CAP 23 CAP 23 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

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You and I debated this a lot last night, and I knew there was a reason why your argument just seemed wrong to me, but it was probably too late at night for me to think straight enough to come up with it. But as I have thought about it throughout the day today, I realize why the argument above doesn't really work. Because, while in theory is sounds quite simple (you don't switch a Pokemon into something that could kill it), it simply runs against the reality of how competitive Pokemon has been played for the past two decades.

The idea that if a Pokemon can hit decently hard back at thing the things that threaten it, then those things won't swtich in, is not a situation that has ever manifested itself in actual competition. Perhaps the best example of this is one that goes back all the way to the beginning of the Pokemon series: Water types. Since day one, nearly every single Water type in the game has had access to Ice type moves. What's more, Ice type coverage is great for Water types as the combination of the two is only ever resisted by fellow water types (and Shedinja). If the argument presented in the question held any water, this would basically mean that Grass types would never switch in on Water types, despite the clear type advantage, because they could be hit with an Ice move. But that is simply not the case, and never has been. Rather, they do switch in because the majority of the time that you switch in, it is because the opponent's Pokemon is threatening to what you have out, and you switch in expecting them to use the move that is strong against your current Pokemon. Yes, opponents can predict. And if they do, good for them. But you simply cannot be successful playing Pokemon by assuming you will be out-predicted at every step. The player that always has their Water type use Ice Beam against Fire types because they might switch to a Grass type will not be very successful. Nor will the player who never switches out their Fire type to a Grass type because they fear the Ice Beam. Successful players will sometimes switch and sometimes stay in. They will sometimes use Ice Beam and other times use Surf. It all depends on the state of the battle and the risks they are willing to take. But, as a general case, yes, people will switch in the Grass type.

That is no different than the case with Dragon/Fighting or any other type. Yes, a Fairy that switches in could be hit by Anchor Shot (or Flash Cannon/Poison Jab, if you want to look at a real Fighting/Dragon Pokemon), but in general, they are switching in because something weak to Dragon or Fighting, or otherwise about to be KOed by those strong STABs, is switching out. And in general this means that a Dragon or Fighting move is incoming. The only real difference for us is that, if taking an Anchor Shot puts you into KO range and you are slower than your opponent, then you would have no further recourse. How good this ends up being is largely a function, not of typing, but of how much power we put behind the attacks. But suffice it to say that, unless we are faster than them all and strong enough to threaten KOs on them all easily, there will never be a case where fairies will not want to switch in, because that is how people play the game. Taking advantage of that fact is a big part of why I think types like this work so well for the concept.
My issue with this argument is this.

Let's say that we make Cap 23 a Dragon/Fighting type to lure in Fairies to beat with Anchor Shot. So, Cap 23 is out and your opponent switches into a Fairy as they fear a Dragon or Fighting STAB move. If they're right, the Fairy tanks the hit. Then, you will try to hit it with your Anchor Shot for SE damage. Which means that you're not using it for trapping,but for damage, which you just argued against. But let's ignore that. Your opponent has two options. They can either switch again, meaning that you haven't taken out their Fairy after all, or they can hit you with a STAB Fairy attack for 4x damage while you are only hitting them for a non-STAB, base 80 power attack which does only 2x damage. If that takes out the Fairy, we're acting more like a Sweeper than a trapper and if it doesn't, we have now trapped a mon that can freely spam attacks at us which are 4x effective. Who is really trapped with who? If you get this strategy to work, you're just crushing the opposition with your attacks instead of taking advantage of trapping.

This barely improves if we predict the Fairy switch and hit Anchor Shot immediately, which, based on what you said, is not what will usually happen in practice.

And if we need to trap enough that we hit Anchor Shot regardless of what's out there, then that will become known and people will know an Anchor Shot is coming and will switch appropriately in a manner that is detrimental to Cap 23, meaning that they'll only switch into a Fairy if the strategy of Fairy luring doesn't actually work.

