CAP 11 CAP 11 - Concept Submissions

[Fuzznip]

This is where we discuss the general goal of CAP 11. The Concept will be a guiding force throughout the ensuing project, to ensure 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 me. I strongly suggest that you put a lot of thought in your submission and you think twice before supporting others, as this is the stage where we discover what CAP 11 will try to accomplish.

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:

[noparse]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.)
[/noparse]

• 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 Kitsunoh’s Ultimate Scout)
  • Introduces a new niche in the metagame (such as Arghonaut’s Decentralizer)
  
  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.

What am I looking for?

I would like to voice my opinion on what I am actually looking for with these Concept submissions, since I have a right to express what I am thinking for CAP 11 with the relatively new "strong TL" model. Now, I don't have anything particular in mind, though I encourage submissions that are unique and have a new, unexplored niche, will have a heavy impact on the metagame in a positive way (but not too much so that the metagame corrupts), and a Concept that would just be fun to build off of! Concepts that I really don't want to see are like "Ultimate Stallbreaker" or "Priority Abuser" because I don't believe these are interesting concepts to analyze at all. Having said all that, I will try to be as fair as possible with the Concepts and I will be sure to comment on submissions I feel have potential.

Thank you everyone, now let's make a great CAP!

 

[Yllnath]

Name: Fast offensive non-attacking decentralizer (A.K.A. The Mischief Maker)

General Description: This Pokemon is specialized in taking advantage of most or every non-attacking offensive oriented move and using it to severely cripple any opponents team that is not shaped to handle any and all kinds of disruptive strategies.

Justification: Heavy offense, Stall, Semi-stall, bulky offense, balanced teams. There are many directions in which you can go when building a team. However, teams like heavy offence and full stall share a big weakness in that they are very reliant on one single strategy to be able to win, one relies on sheer power, the other relies on, obviously enough, stalling out. If a pokemon would be able to completely mess with any teams strategy with non-attacking moves, will these two extremes in teambuilding terms become less viable than a more balanced team, who might be able to cope better with such a disruptive pokemon?

Questions To Be Answered:
-How will the metagame react to a fast thread that can literally always harm your precious sweeper's viability, or shut down your tank?
-Will balanced teams therefor become more attractive options to use?
-With the plethora of non-attacking moves in the game, how far can you go making this a versatile thread, capable of actually decentralizing the extremes of the metagame, without being broken?
-Should this pokemon only focus non-attacking moves, or are there attacking moves that have side effects that are very beneficial to this pokemons strategy?
-Will the metagame become more overrun with taunters, priority users and status absorbers/abusers when this pokemon runs rampant?

Explanation: I see this pokemon as a fast pokemon that can literally shut down any team that is too much focused on one single strategy, through means of (but not limited to), status abuse, item switching or removal, lightning fast taunts or encores, etc. If an opponents team lacks members who do not mind taking a status, or having their items replaced, this pokemon could cause serious troubles to the opponents team.

 

[Zystral]

Name: Cardboard Wrecking Ball

General Description: Something with sheer amounts of power, able to sweep nearly whole teams, but has horrific type coverage and is frail enough/bad coverage to be stopped easily. However, when used right, can still be extremely dangerous.

Justification: A lot of the metagame depends either on inflicting Super Effective damage to KO your foes, or just hitting them with a strong attack to weaken them. This Pokemon would attempt to break the mould by having enough power to easily KO most walls, although by being easily walled or revenge killed, it isn't too broken. That, and its poor type coverage means that unless it gets some support or is left until late game, means that it is very hard to use for sweeping. It would definitely introduce a new niche into OU at least (in that nothing else has that much power for that poor coverage), and could possibly allow us to explore more about offensive tactics, most particularly the difference between bulky offense and hyper offense.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is the raw power worth the loss of type coverage?
• Is it possible to sweep on sheer power alone?
• How would OU stand up to a Pokemon with such high power?
• Would it be able to stand up to a Pokemon with such power?
• Is it worth using something so powerful but so easily stopped?
• Is there an equilibrium in terms of Power:Efficiency?

Explanation: Obviously it will need extremely high base attack/special attack. Only one, however, since it needs to be wallable. It would also need a severely restricted movepool so it isn't hitting too much super effectively. Its own STAB even should be ineffective to the point where it is relying on its high power to carry it through. We would also need either low bulk or low speed, but not both. Low bulk makes it easy to revenge kill, while low speed makes it easy to just force out. A hindering ability (like Slow Start) would be a bit excessive, we want this to be usable and viable, just difficult to pull off.

 

[Plus]

Name: Get the ball rolling!

General Description: A pokemon that does not excel in sweeping or walling, but rather giving teams a headstart in executing their strategies.

Justification: You can relate this concept to Dual Screening + Hyper Offense teams, however this concept aims to explore that style of play with different kinds of teams, including balance and stall. Is using one pokemon solely for momentum worth it? Would it be possible for this pokemon to be so good at what it does, that defensive teams would not mind to lose a pokemon in order for something like a Forretress or Skarm to set up entry hazards with relative ease? Would they give up one team member in order to wall an entire metagame just for a few turns? This concept attempts to further expand the concept of suiciding and / or using pokemon that are absolute crap on their own in order to easily execute their strategy the best.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is it worth wasting an entire slot on any team solely for support?
• Can different types of teams utilize this strategy?
• What different kinds of ways can this pokemon help his teammates "get the ball rolling"?
• What kinds of OU pokemon pair best with this kind of strategy?
• Will using this pokemon in tandem with another shed light as to what kinds of pokemon are broken?

Explanation: Lunar Dance, Healing Wish, Explosion, Selfdestruct, Taunt, Memento, Wish + U-turn, Dual Screens, Baton Passing, Status Moves -- hell, imagine if you gave it a shitty ability so it could abuse Skill Swap. Generally things like recovery, set up moves, and entry hazards would be discouraged in this type of concept. This concept is also intended for seeing how well OU pokemon do when they have such a strong support boost from another pokemon, which goes well with the mission statement of CAP I'd say! EDIT: NOT A SUICIDE LEAD OR INTENDED TO BE t_t

 

[DarkSlay]

Name: It Came From The Land of Forgotten Moves...

