CAP 36 - Framework Submissions

[TheAndriconGirl]

WIP

Name: Another Dragon Pseudo? Seriously?

Description: Exactly what it says on the tin. 600 BST, preferably a Dragon but maybe not.

Explanation: With Bax being the only single Pseudo Legendary currently banned from standard play, I feel adding a replacement Dragon Pseudo would be a nice compensation. Doesn't even really have to be a Dragon but I feel it would add to the character. As an addition, give it a role no other Pseudo has, or can successfully perform. (Cough cough Goodra cough cough) Anything but the standard issue DD sweeper or Draco Meteor Spammer, sky's the limit when you're not beholden to what the broad fanbase will accept.

 

[Sqookblooks]

Name: Flavor First. Artists First.

Description: Most flavor stages of the CAP Process will be completed and voted on first before any competitive considerations takes place.

Explanation - To clarify by flavor stages, I am referring to Art, Pokedex, Name, Flavor Abilities, Pre-Evolutions (If we vote to have them), and Shiny Palette. As for the process itself, to prevent wasting time, I believe that art, pokedex, name, flavor abilities, and a vote on whether to have pre-evos are the only stages that would need to be completed prior to the actual competitive discussion. The Shiny Palette and Pre-Evolutions themselves can be completed later or adjacent to the process.

For a simple proposal on how this would work, I would envision something like this: Stage 1: [Art Submissions (Artists will submit the typing with their art)] Stage 2: [Art Discussion] Stage 3: [Name] Stage 4: [Pokedex Submissions / Discussion Stage] Stage 5: [Vote on whether to have Pre-evolutions] Stage 6: [Flavor Ability Discussion and Submissions]

Then after all that groundwork is done, then we can do the competitive stuff like Concept, Threats, Primary Ability, Stats etc.

*I know Typing is also a competitive consideration, but it's also inextricably linked with flavor so I think it makes more sense for this Framework to have typing be decided by the artist when it comes to the Art submissions. Also a rule would probably have to be put in place to prevent people from talking too much about competitive considerations during the flavor stages (though some level of comp discussion would inevitably have to take place ofc).

Now onto the reasons why I think this CAP Framework would be interesting:

We all know that while there are some pokemon which are clearly just designed to be good pokemon in competitive formats (see Incineroar in VGC, Landorus-T in competitive singles, Toxapex before it got gutted, etc), there are just as many pokemon that are designed with other priorities in mind. Some pokemon are designed to fulfill an ecological niche (like Cacturne or Maractus in desert biomes), some pokemon are designed to share a message (see Cubone, Cursola, or Mimikyu), and some pokemon are designed to be collector's items (see Vivillion or Furfrou). And finally more pokemon are probably designed just because an artist at GameFreak had a good idea that worked with the collective design of the game and region with abilitiy, stats, and more coming after the fact.

CAP is known for creating fakemons solely for exploring competitive metagame with flavor considerations coming after the competitive concept has been solidified unlike many fakemon creations by fan artists online and probably unlike most pokemon made by GameFreak. But what if we flipped the script and decided to let the resident CAP Artists run wild with any idea or concept that they would love to submit to CAP but can't because of the constraints of Concepts, Abilities, and Typing that pre-determine which art is the best. What if we tried to create a Pokemon with only flavor in mind at first, and then we assigned competitive qualities to the Pokemon. This would essentially better allow us to understand the considerations that go into turning a flavorful, unique art concept into a competitive stalwart that is likely done by GameFreak each generation.

As for the actual process, it would almost certainly involve a lot more discussion on the art itself and prioritize CAP's resident artists foremost which I think is cool because CAP Art has produced some absolutely sick mons over the years.

 

[SunMYSER]

Final Submission

Name: Fossil CAP

Description: The CAP will be a pair of fossil pokemon, inspired by real life fossils.

Explanation: Fossil pokemon are a recurring classification of pokemon stretching back into Gen 1 with Omanyte, Kabuto, and Aerodacyl, and the most recent occurrence of them being the the Zolt/Vish quarto in Gen 8. Fossil pokemon have seen niche success in the metagame over the years, Aerodacyl as a scout/Stealth rock setter in early gens, Arctozolt restarting hail as a playstyle, and Dracovish’s bans.

Fossil pokemon have plenty of room to be developed by the community. Outside of drawing from prehistoric animals and plants, and most of them being rock type, Fossil pokemon have plenty of room to be developed. After going through all the current fossil mons, I've noticed how similar they are other CAPs. We’ve seen various CAP-like framework be implemented with fossil mons before, such as Dracovish and Arctozolt having the “One Hit Wonder“ framework (a Cap with one powerful move, EI Pajantom), Aerodacyl (the “perfect scout” EI Kitsuno), Omastar and Carracosta (Omnibooster EI Chuggalong), Archeops (Defective ability EI Chromera), and all of them have low BST (Sub 521 other than Archeops) (EI Hemogoblin). Really, outside of having ancient power, there isn’t a lot that limits this concept.