I mean, Corkscrew Crash could help with this, but then that will become a predictable strategy. The Fairy will resist All-Out Pummeling and be immune to Devastating Drake, so those will be a waste of a Z-move. Meaning that if you want to run something different, you are basically stuck with Poison Coverage and Poisonium Z meaning that we are stuck using four attacks with redundancies in their coverage.
 

jas61292

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Let's say that we make Cap 23 a Dragon/Fighting type to lure in Fairies to beat with Anchor Shot. So, Cap 23 is out and your opponent switches into a Fairy as they fear a Dragon or Fighting STAB move. If they're right, the Fairy tanks the hit. Then, you will try to hit it with your Anchor Shot for SE damage. Which means that you're not using it for trapping,but for damage, which you just argued against. But let's ignore that. Your opponent has two options. They can either switch again, meaning that you haven't taken out their Fairy after all, or they can hit you with a STAB Fairy attack for 4x damage while you are only hitting them for a non-STAB, base 80 power attack which does only 2x damage. If that takes out the Fairy, we're acting more like a Sweeper than a trapper and if it doesn't, we have now trapped a mon that can freely spam attacks at us which are 4x effective. Who is really trapped with who? If you get this strategy to work, you're just crushing the opposition with your attacks instead of taking advantage of trapping.
This is not at all how I am imaging things against fairies. The point of Anchor Shot here is to trap. Yes, the damage is also important, but its only important because of what is does in combination with trapping. If they get in on a Fighting or Dragon move, you don't then use Anchor Shot unless you outspeed and would kill. Rather, you run like hell. The point of Anchor Shot is to hit with it on a switch in. If it puts them into KO range and you are faster, you finish them off with them being unable to rebound from their mis-predict. If you do not put them in KO range and/or are not faster, you switch out, knowing you already got a chunk of damage in and they cannot double switch against you.
 

Deck Knight

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If I may bring up one other type that was mentioned that I feel needs a better fleshing out, it's Dragon/Water.

The biggest upside here is that it removes Dragon's Ice weakness (except for mons with Freeze-Dry, of which only two are remotely threatening and one of them is weak to Water [Mamoswine]). Additionally it offers STAB Clamp and Whirlpool, which puts those moves into not entirely useless damage-wise in addition to the partial trapping effect. With only Fairy and Dragon weaknesses to worry about the Pokemon it lures are pretty consistent, and that's either faster Dragons to revenge kill or Fairies. Water / Dragon has a lot more neutral typing matches than most of the other typings because its resistances stack. It can handle anything Volkraken throws at it, though it won't benefit on a U-turn out or a Destiny Bond.

Offensively it keeps Lando-T away while not caring too much about Rotom-W unless we go with a strongly physical build that would make it susceptible to burns. It doesn't synergize particularly well with either Spirit Shot or Anchor Shackle, since it's even weaker against the Tapus than most other typings by trading away Dragon's Grass and Electric resistances and having both STABs resisted or better by Fini and Bulu.

I do think it gives CAP more offensive flexibility, however it doesn't quite have the range and depth (despite being a Water type) of other types.

1) How do we encourage the use of a trapping move? As in, how can we make a trapping move attractive to be on a set?

Forgive me for jumping around a bit here, but this requires some mechanical examples - please note none of these are set in stone or even desirable combinations, but they are all examples of encouraging trapping by making the inability for the opponent to switch a massive liability while in against CAP.

