CAP 19 CAP 19 - Part 1 - Concept Submissions

[Mektar]

Man, this was cutting it close. Should be unique though.

Name: Choose Wisely

General Description: A Pokémon that, through its mere existence, forces trainers to think more carefully as to which Mega Evolution, if any, they want on their team by making them even more critical in some way.

Justification: Mega evolutions are a unique new aspect introduced to the Pokémon series as of Gen 6. They can be incredibly strong, with high stats and powerful abilities, enabling them to dominate matches. The catch? You can only have one. Other powerful strategies and Pokémon can be used as you see fit. Want priority users? you can run Talonflame, Aegislash, and Azumarill. Trick Room? Have both Dusknoir and Reuniclus to set it up for you. Recently we've banned full Baton Pass teams for being too good. But if you simply want a Steel/Fairy revenge killer to go with your Fire/Dragon sweeper? No dice. Choose Wisely will help us explore just how much this new constraint placed upon teambuilding effects the OU metagame.

Questions to be Answered:
* How important is it to run a Mega on your team?
* What is the opportunity cost of not running the Mega Pokémon you did not select?
* When does the benefit of a Mega outweigh the risks, such as being unable to use items?
* How drastically would the metagame shift if some more obscure Megas began to see play over others?

Explanation: With Pokémon such as Mega Pinsir, Mega Charizard X, and Mega Mawile running rampant through the tier, how is it that trainers can combat them? With Choose Wisely in OU however, everything would change. There are many ways we could design a CAP to warp the minds of players during teambuilding. The simplest method for Choose Wisely to operate would be to act as a very powerful threat that has the capacity to rip apart teams, but is hard countered by a specific Mega Pokémon. When we all are using that Mega to stop the CAP, some rouge players could catch you unprepared with a Charizard X instead. Or, we could get creative and punish traditional 'mons that use items by building a Knock Off abuser or a prankster Pokémon with Trick access. Anything goes, as long as we make everyone stop and think about which Mega Evolution they want more closely. This will allow us to reflect on the state of OU, and how these Mega-powerful Pokémon got it that way.

 

[alexwolf]

I already talked with DarkSlay a bit on IRC about why I don't think OUber would be cookie cutter and played out, but I wanted to post it here too.

I think the key point to focus in on is my final question. How different can the CAP be from the Uber pokemon it will emulate? I fully agree that a hazard stacking Psychic type with 130 speed, lower attacking stats, and no Psycho Boost would be a seriously boring project. I just disagree that we would in any way be forced to do that.

But even if we build a more different CAP, it will still be based around Deo-S, which still makes it boring imo. We know what successful tools Deo-S has and we just need to remove a few so that it's not broken, and bam, here is your CAP. I don't care how we go about it, but even a slow Steel-type with Prankster, Taunt, Stealth Rock, and some offensive pressure would be a very boring concept because of the similarities to Deo-S, even if it has a lot of different traits. All those Pokemon were such dominating forces and had very clear-cut roles that you just can't make something very different if you base the CAP around them. We endured those Pokemon long enough in OU, let's not create mini-versions of them in this CAP.

 

[Base Speed]

Hey guys, I wanted to give feedback on as many concepts as possible today but after making it through less than the first page, something came up IRL and I didn't have enough time. I'm going to try get more done but I'm going to post what I've written now because I'm well aware the deadline is fast approaching. Just wanted you to be aware of this so you don't read into it too much if I have/haven't given you feedback:

Dragonblaze052's Second Chance: An interesting concept with both a straightforward objective and good learning opportunities. Would be quite happy doing this. My only concern is that there's slightly less room for creativity with this project than some others, but I'd happily be proved wrong.

MQJinx's Unpopular Made Popular, The Pizza Man's Nostalgic Playstyle and Pwnemon's BWack To The Future: I've grouped you three together because ultimately your concepts have very similar goals. I like those goals and hope at least one of you gets slated. Personally I prefer Pwnemon's more specific approach and feel like he's asked the most meaningful questions, but it's a pretty close call between these three.

