CAP 34 - Part 1 - Concept Submissions

[Gaboswampert]

Final Submission

Name - Too Overused!

Description - This Pokemon's abilities and type combination cannot be from a Pokemon currently in the OU Viability Rankings, it must also use a notable move that no Pokemon in the OU Viability rankings carry.

Justification - Between all of the Pokemon in OverUsed, there are many unique type combos, abilities and moves left out of it, and most of the time its because or those traits are bad, and weight down the Pokemon onto the lower tiers, or what we are focusing on in this concept, traits that are brung down by the other traits the Pokemon has, this concept searches to find those unique traits out of OU, mix them together and convert them into an OU-viable Pokemon, this concept can help us learn what makes a Pokemon OU-worthy or low tier-worthy, the type of traits and attributes that can save a Pokemon from being untiered, as well as see what would happen if we introduced a Pokemon with completely new and unseen tools by OU, to the OU metagame.

Questions To Be Answered:

• What makes a trait OU-worthy?
• What are the type of traits that could harm the Pokemon's viability? What if the traits it has, while unique, acomplish a similar role but worse than another OU Pokemon
• Should we use traits similar to ones on OU? Could that hurt the process and how? Or how could it help by making its role similar to another OU mon? Could that give a better aim for the process?
• How are we going to deal with viability changes? Do we only use the current OU vr for the rest of the process, or do we adapt to the ranking changes?
• Could we use these traits similarly to the Pokemon that carry them? When mixing them with the other traits, what could change about their functionality compared to the other Pokemon that carried them?
• Should we also consider the other CAP Pokemon for this concept?

Explanation - Many unique traits carried by low tiered Pokemon have never seen the light of day on OverUsed, as those traits are carried by Pokemon whose other traits are lackluster or straight up bad, this concepts searches for those traits to mix into an OU-level Pokemon with tools new to OU, which may be a breath of fresh air for the tier.
Many interesting types like Ground/Ghost, Electric/Ghost, and Poison/Dark could be used, as well as unused types like Ground/Fairy could be interesting to see, and there are also unique and interesting abilities to choose from, Seed Sower, Punk Rock, Motor Drive, Tinted Lens, Sheer Force, and many more could make for an interesting Pokemon, and moves like Esper Wing, Stone Axe, Dragon Energy, Hyperspace Hole or Fury may make for interesting utility or STAB options, these could all be used for interesting combinations, a defensive Poison/Dark Pokemon with the amazing utility of Stone Axe, a Punk Rock Electric/Ghost type sweeper with Esper Wing as coverage and to boost its speed, a Dragon/Normal wallbreaker with Dragon Energy, etc.

 

[AokiHagane]

Final Submission

Name - Edit-a-Pokémon

Description - This Pokémon makes competitive use of a move that changes a Pokémon's base characteristics (i.e. moves like Power Split, Speed Swap, Skill Swap, etc.)

Justification - Pokémon has many moves that have potential to see competitive play, but never saw it due to a lack of circumstances or good users. Moves that change a Pokémon's base characteristics (henceforth referred to as "editing moves") are some of those. While some of them see use in Doubles, Singles really haven't explored all the possibilities of what these moves can do. For example, a wall with Guard Swap can suddenly switch the kind of Pokémon it stops, offensive Pokémon can use Guard Split to cripple walls and Skill Swap, even if not used with the obvious synergy with neegative abilities, is still usable as a control tool that punishes Pokémon that overrely on powerful abilities for their competitiveness. The goal of this submission is to simply tap into this potential.

Questions To Be Answered -

* Is the use of "unusual" status moves inherently linked to momentum loss in competitive battles?
* Can a Pokémon be improved by "stealing" stats and Abilities from the opponent's team independing on the matchup?
* Are the editing moves able to do more than simply force the opponent to switch out?
* How effective is the ability to cripple opposing Pokémon with the editing moves?
* Are editing moves viable as a soft setup tool?

Explanation - As much as CAP, as a project, is influenced by competitive Pokémon gameplay, it's also known for the many times it has explored moves, abilities and characteristics with untapped potential. From Stratagem as a pure Rock-type special glass cannon, to Mollux as a Fire-type Pokémon that works on rain teams, to Chromera using Color Change to help its setup, and many other examples. It's my personal feeling that every new project presents a new possibility to explore uncharted territory for the game, and thus this is my submission.

