ReCAP 26

The typing stage began with a couple of simple questions: whether CAP26 needed STAB on Doom Desire, and whether CAP26 should be able to threaten some Doom Desire switch-ins (rather than leaving them completely up to its teammates). The consensus led to GMars guiding discussion towards necessitating Steel typing, as well as establishing that CAP26 should generally pressure offensive switch-ins to Doom Desire but leave defensive switch-ins open.

Discussion with specific type combinations then opened up. Some typings like Steel / Fire and Steel / Grass were discouraged due to the immense competition CAP26 would face with Heatran and Ferrothorn, while other typings like Steel / Dragon and Steel / Water lacked the type resistances to effectively deal with CAP26's threatlist. In the end, the slate was Steel, Steel / Electric, Steel / Flying, Steel / Ghost, and Steel / Ground. If you didn't know, CAP does everything via polling, and the TLT makes up the slate from which you can choose to vote on the options. Steel would allow CAP26 more freedom with its coverage moves due to a lower power ceiling, while the others gave CAP26 varying levels of offensive coverage and defensive resistances. In the end, two polls were needed, with Steel / Ground winning the head-to-head with Steel / Ghost. While Steel / Ground lacked the sheer resistances that Steel / Ghost possessed, Steel / Ground's offensive coverage with STAB attacks alone and ability to block Volt Switch were deemed more favorable.

For the primary ability discussion, the TLT decided to do something that had never been done before: ban discussion on an ability beforehand. In this case, that ability was Regenerator, which had already been thoroughly explored via Discord, and as an ability, there's not a lot to say about it other than that it's just a generically great ability for any pivot. To prevent this ability from ultimately lowering the quality of discussion, the TLT banned discussion on it for 4 days. A lot of abilities got discussion throughout the thread, with most looking to give CAP26 more opportunities to switch into play. Some examples are Magic Guard, which would make CAP26 completely immune to hazards; Levitate, which would make CAP26 immune to Spikes and allow it to check common Ground-types like Garchomp—these were made a big point in the thread and grant it more opportunities to switch into play, respectively; and Bulletproof, which would turn CAP26 into a true check to Psychic-types such as Mega Alakazam that rely on Focus Blast to hit Steel-types. In the end, the TLT decided to slate Regenerator, Levitate, Water Absorb, and Bulletproof. Levitate ended up winning and is now CAP26's primary ability.

Moving on from the Primary Ability stage, the Secondary Ability stage came later down the line. This time around, the TLT decided to hold a quick discussion around the other slated abilities: Regenerator, Water Absorb, and Bulletproof. In the end, the TLT, together with the community decided that both Regenerator and Water Absorb were too defining to fit as a secondary ability; Regenerator had some serious risk attached to it by potentially outclassing Levitate, while Water Absorb simply affected the Checks and Counters stage too much at this point in the process. Bulletproof still got a lot of support, just like in the Primary Ability stage, but so did other abilities such as Filter / Solid Rock, Sturdy, and Thick Fat, with them all also enabling some niche situations. Surprisingly, the option of No Competitive Ability was also quite popular, with supporters believing that Equilibra simply didn't need a secondary ability and could easily make do with Levitate alone. Bulletproof, No Competitive Ability, Thick Fat, Filter / Solid Rock, and Sturdy ended up getting slated. Bulletproof won the poll for the Secondary Ability stage, winning by a landslide over the other abilities.

Stats discussion began with Stat Limits, the qualitative portion of the stage. There, posters experimented with the potential of CAP26 having mixed offensive stats and using Earthquake to improve its matchup with Calm Mind + Pain Split Magearna; Speed tiers and its following interactions with Pokémon like Magearna, Mega Mawile, and Heatran; and power levels for Doom Desire. In the end, Jho decided that the thread's arguments for high mixed bulk, good Special Attack, and average Speed would enable good combinations of Special Attack and Speed as well as good overall bulk while also leaving room for mixed Earthquake sets if desired. Furthermore, CAP26's ability to take special hits would be prioritized due to its threatlist, but its Defense wouldn't be far behind so that its ability to take Tapu Lele's Psyshock would not be neglected.

