CAP 36 - Part 5 - Threats Discussion

[SHSP]

CAP 36 So Far

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CAP 36 is a Fire/Steel type defensive Pokemon that uses a Relic Song clone to transform into a Fire/Ice type offensive cleaner Pokemon through a Meloetta form style transformation. Its ability is No Guard.

In this stage, we will try to analyze which Pokemon sets could threaten or be threatened by us. Based on our typing and concept we will also decide which specific threats we should focus on later stages, and which ones should be mostly left alone. Then, the Topic Leader will organize them into a list, following this basic format:

• Switch in: The list of Pokemon on which we should be able to have a easy time switching in and then forcing them out, more than once in a game. This doesn't mean that we should be able to come into any of their moves, just their most commonly used ones.
• Pressure: The list of Pokemon that might threaten us, but should not be able to switch in easily. They should not be able to check us easily.
• Checks and Counters: The list of Pokemon should, in some way, threaten us. This might mean that they will probably be able to beat us 1v1, or at least severely cripple us. Certain Pokemon, in particular Revenge Killers might be included both in here and in Pressure, because once they switch in, they should be able to check us.

This threatlist should serve as a guideline for the rest of the project. However, this is not set in stone, and might change later if the Topic Leadership Team deems it necessary.

The following is a set of questions that we should try to answer during this discussion:

• Going specifically by typing, what Pokemon found in the CAP metagame will be able to comfortably give this project trouble?
• What Pokemon will be major threats to this project right off the bat?
• What Pokemon have the potential to become counters?
• What Pokemon may end up as threats, but must be contained or dealt with per the concept?
• Will the concept succeed with this list of threats?
• Is this list of threats acceptable for the project?
• What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing?
• Are these Pokemon targets that we want CAP to hit?
• Will these targets be "unavoidable" to threaten based solely on the typing?
• What direction must the project go in now that a set list of basic threats has been identified?
• What must be done in order to make these threats "wanted counters" or these threats be eliminated from counter discussion?
• Are there any Pokemon that we want to completely counter?

No individual post has to answer every question.

Guidelines:
1) Pay close attention to the Topic Leader during this discussion. Their job is to keep us focused and to bring insight.
2) Do not poll jump. Poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. Poll jumping is when you discuss something that should be discussed in the future, like specifying a CAP's stats or typing. You're allowed to hint at such things to conclude a point or to provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. Poll jumping hurts the focus of early threads and can cause us to go off on a tangent. If you're not sure if a particular argument is poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.
3) Refer to Pokemon by specific sets. This way we can clearly identify which specific sets we should be focusing on, and what specific characteristics makes us threaten or threatened by them. Adding complete movesets, EV spreads and Natures is recommended, but not mandatory.
4) Assume that Stealth Rock in on both sides of the field, unless otherwise specified. This can be changed by the Topic Leader during the discussion.
4) This are the exact definitions of check and counter that we will be working with:

-Pokémon A checks a Pokémon B set if, when Pokémon A is given a free switch into that Pokémon B set, Pokémon A can win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax.
-Pokémon A counters a Pokémon B set if Pokémon A can manually switch into that Pokémon B set, and still win every time, even under the worst case scenario, without factoring in hax.

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With all that said, I'll hand it over to myself for the OP.

 

[SHSP]

Alright! We're making great progress and coming up with some really great ideas for this CAP, now its time to look at some threats for CAP 36. Starting with our favorable situations, I have a few questions for you guys:

How does a favorable interaction for CAP 36 play out? A lot of our gameplanning by nature of our concept is going to be long-term positioning (setting up our cleaner half to succeed earlier in the game via the defensive side). How do these interactions look in practice? How do short term interactions for either side play out?

What matchups does our cleaner half have strength into? What defensive mons or cores do we match up favorably into?

What should we be able to switch into? What matchups should we look to keep strong as we continue, and what matchups should we look to improve?

Setting a flexible 48-Hour warning on this first stage.

 

[dex]

How does a favorable interaction for CAP 36 play out?

Status spreading is the name of the game. Chipping things is really easy with tools like Inferno at the defensive forme's disposal. All that status spreading, which is much more difficult for the opponent to deal with off the back of a high BP move, opens up the last forme to clean very effectively.

What matchups does our cleaner half have strength into?

After proper chip, I think CAP 36 can get itself into a position to hard punish the Arghonaut/Libra defensive core pretty well. With the right stats, the second forme has the potential to rip through HO teams relying on Pokemon like Chuggalong and Dragonite decently well too.

