CAP 5 - Concept Submissions

[Birkal*]

Hello everyone, and welcome to the beginning of CAP 5! I'm excited to see what kind of competitive Pokemon we as a community make over the following weeks. If you'd like to talk about current events in CAP live with other participants, join us in #cap sometime. Best of luck to all participants; let's have a great CAP.

This is where we discuss the general goal of the next Create-A-Pokemon project -- CAP 5. The Concept will be a guiding force throughout the ensuing project, to ensure the the final result is a cohesive competitive pokemon. Any discussions, suggestions, or submissions in later topics, that do not support the spirit of the Concept, will be moderated by the moderators.

Concepts must be presented as high-level descriptions of a general idea. They cannot be detailed Pokemon designs. Since we have polls to determine each aspect of the Pokemon, we cannot allow any specific features of the Pokemon to be determined by the details of the Concept.

We intentionally have many rules regarding Concept Submissions. If you are not prepared to read and understand all the rules, then don't bother making a submission. These rules are made to help narrow the field of concepts down to those that have been carefully designed. This is not meant to be easy for everyone -- a good, legal Concept requires a lot of thought and careful wording.

The following rules must be followed when submitting a Concept:

• One submission per person. You may edit your Concept, but you may not change the fundamental premise after it has been posted. If editing your concept, please edit the original post instead of posting a new revision. Do not bump your Concept after you have posted it. If people do not comment on it, so be it.
• Do not duplicate or closely-resemble Concepts already posted by others. It is your responsibility to read through all previous submissions in this thread to ensure you are complying with this rule. Ignorance or laziness is not an excuse.
• Specific Pokemon types or type combos cannot be included or excluded in a Concept. Nor can other characteristics of the Concept specifically result in in the inclusion or exclusion of Types. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:

  "This is a Dragon pokemon with..."
  "The pokemon should be immune to Ghost attacks..."
  "The pokemon should have at least 7 resistances..."
  "The pokemon should get STAB on Thunderbolt.."

• Specific Abilities are not allowed. This applies to existing abilities and new abilities. Do not attempt to circumvent this rule by mentioning specific battle effects that can only be achieved by the implementation of an ability. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:

  "This pokemon should have a defensive ability like Intimidate or Marvel Scale..."
  "This pokemon has an ability that steals the opponent's held item..."
  "When this pokemon is switched in, all weather conditions are nullified..."

• Movepools or lists of moves are not allowed. A specific move can be mentioned if it is the basis for the entire concept. For example, the Concept "Rapid Spinner" would obviously mention the move Rapid Spin.
• Specific stat bias, base stats, or base stat ratings are not allowed. It is acceptable to use descriptive phrases like "fast", "bulky", "strong attacker", etc -- since there are a variety of ways a pokemon can fit those descriptions without specifically requiring certain stats. But, do not use overly-specific descriptions that would narrowly constrain the pokemon's base stat spread.
• Indications of Physical/Special bias are discouraged, but acceptable if it is essential to the Concept.
• Do not refer to any part of the pokemon's artistic design. For example, the following phrases would be illegal:

  "This is a bright blue pokemon..."
  "The pokemon looks like a..."
  "The pokemon uses its long tail to..."

• A Concept Submission must be submitted in the proper format. The format is described below. If the proper format is not used, the moderators will not evaluate the submission, regardless of content.

Concept Submission Format
Use this format for all concept submissions:

Name: (short name)
General Description: (See rules below. No more than a sentence or two here.)
Justification: (See rules below.)
Questions To Be Answered: (See rules below.)

Explanation: (Whatever you want to say here.)

Here is the format with tags. Just copy/paste this into your post, and fill it out:

[b]Name:[/b] (short name)
[b]General Description:[/b] (See rules below. No more than a sentence or two here.)
[b]Justification:[/b] (See rules below.)
[b]Questions To Be Answered:[/b] (See rules below.)

[b]Explanation:[/b] (Whatever you want to say here.)

• Name - Don't get too clever with the name. If the essence of the concept is not intuitively obvious in the name, then you are hurting your chances of people understanding it. If the essence of your concept cannot be expressed in a few words, then you need to seriously re-evaluate your concept.
• Description - This is the official description of the concept, and must follow ALL the content rules listed above. Do not make this a long description. Long descriptions are invariably too specific or too convoluted. Keep it short. Any more than a sentence or two is TOO MUCH. Do NOT include your Explanation of the concept in the Description. See "Explanation" below.
• Justification - A few sentences describing how the concept satisfies one or more of the following:
  • Has a positive effect on the metagame (e.g Fidgit’s Pure Utility)
  • Allows us to learn more about the metagame (e.g Tomohawk's Momentum)
  • Introduces a new niche in the metagame (such as Mollux's Extreme Makeover: Typing Edition)
  Do not make up your own categories for justification. If you cannot justify your concept against at least one of the three requirements above, then your concept is illegal for the CAP project.
• Questions To Be Answered - The purpose of the CAP project is to learn new things about the metagame, and each concept submission is a proposed "experiment". List out a few interesting competitive questions that should be answered after properly implementing your concept. At the conclusion of the CAP project, these questions will be revisited to see how well we implemented the concept. If your questions are not significant, relevant to your Justification, and well-written -- then your concept will be rejected.
• Explanation - This can contain just about anything. This is where you can explain your concept without restraint. You may make suggestions, even specific suggestions, regarding the possible implementation of the Concept. This explanation should help facilitate discussion of the Concept -- but the Explanation is NOT part of the Concept and will be omitted from the polls and any future use of the Concept. Since your explanation is non-binding, regarding future polls and threads, it will not be evaluated for purposes of determining if your concept is legal or illegal.

It is the submitter's responsibility to figure out how to make a legal submission within the rules listed above. Do not complain about the difficulty of making a submission in this thread. There are many, many legal concepts that can be presented within the rules. Here are few examples of good and bad Concepts from previous projects:

Good Concepts from Past Projects
"Pure Utility Pokemon"
"Anti-Ghost Rapid Spinner"
"True Garchomp Counter"
"Great Lead Pokemon"
"Ultimate Weather Abuser"
"Status Counter"

Bad Concepts from Past Projects
"Ice-Resisting Dragon"
"Super Luck User"
"STAB Explosion Glass Cannon"
"Auto-Stealth Rock Remover"
"A Pokemon with Special Intimidate"
"Pyrokinetic Pokemon (Fire/Psychic)"
"Special Guts"
"Typing Means Nothing"

Here's a sample of a legal Concept post. This is not an actual submission. I'm just using it to illustrate the format and legal content:

Concept: "Kingdra of the Sun"
Description: A good pokemon with a varied movepool under normal conditions. But, it becomes a dangerous sweeping force in sunny weather.

Justification: Sunny Day is almost never used in the current metagame. This concept could make Sun teams playable in OU, much like Kingdra almost single-handedly makes Rain teams viable in OU. We will learn more about sunny weather battling strategies in OU, and the pokemon that can use sun to their advantage.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Are sun teams more viable with "Kingdra of the Sun" in OU?
• Which battle strategies are most effective and least effective using sun in OU?
• Which OU pokemon can best use sun to their advantage?
• Which lesser-used pokemon become relevant with "Kingdra of the Sun" in OU?
• Is "Kingdra of the Sun" viable in OU under normal weather conditions?