In any case, mostly encouraging trapping moves can be achieved through other moves and abilities that benefit from the opponent being unable to switch and being forced to attack or status. This list varies based on the exact parameters of CAP, but for CAP specific threats like Mollux, Colossoil, and Naviathan who rely on their abilities to a large extent, the fact CAP could remove those abilities with a second move and render a burned Soil or Navi dead weight or a Mollux susceptible to Water attacks is significant. While I hesitate to mention this, Ghost Curse combined with partial trapping shreds 37.5% health per action, and every Pokemon in the game is susceptible to it (bar Magic Guard Pokemon). Rest goes from that unreliable healing move that turns you into setup fodder to an unbreakable asset in a PP war as long as you can avoid a 3HKO. Counter or Mirror Coat against foes that you know only have one decent offensive move to hit you with (that you can survive, of course) also benefit from trapping. Spite can shred Low PP moves down to nothing and Z-Spite heals you up to 100% before using Spite, causing choice-locked threats with low PP moves like Volkraken to play more safely.

For an Ability based example, the normally terrible Synchronize is pretty awesome if you nab yourself a Toxic user that isn't itself immune to Toxic. It will hesitate to use the move against CAP, because again, you can just Rest it off - or you can catch them on Toxic, then threaten the trap - the result being they either stay in and slowly succumb to Toxic or you shift momentum in your favor by having Toxic'd their bulky Pokemon and chased it out.

Basically, Trapping thrives on a set in the presence of moves or abilities that punish opponents that cannot run away.

2) How do we encourage the use of the trapping effect? As in, how can we make sure a trapping move we have benefits from the trapping effect rather than just KO things without exploration of trapping?

Trapping as a lure mechanism or part of a variation strategy is the best method to encourage its use. In the case of just using trapping moves to KO things, unless we're running Choice Band or choose a crazy strong ability like Adaptability, all trapping moves last the sufficient initial punch to OHKO or 2HKO (or even 3HKO) large portions of the metagame. While it's possible they may finish off weakened foes or prevent what would otherwise be checks from coming in, trapping moves themselves lack the sort of overwhelming force necessary to make them primary super-effective offensive tools. About the only way either AS or SS net a 2HKO in most cases is if you use them, then follow up with their Z-Attack, which we've discussed as a pro-concept feature anyway.

3) How do we make sure our trapping move and our trapping effect aren't just inferior options to other strategies? I say this with specific respects towards the idea of trapping something that switches in, having it be unable to switch out the next turn, and switching CAP23 out itself into something that deals with what came in (this strategy as one of the main benefits towards using trapping moves has been discussed a lot of PS). Is this entire strategy just inferior to pivot moves in the first place? After all, a pivot move used against something switching into a mon means that the pivot mon's teammate coming in won't take any damage, but in the scenario described with the trapping move there is a very high chance that CAP23's incoming teammate will take damage. Or does having the option to either switch out kind of safely OR use a hidden coverage or Z move on the target make up for this?

Trapping moves should be interwoven with other strategies. Since trapping moves tend to be poor coverage, stat-up sets would be an interesting way to go with them, either to have superior coverage or to utilize the trapping effect so that Tomohawk does not just come in and out and Haze away your day. Should it come in later it basically has to immediately Haze, and if you managed to avoid using your Z-Move you can basically force it to Haze immediately and eat that attack - OR you can trap IT, and Toxic Stall it instead to overcome priority roost. Basically when trapping becomes an ace in the hole to isolate a threat to your team that you can interchange with better coverage options. It's kind of like Krilowatt's Utility Counter 2.0, where your opponent has to guess which Pokemon the trap is actually *for*.

4) It is very, very hard to design a lure made for a very specific subset of Pokemon and have it actually work as a lure. For example, the Dragon/Fighting typing is meant to lure in Fairies with Anchor Shot. This approach means that CAP23 has to have enough set variation to not use Anchor Shot most of the time so that the Fairies actually have a reason to come in. How can we maintain the balance of having both a viable trapping set and other sets that singularly or collectively are more common/more viable than trapping so that the lure is actually possible? And if the trapping set is too good and the lure fails as a result, then doesn't that mean it's basically just a bunch of generically bulky mons that come in to check CAP instead of the intended Fairy types? Transitioning into question 5...