What should we be able to switch into?

Pecharunt I think should be the number one target. It is a common, defensive mon that won't chip CAP 36 too much, and Parting Shot doesn't hurt so bad when you're also firing off burn or other status with your attacks. Boots Dragapult is another set that this typing does very well into, especially with the threat of Blizzard to force it out. Having the bulk to get in on Kitsunoh is another good option, as this Pokemon probably doesn't care at all about Strength Sap.

 

[Ayecrusher King]

How does a favorable interaction for CAP 36 play out?

From the Ability discussions, we're burning something, preferably physically inclined, with Inferno. CAP 36 will then use the opportunity where the opponent either switches to use our Relic Clone, or hammer away further with other high BP moves like Blizzard, Steel Beam, or even Thunder.

What matchups does our cleaner half have strength into?
What should we be able to switch into?

From an offensive perspective, Dragon-types like Chuggalong, Dragapult & Raging Bolt, as well as Grass-types like Jumbao, Malaconda, Necturna, and more shakily Ogerpon-Wellspring should be our basic switch-ins, even in our cleaner half. From a defensive perspective, Arghonaut/Snaelstrom/Alomomola might be options we can match up in, though all require a specific move (Freeze-Dry) aside from Inferno to pressure them out efficiently.
A definite check if not an option that can heavily pressure us should be Equilibra and Garganacl. I say it might be able to pressure us because Equilibra realistically doesn't care about getting burnt (while Garg is immune thanks to PSalt), and its two STABs are super effective against CAP 36's dual types (Salt Cure chips away at our health quickly), but both probably still don't enjoy switching into a Fire Blast, much less an Inferno.
A shakier check would be both utility Paradox Donphan or Guts Colossoil, but all would care about Ice coverage to various degrees.

 

[Guingil]

How does a favorable interaction for CAP 36 play out? A lot of our gameplanning by nature of our concept is going to be long-term positioning (setting up our cleaner half to succeed earlier in the game via the defensive side). How do these interactions look in practice? How do short term interactions for either side play out?​

The threat of the Inferno burn is the baseline that our gameplan is built on. If we can come into something that doesn’t immediately force us out, we create a free turn just by existing. The opponent either stays in and gets burned, or they switch and whatever comes in gets burned. Even if the switch-in is Specially based, that chip damage from burn adds up over the course of a game. Just to repeat, this and 100 BP are nuts. And that free turn can often be enough for us to set up CAP Song if we want or do other things — it’s not the main plan every time, but it's there when we need it.

Zooming out a bit, this status-spreading job gives us a limited defensive job which we can stop once we have crippled key checks, and honestly, that fits us perfectly. Our intention to clean later on disqualifies or at least hampers us from switching in and out like a typical defensive mon as part of a defensive core, as identified in the Concept Assessment. We have to preserve CAP 36’s health and stay clear of paralysis. Knowing when to call it done and stash 36 in the back for the late game is crucial. We’re not a traditional cleaner that just hits the ground running the second it comes in, like Pip pointed out back in the original concept justification. We are closer to a setup mon, and the healthier we can come in the end, the more chances we have for success.

And honestly, everything about our typing and ability choices so far backs this sort of interaction for us. Steel/Fire and No Guard are not optimising for switch-ins or perfect survivability. We’re optimising for impact. If we can pull off a few of those across a match, that might be all we need to set the endgame in motion.
​

What matchups does our cleaner half have strength into? What defensive mons or cores do we match up favorably into?​

I think the cleaner’s viability is probably the easiest part of the concept to justify.

Fire/Ice STAB is very strong offensively. If Freeze Dry is available, we’re able to cover bulky Waters as well, leaving us hard-resisted primarily by opposing Fire-types.

Looking at defensive cores we match up into: a lot of the standard bulky backbones of Waters, Grounds, Steels can be weakened enough over the course of the game for us to clean with supereffective moves. Of course, Argh, Cres, AV Alomomola can recover enough to survive us if they’re not pressured (I love that Argh's Unaware is invalidated against our pseudo-setup, though, as well as Burn being able to break Cres's scale). Super fat things like Equi and Ting-Lu might also be a problem if we do nothing to them early game. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If these matchups hinge on how effectively we’ve executed our early-game plan, that’s a sign that the concept is working as intended: one forme rewards the other. I think for the calculations, a good 60-80% health can give us realistic scenarios.

