Metagame Workshop

[Arai]

Why is nat dex approved? All they're doing is adding Pokemon you are able to use (aka the Pokemon cut from the game).

Nat dex is approved because it's heavily requested by many as they would get to play with all Pokemon currently in existence. I don't see why people would wanna play Gen 7 but with less Pokemon and no Megas or Z moves. People would much rather play with all Pokemon including the new ones.

 

[Heavyweapons Mann]

Would the cut moves be added in NatDex or something else entirely?

 

[drampa's grandpa]

Would the cut moves be added in NatDex or something else entirely?

Only the cut Pokemon would be added. Anything else would amount to a mechanic change beyond the scope of the metagame.

 

[Dunfan]

Apologies from being late to the party but

Only the cut Pokemon would be added. Anything else would amount to a mechanic change beyond the scope of the metagame.

OBJECTION! I object to that!
Cut moves have specific MAX move data included in the games specifically for them. There'd be absolutely 0 problem if they were to be included.
And metas are more than just a simple concept. Take Mix and Mega for example. "(almost) every mon is able to use every stone" might be the basic concept, but without the additional "no mega evolution limit", it wouldn't work the same way. At all.
Finally, some mons like Unown are simply unusable if you don't bring Hidden Power back. So it's mandatory for the meta that every move is here for it to even simply fulfill its premise. Yeah.

So i dare say it: bringing back the mons without bringing back their moves is 200% irrational. Feel free to boo me.

And i beg you not to answer me with the "I'll be in the Pet Mod" fallacy, as - sorry to repeat myself - bringing back deleted moves is no more complex and arbitrary than the "no mega evolution limit" gimmick of Mix and Mega or the "natures don't lower stats anymore" gimmick of Nature Swap, which are absolutely fine.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Finally, some mons like Unown are simply unusable if you don't bring Hidden Power back. So it's mandatory for the meta that every move is here for it to even simply fulfill its premise. Yeah.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering what would happen with Unown if cut moves aren't brought back, the answer is simple: it would remain untransferable. This isn't an arbitrary decision to avoid complications, but rather the logical conclusion of the game's transfer rules if they were tweaked to not discriminate against species. From what I've read from the move rejection messages, it sounds like you have to delete all cut moves from a Pokemon's moveset before it's able to be transferred. Because you can't remove a Pokemon's only move, it would be impossible to remove Hidden Power from Unown, so any legitimate Unown would remain impossible to transfer. In theory, if you hacked an Unown to know something other than Hidden Power, it could be transferred without a hitch, assuming there isn't also an illegal moveset check.

 

[Dunfan]

Oh, and if anyone is wondering what would happen with Unown if cut moves aren't brought back, the answer is simple: it would remain untransferable. This isn't an arbitrary decision to avoid complications, but rather the logical conclusion of the game's transfer rules if they were tweaked to not discriminate against species. From what I've read from the move rejection messages, it sounds like you have to delete all cut moves from a Pokemon's moveset before it's able to be transferred. Because you can't remove a Pokemon's only move, it would be impossible to remove Hidden Power from Unown, so any legitimate Unown would remain impossible to transfer. In theory, if you hacked an Unown to know something other than Hidden Power, it could be transferred without a hitch, assuming there isn't also an illegal moveset check.

Thank you for this logical solution, but i'm afraid it leads to one more problem: If Unown can't be transfered, then the national dex can't be complete and will be left with an empty slot. Thus the concept of the meta itself would be betrayed in the process.

Though Unown's really a small problem in the grand scheme of things imo. I'm mostly concerned by the "it does more than one thing therefore it should be a pet mod" problem. (which doesn't count with some OMs, oddly) It really bugs me, as explained in post #3504.

 

[Yak Attack]

Dynavolution​

Concept: You know how Dynamax transforms your Pokemon for 3 turns? Okay, so let's say your Pokemon could transform mid-battle into another Pokemon, like a Digimon. How would this work? Well, using the Dynamax mechanic, it would stay transformed for 3 turns into a different Pokemon. The mechanic would involve nicknaming your Pokemon the Pokemon it wants to "Dynavolve" into. In TeamBuilder, you could give it moves of both Pokemon. However, your Pokemon can only use the moves legal to whatever Pokemon it currently is.