General Description: This Pokemon will be able to use oft-forgotten moves that are normally not viable or too situational in the current metagame to its advantage, including offensive and supportive.

Justification: One of the most important factors that currently defines the OU metagame is common movesets. Things like Thunderbolt, Surf, Earthquake, Swords Dance, Calm Mind, Toxic, and so on are extremely common, and it would be rare to find a team that does not take advantage of at least three or four of these moves at one time. However, in the world of competitive Pokemon, we find that there are dozens of moves that are either too situational or mediocre to use when compared to the "bog standard" moves we commonly see in OU. What if a Pokemon were able to use a good number of unexplored moves to its advantage? An advantage that placed it at the competitive level of Pokemon who used "bog standard" moves? This would allow us to explore new grounds in territory that has been around for years, neglected for numerous reasons. This will give us a deep understanding of how the current metagame was shaped, and how moves and movesets influence how a metagame can change.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is it possible to use situational and often overlooked moves in today's metagame when compared to the moves currently used?
  
• Can a Pokemon successfully use a good portion of these moves to a competitive advantage compared to existing competitive moves?
• How many situational or under appreciated moves can be deemed "viable" as a result? Will these moves become too effective, or still not effective enough?
  
• How will the metagame adapt to these new moves which normally go unseen?
• How much help would a Pokemon need in order to successfully utilize these moves? As in, will it necessarily need a large BST or a certain ability to succeed, or not?
• Can a team take advantage of the unusual effects these moves can have? If so, what new strategies will evolve?
  

Explanation:
Let's face it: there's a ton of moves out there that no one has dared to touch because of outclassing. There's either better choices, or the Pokemon that learn these moves simply cannot use them to a clear-cut advantage. However, we really need to learn about these kinds of moves, for there may be a case when a Pokemon can take great advantage of them. This Pokemon should not be designed to be an extremely powerful sweeper nor a wall. Instead, it should be creative in its design competitively, making it fully functional (and somewhat reliant) on these oft-forgotten moves while not being completely overpowering. This way, we can explore moves both offensive and supportive.

Offensively, we have moves like Water Pulse, which have low power but interesting secondary effects. Support-wise, there's things like Grudge, which is extremely situational yet potentially helpful in many ways. Note that the list of these kinds of moves can go on and on. That's why this concept is so exciting: the possibilities of potential moves are endless, and even better, are not restricted to just standard moves.

Now while the main concept generally revolves around moves, the final typing and the abilities will also play a huge role in how this Pokemon plays out. STAB moves and immunities/resistances will determine the effectiveness of some moves, so typing is crucial. The abilities will give us some leeway with how this concept is accomplished (although I personally do not believe we must settle for something like Technician, for there are other viable abilities that can help out this Pokemon, like Simple, Serene Grace, Compoundeyes, etc.). Therefore, this is a complete concept from the ground up.

 

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Name: Gravity Abuser

Description: This Pokemon could have any kind of characteristics under normal conditions, but it excels in setting up and/or abusing the Gravity field effect.

Justification: Although some effects and weather conditions are better than others, nearly all have some presence in the OU metagame. At the very least, players recognize the characteristics, including strengths and weaknesses, of Trick Room teams and teams based on every kind of weather. Gravity, however, is poorly understood and almost never used. This Pokemon could remedy that and open the door to an entirely new design space for teambuilding.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is Gravity a viable concept for a team?
• What characteristics define a successful Gravity team?
• Which Pokemon become more or less viable in a metagame where Gravity teams are present?
• What moves or even items could Gravity bring to the spotlight?
• Could teams exist which successfully combine Gravity with weather effects or use Gravity in just one phase of a strategy?

Explanation: Gravity is a field effect that speaks to some of the most fundamental elements of the metagame. The Levitate ability and Flying type are both largely defined by the immunity they confer to Earthquake, the most-used move, as well as to Spikes and Toxic Spikes. Many powerful moves require constant attention to their low accuracy, including Stone Edge, Focus Blast, Sleep Powder, and Fire Blast. Making Gravity a relevant consideration would therefore require players to reevaluate many of their basic assumptions about OU teambuilding and battling. In order to accomplish this, the Pokemon could share Fidgit's Persistent ability, carry a large pool of powerful, low-accuracy moves and/or Ground-type moves, or have the ability to synergize with its team to maximize the advantage during Gravity's duration.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Name: The Underdog

General Description: A Pokemon that is seemingly terrible in one or more competitively relevant factors (i.e. typing, movepool, BST, etc) but is still used due to being highly successful at a given offensive, defensive, or support niche.

Justification: What defines a "good Pokemon"? There are 600+ BST giants sitting in NU and 465 BST Pokemon like Skarmory in OU. There are Pokemon with massive movepools like Nidoking in NU and Pokemon with fairly bad movepools like Jolteon in OU. It seems that it's very difficult to quantify exactly what makes a Pokemon "good", as most Pokemon do not have good movepools and good typing and good abilities etc. without becoming broken. It seems that the most reliable measure for whether a Pokemon is successful in the standard metagame is whether it has a specific function that it does extremely well. The idea behind this concept, then, is to see just how successful a "bad" Pokemon can be if given the tools to perform very well in an under-utilized or currently non-existent role.

Questions To Be Answered:

- How good does a Pokemon with certain undesirable qualities need to be at a role in order to be used frequently and effectively?

- Is it possible to predict the success of a Pokemon even if it isn't clearly good in multiple competitive factors (i.e. like every other CAP so far)?

- Is there a certain point where statistical factors overshadow the ability to fulfill a unique function in the metagame, or will such a Pokemon always find a place in some teams?

