Pet Mod UmbreMons - Post Slate 3 (Playtesting)

[Gekokeso]

Thoughts:
Fun priority option. Feint doesn't see much use in the current meta so it probably will be a very interesting addition to the meta.
Decent option as a physical steel stab to get through screens. I could see something like Metagross getting mileage out of it.
Normal types and Ate users no longer confined to weak stabs or killing themselves to deal meaningful damage.
A tad bit gimmicky, but messing with tailwind is honestly a pretty fair niche alongside stuff like hurricane and heat wave.

Sand co- My lawyers have advised me not to do this joke. Should be fine, bet a couple of mons could receive a adjustment to use it better however
Ngas but for items. Ill grieve my rooms but this ability could have some pretty fun teambuilding potential.
The nefarious Garchomp buff. Im all for removing bullshit and this could really make sand and snow teams more varied.
The Eeveemod classic. Couple of mons that could make lots of usage out fo it, especially with all the stat drops going around.
Feel like the possibilities with this one are higher than on might think, so many mons could enjoy the speed boost with teammates with stat drop moves.

Let's go Gambling!
I'll be so for real im unsure what you use this for other than as a fun unburden activator but vgc peeps will now how to use it.
Somewhat niche, but there's a couple of fun things you could do with it.
I looove bullying physical attackers.
Spore criminals like among us are not here yet but i'll feel safer with this for the future.

Face of the mod receives buffs, the more important of these is luner blessing which is awesome to prevent that fucking bastard Sinistcha from stealing the game.
Terrain warfare is here, and its seems too late to stop it now. Swampert rain is gonna start packing anti terrain measures.
https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/king-von-dies-age-26-obituary-9479524/
Fabio the goat gets massively powerful tools to become rain's raging bolt. Archaludon with nuclear power and that isn't a fat chud.
Unburden support looks pretty fun, that or it will be obnoxious.

Overall I like pretty much every winner, pretty good subs this slate.

 

[Lysion]

Feint is a cool move, and I expect this one to be cool as well. Maybe in the future I can try to make a fun special Technician user? I definitively like this one.
Also love this one, Screens is a playstyle worth nerfing, although on the niche side I can see it being ran.
My sub. It won't be enough to make my targets viable, but it's already a good start.
I'm glad this one won, another way to stop Charizard-Y and Froslass. I can imagine being not that niche actually, depending on the distribution.

I love this sub, and I plan on subbing Electro Shot Heliolisk (although it has Hyper Beam already). Also I will absolutely run Armarouge Sand, I will mention Armarouge a lot.
I also like this one a lot. Mr.Rime + Froslass-Mega Snow sounds terrifying when you consider you can't use AV. You're gonna be in a world of pain if you rely on AV (regular Champions at least taught us how not to). It will be funny and end up with weird and hilarious strats.
My sub. I'm particularily glad it won alongside Prevailing Wind because of the cool interaction of Aerodynamism being a counter to Prevailing Winds. Pidgeot-Mega will be the main abuser I think, keeping its full accuracy on Hurricane and Heat Wave while also being a good counterplay to Froslass-Mega and Charizard-Mega-Y. I have yet to think who could get the ability besides the one I was talking about.
This one is also cool, Screens counterplay is welcome. Also fuck you Staraptor once more lmao
Armarouge Sand with Sand Veil Garchomp by its side is real.
Unbothered is the same thing as my own Unconcerned, and is an interesting and fun ability. Intimidate counterplay, etc, you name it.
Can be cool.

My sub. I brought back Dragonite baby. Armarouge Armarouge Armarouge Sand. Oh and Garchomp buff baby.
Nice item, like it.
Oh boy... I can imagine stupid stuff coming out of it.
Also like it, funny offensive Maushold repellent.
Spore criminals are no more. I find Zard Y + Venu to be bullshit, so at last, more counterplay can't hurt. Also opens up options for Sand... did I talk about how much I wanna build Sand?

Simple yet effective buff. Makes Umbreon viable while not being overly complex or bullshit, which I really like.
My sub. Heh, Terrain war was already a thing, so I guess I leaned into it. I murdered one of my favorite megas, being Swampert-Mega, PsySpam and Rain counterplay is a good thing. I think it will have pretty good combos.
I was not interested in nerfs as I prefer buffs, but this one is major, and dare I say, appreciated.
I'm not a huge fan of this one. It really feels it doesn't play into anything Ampharos-Mega does in vanilla, instead making it the second arrival of Archaludon except it takes your mega slot and has STAB? Also Dragonize Hyper Voice is... I mean it does give it a niche, but I think it had one already, like Ausma mentionned on Discord, I would have preferred seeing Thunderclap or something as a buff, as it's cool with buffed Mold Breaker. Oh well, it is what it is.
Curious to see it into action. It's way more of a support than Sneasler is, so it's gonna be so different.

 

[BlueRay]

It's review time. But first of all, congratulation to the winners!

-
One of the biggest winners, if not the biggest winner of the first slate, is Musharna. Psychic Surge push it to a meteoric rise, contributing to a high usage. In hindsight, that might not be surprising given its great bulk, good damage output, and toolkit. Musharna is not sth you can simply ignore because if you do, it can keep supporting the team with moves like Trick Room, Helping Hand, Yawn or Skill Swap, the latter allowing it to reset Psychic Terrain, if necessary. And we all know how scary Expanding Force can be, especially if they come from attackers like Hatterene or Armarouge. That said, so far, Neutralising Gas is rather unexplored, as far as I am aware of. There's a lot of potential to explore. For instance, you can run an Intimidate user like Incineroar more safely without worrying about opposing Defiant or Competitive or White Herb Sneasler. You can also shut down weather, which is omnipresent. Funnily enough, I could see Musharna on a Mega Charizard-Y team to ensure Sun remains dominant with the right play. And since Aerodactyl and Garchomp are a common sight, they will greatly appreciate not having to bother with opposing Intimidate.

Neutralising Gas aside, I'm curious to see how Grassy Surge Trevenant will fare. It has Trick Room and Fake Out immunity, which makes it quite flexible. Furthermore, its existence will ensure we will no longer be plagued by Musharna as we have, in total, three terrain setters that aren't Mega Pokémon. With Grassy Glide, you can now snipe Mega Swampert and pressure Basculegion, at least. I wouldn't be surprised if Ground Pokémon are less incentivized to run Earthquake. Massive + Grassy Terrain make this move really unappealing. So, it's back to running Single target Ground moves. Or you run both options.

-
This might be the scariest additions because Electroshot off of 165 SpA is no joke. You can simply run Modest/Quiet and have no EVs invested in its SpA, and that would still be enough to OHKO max HP Kingambit or 2HKO Assault Vest Archaludon, depending on the latter's special bulk investment. That is some obscene power, which will greatly allow Mega Ampharos to invest a lot in its bulk, making it thereby harder to take down. While it's more of a Trick Room attacker, and answers do exist (Garchomp, Sylveon, and Mega Floette come to my mind), we shouldn't underestimate it; we need to keep an eye on it. Sure, it needs Rain but Rain Dance Farigiraf sees play (in the context of Mega Blastoise), and we have Masquerade users to make Rain style more flexible. And I know Pelipper has also been used on (semi) Trick Room teams in SV's restricted format, mainly to support Calyrex-Ice-Rider and ease the Koraidon mu. Now, in Champions, we've got Mega Charizard-Y. So, Rain is always a neat option to try keeping it in line.

-
This is a potential Trick Room setter. With new access to Howl, it can now enable this strategy on a different team style. Usually, Howl teams are found on rather fast-paced teams with Tailwind support or other form of "positive" speed control. Really curious to see what kind of teams we could expect from Umbreon.

-
Now that we have Mirror Herb, we can finally use Intimidate more safely and punish Pokémon like Kingambit.

-
I'm also glad we got this item back because not every team wants to run Aromatise or Mega Raichu-X, especially the former who's more limited to Trick Room teams and the latter who sacrifices a Mega slot. An item flexibility is always appreciated to not have games stolen by Sleep Powder Venusaur, among others, or be annoyed by Rage Powder.

- Abilities:
a) I'm a little bit worried about Snow Cloak / Sand Veil since any ally can benefit from the user's ability, unlike other weather related abilities where the abusers are generally more limited by their type, among others. We'll see how these abilities will work out; after all, weather is everywhere, and you are expected to be able to deal with it. Furthermore, you are pretty shoe-horned into a group as you need a weather setter, a Snow Cloak / Sand Veil user, and then you have to decide when to send out an ally that may want to benefit from the defensive application.

b) Unbothered may need some really good / distinctive abusers because with the exception of Mega Golurk and, perhaps, Infernape, it is rather unremarkable, imo. Mamoswine already has Oblivious and rarely runs Superpower. So, there's not really a huge incentive. Pyroar prefers Unnerve pre-Mega to prevent berries from triggering, and you are not going to use just its base form when more powerful Fire Pokémon already exist, including its own Mega-Evolution and Pokémon like Mega Charizard-Y or Mega Delphox. Salazzle already overlaps a bit with Infernape since they share similar tools and speed and they commonly run Focus Sash, making the defensive application of the ability rather non-existent. Luxray already has Intimidate and Guts, the latter basically canceling out Unbothered if you are affected by Intimidate. Vileplume and Drapple are also kind of similar if we consider Trick Room. So, I think the disrtibution needs to be more careful and meaningful, imo.

c) Rattled is an underused ability. So, I'm glad to see it more distributed. Looking forward to seeing how well the new abusers will take advantage of it.

d) Magic Warp is an interesting addition since all players are affected by this effect but it's the user who can control when they want to no longer have this effect present. What I like is how you can get around Safety Goggles, Assault Vest, etc. That said, i think for how powerful this effect can be, perhaps, its distribution should be more limited. I already like that all potential users are weak to Ghost/Dark, making it much easier to handle them. Just two, perhaps three users would be enough.

e) Sandclock. Can't wait to use Armarouge like in Z-A Royal.

Regarding moves, I don't have much to say. While I love Astonish's new effect (otherwise, I wouldn't have voted for it), I also hope distribution will be more careful. For instance, a Pokémon like Corviknight shouldn't get it because it would encroach on Skarmory's niche who has Feint. If you must give it to a Steel/Flying Pokémon, I'd rather it'd be added to Skarmory, instead.

Laser Cut. So, this move has some light-base flavour. Perhaps, this is just my bias but I wouldn't mind if this move were added to Starmie. It would synergize well with its mixed offense in its Mega form and fit flavour wise. Fwiw, Starmie also already knows Psycho Cut and Aqua Cutter.

 

[Rasdanation]

Apolgogies for the delay,
Distribution
is now complete
Moves:
Astonish - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Laser Cut - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Return - Universal TM
Prevailing Wind - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Abilities:
Sandclock - , , (over Rain Dish), (over Klutz), (over Sand Veil), (over Reckless), (over Illuminate)
Magic Warp - (over Frisk), (over Magician), [M] (over Opportunist), [F] (over Opportunist), (over Analytic)
Aerodynamism - , (over Frisk), (over No Guard),
Screen Cleaner - Existing Mons + , (over Rivalry),
Snow Cloak - Existing Mons + (over Pressure), , , (over Own Tempo), (over Pressure), (over Frisk)
Sand Veil - Existing Mons + , , , (over Keen Eye)
Unbothered - (over Unseen Fist), , (over Iron Fist), (over Shell Armor), (over Anger Point)
Rattled - (over Synchronize), (over Swarm), (over Cursed Body), , (over Pickup), (over Pickup), (over Early Bird), (over Klutz), (over Frisk)

Additionally, as one final change
Sunken Lunge - (no longer learns)

We're going to dedicate a little time for slate 2's patch to be implemented & get some playtesting before moving to Slate 3

 

[Rasdanation]

Slate 3

Important notice before submissions begin: Resubs of concepts from prior slates are allowed for this slate, however will be judged on a case-by-case basis (for convenience sake, label your subs as RESUB if that is the case).

Submissions end at approximately <t:1784908800:F>, vetoes will happen a day before.​

 

[Lysion]

Moves

Name: Swarming
Power: 110
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Bug
Effect: Lowers target's and user's Sp. Defense by 1 stage.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): None of note
Potential Pokémon With This Move: OK unsure here because of a lack of Bugs?
Justification: Strong wallbreaking tool that also has a heavy drawback.

Name: Thunderclap [resub from PQRDG?]
Power: 70
Accuracy: 100
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Electric
Effect: Usually goes first. Fails if the target is not attacking.
Priority: 1
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: I really like the distribution of this move to some options, and while Basculegion is no longer broken, it's still a cool tool for all the stuff here (Ampharos lost Electro Shot so Thunderclap shouldn't be a problem at all).

Abilities

Name: Fossilize
Effect: This Pokemon's Normal-type moves become Rock type and have 1.2x power.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: (over Refrigerate) (over Keen Eye) (over Strong Jaw)
Justification: Elegant way to give a fully accurate Rock STAB to things. Also Aurorus gets a spread Rock STAB and doesn't lose anything of value (nooooo no Refrigerate mean no Ice-type spread STAB... wait a minute Snow Warning Blizzard. Game Freaks come on.) Also Lycanroc-Day gets a niche over Dusk form (aka less strong priority but stronger STAB), and Avalugg-Hisui is hype moment and aura.

Name: Mimicry
Effect: This Pokemon gets a new type to match the Terrain. Type reverts when Terrain ends.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: +
Justification: Ground/Steel already wins or is neutral against most terrain setters in vanilla. And even here, it already allows you to deal with Raichu-X, Musharna, and you're neutral against Trevenant. So losing your STABs and your type for situations you were already winning... Yeah, it sucks. Adding a type however, instead of changing your type, is only a help during the Terrain to tank better the moves, and I wanna give it to some mons that could become cool Terrain abusers (potentially ones with Terrain Pulse?)

Adjustments

Name: Gholdengo (resub)
Type: Steel/Ghost
Abilities: Good as Gold/Surge Surfer
New Moves:
Removed Moves:
Justification: For science. Terrain war? Alright let's add some more. Gholdengo has good lore for Surge Surfer, and competitively it's rather interesting as well. NP into Make it Rain and all, making it a huge threat in the back, as well as resisting Psychic and Grass, possibly making the Terrain war better for Electric side.

Name: Heliolisk
Type: Electric/Normal
Abilities: Dry Skin/Sandclock/Solar Power
New Moves: Electro Shot
Removed Moves:
Justification: Sandclock gave Heliolisk a really unique niche in Hyper Beam spam in Sand. The reason why I give it Electro Shot? It plays really well into Heliolisk's niche.
- You have a charging turn that boosts its Sp. Attack, really strong Sand abuser here.
- Due to Electro Shot natural effect, you can't use Rain to stop it. I feel it's kinda important here as it gives Heliolisk a particular niche, but also plays into its identity. It can abuse all of Sand, Rain and Sun in canon, and I feel the move plays into that well (you technically can run Dry Skin Electro Shot in Rain?)
- Archaludon and Ampharos-Mega RIP BOZO AMPHAROS LOST ELECTRO SHOT LIKE 2 SECONDS AFTER I POST are both slow and bulky, while Heliolisk is frail and fast.

Name: Luxray
Type: Electric
Abilities: Screen Cleaner/Intimidate/Galvanize
New Moves: Fake Out
Removed Moves:
Justification: I really, really wanted to buff Luxray, so here we go! It's a mix between an Incineroar sidegrade with Fake Out, Intimidate and Volt Switch, and an interesting support with Galvanize. Its Fake Out cannot be blocked by Ghosts but can be blocked by Grounds, which means you can pair Luxray with a strong Ice such as Froslass-Mega. Moreover, it has some interesting moves, such as Return for a strong STAB, Quick Attack for a strong prio, and Howl which you can use to boost during a double Protect.
(Thank you ausma for the suggestions)

 

[Rasdanation]

Oh I forgor we had some balance to announce

Balance Update


- Loses Electro Shot

Yeah in the playtesting following slate 2's implementation, this addition was found to simply be too much.

 

[cat111ca]

Moves

RESUB​

Name: Misty step
Power: 0
Accuracy: --%
PP: 12
Category: status
Type: fairy
Effect: summons misty terrain and switches the user out afterwards
Priority: 0
Flags: literally none
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: chilly reception clone that summons misty terrain. Just a fun idea I had. Misty terrain is weaker than other field effects so it feels fine to give this to more Pokemon. Also stops psyspam

---

Name: Deafening Shriek
Power: 110
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Ghost
Effect: After dealing damage, the target will receive the Deafened status, making them immune to Sound-based moves until they switch out. Hits all adjacent pokemon
Priority: 0
Flags: Protect, Sound
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: ghost type spread damage that isn't broken because it's hard to spam. an idea originally from joltemons cause I'm unoriginal

---

Name: Thrash/Outrage/Raging Fury/Petal Dance
Power: 130
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 12
Category: Physical/Physical/Physical/Special
Type: Normal / Dragon / Fire / Grass
Effect: Locks the user into this move for the next turn, than confuses the user. (no random targeting)
Priority: 0
Flags: Contact, Protect
Potential Pokémon With This Move: current distribution / current distribution / current distribution + / current distribution +
Justification: these moves were always unviable in doubles due to the random targeting. So I removed it. Hopefully this makes these actually good or at least usable

---

Name: Sparkling Water
Power: 65
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 16
Category: Special
Type: Water
Effect: Double power if you are in misty terrain.
Priority: 0
Flags: Protect
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: More reason to use misty terrain in a meta that really doesn't favor it.

Abilities

Name: Moody
Effect: This Pokemon's lowest stat goes up by 1 every turn. if two stats tie raise the first in this order (atk>def>sp.atk>sp.def>spe)
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: every Pokemon here can either use this to great effect or is Glalie. Especially scovillain and Lycanroc. another idea originally from joltemons cause I'm really unoriginal

---

Name: Cold Iron Armor
Effect: Immune to fairy moves. when attacked by a fairy type, that Pokemon loses 1/6th of their max HP
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A way to combat fairy spam and a helpful buff to my favorite Pokemon :D

---

Name: Swarm
Effect: Increases the user attack stat by 1 stage upon switching in if another pokemon that has a bug type move is on the field
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: current distribution +
Justification: I wanted a way for all of the megas with swarm on their base form to get something, so this is my idea.

---

Name: Referee
Effect: when you switch in and get hit by an attack the attacker switches out to a random pokemon.
Permanent (Yes or No): no
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: ()
Justification:

Items

Name: Light feather

Effect: 1.5x speed, holder's attacks deal 0.7X damage
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yes
Fling Power & Effect: 5, none
Justification: A new way for supporting Pokemon to boost their speed

---

Name: Mystical herb

Effect: Holder's first move to hit into an immunity bypasses said immunity and is then used up
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10, none
Justification: A way for pokemon to bypass their problem matchups.