Example:
Barraskewda (Pelipper) @ Choice Band
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Liquidation
- Close Combat
- Psychic Fangs
- Drill Run

So in battle, Pelipper could only use Liquidation. But when you "Dynavolve", you can use Barraskewda along with all of its moves. It works just like Dynamax except you transform into your nicknamed Pokemon.

 

[Heavyweapons Mann]

How would abilities work? Like when you Dynamax into the other Pokemon, do you get its ability or is it limited to the base form?

 

[Sereg]

Getting the ability would be cool, but how do you choose when there's more than one option? It also might be worth allowing transformation into Ubers/multiple transformation like Mix n Mega

 

[Yak Attack]

How would abilities work? Like when you Dynamax into the other Pokemon, do you get its ability or is it limited to the base form?

You get it’s ability

Getting the ability would be cool, but how do you choose when there's more than one option? It also might be worth allowing transformation into Ubers/multiple transformation like Mix n Mega

The best I can think of is not shiny = Ability 1 and shiny = ability 2. In special HA cases, the Pokémon could be named “Pokemon-HA”? Also, how would Ubers not be broken?

 

[DuDono]

What if pokemon were always dynamaxed? Maybe a new metagame.

 

[Sereg]

You get it’s ability

The best I can think of is not shiny = Ability 1 and shiny = ability 2. In special HA cases, the Pokémon could be named “Pokemon-HA”? Also, how would Ubers not be broken?

Ubers may (will probably) still be broken, but as you only have one for three turns and cannot use their signature moves, that should help.

 

[Yveltal for PU]

Unsure if this has been submitted before, looked over the commonly submitted ideas thread and didn't see it though.

4 Moves - A meta where each of your Pokémon has 4 moves and can learn ANY move, but in consequence, your entire team shares the same 4 moves. (Not including remaining PP and the like)

Cool/Good stuff - Normal Types with mons with -Ate Abilities shine (even though it's gen 8 and we only have like what Sylveon for that now?) As you can run the same move but have it be a different type. Really any Abilities that edit move types or how they work or what they hit become reslly effective. This is likely to be an offensive metagame as I can not really see how the same 4 moves, even with all the defensive stuff we have, can be used for defensive/stall teams. Entry Hazards gain more power as running Court Change/Rapid Spin/Defog takes up 1/4 of your moves and could very easily be dead, dissuading you from playing them. At the same time, the hazard move becomes dead after use too. Pretty much anything that needs an attack to be solved or dealt with has a real possibility of being good. I can't really think of too many bans so far, maybe stuff like Tail Glow/Shift Gear/What every other meta that allows more moves bans.

Would love to hear if this would be fun!

 

[DrPumpkinz]

This is likely to be an offensive metagame as I can not really see how the same 4 moves, even with all the defensive stuff we have, can be used for defensive/stall teams.

On the contrary, I see this meta being extremely defense oriented. Stall teams can get away with running something like Recover + Night Shade + Toxic + Heal Bell on every Pokemon, because most of their strength comes from type resistances. Offensive teams, on the other hand, need coverage to break through various walls, and this meta limits those teams to four coverage moves at most.

Like seriously, how do you expect to beat something like this with only four moves?

good luck

Toxapex @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Recover
- Night Shade
- Heal Bell

Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Recover
- Night Shade
- Heal Bell

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Recover
- Night Shade
- Heal Bell

Corsola-Galar @ Eviolite
Ability: Cursed Body
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Recover
- Night Shade
- Heal Bell

Mudsdale @ Leftovers
Ability: Stamina
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Recover
- Night Shade
- Heal Bell

Weezing-Galar @ Black Sludge
Ability: Neutralizing Gas
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Recover
- Night Shade
- Heal Bell

 

[Yak Attack]

Ubers may (will probably) still be broken, but as you only have one for three turns and cannot use their signature moves, that should help.