- And on the other hand, is it possible for some Pokemon to serve in very dangerous niches without being broken if they are sufficiently poor in various other factors, or are some functions simply too powerful to have a place in the metagame?


Explanation: I've always loved the idea of Pokemon that someone looks at, laughs at, and then gets swept by. Currently the only Pokemon that really fit this role are gimmicky sweepers like Curse Bibarel and Rampardos, and certain Pokemon that fit this description in lower tiers but not in the Standard metagame (like Jynx). So I wanted to try and see if we could make a Pokemon that isn't much to look at but which can still be very dangerous in certain roles without being stupid or gimmicky.
In addition I like that this could help us with "theorymoning" future Pokemon; after all, Heatran was thought to be BL when information about it was first released, but maybe if we had considered it in terms of niches we could have seen that Heatran is completely unique as a Steel-type that is immune to fire.

 

[Ezekiel]

Concept: "Whetherman"
Description: A weak-to-average pokemon which becomes stronger by turning weather conditions against their users.

Justification: Weather effects are a major part of the standard metagame, and there's little one can do to respond to them other than having a very similarly-built team. This concept allows us to learn the limits of weather conditions, and how they can be controlled or played with without being destroyed.

Questions To Be Answered:

• What must be done to create a useful CAP11 without breaking weather strategies?
• Which moves, strategies, and overall 'battle styles' (stall, sweeper, etc.) are appropriate for a weather manipulator?
• Which OU pokemon benefit or lose the most when playing with/facing against this concept?
• Which pokemon from other tiers, particularly BL/UU and Uber, become more relevant to OU in concert with the Whetherman?
• How should this pokémon be built to function adequately without any weather effects in play?

Explanation:
The discussion in the PR thread about revisions got me thinking of this concept--if the stereotypical "Kingdra of the Sun" could make life interesting for the all-too-common Sandstorm teams, what would happen if we specifically built a 'mon to turn the tables on weather users? Being able to resist or ignore some of the negative effects of weather would be useful, putting Steel type near the fore; however, no one type is perfect, so it's not set in stone. Having a diverse but situational movepool would also fit well with the concept--Thunder for dealing with Rain, Solarbeam for Sunny Day, etc. Beyond that, I see this as a very flexible but focused concept.

 

[Deck Knight]

Your friendly neighborhood ATL here.

I'll be posting feedback on whatever submissions or ideas are going into the process about this time every day. I'm going to try not to poll jump but I want to get an idea of direction from the submitters, so assume all of this can be added to "Explanation."

Yilnath's The Michief Maker:

I think you mean "threat" not "thread" in your post... anyway:

This sounds a lot like a Deoxys-S that specializes in status moves. I'm wondering where the "offensive" part comes in though (you say fast offensive non-attacking decentralizer). Or maybe I'm reading it wrong and it's supposed to be a fast Pokemon that decentralizes offensive threats in the metagame.

I can see a few good ways to go with this and and already know an ability that would be immensely useful in helping it do its job. What I am concerned with is that status moves don't just help with offensive threats. Stall is immensely threatened by moves like Taunt, Encore, and Toxic, all of which will be integral in performing Michief Maker's functions. That might actually make offensive teams more threatening because you can shut down the Stall Pokemon that try to set up hazards/phaze out your offensive threats.

Overall it's a good niche worth exploring. I'd just like more clarity on what it is supposed to decentralize, and how to stop it from decentralizing targets it isn't "supposed to."

Zystral's Cardboard Wrecking Ball:

Rampardos wuz here.

In all seriousness, the problem with a concept like this is it can get out of hand very easily. Earthquake + Stone Edge alone is outstanding coverage in two physical moves, as is Thunderbolt + Ice Beam for special moves. Both of these combinations are staple elements of many offensive Pokemon movepools. Taken to it's extreme, lets say Rampardos' only attack was Head Smash. Choice Banded Rampardos Head Smash still 2HKO's Swampert even though it resists it. If you gave it an ability like Klutz so that it couldn't use Choice Items it could get around that, but then you have a pokemon that might be easily overshadowed by existing threats.

The concept is too inflexible in my opinion.

Plus' Get the ball rolling!:

I'm trying to determine whether this is going more into "ultimate suicide lead" territory or if you want something more disruptive in the mid-game. I used a Smeargle lead for a Gravity team with Spore/Explosion/Spikes/Trick because it was the best complement for that team's strategy, both for starting, keeping, and stopping momentum. The Mach Punch/Seed Bomb/Spore/Stun Spore Breloom set was another momentum breaker I've employed.

Is this concept aimed more at breaking the opponents momentum or creating momentum for your own team? The reason I ask is "absolute crap on it's own." Some of the better suicide leads aren't metagame breaking, but could hardly be considered crap. Aerodactyl has top-tier speed, Taunt, SR, and decent coverage options. Azelf has a similarly great movepool for a lead as well as extremely dangerous offensive stats. For a mid-game example, Bronzong @ Damp Rock can set up Rain and then Explode to give momentum to rain teams.

What I'm trying to grasp is whether this would be more directed to mid-game momentum or as the latest, greatest suicide lead. My other issue is how do you use something like momentum to help balance and stall? Stall's general purpose is to stop the opponent's momentum cold at every turn and balance is probably better called "bulky offense." So would this be a momentum builder for bulky offense but not hyper offense?

If it trends more towards mid-game momentum it would be an interesting niche to explore. Suicide leads are so prevalent that I'm not sure what new areas to explore, since they basically just use hazard or Dual Screen then Explode or U-turn.

DrkSlay's ICFTLOFM (Abbr.):

Forgotten moves are usually forgotten for a reason. It is difficult to consider this concept without assuming Technician to boost the low-power moves with excellent effects like Flame Wheel being usable out of freeze, Icy Wind's Speed lower, any of the multi-hit moves, etc.

I can see where it's going, I for instance would really like to see a Pokemon that could use Worry Seed effectively because it disrupts Restalk straregies and pokemon like Scizor and Heatran who rely on their ability being in constant effect. Most of those moves fall into the esoteric support category.

