Hello again, everyone!
As per usual, this post will be an end-of-submission-phase feedback post and a
24-hour warning for the current submission phase, in order to give time to respond to the feedback in question. C:
Quick update before the main content of the post: for those of you not on the Discord,
the bugfix for Mega Electrode finally went live last night, so it's completely safe to use now! There were a couple of battles with it on DH earlier and it looks amazing!! Have fun, everyone! C:
And... uh... yeah, I think that's the only announcement to make this time? so let's get started!
Super quick reminder, mostly on Porygon-Z: in neutral situations, we do not always use the Mega Stone names people write in their submission posts!
Lots of people are naming their Mega Stones crazy things, probably because "RKS Megamemory" was accepted last slate, but that's because Silvally's Mega Stone actually functions as a Memory and following standard conventions would have failed to communicate that.
Please don't be surprised if we call Porygon-Z's stone something, uh, normal! We have no plans to call the Mega Stones anything unusual this time around.
Nothing is going to be vetoed for a stone name we don't use - just making sure people know that we mostly ignore these, haha.
This is definitely okay with me, but if it's okay with you
(not a veto or anything just some input), could I suggest making it a pure Fighting-type instead of Fighting/Grass? This already hits quite a lot harder than Cacturne, not only with its raw Attack but with the base power of its STAB Close Combat being
way higher than any of Cacturne's moves, and I know Cacturne is considered one of the worse Megas as it is; personally, I would definitely lean towards differentiating their attacking types to reduce overlap and direct competition if that's something you're comfortable with!
I'm open to hearing input from other people on this in #submission-feedback, of course! Not sure if this is something that's been discussed before and I don't have as deep an understanding of Cacturne's position as some other people, so I don't feel qualified to be the only one weighing in.
(also, honestly, the idea of Coup de Grass on Sirfetch'd is freaking hilarious and an incredible pun - I think Sirfetch'd is one of the few Pokémon that doesn't
need to be Grass-type for the flavor to work, for what it's worth!)
I really like your
Porygon-Z by the way ;-;
Regarding your Porygon-Z, I think it's important to draw attention to their similarities - both are effectively meant to be Terrain Pulse abusers with Mimicry, with only minor differences between them, and I'm not really comfortable letting both of them through to voting when they overlap this much.
Ideally, I would like you to get in touch with each other to collaborate on one submission that satisfies both of you rather than directly competing.
That said, if they're both left as they are, then... even though StarFalcon555 submitted first, I'm currently leaning towards slating only Bekama's for the vote if I had to pick; one of the more important pieces of advice to have in mind is that custom Abilities should only be used when they create something unique that a canon Ability can't replicate, and in this case there is remarkably little setting the resulting gameplan apart from Mimicry at all. I would have recommended that you just switch to Mimicry outright if there weren't already another Mimicry sub there by now, haha.
If you do want to differentiate the two more instead of making a joint sub, could I take this opportunity to recommend to
StarFalcon555 that you replace your custom Ability with
Mega Launcher? The only real point of distinction between your submissions is that you want to retain the Normal type while Bekama does not, and Mega Launcher boosts Terrain Pulse enough for it to be an effective second STAB (while also benefiting Porygon-Z's Dark Pulse as another option!) while keeping its Normal STAB at the same time, an opportunity Mimicry doesn't create. I will emphasize that
I'm not on board with creating a new custom Ability to make it dual-typed when there are two canon Abilities with such similar effects to your end goal, so this is my main recommendation if you want another option aside from making one sub together.
Aaaa, I'm really sorry to disappoint, but I'm afraid I'm not comfortable with this premise at all and I think I'm going to have to veto it;;
A 33% chance for quite any move to fail (and for an opponent to take free damage instead) on entry is just too much in my opinion - it seems very uncompetitive and it's way too easy a way to set confusion, without really having legitimate or skill-based applications that I personally recognize. It has a high chance to undermine an opponents skillful choices and takes the game out of the players' hands pretty much at all times, especially since Golduck can come in and introduce that chance of failure at any time even if it's not already on the field.
And... this part is not the main reason I'm vetoing it (if it were the only issue, I'm sure we could just make it work differently from Intimidate), but I do think it's worth pointing out how nuts this would be in M4A VGC as well, since an effect like Intimidate applies to both opponents at once - in this case, confusing two opponents at the same time goes from a 1/3 to a 5/9 chance to disrupt the opponent's plan for the turn, with the odds of both Pokémon carrying out their actions being less than half and no way to tell which one can pull it off (if either). That's not to mention how much less prominent and more costly switching out can be in terms of momentum compared to a single battle, especially if you're incentivized to switch both Pokémon at once (there's a reason Intimidate itself is such a big deal, and this is... a lot more problematic in effect).
