Final Submission
Name - Catch-22
Description - This Pokemon forces opponents to make sacrifices or enter disadvantageous game states in order to make progress against it.
Justification-
Questions To Be Answered -
Name - Catch-22
Description - This Pokemon forces opponents to make sacrifices or enter disadvantageous game states in order to make progress against it.
Justification-
Catch-22s as I defined them here are very common situations in battle. Clicking Close Combat into a Rocky Helmet user forces you to sacrifice health. Hitting Bellibolt powers up its next electric move (a disadvantageous battle state). Baxcalibur might force you to sack a mon to bring in a revenge killer safely. Dragapult might force in scarfers or Booster Energy Pokemon, locking them into a move or using up their Booster Energy early (again a disadvantageous state that can be taken advantage of by teammates). In short, actions have consequences, sometimes even when they're the right choice. This concept is centered around being in the driver’s seat in as many of these interactions as possible. It’s a Pokemon that is designed around forcing risk/reward calculations, sacrifices, and/or self-advantageous positioning which allows us to take a deeper look at gameplay itself and everything that goes into a given turn. Every stage can play into the concept in concrete ways like contact punishing or a high speed stat drawing in scarfers, or more abstract ways like the threat level we exhibit, the interplay between moves, the ways we can allow teammates to capitalize on opponents who have overstepped, etc.
Questions To Be Answered -
- Since sacrifice, risk, and reward are such a fundamental part of almost every interaction, how can we allow ourselves to be in the driver’s seat in these exchanges?
- In-battle sacrifices as I've defined them above are often mutual to some degree between you and your opponent– there is loss on both sides. If your full-health Ferrothorn dies to Close Combat but gets Iron Barbs damage off, that's rarely a worthwhile trade. What constitutes a successful sacrifice on your part? Is having more control than your opponent enough to stack the odds in your favor?
- How can we turn our own weaknesses into potential strengths, or allow our teammates to take advantage of potential counterplay?
- How can you take advantage of your own Pokemon taking damage or even fainting? Can we design a Pokemon where this is often a beneficial trade, even outside of roles like suicide lead?
- Can a Pokemon that forces sacrifice or risk from its opponent be low-risk itself? What does that look like?
- Some concrete ways of achieving this concept are inherently reactive rather than proactive. How can we achieve consistency while taking these routes?
- If we choose a team support-oriented route centered on baiting in opponents, can we be useful throughout a match regardless of a successful bait?
What sparked this concept was the idea of an interaction between Focus Punch and Rage Fist, where stopping the Focus Punch means powering up the Rage Fist. I'm not sure if that particular scenario is feasible, but the concept is quite broad in its applications. One example is a threatening sub user (think something like Sub Toxic Aegislash), where the immediate threat level can force a lot of game states in which you have more control and less risk than the opponent. Another example might be a strong attacker to force damage on walls to allow teammates to sweep, or a speedy Pokemon to force scarfers to lock into certain moves (or force early Booster Energy activation) which our teammates can take advantage of. Another interesting example is an attacker that can take advantage of damage received (see Galarian Moltres or Bellibolt).
"Disadvantageous states" is the most abstract but most interesting part of the concept to me. To illustrate it, let's say I bring my Scarf Enamorus in on your Dragapult. I kill your Dragapult with Moonblast, and you bring in Booster Energy Iron Moth. I'm in a disadvantageous position here. You proceed to Fiery Dance a few times and sweep. In a way, Dragapult facilitated that by drawing in Enamorus to give Moth a free turn. That's one model to look at for executing the concept, and CAP33 could be more tailored to this sort of role.
The concept also applies more generally to many forms of contact punishing or general move punishing (Seed Sower or Toxic Debris for instance), on-death effects, time-limited setup (terrain, rooms, weather, screens) such that dying might be beneficial, moves that force 50/50s that are often in your favor like Sucker Punch or Destiny Bond… there are a lot of cool applications of this, so I think it has a ton of depth but also enough focus to be interesting to tackle.
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