---

Name: Blunder insurance
Effect: 1.3x special attack until switching out if the holder's move entirely fails to connect. doesn't stack
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10, none
Justification: a way for non mega special attackers to compete with the megas by letting them increase power when ever a move hit's into protect

---

Name: Red Card
Effect: If the holder is hit by an attack, it consumes the Red Card and forces the Pokémon that used the attack to switch to a random Pokémon.
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yeas
Fling Power & Effect: 10, makes the target switch to a random pokemon
Justification: wip

Adjustments

​

Name: Gourgeist small/normal/large/super
Type: Grass / Ghost
Abilities: Rattled / Prankster / Harvest | Rattled / Prankster / Frisk | Rattled / Prankster / Defiant | Rattled / Prankster / Flash Fire
New Moves: Tailwind | Snatch | Horn Leech | Rage Powder
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: WIP

---

​

Name: Florges
Type: Fairy
Abilities: Flower Veil / Healer / Misty Surge
New Moves: Earth Power, Life Dew.
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: misty surge is the last of the terrain abilities to be added onto a pokemon. this changes that and hopefully gives florges a niche as a fairy attacker with nearly unresisted coverage and a great supporter with healing and status prevention

---

​

Name: chandelure
Type: Fire / Ghost
Abilities: Flash Fire / Weak Armor / Infiltrator-> Flash Fire
New Moves: Wide guard, Stored Power.
Removed Moves: None
Justification: Wip

---

​

Name: Overqwil
Type: Poison / Dark
Abilities: Poison Point / Swift Swim / Intimidate
New Moves: Knock Off, Flip Turn, Mortal Spin, Wide Guard.
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: These changes let Overqwil be a pseudo-incineroar that can use assault vest with intimidate, sunken lunge and flip turn, while threatening floette with physical poison stab. also allow it to sometimes replace Basc on rain teams.

WIP

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Moves

Name: Supercell Slam / Horn Drill
Power: 75
Accuracy: 100
PP: 5
Category: Physical
Type: Electric / Normal
Effect: Causes the target to become weak to the next Electric-type / Normal-type attack. This effect ends when the target is no longer active.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move: /
Justification: Allows u to damage amp the next attack, this allows you to double team a target with mons and allows u to exploit them as a result. Tho this comes at the cost of pretty much telegraphing you will double team said target

Name: Mist
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 5
Category: Physical
Type: Ice
Effect: For 5 turns, the user and its party members are protected from secondary effects and having their stat stages lowered by other Pokemon. Fails if the effect is already active on the user's side.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Ice and Water types
Justification: Mist i feel could always do more, blocking secondary effects means fake out cycling and it can block intimidate for 5 turns.

Name: Brine
Power: 60
Accuracy: 100
PP: 10
Category: Special
Type: Water
Effect: +20 BP for each Pokemon on the field that has less than or equal to half of its maximum HP remaining.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Brine can now function in doubles by now racking up in power for each pokemon on the field having half hp or less. With that it can ramp up to quite a powerful move especially since it counts the user

Name: Mat Block
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 10
Category: Status
Type: Fighting
Effect: The user and its party members are protected from damaging attacks made by other Pokemon, including allies, during this turn. Fails unless it is the user's first turn on the field, if the user moves last this turn, or if this move is already in effect for the user's side.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): -
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification:

Items

Name: Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav, Iapapa Berry
Effect: Restores 1/3 max HP at 1/3 max HP or less; confuses with corresponding Nature. Single use.
Can Be Knocked Off (Yes or No): Yes
Ignored by Klutz (Yes or No): Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10 + Heal 1/3 max HP
Justification: I wanted to somewhat restore their former glory, while they still are 33% berries they now activate at 33% health instead of 25% allowing them to be at higher breakpoints

Name: Bug / Dark / Dragon / Electric / Fairy / Fighting / Fire / Flying / Ghost / Grass / Ground / Ice / Normal / Poison / Psychic / Rock / Steel / Water Gem
Effect: Holder's first successful Bug / Dark / Dragon / Electric / Fairy / Fighting / Fire / Flying / Ghost / Grass / Ground / Ice / Normal / Poison / Psychic / Rock / Steel / Water-type attack will have 1.3x power. Single use.
Can Be Knocked Off (Yes or No): Yes
Ignored by Klutz (Yes or No): Yes
Fling Power & Effect: Fling will fail if the user is holding a Bug / Dark / Dragon / Electric / Fairy / Fighting / Fire / Flying / Ghost / Grass / Ground / Ice / Normal / Poison / Psychic / Rock / Steel / Water Gem
Justification: I like gems, I liked how they had something in vgc 2011-13 and i think pre nerf gems might be to strong. Giving these might give some moves the extra oomph esp if you are already using an item like life orb. I think 1.3x is a fine number especially in champions

Abilities

Name: Curious Medicine
Effect: If there is a stat drop on the user’s side, the stat stages reset to 0 on their side. This works only once per switch-in.
Permanent (Yes or No): Yes
Mold Breaker (Yes or No):
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: An upgrade to what it has now, it is now more smart with its activation and also happens while the pokemon is active, this allows it to cleanse stuff like parting shot, an opponent switching an intimidate user in, or self inflicted stat drops

Adjustments

Name: Steelix, Steelix-Mega
Type: Steel / Ground, Steel / Ground
Abilities: Massive / Sturdy / Clear Body, Flash Fire
New Moves: Shore Up, Bulk Up, Spikes, Heat Crash, Swords Dance, Headlong Rush, Snatch, Encore
Removed Moves:
Justification: A combination of a lot of stuff, i liked flash fire steelix-m from megas revisited so tried to give it a shot. With the uses it has it can still have wide guard against stuff like mega charizard y while firing off strong heat crashes, precipice blades.


Name: Gyarados(-Mega)
Type: Water / Flying (Water / Dark)
Abilities: Intimidate / Aerodynamism / Moxie (Mold Breaker)
New Moves: Wave Crash, Knock Off, Tailwind
Removed Moves:
Justification: Wanted to give gyara some time again esp since it has some VGC placements in oras and sv. With tailwind + wave crash it gives base gyara a lot more utility. Alongside having the buffed mold breaker on the mega form to work with. With a sweeper set it can see uses


Name: Aegislash-Blade
Type: Ghost / Fighting
Abilities: Stance Change
New Moves: -
Removed Moves: -
Justification: Note: This is an aegisash-blade sub not aegislash-shield. Aegislash in shield form is still ghost / steel. Either way this change is done to allow aegislash to use its defensive steel typing and turn it into a powerful offensive fighting typing upon stance changing. This would allow it to threaten opponents better in this form it has strong tools with CC + shadow ball and priority.

 

[AquaticPanic]

Moves

Name: Stormy Descent [RESUB]
Power: 80
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 16
Category:

Type:

Effect: Gains a secondary effect according to Weather. Hits both opponents.
30% chance to lower target's Speed by 1 stage under Snow
30% chance to inflict Burn under Sun
30% chance to set up Mud Sport for 3 turns under Rain
30% chance to inflict Sand Tomb under Sand
30 BP higher under Strong Winds
Priority: 0
Flags: Protect, Metronome, Wind
Potential Pokémon With This Move: ()
Pokémon That Should NOT Get This Move: ()
Justification: Reliable Flying STAB for some Pokémon that lack it and also an interesting way of engaging with the Weather Wars, letting Flying mons work as a Support option on any weather

Items

Name: Black Sludge
Effect: If the holder is a Poison type, this sludge will gradually restore its HP. It damages any other type.
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 30
Justification: The effects of this item are unchanged. Currently, we are experiencing a very unique phenomenon in VGC where there are multiple Pokémon that use Leftovers, notably Toxapex and Archaludon. I am adding this item back specifically for Toxapex, as that also frees up Leftovers for another mon on its team. This also punishes Choice trading into Toxapex.

||

Abilities

Name: Dual Wield
Effect: User's Slicing moves hit twice and have smart targetting, but each hit only deals 3/4 damage.
Permanent: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: I believe this makes for an interesting way of creating more physical Spread mons. Each move hitting twice also plays well into moves like Razor Shell for more chances to roll the Defense drop and the many high-crit Slicing moves to roll for a crit. Sacred Sword also plays well into Sableye-Archaludon as it hits the bridge twice. Not entirely sure if we should replace Sand Force on Mega Garchomp as its just recently seen a little bit of usage, but this would also give it an unique role that its base form can't fill


Name: As One (Falinks)
Effect: Effects of Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield
Permanent: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: The first step to buff Mega Falinks. Defiant on base scares away Intimidate mons and No Retreat encourages staying on the field anyways, so the ability only activating once is less of an issue. Turns Mega Falinks into a respectably scary mon with the right positioning


Name: Klutz
Effect: User's held item has no effect, unless Magic Room is active.
Permanent: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Allows Mega Meow & Co. to have some unique options as partners. You can't remove Magic Room anyways so this effectively lets you play with an advatange over the opponent through the entire match.

|

Adjustments

Name: Simisage, Simisear and Simipour
Type: Unchanged
Abilities: All 3 gain Hospitality
New Moves:
Encore, Grass Pledge, U-turn
Encore, Fire Pledge, Parting Shot
Encore, Water Pledge (note: Simipour already has Flip Turn)
Justification:

The Simis have historically been rather underwhelming, but I think this makes for an interesting niche. While they are way less bulky than Sinistcha, they do allow for multiple Hospitality users on the same team, and unlike sinistcha they have a good pivotting movepool with Fake Out + a pivot move on each of them. They have the benefit of being just slightly above the 100 base Speed tier and can go for Rock Tomb (or Icy Wind) as Speed Control, and have disruptive moves such as Taunt and Encore. They will remain mostly niche, but this lets the three of them have a defined role to occasionally be ran for



Name: Absol-Mega [RESUB]
Type:

Abilities: Sheer Force
New Moves: Hurricane
Justification: Absol is already a not very popular Mega and its Z form is likely to ovrshadow it as it stands. Sheer Force makes for an interesting choice as that lets Mega Absol boost a lot of random coverage to target specific Pokémon, which also allows it to make use of its 115 Special Attack. It functions similarly to Nidoking, where it works in spite of its middling offenses (for a Mega) due to how valuable Sheer Force Coverage is. aside from things like Thunderbolt, Ice Beam and Flamethrower, it also boosts Throat Chop as STAB and physcial coverage like Rock Slide and Play Rough

 

[PQRDG]

Moves

Name: Aura Wheel
Power: 100
Accuracy: 100
PP: 12
Category: Physical
Type: Electric / Dark
Effect: Hits foe(s). When used by Morpeko, grants user +1 Speed. When used by Morpeko-Hangry, changes user's ability to Dark Aura (and reverts to Morpeko)
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Nerf to power in exchange for making a spread move and having a fun new interaction. For a move called Aura Wheel, it is strange that it doesn't have any aura effect. So, a situational move that allows you to have Dark Aura, potentially acting as a surprise move to oppose Mega Floette, or just to extra damage with your ally's Dark moves.

Name: Steel Roller
Power: 90
Accuracy: 100
PP: 12
Category: Physical
Type: Steel
Effect: If terrain is active: power is 1.5x, ends terrain.
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Current distribution +
Justification: A move that only works if a Terrain is active and fails if it doesn't is such a niche move choice that the handful of mons that learn it probably don't want it. This new version still does about the same damage when terrain is active, but now is at least a consistent damaging Steel move to use even against non-terrain teams. Now those mons want to choose if they want to trade the flinch chance from Iron Head to have an answer for terrain.

Name: Fire Lash [RESUB]
Power: 90
Accuracy: 100
PP: 16
Category: Physical
Type: Fire
Effect: 100% to lower the target's Defense by one stage.
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: How many of you even knew that Fire Lash had been buffed? In fact, how many of you even knew that the move was in Gen 9 or Champions to begin with? The move is currently exclusive to Salazzle, a Pokemon that will never use it. There are a number of Fire-types that would appreciate a reliable physical move that does not have Flare Blitz's recoil. The synergy of the Defense drop when paired with a second Pokemon gives physical Fire types a nice niche in the meta if distributed well.

Name: Victory Dance
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 12
Category: Status
Type: Fighting
Effect: Raise user's Attack, Defense, and Speed by one stage.
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Three Fighting-types with an awkward middle of the pack Speed stat. With this move added to their toolkits they can become a potential threat. While distribution should remain limited as more Pokemon are added with M-C and M-D, it is still a good move that can have good potential if given to slow, bulky users.

Abilities

Name: Mage Armor
Effect: This Pokemon uses its Special Defense when calculating damage received from Physical attacks. The mystical armor breaks when this Pokemon drops below 50% health. Does not restore upon healing back to above 50% health but would retrigger on switch-in afterwards.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A lot of good Magic-themed Pokemon (most, if not all, of which are Psychic or Fairy) have solid Special Defense but low Defense. Taking advantage of this and giving them a magical boon that allows them to survive a lot more of these physical hits coming at them, at least early on.

Name: Eldritch Feast
Effect: This Pokemon is immune to Fairy-type moves. This Pokemon pulls Fairy-type moves towards it, raising its Special Attack by one stage.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Immunity ability against one of the most powerful types, and giving it a Storm Drain equivalent.

Name: Safety Hazard
Effect: While a Pokemon with this ability is on the field, ALL active Pokemon are affected by entry hazards at the end of each turn as if they just switched in (maximum once per turn).
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A lot of dangerous Pokemon making your life more dangerous as the battle goes along, in exchange for the double-edged sword of your side of the field also taking the same damage. As long as you control the hazards, you can use the Pokemon with this ability to do passive damage to your opponent's every turn.

Name: Liquid Ooze / Innards Out
Effect: This Pokemon damages those draining HP from it the same amount they would heal. When this Pokemon faints from an attack, the attacker loses an equal amount of HP.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: |
Justification: Innards Out buff to protect from Draining moves, and Liquid Ooze buff to match the effects of Innards Out. Both abilities have the justification of using the Pokemon's gross insides to do damage, so combining them isn't as outlandish as it would appear. Mostly benefitting a number of Poison-types, there should be an interesting amount of defensive utility these Pokemon can now provide.

Items

Name: Eject Pack [RESUB]
Effect: If the holder's stat changes are lowered, it switches out to a chosen ally.
Justification: Taking a useful pivoting item and removing it being single use. Useful to pivot around Intimidate, or just to take advantage of a free switch out of something like Draco Meteor. Still potentially has counterplay against it which should make it not too insane as an item.

Name: Gimmighoul Coin
Effect: The Pokemon holding this item is unaffected by a status move targeting it. Single use.
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 20 BP
Justification: Good as Gold as a single-use held item. Good to protect against status, Taunt, or possibly even block a Parting Shot.

Name: Old Rod
Effect: When an opposing Pokemon uses a pivot move, it is drawn towards the Pokemon holding this item. The move will fail, and this item will be consumed.
"Oh, looks like your Pokemon has something on the hook, don't let it get away!"
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 30 BP
Justification: Just a bit more control of the battlefield when your opponent cannot switch out against you.

Name: Punching Glove
Effect: The holder's punching moves are boosted by 1.25x and do not make contact.
Justification: There are a couple solid punching moves in the format, namely Headlong Rush and Palafin's Jet Punch. Punching moves generally suffer from low boosting options, thanks to Iron Fist being weaker than Tough Claws. This should make a handful of Pokemon more interesting to use, namely Conkeldurr, or Iron Fist/No Guard Golurk.

Adjustments

Resub from Slate 1
Name: Mamoswine
Type: Ice/Ground
Abilities: Snow Cloak / Thick Fat / Slush Rush
New Moves: Headlong Rush, Mountain Gale, Slack Off
Justification: Only Slush Rush Pokemon in the format currently is Beartic. This access to higher Speed, as well as access to a recovery move, should make it an excellent threat thanks to its unique typing. Keeping Snow Cloak and Thick Fat which have both been buffed so far this mod, so it still has plenty of good options to choose from.


Name: (Mega) Aggron
Type: Steel -> Steel/Water
Abilities: Rock Head / Sturdy / Massive -> Filter
New Moves: Aqua Tail, Chilling Water, Gyro Ball, Muddy Water, Slack Off, Waterfall, Wave Crash, Wild Charge
Justification: Aggron is a Pokemon that has fallen off compared to its other Steel-type counterparts. Making the base form Pure Steel, and turning the massive Mega Evolution into a giant submarine, improves the defensive typing of both quite a bit. Water-type physical moves pair well with its surprising access to Water-type special moves, as well as giving it another hard-hitting option for Rock Head sets. Finally, Slack Off is useful to maintain its longevity. Steel/Water being a typing unique to the special attacking Empoleon also means that this adjustment isn't stepping on anyone's toes to exist.


Name: (Mega) Eelektross
Type: Electric -> Electric/Poison
Abilities: Levitate / Stalwart / Surge Surfer -> Eelevate
New Moves: Agility, Clear Smog, Earth Power, Earthquake, Gunk Shot, Leech Life, Poison Jab, Sludge Bomb, Sludge Wave, Sucker Punch, Toxic, Toxic Spikes
Justification: Making a serpentine Pokemon more serpent-like by giving it the Poison typing and accompanying moves. Poison type gives it a weakness to Psychic, but in exchange a resistance to Fighting, Fairy, and Grass. Giving the base form some new potential abilities to work with as well makes it at least somewhat interesting to work with, as well as some good Poison and Ground coverage moves.


Resub from Slate 2
Name: Mega Glimmora
Type: Rock/Poison
Abilities: Merciless
New Moves: Diamond Storm, Hex, Recover
Justification: While Adaptability is a solid ability, Glimmora could use something a lot more interesting. Merciless pairs so well with Toxic Debris and Mortal Spin, making it hit potentially harder than before. Diamond Storm is a fun option to take advantage of the Mega’s increased Attack to do spread damage and maintain longevity, Hex is another way to synergize with the Poisoning, and Recover is just useful to have to stay in for longer.

Also while our new format has shifted a lot from the base, figured a quick look at the VGC M-B VR might help give some folks some idea of what is good and what could use some love.

 

[vishy fishy]

Move:
Environmentality fatality (it sounds so dumb I love it)
Power: 80
Accuracy:100
Targets: both enemies
Changes type to type of weather/ is also considered the type of terrain/ normal if there is no terrain (flying press)
1.5x damage if weather and terrain exist simeoultaneously.
Role: having an astral barrage if there is weather + terrian is fun, and the type effect is cool. I’m not really acquainted with the meta yet so I think this could just be really funny
Distribution: (suggestions?)



Adjustments:
My dumbass method to fix mega sableye (coming soon)

 

[Gekokeso]

Moves

Move: Toxic Thread (RESUB)
Type:

Category: Status
BP: -
Acc: 100
PP: 10 (16)
Z-Move Effect: Raise the user's speed stat by 1
Effect: Lowers the foe(s)' speed stat by 1 stage and poisons them.
Priority: 0
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Current Distribution +
Description: Why is this single target, why did you buff the speed drop by 2 but not make it double target which would have actually made the move good. Ariados loses the monopoly over the move in exchange for it having a significantly more useful effect now.

