CAP 25 - Part 2 - Concept Submissions

[faithviolet]

As with frameworks, here are my opinions on the concepts suggested so far. Unlike frameworks, there seem to be fewer suggestions, so I can afford to comment on all of them. (Ranking from 1 to 4, the different between 4 and 5 is personal taste.)

Hazards, examined three ways: Hazards are a deep enough topic to do a trio on, and the different ways the concept can be done will keep the trio from being homogenous. Somehow not very exciting to me despite that. ★★★★

Fearless Firsts: With the team preview addition, leads are relatively niche, so I'm not sure this is worth doing three of. Still, trying to resurrect the lead role is an interesting challenge. ★★★

Make Weather Great Again: Isn't this just Jumbao again? The one positive thing is trying to improve Hail needs multiple Pokemon, which the framework can help out with. ★★

Welcome to the Matrix: These effects are all really fun, and there are the right number of them to give each starter a specialty. I would give it 5-stars except that it would make the starters a bit too homogenous for my taste. ★★★★

Sides of the Same Coin: I really don't like the flavor of having all the starters have the same ability, and the concept itself is only ok. ★

Status Update: The CAP metagame has a lot of Pokemon that for some reason are resistant to status. I think the concept itself is additionally too broad, including Gravity, Follow Me, in addition to the standard statuses. The broadness does lend itself to the starter framework, if it can be defined better. ★★

These Shackles Make Me Mortal: There's a real risk here in making an ~immortal~ CAP, but that can be fun. Additionally, comparatively low stats are already a weakness, and not one that works much as a shackle. I like the generality. ★★
P.S. What's so counterintuitive about Vespiqueen's typing?

Specialized Forces: I don't like how generic this is - most Pokemon are one of the best at something, this doesn't narrow down the target very much, which also makes the questions it can also vaguer and less interesting. ★

Environment Control: Similar to the above, this is rather generic. "Hazards, examined three ways" is still broad enough to make three CAPs out of, but without opening out the concept to half of the metagame. The broadness also makes this less exciting. ★

Speed Demons: This concept has a good sized domain of potential CAPs. Can't think of much to say about it. ★★★

Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming: The framework, which seems to require pinch abilities, works well with this concept. I'm not sure it's easy enough to do three times, nor broad enough a concept to want to. It is exciting though. ★★★

Undiscovered Potential: I would enjoy making this, but it's not very specific/creative (I think Cyclohm had the same concept?). A good fall-back option though. ★★★

Typed Together: This jumps around some of the problems with the most obvious core concept. It's broad enough to do three times, and yet there's still a specific goal in mind for each one. ★★★★

Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors: I proposed this one, and I still like it near the best because it has a very defined goal for each Pokemon, and more than any other concept involves designing the CAPs as a single project rather than three concurrent ones. Contra Frostbiyt I think it's unlikely to happen automatically - Emboar is hardly who you think of as a Serperior counter, for example, nor Greninja as a Delphox counter, even though they counter each other's types. ★★★★★

The Bigger They Are: I like the name and the idea itself, and it's certainly broad enough to do three times. Somewhat indefinite in the beginning steps, but it's goal-oriented enough that's not a problem. ★★★★

Super Hax: Sorry, this isn't objective, but I just don't like hax, especially not if we do it three different ways. ★

Role Compression Madness: I'd like the project to avoid generic goodness, but this is a good topic on other metrics. ★★★

Once More, with Feeling!: Celebratory is the first thing that jumps out to me about this concept. The questions are ones I'd like to learn answers to, and looking back is fun. ★★★★★

Renewal: This is a difficult goal, but one that will be well-defined once a target is chosen for each. I don't mind if the CAPs don't last long at the top of the metagame. ★★★★★

Par for the Cores: This is The core concept for starters, one that works well with the framework, and is nicely targeted, but it won't bring very much new to CAP, and it'll be difficult to compete with the great cores out there with three Pokemon all with sub-par stats. ★★★

Death to the King!: With three Pokemon at our disposal, this is certainly uniquely possible. I would also enjoy a shake-up in the meta when CAPs are finished. (Running out of new things to say, but this is also goal-oriented, which will make the learning-experience better.) ★★★★

Astounding Ability Actualization (Triple A): The justification of starter-like BST viable Pokemon having abilities extremely synergistic with their roles is very persuasive, and I like how focused the concept is on the actualization of the abilities. ★★★★★

Set-Down: I think this is in fact an interesting concept - but as Frostbiyt points out it's already done by a few other CAP-metagame pokemon, and I don't think it's deep enough to do three differently-interesting ways. ★★

-ize/-ate is Our Fate: As with the above, I think this is a great concept, but not particularly tuned to the fact we're doing three different Pokemon. It'll be difficult keeping them distinct and not just going through motions. ★★

 

[naturalstupidity]

• Name – The Many Faces of Momentum
• Description – These Pokemon each utilize a different aspect of momentum to succeed in the metagame.
• Justification – This is an Archetype concept that explores how Pokemon gain, lose, and exploit momentum and how that affects the course of a game.
• Questions To Be Answered
  • How do we define momentum? How is momentum created and how does it shift during a game?
  • What are the different aspects of momentum? How do Pokemon gain momentum, and how do they use that momentum to their advantage?
  • How does momentum interact with other strategic elements in the game? Can momentum be sacrificed to gain another, more tangible advantage?
  • How important is momentum in a game? Can a Pokemon be successful despite losing momentum?
• Explanation – A starter trio centered around a single concept lends itself to exploring something deep, complex, and multi-faceted, with each CAP focusing on a different side of that concept. Without a doubt, momentum is one of the most strategically complex concepts in Pokemon and pretty much every competitive game it features in. Back in BW we created Tomohawk, whose concept was to reliably gain momentum at any point in the match. This only scratched the surface of what could be done with the deep idea of momentum. While Tomohawk only focused on gaining momentum, these CAPs could center around how to maintain momentum once you have it, how to best make use of it, and how to trade momentum for other advantages. With the starter trio theme of this CAP cycle, now is the perfect opportunity to explore one of the richest, most strategic ideas in the game and understand it to its fullest extent.

 

[Frostbiyt]

Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors: I proposed this one, and I still like it near the best because it has a very defined goal for each Pokemon, and more than any other concept involves designing the CAPs as a single project rather than three concurrent ones. Contra Frostbiyt I think it's unlikely to happen automatically - Emboar is hardly who you think of as a Serperior counter, for example, nor Greninja as a Delphox counter, even though they counter each other's types. ★★★★★

Even though each one has a defined goal, I think a problem with this concept is that it doesn't provide a starting point for CAP 25. CAPw's goal is to beat CAPf, who's goal is to beat CAPg, who's goal is to beat CAPw. There is no given starting point and it's a concept that is detached from the meta.

I don't think that it's something that just happens automatically, but I do think that the community will actively make these Pokemon able to counter each other just because that is the whole idea of starter Pokemon in the first place.

Make Weather Great Again: Isn't this just Jumbao again? The one positive thing is trying to improve Hail needs multiple Pokemon, which the framework can help out with. ★★

Yeah, sort of. One of them would end up being the Sand/Sun CAP. I am planning on editing my concept a bit to put emphasis on each weather getting a pair of Pokemon rather than being three separate Pokemon that each happen to abuse two different weathers.

 

[2MN]

These Shackles Make Me Mortal: There's a real risk here in making an ~immortal~ CAP, but that can be fun. Additionally, comparatively low stats are already a weakness, and not one that works much as a shackle. I like the generality. ★★
P.S. What's so counterintuitive about Vespiqueen's typing?

it's obviously designed to be a defensive wall, getting pressure as its only real ability along with signature moves like heal order + defense order, but bug/flying as a typing is not a good defensive type. the reason it failed is because while 70/102/102 bulk along with those signature moves would be pretty solid defense, that merely-good-enough bulk being on a pokemon with the kind of typing that leaves it weak to every common offensive coverage move not named close combat means it can never actually be defensive in the slightest.

 

[Phoenix_Alchemist]

Name - Crystal Ball (Better name: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Description - Three Pokémon that are designed to take advantage of Z-status moves.