The other problem is many of the "forgotten" moves are forgotten because even with Tech, Thunderbolt is much better than Shock Wave. strong STAB moves almost always take precedence over their weaker counterparts regardless of additional effects, so it would only apply to coverage moves which would be difficult to work around with the new Movepool process.

The concept is interesting, but very limited because only a few moves actually fit the criteria of "viable but forgotten."

Res Ipsa Loquitur's Gravity Abuser

Having submitted a Gravity team for Flavor of the Month, I'd say the concept is good but execution is going to be a hassle. While not necessary, either huge defense or a type resistant to Ground would be important design elements, as well as low accuracy moves with good effects. Fidgit was given Persistent (which boosts the duration of non-weather field effects by 2 turns) and Gravity and as of yet Gravity sets have not been employed successfully. Fidgit just has too many other solid options.

It's a very, very niche concept and sets quite a few limits on design. Not only would the mon have to perform in gravity, it would have to be bulky enough to set it up and then use it. It's unlikely to get out of hand but it's almost a finished project.

FlareBlitz's The Underdog

This one is easier to implement with the new Stats/Movepool system since we can assure a fairly low BSR or Movepool. BSR is, however, quite exploitable and so are Very Good Moves. Overall the only wild card would be Ability and everyone is going to have a different vision of how this CAP would be the underdog.

Breloom seems like the most obvious example to me, with mediocre stats but an absolutely wonderful ability and a select few powerful moves. Breloom also has the benefit of being pre-existing, and I'm almost afraid it will end up like the original Pyroak, who was given Flare Blitz and Wood Hammer and Rock Head as a gimmick (since it had low attack and only Howl to boost it). Unfortunately it fell flat and until it went through revisions was looked down upon as a failure. Underdogs designed to be underdogs tend to remain that way.

Ezekiel's Whetherman:

Weather has been such a driving force in the OU and Ubers metagames that there's not much of it that hasn't been unexplored. We did some weather testing way back i the original Pyroak with Lv. 78 Groudon and Kyogre to see if auto-weather and temporary weather were too powerful. It was decided they were after the test and weather has been a perennial concept idea ever since.

My concern is that there's not much new ground and Rain is already heavily overrepresented. There are abilities like Air Lock and Cloud Nine that nullify the effects of weather while the Pokemon is out.

The concept suffers from being a lot of covered ground or, in lieu of that, too limiting to really branch out of. It will almost by default be preconditioned to deal with Rain, the most powerful current weather in OU, or else Sandstorm, the most prevalent weather.

---

Thanks for the submissions everyone. Fuzznip makes the final decisions but I'd like there to be a bit more discussion/clarification of the concepts. I'll have another post tomorrow on whatever concepts are submitted in the interim.

 

[HD]

Name: Break The Metagame
General Description: This concept should aim to find what combination of movepool, ability and/or typing allows a Pokemon to "break the metagame".
Justification: As you all should know, a select group of Smogon-ers should vote upon whether or not Salamence stays in OU, or is too broken for the standard metagame and will be sent to Ubers. Before Salamence, Latias and Garchomp were also scrutinized, as well as Deoxys-S and Shaymin-S. However one question comes to mind. What makes these Pokemon soo broken? Is it their movepool, their typing, or their ability? Or even a combination of all three? This concept wants to explore what exactly makes a Pokemon "break the metagame"?

Previously, a PR thread revolved around a new movepool amendment. I'll avoid explaining it, because you lazy fucks should read it, but it changed the way making a movepool is addressed. Also, we have a BSR system already implemented. With these limitations, can we still create a "Broken-Mon"? As we all know, a Pokemon can be nominated to be banned from the OU metagame from three characteristics - Offensive, Defensive and Support. This Pokemon would have to choose which of the three charateristics to focus on, so it could just break the metagame in that way. Also, it would allow the community to discover which is the best combination of ability, stats, typing and movepool to be nominated for the characteristic.

I see this concept as more of a team player. If pulled off correctly, we know what to avoid for future caps. If we find certain moves, typing, abilities or stats to be a big contributer to being broken, we will know not to use them. This concept, imho, explores the metagame as much as the Ultimate Scout or the Ultimate Supporter.



Questions To Be Answered:

• Is there a perfect combination of movepool, ability, typing and stats that lets a Pokemon break the metagame?
• What contributes more to letting a Pokemon break the metagame, typing, stats, movepool or ability?
• Will the metagame adapt, or will it be similar to the Garchomp metagame where checks were running all over the place?

Explanation:
BRAKE BORING METAGAME

 

[Yllnath]

Deck,

I was considering putting in more info, because I knew it was somewhat vague, but I was also a little worried about how adding too much info here might be considered poll jumping and have my concept deleted.

Anyway, the idea is that it's not necessarily has to focus HO teams or stall teams, it's more that those kinds of team are more easily shut down. For example, a Macho brace tricked to a sweeper, or Knock off to hit of a Life Orb which will make some sweepers a lot more harmless. Or a Encore on a Dragon Dance, etc. And of course, burns and paralysis goes a long way to get a HO team down. And there are a lot more moves to explore as well, like stat-down moves. Stall is more easily shut down with Taunts, like you say.
Now, as for more balanced teams, it's not that this pokemon should not be able to touch him, it's more of a, "I could use burn, but I might actually get a Guts user to soak it up. Or a rest-talker." The emphasis isn't that it's a counter, it's a decentralizer in that it forces teams to be a bit more balanced in order to not get completely shut down by it.
The offensive part comes from it's playstyle. Often, pokemon like this are walls, slow and sturdy. They also put more emphasis on teamplay.
This pokemon puts far more emphasis on sieging the other team, for lack of better terms, with low regards for it's own health, much like how a sweeper would perform. Hence the "offensive" part.
I hope I didn't go into detail too far. Basically, the goal of this concept is to shut down the other teams strategy through disruptive moves. And naturally, more specialized teams suffer more from their strategy being shut down than balanced teams.

