VRGL Gym Leader Interest Thread
 

To keep everyone on a level playing field, here's the current status of the league:

• The new league will be modeled after the original Gen IV (early 2010) gym league.
• There will be 8 gyms.
• Gyms will be able to be battled in any order you choose. This is to avoid the mess that happened in our last league where half the gyms rarely got battles because the other half either went on vacation or had connection problems.
• Battles will be conducted over Pokémon X and Y only. Gen V will be obsolete once the Pokémon Bank is released. If you wish to reuse a Gen V team after then, it must be transferred to Pokémon X and Y. Due to simplification of training a full team and the return of Lv. 50 battling, simulators will not be allowed.
• Hacks (of course) will still not be allowed.
• A full set of rules will be available in the future.
• The league will launch no sooner than January 2014.

Now, if you have an interest in becoming a gym leader, please post in this thread stating so. Let us know what kind of team you intend to have and how much time you would devote to being an active gym leader.

Well every thing seem to be falling in place for me to make my dream gym team so I'm in for restarting my gym yet again.

Well duh. I haven't even changed my signature because I am the essence of Grass Gym.

Well back on an older site i was gym leader before coming here with shadow and freezewarp, (Lol i was the only gym leader) but i was the dark-type gym so maybe i can do that type again or be a ghost-type gym. (most of my favs there either dark or ghost types)
Plus since X&Y have been out, i have been active alot more than i was in the past.

I have an interest in joining, and trying again with Fighting types
And Since I'm active here alot, I'd devote as much time as possible

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that last part. It's obvious that I'd devote a lot of time to it, since I'm here like every single day. The only problem would be going off to college... I'm not sure if I'd still have Wi-Fi. I'll start looking for hotspots that support the 3DS.

If you're bringing a laptop, I recommend picking up a USB Wi-Fi adapter for your laptop. I can provide a tutorial on how to bridge it with your laptop's internal Wi-Fi adapter if you go this route.

I also forgot to mention this before, but the league will launch no earlier than January 2014 to grant folks an opportunity to transfer forward their Pokémon through Pokémon Bank.

That works, as i have like 6 boxes of EVd pokes to bring over i would have wide enough choices to pick from.

I would like to register my interest in being..... The Water type Leader! I believe that I will have plenty of time to come on the forums, and it will be interesting to battle on the new Gen VI system.

As a twist, I'm thinking of becoming a gym leader. I would take Fire, but I know Mag has been the traditional Fire gym leader, so I might claim Dark instead.

I know I was appointed previously but never got around to it thanks to EV's and whatnot, but now with Super Training that wouldn't be a problem.

Plus, I've already started.

I am very interested in being a Fairy-type gym leader, but time will tell if I can train enough pokémon before then to adapt to not only specializing in a new type, but readying many counters for Poisons and Steels and such, especially considering I'm being more casual in my XY playthrough (as in not playing it eight hours a day like I did with Gen V).

Will MegaEvolutions be allowed? They seem rather strong to me still.

I'm back in the United States, I have reliable Internet, and I am getting back into competitive Pokemon. As such I would be interested in re-applying for a Flying-type Gym, which hopefully should work out fine due to the bizarre lack of interest for the greatest type of all. Due to the whole college thing I would probably do the bulk of my battles on weekends, but weekday battles would likely happen.

Given that my last VRGL team was actually my first team ever, and I've had so much more time to test the waters about it, I think I can come back (with a slightly less single-minded team) to reclaim the Steel-type position.

As for time, I feel I can manage my life much better and be able to free up a bunch of time, so weekday battles may be able to work better now (since weekends were always surefire).

Sounds like fun. I imagine I'll have the time, as I have few social obligations other than school and family things. I think I would want to do Dark, dragon, ghost, or maybe I'd give Fairy a shot. I'm definitely up for the challenge. I would love to learn more about competitive battling and breeding and the wonder that is the Pokemon meta game.

Oh i forgot to say that i have alot of free time to do this. (i like have no life) but if ghost or dark get taken, i could try for a dragon gym as theres more dragons to use now.

I'm going to tentatively request a Ground type gym. I'm capable of Singles should that be the set-in-stone ruling for all gym battles, but if I have a choice, I'd like to set my gym to go by VGC-esque style rules. Not completely conforming (like no item-clause, I'm ok with duplicate items), but mainly the whole Show 6, choose 4 way of battling.