Justification - This would be an Archetype concept, in that it attempts to construct Pokémon around the Z-status mechanic. The defining attribute of the 7th generation of Pokémon is the introduction of Z-moves, which usually power-up an attack for a single use in a battle. Z-moves are most commonly used either as a lure (powering up an attack to KO a foe that normally would be able to live through an attack) or to grant access to a STAB move (Landorus-T and Dragonite using Z-Fly because they have no reliable Flying-type STAB). An often-underutilized mechanic of Z-moves, however, is that when used to power up a status move, they provide helpful effects, such as stat boosts, stat resets, or healing to the user or an ally. Despite this, Z-status has only ever really been used on Porygon-Z with Z-Conversion, Azumarill with Z-Belly Drum, and the occasional meme Z-Splash Solgaleo. By creating three Z-status CAPs, we should be able to explore how Z-status can be abused, and why it is almost never used.

Questions to be Answered -

• In what ways can a Z-status abuser differentiate itself from Pokémon that can naturally use setup or healing moves without a Z-Crystal?
• Using a Z-status move inherently has the opportunity cost of being unable to hold an item, as well as not be able to use an offensive Z-move in battle. How can using a Z-status move be worth facing these opportunity costs?
• How will the inability to use a Z-status move twice change the way a Z-status abuser is played or is played against?
• In what ways could the unpredictability of a Pokémon that could be running one of multiple Z-status moves, or none at all, be used to a Z-status abuser's advantage? How could this unpredictability influence how an opponent deals with CAP 25?

Explanation - The most prevalent Z-status user, Porygon-Z, relied exclusively on Z-Conversion to both raise all of its stats by 1, and to change its type to one more usable than Normal. Even though these "+1 all stats" Z-moves are powerful, CAP 25 would not necessarily have to use these Z-moves to be successful. Z-Heal Block and Psycho Shift give a +2 Special Attack boost, Mirror Move gives +2 to Attack, Snatch and Me First give +2 to Speed, Stockpile, Haze and Heal Bell fully restore your HP, and Z-Parting Shot and Memento even fully heal the next ally to join the battle. However, most of these effects can be achieved by other moves already. Swords Dance already gives attack, Nasty Plot gives Special Attack, Agility gives Speed, and Healing Wish heals a teammate (albeit at a cost). This means we will not only have to deny these CAPs ordinary setup moves / healing moves, but will also have to have high enough stats and a powerful ability to justify using a Z-move to set up. In this way, we may be able to create a Pokémon that is obscenely powerful when it can set up or heal via a Z-move, but can only do so once.

Also worth looking into are the Z-Status moves that can do multiple things at once. Sure, Z-Bestow may raise the user's speed by two stages, but it's hard to deny that Z-Hypnosis both inducing sleep and raising speed by 1 isn't a worthy Z-move as well. Many of the Z-moves listed above, such as Haze, Stockpile, and Psycho Shift have helpful effects that are present alongside their Z-boosts. If one or more of the CAP 25s are designed not only to take advantage of the Z-boosts given by these moves, but also the inherent effects of these moves, then it should be able to fill a role completely different from a regular setup or healing user.

 

[GMars]

I'd like to add my thoughts to the first 12 submissions:

Set-Down: CAP has good anti-setup Pokemon already in Prankster Haze Tomohawk and Arghonaut, as Granny Pie mentioned. There's also already viable ways to take advantage of the opponent setting up, such as adding Ditto to a bulky team to dissuade/punish non-defensive setup sweepers. In addition to this, certain moves you've mentioned such as Magic Coat and Snatch become obvious as the defining characteristics of the Pokemon, meaning they would end up more as dissuaders than punishers, which doesn't help distinguish them from the tools the CAP meta already has.

Astounding Ability Actualization: I am a fan of this concept due to the history of success it's had with regards to starters. An interesting note on this from an in-game perspective is that not having a good ability as a base prevents the Pokemon from being absurdly good within the confines of a first playthrough while still letting those Pokemon excel when retrained for a competitive environment, something that has been seen a lot recently with early-game Pokemon such as Talonflame. I think this fits the starter theme and feel well and allows a lot of flexibility within the other constraints of this project. I would consider also asking the question of what can be done to assess when the goal of maximizing the potential of an ability becomes too much, as with Blaziken as well as Greninja before the creep of Gen 7.

Death to the King: Decentralization historically has led to recentralization around the newly introduced threats. Perhaps less so here, due to the introduction of three Pokemon rather than a single one bringing more constraints on what can be included in a team's available slots, but I'm still hesitant about this concept. I'd encourage you to address more specifically what would differentiate this process from Arghonaut's in order to prevent the type of strong centralization that occurred around it and maintain a diverse meta.

Par for the Cores: While Fire-Water-Grass cores are historic, I’m concerned with basing these three Pokemons’ roles too closely on each other. If their roles are explicitly to work together, teams around them would lack a lot of diversity and they could lack splashability outside of simply working with their partners, leading to a feeling of theme teams. On the bright side, this concept would prevent one of the CAP 25 Pokemon from simply being outshined by the other two and would ease the Framework’s goal of making a fully competitive trio.

Renewal: This idea is plagued by a poor history of Perfect Pair CAP projects, and lacks solid reasoning for why such a target would be achievable this time. I’d encourage you to address more explicitly what could be done differently this time in comparison with Voodoom and Plasmanta to maintain the relevance of the renewal down the road, especially when these projects struggled due to the irrelevance of their partners.

Once More, with Feeling: This could be an extremely difficult project, but I would be excited to see what we could learn from it. Improving our ability to dissect the minute complexities between paper and practice would be great learnings.

Role Compression Madness: I’m very interested in the questions this concept seeks to answer. Having a Pokemon with good role compression inherently leads to splashability, and it would actually be a stark departure from the past starters. When it comes to starters, they tend to be very specific, single role-oriented Pokemon, the only exception coming to mind being Greninja (compressing Spikes with breaking or cleaning). This concept can lead to a very competitive trio while allowing us to answer some interesting questions, gaining some key learnings about the importance of versatility and compression in the top Pokemon in both CAP and OU along the way.

Super Hax: I feel as if this would contribute negatively to the metagame, and I’d rather not see it included. One of the worst aspects of Gen 6 was the prevalence of Thunder Wave, and I’d really prefer not to bring about three new Pokemon that can lead to a resurgence of what many consider to be one of the most frustrating parts of competitive Pokemon.

The Bigger They Are: This concept hits the aspects of Set-Down that I enjoy, that being flipping the opponent’s ability to use strengths against them, while avoiding the issues I see there of it being redundant with the tools in the current meta. I am very happy to see a question in there about opportunity cost and balancing such a concept being situational, as I initially worried about the concept’s potential to lead to too gimmicky of a trio, or too niche of one along the lines of Ditto. This is very well thought out, and I would like to explore this further.

Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors: A common complaint of higher tiers of Pokemon has been the issue of matchup. I’d encourage you to add a question on exploring how the introduction of another RPS interaction would affect team matchup in CAP, and how to prevent such a trio from making team matchup be too strong of an issue. These would be good learnings to get from the process.

Typed Together: I was in a discussion on the Discord a few days ago about offensive redundancy. This is a decent concept because of the wide range of ways we can tackle it from while working within the restricted typings of the Framework. I like how this concept’s flexibility gives us a larger range for exploration (offensive versus defensive redundancy for example), only really executable with the three-Pokemon Framework we currently have.

Undiscovered Potential: As I mentioned when discussing Astounding Ability Actualization, the strengths of our best starters has been invariably tied to their abilities. Working within a constrained stat distribution makes this concept riskier than normal, but I do like the idea of pursuing a concept around abilities for this CAP.

 

[Mr Holiday]

I like this one, but I think that it should focus on official Pokemon so that it doesn't just end up replacing a CAP with a better version.

Fair enough. I had thought we might address one of the previous CAPs that, for whatever reason, didn't accomplish what we wanted from it, but I can see how replacing a CAP with a better version is less than ideal. Plus, it'd probably be more "Celebratory" to focus on real Pokemon, anyway lol.