Explanation: A good Sunny Day abuser would be fresh and fun. Typing could be just about anything, although Fire and/or Grass are the most obvious. Water typing might be interesting to help it stop Heatran from becoming even more of a beast once the Sun goes up, and ruining the fun for this pokemon. Chlorophyll would be an easy way to make a good sweeper, but Solar Power doesn't get the love it should, and might be an interesting option. There are lots of nice abilities that could help this thing do its job. I think fiery art designs are always cool and I can imagine this pokemon having lots of colorful fire effects, if we make it part Fire.

Note that all the "illegal stuff" is in the Explanation. The Description is short, and very carefully worded to follow all the rules. It does not specifically dictate anything in later polls.

Please try to remember that we are simply pointing the project in a general direction. We are not trying to decide anything right now. We have several weeks of polls ahead of us where EVERYTHING about this Pokemon will be dissected, discussed, voted, and decided. The Concept is a very basic guide for the creation process. It is hard to provide solid concept descriptions without basically designing the entire Pokemon right off the bat. Submissions should be written and chosen very carefully, to avoid these problems.

CAP 5 so far:

Leadership Team:

jas61292 - Topic Leader
Korski - Ability Leader
Deck Knight - Typing Leader
capefeather - Movepool Leader
DetroitLolcat - Stats Leader

[jas61292]

Well, here we are. I don’t have too much to say to start this off, but I would like to give everyone a general idea of the kinds of things I am looking for in a concept.

Probably the most important thing to me in a concept is that it clearly has goals in mind with regard to learning something about the game of competitive Pokémon. In the past we have done projects with concepts that were more about taking certain things, be they moves, abilities, typing, or playstyle, utilizing them, often in a new way, and seeing what happens. While concepts like these can certainly teach us things, we really have no idea what going in. This puts us much more at the mercy of the result than we otherwise would be. Sure, they can have interesting discussions along the way, but often times these discussion are simply about how to fit the Pokémon in OU and not anything specific to the concept.

What I’d like to see are concepts that focus clearly on learning goal. This could involve interacting with a current metagame force, trying to learn about a certain concept in competitive Pokémon that we have never thoroughly explored, or possibly something completely different. There are infinitely many ways to go about this, and I’m sure you all can think of many more than me.

That being said, the most important part of the concept submission to me is the questions section. I want to see concepts that know what they are setting out to learn. Simply saying “How will doing X effect Y?” is not going to cut it. Additionally, I would like to see concepts that have such learning goals for both the process discussions and for the actual product. While the bulk of what we get out of a CAP project comes from the great discussions and debates that we have, I consider the playtest an integral part of the process, and I fully expect that going into it there will still be more to learn.

Anyways, that’s about it. I’m sure there are a lot of people anxious to get their submissions posted, so I won’t hold you back any longer. Let’s get this project started!

[Rhys DeAnno]

Name: The Heart of Stall
General Description: The Heart of Stall would be a pokemon which supports stall teams to a degree that it can singlehandedly drag them back into relevance in this fast paced metagame. Instead of doing this with sheer bulk on the field (like a Chansey) this pokemon would ideally combine moderate bulk and other support factors to have a large effect on the battle from start to finish even when not on the field.

Justification: This would have a positive effect on the metagame by encouraging more variety in it, since in a meta where team archetypes are frequently defined by single pokemon like Politoed and Deoxys-D, teams without one of these mega-supporters can be difficult to sustain. We would see a wider balance of offense vs defense in the meta and relieve some of the tedium by adding a new mega-supporter specifically for Stall. We could also learn more about just what can make a pokemon into the Heart of an entire style besides weatherstarting; we know Deoxys-D does it, but what else might be able to?

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is it possible to construct another archetype defining mega-supporter without using an autoweather ability or making a clone of Deoxys-D?
• What effects would the new influx of stall have on a metagame that has been incredibly fast and offensive since BW2?
• Can giving new blood to one team archetype change the balance of power between the other ones we have now?
• Can a mega-supporter for stall be made so that it isn't easily paired with mega-supporters for other archetypes (Politoed, Deoxys-D, Ninetales, etc), functioning best on teams without them?
• Can The Heart of Stall be constructed in such a way that it's impractical to use on offensive or fairly balanced teams but excellent on full stall teams?
• What sorts of support can a pokemon provide that let it cross the line from a normal supporter, like Celebi or Tentacruel, to a mega-supporter of an entire archtype?
• Would a pokemon like this create something similar to a weather war, where the whole game becomes about its life and death?
• Are mega-supporters a healthy thing for the metagame or not, and can our pokemon be designed in such a way to make it "fun" to center a match around it? Could future weatherstarters learn from this and become more "fun" themselves?

Explanation: In the modern BW2 metagame teams center around specific Pokemon which enable entire teams. Politoed, Ninetales, Tyranitar, Hippowdon, and Deoxys-D all setup specific battlefield conditions which let Rain, Sun, Sand, and Hyper Offense thrive in the metagame. The meta revolves around these few pokemon, so I think putting another pokemon on their level of support would be an excellent way to learn about these types of pokemon, to see interesting changes in the meta as a whole, and might even give us some insight on possible future suspect tests of Deoxys-D or weatherstarters.

I'm not sure how such a concept might be implemented, but I think there are a lot of possible paths to go down. Setting, spinning, and spinblocking hazards are all important avenues that might be explored, as are phasing and wish and heal bell clericing. I'm not sure which of these aspects the Heart of Stall might employ, but I think there's a lot of space to combine them in ways that no pokemon currently avaliable does.

Deoxys-D is thought of by some to be analogous to the "Weather Starter" of Hyper-Offense, but I think the comparison is better to make in the reverse direction, where Deoxys-D is the only pokemon in the current meta able to take on such a role without a weather ability. I'd like to see what other directions one could take with this kind of pokemon.

(Initial Edits: clarified mega-archetypes by using Politoed rain and Deo-D hyper-offense as examples; changed formatting slightly; added more questions)
(Edits 2/4/2013: changed some terminology, referring to Team Archetypes with mega-supporters enabling them; added some questions)

[Deck Knight]

Name: Climate Control (aka The PHANTom Menace)

General Description: A Pokemon that traps and counters all five weather starting Pokemon and is able to consistently remove them from the opponent's field.

Justification: Weather Wars. We're all weary of them. They have been the subject of countless suspect tests and metagame theory threads. What if a Pokemon existed that could reasonably prevent them from escaping while only having a small impact otherwise on the metagame.

To be perfectly clear, this Pokemon will be a trapper, and an inherent part of it will be an Ability like Arena Trap that effects all weather starters, but not every Pokemon in the metagame.

The problem stems from the weather starters. Politoed, Hippowdon, Abomasnow, Ninetales, Tyranitar (PHANT) are all too bulky to be able to be eliminated by something like Pursuit. Of the five, only Tyranitar and Hippowdon have a lot of offensive strength outside their own weather. This Pokemon would be designed to prevent them from switching out and continuing the weather war via a sacrifice.

