Thread: Potential Edit for Open rules

After much discussion in #general-chat just now and a few weeks ago, we think that this would be a beneficial new definition of Open:

Trainers send their full stats or a subset (of any size) of their Pokémon to use to the ref (i.e. "all", "not Meowth", "Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Pikachu"). The ref will then announce those selections and the trainers battle as if those were the Pokémon they own, choosing which of those Pokémon as they go and sending gender, item, and ability when the Pokémon is first sent out.

I'm sure you've got questions, the first being "Why?" Well, it mostly comes down to Roar and similar moves, in a few ways. As you probably know, Roar in Open right now can bring out anything in your stats, whether it's Unown, Magikarp, or Arceus. While outright banning such moves (and Red Card) might seem like the obvious solution, they are actually very important for things like clearing stat ups and it would have pretty massive implications on other strategy if they were banned. I'm sure this isn't the first time someone has tried to solve this problem (though I sure hope it's the last). This allows you to easily remove things that you're not going to use (such as Magikarp or Unown in a Fire gym... Or literally anywhere except battles to evolve that Magikarp) but can punish you for being too greedy on removing things (such as Jumpluff, Talonflame, Ditto, or Murkrow in that Fire gym and not having an answer to their Speed Boost Blaziken) since you have made yourself completely unable to send them. This also allows "theme battles" such as mock gym battles or gen 1 only battles, etc. without risking Roar ruining the theme.

tl;dr: Remove things so they can't get Roared, but at the cost of losing it as an option if you get greedy and remove more than your Magikarps and Unowns and whatnot, both to more balance Roar and to prevent it ruining themed battles.

If you have any other questions or comments on this, please let me know here or on Discord! If at any point there's a few days without any current reasons not to do this, I will go ahead and make the change (because I know things can get lost and forgotten from lack of discussion otherwise).

After #trainers-court discussion, the plan is to implement this as its own rule which would make the relevant section of RefPedia look like this:

This is how the relevant part of Refpedia would look under this proposed change (name pending)


Full
A complete team of Pokemon, with abilities and held items, is sent to the referee prior to the battle.
Preview
Similar to full, however the referee will reveal both teams before leads are selected.
Open
Pokemon are sent during the battle – teams are not predetermined.
Box
Trainers send their full stats or a subset (of any size) of their Pokémon to use to the ref (i.e. "all", "not Meowth", "Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Pikachu"). The ref will then announce those selections and the trainers battle as if those were the Pokémon they own, choosing which of those Pokémon as they go and sending gender, item, and ability when the Pokémon is first sent out.