Once More, with Feeling!: Celebratory is the first thing that jumps out to me about this concept. The questions are ones I'd like to learn answers to, and looking back is fun. ★★★★★

That's kinda what I had in mind, lol. I've been kicking the idea around for a while now, but was never quite convinced it was a good Concept. I decided, what with this being a celebration and all, to give it a try. Plus, it can be very informative to look back at past mistakes, and see what can be done to avoid making them in the future.

Once More, with Feeling: This could be an extremely difficult project, but I would be excited to see what we could learn from it. Improving our ability to dissect the minute complexities between paper and practice would be great learnings.

I've always been fascinated (and frustrated, in equal measure) by how a given idea or concept can seem so flawless on paper, but then you stick it on a Pokemon and it's garbage, or considered to gimmicky to use. Often times, the idea itself is sound, but the Pokemon using it is to flawed to pull it off, which I think negatively impacts not only the viability of the idea itself, but people's perceptions of more unorthodox strategies in general. My hope is that, by examining what has hindered good ideas in the past, we can get a better idea of what makes some ideas or strategies better than others, and we can also maybe re-evaluate the viability of certain ideas.

--

I also have some commentary for people's Concepts, if that means anything. I know I'm not one of the most active people around, but I've been involved in CAP since the end of Gen 4, so hopefully I'm able to provide some useful criticism. If I don't comment on your Concept, it only means I didn't have anything useful to say about it, not that I liked or disliked it.

Astounding Ability Actualization (Triple A)

Part of me feels like you just want to make three generically good Pokemon lol. However, I can see the reasoning behind the suggestion. To be blunt, Starter Pokemon suck, and the ones that don't suck usually have pretty powerful Abilities. I'm honestly not sure if we stand to learn that much from the idea, but I am interested in your question concerning how adding three really solid Pokemon to the metagame (as opposed to one, as per usual) will impact things. This is definitely a strong contender in my mind.

Par for the Cores

I really like this one. Designing three Pokemon that are not only good, but that are designed to form a stable three-part core would be tricky, but would also open up interesting opportunities for us down the road, in terms of questions like "Should CAP25f's Ability be tailored around CAP25w/g", and so on. My only concern is that we might make Pokemon that are so specialized they only function well with each other, but I'm confidant we can avoid that situation. And if not, at least we'll learn something about forming very strong, stable cores out of otherwise unappealing Pokemon lol.

Super Hax

I have to have side with the majority, here. As much as I can enjoy para-flinching an enemy into submission, I'm just not sure it's something we need to make into a CAP. Would it be nice if mechanics like flinch, or critical hits, or whatever else were used more? Yeah, I'd like to see that. But, the nature of a competitive environment means people prefer skill over luck in most situations, and losing to an opponent who's luckier than you rather than being more skilled than you just causes resentment. If we were making fakemon just for the lols, I'd be all over this idea, but for a CAP I'm not convinced.

The Bigger They Are

I'm honestly not sure how we'd set about doing this, but I feel like it could be an interesting and informative Concept if we pull it off. Typically, Pokemon battles are made by either weakening or avoiding your opponent's heavy hitters; using a Pokemon's own strength against it would take some doing, but I do think we can learn a lot about non-standard strategies (my favorite kind), if nothing else.

Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors

This could be interesting if we consciously choose to reverse the usual triangle, such that CAP25f counters CAP25w, w counters g and g counters f, but even then I'm not sure if we'd actually learn anything. Even if they aren't "the best" counters to each other, these Pokemon will very likely counter one another to some extent even if we don't do anything special. That being said, I do think you might be on to something. Learning more about how countering works/what the most effective way to counter is could be very informative. Typically, countering a 'Mon means throwing something that resists it at it, or throwing something with SE moves in, but are there other ways to counter a Pokemon? In my opinion, that's the more interesting/informative question, and that what I lean towards if I were you. It might be to late to redefine your Concept for this CAP, but I definitely think you have something with a lot of potential for the future.

Speed Demons

I really like this idea, even if it is a tamer version of reachzero's Framework suggestion lol. We all know that speed is vital in Pokemon, but feel like maybe people take that idea for granted. It's not as simple as just having a higher Speed stat, and I think having three different Pokemon allows us to really examine what the best forms of speed control are. Is having higher base Speed preferable, or is a boosting item ideal? Maybe it's an Ability that works best, or simply using a Speed boosting Move. All are viable methods, but I think it could be worth while to learn if one is better than the others.

--

Again, if I didn't comment on your Concept, it means I didn't have anything useful to say about it. I don't like making empty comments that don't advance the conversation, so I'm not going to. Hopefully, my thoughts were informative. I may comment on some more Concepts later on.

 

[gibygiby]

I missed the first round of comments... oh well.

Name: Set Customization

Description:
A series of mons that can each customize their nature and EV’s (as well as item and move choice) to take on different sets such as fast sweeper, tank and wall breaker for example.

Justification:
Having a Pokémon that can take on different roles increases its versatility and helps when putting as a team slot. It also enables some customization when selecting these CAP’s and creates some mind games when an opponent tries to figure out which set.
Archetype: Each of these CAP’s will have different archetypes they fill depending on the chosen set, with each CAP having an option of different sets.

Questions to be Answered:

• What kinds of sets can we have a single CAP take on while still being viable?
• What sets complement the Fire/Water/Grass typing that these CAP’s have?
• How do all of the possible factors (ability, typing, move coverage, and stats/EV distribution) affect versatility in a Pokémon and what different sets it can be?
• How does having multiple viable sets on a Pokémon affect how people play against it?
• How would these CAP’s encourage scenarios where it doesn’t want to run one single “best set”?
• How will these CAP’s speed be defined, given that it may want different EV spreads for speed?
• How will these CAP’s checks be defined since they can each run multiple sets?

Explanation:
The main interest of this concept is customization thanks to the option of running different sets. The most obvious examples include Landorus-T who can run Defensive, Scarf or Z-Move setup sweeper sets, and Magearna who can run Defensive, Shift Gear, Trick Room and even Choice Specs (even though not common) sets. Some examples about how sets can be varied:

• Positive speed nature to out speed threats or neutral speed to invest elsewhere like offense at the cost of being out speed by certain threats
• Positive Attack/Special Attack nature to become a stronger breaker and change 3hkos into 2hkos for example, or neutral Attack/Special Attack nature to invest elsewhere like speed
• Either running a choice scarf to be a revenge killer or a life orb to be a breaker
• Either a defensive/tank set with Leftovers/Assault Vest and defensive EV investment or an offensive set with Life Orb and offensive investment
• Either Physical or Special sets
• Lure sets with uncommon coverage moves versus other move options like recovery or setup

An additional note that wide move pools enable numerous sets such as Tapu Koko’s Dual Screens or Defogs sets in addition to its offensive sets. This would greatly help when creating multiple sets for these CAP’s.

 

[Mx]

I'd like to share my thoughts on some of the other submitted concepts:

Par For The Cores: While CAP has a terrible historial with partner-based concepts, I think that this one might actually work, as we would be building the core from scratch, instead of having to depend on previously established Pokemon. I also really like that this concept takes advantage of our framework in a way that wouldn't be possible on a regular CAP. The only problem I have with this concept is that this might prove to be too much of a challenge, as the three starters would need to be coordinated with extreme precision, while making sure that none of them are outclassed by pre-existing mons on their respective roles.

Hazard, Examined Three ways: This is a great concept, as exploring hazards can be an interesting idea, with many possible approaches. I also like the fact that we can make the starters balance each other, so in the end hazard remain viable, but not too overwhelming. If I had to nitpick something, it would be that I would never focus on abusing hazards, because literally all Pokemon appreciate them, in some way or another.

Speed Demons: No comments really, this is just another very solid concept, as speed is one of the most important aspects of any Pokemon.

Astounding Ability Actualization (Triple A): Both concepts about underused abilities are simple and effective, but I slightly prefer this version, because of how it puts emphasis on the coordination between movepool and abilities, something that I think is worth looking into.

Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming: I like this idea in theory, as pinch abilities offer interesting options to explore, and combine well with pinch berries, another underused mechanic. However, I worry that this concept might affect the ability stage too much, as having almost any remotely good hidden ability would mean risking the whole concept.

Renewal: While I know that this is not necessarily a partner concept, but it still has most of the problems associated with those. The idea of making unviable mons viable again simply doesn't work in practice, as introducing new mons into the meta can only push the power creep forward, making already mediocre mons even more obsolete. The only way is see to accomplish this would be by creating a mon that can only be checked by using a low-tier mon, which would be extremely broken, as it would mean that this new threat has no good checks in the current meta, otherwise, you wouldn't need to search in the lower tiers for answers to it.

Welcome To The Matrix: Of the field conditions mentioned, I think only Gravity is worth exploring, because Trick Room is a very viable archetype, I don't really buy that it has low team variability (at least when compared with other archetypes like Rain and Aurora Veil), and it certainly doesn't need more support. Wonder/Magic Room on the other hand are just gimmicks, and I don't think its possible to ever make them truly viable. Even the example provided in the explanation is not very good, as M-Alakazam would much rather use Knock Off + Psyshock to deal with Chansey, as this has the advantage of permanently crippling her or any other special wall that might attempt to switch in.

These Shackles Make me Mortal: I didn't like this concept last time, and the framework we are working with only exacerbates its problems, as we have to work with limited stats, and only one ability slot, so there are not many ways that we can give these CAPs "overwhelming strengths".

Make Weather Great Again: This is just the same concept as our last project. While there are other submission that are similar to past concepts, at least those use ideas that haven't been explored in a while. This instead is just a reprise of something that has been done mere months ago, so I see no reason to pursue this concept again at this moment.

Typed Together: I just don't think this is a very good idea. Not only does it suffer from the same issues as past partner concepts, but shared type cores are very one dimensional, as you can only take the offensive route if you want to have a chance, as it make little to no sense to use these kind of core defensive. Besides these usually exist for very specific typings, and I don't think this it is feasible to do for three starters.

Ultimate-Rock Paper Scissors: I don't like this concept because it essentially forces us to have a hard counter before the project even begins, and that will just limit the options we can pick later in the process. For example, because of Hidden Power availability, we simply cannot allow typings with x4 weaknesses, or the starter that we are supposed to counter will simply be able to beat us by using that move. We could theoretically fix this on the abilities stage, but then we would be basically forced to pick an immunity to patch it up.

Super-Hax: Similarly to the other commentators, I dislike this concept on principle, because hax is inherently uncompetitive, and not something we should be messing with.

 

[Okamu]

Welcome To The Matrix: Of the field conditions mentioned, I think only Gravity is worth exploring, because Trick Room is a very viable archetype, I don't really buy that it has low team variability (at least when compared with other archetypes like Rain and Aurora Veil), and it certainly doesn't need more support. Wonder/Magic Room on the other hand are just gimmicks, and I don't think its possible to ever make them truly viable. Even the example provided in the explanation is not very good, as M-Alakazam would much rather use Knock Off + Psyshock to deal with Chansey, as this has the advantage of permanently crippling her or any other special wall that might attempt to switch in.

I mean, this is all fair. I can't really make any changes based on this though, since the issue you have is with the core of the concept itself. What I would say though is I wasn't suggesting Alakazam's usage of Magic Rom as being outstanding, I was simply mentioning the one, rare case in which I'd heard it was actually used. I would also argue that the point of considering this concept is to make Magic/Wonder Room not gimmicks by giving them 'mons that can effectively use them; for example, if there were no slow but powerful 'mons in the game, Trick Room would be seen as a gimmick since nothing could use it. But if you consider it impossible... I mean, that's your personal opinion, so there's nothing I can really say there. If some more feedback comes in on not liking Trick Room, or just the four selected effects in general, I'll probably change it up a bit, but for now I'm going to leave it as is. Still, I appreciate the critique.

Edit: This, combined with reach's is plenty to let me know about Trick Room. I'm booting it off the concept spread.

 

[Rifou88]

Name : original item user

Description : pokemon that use an unseen item or a common item in an original way.

Justification: this is an actualization concept. They are many items that have a strategic potential but that are nearly never seen in the CAP metagame because they don’t have any good users. This concept aims to diversify the use of items in the current metagame by creating good users for those unseen items or by creating pokemons that would use an item in an unseen way.

Questions to be answered:

• Which items are worth being added to the metagame?
• Which new mechanics those items will bring?
• why are those items unseen in the current metagame?
• How can a pokemon make good use of one of those items?
• Is it possible to make this item viable on a pokemon or will the common items such as the 3 choice or the leftover always be better?
• How will those items impact the role and/or the counter of the 3 CAP25?

Explanation: While some items are seen in nearly every teams, such as the scarf or the leftover, other, that could be viable, are very uncommon, like the metronome, the eject button, the weakness policy or the red card. They are some users for each of those items, which prove that they can be used, but they are very rare. For example, mamoswine can use the metronome, but it is nearly only used as a lead with the focus slash. The eject button can be used on a partner of magneton in UU to trap scizor on the U-turn, but it is never used in the CAP tier. The weakness policy can be used on dragonite but the flyinium Z is better and dragonite itself is uncommon. Mimikyu can use the red card but this mon is not very common and prefers other items, like Z-moves or the life orb. This is not an exhaustive list of original items that could be viable and they are other possiblities,like the items that boost the attack of one type by 1.2 (the magnet, the twisted spoon and the earth plate can be used by koko, lele and ladorus/zygard, but other are never used in the CAP meta, like the charcoal or the black glasses), the seeds (that are used only by hawlucha, which is less present in CAP than in OU), the shell bell, the big roots, etc.

On the other hand, some items have a plethora of possible uses but are all the time used in the same way. The best example of this are the Z-moves, which are nearly always used offensively (except the normalium Z that is used with celebrate, splash, happy hour, belly drum and conversion) but that could be effectively used with some non-offensive move. For example, manaphy has shown that the waterinium Z can be used with rain dance, while kartana is a good user of tailwind + flyinium-Z. However manaphy is only effective in veil offense and Z-tailwind is considered as gimmick and nearly never played.

Berries can also be used in an unusual way thanks to moves such as natural gift or belch, as breloom has shown when he was UU with his bluck berry set that was used with natural gift to pass amoongus and scizor. They are also a lot of berries that are not used but that could be viable, such as the lepa berry, the lum berry (i don't think that the lum berry is used any more in CAP, tell me if I'm wrong) and the salac berry (which can be used by unviable pokemon like kommo-o and terrakion). The berries that reduce the damage of a super effective attack are also viable, but only the shuca, the chople and the yache are used.

They are a lot of items that could be chosen and I didn’t mentioned them all, so they are enough possibility to create 3 different pokemons that each uses a different item and I think that this concept can bring new interesting mechanics in the meta.

 

[hawk1113]

As a newcomer and a bit of an outsider, I wanted to offer my feedback. I'm just cruising down the list, and will try to do more later!

Set Down: This is a good question, but we have several Pokemon occupying this niche and my initial read is that I'm not sure we'd get good discussion trying to do three Pokemon who do this same role. The challenge of making Pokemon that are competitive with Clefable and Argonaught AND sufficiently different from and competitive with each other sounds like too much. This is a good concept but feels like the wrong time; your submission might want to be more specific about why or how having Three CAPs to examine these questions is a good idea.

Astounding Ability Actualization (Triple A): This is one of the most exciting suggestion in the thread, largely because it covers so many others (potentially); we can examine "Status" or "Hax" using abilities like Serene Grace or Corrosion, or we can examine Leads with Disguise or Multiscale, or "Unusual Counters" with a Galvanize fire pokemon, and so on and so forth. It also fits nicely with the idea of what starters are supposed to be, and makes sure we aren't tempted to "break the formula" and give these bad boys a BST of 550+ or three+ competitive abilities. My concern is the details and definitions. For example, you mention Prankster in your "for instance" and that worries me, as Prankster is an ability we well understand the competitive merits of, that has reasonable distribution, and that is easily optimized and often unfun. That's not necessarily bad, as you aren't specifically looking to do neglected abilities like with Cyclohm, but if we aren't looking to specifically exploit "synergystic but rare' abilities I would think by normal process we'd be looking to use a powerful ability to define our Pokemon. Basically, if I worry about anything I worry this is too broad and too generically good. While your initial examples are good, I'd like a better sense of what abilities are and aren't on the table - is Protean? Is Wonder Guard? Those are both abilities we traditionally don't discuss. I don't know if you can do that in Concept, but perhaps be more explicit about it in Questions.

