Hellllo, everyone!! I am here with a couple of important announcements for today! C:
First, some quick news - in case anyone missed it, DH is now playable through
slate 34, meaning you can use
KeroseneZanchu's
Mega Golduck,
Violettes's
Mega Porygon-Z and
BlueRay and
Paulluxx's shared
Mega Sirfetch'd any time you want!
Next up, the competitive council is looking for your input on potential upcoming tournaments!
This is based on the results of another poll that was posted recently - a couple of options had equal support, so while we'll probably get to all of them eventually, this is your chance to show us which one you'd like to participate in next!
As for imminently upcoming events...
The Speed Draft Tournament is tomorrow!
The extraordinary
Exploziff will be running a speed draft tournament tomorrow!
A speed draft is an event that starts with all players drafting a selection of 8 Pokémon on the spot, then building the best teams they can out of them in 45 minutes before fighting a tournament with the other players who drafted!
The expected time commitment is about three hours, but tours do often run overtime, so make sure to clear your schedules if you plan to participate or spectate! C:
>>> You can find full details on his spreadsheet
here! <<<
Signups are unfortunately already closed, but even if you didn't already register, make sure to keep an eye on DH while the tour is going on so you can watch it unfold and maybe consider joining for next time!
It sounds like an incredibly cool event, so I bet it'll be super fun to watch! C:
The tournament is set to take place at
12:00 PM (noon) EST tomorrow, or some 16 hours from this post!
For
Jolteon to
lose access to the move
Calm Mind:
passes with an 86.7% supermajority
For
Aurorus to
gain access to the move
Parabolic Charge:
passes with a 96.7% supermajority
For
Trevenant to
lose access to the move
Bulk Up:
passes with a 66.7% supermajority
For
Mega Trevenant's stats to be
reverted to before its buff:
does not pass with only a 53.3% majority (required was 60%)
For
Mega Rillaboom to be
moved to Ubers for the purposes of singles formats:
passes with a 76.7% supermajority
For
Boltund to
gain access to the move
Dazzling Gleam:
passes with a 93.3% supermajority
These changes are not quite live, since the poll ended just today, but I'll submit a patch right away and we'll hope it sees a quick turnaround! C:
And finally...
it's September 3rd! which means:
Submissions for Slate 35 are now open!
Submissions for
Mega Decidueye,
Mega Incineroar and
Mega Primarina are now open!
I plan to follow up with a feedback and veto post at some time
on Friday, September 8th, which will also serve as the 24-hour warning to make any final changes before submissions properly close at the same time on
Saturday, Sepember 9th.
Some important reminders on the subject of these Mega Evolutions:
As was recently announced on the Discord, we're moving in the direction that it's okay to ban a given Mega Evolution from either singles or VGC as long as it's in a good place in the other, rather than vetoing and nerfing Mega Evolutions that are fine in one format but problematic in the other
(for example: Mega Rillaboom was recently banned from singles, because it's repeatedly proven difficult to balance for singles but is still currently regarded as a fine presence in VGC).
I'm bringing this up because I have an important clarification on what this rule means, which is especially relevant to this slate!
To be clear: a submitted Mega Evolution may end up banned from VGC as needed, but that does not mean that if it's okay if a Pokémon's base form needs to be banned because of the moves you give it! This is no different from any other moves that have previously been disallowed for implications on a Pokémon's base form in a singles context.
Incineroar (not Mega) is
one of the strongest VGC Pokémon of all time.
In fact, if you look at
Pikalytics, a site dedicated to usage data for VGC formats, you will see that Incineroar has been the most-used Pokémon in
every VGC format since 2019 with the sole exception of Sword and Shield series 6, in which it was banned in keeping with that series's theme of removing top threats from BSS and BSD.
Accordingly, movepool additions that buff Incineroar in a VGC context
will be taken exactly as seriously as if you tried to buff an important and carefully balanced singles Pokémon like
Heatran or
Landorus in a way that was likely to push it over the edge. No matter how much sense a move makes on your submission, and no matter if your submission is meant to be legal in VGC or not,
any movepool additions that are deemed problematic on base Incineroar in a VGC context may be disallowed.
As a starting point, the following moves are blanket-banned on all Incineroar submissions on the recommendation of our fantastic VGC format leader,
BlueRay:
Feint, Foul Play and Sucker Punch
We may well add more to this list as the slate progresses, so please be understanding of future updates!
If a submission adds one of these moves (such as because the submitter missed this announcement or a future announcement of a banned move), it may not necessarily be vetoed for it, but the move will not be added even if the submission wins.
Another important clarification on this rule: we would still like to try to keep bans in both formats to a minimum!
That means you should never make a submission intentionally broken in one format or the other, and we will always start out with a Mega legal in as many formats as possible (incidentally: this is the same policy we've established for submissions to our eventual Ubers format! so long as a Pokémon's base form isn't already illegal in OU, while its Mega may be designed with Ubers viability in mind, it is always still better for it to avoid being banned if possible).
In cases when even a surface-level glance makes it obvious that something is problematic to a downright unrealistic extent, we reserve every right to acknowledge it as optically unsound and poorly designed; please make an effort to avoid that, and be respectful if we feel the need to veto a submission that you think can be balanced!
On that note, I would like to make a reminder of something that's been kinda sorta policy on and off for a long time but that I can totally see happening a lot this slate:
Broadly, a straight clone of Intimidate for another stat, especially Special Attack or Speed, is not welcome.
If you would like to make an Incineroar that lowers other stats, consider attaching other conditions that can limit how freely it can activate instead of making it unconditional on entry like Intimidate.
This does not necessarily have anything to do with VGC
Consider it a ban for objective optics reasons because Game Freak would absolutely never do it
You may sue me if I am ever proven wrong and such an Ability is introduced in the official games
Until then, I will die on this hill
Fight me if that's what it takes or just make good design choices
As a more minor note on
Primarina submissions: the move
Boomburst may not be added to Primarina.
This is non-negotiable and does not depend on any other part of the submission itself, because it is rooted in the move's very obvious implications on its base form (thanks to Liquid Voice), meaning that arguments about whether your specific Mega Evolved form is balanced with the move are largely irrelevant.
Finally, I was... told to be concerned about people wanting to give
Thousand Arrows to
Decidueye for "flavor"...?
I'm hoping no one was really considering it but I just want to be prepared
If you try to do so following this warning, there is a non-negligible chance that you will be invited to leave the thread in shame and never come back.
They're not even real arrows but Zygarde Cells
For the first time in what feels like a long time, we also have a
poll to decide the next slate - the Mega Evolutions we do in slate 36 are up to you!
It's a super fast poll with just a few options - please vote on it and make your voice heard!
We'll announce the results of this poll when submissions for slate 35 close, giving you the length of the voting phase and discussion phase to prepare your ideas.
That's all for this evening - have fun, everyone! We can't wait to see your submissions for slate 35!