Questions To Be Answered:

• How would a Pokemon that deliberately counters and eliminates weather starters effect the usage of weather?
• If a Weather Starter can be reliably eliminated by a single Pokemon, how does that effect the play of an opponent using that Weather Starter - do they play a more conservative game and try to eliminate the Climate Control Pokemon before unleashing their weather? Do they send out their weather starter immediately even in the face of a bad team match-up to ensure they can exploit it early?
• What other threats would a Climate Control Pokemon reduce the prevalence of by virtue of being able to counter PHANT?
• In an environment where Weather Starters are more at-risk, what kind of weatherless strategies would prevail?
• If the typing of the Climate Control Pokemon is more conducive to another weather, how often will it find a place alongside a weather starter as opposed to in weatherless teams using the Climate Control Pokemon to neutralize the weather.
• Is neutralizing the Weather Starter enough, or is it too costly to also fit a weather changing slot to remove the weather after its starter has been removed?
• Will items like Shed Shell (and possibly Air Balloon) increase in usage on weather starters because the tradeoff in bulk via leftovers or damage via a Choice Item or Leftovers is worth being able to keep them in action?

Explanation: Yes, I know a dedicated trapper is VERY specific, but I feel this particular concept is necessitated by the nature of the BW metagame since its inception. BW2 made it no better by introducing even more powerful weather-related threats, so I'm willing to risk a lot on this very specific concept to test out a true neutralizer deliberately designed to trap and defeat weather starters and pave the way for other team types.

What mosts interests me is whether this will repeat something like the Mollux playtest where a Pokemon ostensibly designed to operate against Rain is instead incorporated into Rain teams themselves to give them an advantage against more traditional teams. I know people hate the idea of trappers generally, but I feel a targeted one would be a massive opportunity in a generation that has been gripped by weather ever since Dream World Politoed and Ninetales were released, and sooner if you count the DW Ladder.

[Yilx]

Name: The Big Dipper
General Description: A wallbreaker that focuses on breaking your opponent's core through other means outside of brute force.

Justification: In the current meta, there exists many ways to "break" your opponent's core, through downright brute force through wallbreakers like Mamoswine or Specs Keldeo in the Rain. This mon specializes in dismantling your opponent's core and neutralize it.

Instead of using brute force, this mon breaks your opponent's core by neutralizing parts or all of it before they notice or by forcing your opponent into a situation that they have to sacrifice part of it in order to prevent themselves from losing the game.

We will be exploring if there be other ways to run a "Wallbreaker" outside of outright brute force. Maybe through status? Misleeading your opponent into a false sense of security?

Basically, it's a wallbreaker that does not utilize huge attacking stats with high powered moves to break through your opponent's team core, but rather through other means; by the time your opponent knows their core is broken, they are already dead.

Questions To Be Answered:

• What defines a "core"? Celetran, Toed/Ferro/Jirachi, etc are all considered "cores", but we do not have a standard "definition" for one. Is it just a triplet of Pokemon that work together very well in unison, or a pair that has perfect coverage on the meta?
• What defines "Wallbreaking"? Most think of this as just using things like Rock Gem SD Terrak to break through Gliscor or using LO Mamo to just punch holes in your opponent's walls in general. However, can we do more past that?
• How will a specific Pokemon get around rigid defensive cores or switch into strong offensive cores? Good typing and stats? Or perhaps a specific movepool that allows it to do both?
• Can we do this without turning the mon into "just another" setup sweeper? Or is that one good way of doing this?
• How will this Pokemon preserve it's "surprise" factor even when people prepare for it?
• Is there a way to cause your opponent to be "losing" without them knowing it? Like bluffing a Expert Belt Scizor as a CB Scizor through the match and setting up SD to get a clean sweep when the time is right?

Explanation: For most teams, the moment a key mon in a specific core goes down, the rest of the team falls apart very easily because of their pivot or specific wall being gone. Because of this, most people would try to keep their core alive as much as possible; be it through good plays and prediciton or just using as much recovery as they can.

However, if there was a mon that specialized in taking these "cores" apart, people would have to prepare for it. However, preperation and guessing can only get one so far; not everything in a match will go according to what one predicts. Putting hax aside, surprise factors and gimmicks are called so because that is their limit. It will be interesting if there was a mon that could turn it's "gimmicks" into deadly ways to puncture your opponent's team.

The opponent's defeat will be sealed before they know it and the death star will be shining above their heads.

[srk1214]

In honor of our combo-breaking TL...

Name: Number Cruncher

General Description: A Pokemon that will successfully manipulate the numbers to account for weaknesses and accrue advantages.

Justification: Aside from all the basics... percent chances of effects, percent accuracy, type effectiveness multipliers, STAB multipliers, numbers are still everywhere in Pokemon: 2-turn moves, 2-5 multi-hit moves, specific-hp damage dealing moves, "lefties numbers," speed tiers, and more. This Pokemon will take advantage of both obvious and less obvious parts of the Poke-math to be a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Questions To Be Answered:

• To what degree do the numbers themselves affect the result as opposed to strategy?
• Can a Pokemon successfully manipulate the numbers to its benefit without relying on one specific number-altering gimmick?
• Entry hazards are frequently included in calculations as they have become expected. Focusing in on numbers and calculations, are they and should they be?
• What teammates have been getting the short end of the stick and how can the numbers be altered in their favor?
• Similarly, what opponents have been getting more than their fair share and how can the numbers be turned against them?

Explanation: I'm an analytic guy at heart, as I'm sure a lot of us are. Pokemon, is at its heart .... calculations. It's not fun to think about it that way necessarily, which is why there's all the fun art and names etc etc. But in the end, When Hydro Pump from a Rotom-W hits a Ferrothorn under Rain, you can reduce the entirety of what occurs to what it is, an equation. Competitive Pokemon is indeed a strategy game full of many considerations. Still, I find it interesting that we've never delved into the calculation-driven side rather than the strategy side. I feel that this concept inherently still links back to strategy. Indeed, how do numbers play into typing? Well, one might try to quantify "what is good stab?" Conveniently, we have math-driven analysis on that from X-Act, albeit from a while back. I think it would be fitting for our Number containing (gasp) TL to lead a project in his image.

[GatoDelFuego]

Final Submission

Name: Chill Pill

General Description: A pokemon that can slow down the pace of the game for the user's control

Justification: It's no doubt that BW2 is one of the fastest-paced metagames in existence. With "power creep" rising up as expected, the game speeds up when offense counters offense and bigger hitters fall to bigger hitters. One of the very reason stall can't function as well is because the game often moves too fast to get an advantage. However, offensive teams could also make use of a "reset" in terms of game pacing to further their own strategies.

Questions To Be Answered:

• How does negative momentum affect the flow of battle?
• What causes a slowdown in tempo during gameplay?
• How can a single pokemon work best to slow down an opponent's strategies?
• Will defensive playstyles operate better without constant pressure maintained on them?
• Can offensive playstyles make use of a slower tempo in gameplay?
• How can a team best capitalize on a loss of momentum by the opponent?

Explanation: At first glance, this seems like stall's dream pokemon. However, instead of just focusing on buffing up stall and defensive play, I thought it would be possible to take a stab at the metagame in general. Fast-paced offensive play is extremely common in the current metagame, and involves sharp, quick, decisive games. I'd like to see how things could develop if matches were given just a bit more time to play out; a bit more time to work with. I'd like to see what happens when things take a step back. The game could possibly get more interesting if battles could slow down and focus on a turn to turn basis rather than throwing the single most powerful moves at the opposing side.

