Don't get me wrong, Iron Treads and Quaquaval are good mons, but 1 has an exploitable Fighting weakness that may or may not have been used against QT (until i missed 5 focus blasts in a row and started tilting horribly, -300~ elo from that), and the other probably prefers to kick others with water instead. This does leave our other semiviable spinner to Brambleghast, but grass / ghost is a poor defensive typing right now (however I portray an increase in popularity for its spinning capabilities). How does this lead back to Good as Gold? You see, defog is no longer an option when Good as Gold enters the conversation, leaving Rapid Spin as the only viable source of hazard control. Stacking hazards and then always pivoting in your Good as Gold on a defog attempt to just deny removal doesn't sound balanced to me. I can see hazard stack just being the best strategy, with almost no ways to counter it barring niche options like Mold Breaker Defog Corviknight.

How do you reliably remove hazards in this meta?
When GaG gains traction and is paired with Ghost-Types, hazard stack is sure to be a good team style. Hell I had so many thoughts on using it writing this post only to realize how helpless one can be to it, watching Ting-Lu or others setup spikes while never being able to defog it away.

The "other" use
GaG can also be used in a FurScales-esque style (if toxic still existed) and completely prevent phazing it away via status.


TLDR: GaG is unhealthy for the meta when I block defog and spam hazards

side notes

i wanted to do hazard stack but i realized i would hate myself for that

 

[CrazyLasagna]

Magic Bounce NEEDS to come back

With the recent ban of Great Tusk, stall teams have become increasingly more popular, mainly utilizing entry hazards and GaG mons like Skeledirge, Garganacl, and others. There is no current good way to remove hazards, and if something isn’t done about hazard stacking, then this meta will fall apart. Magic Bounce is one of the hardest counters to entry hazard stacking playstyles. Notable users in the past were Garganacl and Hippowdon.

…

I can’t keep this post long. Magic Bounce returning would this meta’s saving grace. The meta is horrible and unfriendly rn.

Magic Bounce is a boon to stall teams. Hazards are a great source of reliable chip damage against a stall team. Giving stall a way to deny hazards so effectively (while also basically setting their own) just buffs them even more. Stall teams were awful to play against last gen until the Magic-Bounce ban (imo).

 

[Jrdn]

Magic Bounce is a boon to stall teams. Hazards are a great source of reliable chip damage against a stall team. Giving stall a way to deny hazards so effectively (while also basically setting their own) just buffs them even more. Stall teams were awful to play against last gen until the Magic-Bounce ban (imo).

Magic Bounce is a boon to both sides. Stall keeps hazards off unless moldy hazards, and balance/ho can keep hazards and stay alive vs a lot of the slower chip methods for stall like toxic/whirlwind etc. And the argulment that stall wins the hazard game too easily with magic bounce doesn't make sense to me, because there has never been a meta where keeping hazards up has been easier in the history of the metagame. Stall gets them up, keeps them up, and chills till the end of time.

Best case scenario, Mb and GaG balance each other out. Hazards + GaG teams work less due to magic bounce, while magic bounce is less common due to good as gold. With GaG teams less effective, people branch out and find diverse ways of making teams that can work.

Worst case scenario: Magic bounce is too good and it gets re-banned, in a fair manner this time, and good as gold goes shortly after.


As of right now, Hazards + Good as Gold is truly dominant as a style as the team comp has finally come into its own, and it's pretty brutal to play against.

 

[Tea Guzzler]

For example Mycelium Might makes the pokemon move last, but it ignores Magic Bounce and Good as Gold. Also Mold Breaker / Teravolt / Turboblaze ignore bypass Magic Bounce and Good as Gold too, but useless if they carry a Ability Shield which protects from the effects from ignorable abilities.

mycelium might is literally pointless. it is a direct downgrade from mold breaker since they both have functionally the exact same effect, except mycelium gives the user negative priority. this suggestion is also completely ignorant to the fact that having to run mold breaker defog is the whole problem, since on defog users, mold breaker is both useless in every other aspect and prevents you running an actual ability.

 

[UT]

mycelium might is literally pointless. it is a direct downgrade from mold breaker since they both have functionally the exact same effect, except mycelium gives the user negative priority. this suggestion is also completely ignorant to the fact that having to run mold breaker defog is the whole problem, since on defog users, mold breaker is both useless in every other aspect and prevents you running an actual ability.

Mycelium Might does have two niches; it doesn't announce itself and can be used to slow Roost. It's actually viable on Corv so you can bluff other abilities, Roost safely on Ting-Lu, and still always get Defog off.

Is it still a niche-at-best ability? Absolutely, but it's not completely outclassed.