Pet Mod [Gen 3] Shadow Colosseum - Playtesting Phase

[Yoshiblaze]

The last distribution slate!

Shadow Guard -

Reasoning

I basically went through every Pokemon left and distributed them among the moves, while also taking the suggested distribution into account. Mostly gave this to mons that I felt were too strong to have the other winning moves, as well as some generally bulky mons like Blissey and Skarmory.

Shadow Armor -

Reasoning

Wanted to keep this move's distribution somewhat small, since it's such a powerful redirection tool and also kinda similar in function to Shadow Guard. Mainly went with the suggested distribution plus a couple funny users that like to have low HP (Blaze Charizard, Overgrow Sceptile, Flail Dodrio, etc.).

Shadow Siphon -

Reasoning

Mostly kept the suggested distribution the same, while a lot of the extra mons I gave it to just kinda happened to be a bunch of Fire-types. Most notable users are probably Venusaur, Swampert, and Porygon2.

Now on to the much-anticipated final slate!

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Slate 9 - Shadow Lugia & Shadow Blast​

This final slate focuses on adding the king of all Shadow Pokemon, Shadow Lugia!

As this slate is focused on a Pokemon and not moves (though there is a new move included in this slate), the rules for it are a bit different. The submission templates below will walk you through it, but you'll essentially decide how Lugia changes when it becomes a Shadow Pokemon, whether that means getting stat changes, a new ability, a new typing, or even not changing at all! Additionally, since I purposely never gave Lugia any Shadow moves, you will be deciding its Shadow movepool, which will include its signature Shadow move, Shadow Blast.

Template for submitting Shadow Lugia

Template

Pokemon: Shadow Lugia
Types:
Stats:
Ability:
Shadow Moves:
Other Changes (Optional):
Justification:

Template with Explanations

Pokemon: Shadow Lugia
Types: Lugia's type after it becomes a Shadow Pokemon.
Stats: Lugia's stats after it becomes a Shadow Pokemon.
Ability: Lugia's ability after it becomes a Shadow Pokemon.
Shadow Moves: Lugia's Shadow movepool. Must include at least 2 Shadow moves and must include Shadow Blast. Note that you'll use the normal moves template to submit Shadow Blast, but your Lugia and Shadow Blast subs will be voted on as 1 package.
Other Changes (Optional): Put anything gameplay-related that doesn't fit in the above section here. Weight changes would be the main thing here.
Justification: Reasoning for any of the changes you made and the Shadow moves you gave it - Lugia will only be legal in GS Cup formats, which won't be the main metagame, so competitive reasoning isn't as important.

I've put some notes below to help you make submissions for Shadow moves:
- Remember that every Shadow Pokemon must run all of the Shadow moves they can learn and that every Pokemon will learn at least 2 Shadow moves. Thus, try to avoid making redundant Shadow moves, in case they are both given to the same mon, and think about whether it would be worth giving a Pokemon that already learns 2 Shadow moves an additional one.
- In Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, all non-signature physical Shadow moves are single-target attacks and all non-signature special Shadow moves are spread moves. Keeping this distinction is not a requirement, but is something to consider.
- Shadow moves are super effective against all non-Shadow Pokemon, but don't give the user a STAB boost. Keep this in mind when deciding how strong they should be.
- The Shadow Pokemon mechanic will be a powerful offensive tool, so keep that in mind when giving moves you make strong to already good Pokemon.
- Click here to see Orre Colosseum's Viability Rankings to see what's already strong.
- If you need a reminder of Gen 3 or Orre Colosseum's mechanics, click here to go to this thread's OP.
- If you need a reminder of what the mechanics of Shadow Pokemon are, you can see them below or in the spreadsheet.