I think using the type chart alone isn't going to produce effective examples of a lure or a trap strategy. If Bulky Pokemon come in and TrapCAP can subvert their bulk or weaken them so that another Pokemon can sweep (bearing in mind TrapCAP is likely able to switch while they cannot) then the expected answers to TrapCAP will tend towards Pokemon that are bulky and also resist weardown. Pyroak for example is bulky and usually has Synthesis, but if it is trapped and Toxic'd, it has to constantly try to heal either damage or status, and once weakened it will not serve as an effective check to CAP's teammates. Mollux is bulky and status-resistant. Of course, all of its moves (except for it it decides to start running HP Ice) are resisted by Ghost / Dragon - since you asked us to interveave arguments for types in here.

5) How do we take advantage of a wide range bulky mons and should we try to? Does attracting a wide range of bulky mons mean that CAP will struggle to deal with them all? Or does it mean that CAP will be able to selectively pick a few of them and more effectively lure them (more effectively than if we target one group and are never able to lure them since they always see it coming)? If we want to somewhat deal with a wide-variety of bulky mons coming in, what traits should CAP23 have? (Note: This does not mean we're trying to single handedly beat a large variety of bulky mons, specifically in a single set).

It really depends on the Bulky Mons we're talking about, and what their counterplay to CAP would be. Ferrothorn for example doesn't care that much about permanent trapping because it has a decent level of sustain and it's just going to stack hazards when it gets the chance - but it hates the fixed damage of partial trapping moves because they nullify its Leech Seed healing in most instances. Whereas Pyroak, since it isn't immune to Toxic, really hates full trapping combined with Toxic because neither its damage or status recovery moves have a lot of PP. You can't beat both of them in one viable set, but neither of them wants to be in on the set that makes their specific life hell, and this is in addition to CAP's potential offensive sets.
 
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I'm not sure how to answer a lot of these without poll jumping to talking about specific moves/abilities what is a counter/check, and what CAP23 should counter/check, in all honestly. Once those are decided, it will give greater context to what direction CAP23 should go in. I'm not even sure if they're even really appropriate to a typing discussion, given that trapping has currently existed competitively purely with either STAB moves being used as attacks with an additional trapping ability for all, or with an ability designed to trap and neuter specific targets - which leads me back to the point of what do we want to trap? How generic do you want to go, or conversely, how specific or narrow the target? Wide with variable coverage, or narrow but complete focus on specific threats - to which the question then comes what happens if those threats become non-viable?

In essence, Ghost/Normal allows CAP23 to come in and spin block, as well as prevent Arghonaut from Circle Throwing on top of Spikes, which would also generate the time for CAP23 to either spin, or set up. Mega-Lopunny is able to counter, due to having Scrappy Rapid Spin and HJK; depending on whether you want the bunny to be a Check or not. Considering that people around here seem to have a weird fetish of Toxic being detrimental to CAP23, Ghost/Normal provides STAB Facade, which could be turned into something horrific like Guts - or you could replace Facade with a Guts STAB Explosion - such suicide moves often being wasted if something can swap in with resists. To add on to that, you could have a Heal Bell set or Rest off with something like Early Bird. As Deck Knight also said, Synchronize can bounce that back, or you could Skill Swap/Mummy away dangerous abilities.
 
1) How do we encourage the use of a trapping move? As in, how can we make a trapping move attractive to be on a set?
2) How do we encourage the use of the trapping effect? As in, how can we make sure a trapping move we have benefits from the trapping effect rather than just KO things without exploration of trapping?

I see 2 ways to accomplish this. The first would be that the move itself provides valuable coverage against a weakness of our typing. But this kinda only covers the first question and is actually a bad way to go about this, since we want to use AS/SS because of their trapping effect, not only because of their damage, The other (better) one is that CAP 23 has other attacks that it can use without having to fear much if it manages to trap an intended mon. Examples would be Setup moves (offensive) or Utility moves like Entry Hazards, TR or anything like that. Considering the other questions and what I think about them, I feel like a of both options brings us the furthest.

