Pet Mod VGC 20XX [Auction Tournament]

[Ayecrusher King]

Showtime is very interesting, but with this statline and typing it isn't actually very effective. 75 / 75 offenses with a Normal typing is very weak, and with Showtime specifically locked to copying Damage Dealing moves, there aren't that many moves that are going to do amazing things when activated through the ability. Even in the relevant cases where Operfowl is playing into a foe whose strategy is supportive damage dealing moves like Struggle Bug or Icy Wind, or the foe is attacking with a type that they are themselves weak to, 65 / 95/ 95 bulk with 1 resistance is really unimpressive for being able to force those kinds of moves into being used - consider that Ghost types will often not even want to use a Ghost move while this is on the field. It also doesn't help that the utility attack of VGC, Fake Out, has an entirely positive interaction against this ability. Really, this just wants more stats and slightly more than a complete blank slate typing.

Lastly Lothiducki is a really cute concept but mechanically I am pretty much never going to gravitate towards a Confusion + Infatuation spreader in a purely competitive setting.

Tbf I kinda dug my own grave for Operfowl, I was told repeatedly it could be broken and needed an nerf (It started off as a Fairy-type with 85/85 offences and 65/100/100 bulk) and so that's what I did.

Lothiducki was mostly (a semi-joking) just to fill out my other free slot as its hypothetical counterpart lol. Hey, the slate did say gimmicks. That said, until another slate strikes my fancy, probably not gonna participate more.

 

[Sugarbear]

For this... you gotta outline more details. When it's happening and where it's being hosted at the very least. I can't commit to joining without a timeline. Could it be a distinct thread?

I also think it might be more productive to do a standard tiered draft board format rather than the style of draft from that Wolfe / Aaron invitational series I'm pretty sure this is coming from. Despite our low understanding of the format, I think we can pretty reliably pick out the vague top 30ish pokemon in this format, and I'd love to see a few weaker picks shine. If we do stick with the Invitational format, I do like the concept of sticking with the exact same open teamsheet across all games.

Once it gets approved by the pet mod mods, it will have a dedicated thread. I’m going to give people 3 weeks to sign up, then after that I’ll PM everyone who signed up and we’ll arrange a date and time. By default, the battles of this format are open team sheet best of 3.

 

[BlueRay]

Hi!

Just wanted to let you all know I've already submitted a pull-request. So, it's only a matter of time until VGC 20XX is updated. For now, there are some things I'd like to address:

- East Sea Wave is currently coded to cap at 8 turns. Meaning, if a weather or terrrain has 8 turns remaining, they will not be prolonged by an additional turn. If you don't like the cap, let me know. That said, I have a feeling the move might be a little bit underpowered. So, if this turns out to be true, it could always have 80 BP instead of 70 BP. Moreover, prolonging weather / terrain turns through East Sea Wave won't be visually displayed / updated. It would likely involve hard-coding, which I avoid. Instead, I included a battle message (in the chat) that tells you how many turns a weather / terrain has after it has been affected by East Sea Wave. It's better than nothing; if you have some better ideas to make the prolonged turns more clear to the players, let me know.

- Rampage--it wasn't clear to me whether the Stall effect would be applied after the move has been executed or if it's before the move hits the targets. At the moment, the effect is applied after using the move. I also don't know if there are abilities you can't change. A list would be helpful.

- Resonance. With Genuine_Angus_B33F's permission, I changed the move's name to Borealis since the original move gave me troubles because of G-Max Resonance's existence, just like how Orbeetle's signature ability had to be named differently to avoid the issue.

- Speaking of Genuine_Angus_B33F, I'm with them that Volt Tackle is a little bit excessive on Golduck-Xelian; it's a signature move on the Pikachu line and the rare Raikou event from ages ago. So, it would be a little bit odd for Golduck-Xelian to have this move. Wild Charge has already been slightly buffed (100 BP now), which is a sufficient alternate option. Of course, it's up to the submitter if Volt Tackle should stay on Golduck-Xelian.