Really sorry, but I'm going to have to veto this sub entirely as well; I conferred with some other council members to make sure I wasn't alone in being concerned, but we think this Ability is uncompetitive as a form of pseudo-trapping. It definitely presents too reliable and too passive a way to get large amounts of free chip on any Pokémon that wants to switch out of Golduck. It's also made even more dangerous by the addition of Circle Throw, which not only gets an extra 25% damage on whatever Pokémon is phased out but all but has a high chance to get
another 25% on whatever the opponent sends in - after all, you'll have forced out whatever they actually
wanted to face Golduck, so their new matchup is pretty likely to be one that puts them at a disadvantage.
We've generally agreed that we wouldn't be that much more comfortable with it even if you lowered the amount of chip to tone it down, so I'm afraid we're just going to have to say no to this, sorry. :c
A much more thing on your Sirfetch'd-- I don't think I can allow Behemoth Blade on this, unfortunately!
First, purely as a recommendation: the usual
consensus is to avoid major Legendary signatures like that when they don't do something specifically unique for the sub no other move can, and here it just seems like you're doing it for perceived flavor while it actually arguably makes the flavor worse - if anything, the idea of Behemoth Blade would probably work against you in voting even if we allowed it. That said, we don't usually veto for stuff like this, and there's a lot of grey area as to what counts as "something unique that's necessary for the sub" - people have managed to win with these kinds of additions before by arguing their choices well, and this part is not a formal rejection.
Mooore importantly, though, see this rule in the first post:
- On account of their unique characteristics, certain moves may no longer be added to Pokémon that don't have them in canon.These moves are as follows:
Dark Void,
Hyperspace Fury and
Aura Wheel, which cannot be used by any Pokémon but their rightful owners even if they are learned by other means;
Chatter, which is impossible to copy even by way of Smeargle's Sketch;and
Volt Tackle,
Secret Sword,
Relic Song and
Dragon Ascent, which are learned exclusively through special means, such as tutors dedicated to specific Pokémon, and cannot reasonably be distributed to other Pokémon in the same manner.
I will say that this part is
entirely on me for not thinking to include Behemoth Blade and Behemoth Bash here in the first place - they're not actually written as part of the rule right now!
That said, I think they
definitely fall under the same category of moves and should be excluded for the same reason!
In canon, Behemoth Blade is locked to Zacian-Crowned specifically - it replaces Iron Head whenever a battle starts, and it is always replaced by Iron Head when the battle ends. There is no way for even Zacian to "learn" the move in a more normal way than this, so it definitely doesn't make optical sense for another Pokémon to learn it naturally.
With this in mind, I don't think I can allow Sirfetch'd to learn Behemoth Blade; I'm really sorry I didn't think to communicate this sooner, but I'll add it properly to this rule once the slate ends!
(Don't worry if you can't make an edit before the veto post - like with some of the moves that were restricted last slate, we'll just allow the submission itself as-is and clarify that it won't get Behemoth Blade if it wins. C:)
(that said--
holy heck this is genius)
Mm, sorry, but I'm pretty sure this overlaps more than it should with Silvally? I don't think we should allow this to win; the main point of splitting this slate apart the way we did was so people making Porygon-Z would already know what won Silvally and could avoid unnecessary overlap, but this has just about the same gimmick Silvally had, what with being a setup sweeper that you can choose to be just about any type in the teambuilder. Even their stats aren't all that different; Silvally's movepool may push it to the physical side, while Porygon-Z's pushes it to the special side, but there's not enough here that makes me feel they should be expected to coexist. I'm gonna veto this one on principle, I'm afraid;;
also save your Golduck for Basculegion please
Smaaall heads-up, but I feel like your Golduck overlap rather a lot, so my instinct would be to include only one of them in the vote - any chance you two could discuss this idea together and come up with a collaborative sub you're both happy with?