3) How do we make sure our trapping move and our trapping effect aren't just inferior options to other strategies? I say this with specific respects towards the idea of trapping something that switches in, having it be unable to switch out the next turn, and switching CAP23 out itself into something that deals with what came in (this strategy as one of the main benefits towards using trapping moves has been discussed a lot of PS). Is this entire strategy just inferior to pivot moves in the first place? After all, a pivot move used against something switching into a mon means that the pivot mon's teammate coming in won't take any damage, but in the scenario described with the trapping move there is a very high chance that CAP23's incoming teammate will take damage. Or does having the option to either switch out kind of safely OR use a hidden coverage or Z move on the target make up for this?

I don't think that the described scenarion is straight up inferior. On the first glance it might seem to be, since we take the risk of the incoming teammate taking damage, but compared to what we can make CAP23 accomplish if it traps something we intend it to, that is a pretty small risk, so I do think the benefits make up for it.
We just have to build CAP23 in a way that makes it rewarding if it manages to trap something it wants to, so basically what I said above.

4) It is very, very hard to design a lure made for a very specific subset of Pokemon and have it actually work as a lure. For example, the Dragon/Fighting typing is meant to lure in Fairies with Anchor Shot. This approach means that CAP23 has to have enough set variation to not use Anchor Shot most of the time so that the Fairies actually have a reason to come in. How can we maintain the balance of having both a viable trapping set and other sets that singularly or collectively are more common/more viable than trapping so that the lure is actually possible? And if the trapping set is too good and the lure fails as a result, then doesn't that mean it's basically just a bunch of generically bulky mons that come in to check CAP instead of the intended Fairy types? Transitioning into question 5...
5) How do we take advantage of a wide range bulky mons and should we try to? Does attracting a wide range of bulky mons mean that CAP will struggle to deal with them all? Or does it mean that CAP will be able to selectively pick a few of them and more effectively lure them (more effectively than if we target one group and are never able to lure them since they always see it coming)? If we want to somewhat deal with a wide-variety of bulky mons coming in, what traits should CAP23 have? (Note: This does not mean we're trying to single handedly beat a large variety of bulky mons, specifically in a single set).

I think we should try to target a larger group of bulky mons. And I also think we should design CAP23 in a way that it's coverage move decides which mons it struggles against and which ones it can hit with an appropriate coverage move. And if we make the trapping move a part of these coverage moves (and this answers Q4) we can ensure that it isn't always run because based on the team, CAP23 may want to be able to hit other bulky mons than the one's hit by AS/SS.
Taking the Dragon/Fighting typing as an example, it could have AS as a lure against fairies, and also an Electric move to hit Flying types, both moves tied for the same moveslot.
 
There are three types that I want to discuss: Dragon / Fighting, Ghost / Fairy & Steel / Fairy.

Dragon / Fighting is something that I don't see why is being discussed. A weakness to only Psychic or just Fairy would be fine, but a weakness to three common types in the metagame and a quad weakness to Fairy is horrible. The only thing I see good about this type is resisting rocks.

Ghost / Fairy is a case of offense over defense. Amazing neutral coverage but isn't very spectacular defensively. I wouldn't be opposed to this one but I just don't think it's what we want.

Fairy / Steel is too risky defensively. The only real downside is a Ground weakness which easily can be covered. I don't think this type being too good is inevitable, but I do think it's a risk we should avoid.
 

reachzero

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1) How do we encourage the use of a trapping move? As in, how can we make a trapping move attractive to be on a set?

As long as the CAP has a strong offensive presence and has specific rather than generalized counters, I think trapping moves will be used a lot anyway, just because advantage of having them is pretty strong. I am pretty confident, for instance, that Zygarde would use Thousand Waves if it didn't have Thousand Arrows, which is one of the very best moves in the game. The only way for trapping moves to not be used if it the Pokemon is weak enough offensively that it needs to forgo trapping moves in favor of higher base power attacks--this is especially true if the trapping move is a STAB move, ironically.

