PAX Pokemon League

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/ ... announced/

Two per team, includes all cover legendaries, including primal versions. I'm curious to see how or if this will effect how the PPL is run in 2016. I feel like if challengers come into a PPL in a VGC format that uses cover legends there's going to be an expectation that they are permitted to use them in PPL games. Whether we embrace this change or not should be the subject of discussion moving into 2016 PPLs.

Perhaps individual gym leaders, say, some with fun teams might specify before their battle that such powerful Pokemon aren't to be used, that being their responsibility in the running of their gym, but otherwise if leaders are to embrace the use of these Pokemon then it would make for a very interesting year. I personally prefer not to use them, though the team I'm designing for next year would have me use 1, which I'm pretty ok with (either as a part of the team or as a special side challenge.) Either way, teams for PPL AUS 2016 are in early development, so we're in early days yet.

Still I consider this worth discussing.

Under their rules Mega rayquaza is legal. There's a small handful of things that can handle him-everything else gets steamrolled. Ray, and the primals, are legends we ban for a reason-we want to be accessible to both tot-trainers and veterans, while having fun as leaders VGC allowing ridiculous legends into their meta need not impact us (unless we want to have everyone running a legendary to stay relevant/not get totally steamrolled?).

As with most team/rule changes for PPL I feel like it'd come down to leader preferences. For example: it would be acceptable imo for one to be used for a leaders competitive team (as I'm used to designing two teams, ivs and evs used for a competitive team and not used (or to some extent) for a casual team. For the casual team perhaps it would be recommended that one not be used.
As I said above I feel like the reason this should be discussed is because a VGC change will have an effect on what challengers bring coming into the PPL (many of which may not be aware of our specific rule sets, as I've seen thus far in AUS).

As AUS grows, there'll be more challengers coming in knowing the published ruleset-in my experience at East we get confused with Smogon rules most often (that I've seen). Use of legendaries (from our limited list or banlist as it fluctuates) is a good part of the debate each PAX has to determine its ruleset. Using quite so many upper tier legends as VGC is incorporating? I'm mildly concerned over that. Getting 6-0'd either by a gym leader or challenger is not something we should aim for.

As always, leader discretion comes into play. Incorporating as many legends as VGC16 will allow might increase the pressure on casual-oriented leaders to use them, in turn homogenizing meta-pokes in our teams. I personally prefer the freedom to pick from a mono-type and rely on my knowledge of the game (and breeding/training) to keep me in Veteran tier-rather than feeling forced into using an Ubers poke so I can avoid being swept 6-0 by challenger teams that run them.

This is just my 2c here. I have been wanting to go to a VGC event for a little while now, and I have been looking into building a team specifically for it. That dream will now be on hold at least until 2017 in the hopes that they realize how big a mistake it is going to be. Part of the reason I absolutely love the PPL (It's the primary reason I go to PAX) is because I can just have fun with it. I can crush some people beneath my boot, but it's always fun for both competitors (with one or two exceptions). If we start allowing cover legendaries, we are going to see them everywhere. Every gym leader is going to have to plan for "Maybe they are running so-and-so," and that is going to make team building suck. As things currently stand, Gym Leaders and trainers alike can, and are encouraged to build their teams the way they want to, with the Pokémon they love. If we allow cover legendaries, that won't be the case anymore. I feel that the way we do our ban list is the most effective for the way we are set up. Sometimes it makes me sad (RIP Mega Lucario), but I understand and agree with why things get put on that list. To keep OUR metagame the way that we like it, I feel that we should avoid allowing cover legendaries onto teams.