Unfinished Draft - Checks and Counters PR

There are two ways that the Threats Discussion step can harm or fail to contribute to the process:

1. We choose too few, too many, or a poor combination of counters.
2. The conclusion of the Threats Discussion is ignored and the thread ultimately rendered irrelevant.

The Threats Discussion is the only step in the process that even has the potential for the second of these concerns because it's the only one that doesn't draw definitive, binding conclusions. The Concept Assessment explicitly states how we are to accomplish our concept. The Typing Discussion produces a slate and ultimate a part of the Pokemon, as do the Stats, Movepool, and two Ability stages. The Threats Discussion, partially by design and partially by our culture, is not treated with the same respect. We exit that discussion knowing that the Topic Leader's conclusion is open to interpretation and that the final threat list will likely differ from the Threats Discussion's conclusion in some way.

For example, Cawmodore's final threat list includes Jirachi, Heatran and Magnezone as Pokemon that should defeat Cawmodore. Note that the list does not list those three as revenge killers/switch-ins during a BD, but as hard stops to Cawmodore. In reality, all three of those Pokemon are Drain Punch fodder. Cawmodore beats the most common sets on two of those three Pokemon one-on-one. Cawmodore beats literally every Magnezone set in the game after a Belly Drum. Cawmodore beats every non-Scarf Heatran and just about every relevant Jirachi set. It's safe to say that during Cawmodore's process, the Threats Discussion was little more than an afterthought. The pace at which we ignored it is jarring as well. During Stats, we deemed it acceptable to outspeed Scarf magnezone. During Secondary Ability, we deemed it acceptable to absorb the only moves that Magnezone can use to reliably defeat us. During movepool, we deemed it acceptable to restore gigantic quantities of our health against all three of those Pokemon as well as Skarmory (who lost to Cawmodore 1v1 and could only serve as a one-time check), the Pokemon that was supposed to be a hard stop to Cawmodore.

That shit doesn't fly during Stat Limits/Stat Spread Submissions Movepool Limits/Movepool Submissions. Although I will admit that the definition of a check and counter varies between people (we have standards for checks and counters, but even those are open to interpretation) and that checks/counters are not as obvious as "This is the stat limit. Follow it or you're not slated.", the Checks and Counters process as a whole needs to be respected more.

In two of our past three projects, the Threats Discussion succumbed to the first of my concerns: . Although Cawmodore was an overall pretty successful project, the Threats Discussion was a complete mess. The discussion itself never matured from speculation to argument. That forced the TL to have to guess at the consensus that never formed during the thread. It's no wonder that the first two pages of Primary Ability largely consisted of (completely justified) complaints about the threat list. Cawmodore's threat list was eventually modified during Primary Ability (an unprecedented action at the time), and it's fair to say the threatlist modification might have saved the project. Aurumoth, the other recent CAP with a problematic Threats Discussion, ended up with a nebulous "we have no counters but lots of checks" conclusion that led to a Pokemon about as uncounterable as it gets. In Aurumoth's case, a formal Counters Discussion could have done our project a world of difference.