There are numerous ways to turn your opponent's momentum against them. Ditto is a great example of this: it can steal an opponent's boosts and revenge kill an opponent. CB mamoswine also can work against a dragonite for example, and a scarfed keldeo versus a Kyurem-B. However, this results in what I call a net increase in offensive momentum, beating offense with offense. There are also ways to decrease the momentum of a match. Switching Gastrodon into a rotom on volt switch is a great example. Nobody has attacked, and nobody has a clear advantage, but the momentum of the match has been killed to zero. Switching a Landorus-T into terrakion is also one, albeit a bit of an advantage for the landorus due to the threat of an earthquake incoming. However, this is the capitalization on the loss of momentum. Now if this concept could be applied to a much larger scope of the metagame, think of what could happen. Hyper offense/rain hyper offense (keldeo+toxicroak and others)/sun hyper offense (venasaur+volcarona+victrebel, etc) could get stopped dead in their tracks by a poke that doesn't counter the opposition by revenge killing or putting powerful moves out there. Instead, CAP 5 would counter an opponent by decreasing the pace of the game back to an initial neutral standpoint, whereby CAP 5 would be designed to support its team when the momentum of the match is zero. While tomohawk was built around strictly its user's momentum and controlling, returning, and making use of its team's momentum, I propose CAP 5 be built around controlling and nullifying both teams' tempo.

This would be quite a boon to stall, but offensively built teams could also make use of a reset in game momentum, through switching and boosting in other means. But that's left up to the later stages, and I think this concept can both increase defensive playstyles' usage and decrease the overall extremely offensive tone of the current metagame.

[Rayquaza_]

Name: Compact movepool

Description: a pokemon that, despite a small usable movepool, is capable of running a multitude of sets, being more unpredictable than one would assume.

Justification:
One thing that all CAP pokemon have in common, and was finally brought up when discussing Aurumoth, is their relatively large movepools.
Aurumoth's movepool was so large to the point that some extremely coveted moves, such as Tail Glow(!) and Overheat often didn't make into its most common sets. It almost felt like they were wasted on it, not because it's a bad pokemon, but because it often lacked the opportunity to use them to its full potential.


Questions to be answered

• Is it possible to have a pokemon be able to perform a multitude of roles, despite a small movepool, without relying on high BST, extremely powerful abilities or weather reliance?
• Given the emphasis on the small movepool, how many "powerful moves with low distribution" will be necessary in order to make this pokemon viable?
• Is it possible to have radically different checks and counters depending on the role this pokemon plays?
• Will the dreaded "4 moveslot syndrome" affect this pokemon, despite a small movepool?

Explaination
We often see "good movepool" and "bad movepool" when talking about a pokemon, but what exactly is a "good" or "bad" movepool?

I have seen people describing Porygon2's movepool as "bad" even though plenty of pokemon would kill to have access to Thunderbolt, Magic Coat, Tri Attack, Recover, Discharge, Thunder Wave, Trick Room, Ice Beam and Agility.
Is this because Porygon2 is often stuck playing defensive roles? Or simply because of 4 moveslot syndrome?

Conversely, Kyurem-B has a very small movepool, but it's capable of running a multitude of sets (Choice band/scarf, Substitute, SubHoneClaws, mixed attacker and it could even go fully special if it wanted) by virtue of its massively high stats and deadly STAB attacks.

What I'd like to see is a pokemon who can run several sets with just a handful of viable moves, except it shouldn't rely on a ridiculously high BST or other blatantly overpowered means to make it possible. I'd like to see it play at least one offensive and one defensive role.

[Base Speed]

Name: Type Equalizer

Description: A pokemon whose presence in the metagame increases the usage of one or more underused types and simultaneously decreases the usage of one or more overused types.

Justification: Take a look at the OU usage statistics for January and you'll see that 9 out of the top 10 pokemon have either steel, water, dragon or fighting as one of their types, and extending it to the top 20 shows 16/20 with those types. We should also be asking ourselves why these trends exist so strongly and what can be done about them. In creating this CAP, we'd have to discuss in depth many different aspects of what makes a type and opinions can ultimately being tested in the playtest.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is a types usefulness relative to the metagame or is it intrinsic? (Ie. Can any type be the "best" type given the right circumstances or do type match-ups, available STAB moves etc mean some types will always be better than others?)
• What exploitable weaknesses do "good" types in OU have? Are their currently pokemon that can exploit them and if so, how do they function differently to CAP5?
• How (if at all) will the targeted types adapt to the situation created? Will people choose different movesets, abilities, etc or will they just use them more/less? How is this linked to the way CAP5 functions strategically?
• What effects will the changes on certain types' presence have on the metagame?
• Which members of the targeted types will benefit and suffer from this most and why?
• By creating CAP5, have we learnt any new ways to counter good types or use bad types?

Explanation:
Types have many complex interactions to explore - not just with one another but with abilities (eg, Magnet Pull, Water Absorb), moves and field effects (rain, Stealth Rock, etc), and sometimes even trends in the pokemon with the type. What I'm trying to present is a clear destination whose journey leads to good discussion and analysis of a large aspect of pokemon, whilst still being enjoyable. I feel one of the main strengths of the concept is that it has a wide variety of potential implementations which will help to promote discussion and creativity. The idea of a "bad" or a "good" type is rife throughout all areas of competitive pokemon, with CAP being no exception, so it seems valid to explore it.

A lot of people have asked how I envision this working. The short answer is it depends on which types we decide to take down and up. However, some general ideas can still be given:
Obviously we would want CAP5 to have the right type match ups for the concept. Resistances or immunities to the types we want to take down and weaknesses to those we want to bring up are ideal but not mandatory. Immunity granting abilities are a valid option to patch up not-so-ideal type match-ups later down the line. Between the two, we'd probably be hoping to make moves of certain types less spammable.
Statwise, the build very much depends on what we're targeting as well as the previous steps, so it's difficult to say much. I would suggest decent special defense to prevent people utilising hidden power rather than pokemon of our "bad" types, but that's not a necessity.
Choosing to target certain types might require CAP5 to have specific aspects: for example if we try to bring down water then an anti-rain element would be worth considering and if we're trying to bring up a stealth rock weak type then looking into anti-hazard methods would be a valid option.
Obviously, we should be mindful of specific threats of the targeted type(s) throughout, but we tend to do that well anyway.

Note that I haven't specified how many types we should target. This is really important. One of the big learning opportunities will be when we decide how ambitious we think we can be, as this will provoke discussion on just how firm type dominance is and contribute a lot to answering my first question in particular. I don't want that to be missed because I've said "we should focus on X number of types". That's for the community to decide.

This concept shares some similarities with Mollux in that they both try to make "bad" typings "good". However, the learning opportunities of Mollux were very much focused on the build of a pokemon itself, opting to alleviate typing's weaknesses by combinations of ability and movepool. I'm trying to look more on typing in relation to the build of the metagame and and what new opportunities existing pokemon will have in the modified metagame, without the presence of certain types.

[forestflamerunner]

Concept: Ability Matchmaker

Description: A Pokemon that takes an underexplored ability and uses it to its fullest potential.