For clarity, here are all the moves that, in my vision, fit the concept:

Entrainment
Forest's Curse
Guard Split
Magic Powder
Power Split
Simple Beam
Skill Swap
Soak
Speed Swap
Worry Seed

If I forgot something, please hit me up.

 

[dex]

Rough 11-hour warning. Remember to mark your submission as final!

 

[Jomakl]

Final Submission

Name; Oops Wrong Stat

Description; This CAP would use its or its opponents stats in unconventional ways whether just swapping stuff around or dealing damage with its or its opponents defensive stats to get KOs.

Justification; This is an interesting CAP concept because it builds a Pokémon with a very unique style of play. This would be effective within the metagame because most Pokémon don't have access to this type of utility/power that plays both defensively and offensively. Additionally very few of the Pokémon that can use their other stats for damage don't use these moves very well, with some notable exceptions. One of the Pokémon that has access to this type of move is Houndoom/Mabosstiff another Pokémon that can use this types of moves includes Annihilape. Many of these moves are considered unviable.

Questions to be answered;

• How can we make this viable without making a bulky sweeper?
• Also how can it get KO's without making all of them trades?
• Should this CAP play defensively or offensively?
• What are the limits of this archetype are there any Pokémon that tread here?

Explanation; I used this idea because their are some Pokémon are intended and don't, i.e. Houndoom/Mabosstiff, and other Pokémon who do use moves like this i.e. Annihilape and Ting-Lu, don't use it as their main move generally a back up option. Personally I enjoy the idea of using the moves that most Pokémon can't use effectively. For those that only can think of body press and foul-play let me introduce a list of 6 more moves, that I feel still count as the wrong stat because they use your hp or your opponents % of hp remaining to deal damage.

Moves

Comeuppance
Metal Burst
Counter
Mirror Coat
Hard Press
Final Gambit

 

[Gekokeso]

Im gonna make a post to highlight concepts that I think are the most neat to go to the slate and could be the more potentially fun to explore:

Collector's Edition by Me: "Im not owned, Im not owned!" I scream as the +2 Tera Fairy Pixilate Extreme Speed rips my body apart.

Stabbed by Amamama - Solid write-up which really highlights the potential of the concept. Out of all the concepts that I liked the most, this one is the one that feels like it has the most options in terms of ways the concept could be explored, while also been pretty clear on what it wants to archieve which could lead to a very swift and satisfying concept.

Mix-and-Match by kenn - Other than the ocassional coverage move, mixed attackers in OU haven't really been a thing for a while ever since kyurem-Black got his long awaited physical ice moves, so it would be fun to make a mon that genuinely archieves this concept. Out of the highlighted concepts I feel like this one in particular could be amongst the most challenging, especially since it will restrict various stages of the process. However, more than any concept here I think this one in particular will result in the most unique end product.

Cold Front by Pipotchi - Very specific, but there is a lot of merit to it. Snow/Hail has always been the most underexplored out of the 4 main weathers, at least before SWSH with Arctozolt Hail. SV has granted snow a lot of merits such as not hurting your teammates anymore or boosting your ice type's defense by x1.5, as well as new good setters in the slowtwins with chilling reception and a decent abuser in Cetitan. A snow based cap looks like it could really bring something unique to the table in a meta dominated by sun and rain.

Death Star by Viol and Bass - Very simple, but also has a very through writeup. The restriction to our bulk will be somewhat interesting to come across, and it isn't too restrictive as to make the process too linear. Looks fun to explore, especially in a tera gen where it can leverage its potential strengths and weaknesses even further.

All Hail to the (Sea)King by Brambane - This one looks like it can create something entirely unique, which can be both good and bad. Good because it allows us to explore very niche strategies and interactions that would otherwise not be commonly seen in competitive pokémon, and bad because of the high risk of possible meta trends ruining what the concept tries to archieve. It does have the advantage that the SV meta is practically established now that both DLCs have passed, and regardless it could be an incredibly fun process.

 

[Fragments]

Final Submission

Name: Cant touch this

Description: This CAP has some combination of types + abilities that grant it multiple immunities.