- As for the rotating Pokémon, I do agree that the concept has some potential, it just needs a more clean and intuitive execution (like Ally Switch effect for one or both playerside on switch-in / switch-out rather than being a move added to a Pokémon's learnset in a battle). So, I would also encourage the submitter to rework the idea and submit it again one day.

- That said, in general, it might not be a bad idea to ask for feedback (how can I improve my sub? etc.) to ensure one's own sub has the best chance possible to succeed. Especially if you harbor some doubts about the concept. Or if you have some vague concept but don't know what to do with it, you could always ask for help.

- On the tournament, I'm personally fine with either suggestion (a more "traditional" drafting style as suggested by Genuine_Angus_B33F or a drafting format à la Wolfe / Aaron). But I do lean more towards the former since there's a higher chance for less used / viable Pokémon to shine and be included on a team. This is especially true for NFE Pokémon. I also generally prefer having a bit more options rather than being limited to 6 fixed Pokémon choices for each person. Which would mean you can reward people for their smart money spending if they manage to draft more than 6 Pokémon just to have more options. But it's fine to just have a limit of 6 Pokémon. A draft tournament itself is already fun on its own.

 

[Samtendo09]

Hi!

Just wanted to let you all know I've already submitted a pull-request. So, it's only a matter of time until VGC 20XX is updated. For now, there are some things I'd like to address:

- East Sea Wave is currently coded to cap at 8 turns. Meaning, if a weather or terrrain has 8 turns remaining, they will not be prolonged by an additional turn. If you don't like the cap, let me know. That said, I have a feeling the move might be a little bit underpowered. So, if this turns out to be true, it could always have 80 BP instead of 70 BP. Moreover, prolonging weather / terrain turns through East Sea Wave won't be visually displayed / updated. It would likely involve hard-coding, which I avoid. Instead, I included a battle message (in the chat) that tells you how many turns a weather / terrain has after it has been affected by East Sea Wave. It's better than nothing; if you have some better ideas to make the prolonged turns more clear to the players, let me know.

- Rampage--it wasn't clear to me whether the Stall effect would be applied after the move has been executed or if it's before the move hits the targets. At the moment, the effect is applied after using the move. I also don't know if there are abilities you can't change. A list would be helpful.

- Resonance. With Genuine_Angus_B33F's permission, I changed the move's name to Borealis since the original move gave me troubles because of G-Max Resonance's existence, just like how Orbeetle's signature ability had to be named differently to avoid the issue.

- Speaking of Genuine_Angus_B33F, I'm with them that Volt Tackle is a little bit excessive on Golduck-Xelian; it's a signature move on the Pikachu line and the rare Raikou event from ages ago. So, it would be a little bit odd for Golduck-Xelian to have this move. Wild Charge has already been slightly buffed (100 BP now), which is a sufficient alternate option. Of course, it's up to the submitter if Volt Tackle should stay on Golduck-Xelian.

- As for the rotating Pokémon, I do agree that the concept has some potential, it just needs a more clean and intuitive execution (like Ally Switch effect for one or both playerside on switch-in / switch-out rather than being a move added to a Pokémon's learnset in a battle). So, I would also encourage the submitter to rework the idea and submit it again one day.

- That said, in general, it might not be a bad idea to ask for feedback (how can I improve my sub? etc.) to ensure one's own sub has the best chance possible to succeed. Especially if you harbor some doubts about the concept. Or if you have some vague concept but don't know what to do with it, you could always ask for help.

- On the tournament, I'm personally fine with either suggestion (a more "traditional" drafting style as suggested by Genuine_Angus_B33F or a drafting format à la Wolfe / Aaron). But I do lean more towards the former since there's a higher chance for less used / viable Pokémon to shine and be included on a team. This is especially true for NFE Pokémon. I also generally prefer having a bit more options rather than being limited to 6 fixed Pokémon choices for each person. Which would mean you can reward people for their smart money spending if they manage to draft more than 6 Pokémon just to have more options. But it's fine to just have a limit of 6 Pokémon. A draft tournament itself is already fun on its own.