Justification: in a nutshell, this concept aims to create the next DPP Breloom. We would choose an underexplored, but potent, ability and then design a pokemon that depends on its ability to succeed, but also ends up using the ability to its fullest potential. By doing so, we would learn everything there is to know about the specific ability in terms of battle tactics and learn how typing, movepool, and stats can all help bring an ability to its full potential. We may even discover some new uses for our chosen ability

Questions to be answered

• Why did we choose to "excavate" our given ability? What untapped potential did we see?
• Why was no other pokemon able to bring this ability out to its full potential? Were other pokemon too weak to properly use the ability? We're other pokemon better suited to abuse their alternate abilities? We're the pokemon's niches such that the abilities could not truly shine?
• Did we discover any new or innovative uses for our ability?
• How did our pokemon's move pool, typing, and stat spread help it abuse its ability?
• Does this Pokemon rely on its ability to fill its niche or can it complete its role without its ability?

Explanation

I keep on mentioning that I see this Pokemon being the next Breloom. Let me explain what I mean by that. Breloom managed to take a good ability (Poison Heal) and developed several strategies around it to show off the abilities full potential. It used the extra recovery to create one of the deadliest sub+seeding sets ever to grace OU, abused the ability to create near limitless substitutes for an effective sub+punch set, and even managed to use Poison Heal's extra healing to become an effective wall despite midiocre defensive stats. Breloom relies on Poison Heal to fill its niche(before technician, of course) and in turn managed to unleash Poison Heals full potential . That Is the sort of dynamic this CAP concept would hope to create between CAP 5 and its ability.

Another good example would be Multiscale Dragonite. By itself Multiscale is a good, but not great ability that works like a more powerful version of sturdy. Imagine Multiscale on something like Infernape or even Gyarados and you'll see what I mean. On those pokemon, all it can do is provide one free turn, and even that requires noticeable team support (rapid spin) . However, thanks to its considerable bulk, a strong attack stat, a powerful boost ing move, and instant recovery, dragonite is able to use the ability to its full potential via diverse sets such as bulky dancer, parashuffler, and rain tank. Once again, we want to create a pokemon that can truly flesh out its ability.

Some abilities are obviously better for this concept than others. In my opinion, the immunity abilities, flash fire, water absorb, etc., would be poor choices for this CAP because they really don't have much depth to them besides changing one variable on the type chart. I mean, I guess you could focus on their additional effects but I still think its a stretch. I would also be against insomnia, static, and other abilities that require heavy input from your opponent because it becomes difficult to develop strategies around an ability when so much of the ability relies on direct input from your opponent. Finally, I'm pretty sure it goes without saying that the ability has to be somewhat useful, so obviously things like sniper and stench should be off the table.

Finally, we should take care to avoid creating the nextArceus. We want to create a sort of interdependence between ability and Pokemon, and creating a generically good pokemon would not allow us to create this dynamic. Arceus has a beast of an ability in Multitype, but it also has 120 stats across the board and an amazing movepool to boot. with that in mind, i daresay Arceus would still be a solid uber with almost any ability. We stand to learn much more by designing a Pokemon that depends on its ability for success than any other alternative.

[The Unlucky one]

Name - Ultimate Priority Abuser

General Description: A Pokemon that masters the field of priority. Resists/ is immune to the common priorities in OU (Mach Punch, ExtremeSpeed, Ice Shard, Bullet Punch Steel/Ghost works it out, Poison/Steel works too). Also, can abuse all forms of priority (probably some ability or something)

Justification: Priority has a massive use in the metagame. We want something that can revenge kill weakened pokemon as those 1% scarf Keldeo's can always get in the way of our win. A pokemon who's sole purpose is to revenge kill weakened threats could be an amazing asset to any team.

Questions to be Answered:

• How does the constant use of priority affect powerful setup sweepers?
• How will we be able to offensively check a priority user?
• What will make this Pokemon a choice in teambuilding?
• How would the addition of moves such as "Tail Glow" or "Swords Dance" affect this priority abuser
• In what ways can Offensive playstyles work around a multitude of priority moves?
• How well does priority do against playstyles like stall?

Explanation: Priority. Everyone has had some trouble with it in some form or another. Whether it be from the powerful SD Lucario, or Technician boosted Mach Punches from Breloom. Priority can turn slow sweepers in to quick powerhouses that can revenge kill a lot of the metagame. There is always a time where you think "The game is mine now, unless that Terrakion has Quick Attack/Dragonite has Espeed". Priority usually stops most people's way of offensively breaking through with their offensive mons.

[jc104]

@jas: as much as I would have liked to base my ideas on your goal of learning - it's almost the most important thing in CAP - I highly doubt many people are actually going to come up with their concept while this thread is actually open. Not enough time. However, saying that, I think we stand to learn a lot from any concept that is challenging; the difficulty forces you to learn. And my concept is pretty damned challenging:

Name: Weather Balancer

General Description: With this Pokemon we attempt to balance the four weather conditions, along with the lack of any such condition, such that all five types of team are equally viable.

Justification: Over the past couple of years, many people have become rather frustrated by the dominance of two or three weather conditions in OU, often calling for one or more of them to be banned (and sometimes even poor hail, god forbid), or claiming that they cause the results of battles to be determined before they even begin. Here, we seek to balance rain, sand, sun, hail, AND weatherless with one single pokemon in one of the more ambitious concepts CAP has seen. This would not only be challenging, but could greatly improve the OU metagame if done well.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Which weather condition is inherently the most powerful? Which ones need buffing and which ones nerfing?
• What are the weaknesses of the team types we need to reduce in effectiveness (probably sand, sun and especially rain), and how can we exploit them?
• Conversely, what potential advantages do the other teams (probably hail and weatherless), offer? How can we take advantage?
• Is the best way to balance weather teams to attempt to counter the overpowered weather conditions, or to provide additional advantages to the others?
• Bearing in mind that weatherless conditions offer minimal advantage to any team rather than sand or hail, is it even possible to restore weatherless teams to their former glory without banning stuff? Or is it mandatory to pack a Tyranitar, Hippowdon, or Abomasnow just to keep the other teams in check? Is sand the new weatherless?
• Can one pokemon feasibly achieve this goal without itself being overpowered?
• Can weather be good for the metagame if properly balanced?

Explanation:

First of all, I want to say that the ideas in the concept are in large part not mine. The idea really started with the "hail abuser" concept that has been knocking around for almost as long as CAP itself. In fact, last time around I was going to repost the hail abuser concept, but was beaten to it by what was, I think, a superior version of the same thing. Scoopapa's "weather equaliser" concept offered an additional degree of flexibility that I thought was really necessary (well, sun didn't need a buff at that point, but apart from that, great concept!) Previously, people had rightly complained that the road to creating a hail abuser was too narrow – it would basically require Snow Warning, Ice Body, or a custom ability (which is no longer an option at all). It was also argued that it had to be an ice-type, which I disagreed with, but I could see where they were coming from. Scoopapa's concept offered the possibility, to an extent at least, of trying to counter the other weather teams, rather than simply creating a powerful abuser (which is easy). So, seeing Scoopapa's concept sadly fail to make it, I'm proposing what I feel is an even more flexible version of a similar thing. I'm incorporating weatherless teams, which provides us a much more challenging concept, and also taps in to the "f*** weather " mind-set of a number of our members. I feel that we could make a metagame with weather as a strong, but not overwhelming factor.