Moves: Fist Bump / Reflex Jolt
Types:

/

Category: Physical / Special
BP: 10
Acc: 100
PP: 10 (16)
Z-Move Effect: 70bp
Effect: +2 priority. Grants the effect of helping hand to the target.
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Fighting types only ( ) / Electric types only ( )
Description: Helping Hand clone that can be used by assault vest users, at the cost of slightly hurting your teammates. Damage can be used to break sashes through protect or boost certain mons like Ape or stamina users like Scolipede or Archaludon.

Abilities

Name: Stall
Effect: Under trick room, this pokémon's speed stat is halved.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: +
Justification: Swift Swim clone for trick room. Can serve to make already slow pokémon even slower or to make faster mons be usable in both tailwind and trick room modes without hurting your speed investment.

Adjustments

Name: Tsareena
Type:

Abilities: Leaf Guard / Queenly Majesty / Sweet Veil
New Moves: +Close Combat, Ice Spinner, Life Dew, Wood Hammer
Removed Moves: None
Justification: Tsareena is one of the few mons with the immunity abilities, and while it has its very specific niche when compaired to Farigiraf, the giraf tends to be used more. Changes are meant to make the mon stand out a bit more by giving it more consistent offensive options as well as a secondary stab that better helps it carve a niche vs the giraffe by beating steel types like gambit or Arch. Can either serve as a pivot scarfer with techs like round or as a mid speed support mon with powerful options like Life Dew.

 

[ausma]

Adjustments

Name: Ariados
Type:

Abilities: Rattled / Insomnia / Inner Focus
New Moves: Trick Room, Pollen Puff
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: Ariados had a very interesting micro-niche in Regulation MA as a redirector that was resilient into both Floette and Sneasler. While Sneasler isn’t as good in this regulation, I think Ariados has multiple really interesting fundamentals worth highlighting and accentuating. Inner Focus lets it handle Sneasler Fake Out to successfully redirect its ally, while also synergizing with its access to Trick Room and Pollen Puff to give a resource to balance teams with Trick Room modes. Inner Focus also makes it easier to click Megahorn into the likes of Incineroar and Scrafty. You also still have Insomnia if sleep is troublesome for your team to deal with, which is also a cool niche to lean into as Sinistcha (its main competitor with this buff package) is not immune to Hypnosis.


Name: Arcanine
Type:

Abilities: Intimidate / Flash Fire / Justified
New Moves: U-turn, Prevailing Wind, Sacred Fire
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: Everyone is fairly familiar with how Incineroar has, generally, usurped Arcanine as the Fire-type Intimidate user. While it's not completely outclassed by any means thanks to access to moves like Howl and a fast Flare Blitz/Snarl, Arcanine has wanted one or two things to let it stand out a bit more. A very organic change that has recently come about that I think is noteworthy is Incineroar losing U-turn. While mostly inconsequential, Parting Shot has some noteworthy pitfalls, mainly its vulnerability to Throat Chop from opposing Incineroar, its ability to be Taunted and, crucially, it being barred off by Assault Vest. With Assault Vest having returned in this mod, Incineroar losing part of what made it a good Assault Vest user is tragic, but also a prime opportunity to fill a niche once lost. I think this is a perfect opportunity for Arcanine to shine, especially as it once had a pivoting move in Teleport. Gaining a new pivoting move that is actually compatible with AV lets Arcanine serve as a more reliable AV user than Incineroar that can help with Intimidate cycling and Snarl spam, while having access to some juicy coverage moves to keep the opponent on their toes. It also defensively has great synergy with AV, resisting Make It Rain and a lot of dangerous spread moves in general like Heat Wave and Dazzling Gleam, all while being able to threaten with its offensive profile and Speed tier.

A move I think was mechanically quite interesting for Arcanine and also works with AV sets is Prevailing Wind, a move that has been exclusively distributed to Flying-types thus far. Having an additional and more reliable tool to combat the likes of Whimsicott Tailwind and Charizard Heat Wave seems very compelling, especially as Arcanine itself resists Heat Wave and Blizzard, letting it have some leverage in getting a turn wrong. Being a pure Fire-type as a Prevailing Wind user is also a cool dichotomy with the main users while respecting the balance of its original distribution pool, as it's weak to Ground-type moves and resists Ice-type moves, but notably, both are still weak to Rock Slide from the likes of Aerodactyl. I also think paralleling Incineroar Fake Out while not actually having Fake Out and working into different things is kinda cool.

For people who I know are going to scream about Prevailing Wind from a flavor perspective:

In addition to this, Arcanine is also known for being extremely resilient and travelling literally thousands of miles over a small period of time. Although it literally cannot cast winds itself, the fact Pokemon like Whimsicott that just fly on winds can learn moves like Tailwind feels like fine enough reason to allow this. Also its name is Windie in Japanese.

Sacred Fire I added after some deliberation on Discord; people seem to like the idea of it given the AV set focus with this sub, and as far as legendary move distribution goes it's probably one of the better candidates with a move that already has tenuous flavor and suits Arcanine as a "Legendary" Pokemon of sorts. Obviously, this would be a very strong addition in its kit that doesn't really move the needle too far out of favor for what Arcanine already does, while calling back to its use of Will-O-Wisp as a common option of it in the past.

All in all, I don't think Arcanine needs too much! Just a couple of extra nice tools to let it be a more consistently applicable damage mitigating sidegrade that can make use of some tools like AV that Incineroar no longer can as well.


Name: Clefable | Clefable-Mega
Type: Fairy | Fairy/Flying
Abilities: Cute Charm / Magic Guard / Unaware —> Magic Bounce
New Moves: Trick Room, Heat Wave
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: Before I explain my balancing choices, I think the multiple subs now that have been trying to replace Mega Clefable’s ability are pretty misguided. Magic Bounce, to me, is the best possible choice they could have made for it, and I stand firmly by the fact that it complements its pre-Mega form and overall offensive/defensive profile in a way that no other ability could. Magic Bounce reacting to status moves creates a very incredible niche where it not only can safely absorb status moves, but outright punish the opponent for trying to use them. The ability isn’t at all the problem, instead the issue lies in its inability to find a comfortable team style that it can use its unique talents in while also being a proactive choice as a Mega Evolution. Given that it has a very offensive statline, it’s sort of difficult to use its cool utility profile in a way that also lets you exert pressure simultaneously. This sub is designed to address that problem directly by giving Mega Clefable a home: Trick Room.

The thing is that Mega Clefable wants to balance offense and defense, and Trick Room is a perfect answer for this. Clefable is uniquely poised to make for a very engaging offensive Trick Room setter, as it possesses the ability to flexibly transform its defensive profile with its Mega Evolution and, prominently, dissuade disruptive status moves through Magic Bounce. Or, alternatively, it can be a partner for a Trick Room setter, redirecting all potential forms of disruption with Follow Me and reflecting them back onto the foe. Trick Room also lets it get away with both offensive and defensive investment, which fits its playstyle and statline perfectly. Another move I wanted to grant it was Heat Wave, an option that gives it an additional means of spread damage that pairs well with another Trick Room abuser in Torkoal, who can set sun for it. This can help it make more optimal use out of the turns spent in Trick Room, while both benefiting from and assisting other common abusers.

In practice, you get a very flexible attacker that not only makes the same kind of use out of Magic Bounce as it was designed to, but you also get another option for Trick Room that capitalizes on Mega Clefable’s innate strengths!


Name: Lucario
Type: Fighting/Steel
Abilities: Stalwart / Inner Focus / Prankster
New Moves: Me First
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: I think Prankster is a very cool and versatile ability that is often unappreciated for how much creative expression it enables, often only being used for very overtly uninteractive purposes such as dual Screens and Encore. Lucario itself is a very compelling candidate, as it has a lot of really cool Prankster-friendly moves that have yet to see representation in the series from Prankster users alongside some very solid staples. Such examples consist of Howl, Heal Pulse, Coaching, Life Dew, Copycat, dual Weather, and various stat dropping moves like Screech, Metal Sound, and Scary Face. Riolu previously having Prankster, too, shows that much of its kit was at least considered with Prankster in mind. Unlike other Prankster users, however, it can damage Prankster immunities very well while also pressuring Fairy-types which Prankster users generally are incapable of doing.

The addition of Me First I attribute hugely to Hematite, as it was a move Lucario previously had that was cut but works very well for a Pokemon designed to be an offensive Prankster user.

Items

Name: Sour Candy
Effect: User is healed 1/3 of their max HP if hit under 50% HP, but gets paralyzed.
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10
Justification: Self-inflicted paralysis is something that has not yet been seen in the series. However, in a game where IVs no longer exist, Speed gaps are much more narrow and Trick Room dynamics have become more fickle, to a point where we’re even seeing extremely sparse usage of things like Iron Ball Sneasler. Self-inflicted Paralysis in general is a fun response to this change in Speed paradigm, especially as full Paralysis odds have been reduced to 1/8 from 1/4 to make it less punishing. With Champions Paralysis and these new Speed dynamics, having what’s essentially a more consistently applicable Room Service that also happens to boost things like Facade and Guts while granting a Burn/Sleep immunity can potentially be a very helpful resource that expands the ways in which you use Trick Room. The Paralysis immunity for Electric-types can also possibly come in handy.

Moves

Move: Cardiotoxin
Type:

Category: Special
BP: 120
Acc: 100
PP: 5 (8)
Effect: User loses 100% of its max HP to deal damage to all adjacent Pokemon, inflicting Toxic poison if applicable. If the user is Poison-type, lose 50% of your max HP instead.
Priority: 0
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Spread Toxic that can also inflict status on an ally, with benefits somewhat similar to Sour Candy but for Poison Heal Pokemon in particular (aka only Gliscor cuz Breloom is giga dead to this lol). I somewhat like this idea because having the threat of a Toxic that also grants the user tempo can be extremely powerful on compositions like Trick Room or Tailwind which benefit from aggressive repositioning, while also helping to pressure annoying stalwarts like Massive Snorlax and Milotic that like to overstay their welcome, don’t always run Protect, and greatly annoy offense.

I like the idea of, akin to base Toxic, Poison-types having a unique synergy with the move to encourage more diverse use of it. On Pokemon like Victreebel and the Galarian Slowtwins, this can be particularly appealing as you force Steel- and Poison-type Pokemon in or use of Protect due to the crashing effect, which can be exploited by you as well. Victreebel has access to Strength Sap which lets you use the move more easily, and the Slowtwins/Mega Dragalge having access to Regenerator makes it easier to use, too. The Slowtwins also have Trick Room, which is a nice bonus synergy.

For our non-Poison users, I wanted to lean into Focus Sash users that naturally learn Toxic and/or would appreciate having the ability to pave the way for a subsequent ally. Houndoom is neat because it threatens immunities very well and appreciates having a move to pressure the likes of Floette and Primarina, while having a decent Focus Sash set. Vivillon likes a move like this to get off the field when supporting Trick Room and Perish Song teams, and it has access to Sleep Powder to punish immunities. Umbreon now has access to Trick Room and also hates Fairy-types, so if it wants to get off the field then it has that as an option, and same with Spiritomb.

Abilities

Name: Illuminate
Effect: This Pokemon clears its way enough to take a simple and decisive action, granting its first Normal-type move on entry +3 priority.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A very strange and powerful rework with a very strange effect, but I promise there's a method to my madness here.

A very rare interaction is having a Pokemon able to contest Fake out in a dynamic and interesting way. As a +3 priority move, it supersedes most major actions a Pokemon can take in a turn outside of Protect. Not even Upper Hand works against it. So, why not have something that conditionally beats it, but only when the user is fast enough to?

This only works with Normal-type moves hugely as a future-proof for Shiinotic (who has some unique tools of its own to interact with this ability, and a major drawback in its Speed, tragically for its matchup into Fake Out). I don't think anybody wants +3 Spore running around.

However, despite that, Watchog is a really interesting target with this (not just because it has Normal-type STAB moves) but because its Normal-type kit is weirdly interesting anyway. Aside from your average STAB moves to pose somewhat of a threat, Watchog notably has After You, Round, Super Fang, Endeavor, and Screech to work with. Furthermore, it has Detect to store its +3 priority Normal-type move safely. Alongside its uniquely positioned utility profile, Watchog's Speed tier is extremely cool with this, perfectly outspeeding uninvested Sneasler with max investment and most slow Fake Out users, but not most offensive Fake Out users, which is a cool balance in my opinion that encourages you to be deliberate with how you use Fake Out in the first place. In practice, Watchog ends up becoming something of a weird offensive utility Pokemon, not too unlike Talonflame where it helps enable offensive teammates, suppresses opposing utility, and threatens with a high BP priority move. Having the capacity to allow for a +3 After You that outspeeds even some Fake Out users can potentially be extremely strong and forces a huge amount of respect from opposing Fake Out users, but you have to position yourself well to get full value from it. However, After You aside, there are a lot of creative ways you can use this ability. If you have a fast teammate, you can batter a Pokemon with a full power Super Fang or Screech to secure knockouts more easily, enable Round synergies, or just attack. You could use a Focus Sash with Endeavor, even, on a subsequent switch-in.

Overall, while much of this was a challenge to make Watchog viable without overwhelming it with new tools and a new identity in general, I do think an ability that lets you proactively combat Fake Out is a really fun addition to the metagame. On something like Watchog which has a cool Normal-type utility profile and a very awful statline to work around, this could enable some very cool lines for offense.

 

[DenebStargazer]

Adjustments

Name: Stunfisk (resub)
Type: Ground/Electric
Abilities: Static / Electric Surge / Sand Veil
New Moves: Flip Turn, Rising Voltage, Snatch
Removed Moves: ...does Stunfisk even HAVE moves worth removing?
Justification: Adding more terrain control options to the meta to counteract the newfound Psychic Surge Musharna, Stunfisk is weirdly decently bulky - its main issues stem from not really doing anything with it. As such I've thrown a couple moves its way to hopefully make it not a complete Electric Terrain bot (including Rising Voltage, which it inexplicably doesn't get in base, and is probably fine on a mon with Stunfisk's... whelming offensive profile). Additionally, being a Ground-type setter means that it can pair well with ally Discharge users to give them access to a strong spread attack without the downsides.

 

[Swagodile]

Moves

Name: Poison Gas
Power: 65
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 15
Category: Special
Type: Poison
Effect: Hits both opponents. 30% chance to poison. Super-effective against Flying-types.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Utility against those pesky fliers.

Name: Gem Shower
Power: 75
Accuracy: 90%
PP: 10
Category: Special
Type: Rock
Effect: Hits both opponents. 30% chance to flinch.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Mirror,
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Special counterpart to Rock Slide.

Name: Giant Gale
Power: 110
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 5
Category: Special
Type: Flying
Effect: Strikes with a mighty gale of wind. The user's speed is lowered by one stage.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Mirror, Wind
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Stronger, more accurate counterpart to Air Slash and Hurricane that comes with the drawback of lowering Speed.

Name: Covet | Thief
Power: 60
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 25
Category: Physical
Type: Normal | Dark
Effect: If the user is not already holding an item, it steals the target's held item. If the user isn't currently holding an item, +1 priority.
Priority: 0 (+1 if the user isn't holding an item)
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Mirror,
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Current distribution
Justification: With +1 priority, this move can do its job of stealing items better.

Abilities

Name: Deviate
Effect: The Pokémon's Normal-type moves become Dark-type moves and their power is boosted by 20%.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Solar Power ain't doing much for Mega Houndoom, it's a poor man's Mega Charizard Y, and even Mega Pyroar is better thanks to Fire Mane. So this moves away, from sun and gives it an ability more fitting for a hellhound. Zoroark can also get it to give it an option other than Illusion.

Name: Lightning Rod | Storm Drain | Sap Sipper
Effect: The Pokémon draws in all Electric-type moves. These moves do not work on the Pokémon. Instead, they boost its Attack or Sp. Atk stat (whichever is higher) by 1 stage. | The Pokémon draws in all Water-type moves. These moves do not work on the Pokémon. Instead, they boost its Sp. Atk stat (whichever is higher) by 1 stage. | Grass-type moves do not work on the Pokémon. Instead, they boost its Attack or Sp. Atk stat (whichever is higher) by 1 stage.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Current distribution
Justification: Fixes the issue of some users not actually benefiting from the boost

Adjustments

Name: Zoroark-Hisui
Type: Normal/Ghost
Abilities: Illusion/Snow Cloak
New Moves: Ice Beam, Blizzard
Removed Moves: -Flamethrower
Justification: It inhabits the snowy area in Legends Arceus, so it should get the newly buffed Snow Cloak.


Name: Starmie
Type: Water/Psychic
Abilities: Victory Star/Natural Cure/Analytic
New Moves: N/A
Removed Moves: N/A
Justification: I've always found Victory Star to be a cool ability, but it's wasted on a mythical that can't be used in VGC. So, why not give to Starmie? Starmie has high power inaccurate moves (Hydro Pump, Blizzard, Thunder) that benefit from the accuracy boost, and Victory Star also helps its allies land hits.


Name: Golurk -> Golurk-Mega
Type: Ground/Ghost
Abilities: Iron Fist/Sand Veil/No Guard -> Unseen Fist
New Moves: Mach Punch, Bullet Punch, Meteor Mash, Rage Fist
Removed Moves: N/A
Justification: More punching moves and a non-useless second ability. With the nerf, Rage Fist shouldn't be too absurd.

 

[analysis geek]

Moves

Name: Rally
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 10
Category: Status
Type: Normal
Effect: Raises ally's speed by 2 and spdef by 1 stage.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Snatchable, Mirror,
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Falinks,
Justification: Provides another form of speed control while not directly outclassing Tailwind and increase survivability as well.

Name: Quicksand
Power: 55
Accuracy: 95%
PP: 15
Category: Physical
Type: Ground
Effect: 100% chance to lower foes' speed by 1 stage. 2 stages if in rain.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Contact
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Garchomp, Swampert, Torterra, Stunfisk-Galar, Hippowdon, Runerigus
Justification: Another form of speed control that also improves the matchup into rain.

Name: Homing Strike
Power: 80
Accuracy: 100
PP: 15
Category: Physical
Type: Fighting
Effect: Cannot be redirected. High crit ratio.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Contact
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Suggestions Pls.
Justification: Could help vs the pesky redirectors. this moves type is up for debate. lets discuss in discord.

Name: Jetstream
Power: 60
Accuracy: 90
PP: 10
Category: Special
Type: Flying
Effect: Ignores terrain effects. Sound moves disabled for 2 turns.
Priority: 1
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Wind
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Talonflame, Noivern, Pidgeot, Emolga,
Justification: Priority move that isn't stuffed by psychic terrain and has a cool niche of disabling sound moves.

Abilities

Name: Forecast (Changed)
Effect: Changes forms based on weather except for Sandstorm. All Stats are 1.5x in any weather.
Permanent (Yes or No): Yes
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Only Castform
Justification: While this not only improves Castform’s offensive and defensive capabilities on weather teams it also has access to some decent support moves like prevailing wind and icy wind for speed control as well as Thunder wave and the more situational Snatch.

