CAP 30 - Part 1 - Concept Submissions

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dex

Hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is
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Booster Beware: A fun concept, but another that doesn't really work with our framework. It barely even mentions it at all.
I'm not quite sure how my concept, and others you mention, don't work with our framework. The framework we are working with is heavily flavor-leaning, leaving the competitive side more free to be determined via concept. Every concept has multiple ways of approaching it, multiple ways of solving the same question. I mentioned a few possible avenues my concept could go down, and it is wholly possible that multiple options are viable. Even if only one option for a concept is determined to be viable, it can surely be made to work within the framework. Take our framework's namesake Giratina for example: Gen 7 Giratina's forms both performed essentially the same role: Defog/utility support. While the way they accomplished that role differed, they were run for very similar reasons (sticking with the Gen 7 Giratina example, it was due to Giratina's great bulk across both forms and an outstanding defensive typing. They differed in Giritina's base form having stronger bulk while Giritina-O had access to Levitate and a more noticeable offensive presence). Correct me if I'm wrong, but concepts don't need to full-on cuddle up with the framework like how it seems you want them to.

This isn't to discourage feedback on concepts though, more people should make posts like this!
 
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(Re)submitting my concept from CAP 28, with some minor revisions (S/o to MrDollSteak for the fire name change.)

Name - Teaching an New Dog Old Tricks

Description - A Pokemon that modernizes a popular set/niche of previous generations that has fallen out of viability.

Justification - This concept would fall into the Archetype and Target categories. This Pokemon should feel like playing a relic of the past, but in it's prime. Personally, one of my favourite things about playing older generation is seeing the sheer variety of viable sets that were used, most of which have fallen out of practice. Currently, the RestTalk sets are one of the few still used, albeit in lower tiers due to their general drain on momentum, with users like Throh or Type: Null being the main abusers of it.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • Why did these certain sets fall by the wayside in the future generations?
    • In addition, what are they?
  • What made these sets good in their original contexts?
  • Is their any way to adapt, modernize or change these sets to make them viable in the current metagame?
  • Are there any pokemon that still use some of these sets? What makes their usage of it viable over others?
  • Some of these sets were used before Items, abilities and some typings were in the game. How will these added variables effect the builds of these modernized sets?
  • Which of these sets rely on specific items? Will CAP 30i be able to run them as effectively as CAP 30?
    • Are there specifc older sets that would benifit from a un-knockable item?
Explanation - Previous generation's metagames all have very specific feelings when playing them. Gen 3 was a much slower, more methodical game compared to the offense heavy Gen 7. I feel like this concept would let players feel like they are stepping into a different generation when using it. This Pokemon should exemplify these relic sets ( Explosion as a staple move in gens 1-3, the RestTalkers of Gen 2, Pinch berry sweepers, ect.) and modernize them for the current metagame.

However, for CAP 30(i), we have a CAP that will have two forms. This poses an interesting dilemma as many old gen sets require a specific item to work as well: such as Pinch berries, and lefties. However, CAP 30i will be locked into a un-knockable item. This could be an interesting thing to have to build with, as it would effectively force the CAP into a more straight forward, but less varied playstyle. This could lead to a variety of sets that CAP 30 could do better, or have room for more variation than CAP 30i, or vice versa.
 
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I'm not quite sure how my concept, and others you mention, don't work with our framework. The framework we are working with is heavily flavor-leaning, leaving the competitive side more free to be determined via concept. Every concept has multiple ways of approaching it, multiple ways of solving the same question. I mentioned a few possible avenues my concept could go down, and it is wholly possible that multiple options are viable. Even if only one option for a concept is determined to be viable, it can surely be made to work within the framework. Take our framework's namesake Giratina for example: Gen 7 Giratina's forms both performed essentially the same role: Defog/utility support. While the way they accomplished that role differed, they were run for very similar reasons (sticking with the Gen 7 Giratina example, it was due to Giratina's great bulk across both forms and an outstanding defensive typing. They differed in Giritina's base form having stronger bulk while Giritina-O had access to Levitate and a more noticeable offensive presence). Correct me if I'm wrong, but concepts don't need to full-on cuddle up with the framework like how it seems you want them to.

This isn't to discourage feedback on concepts though, more people should make posts like this!
Don't want to get too into debating, but basically I see there as being a difference between "working with" and "working alongside". Even Giratina itself, as you said, worked alongside our framework rather than truly using it to any major benefit. That's not to say you are "working against" the framework; you just don't benefit from it existing. I see the major benefit of a framework the ability to do something unique. If we are just going to create a normal concept with it, why bother even making the framework in the first place? I think the unique options a form change like this offers are important to explore with our concepts, rather than just ignore or work alongside. It's kinda like how in our last CAP we placed a lot of emphasis on working to turn color change to an advantage, rather than just working in spite of it.

For your concept, while you could make it target boosting pokemon in two different ways, that doesn't seem to be working with the concept, but in spite of it. You would still be fulfilling the same role in a party, at which point I question why you'd bother to have two forms. I suppose you could give them different secondary roles, but I feel like there are better uses for a multi-form pokemon than something like this, where its form is an afterthought rather than a core consideration of the concept. As I said, it's a fun concept. I just think it's best suited for a normal CAP, rather than a special one.

If we pick a concept that could have worked in any CAP, and has no real care for our framework at all, we are wasting a rare opportunity. We could make this "just another CAP", or we could make it something special, a pokemon with a concept that could only exist because it is a framework.

-----

That aside, I do have a new concept to review since then:

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: This feels like another of those "concept for a concept" concepts. I'd rather it be more specific, and narrow the scope, so that we don't have to make concept analysis into "concept poll 2.0". Maybe you propose "Rest Talk for the Modern Generation" or such. But this concept feels too broad in scope, personally.
 
I've updated my concept based on the feedback I've seen here and reading the Discord to focus on a specific Gen 4 concept, I went with Decentralizer 2.0.

In terms of concepts I think have the most potential:

First Come, First Served: I think this concept works exceptionally well with the framework, and will lead to a lot of interesting discussions. There's still enough room for some really interesting conversations here.

Get It How You Want It: I love this example, if we go with something other than Defog given that's essentially what Giratina does. Addressing this up front will help guide the process so we may want to look into how the conversation goes there, but this could be a very interesting chance to have a role filled in two different ways.

Optimized Ability: I love this in particular because we have the chance to show off two different underused abilities here, and the 30/30i split really defines what we can do with those. This would be a super fun project and help us highlight some niche opportunities.
 

quziel

I am the Scientist now
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Name - Combo Maker / Breaker

Description - This Pokemon takes a multi-turn combo play, and is either optimized to prevent it or make it happen.

Justification - This concept would fall into the Archetype category. In current SS CAP a lot of the metagame is focused around short term combo plays as a method of making progress or winning the game. This CAP would be designed to either take on a specific combo play, or to have a combo play of its own that it aims to execute. While FS + Breaker combos are very well known and very well used, they are not the only version of this gameplan that can be executed, and this concept aims to explore how to make other versions work, and how to explicitly take on these gameplans.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • What existing combo-plays are possible within the game?
  • What are some existing combo-plays that receive significant usage within the meta?
  • Does the setup element of the combo have to be a good play on its own, or can it only be good in the context of the combo play?
  • How good should the mon be when it is not either taking on a combo play, or setting up a combo play of its own?
  • What are some tools to deny common combo-plays?
  • Can we deny a combo-play without an opponent adjusting their sets to return to efficacy?
Explanation -

FS + TP + Breaker is the most common combo play atm, which uses Slowking to set a Future Sight, bring in a breaker, and spring a "checkmate" position on the opponent. This Combo is notably answered by either denying the Teleport (can be difficult), or lately through Light Screen Toxapex, which can come in on Slowking, set a Light Screen, and then tank both the Surging Strike and the FS with ease, while setting up for a teammate to abuse the LS. Another combo that currently exists is Wisp/Twave + Hex from Dragapult currently, which aims to cripple the opponent with status, and then abuse a boosted Hex once they're statused. This combo is taken on by Tapu Fini excellently, denying the status, and therefor the Hex completely. A final, and less common in later gens, combo play is specifically Spikes + Whirlwind Skarmory.

All of these combo plays set up a beneficial gamestate through an initial move (FS, Status, Spikes), and then have a secondary move that directly uses the new gamestate to hopefully win the game.