The one extra thing I think I need to clarify about this concept is what I mean by "equally viable." What it most certainly doesn't mean is equally common. I mean, weatherless forms roughly 50% of teams on the ladder now, but I'm sure most of us don't consider it equally viable. Now, ideally, what I would like is for no team type to have an inherent advantage over any other, but I realise that this is unrealistic. What I want is that if a reasonably competent but not brilliant player (such as myself) goes on the ladder, they should win an equal amount with each team type, taking into account how easy it is to build the team.

Now, I'm sure a few of you are really beginning to wonder how I think this is even remotely possible, and you might have a point. I figure that we probably aren't going to achieve this in its entirety, but I strongly believe that we can make progress towards this goal. Now, I imagine we would make an attempt to figure out what needs buffing/nerfing and how much at some point and I do not want to determine that. However I think I can safely say that we would need to weaken sand, rain and sun in relation to hail and weatherless – I'm going to assume this for the sake of argument, anyway. We can certainly make hail more viable reasonably easily (e.g Ice Body as one of the abilities, or a very strong blizzard), and I think we could probably discourage other weather at least somewhat. There are pokemon already in OU that do this (e.g Latias, Gastrodon for rain, Heatran for sun) from which we can draw inspiration. We have swift swim as a powerful option for combatting rain if need be. The biggest problem is probably sand, actually, because, as I alluded to in the questions, sand is sort of like the new weatherless – it offers minimal advantage in most circumstances beyond the removing of rain and sun, and the strength of its inducers. To encourage weatherless in preference to it is a challenge indeed. Would a pokemon that preys on Tyranitar and Hippowdon do anywhere near enough on its own? Perhaps making it so that most of this pokemon's counters are seen on weatherless teams would do the trick? Anyway, I don't want to go into this too much, because I don't want to fix how we would do this. I just want to give an idea of how this might be possible. There are probably many, many more ways of doing so.

[LightningLord2]

Name: Mind Master
General Description: A Pokémon that is incredibly difficult to defeat, but only if its user is very good at prediction, without it being an offensive powerhouse.
Justification: Prediction is an important part of a Pokémon game (or any strategic game, in fact), however, this is mainly used to predict offensive strategies, such as whether the attacker is choiced or using boosting moves. It would be interesting to see how a defensive or, preferrably, balanced, Pokémon can play mindgames and how the opponent reacts to it.
Questions To Be Answered:

• What kind of strategies could such a Pokémon pull off?
• Is it possible to make the Pokémon strong enough without being a juggernaut like DPP Salamence?
• How would one play around such a Pokémon?
• Does the potential payoff of great prediction justify the enormous risk associated with it?
• Can it handle the immensely powerful sweepers that run around?

Explanation: I realize that this concept has some similarities to Aurumoth, but instead of trying to pull off a risky strategy, this CAP attempts to use versatility or utility moves in order to foil the opponent's plan. And unlike Krilowatt's concept, it would counter specific playstyles rather than specific Pokémon.

[GRs Cousin]

Concept: "Frostbite"
Description: A Pokemon that can reliably induce the Freeze status onto its opponents.

Justification: Of all the existing statuses throughout the Pokemon metagame, never once has the "Frozen" status really been an existent part of any metagame. The only moves that can induce Freeze have only a 10% chance of doing so. With this concept, we can see how the metagame reacts to this never-seen status and learn from the addition a "new" status in the metagame.



Questions To Be Answered:

• How crippling will it be for two team members to be shut down via avoiding the Sleep Clause?
• What separates sleep from freeze as a status?
• Will this status raise the usage of Ice-types, who cannot be frozen, and by extension, hail?
• Will moves like Flare Blitz, Scald, and Flame Wheel become legitimate moveset choices simply to thaw out on your own?
• Will sunny weather, where you cannot be frozen while it's up, see more usage in the weather wars?

Explanation: Ever since Generation I of Pokemon, there have always been 5 major statuses. We have Poison, associated with Bug and Poison-types and the move Toxic; Paralysis, associated with Electric-types and moves like Thunder Wave and Body Slam; Burn, associated with Fire-types and moves like Will-o-Wisp and Scald; Sleep, associated with a variety of types and a variety of moves including Spore; and Freeze... Which is associated with Ice-types, known as one of the worst types in OU, and has no move that reliably induces it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but out of the five, Freeze sounds like it has almost nothing going for it in OU. It's understood if a minor status like Confusion or Attraction has no prevalence in the metagame. However, it's been over 15 years and one of the major status ailments has almost no prescence outside of hax from Ice Beam. How do we learn from something like that? How many of us can honestly name all the mechanics of being frozen right now without looking it up? This is clearly an underappreciated element of not just the OU metagame, but the entire meta itself.

That's why in this concept, the idea of reliably inducing Freeze onto your opponents, has plenty of potential for us to learn. Not only will we be learning about what affect the status ailment creates in battle, but what it will potentially change in team selection, the balance of the weather wars, and even plausible OU Pokemon altogether. Ice-types could become popular due to their Freeze immunity. Would Fire-types using self-defrosting moves be seen as possible choices at that point? What about hail, which benefits from Freeze, and sunlight, which prevents it? Would their usage start to counterbalance the prevalence of rain and sandstorm? Plenty of questions to answer and more.

And that's the magic of the Freeze status. We learn from itself and the changes it provides in the meta, all within the freedom of CAP in that we can mold it into whatever shape we see fit. We're diving into one of the oldest relics of Pokemon and fleshing it out to see what it can really do, and that's pretty damn cool.

[scorpdestroyer]

Concept: "All Hail Hail"
Description: A Pokemon with a specialized movepool to fit a certain role in a team under normal circumstances, but functions particularly well and more versatile under hail.

Justification: As we all know, Hail is the least commonly used of all the 4 weathers, and is arguably the least dangerous; Rain has Kingdra, Sun has Venusaur, and Sand has Excadrill, while Hail's only notable benefit is the accuracy boost to Blizzard. This CAP aims to make Hail more viable in OU, as well as discover new twists at battling in hail in OU.

Questions to be answered:

• How does Hail fare against other weathers?
• How does "All Hail Hail" make hail more competitive against other main threats and weathers in the OU environment?
• What problems do hail teams usually face, and how does "All Hail Hail" solve those problems?
• Which Pokemon do "All Hail Hail" fare well with as teammates?
• Does hail become a better check to weather teams with the addition of "All Hail Hail"?

Explanation: Weather is undoubtedly the main competitive style in OU and Hail is the one that is the most left out. Usually, why people create hail teams are for passive damage, accurate Blizzards and to remove favourable weather from the opponent to slow down opposing Venusaur, etc. Adding another Hail abuser, particularly one that can easily deal with other weather starters, will be a boon to hail. Typing-wise, this guy should probably be Ice-type, since it's a hail guy, but of course we could get creative. There are three ways I've identified to go with this CAPmon, with any combination of the three possible:

Auto-inducer: It would certainly be interesting if this Pokemon has the Snow Warning ability, giving Abomasnow direct competition and making hail more viable should this Pokemon be given more specialized stats rather than the balanced stats of Aboma. If that is the case, I would like to see Abomasnow and CAP 5 work like Tyranitar and Hippowdon of Sand: both set the same weather, but are worlds apart in their playstyle.