Death to the King: As noted, we typically do this anyway as part of CAP process; I can't imagine that "how does CAPw, CAPf, and especially CAPg deal with Tomohawk?" isn't going to come up no matter what concept we choose. After all those questions were primary to Jumbao.

Par for the Cores: I like this a lot, and if ever we were going to design a true core it would be now, when we have full control over all three members. I have lurked long enough to know that Cores rarely pan out, and we often end up with the chosen pokemon's viability dragging down its partners (Voodoom) or we end up having to design something so powerful it just ends up being generically used since the partners are deadweight (Volkaken). But here, we have a unique chance to actually build a core, and it seems fitting to do so for our first Trio project.

Renewal: See above for why I don't love this.

Once More, With Feeling!: I think we'll get better Pokemon from Triple A, but I almost like this more. It taps into a similar vein to me, but in a more focused way. It's much better now that it isn't targeting CAPs. It's close but if I were to vote right now, this would be my vote. It is broad enough to generate three very different Pokemon, restrictive enough to force us to be creative, and interesting enough to generate a better understanding of Pokemon abilities.

Role Compression Madness: Personal opinion; Role Compression is not something I love as I think it limits overall Pokemon viability in favor of making a few Pokemon more versatile and unpredictable. I guess a point in its favor is that it seems to me as an outsider that this tends to happen automatically during CAP to make sure we aren't creating a one-trick pony, often to the detriment of the overall concept. For example, watching replays Jumbao was supposed to be the chosen savior of Sun and Sand teams, but access to Wish makes it just a really good cleric. While its often partnered with a fire type to take advantage of the Sun, I've seen very few dedicated weather teams with it; in making sure it had a role other than "sun setter" we turned its primary concept into a gimmick. By making it our goal to have multiple roles, at least there's a 0% chance we miss the mark on our concept!

Super Hax: I like the way you think, but this is a losing battle. In a competitive sense, introducing more RNG (or rather, the ability to inflict more RNG on your opponent) is a non-starter as it makes the game less competitive and more about dice. I'm also not convinced there is enough "HAX" to make three different Pokemon that use this in different ways - "Fast CAPf with Fire Fang versus Fast CAPw with Waterfall" isn't going to feel groundbreaking or fun. Fortunately for you there are a few other concepts above to try to vote for and sneak some haxy-abilities into later ;).

The Bigger They Are: On its face I like this concept. I come from Magic: The Gathering, where a whole style of multiplayer deck is "Aikkido" - using cards that punish excess and reflect attacks back, and it's something I love. What I'm a little perplexed on is how, precisely, we can translate this to Pokemon beyond the extremely obvious ways listed. Maybe there's good discussion there, but maybe there isn't, and my gut is that the design space isn't deep enough to explore three Pokemon even with different directions. I think the questions are good though, and I'll be thinking deeply about this concept as we get closer to voting.

Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors: I agree that we'll do this naturally, and while making a Core appeals to me making three Pokemon that counter each other feels like it will derail or bog down the process and prevent clear discussion on making these Pokemon also function in the greater CAP metagame.

Typed Together: I have the same concerns on cores here that I always do, but I also think this is inherently tough to do for a trio because our three types aren't created equally. Water is an amazing defensive typing with a weather that can tie it together. Fire is an amazing offensive typing with a crippling defensive quality, but also at least has weather. Grass, historically, struggles as it is somewhat poor offensively and defensively and the weather it can abuse also kills it. I guess a question is, does this de facto become a Weather/Terrain CAP? Do you foresee or want that?

Undiscovered Potential: I have the same loves and concerns for this as I do "Triple A"; it is inherently exciting and fun to try to "break" abilities that are high potential and low usage, but the definitions leave me worried we'll get stuck arguing semantics, making unviable Pokemon, or just using something obviously and generically powerful but not terribly interesting. Your mention of Parental Bond specifically red flags those concerns.

Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming: I want this to work, but have no idea if it can. One problem that comes to mind is that most of the ways I would think of to make sure a Pokemon can actually use a "in a pinch" ability/berry are themselves abilities. If ever there was a CAP to do this it's now, were tradition very nearly compels us to make sure Overgrow/Blaze/Torrent are on the ability list, but to be honest I'm not sure the payoff is worth the effort or that there are enough ways in the game as it exists now to get there. This also makes our "ability" phase nonexistant; as others are noted it locks in one ability and forces the other to either be just another "In a pinch" ability, or to be a flavor ability to make sure we use these Pokemon correctly. Currently "In a Pinch" abilities are so inconsistent that I'm willing to use almost anything, even borderline flavor abilities like Magician, over them, so we'd need to be in the territory of stuff like Damp to get me to consider it in a vacuum.

 

[david0895]

Undiscovered Potential: I have the same loves and concerns for this as I do "Triple A"; it is inherently exciting and fun to try to "break" abilities that are high potential and low usage, but the definitions leave me worried we'll get stuck arguing semantics, making unviable Pokemon, or just using something obviously and generically powerful but not terribly interesting. Your mention of Parental Bond specifically red flags those concerns.

While I understand your concerns, I want to explain that these are only some examples that came in my mind, we don't necessarly need to put in the final product. This can also be applied for the comment to the Deck's concept
Also I've got the problem about the definition of "good", so I changed the word into "strong"

 

[reachzero]

Reading through the submissions so far, I'd like to divide them into a few different categories.

Probably Unviable as Written
Par for the Cores: I share GMars concern that building a three Pokemon core from scratch runs a huge risk of pigeonholing each one into working with the other two--and since three Pokemon is half a team, we would run the risk of creating essentially theme teams in which the theme is "CAP 25". Moreover, I do not relish the idea of exploring the question of "How do Pokemon work well together? What makes Pokemon good partners?", since we have already had multiple entire processes devoted to exactly this question. I have serious doubts about this concept on both the competitive and conceptual levels, and that's hard to overcome.

Renewal: Voodoom and Volkraken are notorious in the CAP community for being partner concepts that failed conceptually (even though Volkraken is very strong competitively), and the #1 reason why is that the partner chosen wasn't strong enough competitively to succeed. This concept is therefore already explored in my opinion, and likely to fail competitively as well. I'd rather not do this.

Undiscovered Potential: This is essentially Cyclohm's concept, which isn't necessarily bad, except that as written this concept has less direction than Deck Knight's Triple A or Mr Holiday's Once More, With Feeling!, which are similar in their focus.

These Shackles Make Me Mortal: This isn't a bad concept, per se, but building it with starters would make it crazy--the limitations of being starters mean we don't have a lot of leeway for where to put the godlike attributes that the concept requires, and assuming we could add enough power, this concept entails a good deal of risk, which is acceptable when building one Pokemon but much shakier when building three Pokemon--three chances to be too strong or too weak.

Make Weather Great Again: ...Is this trolling? We just made Jumbao.

Set Customization: I see the point of this concept. Versatility is fun, and in a more ordinary CAP with flexible stats and movepool, I'd be interested in exploring what qualities make a given Pokemon more versatile and able to play different roles. However, the starter limitations demand focus stats and one competitive ability, which militate heavily against this concept. I think this concept's time has not yet come.

Original Item User: I like this idea and I want it to work. The examples you listed are interesting and unique, but the short list of items that could actually be worth exploring is very short indeed, and probably too shallow to find enough to keep a project with three distinct starters going. I think this concept would work better for a normal project that for one with this framework.