Going for something very out there but still faithful to the games (cause they're my favourite Pokemon games)

Shadow Pokemon Effects

• Moves: All Shadow Pokemon learn at least TWO Shadow moves (and can learn a max of FOUR, all of which are default/Lv1 moves). All Shadow moves the Pokemon has available to it must be included in the moveset (so some mons have one legal moveset).
• Type Chart: Attacking moves are always 2x super effective on non-Shadow Pokemon, and 0.5x effective on Shadow Pokemon, but Shadow is not a Pokemon's type and so there is never STAB. Moves can be physical or special, decided on a per-move basis.
• Availability: Any mon that has a Shadow move in its moves is a Shadow Pokemon (keeping in mind how moves work). On its first switch in, there is a message identifying it as a Shadow Pokemon (akin to Terapagos' ability). There isn't a limit on the number of Shadow Pokemon on a team.

The moveset limitation seems interesting to build around and can let us create some very interesting move distribution. A Shadow mon is obviously powerful offensively, giving it near-perfect coverage in one move (which can offset it not getting STAB). Defensively, resisting Shadow is a huge benefit (since there's no STAB, the BP does all the heavy lifting). How moves adapt to this could be interesting as well - the more Shadow moves a Pokemon gets, the less slots for other moves it can run, which could make some unable to run Protect, Fake Out and other meta relevant moves, and so the moves it would get to run would need to be designed around that.

Soo Yoshi left a comment:
For attackers, making it a Shadow (instead of a regular mon) opens up perfect coverage in a single move slot (2x effectiveness vs everything will hit harder than a STAB attack). Depending on its ability to run boosting moves (if it has less than 4 Shadow moves), it could end up snowballing quick. Something like CB Tauros would also be a very scary Shadow mon since it's locked to one move anyways, and this move would have 2x effectiveness on everything.

On defense, the key value is resisting Shadow attacks from the above attackers. It's probably a requirement to have at least one just to be able to switch into Shadow attacks (since being a Shadow effectively quarters damage from Shadow attacks compared to regular mons). Something like Metagross or Arcanine, which have a lot of defensive value already, could benefit from this, especially if their Shadow movepool lets them still run options like Protect. While Shadow attackers don't really get to use their offensive typing, defenders do, and so defensive answers with good typings can get a lot of value from also resisting Shadow attacks.

I have also included the original version of Shadow Blast below, in case you need inspiration:

Shadow Blast in XD

Name: Shadow Blast
Power: 80
Accuracy: 100%
PP: N/A (Shadow moves didn't have PP in the original games, but they will here)
Category:

Type: Shadow
Effect: High critical hit ratio.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Protect
Distribution:

And lastly, below is the template for making Shadow move submissions, as well as the rules for making subs:

Template & Example Moves Submission

Blank Template
Name:
Power:
Accuracy:
PP:
Category:
Type:
Effect:
Priority:
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification:

Template With Explanations
Name: [Name of the move]
Power: [Base Power of the Move]
Accuracy: [Accuracy of the Move. Has to be a multiple of 5]
PP: [Power Points of the Move. Has to be a multiple of 5]
Category: [Physical, Special, or Status - Note that offensive Shadow moves are allowed to be either Physical or Special]
Type: [Type of the Move]
Effect: [What the move does. Can be a secondary effect or an inherent effect like Throat Chop's. Also include whether or not the move is a spread move]
Priority: [The priority bracket of the move. The standard priority of a move is 0]
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): [Specify which flags the move has. A full list can be found here.]
Potential Pokémon With This Move: [List a few Pokémon that could learn this move. The council ultimately decides what Pokémon get what moves, but we'll generally use the same list]
Justification: [Explain what purpose this move would serve]

Example Move Submission
Name: Shadow Sky
Power: --
Accuracy: --
PP: 5
Category:

Type: Shadow
Effect: Summons Shadow Sky for 5 turns, a weather that damages all non-Shadow Pokemon for 1/8 of their max HP at the end of every turn. Weather Ball becomes 100 BP and Shadow-type.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): N/A
Potential Pokémon With This Move:

After Slate 1 - Adding Shadow Moves (5 Days per slate)
After we decide how our Shadow Pokemon mechanic works, we'll then adjust every Shadow move from XD: Gale of Darkness to fit a PvP setting and make them fit better into whatever our Shadow mechanics are. 3 Shadow moves will be slated each slate for you to sub changes to, for a total of 6 slates for all 18 original Shadow moves, plus any additional slates if deemed necessary. Submissions should follow the template in the spoiler tag below and be balanced for the Orre Colosseum metagame (taking our Shadow Pokemon mechanics into account), as the council reserves the right to veto any submissions deemed broken, uncompetitive, or uncodeable. Shadow moves should generally follow the same idea of their original versions, but they don't need to. You can only make 1 submission per move slated.

This slate will be open until Monday, February 16th.

See you soon!

 

[T.I.A.]

....aaaaand no one has posted a thing. Might as well.


Pokemon: Shadow Lugia
Types:

Stats: 106/90/90/154/110/130
Ability: Blackest Soul (On switch-in, summons Shadow Sky for as long as the user is out. Shadow-type moves deal 1.2x damage)
Shadow Moves: Shadow Blast, Shadow Panic, Shadow Mist
Other Changes: Naturally learns Psycho Boost and Feather Dance
Justification: Shadow Lugia is designed to be primarily one that abuses Shadow Sky to bolster its monstrous power. In Doubles, its a fucking menace: Both of its Shadow options hit both targets, Shadow Mist is a powerful anti-setup tool, Shadow Panic works as pinch healing very well, and Shadow Blast is a powerful spread option. In addition, access to Psycho Boost allows for powerful STAB and ironically makes it like a viable alternative to Deoxys-Attack if that's legal. Stats are simply rearranged to focus on fast special attacking strats, and the typing, while lacking any Dark-type STAB, allows it to be a check to the Psyspam that's common in Gen 3 Ubers (or GS Cup). Shadow Sky itself is a very powerful tool against would-be walls as well.

Name: Shadow Blast
Power: 100
Accuracy: 70%
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Shadow
Effect: Has a increased critical hit ratio (+1 stage). Never misses and hits adjacent partners in Shadow Sky.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): None
Potential Pokémon With This Move: nope
Justification: Much like Shadow Lugia being retooled to be more offensively inclined, Shadow Blast is Aeroblast but retooled to abuse the Shadow Sky it spawns. Trades power for accuracy, now being Gen 5 Hurricane in terms of stats, and also turns into a powerful doubles spread move under the always active Shadow Sky.

 

[G-Luke]

Pokemon: Shadow Lugia
Types:

Stats: 154/110/90/130/106/90
Ability: Shadow Domain -> Under the effects of Shadow Sky, user's Shadow moves deal 1.3 damage, and takes 0.80 damage from non Shadow moves.
Shadow Moves: Shadow Blast, Shadow Sky, Shadow Storm
Other Changes: Shadow Orb - Doubles the duration of Shadow Sky whenever used by Shadow Lugia
Justification: Shadow Lugia abuses Shadow Sky in a unique manner, allowing Shadow Lugia to be a fierce breaker, as well as a solid offensive partner. Setting Shadow Sky and being able to immediately benefit via how powerful Shadow Sky makes it. The idea that Shadow Lugia has to set up Shadow Sky to regain its maximum potential is also very cool. Shadow Blast as a nuke option that low-key clears the board, but Shadow Pokémon eat the hit and force you to resist. I also made it so that knocking out a Substitute still forces a reset, so regular (faster) Pokémon can do something to abuse it.

Name: Shadow Blast
Power: 150
Accuracy: 90%
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Shadow
Effect: If this move is successful, the user must recharge on the following turn and cannot select a move, unless the target was knocked out by this move.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): None
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Shadow Lugia (maybe base Lugia)
Justification: Hyper Beam feels like the only move that can capture Shadow Blast's aura. So I made it Gen 1 Hyper Beam so it isn't ass. Switch in a Shadow Pokémon to block it!