Abuser: This Pokemon needs an ability or move to abuse hail; Ice Body will definitely be a prime option and so will Blizzard. Will this Pokemon get a new ability or a new move to allow it to abuse hail better?

Supporter: This Pokemon's typing, movepool and stats. Could they be designed to support other hail abusers? For example, hail's main enemies are Fire, Fighting, Stealth Rock and bulky Waters. Could this CAPmon be designed to counter the usual hail counters to allow the rest of the team to finish off? Or could this CAPmon be gifted with supporting moves such as Rapid Spin, Dual Screens or trapping to aid its teammates?

[Aerophoenix]

Concept: Psych Out
Description: A Pokemon who, while still viable in a direct battle scenario, exists primarily to force the opponent to play with a large degree of uncertainty.

Justification: "Psych Out" wouldn't combat anything mechanical but it does help us learn some non-mechanical meanings (think of what we attempted to learn about "risk" or "momentum" with CAP 1 and 4). It allows us to try to figure out exactly how much mindgames and deception can play a role in any given game, and what abilities, typing and move can be used to exploit and create them easily (and with difficulty).


Questions to be Answered:

• What is actually involved in "mindgames"? What truly creates deception or a Pokemon an opponent must play around?
• What Pokemon benefit from a having a partner that can draw mental attention away from them?
• Does a Pokemon have to be inherently offensively or defensively threatening to perform adequate mindgames?
• Are mindgames best done through a theoretical offensive threat (like Zoroark or Electivire) or a threat with little offensive presence that can gain a quick, easy presence in the game (like Whimsicott or Riolu)?
• How does what we learn about deception and mindgames apply to existing Pokemon? Can we learn what moves or strategies can be used by other Pokemon to perform adequate mindgames?
• Is a theoretical threat defined only by having a multitude of options, or can it work well with a few that an opponent wishes to strongly avoid?
• If we find the last question to be true, is it possible to make a Pokemon in the current metagame who has a variety of different viable sets, and how best can this be accomplished?

Explanation: Part of the beauty is that in no way is "Psych Out" forced into certain abilities, moves or types. Zoroark is a fantastic example of a Pokemon designed to create deception; its startegies largely revolve around creating uncertainty int he opponent, even after its form is known. Arceus in Ubers mostly runs as a Normal or Ghost type, but Team Preview doesn't actually reveal its form, thus what its role, moves or type may be is hidden from the opponent. Landorus also serves as a good example: whether it's a Sheer Force version or Sand Force is never spelled out until it comes out, forcing you to deal with it vastly differently. Even Pokemon like Electivire discourage Electric attacks through this theoretical threat that your opponent prefers to avoid. these Pokemon force the opponent to play around them or be wary, and learning exactly how to create this would be very valuable knowledge for the current metagame.

Most design decisions for "Psych Out" stem from one early choice that must be made, which ends up not only defining the direction of the CAP but also forces us to consider, even from the beginning, what encourages mindgames.
Should "Psych Out" have many options built-in (think as option 1) OR use some move, tactic or ability to be unpredictable (think as option 2)
Essentially, "Psych Out" could have a variety of situational sets or abilities that can be very threatening in the right circumstance, which the opponent would wish to avoid. The opponent is forced to completely play around this Pokemon, which may or may not even be the threat he expects. Mindgames are the name of the game for this CAP, and nothing does them better.

One large note: I'd assume this relies very largely on Team Preview. I know we use it but it's still worth noting.

[Lamoprigma]

I'm another new Guy here, just so you are warned...

Name: Complete Focus
General Description: A Pokemon which focuses on only one thing, where it is extremely strong, while neglecting everything else.
Justification: Most Pokemon in OU are rather versatile and can play different roles in a team, while Pokemon with limited versatility tend to go into the lower Tiers despite them being good at what they do. This concepts aim is to make a Pokemon that excels at what it does, but really is a one-trick-pony, that can still be sucessful.
Questions To Be Answered:

• What is needed to get such a Pokemon to work sucessfully?
• Will it be hard to face despite it being predictable?
• What can the Player do to cover up for its shortcomings?

Explanation: Can't think of anything worthwhile to say here right now, so i leave it like that until I think of something.

[Nyktos]

Blizzard only has a 10% freeze chance, fyi.

Indeed no move has higher than that. Reliable freeze sounds pretty miserable with no freeze clause.

Also, I'm not sure how Climate Control could work without Arena Trap if Shadow Tag and custom abilities are banned.

[Unitas]

Name: One-Timer
General Description: This Pokemon can only effectively fulfill its purpose (whether support, sweeper, etc.) The turn it enters the field. It struggles the second or third time it enters.
Justification: Most Pokemon in this metagame have stats that let them do large amounts of damage with lots of bulk. They are able to repeatedly enter the field even after a few STAB'd hits. This pokemon would try and speed up the metagame with its concept.
Questions To Be Answered: What can make a Pokemon that is only on the field for one turn useful?
Wil other Pokemon be able to change to a faster paced metagame with this CAP?
What STABs will become the most useful in this metagame?
Will this CAP have these STABs or be a victim to them?
Will entry hazards play a bigger role in this metagame?

Explanation: This metagame we currently play in is full of semi-stall with bulky fast attackers and I do not think i am the first one to feel bored with this play-style. This CAP could change this metagame for the better and help picken things up a bit. This concept also could help CAP with the looming threat of overpowering anything we make. How can something be overpowered if its only in for one or two turns? Hopefully, this will teach us something, about knowing our limits and also how to change the pace of the metagame.

[GRs Cousin]

Originally Posted by Fat Nyktos

Blizzard only has a 10% freeze chance, fyi.

Indeed no move has higher than that. Reliable freeze sounds pretty miserable with no freeze clause.

Also, I'm not sure how Climate Control could work without Arena Trap if Shadow Tag and custom abilities are banned.

Ah, really? I must have confused that with the 30% chance of bypassing Protect and Detect in hail. That only adds to the potential of my concept!

And I'm pretty sure it'd be unanimous that Freeze Clause would be activated alongside Sleep Clause by the playtest. We've seen what reliable sleep can do, there's no doubt reliable Freeze would need some control, too.

And last I checked, custom abilities aren't banned, they're just only allowed if there's no decent alternative ability to fulfilling the concept.

The Heart of Stall
Climate Control
The Big Dipper
Number Cruncher
Chill Pill
Type Equalizer
Ability Matchmaker
Ultimate Priority Abuser
Weather Balancer
Frostbite
All hail Hail
Psych Out
One-Timer

After narrowing out the ones that either aren't allowed as concepts or were already done by an earlier Gen V CAP, we still have 13 concept submissions. Perhaps we should start focusing on discussing them rather than coming up with more, considering that we already have plenty to work with. I'll start the insight bandwagon if nobody else does later today.

[srk1214]

GRs Cousin, for your knowledge:

Originally Posted by Fat Birkal

Proposal 3: No custom abilities ever.

This was almost completely unanimous. From here on out, there will be no more custom abilities ever.

[Nyktos]

The point of CAP is to insert the new Pokemon into the standard OU metagame, is it not? Meaning, with standard clauses, which freeze clause isn't.

And yeah, srk covered the custom abilities thing.