Viable, Needs Clarification or Tweaking
Set-Down: This concept rides a lot of the definition of "set-up": if it just means stat boosts, the concept is overkill because of how well Tomohawk and Arghonaut already handle stat boosters. If it includes things like Substitute and hazards (the Justification mentions hazards), that is more interesting, but I'd still like to see some compelling reason why we should do this, how the metagame would benefit from it, or what new territory this would explore. I feel that between Tomohawk and Colossoil, this has already largely been explored.

Super Hax: I feel that as written, you see your concept as being about luck, and consequently most other commentators have (justifiably) slammed it. Luck is pretty much the antithesis of competitive play, and CAP is a competitive project. I feel, however, that you have undersold your concept inasmuch as it is an exploration of the potential (and limitations) of secondary effects--almost every example you gave had to do with secondary effects, and CAP has inherent checks against secondary effects (Colossoil and Cyclohm most notably) that would be interesting to test such a project against. I think there is potential here, but as written it makes me, and most other competitive players, uncomfortable.

Ultimate Rock-Paper-Scissors: When I first read the description I thought this would be boring, but the Justification and Questions to be Answered sold me on the viability of this concept. As an exploration of the word "counter" and how counters work, I love this. My main remaining concern is for the process: the concept gives us very little idea as to where to start, and each Pokemon will require a bit of a secondary "concept" to get off the ground; the concept says relatively little about how each Pokemon should relate to every non-CAP 25 Pokemon in the metagame. Still very well done, especially for a simple idea, just give it a little more direction and it could be a really good concept.

Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming: There is no question that choosing this concept would mean good and interesting discussion. Using Pinch elements (abilities and/or berries) would work very differently than most other Pokemon do, and examining the available strategies is appealing to me. I am a little shaky, however, on whether we can really make this concept work with three viable Pokemon within the limits of a starter project. I like this in terms of the process, but the possibility of competitive failure is very real, we would be walking on a thin tight rope.

Status Update: I'm interested in the role of status in the metagame, so I think there is some potential here, but I think it would be wise to focus the concept a little more--choose between the "traditional" statuses of Burn/Paralysis/Poison and the less explored but riskier volatile statuses. As written, the concept could work, but really needs more direction to guide discussion.

Sides of the Same Coin: I like the way this concept takes advantage of our framework to really explore the depths of a specific ability. I dislike the relatively narrow scope of one ability for the purpose of discussion. Competitively, I think this would be fascinating. Conceptually, I worry that we would pin down most of the interesting points early in concept assessment.

Welcome to the Matrix: "One of these things is not like the others." Gravity, Magic Room and Wonder Room are unexplored, and make me curious. Even if we fail competitively (a real risk), there is no question that we would have interesting discussion and a unique process. Trick Room doesn't belong in this concept, in my opinion, as its benefits and drawbacks are already very well-documented in CAP. I have my competitive doubts about whether Magic Room and Wonder Room (Gravity is stronger) can be competitively viable in CAP, but I'd be interested in finding out. A hard concept, to be certain, but also a very adventurous one, well-suited to the nature of CAP as a project.

Hazards, Examined Three Ways: This concept is perfectly viable, clear and focused. I have to admit, however, that I find it almost completely unexciting. CAP is absolutely glutted with both quality hazard setting (Tomohawk, Ferrothorn, Greninja, Syclant...) and removal (Tomohawk, Colossoil, Landorus-T, Zapdos, Tornadus-T...), so I think a great deal of this is already known and available--the exception is in the field of keeping hazards up, which is indeed largely unexplored, but probably not enough to prop up the discussion for this whole project.

The Many Aspects of Momentum: This might go over better with me if I hadn't TLed Tomohawk. The conceptual discussion of momentum at that time was amazing, but I worry in retrospect that competitively the idea of "momentum" forces us to walk a very fine line indeed: the difference between "momentum" and "winning" is real, but at times murky.

Awesome as Written
Astounding Ability Actualization (Triple A): This explains clearly why we should do it, which I like. From a competitive standpoint, I am confident this concept would give us good, viable results. From a process standpoint, I feel like almost all the interesting discussion would come in the ability phase--I worry a little that once we have chosen the abilities in question, the rest of our project will almost write itself. This is still a solid, coherent concept.

Death to the King!: I like this concept a lot, because it works well on both the metagame level and the conceptual level--it not only pushes us to identify what the top metagame threats are and how to deal with them, but it also encourages us to consider what the consequences of doing so is. Conceptually, this concept (as I read it) is all about providing counterplay for Pokemon that currently lack consistent counterplay, and that is an idea very much worth exploring, in my opinion. Just the idea of discussing "what makes a threat a top metagame threat?" excites me about this concept.

Once More, with Feeling!: What I like about this concept is that it almost guarantees we will have an interesting process: it means identifying which ideas were good ones brought down by bad execution, and discussing how to do better. That means that whether we succeed or fail competitively, we will have unquestionably done something new. We won't end up with a better or worse version of Heatran or Jumbao, but with something the competitive metagame does not already have. That, to me, is a very attractive idea.

Role Compression Madness: It's not exactly a secret that I've wanted to explore the concept of role compression for a while (I mean, it's right there in your Explanation), and having three Pokemon(!) with which to do it would let us look at that issue from multiple angles, which is really nice. Competitively, I feel this would be a good project for exploring role compression, inasmuch as the inherent limits of these three Pokemon being starters helps to ensure that "role compression" won't mean "insanely powerful".

The Bigger They Are: I like how this concept interacts with the inherent limits of CAP 25 being a starter project--much of their performance deriving from the power of their opponent would be good design, and I feel there are just enough elements available to us to give us options for making this interesting. Much like Once More, with Feeling!, I feel that this has the advantage of exploring new territory for us conceptually--we have not often discussed how the most optimal features of a Pokemon can, at times, work against them.

Typed Together: Type spam has been with us for quite a while, so it's almost a surprise it has taken this long for us to get a concept based around it! This concept is especially attractive because we are building three Pokemon, and all the more so because Fire/Water/Grass do not neatly align with the three Tapus that are the most strongly associated with existing type spam. My only real concern is that Fire spam makes me a little nervous competitively coming right on the heels of Drought Jumbao.

Speed Demons: Let me start by saying I find the name of this concept misleading. Disregarding my opinion of demons in general, I feel that the name implies that speed is the crux of the concept, where the actual issue is moving first, a much more complex (and fascinating) concept. I have wanted to see a concept involving the issue of moving first for literally years, and it boggles my mind that we have never picked one for a project before. I consider this a strong contender.

Fearless Firsts: I actually like this concept for several reasons. Leads are not as obsolete in the team preview era as they are sometimes made out to be, and yet the idea is never been explored in CAP. I very much like the idea of investigating how we pick a Pokemon to be used first in team preview, and how these CAPs could interact with that process. "Lead" is also a fairly specialized role, which is well suitable for the starter limitations this framework entrusts us with. I also like how the Fire/Water/Grass nature of this project interacts with the rock/paper/scissors nature of team matchups, in the early game especially.

Crystal Ball: We actually already know quite a bit about some uses of Z status, based especially on Necturna, but the fact that this is usually considered a marginally viable strategy in CAP actually makes it a bit more appealing--it is possible to do this right? How could a Z Status user realistically account for Tomohawk? I think this would work better in a single Pokemon project than in this one, but it remains a good concept.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

Typed Together: I have the same concerns on cores here that I always do, but I also think this is inherently tough to do for a trio because our three types aren't created equally. Water is an amazing defensive typing with a weather that can tie it together. Fire is an amazing offensive typing with a crippling defensive quality, but also at least has weather. Grass, historically, struggles as it is somewhat poor offensively and defensively and the weather it can abuse also kills it. I guess a question is, does this de facto become a Weather/Terrain CAP? Do you foresee or want that?

I completely own the fact that this could very much end up like the rest of the partner concepts, and that is something I just cannot avoid with my base idea, but I still think that this can turn out to be a very successful concept, even with the partner concept stigma. As for your point on the starter typing, each of these Pokemon are open to having a secondary typing, so that means they don't have to specifically use something like Grass+Jumbao. Grass could gain something like a Flying typing, which could let it be in cores with Tomohawk and Landorus-T perhaps. I also don't understand where you went with weather, as my concept had nothing to do with weather whatsoever and while it could be a possible route, it wasn't part of the base concept and it feels you somehow got that idea into your thinking somehow.