Nah, still broken m8. Also, it doesn't seem that there's any way to get past the Ability issue. That's okay, I have another idea I'd like to share:

Hidden Dynamax​

Premise: In Gen 8, Hidden Power was done away with. However, Showdown still has the old formula in place to calculate based on IVs. If only we could utilize this in some way...
It turns out we can! In this mod, the Pokemon's Hidden Power type will be relevant again by activating whatever Dynamax effect a move of the same type would activate when the Pokemon enters the field.
This may break some mons and would require some bans, which seems like it might contribute to a healthy discussion.
I really like this one better than "Dynavolution" as Dynavolution would probably be an incredibly broken meta, and I also can't think of a way to implement Hidden Abilities.
This meta could get rid of Dynamax altogether and would still be possible, unlike Dynavolution, as well.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Nah, still broken m8. Also, it doesn't seem that there's any way to get past the Ability issue. That's okay, I have another idea I'd like to share:

Hidden Dynamax​

Premise: In Gen 8, Hidden Power was done away with. However, Showdown still has the old formula in place to calculate based on IVs. If only we could utilize this in some way...
It turns out we can! In this mod, the Pokemon's Hidden Power type will be relevant again by activating whatever Dynamax effect a move of the same type would activate when the Pokemon enters the field.
This may break some mons and would require some bans, which seems like it might contribute to a healthy discussion.
I really like this one better than "Dynavolution" as Dynavolution would probably be an incredibly broken meta, and I also can't think of a way to implement Hidden Abilities.
This meta could get rid of Dynamax altogether and would still be possible, unlike Dynavolution, as well.

I dunno. There isn't much room to build create sets. It would just be a choice between setting a weather/terrain, Download for the stat of your choice, and Intimidate for the stat of your choice. I feel like things would be much more interesting if the G-max effects were somehow more available, though Hidden Power type might not be the way to do it, since some of the types overlap.

 

[Yak Attack]

I dunno. There isn't much room to build create sets. It would just be a choice between setting a weather/terrain, Download for the stat of your choice, and Intimidate for the stat of your choice. I feel like things would be much more interesting if the G-max effects were somehow more available, though Hidden Power type might not be the way to do it, since some of the types overlap.

D-Max
Not G-Max
Also I’m not sure what “if the G-max effects were somehow more available” and “since some of the types overlap” both are referring to

 

[SadisticMystic]

It refers to the fact that regular dynamax moves are divided into just four categories: four types set weather, four types set terrain, five types raise one of your stats, and five types lower one of the opponent's stats. Those are the only effects this format would allow you to get as written, but the argument here is that allowing some method of encoding the gigantamax moves would make it a more versatile format. For example, there are specialized G-max moves whose side effects include trapping (easily banned since that's just Shadow Tag), Effect Spore, "Stealth Steel", and Defog.

If you did want to allow Pokemon to cause these effects on switch-in, the trouble is you would have to find an encoding scheme for them, and the fact that (for example) Kingler and Drednaw's G-max moves both piggyback off Water type means you can't say "If it's shiny, search for a G-max move that matches the Hidden Power type and use that instead".

There's a more pertinent issue that you can't set a Hidden Power for Normal or Fairy at all, which makes it impossible to get the Misty Terrain or -Speed effects even among the "vanilla 18," not to mention that each of those types carries two G-max move effects...

 

[Cuddly]

With the new Item, Blunder Policy, one of my older ideas was reinvigorated in my mind that was based off of Weakness Policy. Now I have ideas for 2 somewhat similar metagames. Weakness Welfare and Blunder Benefits.

In Weakness Welfare, the number of weaknesses a Pokemon has determines how many moves they are able to run.
So something with 1 weakness could run only 1 move, but something with 7 weaknesses could run 7 moves.
Also in Blunder Benefits, damage taken would be reduced by the inaccuracy of the move the opponent used.
So if the player selected Thunderbolt that turn, it would give 1x defense boost, Leech Seed giving 1.1x defense boost, and Dynamic Punch giving 1.5 defense boost, and your accuracy would remain the same.
This could also be expanded by having flinching, paralysis, confusion, ect. increase the defense boost, like Jirachi spamming Iron Head would increase the opponent’s defensive boost to 1.6x.