 

[Staraptor Call]

Name: Concealer

General Description: A Pokemon that is very effective at witholding information about its user's team.

Justification: Scouting is an important part of battling and always has been. The more information one has about ones opponent's Pokemon, movesets, and general strategy, the better one is able to predict ones opponent's next move. But in the current metagame, most players focus more on scouting their opponents' teams than concealing their own. This is because, outside of switching infrequently, there is not very much a player can do to prevent the opposing player's scouting. But what if there were a reliable way to keep your opponent from finding out about the team? What effects on the metagame would that have? CAP 7 has already taught us what makes a good scout, but we have never investigated the other side to that coin.

Better exploring the "information game" is important because the Fifth Generation games will soon give us Zoroark, a Pokemon that specializes in information manipulation, and possibly other scouting-related Pokemon and moves. Scouting and the prevention thereof will likely be more important in the Fifth Generation than ever before. More fully developing our knowledge of scouting and anti-scouting will not only teach us about a relatively unexplored part of the metagame, but it will also prepare us for the Fifth Generation.

Questions to be Answered:

• What are the best and most reliable ways to conceal information about ones team?
• What characteristics should an information witholder have to best be able to deal with common scouters?
• What aspects of ones team are the most and least important to conceal?
• What type of team benefits the most from keeping its opponents in the dark?
• What type of team needs scouting the most, and is hurt the most by the presence of a concealer Pokemon?
• What new scouting techniques will battlers employ when there is an information-witholding Pokemon in the metagame?

Explanation: Currently, the most reliable way to conceal ones team is simply not to switch, or to switch to an already-revealed Pokemon. Almost all scouters in OU rely on forcing switches by threatening other Pokemon out, but still maintaining momentum by using U-turn. An anti-scout should be able to deal with all common users of U-turn. Such a Pokemon should resist Bug and should not be weak to the attacks commonly used by Flygon, Scizor, and other common U-turn users. In order to be able to switch into scouts multiple times, the Concealer should be bulky and resist Stealth Rock. Obviously, the Concealer should not be a scout itself, so it should not get pseudo-hazing moves, U-turn, or entry hazards. The Concealer should also be able to deal with Roar and Whirlwind users too. Suction Cups would be a good ability for a Concealer to have, so it could prevent the scouting done by stall teams as well as offensive ones.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Name: Defensive Characteristic

General Description: A Pokemon that is able to wall or stall out a significant portion of the metagame by means of stats, ability, typing, or combination thereof.

Justification: As generations of Pokemon have progressed, the idea of a 'counter mentality' has dwindled to the point at which it is presumed ludicrous, and yet in some areas is still held up almost as an argument in itself. There are very few Pokemon now that can actually counter a wide variety of Pokemon, as was possible back in ADV, due to the large circulation of moves of all types and attributes, allowing coverage unheard of before the 4th generation. But this is all obvious. However, this leaves an enormously large niche in the metagame that has not resurfaced - that of a Pokemon that can actually function as an effective counter to a variety of Pokemon, and be able to exhibit defensive cohesion with other defensive Pokemon. Why is this justified? Not only is it a niche, albeit a broad one, which perhaps only Blissey can lay claim to at present, and an ever shaky one at that, but also that it helps us to learn about this new metagame in a number of ways, whether countering can be effective when attributed to a single Pokemon, whether a counter is still a means of effective argument against offence, and whether the idea of a counter can be effectively applied in the DPP metagame at any rate. I would also like to draw attention to the concept's name in this - "Defensive Characteristic". It is frequently stated for one reason or another that the defensive characteristic is one of the weaker characteristics about, as it is supposedly impossible to fulfil without fulfilling either of the others regardless. This concept would perhaps be a way to challenge that notion, even if intentionally creating an Uber is not the focus of this CAP. Perhaps such a concept could be considered implausible, but I tend to think that difficult concepts turn out the best CAPs, and the community can rise to the challenge.



Questions To Be Answered:

• Is countering still an effective strategy in the 4th generation?
• Is it possible to create a Pokemon capable of acting as a viable, separate Pokemon for the sole purpose of countering the opponent's threats? (Read: Cresselia)
• Will this CAPmon make defensive teams as a whole a more viable or popular playstyle?
• How will the metagame change to react to this inclusion? For example, will offensive teams fall in popularity, or will new threats previously overlooked become more popular to combat this new defensive threat?
• Is it possible for the defensive characteristic to be broken in its own right, without the inclusion of the other clauses?

Explanation: If I may make something clear here, this is not intended to be a 'physical Blissey' or a 'BlisseyV2'. That area of the metagame is, I think, already explored sufficiently, and countering by pure stats alone is unfeasible outside of the special arena, where the lower number of serious stat-boosting threats makes it easier to function. For the physical side alone, we won't get anywhere due to the Uber-level stats that would be needed to combat the generally increased power output. To be brief, I envisage with this CAPmon one that can fend off multiple threats due to a combination of typing and stats - in essence, a mixed wall - though one that can actually perform effectively against multiple Pokemon on both ends. You may say that something like Skarmory does this already, which is true from a certain perspective. But the metagame has evolved around it to the point at which the dominant physical threats have the means to bypass or work around it - it is not, really, the most centralising influence.

When I say countering, I emphasise the point of defensive countering, not offensive - the potential to walk into the wrong move does not define you as a counter. There are plenty of 'offensive counters' around, but very few defensive ones. This is why I do not consider this Pokemon to be similar to Arghonaut, the "Decentraliser", as its job is to counter a majority of threats, but not strictly the top ones. If I may be allowed to go off on a train of thought, I would imagine this as a sort of Cresselia-esque Pokemon, where the stats are lower, but the typing is more advantageous (clearly) and the offensive ability and movepool provides it with a way to defend itself. I would prefer if this were lower than that of Krilowatt for personal reasons. I can also see the ability being a fundamental part of this (See: Blissey, Natural Cure), though we must be careful what we give him, lest we turn him again into another offensive threat.

