Mega Incineroar
New Ability: Blaze/Intimidate ->
Pounce
(If there are entry hazards in place when Mega Incineroar enters the field, it jumps over them to avoid their effects, which lowers the Defense of adjacent opposing Pokémon by 1 stage. No effect if there are not entry hazards on Mega Incineroar's side of the field.)
Type: Fire/Dark
New Stats:
HP: 95
Attack: 115 ->
140 (+25)
Defense: 90 ->
110 (+20)
Special Attack: 80
Special Defense: 90 ->
110 (+20)
Speed: 60 ->
95 (+35)
(
630 BST)
New moves: Court Change, Rapid Spin
Okay, so this is a sub that I'm actually
really passionate about, and it's pretty heavily interlinked with two other submissions of mine that were both pretty important to me in different ways - one was the first time I touched Showdown's code
(see Scorching Soles Cinderace above!), and the other was the first winning submission I ever made for any pet mod, my beloved
Mega Toxtricity from Megamax (which I proceeded to use relentlessly for months after it made it in).
This is sort of the culmination of both of those submissions, and on a Pokémon I've loved for a long time - I've come a pretty long way since both of those, and I think I have a much better understanding of how to make it work, so... let's get into it!
The original premise of my Mega Toxtricity was to be a pivot that used Intimidate for Special Defense ("Contaminate") to force switches, and while there are a couple of (mostly optics-driven) reasons I'm no longer comfortable lifting that
directly, it made for a very fun and interactive Pokémon all the same, and it's one of my favorite Pokémon I've been able to use!
At the time, the original was actually considered kind of unviable for a couple of reasons, haha; in a total vacuum, lowering defenses on entry is apparently not
nearly as strong as it sounds in a singles environment and is in some ways weaker than Intimidate, though it would definitely be a bigger deal in doubles and that alone has me convinced that Game Freak would stay away it
I care about following perceived design rules probably a lot more than most ... though as noted in the slate opening post, Special Attack and Speed are the two stats that should really never get an Intimidate clone.
That's a big part of why this sub is so exciting to me - in addition to revamping the Ability a bit to be more singles-specific and showing its real potential as a tool for pivots
hence the anti-hazard angle I'm taking with this iteration, I've also taken cues from... well, everything we learned from Toxtricity, and I feel strongly that Incineroar is pretty much the perfect Pokémon to receive "version 2.0" of Contaminate!
M4A players are probably already familiar with
Mega Garbodor's Ability, Trash Compactor, and
Mega Torterra's Ability, Gravitational Pull - both of these are Abilities that grant immunity to entry hazards and, when the Pokémon comes in contact with them, have some kind of special effect instead.
Mega Incineroar's
Pounce allows it to join their ranks as a Mega Evolution
designed to punish hazards directly and disincentivize using them; in Incineroar's case, lowering Defense on entry comes with an
incredibly varied set of applications and affords it a ton of customizability, lending itself to a truly dynamic playing style once its opponent sets it off.
The number one thing we learned from Toxtricity is that
no matter how good a Pokémon is at forcing switches, that doesn't help it if it can't punish the switch-in - in Toxtricity's case, it had poor coverage and a reliance on Volt Switch over U-turn (which is outright negated if the obvious Ground-types switched in, making it often lose the very momentum it was designed to grab), and it didn't really have anything to
do with a free turn other than directly attack, so forcing its opponent to switch out by threatening big damage just... made switching out always the right choice, since it couldn't do big damage. P:
I still really enjoyed using Toxtricity, but from what I know now... why not go for something with a hecking ton more options instead?!
Like noted in
the Submission Handbook's section on Hawlucha, the more flexibility you want a Pokémon to have, the more valuable it is to have a good STAB combination, freeing up moveslots you don't want to have to spend on coverage.
When it debuted, Toxtricity lost to basically every Ground-type in the game and a lot of Steel-types - it was eventually buffed with Burning Jealousy to be able to deal with Excadrill and Ferrothorn, but having to run dual STABs, coverage and Volt Switch to function meant it didn't have room for more interesting support options.
Incineroar's Fire and Dark STAB combination is
much more synergistic, not walled by any one common type; it's complemented pretty well by either its existing strong Fighting coverage or U-turn (one of its pivoting options), but few enough relevant Pokémon wall Fire/Dark that you can also get away with just running dual STABs if you have other preferred utility without being caught in a position where a hard-counter on the opposing team makes Incineroar nonfunctional. This goes hand in hand with Incineroar's valuable access to U-turn over Volt Switch, a crucial advantage that lets it grab momentum even when an opponent has an effective wall - unlike Toxtricity, it
can pivot out of its obvious switch-ins, which is a huge deal for the utility it offers its team!
Aside from delivering on its offensive pressure, though, Incineroar comes with a ton of fun utility options and actually has the space in its sets to run them!!
The thing I loved so much about using Megamax Toxtricity was never the damage it could do with the -1 Special Defense, but the way the
threat of that damage forced opponents to play; Incineroar here can capitalize on that threat in a much wider variety of ways than Toxtricity, and I absolutely love that about it!