Selfishly, I also think all the fossil mons have a lot of drip and would love to have a CAP-designed fossil duo.

Possible Questions:

• How can the CAP be viable despite having a rock typing (if we choose to have it be rock type), and a low BST as fossil mons tend to?
  • If not this CAP is not a rock type, what types could we make it to maintain a fossil aesthetic.
• Do we make a duo or a single fossil CAP?
• How can we make this CAP feel ancient?

 

[Rabia]

WIP

Name: Fossil CAP

Description: The CAP will be a pair of fossil pokemon, inspired by real life fossils.

Explanation: Fossil pokemon are a recurring classification of pokemon stretching back into Gen 1 with Omanyte, Kabuto, and Aerodacyl, and the most recent occurrence of them being the the Zolt/Vish quarto in Gen 8. Fossil pokemon have seen niche success in the metagame over the years, Aerodacyl as a scout/Stealth rock setter in early gens, Arctozolt restarting hail as a playstyle, and Dracovish’s bans.

Fossil pokemon have plenty of room to be developed by the community. Outside of drawing from prehistoric animals and plants, and most of them being rock type, Fossil pokemon have plenty of room to be developed. After going through all the current fossil mons, I've noticed how similar they are other CAPs. We’ve seen various CAP-like framework be implemented with fossil mons before, such as Dracovish and Arctozolt having the “One Hit Wonder“ framework (a Cap with one powerful move, EI Pajantom), Aerodacyl (the “perfect scout” EI Kitsuno), Omastar and Carracosta (Omnibooster EI Chuggalong), Archeops (Defective ability EI Chromera), and all of them have low BST (EI Hemogoblin). Really, outside of having ancient power, there isn’t a lot that limits this concept.

Selfishly, I also think all the fossil mons have a lot of drip and would love to have a CAP-designed fossil duo.

Possible Questions:

• How can the CAP be viable despite having a rock typing, and a low BST as fossil mons tend to?
• Do we make a duo or a single fossil CAP?
• How can we make this CAP feel ancient?

very minor but I do want to point out that Rock typing isn't implied at all by fossil Pokemon anymore as of Sword/Shield (Dracozolt and friends aren't Rock-types), so the limiter would mostly be BST related as opposed to typing

 

[Hyposis27]

FINAL SUBMISSION

Name - Type Duality, Yin/Yang

Description - Two "version exclusive" Pokemon, (think like sawk/throh) of the same type(s) that are opposite of each other in function or role.

Explanation - The two Pokemon being the same type is a staple part of this framework and the Pokemon performing different roles is a staple part of this framework. The core idea highlights the duality of certain types or type combinations. Finding distinct opposite features within type(s) might be very different based upon type(s) selected. Ex. attributes we look from in defensive fairy's and offensive fairy's are sometimes different. While the duality we're looking to explore doesn't necessarily have to be purely offensive and defensive it's an aspect to be explored, other opposites could be a proactive vs. reactive in terms of game state, it could be wall breaker vs. wall, Or Support vs. Sweeper.

Possible Questions:

What kind of duality's can different type or type combinations have within themselves?

Is it possible for that significant of a duality to exist within one type or type combinations?

 

[Quanyails]

Name: One Concept, Two Paths

Description: This CAP will be a pair of Pokemon that compete to fulfill the same concept through two contrasting means.

Explanation: The question of "What if?" often comes up in CAP. Examples:

• We often wonder "What if?" when we make a decision within the CAP process. What if we made this Pokemon a tank instead of a pivot? What if we gave this Pokemon an offensive ability instead of a defensive ability? What if we gave this Pokemon Ice-type coverage instead of Fire-type coverage? We often want to explore these options, but we can only choose one direction per CAP process.
• When we vote on options, we often want to vote for a "cool" or "risky" option, but we're also afraid of making the Pokemon unviable as a result. This often leads to the CAP process creating "safe" 'mons, leaving those other options unexplored.
• We often have a vision for what the result of a CAP process looks like and get disappointed when the CAP process opts for a completely different direction. We want to have our cake and eat it too.
• We often want to re-explore concepts. However, the only time we can is if the concept is recycled CAP cycles later, in a distant, new metagame, or in unofficial, unplayable side projects.

This CAP framework aims to answer the question "What if?". We get to explore beyond the limitations of the standard CAP process by creating two Pokemon that share a common set of traits but diverge in others. At the end of this process, we will have two CAP 36 Final Products to design, playtest, and evaluate.

