Damn this thread got active, new ideas all around as the new gen approaches. Speaking of which I wonder if gigantamaxes will have different stats + be selectable in the teambuilder. Anyway, back to the present.
The Case AGAINST Simple and Contrary, Abridged
Interesting discussion topic. The risk of Simple is manageable with Flower Veil, I think it's the only way other than Mist to block stat drops for both mons. Fveil protects against most of the Simple debuffs, but it is crippling when you occasionally debuff yourself to -2 or -4 (At least it's with a strong move, worse if it's nve). iirc Flower Veil + Contrary does allow the enemy to buff you, but on the other hand it still lets you debuff yourself. In general with Contrary there's so many buffs that you could roll for yourself that it doesn't end up being that good. I don't know the exact numbers on if they would actually counterbalance, but it does make you play against yourself sometimes. Also Weakness Policy just drops your stats lol.
In any case it can be novel to play with stat changes. When it comes down to it, pokemon is just putting numbers against numbers so changing those numbers can get you somewhere. Simple is kind of like going big or going home and Contrary is like playing in the wrong way. Compared to the real meta Contrary suffers from having no reliable setups so there's not an opportunity to take advantage of it, and you just end up with a weird mechanic on yourself. As for Simple I don't think you would get debuffed as much in the usual game, but at the same time all the random boosts just get better. On average off the top of my head I'd say Simple would benefit more than it loses over time, but yeah you could do better than Contrary.
Sturdy Shedinja: This is funny. Ivy is right about loss streaks, I went to 1000 when I tried this back with ladder. Fortunately it was easy enough to rejoin the exclusive 1300 club. A sacrifice to unleash a banned monster seems fitting, but Shedinja just doesn't go the distance. Makes me think about having the same 1v2 handicap, but being used to allow Arceus or something in.
Plus/Minus: Apparently I made one Minus team once with Mega Lucario 2x. I always preferred physical but the instant power is to be considered I guess. Still as said it has weaknesses in its simplicity, nothing is perfect.
I've made a team that's more on the mixed side and I think it could really go places.
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Recent ability talk reminded me of my plans of an ability tierlist. At this point people know the meta and what's good, but at the time I wanted to try new things and think about all the other filler/niche abilities. There's different ways to rate these things that all do different things so I started with the basics, the things that do nothing.
No effect: These don't work.
Emergency Exit, Wimp Out, Arena Trap, Shadow Tag, Triage, Suction Cups, Stance Change, Run Away, Honey Gather, Magnet Pull, Anticipation, Forewarn, Stakeout, Illuminate
No useful effect: These do something but don't affect the result of the battle.
Frisk, Illusion
Bad:
Defeatist, Slow Start
This is when I let go. The good meta stuff all kind of has powerful effects/convenient and consistent/good in general, and everything else either is outclassed or has some kind of weird niche counter usage that might be more helpful than something else. Even "No Ability" has an effect in halting Trace. Still it's about having fun too and there's always a chance to win. The combination of Unranked ladder + default 252 evs has kind of helped with team variety and being able to try/test/judge new ideas easily. Imagine dying to anger point or some terrain setup? Stay tuned for my EV spread tier list next time.
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Also RIP Harvest + Rowap/Jaboca. In the end it was stronger than I expected and probably viable but not dominating. Could be freed but first let's
#FreeSchooling