If nothing else, it would definitely help if you
DMed me confirming you would still like to run separately! There are
some legitimate differences for sure, and I would be fine with it if I had
confirmation that you were aware of each other and you were both cool with it, but I'm definitely uncomfortable forcing such overlapping subs to compete for votes for no reason and I think it would just leave whoever lost feeling unhappy;;
Admittedly, I don't see an obvious reason to veto one over the other aside from that - failing any response from both of you, I would lean towards slating only The Damned since they posted it first, sorry;;
Mm... I think that's too much Attack for Aerilate Double-Edge, considering Sirfetch'd has Swords Dance as well as what an amazing offensive type combination Fighting/Flying is (120 and 144 BP dual STABs is yikes here). It might be okay if it had
way less Speed (like, Trick Room-slow, in the vein of Mawile), but I don't think I should allow this one with the stats you have, sorry;;
This one I have to veto for the Ability alone - we've kiiind of resolved not to introduce any more trapping Abilities, since Talonflame alone has proven massively influential and effective at its job. Picking off inherently meta-important types like Steel, Flying and Water one by one until it's no longer safe to count on them as a defensive backbone without running Shed Shell on all of them is super unhealthy, even if doing just one type at a time makes it not look like much; two trapping Abilities is definitely enough and is probably all we'll ever have. People do need to be able to count on Water-types to do their jobs, haha.
I just want to say how freaking clever this Ability name is
This is one of the best puns I've seen here in a long time
I get TypeErrors a lot while coding M4A
Very gentle suggestion and not a veto or a requirement, but would you be open to lowering its Attack a little? Mostly I'm just a little wary since unlike the other subs here (and other Fighting-type Megas), this one has no drawback attached to its Close Combat or Superpower, and that makes me less uncomfortable with its potentially-spammable 120 BP moves, haha.
That said, I
really love this Ability premise and I am so rooting for this one ;u; This sounds cool as heck and I'm a huge fan of it
Iii really wish I could be more constructive here but I'm definitely against this
I do not like the idea of taking Porygon-Z's best possible single-use item and making it possible to use it every time it switches in instead of only once per battle; this severely undermines the most important balancing factor of Z-Conversion, and I would be uncomfortable with it even without the +100 BST boost (to your credit, I don't think you did anything unreasonable with the stat distribution at all, but the Ability just
really doesn't sound safe to me OTL)
Just a minor clarification on this one: a Pokémon can't be "naturally" typeless, so your Porygon-Z will still be considered Normal-type in a vacuum; that said, I'm okay with just making that part of the Ability if you want (it can take away its own type as well as any attacker's type)!
Uhhh, hey!
So I was talking with the council and other important members of the community about your behavior in the Discord, and we actually came to agree that you should not be allowed to participate in this mod any longer.
This isn't automatically the case for every user who's been banned from the Discord for more minor offenses (like, DIB was mostly just trolling and annoying people, so he's fine to keep posting in the thread when he makes coherent subs and I'm pretty sure I've voted for him before?), so I think someone not on the council told you that you were okay to post here this time. No worries there, of course! I can understand where they were coming from and we hadn't passed this judgment at the time.
That said, sorry to tell you this, but we're not going to be including any of your subs or counting your votes from now on, and we would like you to stay away from the thread from now on. Thanks! C:
(please also scroll up to StarFalcon555's section for some comments about your Porygon-Z! you're not vetoed on that one but it's still important for you to read it C:)
Thiiis is too strong, I'm afraid.
The thing that makes it okay for Mega Luxray to have Ambush with 160 Attack is that its moves are pretty weak - it's a physical Electric-type, so its options are STABs like Wild Charge (the single weakest move that has recoil, with 135 BP maximum) and Thunder Fang (that's 97.5 BP when it
does get a critical hit), while its stronger moves like Superpower are non-STAB and therefore only amount to an ordinary 120 BP STAB when Ambush does make them crit. In addition, Luxray's best setup move is Agility - which is still pretty great because it lets Ambush activate more reliably as a sort of pseudo-Shift Gear, but it doesn't punish slow teams any harder.
