Hey, everyone!! Just letting you know that
the pull request for slate 20 has been submitted - that means
inkbug's
Mega Meganium,
BitBitio's
Mega Typhlosion and
Ausma's
Mega Feraligatr are fully coded and will be playable as soon as it's approved! Congratulations to the winners!!!! I can't wait : D
I also added the Acidic Seed as requested (and made sure it was compatible with Down-to-Earth like the other seeds)!
uh, and I fixed the really dumb mistake I made of Mega Dhelmise being the wrong type, and I made Mega Feraligatr change type in the first place!
I'm so sorry this keeps happening OTL
Their Mega Stones, once usable, will be called Meganiumite, Typhlosionite and Feraligatrite
please yell if you have anything better because these sound so weird to me for some reason.
I also uh
...
impromptu poll time!!
>>>
Freeze Clause Mod Poll <<<
(disclaimer: I have not conferred with the council on this yet
but I'm pretty sure it's a good idea
because we do now have a move with a 27.9325% chance to freeze)
(honestly I feel like freeze clause mod should be there by default anyway
it so rarely matters in normal games, but when it does come up, wouldn't you pretty much always rather have it than not?)
For those who are unfamiliar, Freeze Clause Mod is a feature of some formats - including official ones, like the console-based games Pokémon Stadium, Colosseum, XD: Gale of Darkness and Battle Revolution, which have used for official tournaments in the past - that prevents two Pokémon from being frozen on the same team. Essentially, it's just sleep clause but for freeze, since freeze is just as debilitating a status as sleep and removes freedom in much the same way.
As per usual, this will require a 60% supermajority to pass, and it will stay open until slate 21 is voted in and it's time for me to code the next patch!
We also have another poll - as usual, we need
your votes on slate 22's Mega Evolutions!
As usual, this will close once submissions are over and voting has started - but not to worry! You still have 72 hours before then, so there's plenty of time.
Thank you to BitBitio for reminding me!! I posted this on the Discord but completely forgot to put it in the post here OTL
First of all, I am
super excited for this slate - there aren't many Legendary or Mythical Pokémon we felt comfortable giving Megas this early on, but these three are some of my favorites, and I'm so happy we agreed as a council that they were safe picks! I haven't prepared a sub yet myself, but I think I totally will for at least one of them in the next few days!
That said, I do want to reiterate what was said in the announcement post - the fact that these are Legendary Pokémon is not a reason to go wild with powerful effects and make them as strong as possible!
If anything, it's just the opposite; these three really need to be handled carefully, because even if their base forms aren't the best in their current states, the opportunity to change their Abilities and give them new moves, in conjunction with their already-high base stat totals and relatively optimized stat distributions, makes it pretty easy for them to end up stronger than you'd expect.
I think everyone has done a good job of this so far, but I just feel the need to emphasize the point, haha. Thank you guys for understanding and cooperating!!
(and I'm actually a huge fan of many of the subs so far!!)
While this is indeed a thing, I don't think that it's really an issue to just add overflow clause to this pet mod (which prevents you from running a nature that increases a stat to the point where it would overflow)
(Oops, this is something I had brought up myself on the Discord yesterday morning - I think DrPumpkinz was just reiterating it because we forgot to say anything about it the thread. OTL
Sorry about that!! And thank you for bringing it up here, DrPumpkinz!!)
Buuut yeah, I actually am disallowing this, sorry.
We're not doing anything with stats that's known to be impossible on cartridge - we already don't allow custom Abilities that are unrealistic, and we have other rules specifically restricting stat spreads that would be implausible and bad for optics whether they're balanced or not.
Everyone knows and respects the more conventional limit of 255 in a stat - no one would argue that a stat of 260 should be allowed even if it could be coded on Showdown, right? - but that's also just a matter of abiding to cartridge limitations. Following the more accurate cartridge limitation shouldn't be any different from that; I don't think it should be a problem to restrict this for better cartridge accuracy and realism or see any reason to accommodate extreme stat spreads that can't exist on cartridge.
I appreciate that ChoiceScarfed edited theirs in light of this!
That in mind, this applies to your Regice, too - I'm sorry it wasn't announced in the thread sooner, but you aaare going to have to cut that down.
At least two points.
Edit: HEY ALSO SORRY I JUST REALIZED I WAS MISREADING ITS ABILITY
Yyyeah, no, that's not allowed.
Ice is already an exceptionally good attacking type, coveted even by non-STAB users for coverage; it hits four important types super effectively, and Regice comes with a reliable 90 BP STAB and/or a less reliable 110 BP STAB if it needs the damage.
Eliminating all resistances is not something to be taken lightly - at
best, we would allow the existing Tinted Lens, an Ability normally reserved for exceptionally bad Pokémon with exceptionally bad types and exceptionally bad stats.
But the difference between Tinted Lens and Crystalline Lens is
massive - this doesn't just give it pseudo-unresisted STAB but makes its STAB super effective against a ton of Pokémon it shouldn't be. A large number of dual-typed Pokémon that currently have neutralities to Ice (thanks to combinations like Fire/Flying, with one type that's weak to Ice but another that resists it) would gain weaknesses to Regice's moves, and even Pokémon like Heatran that double-resist Ice are just as affected as anything else.
While Regice is theoretically held back by its low Speed and Defense, it can still come in easily on special attackers and doesn't need to make any prediction or judgment calls at all on what will switch in to replace them; it's always 100% safe to click the same move no matter what.
It's true that it doesn't hit as hard as Regieleki and Regidrago specifically, but it also doesn't... really... have anything in common with those two at all - the point of them is that they're stuck with STABs that
aren't always safe, because immunities to Electric and resistances to Dragon are on every team and it takes support to get either of them into a position to sweep. This Regice just completely eliminates the idea of defensive counterplay altogether.