Important: This framework submission should not be used as an excuse to simply "do the same CAP concept twice" (e.g. CAP 25/starters). The operative word here is compete. Both CAPs we make must directly contrast the other. When discussing this framework, we need to define a measure of which CAP 36 Final Product fulfilled its concept better.

This framework was inspired by the principle of A/B testing, a testing method researchers use to measure which option out of two offered is more effective.

Thanks to breadstickslug, Gravity Monkey, and Yu_IOTJ for feedback.

 

[sun_dew]

very minor but I do want to point out that Rock typing isn't implied at all by fossil Pokemon anymore as of Sword/Shield (Dracozolt and friends aren't Rock-types), so the limiter would mostly be BST related as opposed to typing

While this is true, these feel like exceptions more than the rule, and (to me) the rock typing is the most interesting requirement of this framework submission and most in line with the spirit of fossil mons. Unless we try to do the weird swapping gimmick that the Galar fossils do, I feel it is best we stick to the rock typing as the original proposal suggested.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Name: Autocratic Process

Description: This process will not have an elected TLT, and will be run solely by the Topic Leader.

Explanation: One of the most noteworthy changes made to the CAP Process was that instead of just a singular Topic Leader, there is now a TLT Team that operates alongside said Topic Leader. This change was made as a response to Aurumoth's process, which was interesting for the lack of a better word. Given that nearly a decade has passed since then, I figured that it going back to the old style of just having a singular person lead the process would be a very interesting lookback as to how much the process has changed, and also how many of the other changes that were made in-between (Such as a far more developed movepool stage) would function with only one person at the helm rather than a group of people. Obviously, this is going to be putting a lot of stress on the Topic Leader, but given that this is their 3rd process, I don't think it would be too hard for them to manage.

 

[earthflax]

Final Submission

Name: Fight for your Right to Vote CAP

Description: Rather than being open to all, voting for every competitive stage of this process will be restricted to a certain pool of voters who qualify through competitive performances (tournaments, ladder, etc.).

Explanation: CAP has a very interesting structure in that the process and the metagame are separate, and many competitive contributors to the process are not involved in the metagame and vice versa. This has led to immeasurable levels of moaning from both camps over various different points of contention; of course, this explanation is not complete without mentioning the infamous shadow voters: the unknowable, yet ever-present guiding hand of the poll that will force the result that you, yes, you, like the least. This framework would aim to see how the competitive stages of a CAP would look if the only voters were those with vested interests in both the process and the metagame.

I should clarify that this framework would only preclude non-qualified folks from voting, not contributing to discussion threads. The difference, obviously, is that the contributions in these threads would be meant to sway those who have votes.

Exact qualification would ideally be decided early on in the process but some examples include:

• Recent individual/team tour performance.
• Ladder Tour-style qualification cycles.
• "Suspect Tour" type live tours, similar to those used in smaller metas for suspect tests.
• A Majors-style tour with very small pools and a short deadline.
• Any combination or modification of the above.

The qualification could last for the duration of the process (as to add more voters every cycle? idk) or for a specific number of stages. Again, these distinctions could be made if the framework were to win out.

Credit to Amamama for their initial submission of this framework during CAP30.

 

[SHSP]

late night feedback post time wooo

for all the ones posted since my first feedback post

Third Type- I'm fairly sure this one's sadly illegal, after discussing with mods.

Calyrex-style Duo- I think there's a route we do this by making Caly+single Horse, as the form change is a mashup of sorts, but I'm not really sure how that plays out. Think there's interesting space here design wise overall but I think its a tough ask overall, process+workload wise.

Opposite but Equal- I think trying to make same typing and same general movepool fit together on a team is a really tough ask. Even stuff like the slowtwins struggle to find a home for both. I think the idea of this is interesting as far as pair concepts go, but it might be asking too much.

All in One CAP Expansion- I like how this gives us a lot of choice still in later stages and also defines this as specifically working off a pre-existing CAP. I find it hard to see us doing an evo proper, but the other three would certainly work (as other framework ideas have suggested).

Randomized Chimera- Really cool idea but I'm not sold on it being super amazing here. There's just not much to do process wise, I think, when all the decisions are "pick from this pool" and not actually discussing what fits best- especially as we get later in the process and have to avoid re-runs. Rolling some bad mons also is just gonna feel miserable.

Combo Voting- another fun process-side change framework, I think this is an interesting experiment to force us to better consider stuff in tandem. I do worry about how messy the "b" steps could be, with three abilities or typing pairings at play- trying to keep us on track could be really difficult if we have three different discussions going on, so to speak.

Shaymin Forms- genuinely never knew about this form change mechanic, that's kind of crazy! I do think the actual form change in battle is not super deep, though, especially considering the "land" form would be selectable from builder as-is if we follow Shaymin to a tee.

RNGesus reborn- I think the idea of a RNG aspect abusing mon a la Jirachi is interesting, but as-written the description of this is not legal.