Against other faster mons or sweepers, we have good matchups into Dragapult, Kingambit, Chugg, Cari; neutral-ish against Darkrai, and are bad against Hemo, Cres, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, and even Raging Bolt depending on whether we can take a Thunderclap.
​

What should we be able to switch into? What matchups should we look to keep strong as we continue, and what matchups should we look to improve?​

Honestly, just on the merits of the typing, there really isn’t a ton we can switch into cleanly. I think Pip made a chart at one point showing all the mons that can threaten us, and it was... a lot. Most everything runs Ground or Fighting coverage, or we have things like Cres (Argh I think is not that bad since we can burn it). Even things that should be good matchups on paper (Tinkaton, Glowking, Blissey, Shox, Malaconda, even Dragapult) can all tech some form of paralysis, which messes with our gameplan pretty badly.

There are still a few things we can look to switch into, though. Kitsunoh, Pecharunt, Clefable, Venomicon-Epilogue, Jumbao are some that come to mind. But realistically, team support is going to be crucial in bringing 36 in.

The funniest part to me is how good Air Balloon is for us. Like, genuinely top-tier item synergy, which is no surprise given how mons like Heatran, Tink, and Gholdengo have used it. It opens up a ton of opportunities given our typing early game, letting us switch into or even stay in against a bunch of Ground-types like Equilibra, Gliscor, Landorus-Therian, Great Tusk, and Ting-Lu which we can then threaten with Inferno or our Ice move. If we do go with the strategy of achieving a limited defensive function and dipping, I think we should consider this in our assessments going forward.​

 

[Gekokeso]

How does a favorable interaction for CAP 36 play out?
36 as it stands might not have a good time switching in, but neither will opponents. No Guard Inferno makes it so that not a single physical attacker (barring exceptions such as Hemogoblin) will want to switch into us. Our goal should be to get a teammate to get us into the field safely, then proceed to pressure our opponent into getting its pokémon burned. This then makes it so that the crippled attacker becomes a potential option for us to use our form switch into.

What matchups does our cleaner half have strength into? What defensive mons or cores do we match up favorably into? Our cleaner half will be really good against pokémon with mediocre speed that may come in to try and finish off 36 in its defensive state. While something like Gliscor could teoretically tank one or two stabless hits from our defensive form and then outspeed and kill with eq, a switch in into our faster form means that the combination of Song + Ice Stab will be enough to scare it out.

What should we be able to switch into? What matchups should we look to keep strong as we continue, and what matchups should we look to improve?

Poison types lacking meaningfully powerful coverage should be a priority. This includes Venomicon, Slowking-Galar, Pecharunt and the like. Ghost types in to spam burm like Sinistcha, Dragapult and Kitsunoh should also be fair game.

 

[a fairy]

This section's a bit harder for me to contribute to, so take these thoughts with a grain of "oh she's not smart" salt!

How does a favorable interaction for CAP 36 play out? A lot of our gameplanning by nature of our concept is going to be long-term positioning (setting up our cleaner half to succeed earlier in the game via the defensive side). How do these interactions look in practice? How do short term interactions for either side play out?

Ideally, we switch in on a hit that we easily tank via our defensive profile, and then threaten to make progress via whatever our setup intention is. Whether or not we do or use that opportunity to grab momentum will matter turn-by-turn, battle-by-battle, but creating opportunities to advance CAP36's gameplan or enable its teammates will be much easier once its in than it will be to get it in. Getting in will be the prediction-heavy risky time, choosing what to do once you're in will be a strong representation of skill.

What matchups does our cleaner half have strength into? What defensive mons or cores do we match up favorably into?

Our 'mon should be able to one shot once it's time to clean. If it needs to take a hit, it probably was too early in the process to try and sweep, and ideally once it uses CAP Song to turn into the cleaner half, we don't switch out. We're "giving up" a turn to get to cleaner mode, so then wasting that turn by switching out shortly after is a huge momentum sink. We need to be able to take out things that are at like, 60-70% or less reliably, with Regenerator and Choice Scarf being our big problem points.

What should we be able to switch into? What matchups should we look to keep strong as we continue, and what matchups should we look to improve?

We should be relying on switching in on Pokemon that can't do meaningful damage to us, such as defensive Pokemon or 'mons with limited coverage. Chuggalong without Surf, Mollux (stats dependent), Dragapult, and Kitsunoh seem like viable options to switch in on fairly freely, alongside choice-locked 'mons or Pokemon that can't risk the prediction called shot. However, we are weak to a handful of common coverage types, specifically Ground and Water, so there are gonna be a ton of 'mons that we struggle to easily check as a result of them running something like Earthquake or Surf.

 

[viol and bass]

What matchups does our cleaner half have strength into?

