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Project Metagame Workshop
- Thread starter KaenSoul
- Start date
I feel like it would still be quite an interesting metagame, even if we have to tweak how much damage super effective hits do, as an example
That doesn't seem like a massive problem so long as tera reveal clause is in place. Those 8x and 16x super effective moves become 8x and 16x resists when you can just see what type is getting added to their moves and switch accordingly. eg. That crazy ursaluna physically can't damage a flying type with the fighting/ground close combat. (ok gravity exists but you get the idea)
I think dual type metagames while interesting in theory, kind of fall short in practice. I think the main problem is even if you actually somehow made the type combinations predictable, there is still a lot of mental math you have to do for type coverages, which might not be appealing to an average player.
Also, I think the negative multipliers (x0.25, x0.5 and x0 immunities) would be a lot more common than the positive ones as most stuff naturally has more resists than weaknesses so resistances/immunities would be amplified more. It kind of seems like you're getting very little return for too much chaos in such a metagame.
Also, I think the negative multipliers (x0.25, x0.5 and x0 immunities) would be a lot more common than the positive ones as most stuff naturally has more resists than weaknesses so resistances/immunities would be amplified more. It kind of seems like you're getting very little return for too much chaos in such a metagame.
The same can be true for the other side. A Fire type who could KO, if rain is on forecast is at risk of it not being a KO. Your team must be ready for that.
And isn't fully unpredictable, one turn before a matching warning appears, so you can do an appropriate switch if you can and/or need
Has anyone suggested an ability condition change metagame?
The idea is that you put the ability you want the activation condition of in the item slot, and the ability affect in the ability slot.
The abilities you choose for this are only the ones the pokemon can normally get.
e.g alolamola could put its healer ability in the item slot for a 30% chance to do [affect] at the end of each turn.
And then you could put the hydration ability in the ability slot to be able to cure your own status.
Overall that would mean alolamola would effectively have a new ability that has a 30% chance to cure its own status at the end of the turn.
The coding for this metagame would be difficult, but lots of abilities don't need to be considered making that job easier: any abilities where the mons have no other abilities (e.g protosynthesis), abilities which are passive (huge power), weird abilities (comatose), ect.
Also lots of abilties have similar conditions for initiation, meaning the code could be recycled.
Here are a few other examples I've thought of that would be good/interesting:
Hitmontop:
intimidate + steadfast = +1 speed on switch in
Scyther:
swarm + steadfast = +1 speed at 1/3 or lower hp
Ursaluna:
Unnerve + Guts = perma active guts boost without being burned (don't have to wait for burn orb, but could be paralyzed)
Polteageist:
Weak armor + cursed body = when hit by a physical move, that move gets disabled (swaps the 30% chance for a guarrantee on physical moves)
Goodra:
Gooey + sap sipper = grass immunity; attack raised by 1 when making contact with other pokemon.
Overqwil:
intimidate + swift swim = doubled speed on switch in (stops after the turn of switch in).
Generally this system tends to be somewhat fair, as you have to sacrifice your item to change a condition, and the condition change will usually not always have an upside.
But some affects are too powerful such as anger point, steam engine, regenerator and would be obviously banned in their use for their affects, but their use for conditions could remain.
What do you think? Any ideas of sets that might be too powerful?
The idea is that you put the ability you want the activation condition of in the item slot, and the ability affect in the ability slot.
The abilities you choose for this are only the ones the pokemon can normally get.
e.g alolamola could put its healer ability in the item slot for a 30% chance to do [affect] at the end of each turn.
And then you could put the hydration ability in the ability slot to be able to cure your own status.
Overall that would mean alolamola would effectively have a new ability that has a 30% chance to cure its own status at the end of the turn.
The coding for this metagame would be difficult, but lots of abilities don't need to be considered making that job easier: any abilities where the mons have no other abilities (e.g protosynthesis), abilities which are passive (huge power), weird abilities (comatose), ect.
Also lots of abilties have similar conditions for initiation, meaning the code could be recycled.
Here are a few other examples I've thought of that would be good/interesting:
Hitmontop:
intimidate + steadfast = +1 speed on switch in
Scyther:
swarm + steadfast = +1 speed at 1/3 or lower hp
Ursaluna:
Unnerve + Guts = perma active guts boost without being burned (don't have to wait for burn orb, but could be paralyzed)
Polteageist:
Weak armor + cursed body = when hit by a physical move, that move gets disabled (swaps the 30% chance for a guarrantee on physical moves)
Goodra:
Gooey + sap sipper = grass immunity; attack raised by 1 when making contact with other pokemon.
