Pet Mod Tier Sovereign [Gen 9 Natdex] [Micro Slate 3: Everything Else] (Submissions Open!)

[Orangesodapop]

Voting For Micro Slate 1:
Beaf and Nogs submissions are still vetoed as no changes were made, but otherwise everything else is free game. But I will need to show you voting format for these micro slates

The vote will consist of your 3 favorite submissions, with 3,2,1 scaling formatted as such:

Orangesodapop 1, You (SV), Orangesodapop 2

The number after the username is to indicate in descending order, their submission if they have more than one. If only one submission is present in their post, it is unnecessary to put a number after. Self votes are capped at 1 and can be at most second place.

Voting will last 24 hours, and if a tiebreaker occurs, it will be handled in a competitive format of mutual choosing between the competing parties. Or if you don’t wanna do that it will just get revoted.

sub compilation for ease of vote

Type :

(no secondary type)
Abilities : Black Hole (Psychic-/Fairy*-type moves against this Pokemon deal damage with a halved offensive stat)
*Fairy can be replaced by another type in the next slate.

Type :

Abilities : Weak Armor / Rough Skin

Type: Ground / Dragon
Abilities: Sheer Force / Natural Cure

Type: Bug / Steel
Ability: Heatproof / Water Absorb / Iron Barbs

Type:

Ability: Imposter

Type:

Ability: Broken Heart (This Pokemon cannot use healing status moves.)

Type:

Ability: Dynamaxer (This Pokemon can Dynamax.)

Type: Fire/Ground
Abilities: Guts/Contrary

Type: Steel/Fairy
Abilities: Stamina

Type: Dark/Flying
Abilities: Magic Guard/Aerilate

Type:

Abilities: Regenerator | Ruinous Rubber (This Pokemon is immune to attacking pivoting moves)

Type:

Abilities: Sticky Hold | No Guard

Type:

Ability: Drought

Type:

Ability: Magic Guard | Domineering*
Domineering: Reduces opponent’s Speed by one stage.

Type: Normal
Abilities: Thick Fat / Immunity // Gluttony

Type: Ground/Poison
Abilities: Illusion

Type: Rock
Abilities: Sturdy / Rock Head // Rattled

 

[DuoM2]

taliyeet 2, anaconja 1, DuoM2 (SV)

 

[CoruptedUsername]

OSP 1, CoruptedUsername (SV), anaconja 3

 

[Samtendo09]

tailyeet 2, Orangesodapop 1, Samtendo09 (SV)

 

[Tanny89k]

Akira, anaconja 1, DuoM2

 

[PalpitoadChamp]

DuoM2, PalpitoadChamp 2 (sv), taliyeet 2

 

[anaconja]

osp 2, anaconja 1, akira

 

[taliyeet]

Akira, taliyeet 2 (SV), DuoM2

 

[flareth13]

Akira, taliyeet 2, Orangesodapop 1

 

[Akira]

flareth13 3, Akira (sv), duoM2,

 

[Orangesodapop]

Aaaand in a pretty close finish the abilities and type are decided!

Our winner is akira with:
Type: Ground / Dragon
Abilities: Sheer Force / Natural Cure

vote count of high vote amounts

yeet2: 11
conja1: 7
Duo: 7
Osp1: 8
Akira: 12

Ping and yap

Type: Ground / Dragon
Abilities: Sheer Force / Natural Cure
Explanation of Role: Jack of all trades with good physical attack, the typical Pseudo-Legendary spread, speed could either be middling or fast depending on how bulky it is, somewhere on a spectrum from Tyranitar to Garchomp. The Role would be a bulky attacker, with the ability choice allowing you to either spec more as a wallbreaker or as a highly resilient tank. Rocks are maybe fine but I wouldn't give it Spikes or Rapid Spin, since it would probably end up playing too similar to vanilla Garchomp or Tusk if the hazard game was too key to its identity.