 

[fanyfan]

With the new Item, Blunder Policy, one of my older ideas was reinvigorated in my mind that was based off of Weakness Policy. Now I have ideas for 2 somewhat similar metagames. Weakness Welfare and Blunder Benefits.

In Weakness Welfare, the number of weaknesses a Pokemon has determines how many moves they are able to run.
So something with 1 weakness could run only 1 move, but something with 7 weaknesses could run 7 moves.
Also in Blunder Benefits, damage taken would be reduced by the inaccuracy of the move the opponent used.
So if the player selected Thunderbolt that turn, it would give 1x defense boost, Leech Seed giving 1.1x defense boost, and Dynamic Punch giving 1.5 defense boost, and your accuracy would remain the same.
This could also be expanded by having flinching, paralysis, confusion, ect. increase the defense boost, like Jirachi spamming Iron Head would increase the opponent’s defensive boost to 1.6x.

For weakness welfare, would a 4x resistance count for 2 moveslots or just 1? Cool idea btw

 

[Cuddly]

For weakness welfare, would a 4x resistance count for 2 moveslots or just 1? Cool idea btw

That would be up for debate by the community, if this meta is was made and being constructed.

 

[hiei-q]

For weakness welfare, would a 4x resistance count for 2 moveslots or just 1? Cool idea btw

I Would suggest just 1. Many pseudos have 4x weaknesses and they could be way prominant and i think that the idea is to give pokemon like weavile or abomanasov a time to shine. A weavile with 7 moves is not much better than a weavile with 6 moves (counting fighting as only 1 extra move). However, there is a huge difference about having a landorus-t with 2 moves rather than a landorus-t with 3 moves, or a garchomp with 3 moves vs standard garchomp with 4. Note that a pokemon with 4 moves may be good in this metagame because they have access to enough coverage to destroy offenive oriented pokemon with a ton of weaknesses like weavile or greninja.

EDIT: Usually metagames that allow for more moves arent accepted for technical reasons. Maybe in gen 8 this could change, but i doubt it. You can cap it to 4 moves and give a minor boost for pokemon with 5 weaknesses and more (maybe more accuraccy, idk). Ignoring that, here is a set i theorymoned with 7 weaknesses Celebi

I die to U-Turn(Celebi) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Heal Bell
- Leech Seed
- Giga Drain
- Psyshock
- Ancient Power

 

[drampa's grandpa]

Gonna start with an idea of my own:
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (or whatever I just chose that cuz it had max in it)
You may use Max moves at will and however many times you wish throughout the battle through the use of the Dynamax button.

Dynamaxing itself is banned because it has to be for this to work.
There may need to be a bit more of a limit on how often you can use Max moves for balance (maybe once every 3-4 turns, to emulate actual dynamaxing cycles).

I don't actually feel like running this so feel free to a) critique and b) steal

Dynavolution​

Concept: You know how Dynamax transforms your Pokemon for 3 turns? Okay, so let's say your Pokemon could transform mid-battle into another Pokemon, like a Digimon. How would this work? Well, using the Dynamax mechanic, it would stay transformed for 3 turns into a different Pokemon. The mechanic would involve nicknaming your Pokemon the Pokemon it wants to "Dynavolve" into. In TeamBuilder, you could give it moves of both Pokemon. However, your Pokemon can only use the moves legal to whatever Pokemon it currently is.

Example:
Barraskewda (Pelipper) @ Choice Band
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Liquidation
- Close Combat
- Psychic Fangs
- Drill Run

So in battle, Pelipper could only use Liquidation. But when you "Dynavolve", you can use Barraskewda along with all of its moves. It works just like Dynamax except you transform into your nicknamed Pokemon.

While we usually try to steer away from nickname-based mechanics, I rather like this idea.

