Approved by blarajan;
credit to Fatty for the OP
The Next Best Thing...
What is this?:
I'm pretty sure all of us LCers feel as though there is some untapped power within the LC environment. There is substantial evidence for this idea in the form of one commonality for most tiers, LC included: there always seems to be one or more new-fangled, hyped up sets that weren't originally main-stay or seen as "viable" by the community, but somehow has taken the metagame by storm. This can be seen in DPP OU (with Special Lucario transitioning to SD Lucario, Heatran eventually running items other than Choice Scarf, and the influx of ChestoRest Kingdra) in ADV (with the vaunted TyraniBoah now becoming almost an urban myth in comparison to Special and DD Tyranitar, and the increasing popularity of SupeRachi) and in BW OU (with the advent of SubSalac Terrakion, SubDisable Gengar, and ChestoRest Volcarona). Yes, some of these sets may have been found early on with respect to the creation of the tier or fairly recently, the point is, though, that there seems to be an endless supply of effective and potent sets out there yet to be discovered, especially factoring in metagame swings and the possible tier shifts. The purpose of this project will be to systematically subject each and every LC pokemon to a collective body of research in an attempt to uncover these "hidden gems", so to speak, and hopefully spark some creativity throughout the LC community, which many argue is very lacking of variety.
The Process:
Each week, I will choose a different LC Pokemon, sometimes chosen by random, sometimes chosen by curiousity, of which participants will try to personally create a new set for that is not already on-site or in the process of being put on-site. Participants will be given 3 days to create their set, with discussion about the particular sets being promoted throughout, and on the 6th and 7th day of the week, a vote will be held to choose which user's set represented the most creative and simultaneously competivitely viable set to utilize in the current LC metagame. Once the votes are tallied and a winner is crowned, the set will be archived in the OP and the process will start all over again for the next pokemon specimen.
What are we looking for?:
Specifically, I want to stress the importance of the balance between creativity and viability when picking a set to post for the Pokemon in question. There's a very fine line between a "creative" set and a "gimmick", and this project is not meant to produce gimmicks, rather emphasize the ability to think outside the box when using a specific Pokemon in order to maximize it's potential. Having said that, I would also like to deviate from simple one move / item changes. For example, using Life Orb over Eviolite does nothing to show any untapped potential DD Scraggy has because we already have a basic understanding of what DD Scraggy is and does, it's just now better at dealing damage . The same goes for using Payback over Knock Off on Mienfoo, it doesn't yield productive discussion or results for the project. I am looking for sets that test what we think we know about checks or counters, so-called standards, and what it means to be viable. Maybe a particular option for a Pokemon looks inferior at first glance for that particular pokemon, but dig deeper and try and find what it might mean in the big picture, for the entire team.
The next test subject is...
Chinchou
Things to consider:
- What is thought to "counter" this pokemon?
- Is there anyway to bypass this pokemon's so-called "counters?
- What moves are seldom used on this pokemon, but have the most upside?
- What niches can this pokemon potentially fill in the current metagame?
- What opposing pokemon does this pokemon do well against?
- How can this pokemon benefit it's teammates?