Name: Down-to-Earth (from M4A name from ink)
Effect: While this Pokemon is active, the effects of terrains are disabled.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: TBD
Justification: Gives some pokemon teams counterplay to prominent terrain playstyles like psyspam and can improve the performance of some lesser used mons depending on the distrubution.

Name: Transference
Effect: At the end of the turn, transfers user's status condition to a random foe. Cannot inflict non-volatile status on itself. (i.e cannot use rest as it causes the user to fall asleep).
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Preferably some psychic types
Justification: Its a Unique way of dealing with sleep and other statuses and i think it could have some cool interactions with ally switch and pivoting if the opponent trys to avoid activating the ability. Also has cool interactions with flame orb/toxic orb similar to the magic guard psycho shift sigilyph set. Overall, it makes the pokemon a great status absorber.

 

[BlueRay]

Adjustment

Name: Mega Chandelure

Ability: Misty Surge
Type: Ghost / Fire

Stats:
HP: 60
Attack: 75
Defense: 110
Special Attack: 175
Special Defense: 110
Speed: 90

BST: 620

Physical Moves	Special Moves	Status Moves
	Terrain Pulse

Description:
Competitive
- anti Sneasler answer that naturally resists its STAB moves; it can comfortably switch-in without having to worry about Dire Claw's nasty RNG element.
- anti sleep answer. Ghost/Fire naturally resists Venusaur, a common evil Sleep Powder user. And generally speaking, Mega Chandelure's type combination is good into other abusers, which are usually Grass Pokémon. Should Hypnosis ever become meta, you are also usually good into most of its abusers, normally Ghost and Psychic Pokémon.
- Misty Explosion enabler due to its Fairy resistance and generally good match-up into most Fire, Poison, and Steel Pokémon (such as Mega Delphox, Mega Charizard-Y, Sneasler, Gholdengo, Kingambit, Mega Metagross, etc). Coupled with moves like Trick Room, and Mega Chandelure should be able to ease teambuilding, especially if players want to centre a strategy around Misty Terrain. This Pokémon can also easily fit the common Grass/Fire/Water core, which is easily walled by the Dragon type. However, that is not much of a problem for Mega Chandelure thanks to Terrain Pulse.
- unique interaction with its pseudo Dragon resistance. Ghost/Fire offers many a great resistances, which is further pushed through with Misty Surge. STAB wise, the type combo walls Archaludon, Kommo, Dragalge, Hydrapple/Mega Sceptile, Mega Charizard-X, and (Mega) Drampa, among others. Sure, Dragon Pokémon like Garchomp, Tyrantrum, Mega Feraligatr or Hydreigon can still pressure you, but it's rare to wall every Dragon perfectly anyways. And you still have Terrain Pulse to pressure them. This move also naturally pressures Tyranitar, fwiw. So, there's good incentive to run it yourself if you so desire.
- potential Calm Mind abuser, which is something base Chandelure cannot easily pull off as it's frailer and dislikes status conditions.

Ability

Name: Unfolding
Effect: The user of the ability moves first in its priority bracket when its target has 1/2 or less of its maximum HP, rounded down. Does not affect moves that have multiple targets. [already coded in M4A but under the ability name "Coup de Grass"]
Potential Abusers:
- Samurott (high preference)
- Vileplume (high preference) and / or Florges (low preference)
- Mega Banette (mid preference) , Ceruledge (mid preference) or Zoroark-Hisui (low preference)
Explanation:
This is a very powerful ability that ignores Psychic Terrain and abilities like Armour Tail because moving first in the priority bracket basically refers to +0.5 priority, like Quick Claw, which also ignores the prio counter measures I've just meantioned before. The ability thrives on aggressive teams, especially if they rely on spread moves as that makes it easier to bring a target's HP down to 50% or below and trigger the ability. Fwiw, a target can also be your ally or yourself--the user of the ability--which is relevant for stuff like Synthesis or Destiny Bond, which target the user itself.

- Samurott, synergy with Razor Shell, Flip Turn, Dive, Soak, Assurance, Endeavor, Encore, Upper Hand, and Brine if the move ever returns.
- Vileplume, synergy with Pollen Puff (unique niche at the moment as there's no Comfey around!), Synthesis, Strength Sap, After You, Sleep Powder, Stun Powder, and poisoning.
- Florges shares similar tools with Vileplume (like Synthesis and Pollen Puff) but can also differentiate itself with Baton Pass, Calm Mind, or Skill Swap. It's low preference, though, because I suspect the ability might be too strong on it due to good bulk (on the special side) and an amazing type offensive and defensive wise.
- Mega Banette, synergy with Will-O-Wisp, Curse, Destiny Bond, Pain Split, among others and isn't too troubled by Dark Pokémon because of no Prankster. "Fast" Poltergeist makes Mega Banette a lot more potent and creates mindgames as opponents have to take into account both its "fast" offensive and disruptive potential. Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch can also out-speed +1 priority moves if you are able to meet the condition.
- Ceruledge and Zororark-Hisui are very similar to Mega Banette. So, I'd prefer only one of the Ghost Pokémon to have the ability, or two at maximum. I only considered Zoroark-Hisui because people here like running Round. So, with the ability, it's a bit easier to make this move potent as you pressure weakened targets.
- In theory, you could also consider a Coaching user if it also has other things that work well in tandem with the ability.

Item

Name: Protonema
Effect: If Sun, Harsh Sun or Grassy Terrain is active, the user will receive an additional Grass type. If the maximum amount of types is already reached (as in the case of Trick-or-Treat and Forest's Curse), replace the last type with the Grass type. Item does not work if the user is already a Grass type Pokémon. For clarification: When the user leaves the field, it no longer has the Grass type. If the user is on the field and the ability got triggered, it still has the Grass type even if Sun, Harsh Sun or Grassy Terrain are no longer active.
Affected by Knock Off: Yes.
Ignored by Klutz: Yes.
Fling Power & Effect: 10.
Justification: In SV, despite the existence of Safety Goggles and good Grass Pokémon, Tera Grass was still a commonly used type in VGC. You really wanted to have, at minimum, two Pokémon immune to powder moves. Now, in Champions, I wanted to simulate this situation a bit while also adding more flexibility in Champions.

Protonema can be an alternative Safety Goggles option; you could even run both items! Furthermore, since we already have a new Grassy Surge user in Trevenant, Protonema can help expanding on the Grass spam archetype. Right now, there are barely any standout offensive Grass Pokémon, (I'm talking about the likes of Kartana, Rillaboom, Ogerpon, etc.); good / useable Grass Pokémon are usually tied to specific restrictions, like Chlorophyll or pure support in Champions.

Enter Protonema which allows for a certain team flexibility, especially if the abusers are Fire, Water, Rock, Ground or Electric Pokémon as they synergize well with the Grass type. For instance, bulky Fire Pokémon commonly run Safety Goggles. So, they naturally benefit from Protonema, and they appreciate the acquired neutrality or even resistance to Ground and Water depending on the dualtype. Water, Ground, and Electric Pokémon hate having their moves being redirected by Rage Powder users, which commonly resist these types. So, Protonema can help here as well. There's also stuff like Power Whip Gyarados (sometimes jokingly referred to as the best Grass type back in the early days of Dynamax in VGC), which can have an easier time setting-up as it's not necessarily immediately OHKOed by an Electric move and can put a lot of offensive pressure.

So, there's a lot of potential interaction involved. You are not too restricted on the limited choice of Grass Pokémon if you want to build a team around Grassy Terrain as Pokémon of other types can be included.

 

[Rasdanation]

Idea Dump Time

Moves

Name: Bounce
Power: 85
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 8
Category:

Type:

Effect: If the user was attacked this turn, switches out after using this move.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Contact, Protect, Mirror, Gravity, Metronome
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Existing users +
Justification: More powerful than typical pivoting moves, however at the cost of its pivoting effect not being guaranteed. Otherwise for faster mons, this move is typically just a generally more reliable Flying option that can actually be viably used as a standard attack. Kinda based around the flavor of the user getting hit, then using the momentum from that attack into their bouncing.

Abilities

Name: Wild Magic
Effect: If Misty Terrain is active, this Pokémon's Special Attack is multiplied by 1.5 and it loses 1/8 of its maximum HP, rounded down, at the end of each turn. This Pokémon can be affected by Misty Terrain even if airborne.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes (to clarify, specifically this means for the "This Pokémon can be affected by Misty Terrain even if airborne." segment. So if an airborne Pokemon with this ability gets a status applied to them, it would normally get blocked, but a mold breaker mon could do it anyways.)
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Last slate we dedicated a good deal of effort into buffing Sand to have more versatile usage, with Veil & Clock. I wanted to now take some time to work on some additions to by and far the weakest terrain, that being Misty Terrain. In its current state, I think this ability may be tough to utilize properly given our only Misty Surger is GWeezing, however, I've seen other subbed additions like Misty Step or Mega Chandy that could help expand the list of Misty Terrain setters. Choices for this ability are by no means set in stone, but mons that I believe could fit flavor and overall use a expansion in their niche (see below spoiler for explanations).

Pokemon Justifications

This includes Florges, in which this could open a whole other niche of a breaker under Terrain, compared to their usual support synergies, Espeon, whose main niche in Magic Bounce tends to find it outclassed by other choices like Hatterene, and Mega Dragonite, whose choice of Multiscale upon mega always felt odd. This way Dragonite can see a bit of a dichotomy of trying to utilize its pre-mega ability to set up before going mega and hitting as hard as it can.

Items

(Temp Sprite for submission purposes)
Name: Wishbone
Effect: When fainting, holder uses the item and sets a wish on its position.
Can Be Knocked Off (Yes or No): Yes
Ignored by Klutz (Yes or No): Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 80, None
Justification: A bit more of a niche item tailored to leads. Encourages good positioning and pairs decently with self-fainting moves.

 

[lydian]

haven't had the chance to play the tier yet but i've been keeping up w reg m-b and all the replays on the discord, so i thought i'd share my ideas for this slate ^^

Moves:

Move: Delta Wind
Type: Flying
Category: Special
Base Power: 70
Accuracy: 100%
Power Points: 12
Effect: Removes any all weather effects from the field. Until the end of the turn, the user receives a volatile that, if it's a Flying-type, cause moves that would be super effective against pure Flying-type Pokémon to ignore the Flying type's weaknesses in effectiveness calculation.
Users:
Description: Another weather disruption option, while also giving reliable (albeit weak to comply with the ethos of the type) STAB to Pokémon like Mega Dragonite. This is in particular cool for the weatherless Mega Dragonite teams, helping it have an even stronger response into sun teams for example, threatening Venusaur while overriding the sun. Talonflame also gets a far far weaker option for Flying-STAB but one with a ton of utility that can come in handy for weatherless teams to have some form of weather disruption as well. Could also be useful for Noivern that naturally outspeeds Pokémon like Mega Charizard Y, Pelipper, and Archaludon, and unlike Talonflame it can leverage its offensive typing to threaten Pokémon like Garchomp instead of falling immediately to a Rock Slide.

Move: Upper Hand (/ Prevailing Wind) [RESUB]
Effect: Upper Hand has a priority of +5. If the target has selected a physical or special move with increased priority and has not yet had a chance to execute its move, Upper Hand will strike first and cause the target to flinch; otherwise, Upper Hand will fail. (Prevailing Wind is also changed to +5 priority for parity, so that a faster Prevailing Wind can go before Upper Hand)
New Users:
Description: Since Upper Hand explicitly checks if the moves are physical / special before causing a flinch, it can safely outprioritize Protect clones and thus you can have a slower Upper Hand user stop a Fake Out from a faster user. I think this change is necessary to help slower Pokémon be encouraged to use the move outside of extremely situational stuff (and before you ask about futureproofing, Iron Hands never learned this move so we're fine!)

As for the new Pokémon getting it, I think Machamp is extremely obvious and i'm baffled to find out today it doesn't have access to this move. Scizor I think makes an interesting choice here, being a Mega that is really hurt by Mega Charizard Y's omnipresence and would appreciate a buff, being able to stop Incin faking it (or an ally) out with very considerable 60 BP super effective damage (despite being at -1). It doesn't really have hands in the most literal sense but Hisuian Samurott learns it so I think it's reasonable enough for it to as well. Emboar sucks and needs all the help it can get. Pangoro sucks and needs all the help it can get. Giving it to Barbaracle makes a ton of sense and I liked ausma's submission for it last slate, so i'm honoring it here (plus it makes a ton of sense anyway)

Abilities:

Ability: Protean / Libero [RESUB]
Effect: Changes the Pokémon's type to the type of the move it's about to use. This no longer works only once per time the Pokémon enters battle.
Description: Since this is a completely doubles-focused metagame, I don't think we have to worry about this. Cinderace isn't in the game and won't be making too much of an impact once it becomes legal I'm sure, and Meowscarada and Greninja have been STRUGGLING. Maybe I'm too woke or something but I do not think this is game-breaking at all for either Pokémon... While I appreciate Mega Greninja having that whole dynamic of being able to Mega to use Protean twice, it just feels like a downgrade from 3DS Greninja which was never a particularly amazing Pokémon either way...

Ability: Reverberate [RE-RESUB]
Users: (instead of Levitate)
Effect: Users' sound-based moves hit twice, if it's a damaging move, the second hit has 50% power.
Description: I had this idea since before we got abilities and I think it'd be a really cool fit on Mega Chimecho. OHKOing Sneasler and Glimmora through Sash is extremely useful, as is having a generally powerful Psychic Noise against something like Mega Floette. Boomburst obviously does a lot of damage as well if you can pair it with an immunity. The coolest niche though, I think, is that Metal Sound turns any ally's moves into basically a one-shot button. I think this Pokémon would be really interesting as a Trick Room setter with the offense and defense to justify its role. While losing Levitate is a bit unfortunate, it's clear that this Pokémon with just Levitate had not been able to carve itself a niche in the current meta, so I think something like this would be a really interesting way to make it stand out!

Items:
Item: Terrain Extender
Effect: If the Pokémon holding this item creates terrain with its moves or Abilities, that terrain lasts eight turns instead of five turns.
Description: Seems reasonable to have when we have the weather-extending rocks!

Item: Pucuasu Berry / Mucutan Berry [RESUB]
Effect: If the holder would be hit by a move that calculates damage using the user's Attack from a Pokémon with increased Attack stages or a move that calculates damage using the user's Special Attack from a Pokémon with increased Special Attack stages, those stage changes are ignored for the purposes of that move and the berry is consumed / If the holder would hit a target with increased Defense stages with a move that calculates damage using the target's Defense or hit a target with increased Special Defense stages with a move that calculates damage using the target's Special Defense, those stage changes are ignored for the purposes of that move and the berry is consumed
Description: This seems a bit situational but I think it would be an interesting choice given the metagame is full of Archaludons with insane defense boosts as well as set up sweepers like Floette, Delphox, and Kingambit. I think giving players an out to break through Pokémon like Archaludon as well as another tool to discourage setup from the powerhouse setup Pokémon previously mentioned would be a cool idea and open some more avenues in teambuilding!

The berries are named after Amazonian fruits cupuaçu and tucumã

Adjustments:

Pokémon: Mega Starmie
New Moves: Triple Axel, Upper Hand, Wave Crash
Description: Mega Starmie has seen fringe play and mostly been outclassed by Basculegion as a Water-type. However giving it Wave Crash unlocks something no other Water-type can do in sun:

32+ Atk Huge Power Mega Starmie Liquidation vs. 30 HP / 30 Def Mega Charizard Y in Sun: 122-146 (66.6 - 79.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
32+ Atk Huge Power Mega Starmie Wave Crash vs. 30 HP / 30 Def Mega Charizard Y in Sun: 174-206 (95 - 112.5%) -- 68.75% chance to OHKO

You do have to run Adamant and the recoil will rack up on a Pokémon like it quite fast, but it seems like a very worthwhile niche.

Triple Axel isn't as necessary as Ice Spinner already gets all the KOes you'd want out of Ice coverage, with TAxel coming with a shaky accuracy and double the damage taken from trying to KO Garchomp, but if you really need to KO a Dragonite through Multiscale, I think this move is flavorful enough so who am I to stop you?

Lastly while Aqua Jet can be useful to avoid Kingambit Sucker Punch, it doesn't do a lot, so I thought this tool would also enable Mega Starmie to find a way past Kingambit with the right prediction, and that felt reasonable as well

32+ Atk Huge Power Mega Starmie Upper Hand vs. 32 HP / 0 Def Kingambit: 236-280 (114 - 135.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I think all of these changes are welcome to give Mega Starmie a bit more chance at being competitive in the meta and fulfilling its role as the stupid physical Water-type attacker that Basculegion took from it '^^

Pokémon: Aromatisse [RE-RESUB]
Abilities: Healer / Misty Surge / Aroma Veil
Description: With also great flavor I think Aromatisse is the perfect choice for Misty Surge. It too is a Trick Room setter, but one with a much more useful typing, and maybe Misty Surge is just what it needed to provide the support needed for Trick Room against options like Sleep on lead and providing an extremely useful typing. Heal Pulse and Fake Tears is always useful on a Pokémon like this to support common Trick Room choices like Mega Blastoise and Torkoal (you can even move before Torkoal in Trick Room by having a -Spe nature on Aromatisse and not Torkoal and investing 5 points in Spe on Torkoal). This shouldn't be meta-breaking and other options providing Fake Out immunity are probably preferred, but if someone had to take on the niche of Misty Surge in this meta, I think Aromatisse is a great choice!

 

[cat111ca]

It's Veto time!​

Name: Steelix, Steelix-Mega
Type: Steel / Ground, Steel / Ground
Abilities: Massive / Dauntless Shield / Clear Body, Flash Fire
New Moves: Shore Up, Bulk Up, Spikes, Heat Crash, Swords Dance, Headlong Rush, Snatch, Encore
Removed Moves:
Justification: A combination of a lot of stuff, i liked flash fire steelix-m from megas revisited so tried to give it a shot. With the uses it has it can still have wide guard against stuff like mega charizard y while firing off strong heat crashes, precipice blades.

Name: Stance Change
Effect: If this Pokemon is an Aegislash, it changes to Blade Forme and makes itself Ghost / Fighting with 1.2x power on all of its moves before using an attacking move, and changes to Shield Forme and makes itself Ghost / Steel while also regaining 1/8 of its health on successful uses of King's Shield.
Permanent (Yes or No): Yes
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: I liked aegislash, and i liked my sub for it before. It has nice uses in VGC with king shield + wide guard. In addition it has strong tools with CC + shadow ball and priority.

Dauntless shield makes this way to bulky and is a signature of a legendary.
practically an ability sub, adjustment sub and move sub at the same time. also way too complex in general. make it an adjustment sub please.

