Hey everyone! I'd like to introduce the community to a fun, new gametype called "pokemon drafting."
Pokemon Drafting attempts to make teambuilding an active, dynamic part of the game and allows for interesting concepts and strategies currently unseen in standard matches. It's been a big success among my irl friends, and I'm thinking the smogon/showdown community will like it as well.
The mechanics are inspired off of magic drafting. But instead of purchasing packs of cards, the players each create a pack of 8 pokemon of their choosing to be shuffled in the pack-pool.
Each player begins by submitting a pack of 8 pokemon. Players can make their pokemon as specific as they want, and can write out each pokemon's EVs, Natures, etc. (assuming, of course, that it's a legal pokemon; ie no sheerforce slaking).
Here's a simplified example with 3 players and 3 pokemon each instead of 8 pokemon:
Now for some details not in the example:
The first round of drafting is actually a "ban-phase" where the each player's first pick is actually just thrown out of the game. This way players are discouraged from adding top-tier pokemon because they risk having them banned immediately in turn one (the player who adds 8 mewtwos gets all of his mewtwos banned on turn 1). So if you make a pack of 8 pokemon each, 1 card is banned, and the last card is thrown out, leaving you with 6 pokemon for your team.
So in case you're not convinced, let's talk about some cool strategies my friends thought of:
One player just made a pack of UU pokemon that he was particularly familiar with. This way when he encountered them (even if the opponent has them), he know how to handle them.
One player put 4 ninetales and 4 NU sunny-day sweepers in a daft with a total of 4 people. Each of the other players all picked ninetales within the first few rounds, and he didn't pick ninetales. Instead he just picked the sunny-day sweepers knowing that his opponents would bring the sun for him.
Another player created a pack of OU dragons, and added a few unappealing-looking steel-types. This way he'd try to steal the steel-types before other players realize how many dragons there are available.
Another player created a pack of appealing pokemon with crippling stealth rock weaknesses, with a few UU pokemon with stealth rocks. Players don't realize how valuable the UU pokemon are and he can end up being the only one with stealth rocks.
I think it's a really fun game, and I'm hoping the Smogon/Showdown community would be interested in giving it a try.
Pokemon Drafting attempts to make teambuilding an active, dynamic part of the game and allows for interesting concepts and strategies currently unseen in standard matches. It's been a big success among my irl friends, and I'm thinking the smogon/showdown community will like it as well.
The mechanics are inspired off of magic drafting. But instead of purchasing packs of cards, the players each create a pack of 8 pokemon of their choosing to be shuffled in the pack-pool.
Each player begins by submitting a pack of 8 pokemon. Players can make their pokemon as specific as they want, and can write out each pokemon's EVs, Natures, etc. (assuming, of course, that it's a legal pokemon; ie no sheerforce slaking).
Here's a simplified example with 3 players and 3 pokemon each instead of 8 pokemon:
Now for some details not in the example:
The first round of drafting is actually a "ban-phase" where the each player's first pick is actually just thrown out of the game. This way players are discouraged from adding top-tier pokemon because they risk having them banned immediately in turn one (the player who adds 8 mewtwos gets all of his mewtwos banned on turn 1). So if you make a pack of 8 pokemon each, 1 card is banned, and the last card is thrown out, leaving you with 6 pokemon for your team.
So in case you're not convinced, let's talk about some cool strategies my friends thought of:
One player just made a pack of UU pokemon that he was particularly familiar with. This way when he encountered them (even if the opponent has them), he know how to handle them.
One player put 4 ninetales and 4 NU sunny-day sweepers in a daft with a total of 4 people. Each of the other players all picked ninetales within the first few rounds, and he didn't pick ninetales. Instead he just picked the sunny-day sweepers knowing that his opponents would bring the sun for him.
Another player created a pack of OU dragons, and added a few unappealing-looking steel-types. This way he'd try to steal the steel-types before other players realize how many dragons there are available.
Another player created a pack of appealing pokemon with crippling stealth rock weaknesses, with a few UU pokemon with stealth rocks. Players don't realize how valuable the UU pokemon are and he can end up being the only one with stealth rocks.
I think it's a really fun game, and I'm hoping the Smogon/Showdown community would be interested in giving it a try.