Almost all of them to be honest. Given our incredible 2-move coverage and the potency of the moves we're likely to have access to, very few mons will enjoy dealing with us once we're on the field and transformed. This honestly worries me a bit in terms of concept execution: a pitfall to avoid here is making the cleaner potent enough that we want to transform immediately and start blasting.

What should we be able to switch into? What matchups should we look to keep strong as we continue, and what matchups should we look to improve?

Our typing is very bad at switching in, and we chose an ability that does not help us with that. If we stick to the switch-ins that we naturally beat via our typing, those are few enough in number that we run the risk of leaning fully into offense and failing this concept. Even a tank has to tank hits repeatedly, and right now we're not really doing that successfully.

So let's expand that pool. How do we do that? One, balloon is probably the item. A defensive-leaning mon running a consumble is not typical, but enough good mons have done this that we know it's workable. The number of things we can switch into at least once massively increases. Two, we should focus on some neutral matchups where we can use very substantial bulk to tank hits even when the balloon is popped and still have the health to clean later. Keep in mind that this might mean eye-popping bulk numbers, since we're probably not gonna be running bulk EVs on most builds. Because of our typing's weaknesses, even huge bulk does not make us some impenetrable defensive monster that will never want to transform. Most of the meta hits us super effectively in some fashion, so it's not even that easy to find these neutral matchups, but there are some. I'm thinking of things like Darkrai, Pult (even more offensive variants if possible), plot Ghold, Kitsunoh, Sinistcha, Necturna, Pecharunt, Weavile, Moltres, etc. Maybe other fires if we have something to hit them with (I'd rather this be something like item displacement than coverage– again, killing everything immediately kinda goes against the spirit of this concept). It'd be nice to expand that list further if we can.

 

[SHSP]

Sorry for the delay everyone! Happy to move along into our next phase of threats. A little recap of what we've been saying:

Our gameplan revolves around getting in, and getting burns. We're not amazing at switching in based off of our type combination in our first form, but once we do get in we're a huge pain for a lot of structures, and very effective at setting ourselves up to clean later on through chip and status. Our offensive matchups are very solid, able to threaten a lot just with our STAB combination. Defensively, we're not as effective switching in as I said, but there's a number of things we should be focused on switching into. Defensive types of mons that can't chip us very hard (such as Pecharunt) are one avenue to keep in mind. Another big focus everyone's pointed out is neutral hits: taking on stuff like Kitsunoh, Boots Dragapult, Moltres, or even more offensive threats like Darkrai would make switching CAP 36 in significantly easier and make us work extremely well.

With an idea of what we want to switch in on, and what we want to offensively match up well against, its time to look at the nebulous middle ground of pressures as described in the thread's OP. This is a little strange compared to the others, as the form change itself can come into play significantly more than it does with switching in or cleaning up. What stands out as potential pressures for either of CAP 36's forms, or both forms?

Gonna put another rough 48 hour warning on this discussion and hope that work doesn't delay it a day again! Apologies again, but thank you guys for keeping the great discussion going throughout this project.

 

[a fairy]

What stands out as potential pressures for either of CAP 36's forms, or both forms?

Gonna put another rough 48 hour warning on this discussion and hope that work doesn't delay it a day again! Apologies again, but thank you guys for keeping the great discussion going throughout this project.

Maybe a weaker few to consider, but some things that have come to mind I haven't seen much of here.
- Phazing: Especially the latter forme, the idea of getting forced out via Red Card, Whirlwind/Roar, or even something like Yawn seems extraordinarily bad for it. Maybe a bit less so for the defensive form, but these things aren't extraordinarily rare here. How bad are we gonna be if a Ting-Lu is mostly unbothered by the time we try to sweep, for example, or the Glowking secretly has a Red Card?
- Fire types can't be burned, and our types don't give us many good options for reliably dealing with them as our defensive form. Hemogoblin is a pain, though it's Fairy Type does help us somewhat if we have Steel STAB, but Mollux and IMoth and Cinderace all exist as mons who we can't set up to be swept later.
- Aromatherapy and Heal Bell aren't all that common in Gen 9, and Natural Cure is also pretty rare, but they're not non-existent, and can potentially turn CAP36 into a zombie slot. Heal Bell Chuggalong, folks /lh?

 

[RADU]

What stands out as potential pressures for either of CAP 36's forms, or both forms?