Hm, I think I can allow variant gyms by approval. For yours, 3 of the 4 would need to be the requisite type (Ground).

The default format will be 6-vs-6, and the gym leader must have 4 Pokémon that have the gym's type. Mega Pokémon will be allowed on a case-by-case basis.

One detail, though: if one of your Pokémon only meets your type as a Mega Evolution (and without it the team would not meet the type requirement of 4 Pokémon), that Pokémon must Mega Evolve immediately when given the chance and no other Pokémon may have a Mega Stone. For instance, if you're running a Dragon gym and opt to have Mega Charizard X as one (plus three other Dragon Pokémon), it must Mega Evolve on its first turn out.

Sounds good to me. Will there be a elite 4 this time or do we have to wait till people beat all the gyms.

Probably the latter.

I realised that I didn't actually say I was expressing interest in becoming a leader, so I will here.

I would be a Ghost type leader, and be online daily except when my activities don't allow it.

If rotom gets a gym and is ghost, i'll take Dark type as i notice there hasnt been a dark gym at all. (even in the games, but a E4 member) Oh and same here about the activity everytime i can get on.

I'm already taking Dark (if I get in).

Anyway, we've got quite a few leaders so far, but we probably are only going to allow eight main spots with several auxiliaries. We'll probably have some sort of tournament to determine which eight deserve the spots...or the folks who know they won't be active enough can just take backup instead.

Well if i do get in, i guess i'll take whats left.

I'm so excited for this to come back. It would definitely spark a lot of my interest back into the forums, plus make me a hell lot more active as well. I think I'd try out for Ghost if RotomGuy doesn't beat me to it this time. Ghost is definitely a lot more useful this time around, now that Ghost does normal damage on steel. Plus, Aegisashes are so ridiculously good.

Question: Are we going to stick to the current leaders? Or have a re-election of them?

EDIT: It's a possibility of me trying out for the fighting gym, because HAWLUCHA<3333333333

I'm almost 100% certain that there's going to be a re-election. This new league is going to be an attempt to fix all of the problems that the last one had.

Phanny likes that Ghost is no longer resisted by Steel. :P

Since I can use my mobile hotspot for Wifi, I might want to be a gym leader.

Same with Dark, also no longer resisted by Steel. Huehuehuhuehuehueh.

Oh, I should probably bring this up. There will likely not be an Elite 4 in this league. It's a cool idea, but I don't think it'd be necessary to have at first.

Besides, an Elite 4 could be implemented at any time if enough people participate. ;P

I am tempted to apply as a Poison-Type Gym leader, but I'm perfectly fine with being a possible designated auxiliary and instead forging on ahead again as a challenger, haha.

I'd be interested in making an Electric gym team, but one question, you haven't specified battle type. Can that be determined by gym leader?

Like Singles Doubles Triples? It's usually Singles unless there's some type of event.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame! I retract my interest. I needs my variety.

I could be one of hardest Gym leaders anyone could battle, even Reun and Ayun had trouble battling me during the tournament. What do u guys think?

Oooh, I wanna battle you! I was the previous 8th gym leader, but I still believe I suck as a battler. :P I owe it to luck. I'm pretty sure you have strategy.

Sure i'll battle ya. I'll grab a new team to use and see whats happens. I'll be online in-game in about 15-20mins ok.

I second this notion. Kakashi definitely has the skill and experience to handle himself as a Gym Leader.

The only hard part this will be, is it depends on what type to choose from (or whats left), squeezeing in fillers, and handling 3-4 pokemon of the one type with my fillers. But other wise as what Ayun said.

I've been throwing around the idea of using a tournament to determine our gym leaders and using the results of that to decide the eligible members.

That sounds like it could work, but will we still be using the same rules from our recent tournament? or a whole new set of rules?

It'll probably just be an OU tournament to determine everyone's skill level. We're still not sure how to go about choosing members. Tournaments are tricky because not everyone might be available on the tournament date.

I'm up for that! As I said earlier, my speciality would be the Water type!