 

[Granny Pie]

Death to the King!: I like this concept a lot, because it works well on both the metagame level and the conceptual level--it not only pushes us to identify what the top metagame threats are and how to deal with them, but it also encourages us to consider what the consequences of doing so is. Conceptually, this concept (as I read it) is all about providing counterplay for Pokemon that currently lack consistent counterplay, and that is an idea very much worth exploring, in my opinion. Just the idea of discussing "what makes a threat a top metagame threat?" excites me about this concept.

Thanks, reach! I like how you put it better than I did, so I'll reword my submission to more accurately showcase the counterplay aspect.

 

[hawk1113]

I completely own the fact that this could very much end up like the rest of the partner concepts, and that is something I just cannot avoid with my base idea, but I still think that this can turn out to be a very successful concept, even with the partner concept stigma. As for your point on the starter typing, each of these Pokemon are open to having a secondary typing, so that means they don't have to specifically use something like Grass+Jumbao. Grass could gain something like a Flying typing, which could let it be in cores with Tomohawk and Landorus-T perhaps. I also don't understand where you went with weather, as my concept had nothing to do with weather whatsoever and while it could be a possible route, it wasn't part of the base concept and it feels you somehow got that idea into your thinking somehow.

My apologies as with Weather, I sort of tunnel visioned. In my mind the thing that often ties together a typing is abusing a Terrain or Weather (especially this gen with regards to the Tapus), and in this case that's an especially easy button to think of with a F/W/G trio. Why run two fire types that will have many of the same weaknesses unless you're hoping to melt the world with Sun? Why run multiple grass types, with all their myriad and awful drawbacks, unless it's for a Grassy Terrain or Sun team? With only six slots for Pokemon and hundreds of viable options to choose from, the whole rock-paper-scissors element of the game strongly discourages overloading on a core of one typing and it is the synergy of terrain and weather that help make up for the sacrifices made to run multiple Pokemon of the same type. That's not to say we historically have never seen cores form around a typing that AREN'T abusing weather or terrain (Birdspam, DragMag) but those feel like exceptions to the rule, often incidental due to the insane BST or abilities of Pokemon of those types.

That's absolutely me inferring and failing to be creative though, so I retract the concern. As reachzero pointed out, there may be something exciting here in that we aren't neatly aligned to take advantage of Electric or Psychic terrain, and may have to ask ourselves how to synergize types without those obvious buttons.

 

[Mx]

Role Compression Madness: Personal opinion; Role Compression is not something I love as I think it limits overall Pokemon viability in favor of making a few Pokemon more versatile and unpredictable. I guess a point in its favor is that it seems to me as an outsider that this tends to happen automatically during CAP to make sure we aren't creating a one-trick pony, often to the detriment of the overall concept.

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by "limits overall Pokemon viability". If by that you meant that role compression makes the metagame more centralized, I think you are wrong, because having a mon able to accomplish multiple roles into just one team slot puts a lot less pressure on the rest of the team, meaning that you can choose your teammates more freely, without having to always depend on the same mons if you want an optimized team. Sure, the final products will probably outclass a few pre-existing mons, but that will always happen, and I think that in the end, if this concept succeeds, it will actually lead to a significantly more diverse metagame.

 

[Rifou88]

Original Item User: I like this idea and I want it to work. The examples you listed are interesting and unique, but the short list of items that could actually be worth exploring is very short indeed, and probably too shallow to find enough to keep a project with three distinct starters going. I think this concept would work better for a normal project that for one with this framework.

Thank you for your feedback!

The list of items that I made only listed some examples and they are other possiblities, so I made that a bit clearer. I also devlopped the berry part of my explanation because it was a bit short.
I'm conviced that they are far enough possible items to make at least 3 pokemon of that concept (I listed approximativly 13 possible items in the explanation of the concept and I certainly didn't think to all the possiblities) and the important point is that each of the 3 pokemons are going to be very different, even if they have the same concept.

Please tell me if there is anything else that I can do to exit that "probably unviable as written" category!

 

[The Amazing Wafer]

(I'm new here, so if it sounds terrible, that's probably why)

• Name - Weather Wars Part 2: Electric Boogaloo
• Description - A trio of Pokemon whose weather abilities support dangerous offensive weather based teams.
• Justification - I'd be stupid to say something like, "hey, remember the BW weather wars? What if we had that again?" but that's pretty much the concept: Three Pokemon who would drastically shift the meta with their weather-setting capabilities. I am well aware that Jumbao, the previous CAP, was also weather-focused, and Hardrocknerd's concept is somewhat similar to mine. However, the difference between this idea and the priors is that 1), unlike Jumbao, these Pokemon would be more focused on setting up their weather and thus switching out with dangerous Swift Swim / Chlorophyll / Sand Rush / Slush Rush sweepers, and are able to reliably switch back in if need be, rather than operate as the defensive backbone that fixes sand's viability, and 2) Hardrocknerd's concept is more broad - This concept is solely focused on creating "weather setters," - think of Pokemon like Pelipper- the Pokemon would be focused on setting (and keeping) up it's weather, not hazards or terrain.
• Questions to be answered:
  • What makes a good weather-setter?
  • How greatly would weather sway the metagame?
  • Which Pokemon could greatly benefit from the support these Pokemon would bring?
  • How would a weather-focused trio of Pokemon would balance out? How would their counters operate?
    • Explanation - Weather is a very powerful force - as shown by BW (I keep bringing this up, but these Pokemon are pretty much three Politoads) and the current Ubers metagame. With the release of Jumbao, who's main focus is to support sand's viability, it seems that weather is going to affect the CAP metagame, one way or another. What better way to integrate weather to CAP than with a trio of starters? Each of the starter types, Grass, Fire, and Water, preformes extremely well in weather, so powerful that Swift Swim and Drizzle were banned on the same team in BW. With that in mind, a trio of starters with weather-setting abilities would make for a wonderful addition to the current CAP metagame.

 

[Sereg]

• Name - Move Spammer Slammers
• Description - A set of Pokémon that each punish/discourage the use of a common move in the metagame.
• Justification - This is a Target concept. The target(s) in question is/are a common move(s) in the metagame. The idea is to make it a little harder to slap those moves on a set and to spam them with little consequence. This would mean that players would have to think twice before using the move against an opponent, or risk being punished for their carelessness. This adds a bit more strategy to the metagame and encourages more diversity in moves used both within and between matches.
• Questions To Be Answered -
  • What makes some moves safer to use than others?
  • What encourages/discourages the use of certain moves?
  • How does your opponent’s team affect which moves you should use?
  • Which Pokémon benefit from/are hurt by certain moves becoming less spammable?
  • Which moves rise to prominence when other moves become harder to use?
• Explanation - The fact that we are doing three mon makes this a perfect time for this concept, s we can target three different common moves (or the same move three ways, to really affect its use a lot, if we prefer). Certain moves are really popular due to how useful they are, and making them harder to use encourages diversity and more strategic choices, avoiding thoughtless spamming. If we were to choose, say, Knock Off, we could make a Dark-resisting mon with Unburden, for example. If we choose U-Turn, we could give the mon Justified. (These are examples. In the former case, Justified, Rattled or Sticky Hold may also work, and in the latter case, a contact punishing ability may work too, for example.) Stats can also affect this, including bias in the correct defence, a speed tier/offensive stat that appreciates a boost from an ability that will activate from the move, a low physical attack should we target Foul Play etc.

 

[faithviolet]

Ultimate-Rock Paper Scissors: I don't like this concept because it essentially forces us to have a hard counter before the project even begins, and that will just limit the options we can pick later in the process. For example, because of Hidden Power availability, we simply cannot allow typings with x4 weaknesses, or the starter that we are supposed to counter will simply be able to beat us by using that move. We could theoretically fix this on the abilities stage, but then we would be basically forced to pick an immunity to patch it up.