Oh, and just to make something quite clear, this concept is not 'designed' to be broken - if the title is misleading then I apologise for that. What is intended is that this CAPmon would be designed roughly along the lines of the description of the defensive characteristic, toned down, and without sufficient build on the offensive or support sides, without actually breaking it. It would be an interesting experiment if it were to turn out broken from a research point of view, especially with regards to tiering in anticipation of Gen V, but as this is not the Project's area of investigation, it should be left at that.

Well, that's my concept. Take with a pinch of salt.

 

[Plus]

Deck -

I really want to emphasize that I don't want a suicide lead here, and that is the reason why I said " no entry hazards " in my explanation. Leading is a common way to 'get the ball rolling' so I'd hope for some creativity rather than just a simple lead without entry hazards. So yes, I would like for it to be something you can use mid / late game, as that's where a lot of the in-depth strategy of battling begins. If that means making it purposely lose to common leads in order to discourage that, I really wouldn't have a problem.

The concept is built for your own team's momentum, however in building your own momentum you disrupt your opponents. If a stall team was able to wall nearly everything in the metagame for a few turns just to get a couple of entry hazards up, that might not be so bad considering stall teams generally make a big effort to get those entry hazards up. The cost of one pokemon giving such a large boost to stall could really help put the pressure on the opponent. The reward in wasting a pokemon could be spinning away entry hazards, setting them up, or easily crippling a sweeper like Salamence who is usually very hard to combat in stall. Momentum can either go for your opponent or yourself. If you have the momentum, your opponent loses it, and vice versa. The fact that stall teams have evolved more offensively (aka semistall) in order to address momentum is proof that it is a key factor in most any team.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Thank you for the feedback Deck.

I want to clarify that it's not necessarily going to be about BSR or Movepool, although it could be.

For instance, we could it give it stats that are similar to Golduck's and a movepool similar to Milotic's (basic STAB and coverage, instant recovery, some standard status moves, some weird gimmicky shit like psych up) but give it a typing like Steel/Flying with abilities like Volt Absorb and Flash Fire. The question then would be if its auspicious typing would make up for its so-so defensive stats and lack of support movepool.

Or we could go the complete opposite direction, make a Pokemon with a Heatran-level BSR and Dialga-level offensive movepool, but saddle it with Poison/Fire and Keen Eye. Would it be possible for it to sweep with Dragon Dance when it has such shitty typing and abilities?

I do agree that the community is going to have different directions in which they want to take this, so it might be a good idea to say "this is going to be an offensive Pokemon" or "this is going to be a defensive Pokemon" in the concept to offer a bit more as far as guidelines go, but I don't really like confining the process in that way. Any thoughts?

 

[Dark Kaiser]

• Name - Trick Room abuser
• Description - Good trick room users are far few in between, leaving this weather condition an underexploited strategy. I propose a Pokemon who can use this move to great effect.
• Justification - This will create a new niche in the CAP metagame by allowing a new team to game a strong foothold in the meta through an effect Trick Room inducer. This will increase the capability of low speed pokemon, therefore decreasing centralization in the metagame.
• Questions To Be Answered - Is abuse of the move Trick Room broken in the meta game?
• How will the lost importance on speed impact the Metagame?
  How would influx of low speed pokemon affect the effectivness of Trick Room?
• How would Trick Room affect the usage of stall teams?
• Explanation - This pokemon could be able to abuse Trick Room through either typing, stats, and access to the move, or an ability. My only concern would be permanent inducing ability which in my opinion would way over powered.

 

[Mektar]

Name: Ultimate Baton Passer
General Description: Just imagine a CAP Pokemon that could baton pass just about any stat boost or battle effect to any other Pokemon on its team with the greatest of ease.
Justification: If a CAP like this was developed, even niche Pokemon from the lower teirs could be used competitively. Bastiodon could be used on Defensive teams! Rampardos could be used on Offensive teams! The possibilites for such a CAP are endless, and it would incourage creative teambuilding.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Would this CAP create combos with other Pokemon that would be broken?
• Would this CAP be weak to Phazing?
  
• Is this CAP useful enough to be a viable option in OU teams?
  
• Would this CAP significantly alter the metagame?
  
  [*]Will UU and NU Pokemon even be considered for use in tandem with this Pokemon?

Explanation: Lets face it, no one ever uses pokemon like Smeargle or Ninjask anymore. They are both great Baton Passers, but they're too frail to rack up boosts, and Ninjask has almost zero good moves to pass to its teammates. A Baton Passer with a huge boosting and supporting movepool and good defenses would be fun to use in the OU metagame. With it, you could even do somethig unheard of, like passing Swords Dances to a Shuckle. However, its sweeping capabilities must be extremely limited to avoid breaking the CAP.

 

[Deck Knight]

Thank you for the feedback Deck.

I want to clarify that it's not necessarily going to be about BSR or Movepool, although it could be.

For instance, we could it give it stats that are similar to Golduck's and a movepool similar to Milotic's (basic STAB and coverage, instant recovery, some standard status moves, some weird gimmicky shit like psych up) but give it a typing like Steel/Flying with abilities like Volt Absorb and Flash Fire. The question then would be if its auspicious typing would make up for its so-so defensive stats and lack of support movepool.

Or we could go the complete opposite direction, make a Pokemon with a Heatran-level BSR and Dialga-level offensive movepool, but saddle it with Poison/Fire and Keen Eye. Would it be possible for it to sweep with Dragon Dance when it has such shitty typing and abilities?

I do agree that the community is going to have different directions in which they want to take this, so it might be a good idea to say "this is going to be an offensive Pokemon" or "this is going to be a defensive Pokemon" in the concept to offer a bit more as far as guidelines go, but I don't really like confining the process in that way. Any thoughts?

Going to underline in places for emphasis. Don't take it the wrong way.