Pledge Moves- we do not build mons for CAP doubles.

Zero to Hero Reskin- Z2H is extremely cool, but I think finding the design space is really tough. Palafin already does this VERY well, and I think "mon that gets worse after switching out once" in SV's current meta sounds really, really bad. Finding a way to make two roles work is absolutely the way to go, but it'd definitely take finding a very specific path.

One Hit Point Wonder- I think this is an interesting idea, but the shed overlap is really difficult to consider.

Stellar Tera Counter- I think the wording on this one with "innately is Stellar type" makes it illegal? Stellar-tera locked mon is interesting, if we interpret it that way, but sounds tough to differentiate from Terapagos.

Snapped Move- Definitely an interesting idea here, to revive something previously deleted. I think giving more concrete examples of what had been snapped would help a lot here. I'll double check to make sure this one is legal, as well.

Dragon Pseudo- Pseudo is an interesting restriction, but I think its not as deep as some other frameworks when considering the only meaningful competitive one is the BST.

Flavor First- Another quite cool approach to switching around the process! It would be quite fun to let CAP artists run wild for once, though I wholly disagree with including typing anywhere in the flavor aspects. I feel like the most likely outcome is a very disjointed end product, though- this interacts very oddly with concept, I think, and I can't imagine us holding back on competitive aspects because they don't fit the flavor aspects.

Fossil CAP- agree with Rabia that they don't absolutely need to be Rock types, but I think the spirit of things will lead to mostly Rock subs anyways. I'd like to see what restrictions the fossils tend to have specifically before I really have any strong feelings on this, though. Quite a cool idea, though.

Type Duality- Making a pair of identically typed mons fundamentally different is really interesting. Would we inherently have to do one offensive, and one defensive, or would some smaller amount of role differentiation work here?

One Concept, Two Paths- Quite possibly my favorite of this suite of process change frameworks. I think we'd require a concept that avoids running into issues with the "undue burden" two-mon rules in the OP, but I absolutely see this working out very well and in a very interesting way. One risky and one safe option, even if its just in a crucial stage like typing, could be a super cool way to go about this.

Autocratic Process- As intrigued as I am by this... I feel as though this is a dangerous one just by virtue of how our systems are set up. Really funny way to end up with another ground type spinner...

Fight for your Right to Vote- I think this could work, but explicitly explaining how these changes get made is important. Additionally, with the current CAP Winter Seasonal tournament already in round 3/4, ladder would surely have to be the way- and we'd have to figure out a system to track that on shorter notice, too. I do love the idea, but it might be a bit harsh.

Expect to wrap up in the next couple of days- I'm unsure exactly when slate'll happen, but I definitely want to give time for anyone to reach out or to update their frameworks. Thanks again for all the amazing ones!

 

[spoo]

Additionally, with the current CAP Winter Seasonal tournament already in round 3/4, ladder would surely have to be the way- and we'd have to figure out a system to track that on shorter notice, too. I do love the idea, but it might be a bit harsh.

not to go too in depth here or dictate earthflax’s framework, but i imagine this would be run either like a ladder tour or like suspect reqs with new cycles happening with every new stage. the roomtour leaderboard or periodic live tours could potentially be other metrics. i don’t think tracking would be too hard - none of these things are that hard to keep records of - but of course logistics have always been the big problem with this framework in the past (imo). how do you get reqs deadlines to sync up with the process schedule, which loosely operates based on a given SL’s free time? can we design ladder tours/live tours that are fair to all people across different time zones? what’s a fair ladder cutoff or reqs target? how will the smaller sample size of voters affect voting? e.g. if only 10-20 people (maybe even fewer?) are voting, there will probably be a lot more ties and discretionary result calls, unless we give tiebreaking weight to users with higher reqs which is another question altogether. is it possible that this framework hurts activity across the process, disengaging non-competitive players while many of the currently disengaged tournament players remain so? should there be some posting requirement to combat this - like you have to get reqs AND share your thoughts in the thread? probably many more things that aren’t immediately coming to mind

none of these questions are impossible to answer, i just say this to point out that the framework has a lot more logistical hangups than one would think at first glance. it’s actually one of my favorite submissions and this experimental approach to the process really excites me, but it absolutely requires careful and thorough consideration to pull off.

 

[TheAndriconGirl]

Final Submission

Name: The Big Hulking Dragon

Description: The CAP will be an archetypical Dragon Pseudo Legendary but will embody the complete opposite of the usual offensive role Pseudo-Legendaries hold, and instead be a defensive pillar for slower fatter teams.

Explanation: If you look at the list of Dragon Pseudo-Legendaries, you'll notice a recent trend of ultra-aggressive almost glass cannonesque design philosophy. They boost and sweep, or they hit hard with Dracos. Sometimes even both. And sometimes its too much and they just get banned.