2) How do we encourage the use of the trapping effect? As in, how can we make sure a trapping move we have benefits from the trapping effect rather than just KO things without exploration of trapping?

The most important factor here is making sure that the things that are supposed to switch in actually do--this usually means trapping the things that resist the Pokemon's STAB attacks, allowing coverage moves to be used with maximum efficiency. If the trapping move can't be walled by anything, trapping is meaningless. This is the main threat of Ghost/Dragon: we can elect to keep Spirit Shackles from killing everything by keeping its Attack stat toward the lower side, but that would force us to move away from the offensive strategy we chose to prefer during assessment.

4) It is very, very hard to design a lure made for a very specific subset of Pokemon and have it actually work as a lure. For example, the Dragon/Fighting typing is meant to lure in Fairies with Anchor Shot. This approach means that CAP23 has to have enough set variation to not use Anchor Shot most of the time so that the Fairies actually have a reason to come in. How can we maintain the balance of having both a viable trapping set and other sets that singularly or collectively are more common/more viable than trapping so that the lure is actually possible? And if the trapping set is too good and the lure fails as a result, then doesn't that mean it's basically just a bunch of generically bulky mons that come in to check CAP instead of the intended Fairy types? Transitioning into question 5...

Fairies would already have incentive to come in, considering that avoiding taking heavy damage from strong Dragon and Fighting moves is a good goal, and most of the time those would be the moves being chosen. The danger comes from having a STAB combination that has coverage that is too broad: eliminate the need for coverage, and you will indeed see blanket checks switch in instead of specific counters. This is especially an issue is the offenses are so weak to that blanket checks such as Tomohawk, Landorus-t and Tangrowth can switch in with impunity. A good way to avoid this is to make sure CAP 23 has 4mss--that it has a range of related counters, and is able to lure some of them with a given set.

5) How do we take advantage of a wide range bulky mons and should we try to? Does attracting a wide range of bulky mons mean that CAP will struggle to deal with them all? Or does it mean that CAP will be able to selectively pick a few of them and more effectively lure them (more effectively than if we target one group and are never able to lure them since they always see it coming)? If we want to somewhat deal with a wide-variety of bulky mons coming in, what traits should CAP23 have? (Note: This does not mean we're trying to single handedly beat a large variety of bulky mons, specifically in a single set).


This isn't really a type related question, in my opinion, since the best ways of handling this are movepool related (i.e. Taunt and Toxic), and stat related (single attacking stat versus mixed). I do think, however, that if all specific checks are eliminated, it would make this concept much harder to work successfully.


One thing worth mentioning is that a common complaint about Dragon/Fighting is that Fairy is a common offensive type--it really isn't. Hidden Power Fairy doesn't exist, and distribution of Fairy moves tends to be confined to Psychic, Ghost and Fairy types, which often don't use them anyway. Only certain Fairy types (Tapu Lele, Koko and Fini, Clefable, Mega Gardevoir, Diancie, Altaria and Mawile) use Fairy moves with great regularity, so claiming that this is a major disadvantage is spurious when compared to the defensive advantages gained by resisting, say, Volkraken's whole moveset and the excellent offensive coverage of Dragon/Fighting.
 
I think the typing should be dependent on how we want to use this pokemon. Do we want to use it to trap a single pokemon we can then z-move, do we want to use it as a bulky pivot, drawing something out, trapping it and then switching to something that counters it, do we want to use trapping to allow for setup, or is there some other strategy that would be good with trapping? That, IMO, would go a long way to determining what type we want to give it.

Honestly, for this CAP, I would have done abilities before typing. Allows us to determine what we want to use it for, then give it good typing to make use of its abilities.
 