My primary inspiration for this is Garchomp, a mon notorious for being overpowered both in-game and in competitive. Ground/Dragon is honestly a really healthy typing to be the Sovereign now that fairy has been added to the game.
- It's intrinsically very good offensively, with the natural synergy of Ground hitting Steel-Types and threatening OHKOes with the many types it hits super effectively while Dragon boasts amazing neutral coverage to catch anything that switches in on the Ground move.
- It's really good defensively as well, with the weaknesses being Ice, the type that would likely be highly restricted. Fairy, which tends to only give out 80 base power moves for coverage (Moonblast's distribution on non-fairies is very weak) while Fairy-Types themselves tend to be on the slower end and physically frail. Dragon also exists but the Sovereign will likely out-stat any other Dragon Types and force them out unless they're scarf. It boasts a hanful of very useful resistances like fire and rock. The electric immunity allows us to build some fun electrics with water or grass coverage.
- Despite that, the typing suffers from both STAB types having an immunity. This means that it's possible to stop choiced sets in their tracks with superior play, and depending on how the speed tiers work out even non-choiced sets can struggle. The Sovereign shouldn't have to struggle with this though, and that's where my idea for the choice of abilities comes in.

Up until now, this mon sounds pretty much just like Vanilla Garchomp right, but here's where I wanted to differentiate it substantially. Garchomp's sets tend towards being either a physically defensive mon taking advantage of Rough Skin, or a setup sweeper with double dance through Scale Shot. The abilities I'm suggesting either make the Sovereign into a terrifying attacker with options for everything but a reliance on predictions and some 4MSS, or a frustratingly durable tank with semi reliable recovery.

On one hand, you've got Sheer Force. The interesting thing with Sheer Force is that Ground and Dragon don't actually have any physical moves to take advantage of it outside of the unreliable Dragon Rush and the more or less irrelevant Bulldoze and Bone Club (although Bone Club could be pretty neat if the flavor ends up being something like a skeletal dragon? Ground is pretty strongly associated to bones after all, bit of a tangent but it's an idea that came to mind.) But anyway the point is Sheer Force encourages either mixed sets using Earth Power and a variety of strong Special moves like the gen 1 normals get, or physical sets with boosted coverage like Rock Slide, Iron Head or Blaze Kick or something, to deal with typical walls. These sets would be pretty much impossible to wall but Life Orb wouldn't be nullified when using your main physical Stabs or any pivoting moves, so the longevity would be questionable when using Orb.

Now the other option is Natural Cure. I think this one is really fun for bulky mons because Rest + Natural Cure is a ton of fun. Natcure obviously prevents it from being worn down by status or crippled by a burn or glare, useful since it can switch in well on fires and bulky waters. Rest Natural Cure allows it to heal freely, but not really stay in after healing, so you can't just run a bulky unstoppable setup sweeper. Instead you'd maybe want to run something like 3 attacks or stabs + some utility move depending on what we give it.

So essentially you get the choice between being nearly impossible to wall but possible to chip down, or being pretty much impossible to cripple or chip, but only being pretty good offensively. Regardless though it would be able to come in on plenty of things through raw bulk and useful type matchups and force out a lot thanks to Ground stab. This makes the Sovereign easy to slot on any team since it can play different equally valuable roles.
I'm worried this might be considered kind of boring, since both the typing and statline are pretty similar to an existing vanilla mon, but I think that there's no reason to massively change a winning formula, and a tier built around it could look very interesting with a dynamic of powerful electrics that the Sovereign is the only reliable check to, weak fairies and dragons with the latter enables by barely any ice coverage.

Next slate soon stay tuned. It’s just gonna be 2 posts to farm big Ashely likes

 

[Orangesodapop]

Micro Slate 2: The Grinder Lunch​

This slate is lengthy movepool slate to account for usable moves and flavor, as the sovereign should be quite versatile yet powerful in its roles. Moves are a staple of a Pokemon, and the sovereign will control a majority of the moves available in the tier. Moves you add will have a slight restriction in future slates to send home the importance of the sovereign. Do remember that you should include universal moves, which are already added in the template.