I think designing a Pseudo Legendary Dragon in a more defensive way makes a lot more sense. They're supposed to be imposing, and make the game play on their terms. Something you see on an enemy's team and think "I have to wear that thing down overtime before I can start breaking their core", like how in past gens special attackers would always have to factor Blissey into their game plan. Blissey was like the enemy's boss fight in a way. And what embodies a boss fight better than a big hulking dragon?

 

[Birkal]

Edit: CAP mods and PS admins deemed this framework infeasible, so I’m rescinding its submission. The CAP mod team graciously allowed me to submit a new framework — I’ll post something new in a different submission.

I’m saving this old submission for posterity. CAP mods can delete if you’d like.

Old Framework

Name: Almost Any Ability

Description: This CAP Project has access to nearly every ability GameFreak has created. Think of the Almost Any Ability metagame combined with a Smeargle-like CAP, but it instead of unlimited access to moves, it has (nearly) unlimited access to abilities.

Explanation: My first process in CAP, back in 2011, was CAP13 (Necturna), and I still consider it one of my favorite processes of all time. In some ways, creating Necturna was a framework-based process, as we had to break a lot of our normal conventions to host discussions about how to make a CAP with access to every move balanced and have a varied list of movesets. Some of my best process memories come from those discussions -- we spent long nights on IRC chatting about and debating every single move, and it made for an incredibly engaging process. I feel it would be a joy to have those sorts of conversations again, but this time around abilities.

It should be clear why this framework doesn't require us to give every ability to this CAP. Of the 310 abilities GameFreak has provided, some of them are simply too powerful, while others would overcomplicate the process with complicated form changes or game states. That isn't to say we should outright ban specific abilities for this framework, but I feel it would behoove the process to narrow down which abilities make sense in a competitive environment and for our process. It would ultimately be up the the Topic Leader and the TLT to make some executive choices about how much they'd want to pursue something like forme changes or very mon-specific abilities.

As I linked above, the Almost Any Ability metagame has laid quite a bit of groundwork for us. They've spent time considering each and every ability, and have a banlist that may prove useful to us as a data point. Again, that banlist shouldn't completely apply to us, as we're doing the opposite of the AAA metagame: we're making a singular CAP with access to most abilities, rather than giving most abilities to every Pokemon, many of which have huge BSTs and amazing typing to abuse the selection of abilities. We can fine tune balance a CAP with the tools we have, so we may be able to include more abilities on this CAP than they allow in their metagame. Conversely, we may find some abilities too tantalizing and need to ban them for the sake of balancing out the amount of viable abilities this CAP has access to. But still, the folks at that metagame would certainly have some good insights for us as we go about constructing this CAP.

Lastly, I think there’s also a good case for coding this to individual forms, so that the ability is declared immediately on send out. That’s something for the leadership team of this framework to decide, but allocating abilities to formes might make it more competitively balanced, while also keeping it more in-line with what’s hardcoded in the games formally.

 

[Brigtel]

Final Submission

Name: Split Form Abilities

Description: This CAP is split into two nearly identical forms that have different competitive abilities.

Explanation: A few pokemon like Basculin and Squawkabilly exist as multiple forms that, competitively, only differ in the abilities they can have. To the extent that these abilities do not strictly outclass each other, they can co-exist and allow otherwise identical forms to have a distinct advantage in some area. This is on the surface very similar to a pokemon simply having two good abilities, which is pretty common, but the difference here is that it is telegraphed even on team preview. Another difference is that such a pokemon could in theory have up to three different abilities per form!

While the actual realization of this idea in the pokemon given as examples is debatable, it shows the potential that this idea could have. At the bare minimum, this framework would require us to envision a mon with two different competitive abilities, with neither of them being considered primary or secondary and instead both aiming to have some competitive relevance and fulfill a different but similarly useful purpose. However another interesting part comes in giving them high impact abilities that highly influence or dictate how they are played, immunity abilities and many other powerful ones like Magic Guard or Multiscale come to mind. The CAP being seperated into two formes that are immediately communicated on team preview would remove a lot of the worries of possible guessing games caused by having multiple viable abilities, and allow us to put a lot of power into them if we wanted to.

This Framework could also be taken into the direction of giving each form multiple abilities not shared with the other, this sort of brings back the guessing games that would be avoided otherwise, but it does allow us to potentially explore 3, 4, 5 or 6 (crazy!) different abilities on what is effectively one single pokemon.

 

[quziel]

Final Submission

Name: Achilles Heel Ability

Description: A CAP with a very high BST that is balanced around its sole legal ability hindering it, having no upsides and conditional downsides.