This is where it's useful to distinguish between different types of counters. It could be that e.g. a grass/dark starter is not a full counter to the water starter because it could pick up HP Bug, which might be able to 2HKO it, but running HP bug would be a massive concession, either because it has bad special attack or it just needs the moveslots for more important coverage.

The option limitation is something that exists for most concepts, I'd say. A hazard remover is not likely to be weak to SR.

 

[Scizivire]

• Name - A Touchy Subject
  
• Description - This set of Pokémon explores the various aspects of contact moves and abilities.
  
• Justification - This concept would probably mostly fit within the Actualization category. We can learn what contact can do both for and against your team in various ways. Currently, there's three contact abilities that stand out in the metagame, those being Rough Skin (on Garchomp), Tough Claws (on Mega Charizard X) and more recently, Static (on Zapdos, although more so in OU than in CAP). While those options are good, there are many more abilities that revolve around contact, and a plethora of contact moves to take advantage of. This allows for a variety of new, interesting strategies.
  
• Questions To Be Answered
  • Which contact moves and abilities are most useful in a match?
  • How would contact moves and abilities aid an offensive Pokémon?
  • How would contact moves and abilities aid a defensive Pokémon?
  • How can teams take advantage of the effects of a team member's contact move or ability?
• Explanation - For this concept, I feel like there's three different main things a Pokémon can do with contact. Those being: abusing, ignoring and punishing. Abusing would focus on offense, ignoring ignores contact at all (which may be useful if the Pokémon utilises a lot of contact moves), and punishing would use their opponent's contact moves to the user's advantage to cause disruption.

 

[Thathyena]

WIP
Name: Mix and Match
Description: Three Pokemon which are designed to synergize with their partners in different ways, creating two-Pokemon cores. This should create three CAP 25 cores which fulfill different roles in the metagame.
Justification: This is an Actualization project meant to inspire the use of two-Pokemon CAP 25 cores across different playstyles. The goal of the Mix and Match concept is to use what CAP has learned from previous “Perfect Pair” concepts to explore how Pokemon cores work and to build three Pokemon that can make a unique core with either of their partners.
Questions to be Answered:

• What type of cores exist in competitive play?
• How do we make Pokemon which successfully fit on more than one core?
• How do we ensure that the CAP 25 Pokemon are used mostly in their cores, rather than individually?
• How can we use what we have learned from previous “Perfect Pair” concepts to help CAP 25 succeed?

Explanation: This concept is inspired by NumberCruncher’s “Par for the Cores” suggestion, and is meant to expand upon the idea. I think the “Mix and Match” suggestion addresses the criticisms to NumberCruncher’s suggestion in several ways. While some people felt that a three Pokemon core was a constraint on teambuilding, the Mix and Match concept is actually quite freeing because the cores are smaller and will be able to fill different roles on different teams, allowing the CAP 25 mons to fit on a variety of playstyles. A side effect of these cores involving only two Pokemon is that they will be less complicated to design and execute, and with some role compression we should be able to make the CAP 25 mons work in more than one core (see the last paragraph for an example of this). And because the Mix and Match concept is exploring the different kinds of cores in Pokemon it avoids the problem of asking again “how do Pokemon synergize together?” (identified by ReachZero in his comments). Instead, we can use what we have already learned about Pokemon cores in CAP and apply that to building Pokemon that work in more than one core simultaneously.

There are numerous benefits to this concept. First, it takes advantage of the unique opportunity given to us in CAP 25 to create Pokemon cores. Second, it gives us an opportunity to successfully execute an old idea as suggested by “Once More, With Feeling!” and finally succeed on a “Perfect Pair” CAP. Third, it makes it less likely that one of the CAP 25 mons will be overshadowed by its partners because they will all be designed to complement each other and be used together. Fourth, it will give the CAP 25 mons the capability to fit on a variety of different playstyles, depending on the core. And perhaps most importantly, it makes it less likely that any of the CAP 25 mons will fail competitively. Building multiple synergies into CAP 25 means that even if one core doesn’t succeed competitively or one CAP 25 mon is overshadowed by an existing Pokemon in a certain core, it can still be viable in its other core. This makes it much less likely that any of the CAP 25 mons become unviable.

I know this is already a long post, but I just want to an example of how we might execute this concept before someone says “oh, but it’s too complicated, it’d never work”. There are many ways to identify cores beyond just the offensive/defensive dichotomy, such as: wallbreaker/sweeper, type spam, type synergy, pivot cores, etc, and there can be a lot of overlap between them. So we could imagine three pokemon as an example: A) one bulky mon that has a slow pivot for momentum, B) one that is bulky and breaks walls, and C) one that is a speedy sweeper/cleaner. From that we could get three cores: A&B, which forms a bulky defensive core; A&C, where A uses its slow pivot to bring C in safely; and B&C, where B wallbreaks to allow C to clean/sweep.

That’s just an example to show that this is doable, even without a lot of role compression (although this concept is also a great way to explore role compression as a side effect to the main concept). I think there are many different ways that we could execute this, and I look forward to seeing what people think!

 

[hawk1113]

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by "limits overall Pokemon viability". If by that you meant that role compression makes the metagame more centralized, I think you are wrong, because having a mon able to accomplish multiple roles into just one team slot puts a lot less pressure on the rest of the team, meaning that you can choose your teammates more freely, without having to always depend on the same mons if you want an optimized team. Sure, the final products will probably outclass a few pre-existing mons, but that will always happen, and I think that in the end, if this concept succeeds, it will actually lead to a significantly more diverse metagame.

That is more or less what I meant, and I did a bit of digging to see if my "feelings" could be backed up by any data. The short answer is "kinda not really", since usage stats for CAP are hard to figure out. I wanted to see if Kerfluffle altered usage stats in a noticeable way; I checked Kerfluffle because Pajantom felt a lot more focused in terms of its role and didn't do as much "role compression/unpredictability/many possible viable sets" and it's way too soon to check usage data on Jumbao. Kerfluffle was designed as a "Parting Shot Abuser" with a signature 3-attack Parting Shot Natural Cure set, but it also has access to Taunt and Wish for some role compression as a stallbreaker or Wish passer. The problem with that however is that Kerfluffle was released at the tail-end of Gen 6 and then Gen 7 happened, so usage data is also influenced by all the new powerful threats like the Tapus, Toxapex, Ash-Greninja, and Magearna.

Nevertheless, a quick spot check at the usage stats for 1500 battles in CAP vetween April 2017 (a few months post CAP 22) and April 2016 (several months pre-CAP 22) showed a few things of interest.

- Kerfluffle was in the top 10 for April 2017, in 10th place.
- The rest of the top 10 had changed veeeerrry little. Four of the top five were exactly the same even post Gen-7, with Colossoil, Tomohawk, Crucibelle, and Cawmodore claiming great usability and top spots even after the release of Sun and Moon.
- In the one year span, Pangoro (the one semi-viable user of Parting Shot pre-Kerfluffle) had plummeted over 100 places. That is not unexpected, as Kerfluffle was in many ways designed to outclass the slow Kung-Fu Panda and be the premier Fast Parting Shot Pivot of CAP's meta. We also of course got several powerful new fairy-type threats.
- What's more interesting is how several prominent taunters and particularly clerics had dropped - Clefable, Alomomola, Gliscor, Gengar, and Mew had all dropped, and Clefable, Gliscor, and Mew had dropped by a TON. For Taunters, that is somewhat biased as Tapu Koko can and often does run a taunting set as well, but no serious Wishers were introduced in the Gen 7 meta until we introduced Jumbao last month.
- While I was being fast and not thorough, only one Pokemon stood out as having GAINED viability from a prior generation (Pidgeot-M), having climbed into the top 100.

I guess my long rambling contention from all this would be - while it's possible role compression and power creep make old things new, it is infinitely more likely that teams that currently have to choose between two of Lando, Colossoil, and Tomohawk get to choose all three; I see role compression as more "the rich get richer" than "opening up the meta". It's not unbalanced, since all Pokemon must contend with 4 MSS, but we end up seeing the same 20 or so Pokemon with different and more unpredictable movesets.