credit lei for the art! tysm again :)
Concept Name: Viable The Cutest Poison Type
Pokemon Name: Dustox
Typing: Bug/Poison
Stats: 86/55/99/70/135/65 (+26 HP, +5 Atk, +29 Def, +20 SpAtk, +45 SpDef) BST: 510
Abilities: Intimidate /
Thick Fat
Notable Move Additions: Acrobatics, Baton Pass, Foul Play, Glare, Iron Defense, Lunge, Recover, Weather Ball
How It Fulfills the Concept: Look,
Dustox needs a lot of help to do much of anything. Even if I were to give it base 90+ in every stat, it would still struggle immensely. It's typing is hard walled by all Steel types, Ghost types, and Poison types, as well as mons like
Aerodactyl,
Gliscor, and
Camerupt. It is threatened by virtually every metagame relevant mon, and even if you consider its favorable matchups against Grass and Fighting types...most of those STILL beat it, i.e.
Celebi and
Heracross.
The point I'm making is that while that stat buff is utterly bonkers, and I gave it two good abilities + usable Bug stab (it won't though) + new coverage options, it still will be threatened by plenty of the tier and struggle to make progress in the majority of matchups. It is now a mon that can be tooled to target Physical mons like
Breloom,
Toxicroak, and can soft check the majority of them if you're wary of Rock or Flying coverage. Struggles vs many Physical attackers like
Tyranitar,
Snorlax,
Metagross, and other mons that can similarly threaten it/cannot be worn down by it, since even with coverage and the Special Attack buff, it can't hit very hard.
As for Thick Fat, this enables it to do things like actually check Fire/Grass coverage decently well, switch into things like
Eelektross with relatively few worries, and giving it free entry on things like
Cryogonal,
Abomasnow, and giving it additional pivoting options into things like
Starmie and
Flygon which normally it would have no business doing. It now is a
Blaziken check! Hurrah!
It's still passive, and quickly approaches 4mss, and gets blown open by common meta threats, but if you can get around its issues in the builder, I believe it can be very viable :)
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Concept Name: Rock Resist with Reliable Recovery
Pokemon Name: Chesnaught
Typing: Grass/Fighting
Stats: 88/107/122/74/75/64 BST: 530
Abilities: Overgrow /
Battle Armor
Notable Moves: Aerial Ace, Brick Break, Curse, Dragon Claw, Earthquake, Endeavor, Focus Punch, Frustration, Giga Drain, Hidden Power, Iron Defense, Iron Tail, Leech Seed, Low Kick, Pain Split, Protect, Reflect, Rest, Return, Roar, Rock Slide, Rock Tomb, Sleep Talk, Sludge Bomb, Spikes, Spiky Shield, Substitute, Sunny Day, Super Fang, Synthesis, Thunder Punch, Toxic
Removed Moves: Belly Drum, Bulk Up, Swords Dance
How It Fulfills the Concept: A sturdy check vs DDTar, Choice-locked Aero, and Golurk, Chesnaught has the potential to be a big mover and shaker in this meta, with access to Leech Seed + Spiky Shield, Spikes, and a strong Fighting stab in Brick Break, it serves as a Sleep-less but much stronger Breloom, at cost of being slower, and thus losing out on the Magneton/Metagross/Skarmory/Poliwrath/Ludicolo speed tie, as well as being slower than things like the base 65 Eevees (Flareon, Vaporeon, Umbreon), Scizor, Sandslash, and Walrein. Some more viable than others, obviously.
You immediately threaten out Tyranitar, you immediately threaten out Swampert, and you're a Fighting type with a good matchup against Jellicent for the most part. You can capitalize on switches with Spikes and Roar, and thanks to the removal of BDrum, Bulk Up, and Swords Dance, it can't really go insane without some level of support. Curse sets get the added benefit of not getting crit through. I think it might be strong as subbed currently but idk we'll see what council thinks :)
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Concept Name: Weather Disruptor
Pokemon Name: Bronzong
Typing: Psychic/Steel
Stats: 67/89/116/79/116/33 BST: 500
Abilities: Levitate /
Air Lock
Notable Moves: Ancient Power, Block, Calm Mind, Confuse Ray, Doom Desire, Earthquake, Endure, Explosion, Hidden Power, Hypnosis, Iron Defense, Light Screen, Protect, Psych Up, Rain Dance, Reflect, Rest, Rock Slide, Sandstorm, Shadow Ball, Signal Beam, Skill Swap, Sleep Talk, Solar Beam, Substitute, Sunny Day, Thunder, Toxic, Trick, Weather Ball
How It Fulfills the Concept: Air Lock speaks for itself. Invoking Rayquaza itself, it shuts down all weather effects.
Bronzong isn't exactly a safe switch-in vs. the weather setters of the tier, i.e. Tyranitar and Abomasnow. It beats Delibird handily but who cares
Being able to threaten a sleep vs these mons is usually more than they want to take. You generally are able to muscle at least one free turn out just in their scramble to figure out your set, and Bronzong's utility options are nearly unrivaled. You can manually reset weather, try and capitalize on their switches with moves like Trick, Doom Desire, Explosion, Hypnosis, and Skill Swap (very very fun, turns your opponent's mons into their own anti-weather tool- generally a fun concept to force switches)- the possibilities are numerous with Bronzong, which is why it's effective in its role. It is also a Steel type that isn't immediately fearful of Alolem or Magneton for the most part.
The fun part about Bronzong though is that it is plenty useful outside this role at well, as Levitate is a very very strong ability and allows it to check Gliscor, Metagross, Tyranitar and more much more effectively. It's not as sturdy as Skarmory (no pun intended), but its ability to deal with EdgeQuake coverage handily is obviously valued.
[Will edit this later]