Capefeather's Yomi: Sorry, but this one worries me. I fear we'll spend most of our time bogged down in gritty technical details if we do this concept, and I think it presents a high barrier of entry to newcomers with its complexity. I too think this one will create a bad ladder experience. I'd like to see some more explanation that deals with my concerns.

srk1214's OUber and Clankenator007's If It Isn't Broken...: Both interesting concepts that could be fun and educational if executed properly. However, I'm frankly terrified of concepts like these because they push the boundaries of what's acceptable in OU in a way that our process can't handle. I fear if you combine encouragement to be on the borderline between OU and Uber with CAP's natural tendency to make overpowered Pokemon, the result could be catastrophic. In my opinion, Clankenator007 is more guilty of this than srk1214. It would be unfair to say I don't want to do these concepts, but they're risks and we'll have to approach them with caution.

 

[DarkSlay]

Okay, the submission period is over! After careful consideration, my slate consists of eight choices. This is a pretty average-sized slate, but I was really torn between 11 concepts submitted, so this was no easy task. Here is your CAP 19 concept slate, in no particular order:

Base Speed's Quit Stalling!
Pwnemon's BWack to the Future
Deck Knight's Breaking Dawn
Birkal's Fairylicious
DetroitLolCat's Low Priority
Yilx' Einherjar ~Acta Est Fabula~
TRC.'s Distribution Revolution
heartofgold's Control Switch

Quit Stalling! is a great concept, as Stall is an extremely good playstyle that currently has very specific answers to it through the use of straight wallbreakers or somewhat niche stallbreakers. Would make for a very interesting discussion on the best way of dealing with this playstyle in the XY metagame.

BWack to the Future is kind of the cream of the crop in terms of the "Bring X to OU" concepts, as it brings once-viable concepts back on to the table and asks us to re-invent them to fit the XY metagame.

Breaking Dawn is an excellent concept that demonstrates the importance of gaining momentum early on in matches, something that is being questioned currently in the OU metagame through the re-emergence of potential consistent leads.

Fairylicious is a somewhat dangerous concept to include, I admit, as on the surface many people have simply labeled it as "make a Fairy-type". However, if you further investigate the purpose of this concept, it delves more into how stereotypes are made about certain typings in the OU metagame (Bulky Grounds, Fast Electric-types, etc.) and how Fairy at the moment is a unique case where the Pokemon within the typing are either iterations of past Pokemon, Mega evolutions, or niche Pokemon (Klefki). There is no real stereotype. It's not my most favorite concept ever, but it's certainly viable/good and would be interesting to discuss so long as we do not fall prey to our inhibitions of just creating a good Fairy-type for the sake of doing so.

Low Priority is interesting as many of the current top threats in the metagame heavily rely on priority moves to either dish out damage or change momentum (TFlame's Brave Bird, MPinsir's Quick Attack, Thundurus-I's TWave, ect.). It's an obviously relevant topic to discuss for a CAP project as a result.

Einherjar is probably my most favorite concept of the group simply because of how interesting the concept discussion would be. Discussions about how a Pokemon that your opponent would want to keep alive is both deep and thought-provoking, and this is certainly something that is not often seen in the metagame yet theoretically would be very useful to have on teams. I really would enjoy talking about this concept, so this was an easy slate.

Distribution Revolution reminds me of past submissions concerning the role of utility within individual Pokemon, which is a very valuable concept. This concept focuses on the numbers behind such decisions, which may seem dry to some, but is actually arguably the most important feature of competitive battling. Pokemon like Landorus-T, Heatran, Mew, and Celebi are great examples of Pokemon that can run multiple sets thanks to EV's or can run the same sets with different EV's to accomplish specific things. Very solid concept.

Control Switch focuses on a very under-appreciated topic of competitive Pokemon in the form of making good and bad switches throughout the match. I feel like the conversations this concept could result in would be extremely beneficial in understanding the importance of team building, Pokemon performance, trapping, baiting - the points are pretty varied. Good concept.

We now have our slate! The concept poll will follow the closing of this thread, so get excited as we take our first (democratic!) step towards creating a masterpiece!