How can we deny combo-plays, what is the impact of doing so? Players typically spend a fair few resources (HP, momentum) to set up these combo-plays, and denying one should theoretically result in a hefty momentum shift to the defensive player. Light Screen Toxapex is an example I'm using again because it really does an excellent job at nullifying the first element of a combo-play, but is it effective without the surprise element?

Note I am only looking at combos with explicit synergy, eg Roar + Spikes, Wisp + Hex, Flare Blitz Recoil putting you in Blaze Range; Swords Dance + Attack is not a combo for these purposes.
 
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WIP

Name
- Dominant Type Swap

Description - This Pokemon's two forms have their primary and secondary typing swapped. Each form's play-style focuses on and takes advantage of the benefits of their dominant type.
Justification - This is an actualization concept, focusing on what strengths each typing can bring, and exploring how a Pokemon makes use of one or both of its types.
Questions to be answered -
  • What roles have different types held throughout the history of the meta-game?
  • What types define a Pokemon's role more than others?
  • How can stats and abilities be used to enhance the strengths of one type over another?
Explaination - Throughout the history of Pokemon, every two-typed Pokemon has their types in a set order. This is often seemingly arbitrary.
Many Pokemon have a duel typing, but seemingly gain little from it other than perhaps a slightly better defensive type. Pokemon like Metagross (Steel), Venusaur (Grass), and Gyarados (Water) are good examples of Pokemon that heavily focus on the traits of their primary type, only occasionally even using their secondary type for coverage. This concept would involve creating similarly primary type focused Pokemon, creating two forms that each heavily focus on one of their two shared types.


Archiving for use in a CAP without an Item limitation
Name - Hidden Potential

Description - These Pokemon are designed to make use of Multi-Attack or Techno Blast, exploring how a Hidden Power-esque move interacts with the modern meta.
Justification - This is an actualization concept, focusing on the use of a niche move. Users of Hidden Power filled a similar niche, but are not present in the SS metagame. This concept explores the strengths and weaknesses of this item based move.
Questions to be answered -
  • What gaps in coverage was Hidden Power used to fill? Are those gaps still relevant in today's meta?
  • What roles work well for a Pokemon with variable coverage? What abilities can help it in those roles?
  • Does such a Pokemon need to match the attack's leaning, or can they work as mixed coverage?
  • How does this Pokemon function with or without a type item? Should the move still be useful after getting its item Knocked Off?
  • Are multiple types viable and/or healthy? Is there a balance between raw power and predictability that needs to be reached?
  • How do different types affect team building? How obvious should the type be from team preview?
  • What is the best way for the alternate form to use it? Should it be locked into a single type based on the chosen hold item, or should it use it as neutral normal coverage akin to Boomburst?
Explanation - Hidden Power has been a staple in the metagame ever since its introduction in Gen 2. Gen 8 is the first gen without this near universal move. This concept is about creating a Pokemon capable of using a similar move.
Multi-Attack is a powerful coverage move, but Silvally is only able to use it with stab. What kind of uses could a Pokemon with a fixed type find for this move? Should this Pokemon ever want stab on Multi-Attack? Should Multi-Attack's usage vary before and after having its memory knocked off?
When originally submitted for CAP 29, I focused entirely on Multi-Attack, but Techno Blast is available again thanks to Crown Tundra, doubling the options. Techno Blast notably has a smaller pool of typings, which potentially makes it less unpredictable.
This concept will naturally have to work differently on the two forms, with one form being able to switch up its items, and one with a fixed item. One of the big ideas for this concept was to see if the Pokemon could function with or without the typing item, and this allows us to explore both modes at once.
Looking at previous users of Hidden Power and how they fared then and now could be a good start. Plasmanta is a good example of a Pokemon that regularly used two different Hidden Powers to shore up its coverage in different ways.
Still a work in progress, but I have a new concept. Hidden Potential just has too much issue with an Item based form.
 

shnowshner

You've Gotta Try
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Final Submission

Name:
Hax-Proof

Description: This Pokemon and its alternate form are equipped to deal with one or more forms of hax in the metagame, either through resisting their effects or using them against the opponent.

Justification: This is best described as a Target concept. It is primarily addressing the prominence and power of effects/moves that typically fall under the category of "hax." Hax includes moves with probabilty-based secondary effects like status, stat drops, flinching, and confusion; it also includes the 25% to lose a turn due to Paralysis, the odds of thawing/waking up fron Freeze/Sleep, abilities like Effect Spore or Cursed Body, and potentially Critical Hits as well. All these elements affect the afflicted player negatively with little control on their part, while having a large impact on the outcome of a game. A Pokemon that is able to deal with some of these elements would be able to accomplish its role on a team with greater reliability, while also serving as a layer of protection against hax for its teammates.

Questions to be Answered:
  • What forms of hax are most prominent in the metagame? Which moves or abilities do they come from, and why are they used?
  • What tools are available that let a Pokemon avoid or take advantage of effects that are supposed to harm them? In what ways do these differ from one another in both interaction and application? For example, what's the difference between negating or abusing a negative effect?
  • How does the role a Pokemon plays for a team influence the effect hax can have on them? Which Pokemon are the most devastated by hax and thus benefit the most from being hax-proof?

Explanation: Competitive Pokemon is filled to the brim with RNG (events or effects whose occurrence results from random chance); from baseline mechanics like damage rolls to the multitude of moves which have additional effects that occur with a percent chance of happening, players have always had to prepare for potential status infliction, play around low-high rolls and crits, or simply lost a match because Rock Slide decided to flinch four times in a row.

In a broad sense, these chance events take away control from the player that's been afflicted with them. Your wall may be carefully invested to dodge a 2HKO from CB Liquidation even after Spikes, but not when it gets a Defense drop. Or maybe your Ice resist is really good at its job as long as it doesn't get Frozen while doing so. And then it gets Frozen and Kyruem gets a Sub up and you have to sack two mons to beat it. Perhaps you've put your Scarfer in position to clean up the game but they get hit with a Zapdos Static, promptly do nothing next turn and die. Fun interactions like that.

Being able to maintain control of a match in spite of the prominence of hax, either through immunity to such effects or potentially even using them against the opponent, would be a solid niche to have in the meta. Consistency is very important in a game with as much variance between matches, as it lets a Pokemon better fulfill its role on a team, and some of the more common moves a Pokemon will face either have some secondary effect attached that can turn the tide of a match, like Scald's chance to Burn and Shadow Ball's chance to lower Special Defense, or the move's sole purpose is to "inflict" hax on the opponent, like Thunder Wave causing Paralysis.

With regards to our current Giratina-style forms framework, 30i's immunity to item removal/displacement is a huge boon for this concept. While definitively not hax, Knock Off is similar to a lot of the most popular moves with secondary effects in that it is a respectably strong low-risk move that can have massive benefits when played well, or even just spammed relentlessly as we've all either done or dealt with. Since we naturally have an immunity to the effects of Knock Off, a move that is as common as it is disruptive, we have an opportunity to double-down on 30i's potential in dealing with traditionally hard-to-play-around moves and mechanics. Not only that, but with two distinct forms, we have a lot of room to thoroughly explore the concept and the many different routes which can fulfill our goal.
 
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Brambane

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I have written some feedback and thoughts about all (?) the concepts posted thus far. This took me several hours to articulate my thoughts, but I am happy to say most of the concepts would lead to a solid process. I also think most of them interact fine with out framework. At the very minimum, our framework allows us to "double dip" and get two Pokemon out of one concept. What a bargain, but not good etiquette at parties.

First Come, First Served
This is a strong concept in general, because it puts the magnifying glass on a game mechanic that has a lot of variety in how is manifests in the teambuilding process. There are a lot of routes to achieve speed control, which makes the concept fairly open in terms of direction, while giving us a very clear objective for CAP30's design: create a Pokemon that denies opponent the ability to move first. I really want to emphasize how much room there is to explore with this one. There are the listed examples of Trick Room, and Sticky Web exist, but speed control also appears in the form of weather abilities and Surge Surfer, a number of abilities that raise the users speed or lower the opponents, or otherwise targeting specific fast threats in the metagame and denying them the ability to utilize their Speed effectively in a game. There are a lot of avenues for us to take, and I think a large and fun part of the concept assessment stages would be honing in on which direction we want each form the pursue.