What I'm trying to go for in my analysis is getting a distinction between vague and directionless. We want concepts to have enough room to play around, and be vague about how they go about their mission. What we don't want is something completely directionless.

General Description: A Pokemon that is seemingly terrible in one or more competitively relevant factors (i.e. typing, movepool, BST, etc) but is still used due to being highly successful at a given offensive, defensive, or support niche.

This is currently directionless. Basically you want to fill an unspecified niche that would require a specific combination of Typing/Stats/Movepool/Ability, but you don't give a function for it. Every CAP is designed to fill a niche inherently, so having a concept like this doesn't lead people to a coherent end. People will argue over which aspect of the Pokemon should be "bad" and which should be "good." Later people will argue if the current traits are already "too bad" or "too good" and be fractured accordingly.

One of the things that might help is if your Underdog's supposed weaknesses were to be stated explicitly. For example you might want to see if we can make a defensive pokemon with mediocre offenses viable against major offensive threats by giving it a good movepool, possibly with stat boosters to let it take them by surprise, kind of like Agility Skarmory can get the drop on Infernape with Brave Bird (spare me some criticism for the off the cuff example). Defensive Pokemon are generally underdogs in an offensive metagame that even bends stall towards offense. If I were advising you I'd say to make your Underdog's weakness based around stats because stats have the largest possible range of options. "Good" or "Bad" typing depends almost entirely on function, and Abilities are impossible to get a grip around this early in the process.

For everyone:

So to try and condense that down to a few sentences, we want the concepts to be vague but have a direction. Say whether your conceptualized Pokemon is supposed to be defensive, offensive, support, or fill some other specific niche you feel doesn't presently exists, or its current manifestations are weak and/or incomplete.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Name - Winter Wonderland

Description - A Pokemon that can take advantage of Hail in some form.

Justification - Face it, Hail sucks in the current metagame. When you look at the auto-weather starter being 4x weak to Fire, the entire lot of Pokemon that abuse it being weak to Stealth Rock, and the utter lack of very effective sweepers under Hail, you can immediately see why its usage is practically nonexistent and it's primary mode of use is "Hail Stall." Hail in itself, though, is not much worse off compared to other weather effects; it is primarily limited in the Pokemon that can take advantage of it successfully. This concept attempts to explore the depth to which Hail could become successful in the OU metagame through creating a Pokemon that interacts with it on some fundamental level and fixes - or helps to fix - many of the problems Hail-themed teams run into in the current OU metagame.

Questions To Be Answered -

• Can Hail become a legitimate, non-gimmick strategy in OU with better Pokemon to take advantage of it?
• Can Hail effectively function in a manner other than HailStall?
• Will a greater prevalence of Hail decentralize the weather metagame from around Sandstream users?
• In what interesting ways can we develop a Hail-based Pokemon other than what we've already seen?

Explanation - 4th generation is marked by much excitement for the "auto Hail-inducing" Pokemon. When it came, it wasn't all that people were hoping for. Furthermore, all of the Pokemon that appeared in the metagame to assist Abomasnow in its job did nothing to negate the severe weaknesses that come with Ice-typing with Stealth Rock around or the general lack of type diversity allowed on Hail teams. Lastly, in terms of weather, Hail is the only other one besides Sandstorm available permanently in the OU metagame, so this doesn't make it unfamiliar or bizarre to the common player.

This Pokemon could be any number of things. It could use either Snow Warning itself to be a starter of Hail, serving a different role than Abomasnow, or it could run Snow Cloak / Ice Body without having the Ice-typing of the other users. It could still be Ice-typing, but could otherwise be anything. It doesn't even really need any of the obvious abilities or typing, though, as a Pokemon could simply be designed to function effectively as another Pokemon in Hail. Heatran comes to mind as a common Hail supporter for its ability to take Fire-type attacks with ease and set up Stealth Rock for the Hail team. Furthermore, the concept could either make a sweeper or a defensive Pokemon, although I feel that a bulky attacker on the order of Tyranitar might help Hail the absolute most. The ability for this Pokemon to go toe-to-toe with Tyranitar and fare well would alone provide an interesting point of study for the OU metagame. What happens when Tyranitar isn't the baddest weather-user on the block anymore? I'd like to find out.

 

[reachzero]

• Name - Helping Hand
• Description - The presence of this Pokemon single-handedly makes a substantial number of lesser-used Pokemon much more viable in OU.
• Justification - This Pokemon would improve the metagame by adding a greater degree of variety in the Pokemon used. Rather than decreasing the usage of the most-used Pokemon (like Arghonaut's Decentralizer), its aim is to make lesser-used Pokemon much more viable, and so increase their usage.
• Questions To Be Answered - What factors are holding back some of the lesser-used Pokemon from being used as much as the "big boys" of OU?
• Can any of the factors pushing lesser-used Pokemon down be substantially mitigated?
• How much impact can a single Pokemon have on the usage of other Pokemon?
• Explanation - Not all Pokemon, not even all OU Pokemon, are created equal. Togekiss, Tentacruel, Yanmega, Snorlax--many Pokemon that seemingly could be useful in the Standard metagame nevertheless find themselves far lower in usage than are the stars of OU: Scizor, Salamence, Heatran, etc. This Pokemon would seek to tip the scales of usage by dealing with some of the factors keeping down lesser-used Pokemon, diversifying OU from the bottom up.

 

[v]

Name: Clean-Up Kid

General Description: A Pokemon capable of cleaning up lategame, but incapable of outright sweeping.

Justification: In the current OU Metagame, Pokemon can largely be lumped into three broad categories: Sweeper, Wall and Supporter. However, no Pokemon exists solely for the purpose of cleaning up lategame or revenge-killing Pokemon. They all have some means of sweeping. Scizor can use a SD set, and Choiced Pokemon have poor type coverage, leading to their ultimate downfall.