For Rampage, the Stall effect applies after the move hits, and any form-changing Abilities (i.e. Ice Face, Multitype) cannot be replaced by Rampage. Even Abilities normally unaffected like As One are replaced through Rampage, to avoid potentially out of control strategies such as Mimic / Copycat Ice Rider Calyrex.

For Xelian Golduck, I may as well remove Volt Tackle and replace it by Wild Charge, if Xelian Golduck didn’t already have it.

 

[BlueRay]

For Rampage, the Stall effect applies after the move hits, and any form-changing Abilities (i.e. Ice Face, Multitype) cannot be replaced by Rampage. Even Abilities normally unaffected like As One are replaced through Rampage, to avoid potentially out of control strategies such as Mimic / Copycat Ice Rider Calyrex.

For Xelian Golduck, I may as well remove Volt Tackle and replace it by Wild Charge, if Xelian Golduck didn’t already have it

The reason why GF left As One unaffected is because it's counted as one of those form changes. You literally defuse Calyrex from Spectrier/Glastrier, which would be weird in a battle. Therefore, it would make more sense for Rampage to not affect As One. To my knowledge, Calyrex-Ice-Rider doesn't know Mimic nor Copycat. So, I can't even imagine a situation where it would even acquire the move Rampage. I'd argue it's easier to have Rampage exclude abilities that can't be suppressed, which naturally includes all form changing abilities and some rare cases like Comatose (where the whole gimmick is that Komala can never be woken up), if you don't mind.
As for Golduck-Xelian, I will update its movepool in the next pull-request.

On a different note, since Calyrex has been brought up, it does make me wonder if and when we might have slates related to a restricted VGC format. Currently, our non restricted format has roughly 167 different Pokémon. If we imagine that most of our subs technically have pre-evos and such, we might have well over 200 different Pokémon. I wonder at what point is the number of available Pokémon enough? Iirc, Kalos had the highest amount of Pokémon for a regional format, with roughly 450 different Pokémon; other modern regional formats like Alola or Paldea have between 300-400. I don't expect an answer right away, but it might be sth to think about since the last thing we want is to bloat the teambuilder. This is especially important for newcomers who would likely feel intimidated by a high number of custom elements. It's also why I think it might be beneficial to have more canon Pokémon than custom Pokémon, like, idk, 55% vs 45% or so.

 

[Sugarbear]

I did say right from the start that a restricted format would be on the cards if this mod proved popular, and while it hasn't been as popular as the Singles mods (not blaming anyone, most of Smogon's playerbase prefers 6v6 singles) I think it has still been popular enough for it to be considered. It could also give us a chance to buff some of the poorer restricted Pokemon and nerf some of the strongest ones. We would have to have a different ladder for a restricted format. In the restricted format:

• Every box legendary would have a signature ability. Mewtwo as well, to give it some kind of a niche. Terravolt and Turboblaze would be buffed to not just be Mold Breaker clones, or reimagined entirely
• Unseen Fist will be nerfed. It's way too powerful now
• Glacial Lance and Astral Barrage will be nerfed. Both are 120 BP spread moves with perfect accuracy in 2 of the most spammable types in the game.
• We could also discuss some other buffs/nerfs. Do we give Zacian Sharpness as its Hidden Ability?
• I would like to see Stellar Terapagos and Ultra Necrozma come back. How could we arrange those without their gimmicks?

 

[BlueRay]

For a hypothetical restricted format, a lot would depend on whether or not we want to include every Box legendary Pokémon. In SV, Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde aren't present. So, there's precedence for us to exclude certain Pokémon if we wanted to. I think this should be discussed before we work on buffs / new slates, etc. to make the submission process much easier later since people know what to expect.