I think the typing should be dependent on how we want to use this pokemon. Do we want to use it to trap a single pokemon we can then z-move, do we want to use it as a bulky pivot, drawing something out, trapping it and then switching to something that counters it, do we want to use trapping to allow for setup, or is there some other strategy that would be good with trapping? That, IMO, would go a long way to determining what type we want to give it.

Honestly, for this CAP, I would have done abilities before typing. Allows us to determine what we want to use it for, then give it good typing to make use of its abilities.
In the concept assessment it was decided that 23 would trap and get rid of defensive pokemon to narrow down the opponents options for later.
 

HeaLnDeaL

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To preface my slate, here's few brief words.

This typing thread at many points has been a house divided. Two camps emerged. One aimed to lure in specific, narrow groups of threats and hit them with a coverage move, of which Anchor Shot was the most discussed. The other camp stressed making the trapping move attractive to use so that a trapping set would be guaranteed to be viable while also supporting the ability to lure in a variety of bulky mons. Ultimately, both camps seem to intend to have surprise value with coverage or Z moves but the general "first class" of mons expected to switch into CAP23 have varied and the approach to how often CAP23 should use a trapping set has been questions.

This concept and CAP23's typing have not always seemed distinctively linked. This concept hasn't really had a chance to make any one typing shine and I truly believe that there are many flexible, valuable routes that could be pursued with this concept, all with different typing options. I think there are many viable options that had to be left off the slate, but at the end of the day I had to try my best and judge the Intelligent Community Consensus... something that was no easy task based on all of the varied responses to this thread.

And then... there were Dragons. So many dragons, left, right, above, below. The Dragon type easily latched onto this concept... However you want to look at it, the Dragon typing was identified to possess "range" both in its good neutral attacking abilities and in its great defensive resistances. Dragon essentially became the "glue" typing that could complement so many other types in order to create a mon that could threaten and defend against a variety of trapping targets or even just allow CAP23 enough flexibility to survive and switch in until it could successively trap.

While some people might have been worried that this typing discussion would be too Steel or too Ghost centric, the Dragon typing somehow emerged as the king. A few non-Dragon typings were discussed but time and time again Dragons were the most favored. I feel sort of silly doing this, but based on the ICC I feel I am forced to mainly slate Dragons.

I will be slating the following types:

Dragon/Steel
While only a few posts gave this typing a glowing recommendation, this typing was one of few that attracted support from both of the big opposing camps. Being able to both likely have STAB on a trapping move but still be walled by a narrowish group of steels plus the larger group of general bulky mons is a duality that few other typings discussed possessed. It can lure, it can tank, it can use trapping moves without a huge opportunity cost. I think it's fairly safe to call this the middle ground typing and I think it very well might have the best of both worlds within it.

Dragon/Ghost
As I was tallying posts in this thread and figuring out the ICC, more people liked this typing more than any other and more people argued against it than any other, but the former number was vastly larger than the later. Some people disliked the great neutral coverage being able to attract a heterogeneous pool of bulky mons, making it harder to lure something specific. Others argued that being able to have trapping STAB encouraged trapping to actually be used and to be successful. It has been pointed out that even if at first glance the typing couldn't control narrow mons to switch in that it could still have a variety of tools to punish a smaller group within the larger field of Bulky Mons, able to at one time hit only X mon -OR- Y mon and keep them in the dark instead of publicly flashing the "we're a lure" sign.

