Approved by Hikari, c/p'd from my summer edition from ORAS
New Microsoft Paint banner to come soon :]
What is this?:
The Next Best Thing is a project where the community digs through a featured Pokemon's movepool and crafts novel sets under the objective of beating some of its common checks and counters. Through this project in the past, relatively hidden Pokemon sets between ADV and BW like SD Lucario in DPP OU or Sub-Disable Gengar in BW OU have ended up taking the respective metagames by storm. More recently in XY UU, Pursuit-trapping Mega Aerodactyl and SubCM Chandelure became very popular options as a result of this project, courtesy of UUsers Sage of the 6 and Calloflochie. Not every set that the community comes up in the project with will become metagame defining, however. In fact, a mass majority of new Pokemon sets crafted here won't end up becoming very popular in the end, which is okay.
The Process:
Each week, I will choose a different Pokemon, sometimes chosen by random, sometimes chosen by curiosity, 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 5 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 competitively viable set to utilize in the current UU 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 Focus Sash over Life Orb on Crawdaunt does nothing to show any untapped potential Crawdaunt has because we already have a basic understanding of what Crawdaunt does, it just sacrifices power in order to potentially get a free set-up or hit off. The same goes for using X-Scissor over Stone Edge on SD Cobalion (To be fair, this would have been fine last gen, but Celebi is not nearly as relevant this gen), 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.
IMPORTANT RULES:
Final Words before I commence this:
New Microsoft Paint banner to come soon :]
What is this?:
The Next Best Thing is a project where the community digs through a featured Pokemon's movepool and crafts novel sets under the objective of beating some of its common checks and counters. Through this project in the past, relatively hidden Pokemon sets between ADV and BW like SD Lucario in DPP OU or Sub-Disable Gengar in BW OU have ended up taking the respective metagames by storm. More recently in XY UU, Pursuit-trapping Mega Aerodactyl and SubCM Chandelure became very popular options as a result of this project, courtesy of UUsers Sage of the 6 and Calloflochie. Not every set that the community comes up in the project with will become metagame defining, however. In fact, a mass majority of new Pokemon sets crafted here won't end up becoming very popular in the end, which is okay.
The Process:
Each week, I will choose a different Pokemon, sometimes chosen by random, sometimes chosen by curiosity, 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 5 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 competitively viable set to utilize in the current UU 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 Focus Sash over Life Orb on Crawdaunt does nothing to show any untapped potential Crawdaunt has because we already have a basic understanding of what Crawdaunt does, it just sacrifices power in order to potentially get a free set-up or hit off. The same goes for using X-Scissor over Stone Edge on SD Cobalion (To be fair, this would have been fine last gen, but Celebi is not nearly as relevant this gen), 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.
IMPORTANT RULES:
- Feel free to be as creative as you want, just make sure that you can prove that your set stands apart from the standard sets, especially if yours does not appear much different from the standard ones. If you do not know which sets are standard, I will edit a link in to the analyses.
- Feel free to post replays of your set in action; this will only help everyone (including yourself) understand whether/how your set can be game changing in some particular situations.
- Do not change your set after voting phase has started.
- ABSOLUTELY DO NOT RESERVE SETS (You guys did a good job of that in the previous editions, don't screw it up)
- And as voted in some previous edition that I hosted, I will also be participating in the voting process. I will count as one single vote, like everyone else.
- During voting stage, please don't vote for your own set; if you think your own set is the best, just abstain from the vote.
Final Words before I commence this:
- As addressed in the last ORAS edition, will there be Microsoft Paint© trophies this time? Again, maybe, but no promises because I'm a lazy fuck
- This project is, and was, meant to be a temporary project; there are only so many 'mons in this meta that have diverse movepools to play around with, so I expect this to last a few months. With that being said, buckle down, put on your thinking glasses, and fire away!
On that note, the Pokemon selected will always be on the thread title.
Nomination deadlines will always be sometime on Wednesday morning and
Voting deadlines will always be sometime on Friday morning
Nomination deadlines will always be sometime on Wednesday morning and
Voting deadlines will always be sometime on Friday morning
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