Weather/Terrain Power
Not a super flashy concept, but certainly a serviceable one. CAP has made a number of Pokemon designed to interact with weather conditions, including Jumbao who was designed to work with two of them. Because of that, I don't think the weather-side of this concept is all too interesting. The terrain-side of things is a lot more intriguing; there are CAPs that certainly like a specific terrain (i.e. Chromera likes Misty Terrain for blocking Toxic and Grassy Terrain for weakening EQ) but I don't recall there really one that is explicitly designed to set or abuse a terrain (RIP Electric Surge/Surge Surfer Voodoom.) Designing a Pokemon (or two, in this case) around terrain is a lot less explored for us, and therefore all the more enticing. To be frank, "let's build a Pokemon around terrain" comes off as pretty rough and uninspired, but I believe there is definitely diamond in that coal mine.

Role Compress to Impress
This essentially reads as "make a generally good Pokemon" because good Pokemon tend to offer some form of role compression, i.e. Tornadus-T's ability to be a wincon late-game while also being a pivot and Cawmodore check. Teams typically need a fair amount of role compression because there are a lot of threats to accommodate for in the meta. A lot of balance teambuilding comes down to how you can compress hazard control and countering specific threats. Defog Zapdos is a great example of this, where Zapdos really, really doesn't want to run Defog but sometimes you just need hazard control while also not auto-losing to Cawmodore HO at team preview (not singling out Cawm, but its a very low hanging fruit here.) One thing to note about this concept is that most of the CAPs in the past due offer some degree of role compression, since it tends to be a strong trait for Pokemon that are competitive in OU/CAP. Designing role compression is a tool for designing Pokemon, and one that has been put to work with Pokemon like Colossoil (spinner/pursuit trapper/status absorber), Equilibra (spinner/pivot/check to various things), Malaconda (spinner/special tank/pursuit trapper/speed control), and even something like Syclant (garchomp "counter"/late game wincon/offensive pivot.) Where this concept shines is putting to focus on role compression as the tool we have used for years, drawing upon examples, using what we have learned over many projects, and creating something new. Metaphorically, role compression is a hammer. We have used hammers to build a lot of houses; this concept asks the question "what makes the hammer so effective, and is there a way to improve it?"

Get It How You Want It
The definition of "utility" is somewhat subjective, but that definitely works in this concept's favor. Utility, in my opinion, means that your Pokemon is ultimately useful for something. A Pokemon with a lot of utility is useful for a lot things. Defog is an example, as are entry hazards themselves, of how to give a Pokemon more utility. But Scizor's ability to check Weavile with Bullet Punch also provides utility. Or consider dual screens. Prankster Taunt for prevention is one way to stop them. Defog is another, and Dragapult's ability to ignore Screens also works. This concept lends truth to to old saw: "there is more than one way to skin a cat." It is a fascinating and imo somewhat underappreciated aspect of the game to focus on. This is a wonderful concept and definitely one I would be very eager to explore, especially given the nature of our framework.

Not All Dragons Are Dragon-type
This concept touches on it at the end, but this is nothing new for CAP. So the question becomes "does it offer anything new or exciting in generation 8?" For me, the answer is mostly yes, but we have to focus very heavily on the CAP metagame as oppose to Pokemon as a whole. Over the years, Game Freak has introduced a wide variety of Pokemon that break the typing trends the dominated the earlier generations. As whole, I would say types have pretty high diversity in terms of role and stat distribution and whatnot. In the context of the CAP metagame, there are some openings for us to explore. The "Normal-type CAP" and "Physical Fairy" frameworks proposed earlier in the process are indicative of a desire to explore some of that open space; this concept would be a great way to do so.

Two Sides of the Same Coin
I actually don't have much to say; its a cool idea. My query is how this interacts with the framework. I assume by reading it that each form would use the same moves with different abilities each, but one form doesn't necessarily use the same moves as the other one. I think that would be more interesting than making each for use the same move, but they have different abilities AND stats, which seems at odds with the concept. This concept is strong at using the framework to "double dip" and give us a little more space to play in.

Booster Beware
I LOVE this concept so much that writing this reminded me to hit it with the Alomomola. This technically already exists; if you are familiar with competitive Pokemon you know moves screw over set-up sweepers. But what is great about it is there is a LOT of direction to take this concept, and a good chunk of them are cool as fuck and under-explored. I don't want to post my laundry list of ideas for this one, but the design space is interesting, it makes us ask a lot questions about the current metagame, and even opens the door to some pretty unique moves that don't really see any usage. Trying to make them effective, which as we have seen with Fire Lash, First Impression, and Spirit Shackle, tends to lead to some pretty cool final products. Love, love, love.

Don’t judge me by the color of my Type
I am admittedly struggling with this one. This kind of reads as a similar concept to Crucibelle and Mollux, but I think the difference (correct me if I am wrong) is that those Pokemon were designed to make the most of their bad typing; this concept is saying "my typing doesn't really matter." This is intriguing to me since I don't know if that is feasibly possible. Even for the Pokemon listed in the example, such as Blissey, Mew, and Butterfree, their typing is relevant to their design. Part of Mew's offensive limitations despite its movepool is due to typing. Blissey's lack of 4x weaknesses and neutrality to most type is a big part of why it is so effective. And even Butterfree benefits from having a strong mono-STAB typing, a Ground immunity, and 4x resistance to Fighting. This concept seems to most challenging of the lot, unless we go the more Crucibelle and Mollux route of making use of a bad typing by giving the Pokemon unique strengths to compliment or compensate for it. Imo an interesting way to go about this concept while treading new ground would be to do the typing stage LAST; after all, this Pokemon's other traits should by design completely overshadow its typing. That IS bold idea that I think would be fascinating.

Duck Fragapult
Fuck Dragapult.

Young God
This is another concept where I love its combination of simplicity and depth. It can be boiled down to "make good version of a very niche or bad Pokemon," but the majority of Pokemon in the CAP metagame are either very niche or bad. There is certainly a spectrum when it comes to being not-meta, like Garbodor (cool, unique competitive identity, but bad) to Jellicent (niche use, but generally suboptimal) to Haxorus (unique traits that make it situationally powerful, but mostly overshadowed). There is a lot of design space with this one, although I think this is one of the concept where it has to work a little harder with the frameworkt. Making TWO Pokemon that both utilize strategies and traits of lower tier Pokemon that also share the same type and movepool isn't impossible; personally it sounds like a pretty fun challenge.

Hidden Potential
It has already been touched upon how this concept struggles with the restriction of one of our forms being forced to hold an item. This concept explore the idea of opportunity cost to the highest degree; sacrificing an item slot for crucial coverage. We have seen this in past with certain Z-move users and the absolute sheer heat that is Natural Gift, which I think makes it an cool idea to explore. It just seems too out of synch for our current framework unfortunately, unless there is some work around I am unaware of.

Decentralizer 2.0
This concept is trying to hit too many good things, even if it is spread across two forms. I worry about creating project that is this anti-meta; these kind of target concepts are best when focusing on either a specific archetype of Pokemon (i.e. set-up sweepers, offensive Water-types) or bring really strong single threat while still being kind of useful outside of that role. Two Pokemon that counter a fairly diverse set of Pokemon, two of which have a pretty wide variety of strong sets atm, seems like too much of a good thing.

Optimized Ability
Pretty much Cyclohm's concept, which is fine because Cyclohm's concept is awesome. Not much else to say, building a Pokemon around strong or weird abilities stuck on garbage Pokemon will always make for a cool project. Ship it.

Color Theory
This concept is the scariest of the bunch, since making a strong, effective user of something like Soak absolutely terrifies me. Type changing moves are largely unexplored since they are stuck on Pokemon that don't really synergize with them. I think the only two I have seen consistently in competitive play are Pumpkaboo in Gen 7 LC (since its a good Z-move) and Pyukumuku for removing STAB and making things vulnerable to Toxic. With that being said, I am horrified of the idea of CAP-optimized Pokemon that can utilize such a weird mechanic. How strong is changing the opponents type? How strong can we make it? Should we make? Is it poll-jumping if I am seeing flashes of Soak -> Bolt Beak in my nightmares? With all that being said, this concept definitely inspires the imagination, and would be a fun af project for the community to tackle.

The Knight's Guard
This is going to sound blunt, but this is a partner concept and I don't particularly like partner concepts. Part of designing a good CAP is recognizing what will synergize well with its traits. What Pokemon benefit from what the CAP does. Partners emerge naturally from the process, and I don't think picking the partner to build around is actually all too interesting, and I was around in-person for Voodoom.