Dragon/Fighting
While Ground/Fairy might have started out with a heat off support, its supporters eventually say that it was perhaps too offensive to lure any one group and so the pro-lure camp eventually settled into liking Dragon/Fighting instead. This typing actively aimed to lure in Fairy types, arguing that even if a Fairy feared it was being lured that it would still switch in because the alternative of a Fighting or Dragon weak teammate taking a strong hit would be even more disastrous. What I personally find worrisome about this typing are the weaknesses... How could it lure in Fairies when something like Tomohawk is the much more obvious thing coming in? Being 4x weak to Fairy and weak to Flying and Psychic places this typing as one that struggles against metagame trends. That said, typings with deadly flaws were discussed in the beginning of the thread with one of the original questions posed, and the community seemed to argue that a few deadly flaws could be forgiven if patched up with notable benefits. And in this case, the harsh defensive flaws are remedied with relatively great offensive coverage. Does Tomohawk or the great faires really matter enough to keep this typing from doing it's job? Some think not, and so I am giving them a chance by slating this even if I personally disagree.

Dragon/Fairy
This typing was introduced toward the middle of the thread. It didn't have a lot of "this is my favorite" choice support but it demonstrated the range that I asked for. Similarly to Dragon/Steel this typing generated some support from both of the big camps, though it has been slightly criticized for its lack of motivation to run a trapping move. That said, this typing has luring potential for steels, some fatter fairies, and the generically bulky mons.

Grass/Steel
I really wish I could have seen more discussion for this type, but what was discussed was mostly positive. For those who wanted to avoid a STAB trapping move, this was one of the few types that they could actually get behind due to the ability to lure in specific fire types and for the generally solid defensive typing that didn't offer enough offensive range for STAB Anchor Shot to be overly problematic. Again, I wish there was more discussion on this typing but it still had notably more support than the massive field of things not slated. Treat this as my obligatory non-Dragon slate item, but to me this is more of the defense-over-offense approach. I'm not sure how well it meshes with the concept assessment but it has just enough qualities to work as a general trapper and it can be forced to have more offensive quirks in later stages if needed.

Dragon
Lastly, I'm slating Dragon/Dragon... uh I mean pure Dragon. This typing had a handful of directly supporting posts but a huge number of posts argued for almost any Dragon typing based on the singular benefits it held as a type. Dragon typing arguably demonstrated the greatest amount of "range" of any single typing as discussed in one of the opening questions. While Nyttyn was one of the few people to argue against pretty much every Dragon typing based on its poor matchup with the top metagame/its Fairies (though nyt also thought Ghost/Dragon and Dragon/Steel were the saving graces for the type), so much time and effort of the community was poured into having Dragon be the glue that could hold CAP23 together. While I personally doubt that the singular Dragon-type will be able to have enough range for this project on its own, I can't deny that so many of the qualities people wanted were a result of this type. Singular types are kind of rare in CAP, but this discussion has been a wild one and I feel slating this is justified.

I will now hand it over to snake_rattler. We have been discussing this thread for quite some time and we have both agreed that he will be using his +1 powers to add a type that was under discussed (and thus could not have been supported by the ICC) but one that he still feels has merit. So, uh, stay tuned.
 

snake

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HeaLnDeaL's slate accurately represents what typings got the most discussion by the most people over the course of the thread. However, one typing that went under the radar a little bit was Fairy / Steel. While yes, there are very strong users of the typing such as Mega Mawile, Magearna, and Klefki, Mega Mawile boasts extreme offenses with access to Huge Power, Magearna possesses a similarly strong ability in Soul-Heart while also having access to two great boosting moves and a wide coverage move, and Klefki has access to Prankster with many useful utility moves, making it more annoying than anything. The only thing Fairy / Steel really does for these Pokemon is enable them to have a strong defensive typing; most of their strong traits stem from their ability and movepool. Fairy / Steel is very similar to Steel / Dragon as well in that it has many resists, but Fairy can act as a good STAB move in the current metagame. Finally, with a slate saturated with so many Dragon-types, hopefully this typing combination will give a greater variety to the slate. Therefore, I believe Fairy / Steel is a strong contender for this slate, so I will be using my +1 on Fairy / Steel. Again, having examples of strong Fairy / Steel Pokemon does not equate to this type combination to be "broken" in any way; it is simply a strong defensive typing with a good STAB.
 
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