I was watching a video about hyper-specific answers in MTG, and it came to my attention how much the earlier sets cared about Walls. Because I needed something to occupy my mind, this ended up getting me to think about some of the defensive specialists in pokemon:
There's not really a solid line matching Defender within pokemon's mechanics, though Wobbuffet and Pyukumuku are designed to not get any attacking moves. Nonzero Power with Defender could be used for Wobbuffet if the space budget leans towards Shadow Tag and Destiny Bond more than Counter/Mirror Coat. Pyuku I think could make do with just 0 power instead since Counter isn't a central part of its moveset. Innards Out could handle that aspect (when destroyed by a creature, deal damage equal to its own Toughness?) instead.
Shuckle has an interesting mechanical side note matching its dex entries: in gen 2, it can change held berries into Berry Juice. If and how this gets implemented depends on how Berries are. I could see sacrificing berries for Food tokens if they aren't already the same. Regardless, I associate the mon with a decay theme and damage-over-time.
Deoxys seems like an interesting variant on transforming legendaries, since all forms keep the same type, ability, and movepool. It then feels like it might be reasonable to have its stats adjust themselves when summoned (which would also match the implementation in the first PMD where it would randomize form on each floor).
Would the equivalent of level-based damage from Seismic Toss and Night Shade be damage based on mana cost?
Toxapex's Merciless ends up in an odd spot due to Poison Counters being a thing applied to players and not creatures. Should it trigger off -1/-1 counters instead, or have a Corrupted ability to increase its own damage?