Important Moves: include custom moves here regardless, just put details in below prompt. Be sure to instate every important move that could be used in a set, and make sure it has most of what the sovereign would need theoretically

Filler Moves

filler moves shouldn’t be too expansive but big enough to include flavor. But try to hide them

Custom (Optional):
Type:
Category:
BP:
PP:
Flags:
Effect:
Reasoning: explain your point in this set of moves / custom additions to the previous base. Note: as this bases abilities have a rather specific usage, ability additions will not be permitted here as it already encompasses a wide variety of roles

Examples

I’m not typing out a movepool
Example Template:
Important Moves: include custom moves here regardless, just put details in below prompt

Filler Moves

Endure, Facade, Helping Hand, Protect, Rest, Sleep Talk, Substitute, Take Down, Tera Blast, Hidden Power, Attract (assumed universals)

Custom (Optional):
Type:https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/sprites/types/Bug.png funny link
Category:
BP:
PP:
Flags:
Effect:
Reasoning:

Since there will be less variability and I don’t think people want to type out more than one full Movepool, this slate will be limited to one submission, so make sure you put your best out!

And with that slate open for submissions for 3 Days!

 

[Akira]

Well since my sub won, I'll give the movepool that corresponds to my vision, but I'd rather people maybe use this as inspiration rather than voting directly for me since the point of the mini slates is so 1 person doesn't control the Sovereign's identity.

My Flavor vision here is something of a bone themed Dragon, since bones are pretty clearly Ground-Coded. But not like a skeleton which would be more of a Ghost type deal, moreso a living Dinosaur type creature with pronounced external bones. The moves have a focus on both Bone moves with a couple Ghost and Poison moves for flavor, reckless moves and moves that involve charging forward (Headlong Rush, Head Smash, Flare Blitz) giving it power at the cost of longevity - with a flavor link to other head based moves like Iron Head or Dragon Hammer. Power-Up Punch and Flame Charge are given while Scale Shot is omitted so that fast setup is limited to the Natural Cure sets, since Sheer Force wouldn't be able to make use of them and only gets Curse + Rock Polish to prevent easily getting both Speed and Attack up.

Earthquake not being the Ground move of choice for the Sovereign allows grassy terrain to exist in the meta, which could be fun.

I didn't give a signature, and I would highly discourage making the signature a SF-Compatible physical STAB since that goes against my whole design idea.

Notable Moves
Physical: Headlong Rush, Bonemerang, Outrage, Dragon Hammer, Head Smash, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Iron Head, Flare Blitz, Flame Charge, Power-Up Punch.
Special: Earth Power, Scorching Sands, Draco Meteor, Dragon Pulse, Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, Thunderbolt
Status: Stealth Rock, Toxic, Corrosive Gas, Curse, Rock Polish, Rest, Substitute, Sleep Talk, Protect

Other Moves

Earthquake, Bone Club, Magnitude, Bone Rush, Mud Bomb, Mud Slap, Dragon Claw, Dragon Breath, Twister, Dragon Rage, Rock Tomb, Ancient Power, Fire Fang, Ember, Hex, Sludge, Hyper Beam, Uproar, Terrain Pulse, Giga Impact, Double Edge, Return, Frustration, Rock Climb, Facade, Headbutt, Quick Attack, Tackle, Mud Sport, Dragon Cheer, Sandstorm, Harden, Mean Look, Leer, Poison Gas, Spite

 

[DuoM2]

Not a bad choice, but not my first choice for a winner to be honest, mostly because I think the type combination and abilities so strongly encourage us to make Garchomp 2.0. You would need to be extremely specific with how you want to balance Sheer Force with Natural Cure on a specially-oriented spread to the degree where I don't think it's worth exploring and the powerful type combination lessens the amount of coverage you could justify.

Still, Ground-type sovereign should be pretty healthy as we've seen plenty of times before, and there's absolutely nothing stopping us from doing funkier statlines or learnsets. I think the move Fire Lash in particular could have a very interesting place here if someone wants to take that idea and work from there.