Special Priority Users
Talked about this on discord, but I think this concept could be expanded to focus on underutilized moves rather than specifically special priority. Building a Pokemon around a weird or underutilized move is so cool that we have done it a lot in past (Parting Shot, Coil, Spirit Shackle, Doom Desire, Fire Lash, First Impression) and it is always going to be a cool project. Opening it up to more than just special priority would be beneficial for CAP30 in particular since we have two forms to work with; we can double dip into the concept and pick multiple underutilized moves to build around. As is, the concept is a little too narrow and niche to be on par with the other concepts in the thread. If it can be expanded to give more design and discussion room with this framework, it could be a strong contender.

Utility Specialist Siblings
Basically the opposite of Get It How You Want It, I don't think this one is quite as interesting since the default for this framework would probably make two Pokemon that do different things despite having the same typing and movepool. The twist with this one is making support Pokemon, more specifically based on how the concept is worded, support Pokemon focused on non-attacking moves. An interesting part of this would be trying to make two Pokemon that don't overlap in the teambuilder despite having the same typing and movepool; how do we give them an identity? The best example that exists is probably Slowbro and Slowking, who have roughly the same movepool, and typing, and even run the same ability, but are vastly different when it comes to what they can switch in on. We could definitely make a pair more interesting than Slowbro and Slowking, especially if we leverage that one already is item-locked and cannot have its item removed. This concept has some potential I didn't appreciate the first time I read it.

Pacing
Pacing is definitely an aspect of competitive Pokemon but not one I think is super discussed outside of comparing metagames and certain team MUs. Using LC as an example, Gen 8 LC is a faster paced metagame than Gen 5 LC as a whole. Gen 3 OU is slower compared to Gen 5 OU. Designing specific Pokemon around pacing is a different beast entirely, which this concept's explanation handles nicely. It asks some good questions that aren't touched upon too much in the OP, like when do you want to play the long game and when do you want to try to ends things quickly? How do you create these openings; how do you deny them? How importantly is momentum, pressure, and reactivity to the pace of a game? Is it humane game design to create a Pokemon which functions best when it uses more of you and your opponents IRL time? These are questions I want to answer, which makes for a wonderful concept.

Multifaceted Wildcards
Way, way too much of a good thing. Creating two Pokemon with three equally viable competitive abilities seems like an absolute nightmare to build around and play against. This seems like a concept that makes for a fun process, but not a very fun playtesting experience. If you look at each ability as creating essentially a different playstyle and threat, and then doing two forms with that, it scares me. This one isn't for me, chief.

Screens for Me but Not for Thee
Screens see use in CAP with HO, so there is definitely some niche for an anti-screen Pokemon in the meta. But an anti-screen Pokemon that also sets up its own screens? My issue there is it forces us in some pretty specific design space that doesn't leave a lot of room for our framework either. Screen removal is quite limited, and screen prevention means Taunt, Imprison, or just outright killing the screener. If you also want this Pokemon to be a screener itself, you are already creating a somewhat clogged moveset right out of the gate. Additionally, the most common and useful form of screen removal is Defog, which is anti-synergistic to say the least. I am not sold on the Screen for Me part; the Not for Thee is okay if we give the Pokemon room to do other things other than screen removal/prevention.

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks
This concept appeals to my nostalgic heart. There a number of old strategies I would love to see given some attention to try and make work. That's all I really have to say about this one. Its an ppealing concept and seems like a fun one to explore, as well as tapping into some good ol' competitive Pokemon history. I hope to see this one make it past the first round of voting for sure.

Combo Maker / Breaker
A very cool concept with lots of room for exploration across two forms. Sure, combo making is already part of teambuilding (Future Sight + Breaker, Terrain + Hawlucha, Status Support + Hex, etc) or creating a strong synergistic moveset (Cawmodore's Belly Drum combos well with Acrobatics and Drain Punch, as does something like Kyurem's Substitute into Roost). The cool part about combo making would be talking about the importance of sequence; combos work best, or only work, when you do them in correct order. That is where the creation process for this concept seems to most engaging: deciding on how to set up the combo, and what impact we want the combo to have? Do we want it to be an all-in combo, like the terrain + Hawlucha example, or something with a bit more flexibility, like status + Hex? This side of the concept has a surplus of potential, but the other side is equally engrossing. How can we disrupt the already existing combo I mentioned? Which ones should we focus on? We can make a Pokemon that break a variety of combos at once? This is one of those concepts with so much potential that you could submit it every CAP and it would still be interesting. As such, I think its a fantastic fit for our framework as well.

Never Punished
This is a concept that I think works kind of like sprinkles on an ice cream. The basis, or ice cream, is the Pokemon need to be obviously viable in order to interact with the metagame, while the elements that reduce the effects of variance are the sprinkles. They are a bonus flavor that is great to have, but you don't need it to enjoy the product. As such, this concept will need a little more direction, probably by picking a specific source of RNG to avoid, i.e. Zapdos Static or Scald burns. Not a bad concept, but focusing too much on the anti-hax element would be a total design mistake.
 
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Astra

talk to me nice
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Decided to comment on all of the comments my concept has received so far.
Get It How You Want It: I am not only underwhelmed by slightly bothered by this concept. We already have the same typing and the same movepool, and now you want essentially the same role? It feels like this skirts a very dangerous line between working with the concept and actively working against it, and I feel like without some major change like a stats-first stage you would probably end up on the wrong side of that line or at least poll jumping massively.
I do understand your concern here, but just to provide my counterclaim to this, two Pokemon having access to the same utility doesn't necessarily mean that they both fulfill the same role. Both Kartana and Corviknight have sets that can run Defog, but they don't share similar roles at all. Kartana takes an offensive approach by threatening out the opposition with its Speed and incredible KO potential, which can force foes out and grant it a free turn to use Defog, while Corviknight can often find the opportunity to use Defog by switching into moves it can tank thanks to its defensive capabilities. While they can both technically be considered Defoggers, one is a Choice Scarf user when the other is a defensive backbone, two completely separate roles. That is what my concept is trying to achieve with CAP30 and CAP30i: two formes that can fulfill two dynamically different roles while still being able to provide the same utility effectively within their roles' limits. I will agree, though, that in order for this concept to be as optimized as possible, the differences between CAP30 CAP30i should be fairly dynamic. I'm sure we can all agree we don't want the outcome of this to be simply and strictly a defensive Defogger and specially defensive Defogger.
Get It How You Want It: I love this example, if we go with something other than Defog given that's essentially what Giratina does. Addressing this up front will help guide the process so we may want to look into how the conversation goes there, but this could be a very interesting chance to have a role filled in two different ways.
I also agree that going with something other than Defog would be more interesting; I figured that using Defog as an example would be the easiest way to make my concept as understandable as possible, and I didn't want to go overboard with potential utility options in fear of polljumping a bit. But I do think that we would have a lot of options to choose from, which leads into this next point:
Get It How You Want It
The definition of "utility" is somewhat subjective, but that definitely works in this concept's favor. Utility, in my opinion, means that your Pokemon is ultimately useful for something. A Pokemon with a lot of utility is useful for a lot things. Defog is an example, as are entry hazards themselves, of how to give a Pokemon more utility. But Scizor's ability to check Weavile with Bullet Punch also provides utility. Or consider dual screens. Prankster Taunt for prevention is one way to stop them. Defog is another, and Dragapult's ability to ignore Screens also works. This concept lends truth to to old saw: "there is more than one way to skin a cat." It is a fascinating and imo somewhat underappreciated aspect of the game to focus on. This is a wonderful concept and definitely one I would be very eager to explore, especially given the nature of our framework.
I love this take on how one may define "utility" and do agree that it would help tremendously in the process if we choose this concept. With the expansive definition you seem to have in mind, utility may even go beyond just being moves, such as the combination of Prankster + Taunt and Dragapult Infiltrator. I've decided to add a question to my concept to reflect this.
 
Final Submission

Name:
Game of Inches

Description: A Pokémon that explores the use of incremental damage and recovery effects in the CAP metagame.

Justification: This is an Actualization concept. Given the vast amounts of directly damaging attacks and reliable recovery, this concept intends to explore some of the lesser seen methods of damage and healing. Another route worth considering are the ways to dissuade or block these effects.