 

[Yoshiblaze]

long 5 days innit

Submissions for this slate will end on Sunday, March 22nd, so be sure to get any (very long) last second ideas in!

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Pokemon: Shadow Lugia
Types:

Stats: 106/90/130/90/154/110
Ability: Gale of Darkness* - This Pokémon's Shadow-type moves deal 1.5x damage.
Shadow Moves: Shadow Blast, Shadow Siphon, Shadow Storm
Other Changes (Optional): N/A
Justification: Went very conservative with this sub, keeping Lugia's stats and typing the same after it becomes a Shadow and making Shadow Blast pretty similar to how it originally is, but always critting instead of just critting more often. The idea is that you can flex Lugia's best existing trait, its insane bulk, along with its newfound power with Shadow moves hitting everything hard, further boosted by Gale of Darkness, you can basically become both unkillable and unstoppable at the same time. It's of course not that easy, as its typing will probably be the #1 thing holding it back with Electric, Ice, and Ghost moves everywhere, plus you're forced to choose between a secondary STAB, Protect, or Calm Mind for the last slot, so if can't do everything it wants all at once. Still, this thing should be appropriately terrifying in GS Cup formats.

Name: Shadow Blast
Power: 50
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 5
Category:

Type: Shadow
Effect: Always crits.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Protect
Potential Pokémon With This Move:

 

[Yoshiblaze]

The final vote of Shadow Colosseum!

Voting rules can be found below and in the OP:

Voting Phase (1 Day)
After the submission phase is over, voting will begin. This mod will be using the same voting system as Megas Revisited, where you can vote for as many submissions as you want, with each submission getting a certain number of points based on how you ranked it. Slate 1 and all move slates will use the same system, as well as any other kind of slate we need to do if necessitated by what our Shadow mechanics end up being. An example can be seen below.

Voting Example

For a slate with Shadow Rush, Shadow Sky, and Shadow Wave, for example, a ballot would look like this:
Shadow Rush: User 1, User 2, User 3
Shadow Sky: User 4, User 5, User 6
Shadow Wave: User 7, User 8, User 9

With this ballot, Submission 1 for Shadow Rush would get 3 points, Submission 2 would get 2, and Submission 3 would get 1. The same goes for Submissions 4, 5, and 6 in the Shadow Sky category and Submissions 7, 8, and 9 in the Shadow Wave category, with them getting 3, 2, and 1 point respectively.

You can add as many submissions are you'd like after your third vote, with each one getting 1 point.
Shadow Rush: User 1, User 2, User 3
Shadow Sky: User 4, User 5, User 6
Shadow Wave: User 7, User 8, User 9, User 10, User 11
So, in this ballot, Submissions 10 and 11 would also get 1 point in the Shadow Wave category.

You can vote for your own submission, but it can't be in first place or your only vote in that category. Be sure to mark your self-vote by putting (SV) after it.
Shadow Rush: User 12 (SV), User 2, User 3
Shadow Sky: User 4, User 5, User 6
Shadow Wave: User 7, User 8, User 9, User 10, User 11
This wouldn't be a legal ballot as the self-vote is in first place in the Shadow Rush category

Shadow Rush: User 12 (SV)
Shadow Sky: User 4, User 5, User 6
Shadow Wave: User 7, User 8, User 9, User 10, User 11
This also wouldn't be a legal ballot as the self-vote is the only vote in the Shadow Rush category

Shadow Rush: User 2, User 12 (SV)
Shadow Sky: User 4, User 12 (SV), User 6
Shadow Wave: User 7, User 8, User 12 (SV), User 10, User 11
This is a legal ballot because none of the self-votes are in first place or the only vote in a category.