Overqwil:
intimidate + swift swim = doubled speed on switch in (stops after the turn of switch in).
Generally this system tends to be somewhat fair, as you have to sacrifice your item to change a condition, and the condition change will usually not always have an upside.
But some affects are too powerful such as anger point, steam engine, regenerator and would be obviously banned in their use for their affects, but their use for conditions could remain.
What do you think? Any ideas of sets that might be too powerful?
I was going to mention weird edge cases and how that might become arbitrary but honestly things seem to line up pretty nice.
Tale ice scales + shield dust for example. “This pokemon takes half damage when affected by the secondary effect of another pokemons attack”. Seems pretty bizarre but what that effectively means is that you take half damage every time you get flinched, burned, confused, etc. From an attacking move.
Might be unintuitive to build around though, especially since order matters. Take the counterpart, shield dust + ice scales:
“This pokemon cannot be affected by special moves”. Thats the only way i could see this working, without picking-and-choosing anyways.
Nevermind, seems as though the immunity is a part of the condition, fwiw.
Btw unaware and mold breaker are completely nonsensical for this premise, do they just do nothing? “this pokemon is unaffected by the opponents stat rises and drops” just seems difficult to even consider.
Thats all for my questions
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I think I've seen related versions of this. I think it was called Role Reversal. This is my personal opinion, but I feel like the above idea completely disregards items. Maybe for more flexibility one could include consumable items in this since those have conditions. This is a different idea based on yours:
So here the roles of Anger Shell would be swapped with Electric Seed.
If Electric Terrain is present, Anger Shell would activate upon entry but only once, whereas, at 50% HP or less Klawf would get +1 defense boost but as many times as possible.
Not quite sure how this would interact with condition-less abilities like Water Bubble, Technician, Transistor etc (could limit this swap only to conditional abilities and consumable items or you could include all abilities but just make it work one-way.)
Any thoughts on a Pokerogue meta? All Pokemon get access to their egg moves and passive abilities from Pokerogue, with passives being an extra ability choice rather than a second ability. Megas and GMax forms may be added as separate Pokemon that have to hold items, as Mega Pokemon (often) do.
This sounds very questionable as the line blurs between what abilities have "conditions". For example, is Levitate merely "This Pokemon is immune to all ground-based effects", or is it "If this Pokemon would be hit by a Ground move or affected by any ground-related element, be immune to it"?
That's a petmod.
Metagame Proposal:
Final Countdown
Premise:
- A poisonous fog will enter on field on Turn 5. At the end of each and every turn, both player's pokemons will take 12,5% of damage. That damage is impossible to be avoided, not even with Magic Guard you're immune to it.
- The damage cannot be dealt on the same turn as the mon switches in.
- That fog is not a Status condition nor is treated like one. So it can be stacked with Poison for example. Also it wont trigger things like Guts.
- It's also not treated as weather and a terrain, so Electric Terrain, or Rain for example, cannot override it. But they can stack in one another.
- Despite the name, Poisonous Fog's Damage is "Corrosive"(Translation: Typeless), so Steel and Poison Types are not immune to it.
- If the fog lasts 40 turns on field, it's damage is increased by 1/16. It will raise an extra 1/16 for every 20 turns that pass afterwards
Banlist:
Standard OU clauses +
- Open Tera Clause
- Abilities: Poison Heal , Regenerator
- Items: Rocky Helmet
- Moves: Spikes
Final Countdown
Premise:
- A poisonous fog will enter on field on Turn 5. At the end of each and every turn, both player's pokemons will take 12,5% of damage. That damage is impossible to be avoided, not even with Magic Guard you're immune to it.
- The damage cannot be dealt on the same turn as the mon switches in.
- That fog is not a Status condition nor is treated like one. So it can be stacked with Poison for example. Also it wont trigger things like Guts.
- It's also not treated as weather and a terrain, so Electric Terrain, or Rain for example, cannot override it. But they can stack in one another.
- Despite the name, Poisonous Fog's Damage is "Corrosive"(Translation: Typeless), so Steel and Poison Types are not immune to it.