Explanation: I find the Achilles Heel Ability (full credit to Freezai for the naming scheme) a very intriguing concept as it provides a unique value proposition to the format that offers rare and unique design possibilities such as, for example, attacking stats that are normally only seen on banlisted Pokémon, which will be balanced around not having a consistent lower-bound performance due to the hindering ability's inherent risk. This CAP could also fill unique or hard-to-fill niches in the format due to the high peak strength the hindering ability allows for. As the design process will be open-ended, i name no specific examples: other than the sole legal ability having to be a hindering ability and a high Base stat total, this concept is unrestrictive, which I believe makes it all the more interesting. As a further proposition, while this is not part of the framework and definition, the CAP's Base stat total and potential should likely be inversely proportional to the magnitude its ability restricts it. This can be observed when comparing Slaking's 670 BST paired with the most restrictive ability in the entire game, Truant, to Archeops, whose Achilles Heel Ability is comparatively tame but logically also has 103 (!) less BST than Slaking, with a 567 BST. This leaves many possible approaches to implement the CAP, as we can either lean towards a tamer restriction and BST or increase its stat total as well as distribution, but in return also increase its risk of use.

Which restrictions we choose to shackle the CAP with, which stat spread it leans to, how high the BST will go, what the CAP's typing will be, even the basic playstyle of the CAP is unrestricted by this Framework, and up the wonderful creativity of this community to decide on. There is currently no CAP that fits the Achilles Heel Ability archetype, even though it existed since Gen 3 introduced the Slaking line. It is time for us to change that.

Thank you very much for reading!

See Chromera:

Name: Defective Ability

Description: This Pokemon manages to work around an ability that is generally considered harmful, and is viable, or even better for it.

Justification: Defective Ability is an Actualization concept; aiming to create a Pokemon that works around, or works with, an ability that would be considered bad on most pokemon.

There is not a single Pokemon ranked above NU that has a generally negative ability; for good reason, while most pokemon gain a benefit from their ability, these Pokemon are held back. Golisopod, the currently highest ranked pokemon with a negative ability is also unique among its brethren in that its movepool is set up to synergize, and benefit from its ability Emergency Exit, with First Impression benefiting heavily from being switched out directly after use. A non-exhaustive list of negative abilities is Color Change, Defeatist, Emergency Exit, Klutz, Normalize, Slow Start, Stall, Truant. These abilities are yet-untouched by CAP, and I believe that exploring them with typings, movepools, and stats specifically meant to work with, and work around their shortcomings can help us to understand more about how abilities interact with CAPs, and how important the ability slot really is. I do not consider a NCA to be a defective ability as it does not specifically have to be planned around.

This concept aims to question how impactful these abilities are when their downsides are specifically planned for, their strengths, if any, are accentuated, and how viable of a CAP we can make with a handicap in the ability stage.

Questions To Be Answered:

• How much of a drawback is a negative ability? How much should a negative ability be compensated for in the typing, move, and stats stages?
• Are there some negative abilities that are more suited to exploration in a CAP process? Why or Why not?
• If a negative ability is chosen for a primary what abilities are suitable for a secondary ability slot? Purely negative ones, or is there a situation where a pokemon would prefer an ability generally thought of as negative?
• How does typing interact with a negative ability like this; slow start obviously wants a Toxic immunity due to how long it'll stay on the field, but is it needed, do other abilities have strong typing-ability interactions.
• How can movepool change the impact of a harmful ability? Golisopod shows that it is possible to leverage the early switch out, are other negative abilities something that can be leveraged or minimized with the correct movepool?
• How much do stats have to compensate for a negative ability, what are the ideal stat spreads for each negative ability?
• How can we define a "generally harmful ability"? What are some metrics to define it? Are comparisons with neutral abilities helpful?
• Which abilities can be worked with? Which abilities can only be worked around? Is it better to choose an ability that can be worked with? or only around?

Explanation:
Wishiwashi in NU and Archeops in NU are two examples of pokemon adapting to, and changing their playstyles from what they otherwise would be thanks to negative abilities, arguably for the better. ORAS Era Archeops looks to initially be a nuclear wallbreaker, sporting 140 base attack, a 110 BP STAB, and great coverage, yet, thanks to its ability Defeatist, it often runs a bulky set with Roost that aims to keep it above half HP as long as possible, and uses its naturally high base Attack to still hit like a truck. This is a case where a pokemon that would not normally run recovery and defensive EVs ends up doing so often to work around its ability, and has more depth as a result. Wishiwashi is a Gen 8 example, which was run with a very bulky set through much of NU this generation because of its ability Schooling, and its necessity to stay above 25% HP. I believe this concept has a lot of room to work because the existing negative abilities are often paired with movepools and stat spreads that do not give any room to work around them.