This appears to be a very wide pool of Pokemon at first glance
Water-type mons like Cresceidon and Samurott-Hisui are able to resist our stabs with little trouble, but the burn can severely hinder them by removing Cresceidon's use of Multiscale and mitigating SamuH's firepower. These Pokemon may be further discouraged from switching in if our CAP has access to other coverage moves such as Thunder or Freeze-Dry

Other relatively bulky Pokemon like Darkrai, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Revenankh, Kyurem and Zamazenta are not likely to faint to either of our stab moves, but we still hit very hard and inflict status, meaning none of these mons will ever want to switch in.

That said, these are not mons we will be able to switch into, nor would we be encouraged to stay in the field against. All of the above mentioned Pokemon are likely to have super-effective stabs or coverage that will outdamage our output. It may occasionally be beneficial for us to eat a hit to cripple a dangerous mon, but this is not the ideal scenario because it doesn't leave us with enough hp for the cleaning phase.

The final category is Pokemon with which we share a relationship of mutual destruction: Equilibra, Gliscor, Great Tusk, Landorus-Therian, Dragonite. These mons are at high risk of fainting to one of our stabs, but also have their own stabs or coverage that can do the same back.

While our CAP 36 is hard to switch into, they will have to throw a Pokemon in our face eventually, and when that happens we are threatened by enough mons to want to switch out quite quickly, which is a deterrent to the use of the forme change, considering it resets upon switching out. This is partially attributed to our typing:
Type change is great defensively given the fact that it reduces the reliability of landing a super-effective hit, but the Ice- typing does not end up being particularly useful. Both typing combinations leave us weak to Fighting- and Water-types, and especially Ground-types which our Ice-type should ideally be strong against. While it does reduce it from a 4x weakness to a 2x weakness, it adds a 4x weakness to Rock; there are few viable Rock-types in the tier but it will not be very difficult for Pokemon that are able to tank a hit during the cleaning phase but are usually not able to KO back to sneak a Rock-type move in their moveset.

Balloon is likely to be a good item for us and will help in reducing the pressure in the early stages of the match, allowing us to do our defensive job more safely and preserving HP for the late game, but it would be nice to find ways to relieve the pressure from the various other mons that threaten us, in order to turn as many of the aforementioned matchups into winning matchups for CAP 36.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

What stands out as potential pressures for either of CAP 36's forms, or both forms?

Bulky Fire-types such as Mollux, Hemogoblin, and to a lesser extent Moltres stand out to me the most here. They don't really mind switching into Inferno at all, as they are immune to burns and resist both of our STABs (Well really just Inferno in the case of Moltres) while neither of our forms really resist Fire in return. We can't really make a ton of progress while these mons are still healthy unless we have some way of pressuring them (This could be done through a myriad of ways, the most obvious ones being like either super-effective coverage or Knock Off. I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about these though since this isn't really the stage for it).

Ground-types also stand out a bit here too me, although not as much as I was originally thinking. There is not a single relevant Ground-type in the tier that doesn't fear at least one of our STAB moves, due to them either being weak to them and/or them really hating burns, so we can't really call them consistent switch-ins. That being said, I think that most of our 1v1 matchups here are going to be extremely dependent on how fast we are, which is something that we should keep in mind when it comes time for the stats stage.

Other than that, most of what I would have to say has been covered already and in better detail. Just figured I would chime in here.

 

[SHSP]

Alrighty! Lets wrap up this stage with a little recap of some pressures. Waters stand out as switch-ins to our STABs, but a lot of them don't appreciate the status spreading CAP 36 looks to inflict. Fires, on the other hand, don't care about our status and act as serious roadblocks to our cleaner form later on- more of a potential set of checks and counters than pressures, with our current assumptions. Offensive threats such as Kyurem and Darkrai might be able to eat a neutral hit and threaten us out in return, but definitely won't like taking the damage and the burn we threaten, putting them firmly in the pressures category.

Overall, we're looking at a list that looks something like this, keeping it reasonably open-ended:

Switch Ins: Defensive Pokemon, weaker neutral hits-

Pressures: Bulky waters, strong offensive threats, Ground types-

Checks and Counters: Defensive or Bulky Fires-

Remember that these lists are very weird by nature because of our form change. We have holes in our gameplan that aren't as easy to define- for example, our defensive form can struggle to switch in to Grounds, even though they fall into pressures as our offensive form should easily handle them. This is a threats list that is a good indication of our matchups, but definitely not something to take as gospel- its important to consider how our play pattern will interact with different meta threats overall going forward.

Now that we've got a better idea of how our matchups into the meta look with what we know so far, I'm excited to hand it off to spoo for Defining Moves!