I think not every Box legendary needs a signature ability; some like Ho-oh are totally fine with their ability options. If we want to make underused and less viable Box legendary Pokémon stand out more easily, one way to do so would be to exclude certain Pokémon. No one uses Mewtwo when there's already Calyrex-Shadow-Rider, which is not only stronger and faster but also immune to Fake Out and has STAB Ghost. If we removed the horses, this would open the door to Psy Spam Mewtwo. It would be the fastest abuser of this playstyle. That's a guaranteed niche for sure. Though, if we do keep the horses (or just all Box legendaries in general)…, I do not know what we could even do to make Pokémon like Mewtwo or Zekrom more viable when there's such tough competition.

We can discuss Unseen Fist if we want to include Urshifu in the restricted format. Zacian is fine itself, it's a B rank Pokémon, iirc. If Xerneas is in the format, Zacian will be more viable. One way for Stellar Terapagos and Ultra-Necrozma to work is if we were to limit Tera / Z-Move only to them. Or we could be like Champions and rotate rules/Pokémon/etc.

- - -

On a different note, any objections to adding Passive Aggressive to Meowstic? It has Prankster and would thus make unique use of it.

 

[Sugarbear]

No objections to adding Passive Aggressive to Mewostic.

I'd be fine with excluding the horses, hate them anyway. Astral Barrage and Glacial Lance are so broken. We could also not bring back the paradox Pokemon to give stuff like Enamorus a niche.

How's this a reward for the auction tourney:
Top 4: You get to create a new Pokemon with a BST limit of 500, as well as bring back and potentially buff a non legendary Pokemon.
2nd: Same as above, but your Pokemon can be up to 550 and you get to create a new item.
1st: Your Pokemon can have 600 BST, and you can bring back (non-restricted) legendary Pokemon.

 

[Sugarbear]

Update time!

I have PMd the mod on the Pet Mod section asking for permission to open the auction tournament. Once that's granted we are good to go!

After that tournament, I have decided we're going to start bringing back more old mons. The pseudo legendary Pokemon will return, and the ones not very good in VGC like Dragonite (was bad before Tera) will get buffed. We will plan buffs for them (regional formes are also on the cards) All of them will get a signature move to match up with Kommo-o and later.

When it comes to the older legendary Pokemon, we're not going to bring back the restricted Pokemon just yet. The goal with the next stage will be to create something similar to Regulation F, although I'm strongly opposed to bringing back the paradox Pokemon, unless the strongest ones get heavily nerfed. If Urshifu is voted to return, Unseen Fist is getting nerfed.

If possible, I would like to have the current meta be called Regulation A on the ladder, this format be called Regulation B, and the restricted meta be called Regulation C.

 

[BlueRay]

I personally like where Regulation A currently is, if we even want to call it like that. I suspect after the draft tournament, we may need to look at how the metagame will fare with the new price additions from the tournament participants. It's possible we may need to consider nerfs, buffs or additional Pokémon to make Regulation A feel complete and balanced enough. I could even see a final tournament (not necessarily a draft one) to round up Regulation A. This would be an important step to making sure VGC 20XX is eligible and well-maintained for a future Pet Mod team tournament. That is if people want it to be featured there in the future.

Now, as for the format names themselves, it is, perhaps, possible to name them differently to ensure people (especially if they are new here) immediately recognize the nature of these formats. So, hypothetically, Regulation A could just remain as VGC 20XX or VGC 20XX Regional, depending on your preferences. Regulation B could be VGC 20XX DLC since we are literally expanding the dex with more powerful Pokémon from previous generations, mostly sub-legendaries and pseudo legendaries, it seems. And the final format could just be called VGC 20XX Restricted. That's much more clear than having Regulation A - C, imo. Any thoughts?