- If the fog lasts 40 turns on field, it's damage is increased by 1/16. It will raise an extra 1/16 for every 20 turns that pass afterwards
Turn 1-5: 0% Dmg
Turn 6-45: 12.5%
Turn 46-65: 18,75%
Turn 66-85: 25%
Turn 86-105: 31,25%
Turn 106-125: 37,5%
Turn 126-145(Your match may be over by then): 43,75%
...
Turn 6-45: 12.5%
Turn 46-65: 18,75%
Turn 66-85: 25%
Turn 86-105: 31,25%
Turn 106-125: 37,5%
Turn 126-145(Your match may be over by then): 43,75%
...
Banlist:
Standard OU clauses +
- Open Tera Clause
- Abilities: Poison Heal , Regenerator
- Items: Rocky Helmet
- Moves: Spikes
Last edited:
Keep in mind we avoid anything that is RNG dependant, and if you want abilities to do stuff they dont usually do in a way that cant be shared by every possible combination then you may have a petmod here instead of an om, as the rule is too complex. And pokebilities may do this better anyway.
I get the idea and seem interesting, but may be better to not have abilities/moves in general to affect it, or even actions like switching, just the pure raw damage with no conditions to keep it simple to understand. It doesnt seem like the kind of idea that gets popular around here tho, but may be worth trying if interest is perceived.
So I have been sitting on this for a bit. And while it did start off as a joke, I would like to know if the powers that be would allow this if it was submitted for real.
It could work but is much harder to get people interested on small numbers than trying to get them into the next format where everything is over 100, if there seems to be interest it could be considered, but it doesn't offer anything than other stat modifier format don't.
DESIGNATED SURVIVOR 
(probably better and more fitting names exist)
| Ever wished that friendship-based survivability mechanics from the games were also in the competitive scene? If yes, then this metagame might be for you. |
Premise:
In this singles metagame, your party members will be able to create and pass each other an "Endure Chain". More specifically, your lead pokemon will have the one-time ability to endure hits that would result in a K.O.; once this ability is spent or its holder faints, the survivor mantle will pass down to the next pokemon that you select in team-preview, which carries all the way up to the 6th slot pokemon.
Rules & Questions:
- Pokemon are ordered from slot 1 to slot 6. Once the lead faints or spends their endure, the "survivor" mantle will pass down to the next pokemon in team-preview.
- The endure mechanics is only activated by direct hits and not by passive damage.
- The lead or the survivor pokemon does not have to faint for mechanics to pass to the next pokemon, they simply need to use up their "second chance", but fainting would be sufficient for the mechanics to pass.
- If a pokemon without the survivor mantle faints, its slot will be skipped in team-preview once the holder uses up its mantle or faints.
- Pokemon with Focus Sash, Sturdy or Pokemon using Endure, will have those mechanics take precedence over the mechanics of the metagame, so these instances will not count as expenditure of the "second chance".
- For multi-hit moves, the hits after the endured hit will deal damage.
OU Banlist and Clauses
Questions for the Community:
Fun to play? Any broken elements? How similar to OU would this be?
Last edited:
(probably better and more fitting names exist)
Ever wished that friendship-based survivability mechanics from the games were also in the competitive scene? If yes, then this metagame might be for you.
Premise:
In this singles metagame, your party members will be able to create and pass each other an "Endure Chain". More specifically, your lead pokemon will have the one-time ability to endure hits that would result in a K.O.; once this ability is spent or its holder faints, the survivor mantle will pass down to the next pokemon that you select in team-preview, which carries all the way up to the 6th slot pokemon.
Rules & Questions:
Banlist:
- Pokemon are ordered from slot 1 to slot 6. Once the lead faints or spends their endure, the "survivor" mantle will pass down to the next pokemon in team-preview.
- The endure mechanics is only activated by direct hits and not by passive damage.
- The lead or the survivor pokemon does not have to faint for mechanics to pass to the next pokemon, they simply need to use up their "second chance", but fainting would be sufficient for the mechanics to pass.
- Pokemon with Focus Sash, Sturdy or Pokemon using Endure, will have those mechanics take precedence over the mechanics of the metagame, so these instances will not count as expenditure of the "second chance".
- For multi-hit moves, the hits after the endured hit will deal damage.
