Let's start it off with something easy-ish, but with plenty to talk about
: Fast-forward two months, to January 2013. RU drops four Pokemon down to NU; Rhydon, Scolipede, Whimsicott, and Hitmonchan (I know it's a stretch, but still!). NU loses three Pokemon to RU; Emboar, Absol, and Swellow.
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questions to think about. answer as many of them as you want (or as few as you want, but please try to present something new or interesting), but let them guide your thoughts and see if you can think of any others!
1. How will the absence of Emboar, Absol, and Swellow impact the metagame? Will any Pokemon in particular benefit from them being gone? It's helpful to know and understand the current roles of these three very important Pokemon in NU right now; what will go 'unchecked' or be more difficult to handle without them around? Is there anything else that can rise up to fulfill their old roles and keep Pokemon X, Y, and Z in check?
2. What will the introduction of Rhydon do to the current metagame? It's statistically the most physically bulky Pokemon in the game - will the usage of physical sweepers be impacted? Rhydon is also being introduced into a metagame where Rock-types are incredibly useful. What advantages does Rhydon have over our currently usable Rock-types (Regirock, Golem, etc) and does it bring anything unique or different to the table? Are there any Pokemon that can easily take advantage of Rhydon in particular? What will be the most popular teammates for Rhydon, and for what reasons? Can Rhydon do anything interesting or new that the current Pokemon in NU cannot?
3. What role will Scolipede play in NU? Scolipede becomes only the second fully evolved Pokemon in NU that can set both Spikes and Toxic Spikes. Does it have any advantages in particular over its fellow Spikers? Any disadvantages? How can you maximize the effectiveness of Scolipede? Scolipede also has access to both Swords Dance and Baton Pass - will it see any usage as a Baton Passer? How about a standalone sweeper? What Pokemon would benefit most from having a Scolipede on their team? Which Pokemon deal with Scolipede the best, and why is that? With that question in mind, which Pokemon will Scolipede appreciate most on its team?
4. Whimsicott provides NU with another Prankster user, albeit one with a bit of a different role than the others (Liepard, Murkrow, Volbeat). Will SubSeeding prove to be useful enough to make it used more than the other abusers of Prankster? Can Whimsicott perform their already existing roles better? What are some other uses of Whimsicott? What will the best ways to deal with Whimsicott be, and will Whimsi become prevalent enough that you actually need to always carry a counter for it? Outside of Grass-types, can anything handle the SubSeed set?
5. Hitmonchan would be the first Rapid Spin user that actually resists Stealth Rock in NU. Does it directly outclass Torkoal, Armaldo, and Wartortle to the point that they should no longer be used for those roles? Do any of those still have advantages over Hitmonchan? Will other, non-Rapid Spin sets receive usage? What would be the best of these? Which Pokemon are the best counters for Hitmonchan? What teammates would appreciate Hitmontop's support the most (and I don't mean just list 4x SR weaknesses, think about it a bit!)
6. Don't just think of these drops one-by-one. All of them would be dropping together, so what impact would they make on each other? Will they help more than harm, or vice versa? Will the Pokemon that rise in usage because of Rhydon be taken advantage of by any of the other new drops, etc? Which Pokemon do you think would do the best overall in this new metagame?
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Depending on how much activity this thread receives, we might even end up doing a mini-tournament with the changes that we discussed which would be pretty awesome. I think there's a ton of discussion to go on here if you guys are interested in talking about it, so I am not going to set a specific date for new questions / changes to go up, but I'll throw them up there once it starts dying down.