Important Moves: Thousand Arrows, Dragon Rush, Knock Off, Teleport, Rapid Spin, Roost, Bulk Up, Thunder Wave, Roar, Dragon Tail, Dragon Claw, Rock Slide, Scorching Sands, Draco Meteor, Dragon Pulse, Earth Power

Niche / Flavor Moves

Aerial Ace, Ancient Power, Bite, Body Slam, Breaking Swipe, Brick Break, Brutal Swing, Bulldoze, Curse, Cut, Double-Edge, Dragon Rage, Dual Wingbeat, Earthquake, Endure, Facade, Fissure, Fling, Giga Impact, Headbutt, High Horsepower, Hyper Beam, Hyper Voice, Iron Defense, Laser Focus, Mimic, Mud Shot, Mud-Slap, Outrage, Protect, Rest, Rock Smash, Rock Tomb, Round, Safeguard, Sand-Attack, Sandstorm, Scary Face, Shadow Claw, Shock Wave, Sleep Talk, Snore, Stomping Tantrum, Strength, Substitute, Sunny Day, Superpower, Swift, Tackle, Take Down, Tera Blast, Thief

This might end up forcing certain stuff out of our statlines. I dunno. I thought it would be fun to try and build a sub around Thousand Arrows though. A lot of the focus here is built around bulkier sets with a boatload of utility still being possible, maybe something like Arrows / Spin / Knock Off / Roost, alongside more offensive ones.

I have to imagine Sheer Force is inherently a bit stronger than Natural Cure with this learnset because of Dragon Rush. It's normally not a very good move, but with Sheer Force, it would become a 130 BP STAB move with 75% accuracy. You don't even need to run Life Orb if you don't want because that's a massive power boost. The only unmentioned move that gets effected is Rock Slide which it never hurts to boost. Bulk Up sets could totally exist here, probably with dual STABs and then either Roost, Knock Off, Rapid Spin, or Rock Slide depending on what the final meta looks like.

So Dragon Rush looks very strong, right? It definitely is, but an important thing to note here is that Rapid Spin loses its Speed boost if the user has Sheer Force, which is going to be a massive drawback with how centralizing this Pokemon's Speed tier is supposed to be. This is ignoring the benefits that Natural Cure would have for not letting this Pokemon get ruined by Toxic on more bulky sets and Burn regardless. Maybe the tier could have a bunch of Scald or Wisp users to encourage Natural Cure a bit more? Or maybe it's a sign that I should remove some of the utility moves to further encourage utility sets to run Rapid Spin so people aren't just going double STAB + two utility moves that aren't Rapid Spin. Having Rapid Spin on the tier's most splashable Pokemon would free up teambuilding so much that I don't feel the need to do this. I like the flexibility of this movepool a bit too much.

I think this movepool should be interesting even if one ability turns out to be way better than the other. If nothing else this should be very distinct from both Zygarde and Garchomp while still leaving a lot of room for a healthy Pokemon to come out of it.

 

[flareth13]

I think having this be Specially-oriented/bulky defense would be a somewhat interesting way to differentiate this from Garchomp.

Notable Moves: Earth Power, Draco Meteor, Fickle Beam, Scorching Sands, U-Turn, Iron Defense, Body Press, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Stealth Rock, Dragon Tail, Glare, Dragon Pulse, Outrage, Earthquake, Stomping Tantrum, Power Gem, Stone Edge, Iron Head

Niche/Flavor

Aerial Ace, Ancient Power, Attract, Beat Up, Belch, Bite, Body Slam, Brutal Swing, Bulldoze, Crush Claw, Double Edge, Dragon Breath, Dragon Cheer, Dragon Claw, Dragon Rage, Dragon Rush, Drill Run, Echoed Voice, Ember, Endure, Endeavor, Facade, False Swipe, Fire Fang, Fling, Fly, Fury Attack, Giga Impact, Head Smash, Helping Hand, Hidden Power, Horn Attack, Hyper Beam, Hyper Voice, Incinerate, Inferno, Iron Tail, Leer, Magnitude, Metal Claw, Mud Slap, Mud Sport. Mud Bomb, Noble Roar, Protect, Rage, Rest, Rock Blast, Rock Slide, Rock Throw, Rock Tomb, Sand Tomb, Slam, Slash, Sleep Talk, Smack Down, Snore, Stomp, Strength, Substitute, Take Down, Tera Blast, Tera Blast, Thief, Uproar