If you vote for only 2 submissions in a category, the first place submission gets 2 points and the second place submission gets 1 point. If you vote for just one, then that submission gets 1 point.
Beedrill: User 1 (1 point)
Lopunny: User 4 (2 points), User 5 (1 point)
Pidgeot: User 7 (3 points), User 8 (2 points), User 9 (1 point), User 10 (1 point), User 11 (1 point)

Blank Voting Template

Move: User, User, User, etc.
Move: User, User, User, etc.
Move: User, User, User, etc.

The submission with the most points in a category will be added to the mod.

Noting has been vetoed!

Note that each Lugia and Shadow Blast sub are voted on as a package, so there's only one category for this slate

Voting will end in 24 hours. Good luck!

 

[T.I.A.]

G-Luke
T.I.A.
Yoshiblaze

 

[BumbleOfAces]

Yoshiblaze
G-Luke
T.I.A.

 

[Yoshiblaze]

Shadow Lugia: G-Luke, Yoshiblaze (SV), T.IA.

 

[G-Luke]

T.I.A
Yoshiblaze
G-Luke

 

[Yoshiblaze]

The final slate is now over, let's see who won!

Votes

Shadow Lugia
G-Luke - 3 + 2 + 3 + 1 = 9
Yoshiblaze - 1 + 3 + 2 + 2 = 8
T.I.A. - 2 + 1 + 1 + 3 = 7

WINNERS

Pokemon: Shadow Lugia
Types:

Stats: 154/110/90/130/106/90
Ability: Shadow Domain -> Under the effects of Shadow Sky, user's Shadow moves deal 1.3 damage, and takes 0.80 damage from non Shadow moves.
Shadow Moves: Shadow Blast, Shadow Sky, Shadow Storm
Other Changes: Shadow Orb - Doubles the duration of Shadow Sky whenever used by Shadow Lugia
Justification: Shadow Lugia abuses Shadow Sky in a unique manner, allowing Shadow Lugia to be a fierce breaker, as well as a solid offensive partner. Setting Shadow Sky and being able to immediately benefit via how powerful Shadow Sky makes it. The idea that Shadow Lugia has to set up Shadow Sky to regain its maximum potential is also very cool. Shadow Blast as a nuke option that low-key clears the board, but Shadow Pokémon eat the hit and force you to resist. I also made it so that knocking out a Substitute still forces a reset, so regular (faster) Pokémon can do something to abuse it.

Name: Shadow Blast
Power: 150
Accuracy: 90%
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Shadow
Effect: If this move is successful, the user must recharge on the following turn and cannot select a move, unless the target was knocked out by this move.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): None
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Shadow Lugia (maybe base Lugia)
Justification: Hyper Beam feels like the only move that can capture Shadow Blast's aura. So I made it Gen 1 Hyper Beam so it isn't ass. Switch in a Shadow Pokémon to block it!

Congratulations to G-Luke for winning!

That (finally) concludes the final slate of Shadow Colosseum!

With everything complete, the obvious next step would be to playtest the metagame, so I'm happy to tell you that Shadow Colosseum is already playable on DragonHeaven! (It actually has been for awhile now, I've just been too busy to announce it before)
Special thanks to Yak Attack for helping me code it!
I highly encourage anyone reading this to try it, whether you have experience in Orre Colosseum or VGC or not! As a treat, you can have this Sample Team below:
- Fundamentals with Shadow Zapdos, originally by MosquitoVGC

As you can see in the team above, in order to use a Shadow Pokemon, you just have to nickname a Pokemon "shadow" and then leave open a number of moveslots equal to how many Shadow moves they learn (which is 2 for the vast majority of Pokemon), which will be automatically added when the battle starts. Shadow moves are searchable in the teambuilder, but can't be selected or validated through the teambuilder. Note that because of this, Shadow moves don't show up in Open Team Sheets, but you can look at the spreadsheet to see everything's Shadow moves.

Additionally, be on the lookout for any future playtesting opportunities, like roomtours or a forum tournament or anything like that!

That's all for now, see you soon!