Name: Jetstream
Power: 60
Accuracy: 100
PP: 10
Category: Special
Type: Flying
Effect: Ignores terrain effects. Sound moves disabled for 2 turns.
Priority: 2
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Wind
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Talonflame, Noivern, Pidgeot, Emolga,
Justification: Priority move that isn't stuffed by psychic terrain and has a cool niche of disabling sound moves.

+2 priority and 60bp is already power creeping other priority moves. ignoring terrains and throat chop effect on top of that? way to much. do you actually want an option that outspeeds everything in psychic terrain? make it like 20bp or a status move please.

Environmentality fatality (it sounds so dumb I love it)
Power: 80
Accuracy:100
Targets: both enemies
Changes type to type of weather/ is also considered the type of terrain/ normal if there is no terrain (flying press)
1.5x damage if weather and terrain exist simeoultaneously.
Role: having an astral barrage if there is weather + terrian is fun, and the type effect is cool. I’m not really acquainted with the meta yet so I think this could just be really funny
Distribution: (suggestions?)

unfinished. no type category, or pp

 

[Hematite]

I was supposed to post these ages ago sjdfmgh sorry--

Move Submission​

(RESUB) Sky Drop (Flying / Physical)
60 BP / 100% acc / 12 PP

The user takes the target into the sky, then drops it during the next turn. The target cannot attack while in the sky.​

(makes contact)​

Potential distribution:
(current users)
(additional possible users)

Justification (this is the same as last time):

Spoiler

Okay, first thing: this is a vanilla move and I'm making no changes to it at all (just un-Dexiting it),
but it's also a hecking weird move with some obscure interactions, so uhh... yeah let me sum up what it actually does:

- Sky Drop has the user grab one of its opponents and carry it into the sky, which puts both the user and the target into a semi-invulnerable state (like using Fly).​

- On the user's next turn, it drops the target, which does damage and frees it from Sky Drop.​

- The main benefit of this move is that it interrupts the chosen target's action for the turn. In practice, it serves a similar purpose to Fake Out.​

​

- Sky Drop doesn't have priority, but it generally costs the target exactly one turn either way:​

- if you're faster, you can expect to go before it on the turn you use Sky Drop (making it miss the first turn), but you'll probably also go first on the turn you free it from Sky Drop (letting it use a move on the second turn);​

- if you're slower, you can expect to go after it on the turn you free it from Sky Drop (letting it use a move on the first turn), but you'll probably also go after it on the turn you free it from Sky Drop (making it miss the second turn).​

- Note that this entirely comes down to when in the turn Sky Drop is used, since it has neutral priority; if the turn order changes between the two turns (like if one of the other Pokémon uses Trick Room or Tailwind, or if the target uses a move of increased or decreased priority), the target could occasionally end up not missing its action on either turn... or it could end up missing both!​

The key advantages of Sky Drop over Fake Out are that it specifically doesn't have priority (meaning it can successfully disrupt Trick Room setters that block Fake Out, like Musharna, Farigiraf and eventually Indeedee) and that instead of only being able to use it on your first turn, you can use it any time you can afford to commit two turns to it.

Meanwhile, the drawback is that both the user and the target are also semi-invulnerable for its duration.
As a result, your other Pokémon also (usually) can't attack the target that lost its turn to Sky Drop; unlike Fake Out, you're effectively protecting the same target you disrupt.
Since you can't really use Sky Drop to get a free hit on the target, it's generally used to create an opening to attack the other Pokémon unimpeded, or as a defensive tool that buys time to reposition.

There are some other cool techs to take advantage of Sky Drop's unique mechanics!
Because of the way it depends on turn order,
if you expect your opponent's support Pokémon to use a Speed control move, you might actually prefer to use Sky Drop on their other Pokémon - if you pull it off, that could mean the Sky Drop user outspeeds it on the first turn but underspeeds it on the second turn, making the target miss its action on both turns.
It can also indirectly prevent the target from using a priority move, since if they outspeed your Sky Drop user on the second turn, their move just gets skipped anyway - like, if there's a Sucker Punch user you're afraid of, you could use Sky Drop on it and have your partner Protect on the first turn, then safely attack it on the second turn knowing it can't use Sucker Punch.

It can be a pretty tricky move to make the most of, but it's really fun to use! (it's also one of the coolest things Aerodactyl can do)
I think Sky Drop would be especially nice as a disruptive tool in this metagame - recent Gens have been a lot more hostile to Fake Out than any of the games where Sky Drop existed, so its niche has arguably gotten stronger over time.

There are a few more obscure mechanics of Sky Drop that are definitely worth explaining, so here they are:

- There are some moves that can still attack the user or target of Sky Drop! The moves that specifically interact with Sky Drop (and exist in Champions) are Hurricane, Smack Down and Thunder - or you can also use anything that would let you bypass a semi-invulnerable turn, like any move if the user has No Guard. This is generally not the primary use case for Sky Drop, but it can be a cool interaction to build around!​

​

- If the target is Flying-type, you can still use Sky Drop to disrupt it, but it will not take any damage from the second turn of the move.​

​

- However, if the target weighs at least 200kg, it is completely immune to Sky Drop! This doesn't come up a lot, but there are a handful of relevant Pokémon that it doesn't work on - like Scolipede, Tyranitar, Dragonite, Metagross and Snorlax - so definitely keep it in mind.​

- (Noting since I brought up using Sky Drop to prevent Trick Room: Farigiraf is only 160kg, so you can use Sky Drop on it just fine!)​

​

- You can also prevent the use of Sky Drop (and even force it to end early) by using Gravity.​

​

- A held Power Herb does not activate on Sky Drop (which is a good thing, because the "charging turn" is the main value of the move; you never want to skip it).​

I will probably resub Storm Throw in a later slate if it still feels appropriate in Reg M-C!
I decided I didn't want to resub more than one thing at a time, though.

Item Submissions​

Ability Shield

The holder's Ability can't be changed, suppressed by effects like Gastro Acid and Neutralizing Gas, or ignored by Mold Breaker.
(this is its unmodded vanilla effect)

- affected by Knock Off and Klutz
- Fling BP is 30 in canon​

Justification:

Spoiler

This is a niche but really cool item in vanilla!

It only rarely sees use on the average team (I think I remember seeing it on some stuff like Tera Grass Heatran in response to Hearthflame Ogerpon, though? just to give an idea of how it's used if specific Mold Breaker users end up being important),
but the main use case is that if you're running a Neutralizing Gas user like Musharna, you can pick one of your team members to be exempt from it!
For instance, an Ability Shield Incineroar can safely use Intimidate while Musharna suppresses opposing Defiant.
In SV's restricted formats, we also got some really cool teams like Neutralizing Gas Weezing + Ability Shield Koraidon - you still got your Orichalcum Pulse to set sun and raise your Attack, but opposing weather setters couldn't activate their Abilities and opposing Intimidators couldn't, and you'd even naturally outspeed Prankster users like Tornadus!

I think Neutralizing Gas Musharna is really cool, but it's mostly been overshadowed since Musharna also has Psychic Surge.
Ability Shield opens up a ton of creativity in how you build around it (since you only get one Ability Shield per team, but you can put it on any non-Mega you want), so I would really like to see it added!

Kiman Berry

A Berry that restores 50% of the holder's max HP when its HP reaches 1/4 or less.
(this is the Gen VII version of the Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav and Iapapa Berries, without the nature-dependent effect;
like all pinch berries, the effect activates at 1/2 HP if the holder's Ability is Gluttony)

- affected by Knock Off and Klutz
- flinging any Berry just makes the target eat the Berry
- Natural Gift is dexited, but if it ever comes up, this would be 80 BP and Fairy-type to fit in with the other HP-restoring pinch berries​

Justification:

Spoiler

The HP-restoring pinch berries in vanilla Gen VII were widely relevant defensive items with really cool dynamics!
Since they aren't eaten until a much lower HP threshold than a Sitrus Berry, they're basically a more high-risk, high-reward sidegrade, but they've historically proven to be extremely practical and surprisingly nuanced!

In general, they do best on bulkier Pokémon like Incineroar and Tapu Fini that reliably take several hits to KO, but it can still take some careful positioning effort to use them safely, which sometimes rewards some really cool techs as well.
For instance, I've seen battles in tournament streams where people used Sand Stream Tyranitar specifically to manipulate their own allies' HP with the chip damage. The Berry is eaten as soon as your HP falls below 1/4, so it happens as early in the turn as it needs to (meaning you won't accidentally get KOed by sand chip before eating your Berry) - but if you happen to end the turn at an awkward HP threshold that's too high for the Berry but too low to live another hit, you can count on sand chip to push you into the HP range you need.
Because of pinch berries, some Gen VII tournaments even saw stuff like Technician Bug Bite Mega Scizor played with!
It also makes Recycle a relevant move and buffs some really fun Pokémon like Gluttony Snorlax and Alolan Muk!

At the time, they had one major design flaw in that they came as a set of 5, which effectively made them exempt from item clause;
I strongly suspect that this is the main reason they were nerfed in Gen VIII, not because the effect itself was broken on any one of them, so my sub here is to add back just one Berry that revives their Gen VII effect instead of a set of 5.

Flavor thing: the name comes from from "mikan," another name for the satsuma mandarin;
most of the other pinch Berries are mostly tropical fruits (fig, kiwi, mango, guava and papaya), and I like it specifically being a kind of orange to follow up on the other HP-restoring Berries, Oran and Sitrus (orange and citrus) as well!

 

[cat111ca]

Voting is now open!

Move:
Environmentality fatality (it sounds so dumb I love it)
Power: 80
Accuracy:100
Targets: both enemies
Changes type to type of weather/ is also considered the type of terrain/ normal if there is no terrain (flying press)
1.5x damage if weather and terrain exist simeoultaneously.
Role: having an astral barrage if there is weather + terrian is fun, and the type effect is cool. I’m not really acquainted with the meta yet so I think this could just be really funny
Distribution: (suggestions?)



Adjustments:
My dumbass method to fix mega sableye (coming soon)

Enviromentality fatality is vetoed for lacking a base typing, category, PP, priority and flags

Name: Starmie
Type: Water/Psychic
Abilities: Victory Star/Natural Cure/Analytic
New Moves: N/A
Removed Moves: N/A
Justification: I've always found Victory Star to be a cool ability, but it's wasted on a mythical that can't be used in VGC. So, why not give to Starmie? Starmie has high power inaccurate moves (Hydro Pump, Blizzard, Thunder) that benefit from the accuracy boost, and Victory Star also helps its allies land hits.


Name: Golurk -> Golurk-Mega
Type: Ground/Ghost
Abilities: Iron Fist/Sand Veil/No Guard -> Unseen Fist
New Moves: Mach Punch, Bullet Punch, Meteor Mash, Rage Fist
Removed Moves: N/A
Justification: More punching moves and a non-useless second ability. With the nerf, Rage Fist shouldn't be too absurd.

both of these are vetoed for removing stuff from last slate.

Name: Gem Shower
Power: 75
Accuracy: 90%
PP: 10
Category: Special
Type: Rock
Effect: Hits both opponents. 30% chance to flinch.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Mirror,
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Special counterpart to Rock Slide.

Name: Giant Gale
Power: 110
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 5
Category: Special
Type: Flying
Effect: Strikes with a mighty gale of wind. The user's speed is lowered by one stage.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Mirror, Wind
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Stronger, more accurate counterpart to Air Slash and Hurricane that comes with the drawback of lowering Speed.

Both of these are vetoed for being unhealthy. pls don't add stuff last second unless you want surprise vetos like these

Voting Format
In each category, you may vote for 6 submissions, with 2 self-votes in each category (so you can vote for 24 submissions with 8 total self-votes). Please specify which votes are self-votes. You don't have to list who made the submission unless someone else subbed something with the same name/species. The order you put it in does not matter, every vote is worth 1 point.

Example

Moves
Dragon Hammer (SV), First Impression (SV), Snipe Shot, Hyper Drill, Protect, Fire Lash/Apple Acid/Grav Apple


Items
Sitrus Berry (SV), Focus Band (SV), Scope Lens, Quick Claw, King's Rock, Shell Bell


Abilities
Sand Veil/Snow Cloak (SV), Symbiosis (SV), Healer, Pressure, Unseen Fist/Piercing Drill, Galvanize


Adjustments
Gallade (SV), Mimikyu (SV), Audino, Aromatisse, Scovillain, Umbreon

For the sake of making vote counting easier, PLEASE use the same exact format listed in the spoiler box above


Voting will end in 24 hours.

 

[cat111ca]

Moves

Name: Swarming
Power: 110
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Bug
Effect: Lowers target's and user's Sp. Defense by 1 stage.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): None of note
Potential Pokémon With This Move: OK unsure here because of a lack of Bugs?
Justification: Strong wallbreaking tool that also has a heavy drawback.

Name: Thunderclap [resub from PQRDG?]
Power: 70
Accuracy: 100
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Electric
Effect: Usually goes first. Fails if the target is not attacking.
Priority: 1
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: I really like the distribution of this move to some options, and while Basculegion is no longer broken, it's still a cool tool for all the stuff here (Ampharos lost Electro Shot so Thunderclap shouldn't be a problem at all).

Name: Misty step
Power: 0
Accuracy: --%
PP: 12
Category: status
Type: fairy
Effect: summons misty terrain and switches the user out afterwards
Priority: 0
Flags: literally none
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: chilly reception clone that summons misty terrain. Just a fun idea I had. Misty terrain is weaker than other field effects so it feels fine to give this to more Pokemon. Also stops psyspam

Name: Deafening Shriek
Power: 110
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 8
Category: Special
Type: Ghost
Effect: After dealing damage, the target will receive the Deafened status, making them immune to Sound-based moves until they switch out. Hits all adjacent pokemon
Priority: 0
Flags: Protect, Sound
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: ghost type spread damage that isn't broken because it's hard to spam. an idea originally from joltemons cause I'm unoriginal

Name: Thrash/Outrage/Raging Fury/Petal Dance
Power: 130
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 12
Category: Physical/Physical/Physical/Special
Type: Normal / Dragon / Fire / Grass
Effect: Locks the user into this move for the next turn, than confuses the user. (no random targeting)
Priority: 0
Flags: Contact, Protect
Potential Pokémon With This Move: current distribution / current distribution / current distribution + / current distribution +
Justification: these moves were always unviable in doubles due to the random targeting. So I removed it. Hopefully this makes these actually good or at least usable

Name: Sparkling Water
Power: 65
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 16
Category: Special
Type: Water
Effect: Double power if you are in misty terrain.
Priority: 0
Flags: Protect
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: More reason to use misty terrain in a meta that really doesn't favor it.

Name: Supercell Slam / Horn Drill
Power: 75
Accuracy: 100
PP: 5
Category: Physical
Type: Electric / Normal
Effect: Causes the target to become weak to the next Electric-type / Normal-type attack. This effect ends when the target is no longer active.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move: /
Justification: Allows u to damage amp the next attack, this allows you to double team a target with mons and allows u to exploit them as a result. Tho this comes at the cost of pretty much telegraphing you will double team said target

Name: Mist
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 5
Category: Physical
Type: Ice
Effect: For 5 turns, the user and its party members are protected from secondary effects and having their stat stages lowered by other Pokemon. Fails if the effect is already active on the user's side.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Ice and Water types
Justification: Mist i feel could always do more, blocking secondary effects means fake out cycling and it can block intimidate for 5 turns.

Name: Brine
Power: 60
Accuracy: 100
PP: 10
Category: Special
Type: Water
Effect: +20 BP for each Pokemon on the field that has less than or equal to half of its maximum HP remaining.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Brine can now function in doubles by now racking up in power for each pokemon on the field having half hp or less. With that it can ramp up to quite a powerful move especially since it counts the user

Name: Mat Block
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 10
Category: Status
Type: Fighting
Effect: The user and its party members are protected from damaging attacks made by other Pokemon, including allies, during this turn. Fails unless it is the user's first turn on the field, if the user moves last this turn, or if this move is already in effect for the user's side.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): -
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification:

Name: Stormy Descent [RESUB]
Power: 80
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 16
Category:

Type:

Effect: Gains a secondary effect according to Weather. Hits both opponents.
30% chance to lower target's Speed by 1 stage under Snow
30% chance to inflict Burn under Sun
30% chance to set up Mud Sport for 3 turns under Rain
30% chance to inflict Sand Tomb under Sand
30 BP higher under Strong Winds
Priority: 0
Flags: Protect, Metronome, Wind
Potential Pokémon With This Move: ()
Pokémon That Should NOT Get This Move: ()
Justification: Reliable Flying STAB for some Pokémon that lack it and also an interesting way of engaging with the Weather Wars, letting Flying mons work as a Support option on any weather

Name: Aura Wheel
Power: 100
Accuracy: 100
PP: 12
Category: Physical
Type: Electric / Dark
Effect: Hits foe(s). When used by Morpeko, grants user +1 Speed. When used by Morpeko-Hangry, changes user's ability to Dark Aura (and reverts to Morpeko)
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Nerf to power in exchange for making a spread move and having a fun new interaction. For a move called Aura Wheel, it is strange that it doesn't have any aura effect. So, a situational move that allows you to have Dark Aura, potentially acting as a surprise move to oppose Mega Floette, or just to extra damage with your ally's Dark moves.

Name: Steel Roller
Power: 90
Accuracy: 100
PP: 12
Category: Physical
Type: Steel
Effect: If terrain is active: power is 1.5x, ends terrain.
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Current distribution +
Justification: A move that only works if a Terrain is active and fails if it doesn't is such a niche move choice that the handful of mons that learn it probably don't want it. This new version still does about the same damage when terrain is active, but now is at least a consistent damaging Steel move to use even against non-terrain teams. Now those mons want to choose if they want to trade the flinch chance from Iron Head to have an answer for terrain.

Name: Fire Lash [RESUB]
Power: 90
Accuracy: 100
PP: 16
Category: Physical
Type: Fire
Effect: 100% to lower the target's Defense by one stage.
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: How many of you even knew that Fire Lash had been buffed? In fact, how many of you even knew that the move was in Gen 9 or Champions to begin with? The move is currently exclusive to Salazzle, a Pokemon that will never use it. There are a number of Fire-types that would appreciate a reliable physical move that does not have Flare Blitz's recoil. The synergy of the Defense drop when paired with a second Pokemon gives physical Fire types a nice niche in the meta if distributed well.

Name: Victory Dance
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 12
Category: Status
Type: Fighting
Effect: Raise user's Attack, Defense, and Speed by one stage.
Priority: 0
Flags: Unchanged
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Three Fighting-types with an awkward middle of the pack Speed stat. With this move added to their toolkits they can become a potential threat. While distribution should remain limited as more Pokemon are added with M-C and M-D, it is still a good move that can have good potential if given to slow, bulky users.

Move: Toxic Thread (RESUB)
Type:

Category: Status
BP: -
Acc: 100
PP: 10 (16)
Z-Move Effect: Raise the user's speed stat by 1
Effect: Lowers the foe(s)' speed stat by 1 stage and poisons them.
Priority: 0
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Current Distribution +
Description: Why is this single target, why did you buff the speed drop by 2 but not make it double target which would have actually made the move good. Ariados loses the monopoly over the move in exchange for it having a significantly more useful effect now.