 

[taliyeet]

Taking inspiration from Kyurem and Dragapult for this one. Flavor for this is basically "powerful evil legendary/beast that rules the world".

Important Moves:

Bone Rush, Dragon Darts, Scale Shot, Dragon Tail, Rock Tomb, Thunder Fang, Brick Break, Reversal, Dual Wingbeat, Crunch, Throat Chop, Sucker Punch

Dragon Breath, Earth Power, Calamity Quake, Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Mystical Fire, Power Gem, Sludge Bomb, Venoshock, Dark Pulse, Weather Ball, Terrain Pulse

Stealth Rock, Roar, Baton Pass, Court Change, Corrosive Gas, Rest, Substitute

Filler moves

Dig, Sand Tomb, Fissure (banned), Dual Chop, Dragon Claw, Aerial Ace, Acrobatics, Revenge, Retaliate, Thrash, Double Edge, Flail, Crush Claw, Power Trip, Feint, Darkest Lariat, Beat Up, Brutal Swing, Thief, Payback, Fling, Giga Impact

Mud Shot, Mud Bomb, Dragon Rage, Ancient Power, Snarl, Sludge, Smog, Hex, Ominous Wind, Burning Jealousy, Incinerate, Snore, Uproar, Hyper Beam

Embargo, Imprison, Snatch, Poison Gas, Growl, Grudge, Spite, Swagger, Endure, Sleep Talk, Helping Hand, Protect, Attract

Calamity Quake

Type: Ground
Category: Special
BP: 75
PP: 16
Accuracy : 100%
Flags: N/A
Effect: 30% chance to badly poison.
Reasoning: STAB that spreads poison through a secondary effect, so the status spreading is locked to Natural Cure sets.

This moveset would be suited for a stat spread similar to Kyurem-Black (but probably not 700 BST), with higher Atk than SpA, where you would really want to go for physical sets but must go mixed most of the time.

On the physical side, you have no good Ground stab (only Bone Rush), and your physical coverage is suboptimal : outside of Dark moves, you only have access to weak moves, moves with double contact, or situational usage moves. On the special side however, you have way more options, with a good STAB in Earth Power, and Fire, Rock, Poison and other niche coverages options.

The similarities with Kyurem ends mostly there : the one missing option on the special side is a good Dragon stab (Dragon Breath is only 78 BP with Sheer force), but you have access to Dragon Darts for a really good no contact STAB to break special walls. Scale Shot is also another option for setting up.

So, for offensive sets, you have multiples routes to go with : Mixed Sets with Life Orb to break more effectively, full Special Sets with LO or Specs that makes you a coverage monster but needing to rely on predictions / super effective hits vs ground resists/immunities, or Physical sets with Loaded Dice, to exploit the good attack of the Sovereign but losing on either coverage power vs Fairies or resistance to status depending on the ability choice.

Status spreading is locked to the Natural Cure sets, that can spread poison using Calamity Quake (or paralysis with Dragon Breath if you want). Having the Sovereign spread poison is interesting because the usual immunities (Poison, Steel) are weak to Ground, so clerics/status immune mons/Covert Cloak could have a unique niche in the metagame. It also gives the Sovereign a way to hurt fairies on defensive sets.

As for the status moves, I went with simple stuff : Rocks, Corrosive Gas if you want item removal really bad, Court Change for limited removal, and most importantly Baton Pass, which allows the Sovereign to pivot but isn't a move that deals chip damage.
Baton Pass would also allow the Sovereign to pass speed boosts from Scale Shot to allies, which could allow for fun strategies and is balanced by the fact that the Sovereign must fast pivot to the ally, that the Defense drop is also passed, and that the Sovereign doesn't have any other boosting options.
BP is usually not allowed in most metagames, so having it only on the Sovereign would make it stand out even more.