As for the return of Pseudo legendaries, I think we should wait and see which one of them really needs a buff. Most of them are Dragon Pokémon, and in such a dragon friendly environment, they likely won't struggle a lot, except for some of the truly unviable ones. Dragonite didn't see a lot of success because in some generations, the environment and competition was too tough for it. Why bother running Dragonite when you can have (Mega) Salamence? Why bother running Dragonite when its STAB movepool was rather shallow on the physical side or required specific conditions on the special side, such as Rain? It also didn't help that gen 7, for instance, was a Fairy dominated metagame. In gen 9, not only are the amount of centralising Fairy Pokémon rather limited, but Dragonite also has an upgraded movepool. Scale Shot + Loaded Dice is a combo that Dragonite didn't have in previous generations, and it became quite a popular and powerful set in certain regulations. Tera sure made Dragonite much more potent, enabling Tera Normal Extreme Speed strategies or generally improving its resistance profile with another Tera type, but I think we shouldn't discount the fact that Paldea is a dragon friendly environment. It also helps that good Flying Pokémon are rather rare. Dragonite greatly fits SV and boasts good bulk to handle powerful Fire Pokémon, like Hisui-Typhlosion or Chi-Yu.
That's why I think we should wait for buffs for Pseudo legendaries where it's uncertain whether they would be really bad in our format. I believe in cases like Goodra, we could come up with some solutions for sure. I should note that it can be challenging if not unnecessary to always create a new custom / signature move for the unviable Pseudo legendaries. I think we just look at what a Pokémon like Goodra really needs to shine. If that happens to be a custom / signature move, sure, why not.

That said, I wonder how long Regulation B or VGC 20XX DLC will last. It's supposed to be a much more powerful metagame, introducing lots of sub legendaries, it seems. That said, I've never been a fan of Urshifu and would prefer not to see it again, even if it were to receive a nerf. It gets boring if you still see the same top Pokémon, similar to Arcanine where we already know it's the king of regional formats until Incineroar returns. Emphasis should be given to our creations because even with a more powerful direction in the second regulation, I think we should try to make sure that most of our creations can still keep up.

 

[Sugarbear]

Good news everyone, our tournament has been approved! Click here to sign up: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/vgc20xx-auction-invitational-tournament.3767496/#post-10618893

The Pokemon created as prizes for this tournament and the ones bought back will be the last of this format. The DLC format will begin afterwards.

 

[BlueRay]

While we are all waiting for more participants in the upcoming draft tournament, I figured it wouldn't hurt to talk about the flavour aspect of this mod. For instance, we have Xelian forms for regional variants, but most of us have no idea what that entails. Perhaps, Samtendo09 could enlighten us. Then, we have Rift forms which are essentially Pokémon from another dimension. There are also some standalone forms, like Roserade-Delta, Foongus-Enlightened or Aegislash-Light. Delta Pokémon are basically type modified variants as a result of a scientific incident in the trading card game. The other forms are just individualised like Ursaluna-Bloodmoon.

 

[Samtendo09]

While we are all waiting for more participants in the upcoming draft tournament, I figured it wouldn't hurt to talk about the flavour aspect of this mod. For instance, we have Xelian forms for regional variants, but most of us have no idea what that entails. Perhaps, Samtendo09 could enlighten us. Then, we have Rift forms which are essentially Pokémon from another dimension. There are also some standalone forms, like Roserade-Delta, Foongus-Enlightened or Aegislash-Light. Delta Pokémon are basically type modified variants as a result of a scientific incident in the trading card game. The other forms are just individualised like Ursaluna-Bloodmoon.

The Xelian forms is more or less the name of our thing called the Xelia region, an archipelago of isles with their own climates and species of Pokémon found within each isle, but with influences of Southern USA for culture, mythology and cuisine.

The Xelian forms are simply result of Pokémon trying to survive in the unusual climates found in certain isles, thus adapting different type and abilities to better live. Meanwhile, the other form beyond Rift forms are a result of completely different reasons, such as true divergance or in Foongus-Enlightened’s case, a single individual with unusual abilities akin to Bloodmoon Ursaluna.

Xelia’s unusual climates will also explain the presence of fan evolutions for Pokémon we did not expected to receive, such as Keisberg for Eiscue, Stontank for Stonjourner, Cthlulander for Malamar and so on. Alongside a typical but effective Ledian fan evo, of course.