- First of all, Incineroar can
cripple the actual switch-ins in more ways than directly damaging them, which is valuable because it doesn't damage switch-ins nearly as much as it hurts a target that doesn't switch out (this is by design!). Easily Incineroar's best STAB options in singles is
Knock Off, which is well known for being more or less the most spammable and least punishable move in the game
the other candidate is U-turn which it also has. Immediately, you can make your opponent think twice about what's safe to switch in - no matter how easily their favorite wall should live a hit, is it worth the permanent side effect of losing their item? Not only that, but like any Fire-type ... uh ... sorry, like any
well-designed Fire-type
I called it the cooler Cinderace for a reason, Incineroar has
Will-o-Wisp, and like just about every Pokémon from before Gen VIII, it has
Toxic, two of the best crippling status moves in the game. Wisp goes super well with Incineroar's bulk and lack of recovery, but Toxic is not to be underrated either - too many people forget this move's universal distribution and think it's only good on walls, but
Fire-types are some of Toxic's best users, since they can use it to punish many Water-types that would otherwise resist their moves and have super effective STAB to prevent Steel-types from coming in and taking a Toxic unscathed.
- Next up, Incineroar has plenty of other ways to
take advantage of free turns!
First and most notably, it has
Swords Dance and
Bulk Up depending on your preferred kind of setup
and Nasty Plot but Mega here is way more physical than base sorry, both being strong setup moves that can help it to punch holes in weakened teams and turn more potential switch-ins into "wrong answers" as long as it's sure to get a hit on them before it's forced back out.
Moreover, it has the newly-added
Rapid Spin have you seen Darkest Lariat's animation and
Court Change uhhhh... sports! ... ... okay in my defense its signature Z-Move has it pull its own stadium from nowhere it can probably pull this off to interact cleanly with its hazard immunity and synergize directly with its Ability. Rapid Spin is probably the better option in a lot of ways, giving Incineroar a rare niche as a spinner that has super effective STAB on Ghost-type spinblockers - and with the move boosting its Speed as of Sword and Shield, it can run Rapid Spin on a set that
also has a setup move like SD or Bulk Up, turning its hazard removal into a major momentum swing in its favor!
Court Change is not nearly as synergistic but it's fun as heck okay
I just want Court Change Incineroar
Another thing I like about adding these two moves to Incineroar is the unique dynamic they have with Pounce's mechanics - sure, built-in hazard immunity and punishing makes Mega Incineroar one of the best Pokémon to clear hazards, but there may be times in battle when you want hazards to stay up! After all, if Incineroar
doesn't clear hazards, Pounce can keep activating every time it switches in; weighing the advantages of continuing to punish your opponent for setting hazards against the advantages of supporting your teammates immediately can create some unusual choices in the teambuilder and in battle, and I can't wait to see how Incineroar users explore that!
- In addition to the aforementioned benefits of U-turn, both for moveslot compression and its key advantages over Volt Switch, Incineroar is a rare user of the move
Parting Shot, an amazing momentum-grabbing move that helps it escape from battle reliably while easing pressure on its switch-in and allowing a teammate to set up easily. The combination of Pounce and Parting Shot forcing the opponent to switch twice in a row can be devastating if it's pulled off!
Another issue Toxtricity faced is that 87 Speed was simply not enough for it to do its job, but it didn't take that much of an increase for people to be satisfied with it; mostly, the problem was being too easily hard-countered by its obvious switch-ins. This was deliberate at the time because I was so wary of overshooting, but the clear consensus after testing was that it definitely wasn't a necessary precaution - outspeeding Pokémon like Excadrill in Toxtricity's case and Landorus-T in Incineroar's is
not a bad thing and is actually more of a basic necessity than something that would push them over the edge!
95 is a much better Speed tier for this than Incineroar's original 60 (or even the relatively close 90), but it's still emphatically not high enough to push Incineroar to be a sweeper; this playing style is so much more fun as a supportive and disruptive pivot, and I want to keep all of its options at the forefront rather than making it a straightforward attacker!
There's one last thing that makes me prefer the design of this Ability over the original Contaminate - although hazard reliance and Defense drops on entry might seem like an odd pair of effects to combine,
and I'm still a bit worried people will assume it's nothing more than a contrivance to get Boots on Mega Incineroar, there are very good reasons to connect the two effects and I think that's really important to Mega Incineroar's role!
First of all, it's... well, yeah, it's kinda true - it's pretty obvious that a Rock-weak pivot that can't hold Boots is not going to thrive in a metagame where everything else can hold them, and there's a reason all of our other Fire-type pivots are ones whose secondary types or Abilities help them with that obvious weakness. This
is a basic necessity for Incineroar to function in this role, however awkward it may sound, and it's especially important when Incineroar's base form not only has the
option to run Boots but
always does - Mega Incineroar would be woefully outclassed by base, and base Incineroar is already on the niche side in M4A OU singles, so there was really no way around this.