The remaining moves are either options for support sets (Mystical Fire, Roar/Dragon Tail), priority for easier role compression (Sucker Punch), or niche moves that can be used by the Sovereign on more specific sets or teams (Terrain Pulse/Weather Ball, Reversal for Sub + berries / Sash + Scale shot shenanigans on HO, Venoshock to hit poisoned fairies on defensive sets)

 

[Orangesodapop]

Uh slate definitely should of been closed but I’ve been away for a bit so 24 hour warning!

 

[Orangesodapop]

Sneaking a submission of mine before slate closes officially to increase the options as I didn’t really see anything similar above
Important Moves:

Earthquake, Dragon Claw, Outrage, Breaking Swipe, Bonemarang, Trailblaze, Rock Slide, Dragon Tail, Body Press, Bullet Seed, Punishment, Crunch, Superpower, Zen Headbutt, Iron Head, Accelerock

Volt Switch, Thunderbolt, Dragon Pulse, Draco Meteor, Shadow Ball, Dark Pulse, Psychic Noise, Icy Wind, Aura Sphere, Flash Cannon, Vaccum Wave

Calm Mind, Bulk Up, Stealth Rock, Taunt, Encore, Will-O-Wisp, Recover, Magic Coat, Roar, Iron Defense, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, Defog, Rock Polish

Filler:

Endure, Facade, Helping Hand, Protect, Rest, Sleep Talk, Substitute, Take Down, Tera Blast, Hidden Power, Attract, Sand Tomb, Sand Attack, Dragon Breath, Giga Impact, Hyper Beam, Tackle, Double Edge, Uproar, Quash, Thief, Ominous Wind, Bulldoze, Gust, Peck, Ally Switch, Wide Guard, Water Gun, Powder Snow, Work Up, Powder, Charm, Baby Doll Eyes, Sandstorm, Sunny Day, Snowscape, Rain Dance, Snarl, Dig, Mud Shot, Double Team, Rock Tomb, Last Resort

As dragon ground is essentially perfect in almost every way, I feel no need to add effective coverage as it could theoretically heavily undermine any form of checking the sovereign and could lead to an adverse reaction where a check becomes ultimately vital along the sovereign, which isn’t the vision of the tier. I do believe that a large slew of status moves could help with this, as it gives both moveset predictability on its attacking moves, while encouraging set diversity. Essentially I gave it a bunch of funny moves that allow it to take on a number of roles for a team while limiting its stabs to the most basic barring bonemarang. Additionally, having mono volt switch does mean it volt blocks itself, which makes other grounds more reason to be added along, while also having the ability to not infringe on the role. While not having true “valuable” coverage, it gets a bunch of moves that you generally don’t see sheer force mons run, and limiting it to these options allow mons weak to these moves to be more prevalent. Also has two weird priorities that allow it to snipe ice types to give them more lenience and allow ability. Overall an all rounder to close out this slate

 

[Orangesodapop]

And slate closed! And since there are no vetoes we can move to voting immediately to make up for lost time!

Since there are a notably small amount of submissions due to movepool slate being the boring slate, I can just list them all here. However voting format is the same as before

3,2,1 with SV being at most the 2 slot

The options are:
Akira Movepool
Duo M2ovepool
Flareth Movepool
Taliyeet movepool
Orangesodapop movepool

 

[PalpitoadChamp]

DuoM2, Orangesodapop, Akira

 

[zxgzxg]

Orangesodapop, Taliyeet, Akira

 

[DuoM2]

Orangesodapop, DuoM2, taliyeet

 

[Tanny89k]

taliyeet, Orangesodapop, DuoM2

 

[Samtendo09]

Orangesodapop, Taliyeet, DuoM2

 

[Akira]

taliyeet