Questions to be answered:

  • How important are incremental, residual, and any other forms of indirect damage in the current meta?
  • Which effects, whether they are moves, abilities, or anything else, should be considered incremental?
  • Which damaging moves would be useful for their secondary effects?
  • How can incremental effects be dissuaded or blocked?
  • In what ways can incremental effects be worthwhile over traditional forms of damage and recovery?
  • How should incremental damage be used alongside direct damage? Should one be prioritized over the other?
  • What routes could each form take to sufficiently differentiate them?
Explanation: This Pokémon would serve a different playstyle than Pokemon that only deal direct damage or Pokemon with perfectly reliable recovery . As an example, Leech Seed perfectly encompasses these effects, though there are others like Sand/Hail, Ingrain/Aqua Ring, Leftovers/Black Sludge, Rough Skin/Iron Barbs, Poison Point/Flame Body, and Sand Tomb/Infestation that are also worth looking at.

As for blocking incremental damage and recovery effects, the first ability that comes to mind is Magic Guard, which would be very strong both offensively and defensively. Others to look at are Immunity/Pastel Veil/Poison Heal with their ability to block Toxic damage, Overcoat to block Weather, Water Veil to block Burn, and Taunt to prevent incremental effects from status moves.

This CAP would not need to be completely passive, one route to explore is how they relate, synergize, and benefit from direct damage. Abilities like Rough Skin and Poison Touch can provide chip damage, and moves like Poison Jab or Scald can debuff the opponent.

As CAP 30 is a Framework with two separate forms, contrasting routes may be chosen to differentiate each form. A possibility is having one form explore the defensive uses of incremental effects, while the other uses incremental damage in conjunction with its attacking moves.

The closest Pokémon that fills this role is Ferrothorn, with its main recovery being Leech Seed, and its ability to rack up damage with the aforementioned move and its ability Iron Barbs. Ferrothorn’s above-average attack stat also allows its attacking moves like Power Whip and Gyro Ball to reach KOs after sufficiently weakening the opponent with its incremental effects.

As for CAP Pokémon, the closest to fill this role is Snaelstrom, with its main source of Recovery being through Poison Heal, and its ability to status through Toxic or Scald. It’s similar to Ferrothorn however, due to its above average attacking stats giving it offensive prowess (with it even being able to make use of Swords Dance sets).
 
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I wanted to respond to feedback to my concept and then discuss other submissions I like.
Don’t judge me by the color of my Type: The formatting makes this a bit of a pain to read (line breaks, man!), but I actually very much like this for how it works with our framework. Typing is one of our shared stages, so focusing on ways to NOT make it matter allows a lot of freedom to explore the concept.
Changed the formatting for better readability
Even for the Pokemon listed in the example, such as Blissey, Mew, and Butterfree, their typing is relevant to their design. Part of Mew's offensive limitations despite its movepool is due to typing. Blissey's lack of 4x weaknesses and neutrality to most type is a big part of why it is so effective. And even Butterfree benefits from having a strong mono-STAB typing, a Ground immunity, and 4x resistance to Fighting.
I Agree that none of my examples completely ignores their typing and fwiw I don’t think, that it is possible, although I’d like to be proven wrong. However I do think, that all of the Pokémons I listed are not defined by their typing. If you change Blisseys type it might be better or worse, but probably still play the same role on a team. If you change it’s stats though, it will most certainly become an entirely different Pokémon.
Same with Mew. If you changed its type, it would still define its role on a team through its massive movepool.
This concept seems to most challenging of the lot, unless we go the more Crucibelle and Mollux route of making use of a bad typing by giving the Pokemon unique strengths to compliment or compensate for it.
Imo we should avoid this route, because I think, an intentionally bad typing does influence a Pokémons role and viability a lot.
I am decidedly leaving this open though, as I am willing to change my mind about this, through community discussion.
Imo an interesting way to go about this concept while treading new ground would be to do the typing stage LAST; after all, this Pokemon's other traits should by design completely overshadow its typing.
It could be interesting to do it this way, although I think, that the right choice of typing is still hugely important to make this work. But this is also smth that I’d rather have the community discuss and decide.
Name: Get It How You Want It
I like this, because it opens interesting discussion on how similar Pokémon are able to perform better on different team archetypes and how a Pokémon, that shares the same toolkit in its utility with another Pokémon, can be more effective with different partners and in different teams given, that it has some key differences.
Name: Not All Dragons Are Dragon-type
This is also very cool. Trying to make a Pokémon, that can emulate the utility of another typing can lead to very interesting results. I definitely would like to explore, what different avenues can lead to such a Pokémon, and how it could affect team building.
Name: Duck Fragapult
I don’t really like this concept, but I think it is somewhat interesting, because since I have joined CAP almost all concepts where pretty high level explorations of very generalistic ideas, like stopping pivots or making certain moves viable. This concept instead wants to focus on one Pokémon and how to beat it, and I think there is merit in its simplicity. I do worry though what happens if OU decides to ban Pult during this process though.
Name - Dominant Type Swap
I think, that this is still very crude, but it has a hidden potential (pun intended). Exploring how to seperate two mons, that share their typing and movepool, by examining the strengths of either of their types and building each of the forms around the strengths of only one of the types, might lead to very interesting discussions. How much can we even differentiate the two forms by focusing on one type for each? What dual types can be synergistic, but at the same time each be so specialized, that they exhibit different enough positives for each of the forms?
I think, if you flesh out more questions like that, that this could even be my favorite concept yet.
Name: Pacing
A very cool concept, that will definitely afford us with a lot of high level discussion especially because in conjunction with the framework it gives us the opportunity to explore both faces of this coin. Building two mons with similar tools that create and excel in such different situations will be challenging, but the discussion around it will certainly deepen our understanding of how to influence and benefit from controlling the pace of a game.
Name: Never Punished
This is nice, because if we make this, d2 will finnaly be able to win a team tour game in CAP. No but for real I think there are some interesting possibilities to explore here and while I don’t think we can ever fix hax, looking for ways to profit of a missed hurricane or an inflicted burn, sounds like a promising idea.
Name: Game of Inches
I loved this the last time and I still think this can be very interesting to explore. Pokémon like Ferrothorn, Heatran or Landorus are so interesting because they excel at wearing down an opposing team while managing to stay healthy in long games even though They rely on chip damage and unreliable recovery to do so. Building a mon like this might teach us, why exactly they manage to do this and how to best take advantage of seemingly slow paced attacks and recovery.
 
Multifaceted Wildcards: I don't think the name is supposed to be bolded, and I believe you are supposed to use colons, not dashes. That aside... what a monster of a concept. While this is a direct use of the form change, and effective... my god. This is a god dang monster of a concept. We'd absolutely need to move the ability stage to the front, and we'd absolutely need to hold some sort of wacky weird multi-ability poll where more than one ability is voted on at the same time. It's hard enough getting 3 abilities where 1 of them doesn't overshadow the rest, but SIX!? I... ooh boy. I don't know what to say. I'm kinda blown away by the ambition here. I feel like you might want to narrow the scope to 4 at most; two per form. Six is pretty bonkers.
This was more about starting a conversation on how we approach competitive properties inherent to particular frameworks + concepts, so I'm not particularly worried about style. It's absolutely feasible (and Abilities will play an important part in determining this mon's viability), but the process would drag on between settling on Abilities and balancing playtesting. The other thing we need to think about is the fact that similar typings on two functionally different Pokemon would incentivize teambuilding with means to check either. What I want to make are two Pokemon with several different unique competitive niches, and trying to avoid some of the pitfalls that Giratina fell prey to.

Multifaceted Wildcards
Way, way too much of a good thing. Creating two Pokemon with three equally viable competitive abilities seems like an absolute nightmare to build around and play against. This seems like a concept that makes for a fun process, but not a very fun playtesting experience. If you look at each ability as creating essentially a different playstyle and threat, and then doing two forms with that, it scares me. This one isn't for me, chief.
Definitely agree that it will be difficult process-wise, but I disagree that it would be difficult to build around. The idea isn't to create some sort of offensive threat that cannot be prepared for, but to create a mon with various different purposes in mind. Like packing a Triage revenge killer with Healing Wish, an Intimidate pivot, and a Terrain setter on the base forme, then an Iron Barbs/Rough Skin Knock Off Absorber, Competitive/Defiant Spinblocker, and a Magic Guard bulky sweeper on the other.

Where playtesting would get messy is if it did one (or god forbid, more) of those roles so well as to completely skew the metagame towards itself. Figuring that out would be a matter of looking at detailed usage stats.
 