Justification: Immunities present one of the greatest strategic challenges in gameplay. They force your opponent to make reads or risk losing momentum, and can even hard wall certain threats. Being able to successfully scout what immunities your opponent's pokemon may have, or perhaps even identify it through team structure alone, shows your expertise as a player. This concept would focus on prioritizing immunities over resists.

Questions To Be Answered:

• What combination of immunities provides the greatest competitive utility?
• Do offensive or defensive pokemon take better advantage of immunities?
• What immunities are most valuable in the current meta?
• How do we give multiple immunities while retaining a balanced defensive profile?
• Are there any unique type + immunity ability combos that we can make use of?
• Can we maximize the utility of immunities in the absence of resists?

Explanation: Immunities are one of the coolest aspects of competitive pokemon because they have such a significant impact on gameplay. Every read you make you need to consider if you risk losing momentum or even buffing the opposing mon (recovery through volt/water absorb, damage increase through flash fire, etc.). This also inspires people to come up with unique meta solutions around such mons, such as how people adapted to Equilibra (a mon that has 3 immunities even though that wasn't even it's concept haha). There are a number of fun combinations you can do, a steel/flying with volt absorb and flash fire, a ground/ghost with water absorb and levitate, the possibilities are endless. The tradeoff here would be considering if a mon can live off immunities without much thought for resists. Zoroark-Hisui, for example, is a mon that has only 2 resists but 3 immunities. It would be neat to see how far we can push this envelope such that a mon can be viable primarily on the strength of its immunities.

 

[dex]

I wanna thank y'all for participating! I came into this thinking I would only slate a few concepts, but there were so many good ones that it made it very difficult to choose what to move on. There were a good number of concepts that I did like, and there are a few I hope to see in future projects, but this is what we will have moving forward:

Collector's edition

There are so many items. The metagame is dominated by the best of the best (Leftovers, Heavy-Duty Boots, Choice items, etc.). Every now and then, a set gets going that uses a lesser-used item (Never-Melt Ice Kyurem, Chilan Berry Tornadus-T, among many others) that makes you go "Wow, cool!" and that is the exact feeling we want to get from this CAP. It will be a challenge, for sure, but one that I think we are up to.

Mix and Match

There is elegance in simplicity. This concept is exceedingly straightforward (make a mixed attacker), but, in practice, this is actually quite difficult. There are truly very few mixed attackers these days, so making a Pokemon that explicitly fulfills that actually would be a fun problem to tackle.

Death Star

There's a surprising amount of actual examples from Pokemon of this concept in action: Kartana, Blissey, and even Urshifu come to mind. CAP is no stranger to the concept of power budgeting, but this concept, where CAP 34 would have an awful defense stat on one side, would really stretch how we deal with budgeting power in the process. Exciting stuff!

A Rising Star

Every generation, OU looks a little different. Whether it is the weather of BW, the flying spam of ORAS, the psychic spam of SM, the regenerator spam of SS, or the stored power users of SV, every generation has its tendencies. Looking to generation 9, there's a lot to work with, as it is quite the unique metagame.

That's a Skill Issue

Some Pokemon are harder to use than others. I don't think many would disagree with this, but it is a difficult thing to quantify. I love the idea of really digging in to the challenge aspect of Pokemon, looking at what good players do well to make themselves good. Really one of the more creative concepts I've ever seen.

Greedy Gadgets

This concept would not have fared so well a generation ago; however, this is SV, and SV has so many moves that work with this concept. Role compression in Pokemon is often the name of the game when it comes to viability, so I do not doubt that going for this concept would result in a successful process. We can even look to past move-based concepts for inspiration!

Hail to the (Sea)King

Seaking is a good lad. He is a king. Of the sea. While Seaking is not a good example of the concept (sorry, it was just a meme), the concept is great. Every now and then, an otherwise useless move makes its way onto a popular set, and wow are those great sets. Whether it is Assurance Weavile in BDSP OU (the actual example you wanted), Wing Attack Gliscor on stall (more PP), or even Whirlpool Garchomp if anyone remembers that phase. This is for sure the largest challenge among the slate, but it is one that excites me to make something really out there.

See y'all in the poll!