Moves: Fist Bump / Reflex Jolt
Types:

/

Category: Physical / Special
BP: 10
Acc: 100
PP: 10 (16)
Z-Move Effect: 70bp
Effect: +2 priority. Grants the effect of helping hand to the target.
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Fighting types only ( ) / Electric types only ( )
Description: Helping Hand clone that can be used by assault vest users, at the cost of slightly hurting your teammates. Damage can be used to break sashes through protect or boost certain mons like Ape or stamina users like Scolipede or Archaludon.

Move: Cardiotoxin
Type:

Category: Special
BP: 120
Acc: 100
PP: 5 (8)
Effect: User loses 100% of its max HP to deal damage to all adjacent Pokemon, inflicting Toxic poison if applicable. If the user is Poison-type, lose 50% of your max HP instead.
Priority: 0
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Spread Toxic that can also inflict status on an ally, with benefits somewhat similar to Sour Candy but for Poison Heal Pokemon in particular (aka only Gliscor cuz Breloom is giga dead to this lol). I somewhat like this idea because having the threat of a Toxic that also grants the user tempo can be extremely powerful on compositions like Trick Room or Tailwind which benefit from aggressive repositioning, while also helping to pressure annoying stalwarts like Massive Snorlax and Milotic that like to overstay their welcome, don’t always run Protect, and greatly annoy offense.

I like the idea of, akin to base Toxic, Poison-types having a unique synergy with the move to encourage more diverse use of it. On Pokemon like Victreebel and the Galarian Slowtwins, this can be particularly appealing as you force Steel- and Poison-type Pokemon in or use of Protect due to the crashing effect, which can be exploited by you as well. Victreebel has access to Strength Sap which lets you use the move more easily, and the Slowtwins/Mega Dragalge having access to Regenerator makes it easier to use, too. The Slowtwins also have Trick Room, which is a nice bonus synergy.

For our non-Poison users, I wanted to lean into Focus Sash users that naturally learn Toxic and/or would appreciate having the ability to pave the way for a subsequent ally. Houndoom is neat because it threatens immunities very well and appreciates having a move to pressure the likes of Floette and Primarina, while having a decent Focus Sash set. Vivillon likes a move like this to get off the field when supporting Trick Room and Perish Song teams, and it has access to Sleep Powder to punish immunities. Umbreon now has access to Trick Room and also hates Fairy-types, so if it wants to get off the field then it has that as an option, and same with Spiritomb.

Name: Poison Gas
Power: 65
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 15
Category: Special
Type: Poison
Effect: Hits both opponents. 30% chance to poison. Super-effective against Flying-types.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound):
Potential Pokémon With This Move:
Justification: Utility against those pesky fliers.

Name: Covet | Thief
Power: 60
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 25
Category: Physical
Type: Normal | Dark
Effect: If the user is not already holding an item, it steals the target's held item. If the user isn't currently holding an item, +1 priority.
Priority: 0 (+1 if the user isn't holding an item)
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Mirror,
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Current distribution
Justification: With +1 priority, this move can do its job of stealing items better.

Name: Rally
Power: -
Accuracy: -
PP: 10
Category: Status
Type: Normal
Effect: Raises ally's speed by 2 and spdef by 1 stage.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Snatchable, Mirror,
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Falinks,
Justification: Provides another form of speed control while not directly outclassing Tailwind and increase survivability as well.

Name: Quicksand
Power: 55
Accuracy: 95%
PP: 15
Category: Physical
Type: Ground
Effect: 100% chance to lower foes' speed by 1 stage. 2 stages if in rain.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Contact
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Garchomp, Swampert, Torterra, Stunfisk-Galar, Hippowdon, Runerigus
Justification: Another form of speed control that also improves the matchup into rain.

Name: Homing Strike
Power: 80
Accuracy: 100
PP: 15
Category: Physical
Type: Fighting
Effect: Cannot be redirected. High crit ratio.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Contact
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Suggestions Pls.
Justification: Could help vs the pesky redirectors. this moves type is up for debate. lets discuss in discord.

Name: Jetstream
Power: 60
Accuracy: 90
PP: 10
Category: Special
Type: Flying
Effect: Ignores terrain effects. Sound moves disabled for 2 turns.
Priority: 1
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Wind
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Talonflame, Noivern, Pidgeot, Emolga,
Justification: Priority move that isn't stuffed by psychic terrain and has a cool niche of disabling sound moves.

Name: Bounce
Power: 85
Accuracy: 100%
PP: 8
Category:

Type:

Effect: If the user was attacked this turn, switches out after using this move.
Priority: 0
Flags (ex: Contact, Sound): Contact, Protect, Mirror, Gravity, Metronome
Potential Pokémon With This Move: Existing users +
Justification: More powerful than typical pivoting moves, however at the cost of its pivoting effect not being guaranteed. Otherwise for faster mons, this move is typically just a generally more reliable Flying option that can actually be viably used as a standard attack. Kinda based around the flavor of the user getting hit, then using the momentum from that attack into their bouncing.

Move: Delta Wind
Type: Flying
Category: Special
Base Power: 70
Accuracy: 100%
Power Points: 12
Effect: Removes any all weather effects from the field. Until the end of the turn, the user receives a volatile that, if it's a Flying-type, cause moves that would be super effective against pure Flying-type Pokémon to ignore the Flying type's weaknesses in effectiveness calculation.
Users:
Description: Another weather disruption option, while also giving reliable (albeit weak to comply with the ethos of the type) STAB to Pokémon like Mega Dragonite. This is in particular cool for the weatherless Mega Dragonite teams, helping it have an even stronger response into sun teams for example, threatening Venusaur while overriding the sun. Talonflame also gets a far far weaker option for Flying-STAB but one with a ton of utility that can come in handy for weatherless teams to have some form of weather disruption as well. Could also be useful for Noivern that naturally outspeeds Pokémon like Mega Charizard Y, Pelipper, and Archaludon, and unlike Talonflame it can leverage its offensive typing to threaten Pokémon like Garchomp instead of falling immediately to a Rock Slide.

Move: Upper Hand (/ Prevailing Wind) [RESUB]
Effect: Upper Hand has a priority of +5. If the target has selected a physical or special move with increased priority and has not yet had a chance to execute its move, Upper Hand will strike first and cause the target to flinch; otherwise, Upper Hand will fail. (Prevailing Wind is also changed to +5 priority for parity, so that a faster Prevailing Wind can go before Upper Hand)
New Users:
Description: Since Upper Hand explicitly checks if the moves are physical / special before causing a flinch, it can safely outprioritize Protect clones and thus you can have a slower Upper Hand user stop a Fake Out from a faster user. I think this change is necessary to help slower Pokémon be encouraged to use the move outside of extremely situational stuff (and before you ask about futureproofing, Iron Hands never learned this move so we're fine!)

As for the new Pokémon getting it, I think Machamp is extremely obvious and i'm baffled to find out today it doesn't have access to this move. Scizor I think makes an interesting choice here, being a Mega that is really hurt by Mega Charizard Y's omnipresence and would appreciate a buff, being able to stop Incin faking it (or an ally) out with very considerable 60 BP super effective damage (despite being at -1). It doesn't really have hands in the most literal sense but Hisuian Samurott learns it so I think it's reasonable enough for it to as well. Emboar sucks and needs all the help it can get. Pangoro sucks and needs all the help it can get. Giving it to Barbaracle makes a ton of sense and I liked ausma's submission for it last slate, so i'm honoring it here (plus it makes a ton of sense anyway)

(RESUB) Sky Drop (Flying / Physical)
60 BP / 100% acc / 12 PP
The user takes the target into the sky, then drops it during the next turn. The target cannot attack while in the sky.(makes contact)
Potential distribution:
(current users)
(additional possible users)

Justification (this is the same as last time): too long lol. remember long cat?

Abilities

Name: Fossilize
Effect: This Pokemon's Normal-type moves become Rock type and have 1.2x power.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: (over Refrigerate) (over Keen Eye) (over Strong Jaw)
Justification: Elegant way to give a fully accurate Rock STAB to things. Also Aurorus gets a spread Rock STAB and doesn't lose anything of value (nooooo no Refrigerate mean no Ice-type spread STAB... wait a minute Snow Warning Blizzard. Game Freaks come on.) Also Lycanroc-Day gets a niche over Dusk form (aka less strong priority but stronger STAB), and Avalugg-Hisui is hype moment and aura.

Name: Mimicry
Effect: This Pokemon gets a new type to match the Terrain. Type reverts when Terrain ends.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: +
Justification: Ground/Steel already wins or is neutral against most terrain setters in vanilla. And even here, it already allows you to deal with Raichu-X, Musharna, and you're neutral against Trevenant. So losing your STABs and your type for situations you were already winning... Yeah, it sucks. Adding a type however, instead of changing your type, is only a help during the Terrain to tank better the moves, and I wanna give it to some mons that could become cool Terrain abusers (potentially ones with Terrain Pulse?)

Name: Moody
Effect: This Pokemon's lowest stat goes up by 1 every turn. if two stats tie raise the first in this order (atk>def>sp.atk>sp.def>spe)
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: every Pokemon here can either use this to great effect or is Glalie. Especially scovillain and Lycanroc. another idea originally from joltemons cause I'm really unoriginal

Name: Cold Iron Armor
Effect: Immune to fairy moves. when attacked by a fairy type, that Pokemon loses 1/6th of their max HP
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A way to combat fairy spam and a helpful buff to my favorite Pokemon :D

Name: Swarm
Effect: Increases the user attack stat by 1 stage upon switching in if another pokemon that has a bug type move is on the field
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: current distribution +
Justification: I wanted a way for all of the megas with swarm on their base form to get something, so this is my idea.

Name: Referee
Effect: when you switch in and get hit by an attack the attacker switches out to a random pokemon.
Permanent (Yes or No): no
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: ()
Justification: got deleted LMAO

Name: Curious Medicine
Effect: If there is a stat drop on the user’s side, the stat stages reset to 0 on their side. This works only once per switch-in.
Permanent (Yes or No): Yes
Mold Breaker (Yes or No):
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: An upgrade to what it has now, it is now more smart with its activation and also happens while the pokemon is active, this allows it to cleanse stuff like parting shot, an opponent switching an intimidate user in, or self inflicted stat drops

Name: Dual Wield
Effect: User's Slicing moves hit twice and have smart targetting, but each hit only deals 3/4 damage.
Permanent: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: I believe this makes for an interesting way of creating more physical Spread mons. Each move hitting twice also plays well into moves like Razor Shell for more chances to roll the Defense drop and the many high-crit Slicing moves to roll for a crit. Sacred Sword also plays well into Sableye-Archaludon as it hits the bridge twice. Not entirely sure if we should replace Sand Force on Mega Garchomp as its just recently seen a little bit of usage, but this would also give it an unique role that its base form can't fill

Name: As One (Falinks)
Effect: Effects of Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield
Permanent: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: The first step to buff Mega Falinks. Defiant on base scares away Intimidate mons and No Retreat encourages staying on the field anyways, so the ability only activating once is less of an issue. Turns Mega Falinks into a respectably scary mon with the right positioning

Name: Klutz
Effect: User's held item has no effect, unless Magic Room is active.
Permanent: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Allows Mega Meow & Co. to have some unique options as partners. You can't remove Magic Room anyways so this effectively lets you play with an advatange over the opponent through the entire match.

Name: Mage Armor
Effect: This Pokemon uses its Special Defense when calculating damage received from Physical attacks. The mystical armor breaks when this Pokemon drops below 50% health. Does not restore upon healing back to above 50% health but would retrigger on switch-in afterwards.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A lot of good Magic-themed Pokemon (most, if not all, of which are Psychic or Fairy) have solid Special Defense but low Defense. Taking advantage of this and giving them a magical boon that allows them to survive a lot more of these physical hits coming at them, at least early on.

Name: Eldritch Feast
Effect: This Pokemon is immune to Fairy-type moves. This Pokemon pulls Fairy-type moves towards it, raising its Special Attack by one stage.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Immunity ability against one of the most powerful types, and giving it a Storm Drain equivalent.

Name: Safety Hazard
Effect: While a Pokemon with this ability is on the field, ALL active Pokemon are affected by entry hazards at the end of each turn as if they just switched in (maximum once per turn).
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A lot of dangerous Pokemon making your life more dangerous as the battle goes along, in exchange for the double-edged sword of your side of the field also taking the same damage. As long as you control the hazards, you can use the Pokemon with this ability to do passive damage to your opponent's every turn.

Name: Liquid Ooze / Innards Out
Effect: This Pokemon damages those draining HP from it the same amount they would heal. When this Pokemon faints from an attack, the attacker loses an equal amount of HP.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: |
Justification: Innards Out buff to protect from Draining moves, and Liquid Ooze buff to match the effects of Innards Out. Both abilities have the justification of using the Pokemon's gross insides to do damage, so combining them isn't as outlandish as it would appear. Mostly benefitting a number of Poison-types, there should be an interesting amount of defensive utility these Pokemon can now provide.

Name: Stall
Effect: Under trick room, this pokémon's speed stat is halved.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: +
Justification: Swift Swim clone for trick room. Can serve to make already slow pokémon even slower or to make faster mons be usable in both tailwind and trick room modes without hurting your speed investment.

Name: Illuminate
Effect: This Pokemon clears its way enough to take a simple and decisive action, granting its first Normal-type move on entry +3 priority.
Permanent: No
Mold Breaker: No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: A very strange and powerful rework with a very strange effect, but I promise there's a method to my madness here.

A very rare interaction is having a Pokemon able to contest Fake out in a dynamic and interesting way. As a +3 priority move, it supersedes most major actions a Pokemon can take in a turn outside of Protect. Not even Upper Hand works against it. So, why not have something that conditionally beats it, but only when the user is fast enough to?

This only works with Normal-type moves hugely as a future-proof for Shiinotic (who has some unique tools of its own to interact with this ability, and a major drawback in its Speed, tragically for its matchup into Fake Out). I don't think anybody wants +3 Spore running around.

However, despite that, Watchog is a really interesting target with this (not just because it has Normal-type STAB moves) but because its Normal-type kit is weirdly interesting anyway. Aside from your average STAB moves to pose somewhat of a threat, Watchog notably has After You, Round, Super Fang, Endeavor, and Screech to work with. Furthermore, it has Detect to store its +3 priority Normal-type move safely. Alongside its uniquely positioned utility profile, Watchog's Speed tier is extremely cool with this, perfectly outspeeding uninvested Sneasler with max investment and most slow Fake Out users, but not most offensive Fake Out users, which is a cool balance in my opinion that encourages you to be deliberate with how you use Fake Out in the first place. In practice, Watchog ends up becoming something of a weird offensive utility Pokemon, not too unlike Talonflame where it helps enable offensive teammates, suppresses opposing utility, and threatens with a high BP priority move. Having the capacity to allow for a +3 After You that outspeeds even some Fake Out users can potentially be extremely strong and forces a huge amount of respect from opposing Fake Out users, but you have to position yourself well to get full value from it. However, After You aside, there are a lot of creative ways you can use this ability. If you have a fast teammate, you can batter a Pokemon with a full power Super Fang or Screech to secure knockouts more easily, enable Round synergies, or just attack. You could use a Focus Sash with Endeavor, even, on a subsequent switch-in.

Overall, while much of this was a challenge to make Watchog viable without overwhelming it with new tools and a new identity in general, I do think an ability that lets you proactively combat Fake Out is a really fun addition to the metagame. On something like Watchog which has a cool Normal-type utility profile and a very awful statline to work around, this could enable some very cool lines for offense.

Name: Deviate
Effect: The Pokémon's Normal-type moves become Dark-type moves and their power is boosted by 20%.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): No
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Solar Power ain't doing much for Mega Houndoom, it's a poor man's Mega Charizard Y, and even Mega Pyroar is better thanks to Fire Mane. So this moves away, from sun and gives it an ability more fitting for a hellhound. Zoroark can also get it to give it an option other than Illusion.

Name: Lightning Rod | Storm Drain | Sap Sipper
Effect: The Pokémon draws in all Electric-type moves. These moves do not work on the Pokémon. Instead, they boost its Attack or Sp. Atk stat (whichever is higher) by 1 stage. | The Pokémon draws in all Water-type moves. These moves do not work on the Pokémon. Instead, they boost its Sp. Atk stat (whichever is higher) by 1 stage. | Grass-type moves do not work on the Pokémon. Instead, they boost its Attack or Sp. Atk stat (whichever is higher) by 1 stage.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Current distribution
Justification: Fixes the issue of some users not actually benefiting from the boost

Name: Forecast (Changed)
Effect: Changes forms based on weather except for Sandstorm. All Stats are 1.5x in any weather.
Permanent (Yes or No): Yes
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Only Castform
Justification: While this not only improves Castform’s offensive and defensive capabilities on weather teams it also has access to some decent support moves like prevailing wind and icy wind for speed control as well as Thunder wave and the more situational Snatch.

Name: Down-to-Earth (from M4A name from ink)
Effect: While this Pokemon is active, the effects of terrains are disabled.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: TBD
Justification: Gives some pokemon teams counterplay to prominent terrain playstyles like psyspam and can improve the performance of some lesser used mons depending on the distrubution.

Name: Transference
Effect: At the end of the turn, transfers user's status condition to a random foe. Cannot inflict non-volatile status on itself. (i.e cannot use rest as it causes the user to fall asleep).
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes
Potential Pokémon With This Ability: Preferably some psychic types
Justification: Its a Unique way of dealing with sleep and other statuses and i think it could have some cool interactions with ally switch and pivoting if the opponent trys to avoid activating the ability. Also has cool interactions with flame orb/toxic orb similar to the magic guard psycho shift sigilyph set. Overall, it makes the pokemon a great status absorber.

Name: Unfolding
Effect: The user of the ability moves first in its priority bracket when its target has 1/2 or less of its maximum HP, rounded down. Does not affect moves that have multiple targets. [already coded in M4A but under the ability name "Coup de Grass"]
Potential Abusers:
- Samurott (high preference)
- Vileplume (high preference) and / or Florges (low preference)
- Mega Banette (mid preference) , Ceruledge (mid preference) or Zoroark-Hisui (low preference)
Explanation:
This is a very powerful ability that ignores Psychic Terrain and abilities like Armour Tail because moving first in the priority bracket basically refers to +0.5 priority, like Quick Claw, which also ignores the prio counter measures I've just meantioned before. The ability thrives on aggressive teams, especially if they rely on spread moves as that makes it easier to bring a target's HP down to 50% or below and trigger the ability. Fwiw, a target can also be your ally or yourself--the user of the ability--which is relevant for stuff like Synthesis or Destiny Bond, which target the user itself.