Thus, the stat submissions themselves became rather similar, with most submitters taking Tapu Lele, Mega Alakazam, Mega Mawile, and Heatran into account, as well as Earthquake from other physical attackers like Landorus-T and Garchomp for non-Levitate sets. However, one stat spread kept the mixed attacker option open, and all the stat submissions had different Speed stats, allowing them to outspeed Magearna or Mega Mawile with varying levels of Speed investment. In the end, Jordy's spread of 102 HP / 50 Atk / 96 Def / 133 SpA / 118 SpD / 60 Spe | 559 BST won, providing CAP26 the mixed bulk, good Special Attack, and decent Speed that it wanted.

Although the stages leading up to Moveset Discussion were important, this was the critical stage: finding not only the right moves to support Doom Desire, but also the moves that are too powerful with Doom Desire and those that discourage its use. When G-Luke, the movepool TLT, opened discussion with a series of questions, many groups of moves were discussed, including recovery moves like Recover and Moonlight, hazard setting moves like Stealth Rock and Spikes, hazard removing moves like Defog and Rapid Spin, setup moves like Nasty Plot, pivoting moves like U-turn, phazing moves like Whirlwind and Dragon Tail, and coverage moves like Thunderbolt and Ice Beam.

Through simple discussion, as well as preliminary tests on Quanyails's custom Pokémon Showdown test server, several moves were banned outright before moveset submissions were fully open. Nasty Plot allowed CAP26 to leverage its great bulk too well and could overwhelm counters too easily, so it was banned. Spikes was also outright banned, as laying down several layers of Spikes on forced switches means CAP26 isn't using Doom Desire on those forced switches. All 50% recovery moves were also banned, as Levitate CAP26 is extremely hard to chip down. Finally, any useful coverage, particularly Electric-, Fire-, and Ice-type coverage, was banned. Fire- and Ice-type coverage pairs well with Earth Power, meaning that CAP26 could eschew Doom Desire given any good utility moves. Electric-type coverage, on the other hand, risked breaking through counters like Arghonaut and Celesteela.

At this point, most posters realized that Doom Desire was, in fact, not a terrible move to have due to its ability to disrupt the opponent's positioning, which led to a shift in focus on moveset discussion. CAP26 had two flexible moveslots after running Doom Desire and Earth Power; the challenge for the rest of discussion was how to fill those moveslots effectively, but not too effectively. Most posters desired one of Rapid Spin or Stealth Rock, but not both, as this would be too much utility for CAP26. Pivoting moves, particularly U-turn and Volt Switch, were contentious. Spiky Shield (in conjunction with Leftovers) and Leech Seed were introduced to discussion as another alternative form of recovery. Some posters wanted Flash Cannon banned so that CAP26 wouldn't be tempted to run a more consistent Steel-type STAB move.

In the end, CAP26 received Rapid Spin due to its good matchup against most common hazard setters, as well as a plethora of other utility moves like Healing Wish, Memento, Dragon Tail, Roar, Pain Split, Trick Room, and Work Up. Although Toxic and Protect are required moves, over the course of the thread, they were realized to be important moves for CAP26 as well. Furthermore, Flash Cannon was allowed on CAP26 to serve as a test to see whether it really made a viable Doom Desire user, and Aura Sphere was allowed to ensure CAP26 mirror matches would not last forever if encountered. On the other hand, Stealth Rock was banned due to the inclusion of Rapid Spin, Leech Seed's recovery was deemed too powerful for CAP26, and Spiky Shield's upgrade over Protect was deemed "unnecessary". Furthermore, pivoting moves were not allowed, as CAP26 could slow pivot out to frail wallbreakers like Mega Medicham without too much hassle, and nothing can reliably switch into the combination of Doom Desire + Mega Medicham's moves, let alone multiple times in a match.