OU Banlist and Clauses
Questions for the Community:
Fun to play? Any broken elements? How similar to OU would this be?
Priority moves would become very dominant to finish mons off in addition to multi-hit moves, although I personally think this would be more fun/interesting than normal OU.
Spikes and stealth rocks will become less useful, and toxic spikes would be nearly necessary - likely meaning that in teambuilding you will try to put enough steel or poison types on a team - incidentally weakening fairies and buffing dragon types.
Custap berry and salac berry would be very useful to ensure the second turn happens even with speed shenanigans.
Sweeping would be severly nerfed as stat boosts can be easily wiped using roar/dragon-tail.
Status effects like burn would probably be very relevant.
I could see scizor being very powerful in this metagame - set up with swords dance, use priority technician bullet punch, use dual wingbeat to aid in ensuring KOs.
Mimikyu would be super OP by guaranteeing two turns of survival.
Garganacle would be Garganacling.
Overall I would say its an interesting concept and slows down the game in a predictable and prepareable way.
I would only reccomend that the explanation of how this would work is made clearer. (or maybe I am slow (┬┬﹏┬┬))
If I understand this correctly, the survivor mantle is always passed down the direction of team preview. Does this mean that sometimes your Pokemon will not get an endured hit? If I lead with Azelf, it expends its endured hit, but instead of switching to the Pikachu in slot #2 I switch to any other Pokemon on my team, can they be KOed normally? And would getting the next endured hit for another Pokemon require proccing it with Pikachu?
(probably better and more fitting names exist)
Ever wished that friendship-based survivability mechanics from the games were also in the competitive scene? If yes, then this metagame might be for you.
Premise:
In this singles metagame, your party members will be able to create and pass each other an "Endure Chain". More specifically, your lead pokemon will have the one-time ability to endure hits that would result in a K.O.; once this ability is spent or its holder faints, the survivor mantle will pass down to the next pokemon that you select in team-preview, which carries all the way up to the 6th slot pokemon.
Rules & Questions:
Banlist:
- Pokemon are ordered from slot 1 to slot 6. Once the lead faints or spends their endure, the "survivor" mantle will pass down to the next pokemon in team-preview.
- The endure mechanics is only activated by direct hits and not by passive damage.
- The lead or the survivor pokemon does not have to faint for mechanics to pass to the next pokemon, they simply need to use up their "second chance", but fainting would be sufficient for the mechanics to pass.
- Pokemon with Focus Sash, Sturdy or Pokemon using Endure, will have those mechanics take precedence over the mechanics of the metagame, so these instances will not count as expenditure of the "second chance".
- For multi-hit moves, the hits after the endured hit will deal damage.
OU Banlist and Clauses
Questions for the Community:
Fun to play? Any broken elements? How similar to OU would this be?
yes they are KO'ed normally. If any 2nd or 3rd slot pokemon faints before Azelf fainting or using up its endure, those slots will be skipped once Azelf faints or uses up the mantle, and will pass down to whichever slot is available.
I guess it might be easier or more flexible to have the mantle claimed by the first pokemon to switch, once it's used up or the user faints.
[Shufflemons/Draftmons - open to name suggestions!]
Something in the back of my mind tells me that this has already been invented, but I looked and couldn’t find anything. If someone can correct me then I’ll delete this post and try to revive the old OM instead.
Premise: Teams use a shared pool made from the natural learnsets and abilities of all six Pokémon, freely shuffling and swapping these moves and abilities among teammates, with each individual move and ability usable by only one Pokémon at a time
@ Choice Band
Ability: Drizzle < From Pelipper
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn < From Pelipper
- Liquidation
- Close Combat
- Knock Off < From Pelipper
@ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim < From Barraskewda
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane < From Gyarados
- Ice Beam < From Barraskweda
- Thunder
- Volt Switch
@ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate < From Gyarados
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Flip Turn < From Pelipper
- Scald < From Gyarados
- Hurricane
@ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Volt Absorb < From Thundurs-Therian
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
- Brave Bird < From Pelipper
In this example, each Pokémon takes moves and abilities from teammates, with every option usable only once. Barraskewda claims Pelipper’s Drizzle, U-turn, and Knock Off; Thundurus-T takes Barraskewda’s Swift Swim, plus Hurricane from Gyarados and Ice Beam from Barraskewda’s movepool; Pelipper picks up Intimidate & scald from Gyarados and Flip Turn from Barraskewda, and Gyarados grabs Volt Absorb from Thundurus-T and Brave Bird from Pelipper. Every move and ability appears exactly once, showing how the team’s learnsets and abilities can be freely shuffled into new, creative combinations. You can also choose to keep your abilities and moveset if you want as well, you don't have to swap.