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Decentralizer 2.0
This concept is trying to hit too many good things, even if it is spread across two forms. I worry about creating project that is this anti-meta; these kind of target concepts are best when focusing on either a specific archetype of Pokemon (i.e. set-up sweepers, offensive Water-types) or bring really strong single threat while still being kind of useful outside of that role. Two Pokemon that counter a fairly diverse set of Pokemon, two of which have a pretty wide variety of strong sets atm, seems like too much of a good thing.
Thanks for the feedback Brambane, one thing I would like to stipulate is the intent is to check, not counter, the top threats. The point on power is definitely still valid, I'll be making some edits to try to clear up how this could be balanced.

More feedback incoming:

Combo Maker / Breaker: I think this concept is particularly exciting because of how it should lead to gameplay moments that feel great. Executing a combo feels awesome without verging into gimmick territory. I do think the framework aspect could be fleshed out a bit more in this concept, I'm not sure the forme split really ties into this concept as well as some of the other options.

Game of Inches: I've been running a defensive core of TankChomp, Spiky Shield Snaelstrom and Toxic Blissey, and it has been exceptionally fun. Incremental damage/healing has always been a big part of the game, and I love the idea of focusing on some of the lesser used but still effective options. I can absolutely see how two forms could fit here and how we could explore more active/passive versions of incremental damage/healing.
 
Name: Risk vs Reward

Description: A pair of Pokemon, wherein one greatly rewards a high risk tolerance, while the other provides consistent but moderate progress.

Justification: This concept would fall into the Actualization category as the aim is to create 2 Pokemon, one of which evokes a feeling of jeopardy, while the other offers safe but predictable outcomes.

Questions to be answered:
1) In what ways does risky play manifest itself in the metagame?
2) How often is riskiness a quality inherent to a Pokemon, versus a style of play that the Pokemon benefits from? How does riskiness in the teambuilder interact with riskiness in gameplay?
3) What is the balance between risk and reward that makes a Pokemon viable? Can a Pokemon be too risky to use, or fail if not used in high risk gameplay?
4) Can a relatively safe-to-use Pokemon be unviable if the reward is not high enough? What is the balance between security and progress/momentum?
5) How does the gamestate influence a player's risk tolerance?
6) Does high-reward necessarily relate to offensive pressure, or could it be used in defensive gameplay, and how?
7) How do we bring about a contrast in riskiness between these two Pokemon, given they share the same moves and typing? What kind of Pokemon would choose to use Aura Sphere instead of Focus Blast, given it had access to both? Are there any typings that are inherently risky or safe?

Explanation:
Risk is an unavoidable facet of competitive Pokemon, but the player can control the amount of risk they are exposing themselves to, to a large extent. You could choose to forgo low accuracy moves, or pick Pokemon that are able to stomach a misplay in case you mess up. You could also choose to play safely versus riskily; the choice on whether or not to switch to a Rillaboom on a Gastrodon's Scald can be dependent on gamestate, but is often largely dependent on a player's general risk tolerance.

Additionally, the level of risk in the teambuilder can inform the level of risk in gameplay. 6 bulky Pokemon on a stall team are best played safely, while an offensive team with frail but strong breakers may achieve its maximum potential when played riskily with aggressive double switches.

ORAS Keldeo is a great example in terms of the choice of whether or not to click Focus Blast (or run it at all). Clicking Specs Focus Blast on a Rotom-W destroys it 70% of the time, or takes away like 60% of your health the other 30%. Once you're down to 40%, you might not be so willing to click Focus Blast the next time. In contrast, pre-Teleport Chansey might be an example of a low risk-low reward Pokemon; bringing it in on a Special Attacker is usually safe, but you don't really make much progress and you cede momentum to your opponent.

Mons that are weak to hazards, matchup-fishers and those that benefit from aggressive double-switches could also be considered high risk-high reward mons.

This framework is an especially interesting environment to explore this idea, given that we are limited by 30 and 30i needing to share both their typing and movepool. The Ferrothorn-Kartana example is a great one to explore. Would Ferrothorn really care if it only had access to Leaf Blade and Smart Strike as offensive moves? Does Kartana really have any moves that Ferrothorn wants (besides maybe Defog)? On the other hand, Kartana's viability would definitely shoot up if it had access to Spikes and Thunder Wave.

What moves would we need to give this pair of mons so that they are able to fulfill their roles effectively, without bloating their movepools? Which of these mons would be more affected by the lack of an item? The type of risk and reward the Pokemon brings will be decided by the community, and it will be interesting to see how we perceive these concepts.
 
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The Dragon Master

So you have chosen, Death
is a Pre-Contributor
(First Time here, hope this goes well)

Name: Fat and furious

Description: One of this Pokemons forms works at its best on hyper offensive teams, while the other form works best on balance teams.

Justification: as this concept aims to create 2 Pokemon that work well on 2 different playstyles, it can be considered an Actualization concept.

Questions:
1. What are the most important traits necessary to make a Pokemon useful on hyper Offense?
2. What are the most important traits necessary to make a Pokemon useful on balance?
3. Is a typing change between formes absolutely necessary to make this Pokemon work well on both these playstyles?
4. What niche would this Pokemon fill on balance and HO teams?
5. How similar are the traits necessary to make a Pokemon good on balance and HO?

Explanation:
Considering the framework of this CAP is "giratina-like forms", I feel the best way to make it interesting is to make 2 Pokemon that can serve as opposites to one another. This hypothetical CAP can act as a great knock absorber on balance teams, This is help make knock less of a low risk - high reward move, and therefore, help the meta. Because there are many ways to make a mon good on balance and HO, such a concept would lead to a very open ended discussion.

Not to mention, these 2 forms can also have similar typings, as the same typing can be used effectively both Offensively and defensively to good effect, like electric flying having good coverage along with a coverage option like heat wave, while also checking key threats like Cawmondore and Kartana. Also, I've seen compare this concept to "pacing" I feel that this isn't entirely a correct comparison, as while a mon that fits on hyper Offense certainly will be fast paced, a mon that fits on balance does not necassarily have to be slow paced at all, for example, wet urshifu is a Pokemon that fits best on balance, but it definitely isn't what you would call slow paced.
 
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Yu_IOTJ

formerly NoahIOTJ
is a Community Contributor
Screens for Me but Not for Thee
Screens see use in CAP with HO, so there is definitely some niche for an anti-screen Pokemon in the meta. But an anti-screen Pokemon that also sets up its own screens? My issue there is it forces us in some pretty specific design space that doesn't leave a lot of room for our framework either. Screen removal is quite limited, and screen prevention means Taunt, Imprison, or just outright killing the screener. If you also want this Pokemon to be a screener itself, you are already creating a somewhat clogged moveset right out of the gate. Additionally, the most common and useful form of screen removal is Defog, which is anti-synergistic to say the least. I am not sold on the Screen for Me part; the Not for Thee is okay if we give the Pokemon room to do other things other than screen removal/prevention.
But Sir, what about the paragon of abilities for this concept; Screen Cleaner, that removes screens upon entry? Did everyone forget about G-Mime and Mr. Rime already?

As for my own thoughts, my favorite Concepts to look through are

Young God
I'll take any chance to make an OU viable Guzzlord, thank you very much.

Not All Dragons Are Dragon-type
I love promptings to make mons that don't necessarily fit into the mold that their typing represents. It makes for more creative Pokémon gameplay-wise, and of course design-wise.

and Optimized Ability
I think it's neat choosing abilities that synergize with the mon in question, this coming from the guy who joined in only last CAP where we made a mon that made good use of Color Change of all things. It's a good route to go down, especially since two forms give us two shots to shoot with it.
 
Final Submission:

Name
- Nonstandard Booster

Description - This Pokemon requires boosting in order to deal significant damage, but cannot boost its attack or special attack.