Can you 'dynavolve' multiple times per battle? per mon?
I personally think it would be better to use only the base Pokemon's movepool and allow that on both than to have useless moves in both forms.
You'd need to have a better solution for solving how to deal with abilities however. Slapping everything into a nickname slot isnt good and shiny isn't flexible enough to deal with 3 slots.

What if pokemon were always dynamaxed? Maybe a new metagame.

You'd need to vastly overhaul the dynamax mehcanics to make this anything but incredibly dull. Dynamax essentially removes status moves of all sorts and turns attacks into all the same thing. I'm sure we'll get a dynamax meta at some point but it won't be this.

Unsure if this has been submitted before, looked over the commonly submitted ideas thread and didn't see it though.

4 Moves - A meta where each of your Pokémon has 4 moves and can learn ANY move, but in consequence, your entire team shares the same 4 moves. (Not including remaining PP and the like)

Cool/Good stuff - Normal Types with mons with -Ate Abilities shine (even though it's gen 8 and we only have like what Sylveon for that now?) As you can run the same move but have it be a different type. Really any Abilities that edit move types or how they work or what they hit become reslly effective. This is likely to be an offensive metagame as I can not really see how the same 4 moves, even with all the defensive stuff we have, can be used for defensive/stall teams. Entry Hazards gain more power as running Court Change/Rapid Spin/Defog takes up 1/4 of your moves and could very easily be dead, dissuading you from playing them. At the same time, the hazard move becomes dead after use too. Pretty much anything that needs an attack to be solved or dealt with has a real possibility of being good. I can't really think of too many bans so far, maybe stuff like Tail Glow/Shift Gear/What every other meta that allows more moves bans.

Would love to hear if this would be fun!

This sounds extremely matchup-based and pretty dull. Either you have something for their team or you don't. I wouldn't approve personally, and I don't think anyone else would either.

Nah, still broken m8. Also, it doesn't seem that there's any way to get past the Ability issue. That's okay, I have another idea I'd like to share:

Hidden Dynamax​

Premise: In Gen 8, Hidden Power was done away with. However, Showdown still has the old formula in place to calculate based on IVs. If only we could utilize this in some way...
It turns out we can! In this mod, the Pokemon's Hidden Power type will be relevant again by activating whatever Dynamax effect a move of the same type would activate when the Pokemon enters the field.
This may break some mons and would require some bans, which seems like it might contribute to a healthy discussion.
I really like this one better than "Dynavolution" as Dynavolution would probably be an incredibly broken meta, and I also can't think of a way to implement Hidden Abilities.
This meta could get rid of Dynamax altogether and would still be possible, unlike Dynavolution, as well.

I agree with the criticisms raised above. Too one-dimensional even if you do manage to get it functioning properly.

With the new Item, Blunder Policy, one of my older ideas was reinvigorated in my mind that was based off of Weakness Policy. Now I have ideas for 2 somewhat similar metagames. Weakness Welfare and Blunder Benefits.

In Weakness Welfare, the number of weaknesses a Pokemon has determines how many moves they are able to run.
So something with 1 weakness could run only 1 move, but something with 7 weaknesses could run 7 moves.
Also in Blunder Benefits, damage taken would be reduced by the inaccuracy of the move the opponent used.
So if the player selected Thunderbolt that turn, it would give 1x defense boost, Leech Seed giving 1.1x defense boost, and Dynamic Punch giving 1.5 defense boost, and your accuracy would remain the same.
This could also be expanded by having flinching, paralysis, confusion, ect. increase the defense boost, like Jirachi spamming Iron Head would increase the opponent’s defensive boost to 1.6x.

Extra moves wouldn't be supportable on the main server as we don't use formats that require the import/export function.
Blunder benefits confuses me you may have to explain more, but from what I've gotten I don't think it seems particularly interesting. Unless I'm reading it wrong, you're rewarding people for using low accuracy moves and other RNG based mechanics leading to a rather uncompetitive metagame.

 

[hiei-q]

Gonna start with an idea of my own:
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (or whatever I just chose that cuz it had max in it)
You may use Max moves at will and however many times you wish throughout the battle through the use of the Dynamax button.

