It's out: http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/the-2016-video-game-championship-format-has-been-announced/ ...well, this is a huge change. Just wow. I've been dabbling with VGC quite a bit and now so many things are rendered irrelevant.
"All discovered Pokémon will be allowed except the following Mythical Pokémon: Mew, Celebi, Jirachi, Deoxys, Phione, Manaphy, Darkrai, Shaymin, Arceus, Victini, Keldeo, Meloetta, Genesect, Diancie, and Hoopa." "Teams may have no more than two of the following Pokémon: Mewtwo, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Reshiram, Zekrom, Kyurem, Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde." So, Phione is banned, but Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon, and Geo Xern are allowed as long as you don't use all three of them together. Seems balanced.
Well, VGC was never much for balance to begin with but yeah, this is shaking things up tremendously. Now a wholly new game plan would be needed, on top of actually procuring the mons for them.
"Seems balanced." was sarcasm. There really should be a better way to convey that over the internet. Honestly, I'm starting to think that Nintendo is trying their best to make Pokemon less competitive. I mean, instead of trying to go in a different direction from one of the worst additions that gen 6 has created (Primal forms and Mega Ray), they decided to make it the focal point of VGC.
Mega Ray or Primal Kyogre or something non-mega but legendary, Primal Groudon, a strong Mega Pokemon (if not Mega Ray), 3 other super strong shits for doubles. Just built the winning team. I don't understand the logic here, Game Freak. I just don't. also this isn't really jaa, too many changes
Well, it's JAA in the 2 ubers allowed... uh whatever, just let me be nostalgic for a while. On one hand, I understand the desire to cause a large change in the VGC format; in 2015 the winning teams are almost certainly a variation of CHALK with MegaKang etc dominating really hard. That gets boring rather fast... While I'm not sure allowing ubers in was the solution, at least the fact that things massively changed is something I welcome.
I expect this will have no more variety than previous years, but the Pokemon everyone will spam will change. If they want to create variety, the way to do it would be to create a metagame that is actually somewhat balanced, which Nintendo either doesn't know how to do or has no interest in doing.
God I hate VGC. Just thought I'd put that out there. Shitty format, with stupid banlist, steep difficulty curve (adjusting to doubles battling and fucking EV spreads) and battles that feel like they're all tactics no strategy Anyhow, one of the most common criticisms is that it makes legit pokemon even harder to obtain, encouraging the hacking that pokemon is stupidly trying to stamp out. Definitely I think the meta will gravitate towards very bland generic teams, just with new faces. I'm also mildly interested in seeing how MRay fares in a doubles environment, since that should go a long way in making it less stupidly broken