Justification - This concept would fall into the Archetype category. Setup sweepers and boosting to wallbreak are not unique concepts. However, offensive setup usually involves boosting one's attacking stat. Boosting speed is done as well, but not for the purpose of boosting damage. Weather and terrain setting is something more similar to this idea, but it is more often done with abilities, rather than moves and usually done for the purpose of synergising with type-spam and/or the abilities of other mon on the team. A pokemon that uses a form of boosting other than attack and special attack boosting specifically to deal the kind of damage necessary to make it relevant is a rather niche and unusual option that could be interesting to explore in order to bring more unusual strategies to the metagame.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • How can one balance stats to be low enough to require boosting, yet high enough that nonstandard boosting is viable?
  • How can we balance the fact that most of the moves with the kind of significant interaction with other forms of boosting have lower bp with the fact that we want to do significant damage?
  • Does the difficulty with boosting in other ways than boosting your main attacking stat force the strategy to be niche, or can it be made to be more generally effective?
  • What other beneficial qualities does a mon need to be viable when its ability to do significant damage is so limited?
  • Is the reason that other forms of boosting is uncommon purely because of the availability of easier options, or are there other flaws in the strategy?
Explanation - Basically, this mon cannot do enough damage to be viable without setting up, but has no moves in its movepool to boost attack or special attack, so it has to use unconventional ways to boost its damage output. Examples would be boosting speed before using Electro Ball, boosting defense before using body press, boosting multiple stats before using Stored Power or Power Trip, setting Sun, Rain or Terrain before spamming the type they boost, using Charge and then an electric attack etc. An example of n already existing mon would be Kingdra who uses Focus Energy and Sniper to boost damage. Trying to deliberately activate certain abilities would also work, such as using recoil, perhaps in combination with recovery, to activate Berserk. Perhaps different forms would use different forms of this strategy.
 
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Wulfanator

Clefable's wish came true!
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Some unexpected thunderstorms have disrupted my intended plan, but I am finally home and can sit down to power through some feedback. Apologies for more egregious typos and grammatical errors as I am still jetlagged to hell.
This seems like a generically good concept. I think the requirement from our framework that both forms share a singular movepool hurts suggested routes like strong priority since both forms can access it. For these examples, I think we would have to consider building contradictions into the design of each form to disincentivize using the same methods on both forms (i.e. give one form psychic surge to prevent it from using strong priority designated for the other form).
I am not opposed to revisiting elements of Jumbao’s process. I think there was a lot of design space left untouched in that project and opening the conversation to terrains helps provide some additional freedom even if it is not by much. I think the major pitfall of this concept is that weather is not seeing substantial use right now, so this project would be trying to jumpstart weather’s viability. I would be more excited for this concept if the playstyle were not so comatose.
I feel like this is the epitome of making a generically solid mon. I have no objection to this because I thoroughly enjoy strong projects like Jumbao, Equilibra, and Astrolotl. I do worry that role compression will impact the design space of future projects since the community actively avoids treading similar paths. It is sad that I feel I need to consider that.
This is arguably one of the strongest concepts submitted thus far. I have never actually taken the time to consider how the same utility gets used differently even though I subconsciously acknowledge it. I think there is a lot of design space here with the moves we get to consider and abilities that complement these strategies alone.
As is, I think the concept is a bit difficult to read and comprehend. I had to reread the concept several times to feel comfortable enough to address it, but it seems others have walked away with a different understanding compared to mine. For that reason, take my commentary with a grain of salt. We are aiming to replicate functionality of a different type/types. Is this functionality achieved with only stats and ability or does movepool get taken into consideration even though both forms would have access? Are we picking types that naturally align with 30/30i’s typing (i.e. take the bulky water route and supercharge it with the defensive qualities of steel-types)? Celesteela is standing out as a mon that lightly interacts with idea expressed here since it is steel/flying with bulky grass attributes in leech seed/giga drain.
The first question posed is probably the most important. Avoiding being too unpredictable with our ability needs to be on the forefront of our minds if we want to explore this concept. I would be interested to see if we have learned from Equilibra’s project.
I am indifferent to this concept. I feel like this would have benefitted from a randomized framework where we have no input over the typing stage. It would have pushed a concept like this to its limit since the mon would have to work regardless of what we ended up with. I think this does end up being an “good despite it typing” concept even though the intention is to avoid that. Blissey is a good defensive mon despite normal not having any impressive defensive qualities. Kartana is a good offensive mon despite grass/steel being underwhelming stab options. I just cannot see how we avoid that. Now that I think about it, this feels like an extreme of version of Not All Dragons Are Dragon-Types by having non-optimized types forced into roles held by better equipped typings.
I am not interest in counter concepts, especially one so fixated on a single Pokémon. We do not explore anything with concepts like this, and I will not be slating it for that reason.
I am glad to see this was submitted as a concept. I am not well-versed with lower tiers, so I would appreciate it if you expanded on your explanation and provided reasoning for the example mons you have listed. I am having some issues with trying to think of two ways to improve on the same mon, but then again I am playing catch up with feedback and cannot allocate a substantial amount of time towards analyzing concepts.
I think you need to explain what you mean by benefits because it is currently very ambiguous. Two of the examples mons you listed lack adequate stab options for their secondary typing. Psychic lacks strong physical options in the case of Metagross and Gyarados only has two flying moves: bounce and hurricane. It sounds like this is targeting the physical/special bias some types have like how rock-types have few special attack options and psychics have few physical attack options. If that is not what you mean, are you implying that we optimize ability to favor one typing compared to the other? I need more clarity.
My feedback here is the same as the counter Dragapult concept. We do not explore mechanics or build upon playstyles with this concept. The viability of this mon dies if the viability of the mons it counters ever diminish. Snaelstrom’s bug-typing was selected to make it a reliable Zygarde answer. When Zygarde was banned, Snael’s viability was shot. Miasmaw’s project generically targeted pivoting even though it was more-or-less singling out teleport. Miasmaw had a small window to explore its concept before the meta severely shifted with the DLC. I am not slating these types of projects.
In general, many great abilities are locked behind subpar mons. I think optimizing promising mechanics is always a valid option. You will not get any negative criticism out of me.

I still have 14 more concepts to address, but I have burnt myself out writing for the last several hours. As stated in the OP, concept submissions run for 5 days from opening. That means this thread will close on Saturday 7/31. I will be calling 24 hours tomorrow with the next round of feedback.

EDIT: like an idiot, I said 48 hrs when i meant 24 hrs. Apologies.
 
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King of Tricks

Banned deucer.
Name - My Own Worst Enemy
Description - One of the Pokemon's forms serves to counter the other, and vise versa.
Justification - This concept would fall into both the Actualization and Target categories, as there really aren't any Pokemon that fit this concept to a tee. While Pokemon with multiple forms like Deoxys and even Giratina — the very Pokemon that CAP 30's framework is based off of — display this idea on paper through differing stats distributions and roles, these forms don't often serve as the best answer to one another.
Questions To Be Answered:
  • How different do stat distributions and abilities on the same Pokemon need to be to create its own counter in a vacuum?
  • How critical is it for these two forms to serve different roles, or compress multiple roles, to be able to counter itself?
    • If this is necessary, then what opposing roles can "cancel out" one another without a third Pokemon's role creating a rock-paper-scissors effect?
  • How much does a Pokemon's typing play into its ability to perform multiple roles?
  • How expansive (or restrictive) does this Pokemon's movepool need to be to fulfill this concept?
  • Can this concept be achieved without either form compromising the ability to perform their intended role(s) on a team?
Explanation - First contribution to the Create-A-Pokemon Project, so bear with me here! Honestly, I'm kind of just going off of how other people format these and using them to word something that looks competent. Sincerest form of flattery and all that.

Anyway, I've been mulling over the idea of this whole Giratina-style forms thing, and looking at Giratina itself got me thinking: How is it that a Pokemon with two forms whose very type combination counters itself doesn't serve as its own best counter? Between the self-weak type combination that was unique up until the advent of the Dragapult line, and the opposing stat distributions between the two form(e)s, it sounds like something that would be able to best itself, like some sort of double ouroboros. The short answer is that Game Freak's intentions for Giratina in Diamond & Pearl weren't the same that they ended up being in Platinum, as nobody would have expected a tertiary box legendary to break new ground and receive its own game-exclusive form at the time. But what if, in some alternate timeline, Game Freak had thought one step ahead and turned their own child-friendly equivalent of the Devil himself into his own worst enemy? (Ah-ha, full circle!) With this latest upcoming addition to CAP, and given the hand we've dealt ourselves this round, we have the capacity (no pun intended) to pull something like this off a competitive environment and make it reality!

On a more related note, MrDollsteak stated on Discord that this concept would be a good way to ensure that neither form outshines the other. Definitely an unintended advantage to this concept, but one I certainly can't argue with.
 