Questions To Be Answered:
-Is it possible to create a Pokemon who can clean without sweeping?
-How much of an effect does movepool have on a Pokemon's ability to clean-up compared to stats and ability?
-Which OU Pokemon are the most likely targets that need cleaning?
-How much does speed affect a Pokemon's ability to clean up?
-How will teams that don't rely on residual damage adapt to a cleaner?

Explanation: Ever since Deoxys-Speed left OU due to its insane set-up capabilities, there has been a sort of gulf in the metagame. No Pokemon is as capable of outspeeding and finishing off weak Pokemon. I envision mediocre stats beyond Speed as well as a fairly large movepool to allow it to clean up. I don’t have any typings in mind, but I’d probably go with a good defensive typing to allow it some longevity. I would also expect no stat-up or set-up moves in the movepool, because that just turns it into a sweeper. I also don’t have an ability in mind.

 

[Sextus scion of crazy]

Name: The Pivot
General Description: A pokemon that, rather than sweep or Wall, is meant to place your other pokemon in a more favorable position by forcing switches, status effects, switching moves, etc.
Justification: Victory in the metagame is gained not by having the strongest pokemon, but having pokemon out that counter the opposing pokemon. This pokemon's point isn't to add a sixth powerhouse or wall, but to make the other five more effective.
Questions To Be Answered:
-Which is more effective: having an additional powerhouse or having the others used more effectively?
-How much does positioning effect pokemon combat?
Explanation: I would expect that this pokemon would have a way of dealing with entry hazards. Perhaps a good typing like Fighting/Flying or magic guard. This pokemon would need to be able to use phazing moves and taunt to shut down weather and other field effects.

 

[DarkSlay]

Forgotten moves are usually forgotten for a reason. It is difficult to consider this concept without assuming Technician to boost the low-power moves with excellent effects like Flame Wheel being usable out of freeze, Icy Wind's Speed lower, any of the multi-hit moves, etc.

While that is a possible ability, Technician is nowhere presumed to be the major option, and I presume that if there was a place who could come up with a way to use this idea without Technician, it would be CAP. Serene Grace, for instance, would take a more unique approach at an offensive Pokemon with moves like Mist Ball, Rolling Kick, Aurora Beam, and Mirror Shot some usage. Simple will let us test moves like Sharpen and Defense Curl (lol?) in a competitive environment, and we may even go so far as to give Acupressure a reason to be used with its 1/7 chance of boosting what you want (although this may result in it being broken, but I'm going way too far into this). Compoundeyes gives reason to use Zap Cannon, Stun Spore, and a bunch of low accuracy moves. I'm sure I'm missing quite a few moves and abilities that can be used, but still, the possibilities are endless. Technician is a good ability, but no where necessary.

I can see where it's going, I for instance would really like to see a Pokemon that could use Worry Seed effectively because it disrupts Restalk straregies and pokemon like Scizor and Heatran who rely on their ability being in constant effect. Most of those moves fall into the esoteric support category.

Good point, forgot about Worry Seed. At least the concept is aptly named. XD

The other problem is many of the "forgotten" moves are forgotten because even with Tech, Thunderbolt is much better than Shock Wave. strong STAB moves almost always take precedence over their weaker counterparts regardless of additional effects, so it would only apply to coverage moves which would be difficult to work around with the new Movepool process.

However, unlike Surf, Water Pulse has a 20% Confusion rate. Would a counter like to be confused and hit super effectively on the switch? Is there a move that can currently do that? That's where the experimenting begins. However, you are right, some moves might be seriously outclassed even with the help of an ability. However, can we still use these moves competitively? Especially if our Pokemon does not have access to Thunderbolt? This is the point of my concept, to see whether it's viable to use such moves to a point where there is little to no difference between "better moves" through ability, typing, etc.

The concept is interesting, but very limited because only a few moves actually fit the criteria of "viable but forgotten."

I think the concept's definition of "viable but forgotten" is a little loose, to be honest. I'm including things like AncientPower, Water Pulse, Bite, Bone Club, BubbleBeam, Drain Punch, even things like Rock Smash and Rock Climb offensively. There's more options, and depending on how we define "viable but forgotten," it can cap at Absorb or cap at Shadow Claw. I just think this concept provides us with a huge sandbox, and allows us to make a Pokemon from some really, really odd moves. Kind of like gathering supplies out in the forest to survive. XD Can we make this viable? That's the aim.

Oh, and ten bucks at least one of the moves I've mentioned you forgot about. XD

Thanks for the feedback Deck. Always welcome. :)

 

[Anacrusis]

After reading all of these, I think reachzero's is my favorite. It's really creative and would allow for a lot of diversity when making this CaP. Plus, I think everyone wants a taste of something different in the metagame, and reachzero's concept would be perfect for that kind of change of pace.

I'm really tired right now, so I'll edit this post with my viewpoint on each the submitted concepts tomorrow.

 

[voltblizzard]

Name: Speed Controller
General Description: A Pokemon who could use raise/lower speed to control the battle and use gyro ball effectively.
Justification: When it comes to speed in the current metagame, there are the fast ones, the slow ones, and trick room. I think it would affect the metagame positively by increasing the point of going first or last. It would also increase the popularity of priority and speed based moves.
Questions To Be Answered:
Would a Pokemon based around speed be quickly taken out in the current metagame?
Would Max Power STAB gyro ball become a more common option than it is now?
How many more Pokemon would utilize priority so they can always attack first.
Explanation: A Pokemon with a lot of speed controlling moves could have many different battle plans. This Pokemon could curse, agility, trick room, scary face, and priority. I think a steel type is perfect so gyro ball gets STAB. A second type could be anything or nothing. One strategy is curse + gyro ball against fast opponents. Trick room + agility + gyro ball against slower opponents. Then finish off things with STAB bullet punch. Its stats would be balanced with about a 80-100 speed. Abilities can range from pretty much anything. I want to know what will happen to Jolteon, Dusknoir, Yanmega, and all of the others in OU if this CAP is born.