I kinda like this idea, but I would support a kind of modification from the site's typical tournaments. Single-elimination may be a bit too harsh as a way of ruling out potential Gym Leaders, as battles can be won and lost over something as fickle as a missed Air Slash. Perhaps everyone in the tourney could be randomly assigned to 5 other battlers, and those with the most wins get Gym spots? Just a little brainstorming, since measuring battling capabilities is not easiest. :P

Can I ask what the requirements would be for a team?

No Ubers, obviously. How many of your type would be needed? Would the rest of the team have to fit the type?

Like, maybe Vileplume for a Dark team.

I was thinking of some kind of point system. Everyone has to battle every other participant (or maybe just the ones in the same division) and earns points based on how the battle ended. Of course, there are a few major problems with this whole idea.

First off, the Fire gym leader has a good chance of sweeping the Grass gym leader, but Fighting gym leader probably has it tough against the Psychic gym leader. Therein is the problem: due to the representation of types, the teams may have inherent weaknesses that make such a tournament useless at determining eligibility.

Second, a player could easily lose due to a fluke or string of bad luck. Losing due to paralysis kicking in more than the statistical average certainly can't be seen as the same as losing due to poor move selections on your Pokémon (such as a Charizard boasting Fire Blast, Fire Spin, Overheat, and Flamethrower).

The arbiter will still need to analyze teams so they're up to snuff before inducting anyone into the Victory Road Gym League.


Edit: Team requirements would likely ban all Über-tier Pokémon and follow most other Smogon guidelines for Overused. I'd like for teams to have at least four Pokémon that share the representative type, but that could lead to the aforementioned sweeping problem. Any less than two would probably lead to an undistinguishable type. Hm, maybe the gym leader would have to use his type as the most representative (i.e. no other type can have more or the same number of representatives than the gym type)?

When thinking of the possible tourney, I thought that it may be a good idea to use standard OU teams. Obviously, this means that players will need to raise more Pokemon than if they were just making a Gym Team, which is the main drawback of this idea, but constructing and using regular teams would eliminate the dangers of type advantages.

If that doesn't work, perhaps the point system you brought up could be adjusted to account for type match-ups. For example, if a Fire team beat an Ice team, the winner may receive fewer points than if they had beat a Water team. Obviously this could get pretty complicated and possibly unbalanced (a Rock trainer could score lots of points if she were to beat a Water, Grass, Steel, and Ground team while a Dragon trainer can only win big by beating a Fairy or Ice team), but it may be worth looking into.

One would also need concrete methods of awarding points, which could prove troublesome. Though awarding more points to trainers who lose fewer Pokemon seems like a good idea initially, it ruins teams who use certain strategies, like suicide leads or Memento, Explosion, or Healing Wish users.

So yeah, a little complicated to determine a good method, but brainstorming never hurts.

A round robin tourney? I like the sound of that!

I think having 3 pokemon of your gym type sounds better. We had this before i think back in 4th gen times (or was 5th gen?) Cause i was thinking of a team idea for a gym team using 4 mons of your type, and i couldnt really think of good coverage to deal with the types that would win. But with 2-3 it makes it better to get good coverage in for your team.

If we're doing a tournament to decide things, then a round-robin style one would probably be most accurate and fair, though type advantages are always going to be a factor.

As for teams, if a gyms going to be representing a type, personally I can't really see that if they don't have 4 Pokemon of that type present, otherwise that's kinda pushing it. Having 2 'mons that aren't that type to keep competitive and not blown over so easily seems quite reasonable to me, though.

I'll start really making a competitive team to at least challenge this gym when pokebank comes out... I cba to do it now :<

This post will, unfortunately, serve as my resignation from the League.

I've had fun being a Leader, and would very much love to mold an even better team (though granted, I personally think the first Gym should be at least a little easy ;) ), but I will sadly be very busy this coming New Year.*
At some point, I should be able to mingle around a little more and become a Challenger; but I will not be able to devote enough time (that I deem ample) to try for a new Leader position.

I hope you guys have lots of fun setting up/conducting the "once again new" League. ^-^

*By busy, I literally mean busy: College (finally), Work (including a Council there), Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Planning Committee, Moving in July, Family, other personal needs/wants, etc. ^^'

I might as well announce this now so I can give people enough time to plan. Sign-Ups for the VRGL will open up this Saturday/Sunday. (depends when I get home)

Also, be sure to look out for a Gen 6 OU tournament coming out at around Christmas.