That said, there are other valid reasons why the Ability is more interesting this way!
The first is the way that hazard dependence plays with Incineroar's role as a support Pokémon in general,
without automatically clearing hazards the way Garbodor does. Pounce leaves in the opponent's hands the choice of whether it's worth setting hazards at the risk of enabling an opposing Incineroar, and it puts both players in a complex game of field management, rather than Incineroar simply
always being an amazing pivot that
always forces switches. In some ways, Pounce allows Incineroar to do its job of supporting its team and dissuading hazards while it's not even on the field, and that kind of mindgame simply doesn't exist if the Ability is always on! Moreover, Pounce activating so
conditionally gives Mega Incineroar a much more dynamic playing style by creating two very different states - the way it can play when it has no Ability but passively threatens opponents and the way it can play when it has a highly synergistic and actively threatening Ability - without even needing multiple forms to create that kind of phase shift.
The third and final reason I like the relationship to hazards is the way it elegantly satisfies one of my biggest inherent reservations about Intimidate clones - while I know we've recently come to terms with the fact that we
could just ban a Mega Incineroar straight-up if it's a problem in VGC, there's something I like so much more about the simplicity here: Pounce arguably should not exist in VGC... but hazards
basically don't exist in VGC, so there's nothing to worry about. (Plus, with Incineroar having Court Change now, maaaybe you can get up to some weird shenanigans and enable it as a doubles pivot after all? but that takes way more prep and way more careful teambuilding, so it's much more fairly earned and should be nowhere near problematic.
Like, this is probably a bad idea, but you could get some wacky shenanigans out of, I dunno, Court Change Toxic Spikes alongside some Guts users and Steel- or Flying-types - isn't that so much more fun than "Mega Incineroar dominates the format with perpetual Pounce" or "never mind, there is no Mega Incineroar in VGC?" It'd still be niche and gimmicky for sure, but with base Incineroar's vise grip on the format, that's probably a good thing!
Last thing:
Incineroar does not learn Pursuit! so it's okay we can all breathe
Ahe m
But yeah, I think that covers everything!!
This is a sub I'm actually really passionate about, probably a lot more than I usually am about my subs, so I really hope it goes over well and that we can give it a chance!
I just feel like this would be such a
fun addition to the meta and it's totally the kind of Pokémon I love to
play with, so here's hoping for the best! C:
Mega Reuniclus, Two-Minded allows Incineroar to get +2 in Attack from Overheat (the equivalent of a Swords Dance) and +1 to both Special Attack and Special Defense from Superpower (the equivalent of a Calm Mind). This lets it become a very efficient wallbreaker. And compared to Reuniclus, Incineroar has much better Speed with the bonus of opting for a drawbackless Close Combat instead of bouncing back to the Special side with Superpower, as well as Intimidate pre-mega so it doesn't mind the Defense drops from Superpower as much. So how on earth is this thing balanced? Well, I'm glad you asked. (What do you mean you didn't ask?)
This combination can pull off a lot of damage especially with hawlucha, trying to take advantage of an item like grassy seed to spam acro. Primarina might set up hawlucha beforehand, so that Hawlucha can effectively relive the glory days of Huge Power Masquerade.
A daunting strategy involving priority spam. Unfortunately Tapu Lele ends it in its tracks.
Having a really strong facade alongside guts could be helpful. Obstagoon benefits greatly from having dark stab to hit ghosts.
Huge Power with a choice band really knocks anything this thing hits straight out of the ball park.
All of these could be decent partners for a Flip Turn team. You have 2 potential wallbreakers, a hazard setter, a spinner, and a competitive/defiant abuser.
Hidden power could be unique to pull off a guessing game between each pokemon, as to what hidden power they might bring. They might even bring STAB hidden power just to get extra damage off from metronome or a choice item. Zoroark could really confuse a player if the pokemon its hiding as brings another type of HP.
These pokemon can pull off dangerous combinations being able to carry their damage multipliers so smoothly, though Sandslash can still be locked into its attack.
"Wait but Pheramosa and Sawsbuck-Mega can't be on the same team as mega primarina! Well technically yes, unless you're playing megas for two or megas for all ubers? Anyway the obvious one is weavile. What can i say other than its an incredible nuke with doubled triple axel BP.
Provides support for other special wallbreakers and itself.
Azumarill is already really strong, Play Rough or Liquidation becomes unwallable if it ever manages to reach 100%. Feraligatr's really looking forward to Sheer Force LO 2x Liquidation.
They can carry on momentum with Specs, Scarf or even on Sub/Toxic or Sub/Disable sets. (not used within the same order)
Can all become very powerful if their moves gain a damage increase.
a weaker alternative to expanding force, but can still pack a punch.
This move is niche for weather teams, and could be interesting on a team with multiple weather conditions all at once. The move becomes very strong under Rain or Sun, and can change type through Hail and Sandstorm to create an interesting damage chain.
Jynx, 
Electivire, and 
Magmortar.