This format offers the creativity of move- and ability-swapping metas without the usual chaos, because every option can only be used once. You’re constantly balancing power and opportunity cost—yes, you can run Comfey just to give Primarina Triage Draining Kiss, but doing so means your Comfey becomes a dead slot without its signature ability. Building a team becomes a puzzle: how do you shuffle your shared pool of abilities and moves to maximize synergy without wasting resources? The result is a highly strategic, combinational metagame where smart drafting, clever role compression, and imaginative set design are rewarded.
Potential bans and threats.
- OU banlist, alongside the usual suspects that get banned in OMs where abilities and moves are changed around, such as
and 
".
- Abilities like Huge Power, Pure Power, Water Bubble, Imposter etc.
Questions:
- Has this been invented already?
- I was also considering being able to swap type combinations around as well. For example, by nicknaming your pokemon to that of your teammate you could swap around their typing. It could be a bit too much though.
Something in the back of my mind tells me that this has already been invented, but I looked and couldn’t find anything. If someone can correct me then I’ll delete this post and try to revive the old OM instead.
Premise: Teams use a shared pool made from the natural learnsets and abilities of all six Pokémon, freely shuffling and swapping these moves and abilities among teammates, with each individual move and ability usable by only one Pokémon at a time
Metagame Explanation
In this metagame, your team’s moves and abilities function as a shared resource rather than something locked to individual Pokémon. All six abilities and all 24 moveslots from your team form a single communal pool that can be freely redistributed among teammates. Any Pokémon may inherit any number of moves as long as a teammate originally learns them, and may also inherit one ability from the pool. However, every move and every ability can only be claimed once: once a move is given to a Pokémon, no other teammate may use that move, and once an ability is assigned, no other Pokémon may take it. These swaps effectively reshuffle your team’s entire movepool and ability pool, allowing you to build creative, synergistic combinations while respecting strict one-time drafting limits. @ Choice Band Ability: Drizzle < From Pelipper
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn < From Pelipper
- Liquidation
- Close Combat
- Knock Off < From Pelipper
@ Life OrbAbility: Swift Swim < From Barraskewda
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane < From Gyarados
- Ice Beam < From Barraskweda
- Thunder
- Volt Switch
@ Heavy-Duty Boots Ability: Intimidate < From Gyarados
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Flip Turn < From Pelipper
- Scald < From Gyarados
- Hurricane
@ Heavy-Duty Boots Ability: Volt Absorb < From Thundurs-Therian
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
- Brave Bird < From Pelipper
In this example, each Pokémon takes moves and abilities from teammates, with every option usable only once. Barraskewda claims Pelipper’s Drizzle, U-turn, and Knock Off; Thundurus-T takes Barraskewda’s Swift Swim, plus Hurricane from Gyarados and Ice Beam from Barraskewda’s movepool; Pelipper picks up Intimidate & scald from Gyarados and Flip Turn from Barraskewda, and Gyarados grabs Volt Absorb from Thundurus-T and Brave Bird from Pelipper. Every move and ability appears exactly once, showing how the team’s learnsets and abilities can be freely shuffled into new, creative combinations. You can also choose to keep your abilities and moveset if you want as well, you don't have to swap.
This format offers the creativity of move- and ability-swapping metas without the usual chaos, because every option can only be used once. You’re constantly balancing power and opportunity cost—yes, you can run Comfey just to give Primarina Triage Draining Kiss, but doing so means your Comfey becomes a dead slot without its signature ability. Building a team becomes a puzzle: how do you shuffle your shared pool of abilities and moves to maximize synergy without wasting resources? The result is a highly strategic, combinational metagame where smart drafting, clever role compression, and imaginative set design are rewarded.
Potential bans and threats.
- OU banlist, alongside the usual suspects that get banned in OMs where abilities and moves are changed around, such as
and ". - Abilities like Huge Power, Pure Power, Water Bubble, Imposter etc.
Questions:
- Has this been invented already?