[ganj4lF]

Name: Offense-breaker

General Description: This pokemon is very, very hard to take down via brute force, and thanks to its ability, stats, and / or movepool, can reliably check a vast majority of the common offensive threats and force them into an undesirable position. However, it has other drawbacks: it cannot provide much support to its team besides taking big hits, and is vulnerable to other strategies like status effects or spike stacking.

Justification: The BW(2) metagame provided us with a considerable amount of offensive pokemons, with either huge attacking stats, big movepools, great abilities, or more of the above, and weather just made the things worse. The concept of an Offense-breaker (kinda in antithesis with a Stall-breaker) attempts to rebalance a bit the metagame by being specifically designed to handle those big offensive threats, while being vulnerable to other strategies, which are largely deemed unviable (or less viable) thanks to the sheer force of Offense in this metagame. It would also be interesting to see how the metagame reacts to it, and if the presence of such a pokemon would bring new niches into the OU scene (just as an example, would Offensive mons employ Status moves just to cripple the Offense-breaker?).

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is it possible to design a defensive threat which is able to withstand the huge offensive pressure that the powerhouses of the OU tier are able to apply?
• How would such a pokemon affects our current metagame? Would it be enough to lessen the presence of offensive teams in the tier?
• Is being able to take big hits reliably enough to make a pokemon viable, even with only minor supportive options at its disposal?
• Would such a pokemon create some new niches in the metagames?
• Is there a risk of such a pokemon backfiring and just make Offense stronger, maybe as a reliable defensive pivot? Is the absence of strong supporting options enough to prevent this?

Explanation: The idea for such a project came to me while reading the wishlists many of us posted in the OU subforum when the news of the (not so) imminent release of Gen VI spreaded through the Internet. Excluding ramblings on weather, the second most common request was to have strong defensive options, since BW2 only brought two or three of them while bringing a gazillion of offensive threats. So I thought, "there's no better tool than a CAP project to test if this would produce a more enjoyable metagame"; this, and realizing than CAP did never produce a real wall, are the reasons that are behind this concept.

I thought that a very sturdy defensive threat that is able to take blows for its teammates, but unable to match up well with status inducers, hazards setters, and such pokemons, is a good, and sorta self-balancing concept that can be interesting to evaluate in this metagame. It should, obviously, make harder for offense to breeze through anything that stands in their path, but it should also make easier for stall, and for more balanced strategies to take advantage of it and to lay hazards, pass Wishes, or whatever support option they employ. So, if the metagame goes in the direction of Stall, the Offense-breaker is less viable, and will go down in usage. But this will only make offense dominant again, since a big check to it would be gone, and Offense-breaker would rise again to counter this. An equilibrium, hopefully, would be reached after some time, and if everything goes as I thought, it should generate a more balanced and a bit more bulky / less extremely offensive metagame.

The fact that it lacks supportive options is more or less intended to avoid offensive teams to take advantage of Offense-breaker too much; they usually require from their defensive pivot hazard setting or some other kind of support, since they can't afford to use too many slot on that. Stall or balanced teams, on the other hand, can afford to use a slot on soemthing just to take big hits without having to sac something to Specs Keldeo every time, and thus can take full advantage of Offense-breaker.

----------------------------------

I recognize that this concept is somewhat similar to others already posted, but I think it has enough elements of diversity to be considered on its own.

[Nomark]

Name: Sacrifice
General Description: A pokemon that is better for the team dead (or dying) than alive, but is still viable.
Justification: Learning about the metagame.
Questions To Be Answered: Will essentially playing 6 vs. 5 with this pokemon be worth it? How will gameplay and strategies change if players are trying to actively avoid killing a member of the opponent's team?

Explanation: I can see this project going in many directions, from a healing wish cleric to a suicide lead to having a custom ability that sets up perma-trickroom (highly unlikely, I know) or something when it dies. To me, it sounds fun to play with, and I really would like to see how trying not to kill something would disrupt or enhance momentum. I want to see how this plays out.

[Korski]

Final Submission

Concept: Weather Warrior

Description: This Pokemon will be designed to fulfill two roles: 1) abuse one particular weather effect for a weather-based team, and 2) check or counter a particular opposing weather-based playstyle; however, the two roles will be mutually exclusive. Its build will focus on two of Rain, Sun, Sand, and Hail and on weather-abusing Abilities in order to best maintain an either/or dichotomy.

Justification: I think it's about time we tackle weather, and I think we should approach the weather wars from the inside. Picking off weather starters won't make their effects go away unless you've got your own weathermon waiting in the wings, so this concept will aim to work with weather as an understood presence in the BW2 metagame (which it is). The goal here is to create a weather-based CAP that can fit on a variety of weather-based and weatherless teams.

The two roles outlined in this concept are aimed at general approaches towards weather-based teambuilding: you need teammates to do work when your weather is up, and you need teammates to get momentum back in your favor when opposing weather is active. This Poke will be capable of both but only able to do one or the other with any given set. This way we can realistically approach two weathers at once without necessarily mandating any specific weather-starting teammates; it will be very educational to see which role becomes more desirable to players during the playtest. Keep in mind that this concept will still implicitly include the two weathers we don't focus on. I wouldn't be surprised if they get a boost from this concept as well, as they will most likely be able to foil whatever plan this CAP has (regardless of which role it chooses) by introducing an unfamiliar field condition, or will otherwise be able to take advantage of a weakened dominant weather (Drizzle).

Questions to be Answered:

• Which weather-based playstyles could use some extra help, offensively? Which weather-based playstyles need extra help to effectively check?
• How does weather control play into teambuilding? Is preparation required to confidently neuter an opposing weather team, or is superior gameplay enough?
• How will a Pokemon with such vastly different (and ideally, equally viable) roles to play affect strategy-making during Team Preview?
• Can the weather-counter side of this Pokemon give weatherless teams a better chance of controlling the field of play? What can weather checks like Gastrodon and Kingdra teach us about reacting to aggressive weather teams?
• Can the weather-abusing side of this Pokemon stack up against current threats? What can threats like Venusaur and Keldeo teach us about maximizing weather's advantages?

Explanation: The scope of this concept is both broad and limited. I doubt we'll pick anything besides rain for the countered weather, but that doesn't mean we have to build something that beats Politoed and nothing more. Rain teams are known for their indestructible Steel-types, notably Ferrothorn and Jirachi, so this Poke could target them as a niche role. Good examples of the weather-counter aspect of the Concept would be Weather Trapper Heatran, Swift Swim Kingdra, and Latias. For the weather abusing side, I would say both Sand and Hail could use the most help, but Sun isn't out of the question. This aspect of the Pokemon would deal with synergy; we must consider current "standard" team builds and how to fit our CAP into them without it being outclassed or stacking up on common weaknesses. Excadrill would be a good example here for being an enormous threat in Sand but much more manageable under any other kind of weather. By simultaneously creating a nerf to one weather and a buff to another, we should be able to create a more balanced weather war or even turn it on its head.

I realize this concept is pretty similar to jc104's submission, so I naturally support that Concept as well and hope I distinguished my submission by comparison. The key difference I'd like to point out between the two is that Weather Balancer has a very broad scope and goal in mind that is probably excessive for a single Pokemon, while Weather Warrior has a unique focus that still (ideally) manages to affect the entire weather-based metagame without trying to actively equalize 5 very different playstyles all on its own.