Slow Start is on Regigigas, a Pokemon with literally Rest and Leftovers to help it get through the 5 turns needed, Truant is on a pokemon without even a single pivoting move, Defeatist was on perhaps the frailest Pokemon imaginable, where even resisted hits could put it below 50% HP. These abilities are all paired with stat spreads and movepools that are deliberately set up to make it difficult to work around them, and even minor changes could yield a lot of information about how impactful a bad ability is.

To make this more than a one liner:

I like the following quite a lot.

Ultra Beast CAP is a bit oddly timed, but I think its very much better for it. Having a contrast between Beast Boost and Quark Drive / Protosynthesis lets us do a lot of very interesting comparing and contrasting, and the unique limitations implied by being an Ultrabeast on movepool and stats could let us create a mon that feels very unique in the current meta, by being deliberately out of place.

Aegislash Style Formes has a bit of complexity when it comes to deciding the reversion move, but its another concept made a bit more interesting by the base mon not appearing in gen 9. Beyond that there's a ton of very odd stuff you can do with the stats, especially vis a vis Body Press existing and interacting very oddly with Stance Change.

HP based forme change is a bit of a broader framework, but I really have a soft-spot for stuff like Zen Mode, Shields Down, and well, Defeatist, even if the latter is not really applicable here. There's a lot cool here to do by forcing a mon that may not want to carry a HP manipulating move to carry one, and beyond that there's some potential weirdness with stuff like type changes.

Tera Forme CAP is the final forme changer that I'm gonna talk up here. The idea of a mon that has a major change upon tera-ing, beyond just changing type is really cool. This is the only forme change that is both permanent and fully controllable by the user, and I think that has a ton of implications on how the mon plays.

 

[quziel]

Chromera is the result of CAP 29, which used that concept. Color Change is generally considered to be its "fatal flaw", and the mon can function despite it. It has a very high 600 BST with frankly very good stats. Beyond that like, its a concept that was done well, and is generally below what I'd consider to be a framework.

 

[PT333]

Final Submission

Name: Information Warfare

Description: A CAP that is designed to scout as much information as possible. To that end the CAP will have a signature ability and/or move that allows it to infer an opposing Pokémon's movepool, ability and item in a more efficient way than existing methods.

Explanation: A very big part of competitive Pokémon is knowing your opponent's weapons. What are their items? What are their sets? What are their abilities? There is currently no Pokémon or CAP whose primary purpose it is to do so, however there are many Pokémon that can scout for information; the most effective way is via Impostor Ditto, with which you can see a Pokémon's entire movepool. You can also use specific abilities like Frisk to view items, and of course via observation, like in which order abilities like Intimidate activate telling you which Pokémon is faster.

What if there was a CAP whose main task was to just scout information? It would be not be a offensive or defensive powerhouse (although maybe not unusable in either regard), and possibly would provide some other form of utility, but the CAP's main niche and benefit would be either a new signature move and ability (or both!), that I would leave up the wonderful creativity of this community, to find out which moves and items opposing Pokémon have.

For convenience i will list every "Scouting" ability and moves that i can think of. This CAP should in my opinion have access to one or multiple of these options, in addition to its signature scouting move and/or ability. Some of these are only indirectly used for scouting, but as I said it's an underexplored concept:

Scouting Abilities:

• Frisk (Instantly tells you an opposing Pokémon's item)
• Trace (Copies an ability and therefore also reveals it, unless it is a Non-Tracable Ability)
• Anticipation (Instantly tells you if the opposing Pokémon has a super-effective move or not)
• Forewarn (Scouts the opponent's highest BP attacking move)
• Download (Scouts if a Pokémon has higher Defense or Special Defense)
• Impostor (As a consequence of becoming a different Pokémon, you will know its moves)

Scouting Moves:

• Transform (Impostor, but as a move)
• Skill Swap (Swaps abilities, thus also scouting opposing abilities)
• Protect (Allows to semi-safely scout the vast majority of attacking moves)
• Spiky Shield, Baneful Bunker, Burning Bulwark, etc. (Protect with secondary effects)
• Wide Guard (Just listed for completions sake but irrelevant in a singles format)
• Illusion (Indirectly, it prompts Pokémon to use moves they otherwise would not reveal)
• Substitute (Scouts most moves safely, but is not the primary purpose of the move)
• Pivoting moves (Allow the user to scout a move semi-safely under some conditions)

 

[Birkal]

Name: One TL, One Concept, Two Teams, Two CAPs

Description: After the concept is chosen for CAP36, we split ourselves into two teams (where contributors can join only one of them). Each team privately creates a CAP36, with results for each major competitive stage being announced publicly on the same date, ultimately resulting in two end products that are uniquely different.