Dynamaxing itself is banned because it has to be for this to work.
There may need to be a bit more of a limit on how often you can use Max moves for balance (maybe once every 3-4 turns, to emulate actual dynamaxing cycles).

I don't actually feel like running this so feel free to a) critique and b) steal


While we usually try to steer away from nickname-based mechanics, I rather like this idea.

Can you 'dynavolve' multiple times per battle? per mon?
I personally think it would be better to use only the base Pokemon's movepool and allow that on both than to have useless moves in both forms.
You'd need to have a better solution for solving how to deal with abilities however. Slapping everything into a nickname slot isnt good and shiny isn't flexible enough to deal with 3 slots.


You'd need to vastly overhaul the dynamax mehcanics to make this anything but incredibly dull. Dynamax essentially removes status moves of all sorts and turns attacks into all the same thing. I'm sure we'll get a dynamax meta at some point but it won't be this.


This sounds extremely matchup-based and pretty dull. Either you have something for their team or you don't. I wouldn't approve personally, and I don't think anyone else would either.

I agree with the criticisms raised above. Too one-dimensional even if you do manage to get it functioning properly.

Extra moves wouldn't be supportable on the main server as we don't use formats that require the import/export function.
Blunder benefits confuses me you may have to explain more, but from what I've gotten I don't think it seems particularly interesting. Unless I'm reading it wrong, you're rewarding people for using low accuracy moves and other RNG based mechanics leading to a rather uncompetitive metagame.

Once every 4 turns seems ok. It gives you some room to predict a dynamax attack and use max guard to block it. If you had to wait only 3 turns, overstalling would be an issue, because you can literally use Max guard + protect/move + protect/move + Max guard and be almost immune to attacks, unless your opponent dynamaxes while you are protecting

 

[Cuddly]

Gonna start with an idea of my own:
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (or whatever I just chose that cuz it had max in it)
You may use Max moves at will and however many times you wish throughout the battle through the use of the Dynamax button.

Dynamaxing itself is banned because it has to be for this to work.
There may need to be a bit more of a limit on how often you can use Max moves for balance (maybe once every 3-4 turns, to emulate actual dynamaxing cycles).

I don't actually feel like running this so feel free to a) critique and b) steal


While we usually try to steer away from nickname-based mechanics, I rather like this idea.

Can you 'dynavolve' multiple times per battle? per mon?
I personally think it would be better to use only the base Pokemon's movepool and allow that on both than to have useless moves in both forms.
You'd need to have a better solution for solving how to deal with abilities however. Slapping everything into a nickname slot isnt good and shiny isn't flexible enough to deal with 3 slots.


You'd need to vastly overhaul the dynamax mehcanics to make this anything but incredibly dull. Dynamax essentially removes status moves of all sorts and turns attacks into all the same thing. I'm sure we'll get a dynamax meta at some point but it won't be this.


This sounds extremely matchup-based and pretty dull. Either you have something for their team or you don't. I wouldn't approve personally, and I don't think anyone else would either.

I agree with the criticisms raised above. Too one-dimensional even if you do manage to get it functioning properly.

Extra moves wouldn't be supportable on the main server as we don't use formats that require the import/export function.
Blunder benefits confuses me you may have to explain more, but from what I've gotten I don't think it seems particularly interesting. Unless I'm reading it wrong, you're rewarding people for using low accuracy moves and other RNG based mechanics leading to a rather uncompetitive metagame.

To explain more, in BB, when you select a move during your turn, the chance your move would miss increases you defense/special defense by (1 + chance of fail in decimal)x. It would only last for that turn however.
The idea of Blunder Benefits is more of an QoL fix for moves that are a few percents to 100% accuracy, like Leaf Storm, Toxic, and Leech Seed.

My only other idea for such Quality of Life would be to buff accuracy of moves, which either makes the accurate version of moves terrible moves or would create a “Give a mouse a cookie” effect.

Honestly have no clue on how else to approach it.