- Samurott, synergy with Razor Shell, Flip Turn, Dive, Soak, Assurance, Endeavor, Encore, Upper Hand, and Brine if the move ever returns.
- Vileplume, synergy with Pollen Puff (unique niche at the moment as there's no Comfey around!), Synthesis, Strength Sap, After You, Sleep Powder, Stun Powder, and poisoning.
- Florges shares similar tools with Vileplume (like Synthesis and Pollen Puff) but can also differentiate itself with Baton Pass, Calm Mind, or Skill Swap. It's low preference, though, because I suspect the ability might be too strong on it due to good bulk (on the special side) and an amazing type offensive and defensive wise.
- Mega Banette, synergy with Will-O-Wisp, Curse, Destiny Bond, Pain Split, among others and isn't too troubled by Dark Pokémon because of no Prankster. "Fast" Poltergeist makes Mega Banette a lot more potent and creates mindgames as opponents have to take into account both its "fast" offensive and disruptive potential. Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch can also out-speed +1 priority moves if you are able to meet the condition.
- Ceruledge and Zororark-Hisui are very similar to Mega Banette. So, I'd prefer only one of the Ghost Pokémon to have the ability, or two at maximum. I only considered Zoroark-Hisui because people here like running Round. So, with the ability, it's a bit easier to make this move potent as you pressure weakened targets.
- In theory, you could also consider a Coaching user if it also has other things that work well in tandem with the ability.

Name: Wild Magic
Effect: If Misty Terrain is active, this Pokémon's Special Attack is multiplied by 1.5 and it loses 1/8 of its maximum HP, rounded down, at the end of each turn. This Pokémon can be affected by Misty Terrain even if airborne.
Permanent (Yes or No): No
Mold Breaker (Yes or No): Yes (to clarify, specifically this means for the "This Pokémon can be affected by Misty Terrain even if airborne." segment. So if an airborne Pokemon with this ability gets a status applied to them, it would normally get blocked, but a mold breaker mon could do it anyways.)
Potential Pokémon With This Ability:
Justification: Last slate we dedicated a good deal of effort into buffing Sand to have more versatile usage, with Veil & Clock. I wanted to now take some time to work on some additions to by and far the weakest terrain, that being Misty Terrain. In its current state, I think this ability may be tough to utilize properly given our only Misty Surger is GWeezing, however, I've seen other subbed additions like Misty Step or Mega Chandy that could help expand the list of Misty Terrain setters. Choices for this ability are by no means set in stone, but mons that I believe could fit flavor and overall use a expansion in their niche (see below spoiler for explanations).

Ability: Protean / Libero [RESUB]
Effect: Changes the Pokémon's type to the type of the move it's about to use. This no longer works only once per time the Pokémon enters battle.
Description: Since this is a completely doubles-focused metagame, I don't think we have to worry about this. Cinderace isn't in the game and won't be making too much of an impact once it becomes legal I'm sure, and Meowscarada and Greninja have been STRUGGLING. Maybe I'm too woke or something but I do not think this is game-breaking at all for either Pokémon... While I appreciate Mega Greninja having that whole dynamic of being able to Mega to use Protean twice, it just feels like a downgrade from 3DS Greninja which was never a particularly amazing Pokémon either way...

Ability: Reverberate [RE-RESUB]
Users: (instead of Levitate)
Effect: Users' sound-based moves hit twice, if it's a damaging move, the second hit has 50% power.
Description: I had this idea since before we got abilities and I think it'd be a really cool fit on Mega Chimecho. OHKOing Sneasler and Glimmora through Sash is extremely useful, as is having a generally powerful Psychic Noise against something like Mega Floette. Boomburst obviously does a lot of damage as well if you can pair it with an immunity. The coolest niche though, I think, is that Metal Sound turns any ally's moves into basically a one-shot button. I think this Pokémon would be really interesting as a Trick Room setter with the offense and defense to justify its role. While losing Levitate is a bit unfortunate, it's clear that this Pokémon with just Levitate had not been able to carve itself a niche in the current meta, so I think something like this would be a really interesting way to make it stand out!

 

[cat111ca]

Items

Name: Light feather

Effect: 1.5x speed, holder's attacks deal 0.7X damage
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yes
Fling Power & Effect: 5, none
Justification: A new way for supporting Pokemon to boost their speed

Name: Mystical herb

Effect: Holder's first move to hit into an immunity bypasses said immunity and is then used up
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10, none
Justification: A way for pokemon to bypass their problem matchups.

Name: Blunder insurance
Effect: 1.3x special attack until switching out if the holder's move entirely fails to connect. doesn't stack
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10, none
Justification: a way for non mega special attackers to compete with the megas by letting them increase power whenever a move hits into protect

Name: Red Card
Effect: If the holder is hit by an attack, it consumes the Red Card and forces the Pokémon that used the attack to switch to a random Pokémon.
Can Be Knocked Off: yes
Ignored by Klutz: yeas
Fling Power & Effect: 10, makes the target switch to a random pokemon
Justification: wip

Name: Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav, Iapapa Berry
Effect: Restores 1/3 max HP at 1/3 max HP or less; confuses with corresponding Nature. Single use.
Can Be Knocked Off (Yes or No): Yes
Ignored by Klutz (Yes or No): Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10 + Heal 1/3 max HP
Justification: I wanted to somewhat restore their former glory, while they still are 33% berries they now activate at 33% health instead of 25% allowing them to be at higher breakpoints

Name: Bug / Dark / Dragon / Electric / Fairy / Fighting / Fire / Flying / Ghost / Grass / Ground / Ice / Normal / Poison / Psychic / Rock / Steel / Water Gem
Effect: Holder's first successful Bug / Dark / Dragon / Electric / Fairy / Fighting / Fire / Flying / Ghost / Grass / Ground / Ice / Normal / Poison / Psychic / Rock / Steel / Water-type attack will have 1.3x power. Single use.
Can Be Knocked Off (Yes or No): Yes
Ignored by Klutz (Yes or No): Yes
Fling Power & Effect: Fling will fail if the user is holding a Bug / Dark / Dragon / Electric / Fairy / Fighting / Fire / Flying / Ghost / Grass / Ground / Ice / Normal / Poison / Psychic / Rock / Steel / Water Gem
Justification: I like gems, I liked how they had something in vgc 2011-13 and i think pre nerf gems might be to strong. Giving these might give some moves the extra oomph esp if you are already using an item like life orb. I think 1.3x is a fine number especially in champions

Name: Black Sludge
Effect: If the holder is a Poison type, this sludge will gradually restore its HP. It damages any other type.
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 30
Justification: The effects of this item are unchanged. Currently, we are experiencing a very unique phenomenon in VGC where there are multiple Pokémon that use Leftovers, notably Toxapex and Archaludon. I am adding this item back specifically for Toxapex, as that also frees up Leftovers for another mon on its team. This also punishes Choice trading into Toxapex.

Name: Eject Pack [RESUB]
Effect: If the holder's stat changes are lowered, it switches out to a chosen ally.
Justification: Taking a useful pivoting item and removing it being single use. Useful to pivot around Intimidate, or just to take advantage of a free switch out of something like Draco Meteor. Still potentially has counterplay against it which should make it not too insane as an item.

Name: Gimmighoul Coin
Effect: The Pokemon holding this item is unaffected by a status move targeting it. Single use.
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 20 BP
Justification: Good as Gold as a single-use held item. Good to protect against status, Taunt, or possibly even block a Parting Shot.

Name: Old Rod
Effect: When an opposing Pokemon uses a pivot move, it is drawn towards the Pokemon holding this item. The move will fail, and this item will be consumed.
"Oh, looks like your Pokemon has something on the hook, don't let it get away!"
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 30 BP
Justification: Just a bit more control of the battlefield when your opponent cannot switch out against you.

Name: Punching Glove
Effect: The holder's punching moves are boosted by 1.25x and do not make contact.
Justification: There are a couple solid punching moves in the format, namely Headlong Rush and Palafin's Jet Punch. Punching moves generally suffer from low boosting options, thanks to Iron Fist being weaker than Tough Claws. This should make a handful of Pokemon more interesting to use, namely Conkeldurr, or Iron Fist/No Guard Golurk.

Name: Sour Candy
Effect: User is healed 1/3 of their max HP if hit under 50% HP, but gets paralyzed.
Can Be Knocked Off: Yes
Ignored by Klutz: Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 10
Justification: Self-inflicted paralysis is something that has not yet been seen in the series. However, in a game where IVs no longer exist, Speed gaps are much more narrow and Trick Room dynamics have become more fickle, to a point where we’re even seeing extremely sparse usage of things like Iron Ball Sneasler. Self-inflicted Paralysis in general is a fun response to this change in Speed paradigm, especially as full Paralysis odds have been reduced to 1/8 from 1/4 to make it less punishing. With Champions Paralysis and these new Speed dynamics, having what’s essentially a more consistently applicable Room Service that also happens to boost things like Facade and Guts while granting a Burn/Sleep immunity can potentially be a very helpful resource that expands the ways in which you use Trick Room. The Paralysis immunity for Electric-types can also possibly come in handy.

Name: Protonema
Effect: If Sun, Harsh Sun or Grassy Terrain is active, the user will receive an additional Grass type. If the maximum amount of types is already reached (as in the case of Trick-or-Treat and Forest's Curse), replace the last type with the Grass type. Item does not work if the user is already a Grass type Pokémon. For clarification: When the user leaves the field, it no longer has the Grass type. If the user is on the field and the ability got triggered, it still has the Grass type even if Sun, Harsh Sun or Grassy Terrain are no longer active.
Affected by Knock Off: Yes.
Ignored by Klutz: Yes.
Fling Power & Effect: 10.
Justification: In SV, despite the existence of Safety Goggles and good Grass Pokémon, Tera Grass was still a commonly used type in VGC. You really wanted to have, at minimum, two Pokémon immune to powder moves. Now, in Champions, I wanted to simulate this situation a bit while also adding more flexibility in Champions.

Protonema can be an alternative Safety Goggles option; you could even run both items! Furthermore, since we already have a new Grassy Surge user in Trevenant, Protonema can help expanding on the Grass spam archetype. Right now, there are barely any standout offensive Grass Pokémon, (I'm talking about the likes of Kartana, Rillaboom, Ogerpon, etc.); good / useable Grass Pokémon are usually tied to specific restrictions, like Chlorophyll or pure support in Champions.

Enter Protonema which allows for a certain team flexibility, especially if the abusers are Fire, Water, Rock, Ground or Electric Pokémon as they synergize well with the Grass type. For instance, bulky Fire Pokémon commonly run Safety Goggles. So, they naturally benefit from Protonema, and they appreciate the acquired neutrality or even resistance to Ground and Water depending on the dualtype. Water, Ground, and Electric Pokémon hate having their moves being redirected by Rage Powder users, which commonly resist these types. So, Protonema can help here as well. There's also stuff like Power Whip Gyarados (sometimes jokingly referred to as the best Grass type back in the early days of Dynamax in VGC), which can have an easier time setting-up as it's not necessarily immediately OHKOed by an Electric move and can put a lot of offensive pressure.

So, there's a lot of potential interaction involved. You are not too restricted on the limited choice of Grass Pokémon if you want to build a team around Grassy Terrain as Pokémon of other types can be included.

(Temp Sprite for submission purposes)
Name: Wishbone
Effect: When fainting, holder uses the item and sets a wish on its position.
Can Be Knocked Off (Yes or No): Yes
Ignored by Klutz (Yes or No): Yes
Fling Power & Effect: 80, None
Justification: A bit more of a niche item tailored to leads. Encourages good positioning and pairs decently with self-fainting moves.

Item: Terrain Extender
Effect: If the Pokémon holding this item creates terrain with its moves or Abilities, that terrain lasts eight turns instead of five turns.
Description: Seems reasonable to have when we have the weather-extending rocks!

Item: Pucuasu Berry / Mucutan Berry [RESUB]
Effect: If the holder would be hit by a move that calculates damage using the user's Attack from a Pokémon with increased Attack stages or a move that calculates damage using the user's Special Attack from a Pokémon with increased Special Attack stages, those stage changes are ignored for the purposes of that move and the berry is consumed / If the holder would hit a target with increased Defense stages with a move that calculates damage using the target's Defense or hit a target with increased Special Defense stages with a move that calculates damage using the target's Special Defense, those stage changes are ignored for the purposes of that move and the berry is consumed
Description: This seems a bit situational but I think it would be an interesting choice given the metagame is full of Archaludons with insane defense boosts as well as set up sweepers like Floette, Delphox, and Kingambit. I think giving players an out to break through Pokémon like Archaludon as well as another tool to discourage setup from the powerhouse setup Pokémon previously mentioned would be a cool idea and open some more avenues in teambuilding!

The berries are named after Amazonian fruits cupuaçu and tucumã

Ability Shield
The holder's Ability can't be changed, suppressed by effects like Gastro Acid and Neutralizing Gas, or ignored by Mold Breaker.
(this is its unmodded vanilla effect)

- affected by Knock Off and Klutz
- Fling BP is 30 in canon
Justification:

Spoiler

This is a niche but really cool item in vanilla!

It only rarely sees use on the average team (I think I remember seeing it on some stuff like Tera Grass Heatran in response to Hearthflame Ogerpon, though? just to give an idea of how it's used if specific Mold Breaker users end up being important),
but the main use case is that if you're running a Neutralizing Gas user like Musharna, you can pick one of your team members to be exempt from it!
For instance, an Ability Shield Incineroar can safely use Intimidate while Musharna suppresses opposing Defiant.
In SV's restricted formats, we also got some really cool teams like Neutralizing Gas Weezing + Ability Shield Koraidon - you still got your Orichalcum Pulse to set sun and raise your Attack, but opposing weather setters couldn't activate their Abilities and opposing Intimidators couldn't, and you'd even naturally outspeed Prankster users like Tornadus!

I think Neutralizing Gas Musharna is really cool, but it's mostly been overshadowed since Musharna also has Psychic Surge.
Ability Shield opens up a ton of creativity in how you build around it (since you only get one Ability Shield per team, but you can put it on any non-Mega you want), so I would really like to see it added!

Kiman Berry
A Berry that restores 50% of the holder's max HP when its HP reaches 1/4 or less.
(this is the Gen VII version of the Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav and Iapapa Berries, without the nature-dependent effect;
like all pinch berries, the effect activates at 1/2 HP if the holder's Ability is Gluttony)

- affected by Knock Off and Klutz
- flinging any Berry just makes the target eat the Berry
- Natural Gift is dexited, but if it ever comes up, this would be 80 BP and Fairy-type to fit in with the other HP-restoring pinch berries
Justification:

Spoiler

The HP-restoring pinch berries in vanilla Gen VII were widely relevant defensive items with really cool dynamics!
Since they aren't eaten until a much lower HP threshold than a Sitrus Berry, they're basically a more high-risk, high-reward sidegrade, but they've historically proven to be extremely practical and surprisingly nuanced!

In general, they do best on bulkier Pokémon like Incineroar and Tapu Fini that reliably take several hits to KO, but it can still take some careful positioning effort to use them safely, which sometimes rewards some really cool techs as well.
For instance, I've seen battles in tournament streams where people used Sand Stream Tyranitar specifically to manipulate their own allies' HP with the chip damage. The Berry is eaten as soon as your HP falls below 1/4, so it happens as early in the turn as it needs to (meaning you won't accidentally get KOed by sand chip before eating your Berry) - but if you happen to end the turn at an awkward HP threshold that's too high for the Berry but too low to live another hit, you can count on sand chip to push you into the HP range you need.
Because of pinch berries, some Gen VII tournaments even saw stuff like Technician Bug Bite Mega Scizor played with!
It also makes Recycle a relevant move and buffs some really fun Pokémon like Gluttony Snorlax and Alolan Muk!

At the time, they had one major design flaw in that they came as a set of 5, which effectively made them exempt from item clause;
I strongly suspect that this is the main reason they were nerfed in Gen VIII, not because the effect itself was broken on any one of them, so my sub here is to add back just one Berry that revives their Gen VII effect instead of a set of 5.

Flavor thing: the name comes from from "mikan," another name for the satsuma mandarin;
most of the other pinch Berries are mostly tropical fruits (fig, kiwi, mango, guava and papaya), and I like it specifically being a kind of orange to follow up on the other HP-restoring Berries, Oran and Sitrus (orange and citrus) as well!

Adjustments

Name: Gholdengo (resub)
Type: Steel/Ghost
Abilities: Good as Gold/Surge Surfer
New Moves:
Removed Moves:
Justification: For science. Terrain war? Alright let's add some more. Gholdengo has good lore for Surge Surfer, and competitively it's rather interesting as well. NP into Make it Rain and all, making it a huge threat in the back, as well as resisting Psychic and Grass, possibly making the Terrain war better for Electric side.

Name: Heliolisk
Type: Electric/Normal
Abilities: Dry Skin/Sandclock/Solar Power
New Moves: Electro Shot
Removed Moves:
Justification: Sandclock gave Heliolisk a really unique niche in Hyper Beam spam in Sand. The reason why I give it Electro Shot? It plays really well into Heliolisk's niche.
- You have a charging turn that boosts its Sp. Attack, really strong Sand abuser here.
- Due to Electro Shot natural effect, you can't use Rain to stop it. I feel it's kinda important here as it gives Heliolisk a particular niche, but also plays into its identity. It can abuse all of Sand, Rain and Sun in canon, and I feel the move plays into that well (you technically can run Dry Skin Electro Shot in Rain?)
- Archaludon and Ampharos-Mega RIP BOZO AMPHAROS LOST ELECTRO SHOT LIKE 2 SECONDS AFTER I POST are both slow and bulky, while Heliolisk is frail and fast.

Name: Luxray
Type: Electric
Abilities: Screen Cleaner/Intimidate/Galvanize
New Moves: Fake Out
Removed Moves:
Justification: I really, really wanted to buff Luxray, so here we go! It's a mix between an Incineroar sidegrade with Fake Out, Intimidate and Volt Switch, and an interesting support with Galvanize. Its Fake Out cannot be blocked by Ghosts but can be blocked by Grounds, which means you can pair Luxray with a strong Ice such as Froslass-Mega. Moreover, it has some interesting moves, such as Return for a strong STAB, Quick Attack for a strong prio, and Howl which you can use to boost during a double Protect.
(Thank you ausma for the suggestions)

Name: Gourgeist small/normal/large/super
Type: Grass / Ghost
Abilities: Rattled / Prankster / Harvest | Rattled / Prankster / Frisk | Rattled / Prankster / Defiant | Rattled / Prankster / Flash Fire
New Moves: Tailwind | Snatch | Horn Leech | Rage Powder
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: WIP

Name: Florges
Type: Fairy
Abilities: Flower Veil / Healer / Misty Surge
New Moves: Earth Power, Life Dew.
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: misty surge is the last of the terrain abilities to be added onto a pokemon. this changes that and hopefully gives florges a niche as a fairy attacker with nearly unresisted coverage and a great supporter with healing and status prevention

Name: chandelure
Type: Fire / Ghost
Abilities: Flash Fire / Weak Armor / Infiltrator-> Flash Fire
New Moves: Wide guard, Stored Power.
Removed Moves: None
Justification: Wip

Name: Overqwil
Type: Poison / Dark
Abilities: Poison Point / Swift Swim / Intimidate
New Moves: Knock Off, Flip Turn, Mortal Spin, Wide Guard.
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: These changes let Overqwil be a pseudo-incineroar that can use assault vest with intimidate, sunken lunge and flip turn, while threatening floette with physical poison stab. also allow it to sometimes replace Basc on rain teams.