Explanation: I am largely basing this framework submission off of a proposal from DougJustDoug back in 2008. That’s right, you can read about it in this wild thread. If you’ve never looked at some of these early process threads, you’re in for a shock. This was during the time of Pyroak, and users were rapidly developing and testing these CAPs within hours on CAP’s private server. CAP regulars began discussing the idea of giving Pyroak Drought, which was controversial at the time because it didn’t exist in OU in Gen4, only Ubers (same with Drizzle).

The thread is crazy and worth a read, but in the middle, Doug randomly suggested that we split CAP into a “red team” and a “blue team” to make a pair of Drought and Drizzle CAPs. The idea was pretty popular, but ultimately fizzled out due to a growing conversation on Air Lock and lots of chatter about weather and Rapid Spin Scrappy. The idea always interested me, so I thought it could be fun to consider for a framework, nearly 17 years later.

My proposal is that we utilize two teams of creators to see how variation within the process works. It gets at that “what if” feeling we have every CAP, where it’s interesting to wonder if a typing poll had a few more votes and fundamentally changed the remaining stages, or how one move addition can change its role. It would give us more insight into our CAP process, and also help us hone which sorts of conversations and choices can ultimately lead to a more satisfying process and mon.

I’ll leave it up to the TL to decide the exact details of the teams. In my opinion, this would probably run better with two separate TLTs focusing on their specific CAP, while the TL resides over both and keeps the pace of both on track with one another. We can make custom user groups on Smogon with private forums to facilitate the process, and separate discord rooms to discuss them. People could jump on at any point in the process. If you’re worried it’s too much work, remember that we used to manually move hundreds of users into private voting on Smogon every time we voted on banning a mon, in any meta.

As for keeping each CAP a “secret,” we’d just have to ask our community to do their best not to leak any details or conversations. We’d be updating publicly on each major stage anyways, so secrets wouldn’t have to be kept for too long. For flavor, it should probably be all public with no teams, but there could be some fun in also splitting flavor contributors to see what they spin up — I’ll leave that for flavor mods to decide.

I chatted with spoo about the legality of this concept, as it does create an additional burden on the process, making it an edge case. He agreed with my potential concern, but also noted that frameworks are a little more effort in the end anyways, and this isn’t requiring too much more than making two CAPs the normal way. I’ll leave it to SHSP if he fundamentally likes the framework enough to slate it. Thanks for considering!

 

[SHSP]

I wanna thank everyone for some amazing frameworks and some amazing discussion to go along with it. After discussing some legality questions with the mod team and thinking things through for a few days now, I'm ready to announce the slate of frameworks and how they made the cut! Slate is ordered by their order in thread.

Aegislash Style Forms- This is absolutely one of the most interesting and applicable form change mechanics we can play with. The mechanics behind Stance Change are really cool and I think would make for a really interesting process across the board, as well as a unique and fun end product to use.

Tera Forme CAP- I think this would make for a really fascinating process. Deciding between each type of Tera form change- Terapagos or Ogerpon- and how those forms change play patterns is really cool, and there's a lot of nuance here as well with aspects like the locked Tera type. Additionally, the timing for this is excellent, with OU announcing there won't be any change with regards to Tera being legal in SV overall.

Ultra Beast CAP- Somewhat weird timing aside, I think this is in a really fascinating position in SV. Beast Boost gives us a lot of creativity in how we build around it, and the ability to really push limits with stats and moves opens us up even further. Re-introducing a Beast Boost mon into SV would also make for a really unique and fascinating end product.

Meloetta-Style Forms- The way this form change works is really fascinating, and Meloetta manages to find a way to make it absolutely awful in practice. We, on the other hand, have the opportunity to lean into making this form change relevant and effective instead, and really lean into what makes this such a cool effect and mechanic.
UPDATE re: Relic Song clone- there was some questions about how this'd work before we go to a poll- idea is that it'd mostly be the same move. Same BP, special move, typing can be changed. We'd keep a 10% secondary effect, but it does not have to be sleep.

Route 1 Bird- Usually I'm not the biggest fan of what I call "box" ideas- frameworks and concepts that limit us from the onset ("put us in a box") and tell us to make it work with those limitations. This is one of the few I really like. The restrictions are meaningful, flavorful, and interesting, and allow us to make up for things such as a lower pool of stats and a mandatory (half) typing with strength elsewhere and creativity in how we build our bird.

All-In-One CAP Expansion- There were a number of different suggestions of this mold that were thrown around this time around as individual ideas- Paradoxes, Regional Form, Convergent/lookalike- but I love the ability for us to choose what speaks to us the most if this were to win. Many of these "expansions" on their own can be limiting, but with this framework we can not only have a more open process and discussion around picking which type of expansion we'd like, but also how each of those expansions interact with our concept and future stages.

This was a tough decision to make, and plenty of submissions were just barely left off- if anyone wants to know why something didn't make the cut, feel free to ask me. I'm super excited to see how the polls go and figure out what we're up to this framework!