On the other hand, Sirfetch'd has 120 BP STABs right off the bat, meaning Ambush makes them 180 BP; on top of that, it has Swords Dance, which lets it hit waaay harder than Luxray ever will on the slow teams it already crushes. I think this could turn out to be a very unhealthy presence offensively, so I'm not willing to allow it, sorry;;
:porgon-z: Hnnnn I'm personally really uncomfortable using Sleight of Hand here
For context, Thievul
really badly needed that, in part to give it an important niche over competing (much better) Dark-types because it was already established as one of the worst Megas in the mod, and in part to allow it to use the
specific moves and sets that its original Ability was already designed to support in canon but that were at odds with its stats and Nasty Plot; it wasn't a decision we took lightly, it was hotly debated, and even as one of its main advocates in Thievul's highly exceptional case, it's
definitely not one I think should be done liberally
Among other things, I also think it's a pretty big deal that Mega Thievul
ended up significantly stronger after this buff despite
losing the free 4/3 boost to its damage output that its original Dark Aura granted it - it can't be overstated how good this Ability is on something that can use it well even compared to something as conventionally nuts as Adaptability (!!), and Porygon-Z has some
amazing physical options
(compare: best physical STABs Double-Edge and Return, best special STAB Tri Attack), and yours has even better movepool additions to capitalize on it
Especially for Porygon-Z, which has Download to potentially grant it mixed options anyway (compare Exploziff's rather neat Porygon-Z that leaned into this!), this feels like a really ill-advised and excessive way to bring it over the top; I don't think I'm willing to allow this on principle, sorry
(hi!!! I'm so glad you could make it : D)
Suuuper minor thing on both of these first-- as a general rule, we usually avoid making straight clones of canon Abilities (there's a note of this in the first post somewhere!) and anything so similar to one that a canon Ability would work just as well, so I would definitely recommend switching Porygon-Z to Serene Grace if you don't have a particular reason to want the weaker effect, and I think Golduck should definitely be Sniper (if you're not able to edit in time but it still wins, it might just be given Sniper anyway as long as that's okay with you?).
Since this is your first time subbing, I should probably note that it's also usually not recommended to add too many new moves at once, although that's not such a grave issue that stuff gets vetoed for it often or anything; I think mostly voters prefer subs with fewer/more focused additions because they look cleaner, and there have been times when people voted to remove an extraneous move after the fact on subs with too many, so it might help your chances to trim them down just a little. That part is mostly a matter of taste, though!
That aside, for the subs themselves!!
I really like this one!!! Buffing secondary effects like you said (whether with Serene Grace or if you really want a weaker version) sounds especially neat on Porygon-Z, since it can run Discharge and Tri Attack as its dual STABs - I think the type change you made and the effect you chose go super well together and make for a really cohesive concept!
Electric is a cool addition to Porygon-Z in general, since it runs Bolt Beam so often already and definitely has the flavor for it. C:
also at least one person I know will be very hyped when he sees STAB Charge Beam on this even if it's not the most conventional pick
Edit: ack, someone on the Discord did point out that this one has 115 Speed! Like I said in the slate opening post, Porygon-Z has a lot going for it that has made many of us kiiind of wary of especially fast spreads in general, so if you're willing, that's something I would somewhat recommend toning down.
I'm slightly less sure of your
Golduck, admittedly, but not because I don't think it sounds cool - I definitely love Focus Energy + Sniper + a high-crit-rate move as a way to set up, and it sounds awesome on something this fast! That said, it seems like it overlaps kind of a lot with Inteleon (non-Mega), which makes me a little unsure if it would be able to stand out? Inteleon isn't an amazing Pokémon by any means, so it's not like it's major competition, but it also doesn't take up a Mega slot and has arguably a better defensive type, while its stats aren't that far behind your Golduck, all things considered;;
I do notice that Golduck could potentially have STAB on Psycho Cut if you gave it access to that, and it does have Cross Chop already on the physical side, so my first instinct is that it could maybe pull off stronger mixed sets than Inteleon if nothing else; unfortunately, most of the high-crit-rate moves are pretty low in base power and being a fast mixed attacker spreads your stats
very thin, so that might not be as helpful as I hoped in the long run :x
Aaand I think that's all!
Submissions will close and voting should begin in 24 hours, and the council will make a compilation of all of the legal entries then! If you've gotten feedback here that you want to address, it would be best to do that as soon as possible with that in mind. C:
(As usual, though: no worries if you can't quite make it by then! If you decide to make changes based on this, then as long as you can do that before voting closes
just leave enough time for people to vote for you!, we'll be happy to edit the compilation to include any amendments you made!)
take that idea and add it to the mega? Leek Blade can make 
Yo yo yo, Bolivia here with the sub compilation post for the duck. Wait, there are 3 ducks? Gotcha! Sorry I couldn't make a sub this time around. Started school the same day the slate started so life has been tenuous while I adjust. Hope you enjoy this quick compilation I made of all the Porygon-Z submissions. If I do say so myself, these submissions were all really good!! If I didn't include you, it means your mega was vetoed and you did not change it enough/at all.
Mega Decidueye, 
Mega Incineroar and 
Mega Primarina!