Admittedly, I'm also automatically disposed to dislike something that can be described with "this mon gets a kill against offense every time it comes in," and I've complained about this exact quality as a selling point in the context of other Pokémon from Generation VIII. Is this... really something people like or want to see added to the meta? I don't mean to be rude, but it doesn't really sound engaging to play with or against this - whether it's well-balanced or effective at its job or not, it doesn't really get to do anything interesting other than damage.
Mega Regice
New Ability: Borealis [Upon entry, sets Aurora Veil (even without Hail)]
Type: Ice
New stats:
HP: 80
Attack: 50 -> 80 (+30)
Defense: 100 -> 120 (+20)
Special Attack: 100 -> 130 (+30)
Special Defense: 200
Speed: 50 -> 70 (+20)
(BST)
New moves: None
Description: Shining brightly like a crystal, Mega Regice appears! Yes, the effect of its ability is very strong, but there's some caveats with it that keep it from being overwhelming, which involve its item slot. Firstly, it can't hold Light Clay, so it has to keep coming into battle to put up the veil. Compared with AlolaTales, Mega Regice doesn't need to spend a turn putting up the veil. But because AlolaTales can hold Light Clay, it actually gives its team more turns with the veil. This means Regice will need to pivot in and out to set up the Veil again, which complicates things because it also can't hold HDB, so it takes hazard damage every time it comes in. Without access to any recovery, except Rest, it simply can't come in and out a lot to refresh the Veil, which may need to happen a lot due to Defog. If Regice switches in during a turn, the veil count will still drop at the end of the turn. And Regice needs to switch back out for its teammate to come in to take advantage of it, leaving it with only 3 turns of support.
To further ensure it won't be overwhelming, I 'threw away' half of its mega stats into Atk and Spe, both of which are still too low to care about. Mega Evolving also gives it an opportunity cost, as there are lots of great megas that would want Regice's effect on their team, but they both can't coexist on it. Outside of being a veil-bot, it really does nothing outside of T-Wave hax. Its movepool is still barren with Focus Blast and Flash Cannon being its only coverage moves, so it gets walled fairly easily. And despite being defensive, it still has its awful typing for defense, which, again, limits how frequently it can enter battle.
Hi! Sorry if this is disappointing, but... we've been pretty strict about autosetting team support this strong in the past (I would consider this a similar case to some submissions we vetoed on the Discord for Ariados - more than one person wanted an autosetter of Sticky Web - and to Aurorus - many people wanted Aurora Veil-related effects that were too easily set and too consistent, and these, too, were deemed too strong as a result), and after discussing this on the Discord, I'm afraid we've decided that we reeeally don't want to allow this.
The balancing factors you listed make sense to the extent that Regice itself can't capably abuse this effect to any unreasonable extent, but the problem is that it doesn't
need to - Aurora Veil is a form of team support first and foremost, and all Regice needs to do to accomplish that much is exist. Arguably, you could have a Regice whose only move was Rest to recover from hazard damage, and it would still do its job just fine and its team could realistically be under the effects of Aurora Veil for a majority of the battle.
We feel that it doesn't really matter how much is working against Regice or how strong or weak Regice is, because Regice is not the Pokémon that's meant to use it; what matters here is that Regice switching in and switching out gets its teammates three free turns of dual screens (and all it has to do is take one hit with doubled defenses), Regice replacing a fainted Pokémon and switching out gets its teammates four free turns of dual screens (and in this case it doesn't even need to take a hit).
Even the argument that it's balanced by not having pivoting access doesn't
really work here, because it's still less dangerous for that teammate to come in when it has a free Veil up and pretty much strictly better for it than if Regice weren't on its team; in terms of raw damage, it's not consistently taking more from the halved damage on the switch-in and the halved damage on the boosting turn than it would be if it were just spending a turn to set up without a Veil, which is to say that it's still generally fine or even better off as it sets up and then still gets three absolutely free turns of Veil afterwards.
With all of that in mind, this one is going to have to be vetoed - sorry again if that's disappointing.
Mega Registeel
Type: Steel
Ability: Magnetize - This Pokémon's Steel-type moves are also the Electric-type and trap steel types that they hit and they are trapped until this pokemon switches out. Not even U-Turn can switch you out.
Hp: 80
Att: 75 -> 105 (+30)
Def: 150 -> 175 (+25)
Spec Att: 75 -> 105 (+30)
Spec Def: 150 -> 175 (+25)
Sped: 50 -> 40 (-10)
New Moves: Bullet Punch
Description: I decided to be creative for this one, so I made the ability make all the steel move it uses become magnets and trap steel types. This pokemon traps in opposing steel types and can wallop them with Body Press or Earthquake. Although lots of steel types get earthquake themselves and are most likely faster then this titan. This pokemon has bullet punch for trapping in steel types better.
After discussing this on the Discord, we also feel that this is too many unrelated effects for one Ability.
Trapping Steel-types is already another Ability in itself, while preventing pivoting moves is unlike any other form of trapping and really seems like it should be the primary effect of the Ability or not there at all.
Moreover, dual-typed moves are a notoriously unintuitive mechanic, and we've discouraged taking them lightly and introducing more of them without cause in the past; in this case, it doesn't seem like something that's necessary for or used meaningfully by the submission and is only really there for flavor, so I would rather avoid that?
I would recommend just going with the already-existing Magnet Pull, personally - it's a more reliable Ability anyway, and it's much simpler than this.
Mega Regirock
Mega Regice:
Mega Registeel:
Mega Magcargo, 
Mega Bastiodon and 
Mega Leavanny!