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I think this does end up being an “good despite it typing” concept even though the intention is to avoid that. Blissey is a good defensive mon despite normal not having any impressive defensive qualities. Kartana is a good offensive mon despite grass/steel being underwhelming stab options. I just cannot see how we avoid that.
You are correct about that Wulf. This is absolutely about making a Pokémon viable despite - or better - regardless of its typing. However it is not the intention of this concept to work with a decidedly bad typing, because that will do the exact opposite of what is intended by the concept. I’m going to figure out how to make this more clear in my submission.
Now that I think about it, this feels like an extreme of version of Not All Dragons Are Dragon-Types by having non-optimized types forced into roles held by better equipped typings.
I feel like I didn’t clarify this enough in my submission and probably have to reword it a bit, but I can’t see how this comparison works out, when the most important premise of my concept is to not work with or around a type explicitly, but to find a type that stays in the background for better or worse and make it about everything else.
 
WIP

Name:
Icing on top of the Cake

Description: A Pokemon that fits well with a playstyle of the Generation, and a second Pokemon that counters a popular playstyle.

Justification: This Pokemon would fall under the Archetype category, as playstyles are always defined by certain Pokemon. The goal of this would be to make an underused playstyle better, so I think that a that CAP30 could improve on would be Hail. Hail is a very underutilized playstyle that shows it’s strengths in the lower tiers, and is actually banned from NU as a result. However, it sees almost no usage in OU. The second thing we would be looking to do would be counter a good playstyle currently in CAP - Bulky Offense. The Bulky Offense playstyle is semi-common, and with CAP having multiple abusers of it, it would be a good thing to counter.

Questions to be Answered
  • How can we make a CAP that improves on Hail?
  • Which form would be better for countering or improving a playstyle? (IE how does knock off effect this)
  • How can we use former examples of counters/playstyle definers to create this CAP?
Explanation: I was thinking about a few of the most prominent playstyles in National Dex, and that got me thinking. How can we make a CAP that fits with a playstyle, in Voodoom fashion, but stays good for much longer? Well, just try something like Mega Swampert! As is very visible in OU right now, Rain is not as good as other playstyles, but in NDOU, Rain and Mega Pert are both in OU. Rain has all of the tools it needed to be good, and Mega Pert held the playstyle together. So I thought that we could take a playstyle in the current generation and make it, well, better. Since we have two forms to work with, we can outfit one to improve a playstyle(Hail) and one to counter a playstyle(Bulky Offfense) to alter the CAP metagame.

Clarifying that the point of this is to make the playstyle more viable in future generations aswell.

Also clarifying that the point of the counter is to have some other use to stop it from becoming too unviable.
 
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Given we only have a short period left, I'll leave my feedback and replies to people now, rather than wait for later. Replies first.

Estronic: That's fair. You actually convinced me. That said, I do think this 'mon would need a reordered poll order, as it kinda needs to know what it is going to build around before the last stage.

boo836: First, I'm not worried about style for the sake of formality, I'm worried about style because CAP often opts to disqualify people over trivial things like that. I think it's silly, but rules are rules, and if you aren't in the proper format, you may not even get a shot regardless of how good or bad your concept it. That aside, I'm gonna be a bit blunt: This concept, as is, is pretty awful. If we are the slightest bit off in any stage, the whole concept fails. Stats make one ability too strong? Failed. Typing makes one ability better? Failed. Moveset too good for one ability? Failed. And we have to do that twice, where the typing and moveset stages are shared, and where three of the abilities are denied an item. And let's say we succeed. We just created two generically good pokemon with no real concept behind them other than build around abilties, and whose presence is always a complete guessing game, because each ability not only will function differently, but each ability will encourage a different build. The process sounds awful, the testing sounds impossible, and the end result sounds annoying. I like crazy concepts, but I don't think this is the right kind of crazy. Honestly, it sounds far better suited to be a framework for a single pokemon, rather than a concept for two forms.

On to the new concepts.

Combo Maker/Breaker: I am a bit confused here. Is this supposed to be one form makes, one form breaks? Is this supposed to be both forms can either make or break? I am not sure what the intent was, and the lack of ever mentioning the dual forms makes this even weirder. Combo making sounds fun to build around, but I don't really know what the intent of the slash in the name here was.

Dominant Type Swap: I think this is illegal as written. While technically it would be the exact same type pairing, I don't think that counts as "same type" if you swap the order. Given our framework mandates same typing, I do believe this would be illegal. That said, you could simply reword it by saying "one form is optimized to our primary type, the other to our secondary type". That would be a legal version of this concept. If you did that, this is an interesting idea, but seems a bit casual focused rather than competitive focused.

Never Punished: That's an interesting concept, at least. I could see ways to make it work with our framework relatively well. That said, I don't know if that's the most interesting end product; it will just be a 'mon whose entire concept is limiting counterplay, which, well... limits counterplay, making for a less interactive fight.

Game of Inches: I actually feel like this one works really well with our framework. There are multiple roles that care about chip damage, and multiple ways to inflict them. The same goes for incremental healing. Stats can really determine which are best for the 'mon, too. Same goes for abilities. This actually works really well with our framework.

Risk vs Reward: I like this concept. There is a lot of room to play with it. It also builds on top of the framework. Overall, solid concept. I do think it will require careful care however to not make the risky form too inconsistent.

Fat and Furious: This is an interesting concept, but I feel like you are under examining it. You talk about what makes the forms different, but what about their shared aspects? You should cover how a shared typing could be used both offensively and defensively, or how coverage moves can be different in one hand vs another.

Nonstandard Booster: I like this concept, but I feel like it's another one that's more suited to a normal CAP process rather than a two form framework. Cause as is, you are asking for us to make two sub-par stat stages, where stats are one of the ways this 'mon can be unique.

My Own Worst Enemy: I think this is an interesting concept, but an incredibly awkward one. We have to create a 'mon that's focused on countering something that doesn't exist yet. While doing so, we have to also make it good enough to be useful on general parties. While doing so, we have to make it have other counters other than itself. On top of all that, it doesn't really leave us with an actual concept, because "countering yourself" isn't something you can really build around. It's just a bit awkward.

Icing on top of the Cake: I don't quite feel like your description is very descriptive. "The generation"? As in, this generation? Isn't that just "create a generically good 'mon"? Then I read your justification, and I guess you are just saying "pick a playstyle and build to support it". To which I respond: "Isn't that just what CAP always does?" Then I got to your explanation, and I think I finally understand what you are meaning. You want to create a CAP that takes a weaker playstyle and brings it up to a standard where it will consistently usable even in future generations. I think? But this really needs some wording reworks.
 

spoo

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CAP Co-Leader
Name: Anti-Synergy CAPs

Description: Each forme will explore a different way in which anti-synergy or contradictory elements manifest themselves in a Pokemon's design.

Justification: This concept is an actualization concept. It asks us to create two Pokemon with fundamentally strange or backwards synergy to be used in the competitive metagame.

Questions:
  • What are ways in which anti-synergy most often manifests in Pokemon design?
  • What is the full range of contradictory elements that we have at our disposal to utilize, and which ones offer the most depth?
  • What are some Pokemon that embody this idea well in their respective metagames and what can we learn from their design?
  • How can we design a CAP with this concept in mind, such that it is still a coherent final product and not just a mess of disconnected design elements?
Explanation: Anti-synergy is a tricky thing to do intentionally, but when it does happen, it can create some of the weirdest and coolest Pokemon to mess with. Some examples of what I'm talking about would be a defensive wall with Stakeout (role-ability contradiction), a Dragon-type with Misty Surge (typing-ability), or a high Attack stat that isn't utilized for purely offensive means like wallbreaking (stats-role). Tyranitar has a horrible defensive typing and a massive Attack stat but is nearly always used as a special wall. Dragonite frequently does a similar thing with its defensive utility sets, despite having incredible offensive stats, typing, and movepool (though it still runs offensive sets too, probably even more often). These could be two examples of a typing-, stats-, or potentially even movepool-role contradiction. Kartana's typing and stats seem contradictory as well; it has relatively subpar offensive coverage, lackluster STAB options in its movepool, and yet it finds itself as a terrifying wallbreaker. Diancie in XY UU (analysis for those who are curious) is incredibly confusing to look at too, as its stat spread and typing wouldn't really suggest that it would be an offensive TR setter. Finally Shedinja is an incredibly clear case of this, due to it having literally 1 HP while being used exclusively as a wall.

I'm essentially asking to create two CAPs that seem to be at odds with themselves in their design elements, but both in different ways. This is especially tricky given the limitation that each forme must also share multiple of the same features such as their typing. I think this is a pretty fascinating and deep area of competitive design for us to explore and would hopefully lead to us making some really cool stuff.
 
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