Name: Steelix, Steelix-Mega
Type: Steel / Ground, Steel / Ground
Abilities: Massive / Sturdy / Clear Body, Flash Fire
New Moves: Shore Up, Bulk Up, Spikes, Heat Crash, Swords Dance, Headlong Rush, Snatch, Encore
Removed Moves:
Justification: A combination of a lot of stuff, i liked flash fire steelix-m from megas revisited so tried to give it a shot. With the uses it has it can still have wide guard against stuff like mega charizard y while firing off strong heat crashes, precipice blades.

Name: Gyarados(-Mega)
Type: Water / Flying (Water / Dark)
Abilities: Intimidate / Aerodynamism / Moxie (Mold Breaker)
New Moves: Wave Crash, Knock Off, Tailwind
Removed Moves:
Justification: Wanted to give gyara some time again esp since it has some VGC placements in oras and sv. With tailwind + wave crash it gives base gyara a lot more utility. Alongside having the buffed mold breaker on the mega form to work with. With a sweeper set it can see uses

Name: Aegislash-Blade
Type: Ghost / Fighting
Abilities: Stance Change
New Moves: -
Removed Moves: -
Justification: Note: This is an aegisash-blade sub not aegislash-shield. Aegislash in shield form is still ghost / steel. Either way this change is done to allow aegislash to use its defensive steel typing and turn it into a powerful offensive fighting typing upon stance changing. This would allow it to threaten opponents better in this form it has strong tools with CC + shadow ball and priority.

Name: Simisage, Simisear and Simipour
Type: Unchanged
Abilities: All 3 gain Hospitality
New Moves:
Encore, Grass Pledge, U-turn
Encore, Fire Pledge, Parting Shot
Encore, Water Pledge (note: Simipour already has Flip Turn)
Justification:


The Simis have historically been rather underwhelming, but I think this makes for an interesting niche. While they are way less bulky than Sinistcha, they do allow for multiple Hospitality users on the same team, and unlike sinistcha they have a good pivotting movepool with Fake Out + a pivot move on each of them. They have the benefit of being just slightly above the 100 base Speed tier and can go for Rock Tomb (or Icy Wind) as Speed Control, and have disruptive moves such as Taunt and Encore. They will remain mostly niche, but this lets the three of them have a defined role to occasionally be ran for

Name: Absol-Mega [RESUB]
Type:

Abilities: Sheer Force
New Moves: Hurricane
Justification: Absol is already a not very popular Mega and its Z form is likely to ovrshadow it as it stands. Sheer Force makes for an interesting choice as that lets Mega Absol boost a lot of random coverage to target specific Pokémon, which also allows it to make use of its 115 Special Attack. It functions similarly to Nidoking, where it works in spite of its middling offenses (for a Mega) due to how valuable Sheer Force Coverage is. aside from things like Thunderbolt, Ice Beam and Flamethrower, it also boosts Throat Chop as STAB and physcial coverage like Rock Slide and Play Rough

Resub from Slate 1
Name: Mamoswine
Type: Ice/Ground
Abilities: Snow Cloak / Thick Fat / Slush Rush
New Moves: Headlong Rush, Mountain Gale, Slack Off
Justification: Only Slush Rush Pokemon in the format currently is Beartic. This access to higher Speed, as well as access to a recovery move, should make it an excellent threat thanks to its unique typing. Keeping Snow Cloak and Thick Fat which have both been buffed so far this mod, so it still has plenty of good options to choose from.

Name: (Mega) Aggron
Type: Steel -> Steel/Water
Abilities: Rock Head / Sturdy / Massive -> Filter
New Moves: Aqua Tail, Chilling Water, Gyro Ball, Muddy Water, Slack Off, Waterfall, Wave Crash, Wild Charge
Justification: Aggron is a Pokemon that has fallen off compared to its other Steel-type counterparts. Making the base form Pure Steel, and turning the massive Mega Evolution into a giant submarine, improves the defensive typing of both quite a bit. Water-type physical moves pair well with its surprising access to Water-type special moves, as well as giving it another hard-hitting option for Rock Head sets. Finally, Slack Off is useful to maintain its longevity. Steel/Water being a typing unique to the special attacking Empoleon also means that this adjustment isn't stepping on anyone's toes to exist.

Name: (Mega) Eelektross
Type: Electric -> Electric/Poison
Abilities: Levitate / Stalwart / Surge Surfer -> Eelevate
New Moves: Agility, Clear Smog, Earth Power, Earthquake, Gunk Shot, Leech Life, Poison Jab, Sludge Bomb, Sludge Wave, Sucker Punch, Toxic, Toxic Spikes
Justification: Making a serpentine Pokemon more serpent-like by giving it the Poison typing and accompanying moves. Poison type gives it a weakness to Psychic, but in exchange a resistance to Fighting, Fairy, and Grass. Giving the base form some new potential abilities to work with as well makes it at least somewhat interesting to work with, as well as some good Poison and Ground coverage moves.

Resub from Slate 2
Name: Mega Glimmora
Type: Rock/Poison
Abilities: Merciless
New Moves: Diamond Storm, Hex, Recover
Justification: While Adaptability is a solid ability, Glimmora could use something a lot more interesting. Merciless pairs so well with Toxic Debris and Mortal Spin, making it hit potentially harder than before. Diamond Storm is a fun option to take advantage of the Mega’s increased Attack to do spread damage and maintain longevity, Hex is another way to synergize with the Poisoning, and Recover is just useful to have to stay in for longer.

Name: Tsareena
Type:

Abilities: Leaf Guard / Queenly Majesty / Sweet Veil
New Moves: +Close Combat, Ice Spinner, Life Dew, Wood Hammer
Removed Moves: None
Justification: Tsareena is one of the few mons with the immunity abilities, and while it has its very specific niche when compaired to Farigiraf, the giraf tends to be used more. Changes are meant to make the mon stand out a bit more by giving it more consistent offensive options as well as a secondary stab that better helps it carve a niche vs the giraffe by beating steel types like gambit or Arch. Can either serve as a pivot scarfer with techs like round or as a mid speed support mon with powerful options like Life Dew.

Name: Ariados
Type:

Abilities: Rattled / Insomnia / Inner Focus
New Moves: Trick Room, Pollen Puff
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: Ariados had a very interesting micro-niche in Regulation MA as a redirector that was resilient into both Floette and Sneasler. While Sneasler isn’t as good in this regulation, I think Ariados has multiple really interesting fundamentals worth highlighting and accentuating. Inner Focus lets it handle Sneasler Fake Out to successfully redirect its ally, while also synergizing with its access to Trick Room and Pollen Puff to give a resource to balance teams with Trick Room modes. Inner Focus also makes it easier to click Megahorn into the likes of Incineroar and Scrafty. You also still have Insomnia if sleep is troublesome for your team to deal with, which is also a cool niche to lean into as Sinistcha (its main competitor with this buff package) is not immune to Hypnosis.

Name: Arcanine
Type:

Abilities: Intimidate / Flash Fire / Justified
New Moves: U-turn, Prevailing Wind, Sacred Fire
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: Everyone is fairly familiar with how Incineroar has, generally, usurped Arcanine as the Fire-type Intimidate user. While it's not completely outclassed by any means thanks to access to moves like Howl and a fast Flare Blitz/Snarl, Arcanine has wanted one or two things to let it stand out a bit more. A very organic change that has recently come about that I think is noteworthy is Incineroar losing U-turn. While mostly inconsequential, Parting Shot has some noteworthy pitfalls, mainly its vulnerability to Throat Chop from opposing Incineroar, its ability to be Taunted and, crucially, it being barred off by Assault Vest. With Assault Vest having returned in this mod, Incineroar losing part of what made it a good Assault Vest user is tragic, but also a prime opportunity to fill a niche once lost. I think this is a perfect opportunity for Arcanine to shine, especially as it once had a pivoting move in Teleport. Gaining a new pivoting move that is actually compatible with AV lets Arcanine serve as a more reliable AV user than Incineroar that can help with Intimidate cycling and Snarl spam, while having access to some juicy coverage moves to keep the opponent on their toes. It also defensively has great synergy with AV, resisting Make It Rain and a lot of dangerous spread moves in general like Heat Wave and Dazzling Gleam, all while being able to threaten with its offensive profile and Speed tier.

A move I think was mechanically quite interesting for Arcanine and also works with AV sets is Prevailing Wind, a move that has been exclusively distributed to Flying-types thus far. Having an additional and more reliable tool to combat the likes of Whimsicott Tailwind and Charizard Heat Wave seems very compelling, especially as Arcanine itself resists Heat Wave and Blizzard, letting it have some leverage in getting a turn wrong. Being a pure Fire-type as a Prevailing Wind user is also a cool dichotomy with the main users while respecting the balance of its original distribution pool, as it's weak to Ground-type moves and resists Ice-type moves, but notably, both are still weak to Rock Slide from the likes of Aerodactyl. I also think paralleling Incineroar Fake Out while not actually having Fake Out and working into different things is kinda cool.

For people who I know are going to scream about Prevailing Wind from a flavor perspective:

In addition to this, Arcanine is also known for being extremely resilient and travelling literally thousands of miles over a small period of time. Although it literally cannot cast winds itself, the fact Pokemon like Whimsicott that just fly on winds can learn moves like Tailwind feels like fine enough reason to allow this. Also its name is Windie in Japanese.

Sacred Fire I added after some deliberation on Discord; people seem to like the idea of it given the AV set focus with this sub, and as far as legendary move distribution goes it's probably one of the better candidates with a move that already has tenuous flavor and suits Arcanine as a "Legendary" Pokemon of sorts. Obviously, this would be a very strong addition in its kit that doesn't really move the needle too far out of favor for what Arcanine already does, while calling back to its use of Will-O-Wisp as a common option of it in the past.

All in all, I don't think Arcanine needs too much! Just a couple of extra nice tools to let it be a more consistently applicable damage mitigating sidegrade that can make use of some tools like AV that Incineroar no longer can as well.

Name: Clefable | Clefable-Mega
Type: Fairy | Fairy/Flying
Abilities: Cute Charm / Magic Guard / Unaware —> Magic Bounce
New Moves: Trick Room, Heat Wave
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: Before I explain my balancing choices, I think the multiple subs now that have been trying to replace Mega Clefable’s ability are pretty misguided. Magic Bounce, to me, is the best possible choice they could have made for it, and I stand firmly by the fact that it complements its pre-Mega form and overall offensive/defensive profile in a way that no other ability could. Magic Bounce reacting to status moves creates a very incredible niche where it not only can safely absorb status moves, but outright punish the opponent for trying to use them. The ability isn’t at all the problem, instead the issue lies in its inability to find a comfortable team style that it can use its unique talents in while also being a proactive choice as a Mega Evolution. Given that it has a very offensive statline, it’s sort of difficult to use its cool utility profile in a way that also lets you exert pressure simultaneously. This sub is designed to address that problem directly by giving Mega Clefable a home: Trick Room.

The thing is that Mega Clefable wants to balance offense and defense, and Trick Room is a perfect answer for this. Clefable is uniquely poised to make for a very engaging offensive Trick Room setter, as it possesses the ability to flexibly transform its defensive profile with its Mega Evolution and, prominently, dissuade disruptive status moves through Magic Bounce. Or, alternatively, it can be a partner for a Trick Room setter, redirecting all potential forms of disruption with Follow Me and reflecting them back onto the foe. Trick Room also lets it get away with both offensive and defensive investment, which fits its playstyle and statline perfectly. Another move I wanted to grant it was Heat Wave, an option that gives it an additional means of spread damage that pairs well with another Trick Room abuser in Torkoal, who can set sun for it. This can help it make more optimal use out of the turns spent in Trick Room, while both benefiting from and assisting other common abusers.

In practice, you get a very flexible attacker that not only makes the same kind of use out of Magic Bounce as it was designed to, but you also get another option for Trick Room that capitalizes on Mega Clefable’s innate strengths!

Name: Lucario
Type: Fighting/Steel
Abilities: Stalwart / Inner Focus / Prankster
New Moves: Me First
Removed Moves: None!
Justification: I think Prankster is a very cool and versatile ability that is often unappreciated for how much creative expression it enables, often only being used for very overtly uninteractive purposes such as dual Screens and Encore. Lucario itself is a very compelling candidate, as it has a lot of really cool Prankster-friendly moves that have yet to see representation in the series from Prankster users alongside some very solid staples. Such examples consist of Howl, Heal Pulse, Coaching, Life Dew, Copycat, dual Weather, and various stat dropping moves like Screech, Metal Sound, and Scary Face. Riolu previously having Prankster, too, shows that much of its kit was at least considered with Prankster in mind. Unlike other Prankster users, however, it can damage Prankster immunities very well while also pressuring Fairy-types which Prankster users generally are incapable of doing.

The addition of Me First I attribute hugely to Hematite, as it was a move Lucario previously had that was cut but works very well for a Pokemon designed to be an offensive Prankster user.

Name: Stunfisk (resub)
Type: Ground/Electric
Abilities: Static / Electric Surge / Sand Veil
New Moves: Flip Turn, Rising Voltage, Snatch
Removed Moves: ...does Stunfisk even HAVE moves worth removing?
Justification: Adding more terrain control options to the meta to counteract the newfound Psychic Surge Musharna, Stunfisk is weirdly decently bulky - its main issues stem from not really doing anything with it. As such I've thrown a couple moves its way to hopefully make it not a complete Electric Terrain bot (including Rising Voltage, which it inexplicably doesn't get in base, and is probably fine on a mon with Stunfisk's... whelming offensive profile). Additionally, being a Ground-type setter means that it can pair well with ally Discharge users to give them access to a strong spread attack without the downsides.

Name: Zoroark-Hisui
Type: Normal/Ghost
Abilities: Illusion/Snow Cloak
New Moves: Ice Beam, Blizzard
Removed Moves: -Flamethrower
Justification: It inhabits the snowy area in Legends Arceus, so it should get the newly buffed Snow Cloak.

Name: Mega Chandelure

Ability: Misty Surge
Type: Ghost / Fire

Stats:
HP: 60
Attack: 75
Defense: 110
Special Attack: 175
Special Defense: 110
Speed: 90

BST: 620

Physical Moves	Special Moves	Status Moves
Terrain Pulse

Description:
Competitive
- anti Sneasler answer that naturally resists its STAB moves; it can comfortably switch-in without having to worry about Dire Claw's nasty RNG element.
- anti sleep answer. Ghost/Fire naturally resists Venusaur, a common evil Sleep Powder user. And generally speaking, Mega Chandelure's type combination is good into other abusers, which are usually Grass Pokémon. Should Hypnosis ever become meta, you are also usually good into most of its abusers, normally Ghost and Psychic Pokémon.
- Misty Explosion enabler due to its Fairy resistance and generally good match-up into most Fire, Poison, and Steel Pokémon (such as Mega Delphox, Mega Charizard-Y, Sneasler, Gholdengo, Kingambit, Mega Metagross, etc). Coupled with moves like Trick Room, and Mega Chandelure should be able to ease teambuilding, especially if players want to centre a strategy around Misty Terrain. This Pokémon can also easily fit the common Grass/Fire/Water core, which is easily walled by the Dragon type. However, that is not much of a problem for Mega Chandelure thanks to Terrain Pulse.
- unique interaction with its pseudo Dragon resistance. Ghost/Fire offers many a great resistances, which is further pushed through with Misty Surge. STAB wise, the type combo walls Archaludon, Kommo, Dragalge, Hydrapple/Mega Sceptile, Mega Charizard-X, and (Mega) Drampa, among others. Sure, Dragon Pokémon like Garchomp, Tyrantrum, Mega Feraligatr or Hydreigon can still pressure you, but it's rare to wall every Dragon perfectly anyways. And you still have Terrain Pulse to pressure them. This move also naturally pressures Tyranitar, fwiw. So, there's good incentive to run it yourself if you so desire.
- potential Calm Mind abuser, which is something base Chandelure cannot easily pull off as it's frailer and dislikes status conditions.

Pokémon: Mega Starmie
New Moves: Triple Axel, Upper Hand, Wave Crash
Description: Mega Starmie has seen fringe play and mostly been outclassed by Basculegion as a Water-type. However giving it Wave Crash unlocks something no other Water-type can do in sun:

32+ Atk Huge Power Mega Starmie Liquidation vs. 30 HP / 30 Def Mega Charizard Y in Sun: 122-146 (66.6 - 79.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
32+ Atk Huge Power Mega Starmie Wave Crash vs. 30 HP / 30 Def Mega Charizard Y in Sun: 174-206 (95 - 112.5%) -- 68.75% chance to OHKO

You do have to run Adamant and the recoil will rack up on a Pokémon like it quite fast, but it seems like a very worthwhile niche.

Triple Axel isn't as necessary as Ice Spinner already gets all the KOes you'd want out of Ice coverage, with TAxel coming with a shaky accuracy and double the damage taken from trying to KO Garchomp, but if you really need to KO a Dragonite through Multiscale, I think this move is flavorful enough so who am I to stop you?

Lastly while Aqua Jet can be useful to avoid Kingambit Sucker Punch, it doesn't do a lot, so I thought this tool would also enable Mega Starmie to find a way past Kingambit with the right prediction, and that felt reasonable as well

32+ Atk Huge Power Mega Starmie Upper Hand vs. 32 HP / 0 Def Kingambit: 236-280 (114 - 135.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I think all of these changes are welcome to give Mega Starmie a bit more chance at being competitive in the meta and fulfilling its role as the stupid physical Water-type attacker that Basculegion took from it '^^

Pokémon: Aromatisse [RE-RESUB]
Abilities: Healer / Misty Surge / Aroma Veil
Description: With also great flavor I think Aromatisse is the perfect choice for Misty Surge. It too is a Trick Room setter, but one with a much more useful typing, and maybe Misty Surge is just what it needed to provide the support needed for Trick Room against options like Sleep on lead and providing an extremely useful typing. Heal Pulse and Fake Tears is always useful on a Pokémon like this to support common Trick Room choices like Mega Blastoise and Torkoal (you can even move before Torkoal in Trick Room by having a -Spe nature on Aromatisse and not Torkoal and investing 5 points in Spe on Torkoal). This shouldn't be meta-breaking and other options providing Fake Out immunity are probably preferred, but if someone had to take on the niche of Misty Surge in this meta, I think Aromatisse is a great choice!