- I was also considering being able to swap type combinations around as well. For example, by nicknaming your pokemon to that of your teammate you could swap around their typing. It could be a bit too much though.
What’s omm? Bio mech mons?
It’s a fair point, we have similar formats, though it is still unique. Requires a lot more thought put into teambuilding
OMM refers to mashups, we just got a subforum for it so time to promote it https://www.smogon.com/forums/forums/om-mashups.914/
The deal is that you can get similar sets by mashing up the right formats, like a classic aaa + stab gets you a lot of these sets, or anything with a base that has a lot of freedom like convergence.
The deal is that you can get similar sets by mashing up the right formats, like a classic aaa + stab gets you a lot of these sets, or anything with a base that has a lot of freedom like convergence.
I'm not sure whether the premise is poorly phrased or the example is incorrect, but you say "every move and every ability can only be claimed once", and the example has two Pokemon with Hurricane.[Shufflemons/Draftmons - open to name suggestions!]
Something in the back of my mind tells me that this has already been invented, but I looked and couldn’t find anything. If someone can correct me then I’ll delete this post and try to revive the old OM instead.
Premise: Teams use a shared pool made from the natural learnsets and abilities of all six Pokémon, freely shuffling and swapping these moves and abilities among teammates, with each individual move and ability usable by only one Pokémon at a time
Metagame Explanation
In this metagame, your team’s moves and abilities function as a shared resource rather than something locked to individual Pokémon. All six abilities and all 24 moveslots from your team form a single communal pool that can be freely redistributed among teammates. Any Pokémon may inherit any number of moves as long as a teammate originally learns them, and may also inherit one ability from the pool. However, every move and every ability can only be claimed once: once a move is given to a Pokémon, no other teammate may use that move, and once an ability is assigned, no other Pokémon may take it. These swaps effectively reshuffle your team’s entire movepool and ability pool, allowing you to build creative, synergistic combinations while respecting strict one-time drafting limits.
Ability: Drizzle < From Pelipper
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn < From Pelipper
- Liquidation
- Close Combat
- Knock Off < From Pelipper
Ability: Swift Swim < From Barraskewda
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hurricane < From Gyarados
- Ice Beam < From Barraskweda
- Thunder
- Volt Switch
Ability: Intimidate < From Gyarados
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Flip Turn < From Pelipper
- Scald < From Gyarados
- Hurricane
Ability: Volt Absorb < From Thundurs-Therian
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
- Brave Bird < From Pelipper
In this example, each Pokémon takes moves and abilities from teammates, with every option usable only once. Barraskewda claims Pelipper’s Drizzle, U-turn, and Knock Off; Thundurus-T takes Barraskewda’s Swift Swim, plus Hurricane from Gyarados and Ice Beam from Barraskewda’s movepool; Pelipper picks up Intimidate & scald from Gyarados and Flip Turn from Barraskewda, and Gyarados grabs Volt Absorb from Thundurus-T and Brave Bird from Pelipper. Every move and ability appears exactly once, showing how the team’s learnsets and abilities can be freely shuffled into new, creative combinations. You can also choose to keep your abilities and moveset if you want as well, you don't have to swap.
This format offers the creativity of move- and ability-swapping metas without the usual chaos, because every option can only be used once. You’re constantly balancing power and opportunity cost—yes, you can run Comfey just to give Primarina Triage Draining Kiss, but doing so means your Comfey becomes a dead slot without its signature ability. Building a team becomes a puzzle: how do you shuffle your shared pool of abilities and moves to maximize synergy without wasting resources? The result is a highly strategic, combinational metagame where smart drafting, clever role compression, and imaginative set design are rewarded.
Potential bans and threats.
- OU banlist, alongside the usual suspects that get banned in OMs where abilities and moves are changed around, such as
- Abilities like Huge Power, Pure Power, Water Bubble, Imposter etc.
Questions:
- Has this been invented already?
- I was also considering being able to swap type combinations around as well. For example, by nicknaming your pokemon to that of your teammate you could swap around their typing. It could be a bit too much though.
Gyarados and Pelipper both learn Hurricane, so Pelipper uses its own hurricane, while Gyarados "gifts" its hurricane to Thundurus-Therian
Nothing in the premise indicates that a move (or ability) can be used more than once if more than one team member learns it. If that's what the premise is intended to be, then you should rephrase it to clarify that.