Move Relay
Metagame Premise: The first two moves of each pokemon's moveset are lost and donated to the pokemon in the slot after them in the teambuilder. The last pokemon gives its moves to the first pokemon on the team to form a closed loop.
Being able to have incredibly strong move and ability combinations is balanced out by the fact that you still have to run whatever bad pokemon normally gets the strong moves. The best move donors are those that have strong moves that they don't mind losing, or would be better abused by another pokemon. The best move recipients are pokemon that are already strong, but have some weak aspect of their movepools that they need patching up. A well built team should have a cohesive chain of pokemon that are happier with the moves that they gain than the moves that they lost.
For example:
:manaphy:->
:regieleki:->
:ursaluna:
Manaphy is fine with losing tail glow and ice beam as it has access to take heart. Regieleki is then able to trade its normal or electric moves for boosting and real coverage, and ursaluna can become a fearsome priority sweeper with access to extreme speed from regieleki.
Banlist:
- Standard OU Bans
- :smeargle:Smeargle
- :komala:Komala
- :rabsca:Revival Blessing
Watchlist:
- :regieleki:Regieleki (extreme speed and/or rapid spin donor that often gets banned when it gets access to coverage)
- :enamorus:Enamorus (contrary+leaf storm clones or psycho boost)
- :serperior:Serperior (weaker but faster enamorus that can pass coil or glare)
- :ribombee:Ribombee (quiver dance passer that's not a dead slot after losing quiver)
- :polteageist:Shell Smash (somewhat degenerate, and torkoal/polteageist are strong donors with drought and stored power respectively)
Questions for the community:
- Is it more fair/balanced to just pass one move?
- How do I keep this from becoming HO slop spam? Some defensive mons can get buffed with recovery access or better utility but most of the big wins seem to be offensive. Does this call for a restricted list of moves that can only be in the 3rd or 4th slots?
- Do I just go ahead and preemptively ban everything from the watchlist?