Since Pokemon X/Y is coming out in a little over a week, there's been a lot of buzz vibrating in the aether about the franchise, and it's inspired me, in several ways. There was a little overlap with Persona 4, thanks to picking up the series at the convention, but as I was chatting with myf riend over the conceptualization of Personamon, I thought I might as well go ahead and do something that's been done on the net already. Just because it's been done though, doesn't mean that it isn't still worth doing for ourselves. I figured this would make a good little thing to toss around as a light filler for dead days on the M:EMblr.*

So, the premise is thus... Your spark has just awakened! Professor Urza says it's dangerous though, so you should take a pokemon to summon if you run into any planeswalker duels!
The entire thing is supposed to be a first person glance into what Dominia would look like if it ran on pokemon rules, right down to gym leaders, which happen to be planeswalkers we are familiar with. This is mostly a place for us to kick around the ideas and just kind of goof off.

I feel like a lot of the gym leaders would be pretty easy to nail down, Jace for Psychic, Chandra for Fire, Liliana for Dark (or Ghost), Sarkhan for Dragon, Ral for Electric, etc etc, but there are some others that are a little more peculiar to translate. Even then, we have a lot more Walkers than we have gym availabilities. So, thought I would let the public kick around who has earned a spot for a gym and all.

I'd appreciate though, if you didn't just list dump everything, but just offer your one by one opinion on what you think. Once we get all that out of the way, we can talk pokemon teams for the walkers. Sehr gut?

*Probably going to do some amusing pictures of the walkers using the pokemon trainer sprites to go along with it. And badge designs likely.

Oh I remember this:





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I'm suggesting Tamiyo to take in the FAIRY slot.

Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure what that's meant to be, so I'm going to assume it's a monster version of Chandra. Which is quite a bit different than what I'm actually aiming for.

Fun idea! Koth seems like a pretty easy choice for a Rock/Ground gym.

Nissa for Plant/Poison

Kiora for water?

Garruk for ground.

Gideon for fighting?

I really don't know much about Pokémon.

Most importantly, even if we nail down our eight gym leaders....who are our elite four?

Bolas, with Dragon types?

Well, it'd be 4 of the higher profile/power pws, so I could see Nicol Bolas or Karn. Not really sure who else would fit. Speaking of which, Karn would be good for Steel type.

Assuming canonically dead 'walkers can only get side roles like Professor Urza... Well, the thing of the Elite Four seems to be that they a) have a theme type that's less common and b) follow theme less slavishly, in order to be tougher opponents. (Lance had an aerodactyl and Gyrados if I remember). Sooo, how about using former oldwalkers for the Elite Four?

Sorin Markov (Ghost)
Karn (Steel)
Liliana Vess (Dark)
Nicol Bolas (Dragon, of course)

I think I'd sooner flip Sorin and Liliana.
The only reason I'd be reticent about doing Liliana for the Elite Four is because it'd be so easy to design her badge.
Still, I think this'd be a rough group to marathon.

And Bolas can't be Dragon. Sarkhan's already taken that and run with it.

Would Bolas be the Rival then? Or given his minions Ramaz, Tezz, and Sarkhan, perhaps he's the leader of Dominia's resident "Team Whatever" baddies.

Hmm...

Well, there needs to be a champion for the Elite Four (Which technically makes it the Elite Five? I don't know.) Since the entire point of the Elite Four is to defeat the champion and became the new champion, it may be worth working out some way for Nicol Bolas to be the champion, and have four of his underlings be the Elite Four.

Tezzeret could be Steel, Sarkhan could be dragon... whatshisface from DOTP 2013 could be... something appropriately thematic? I should finish that game.

Anyway, we could do that, or go the way of the Red Version and have your long time rival be the champion by the time you "get" there. (Which didn't make any sense to me because you literally kicked your rival's ass at every interval the entire game and suddenly he's champion and wat.)

Which begs the question; who is your rival?

Anyway, looking at past members of the Elite Four, these seem to be the types to draw from: Dark, Ghost, Psychic, Dragon, Fighting, and Ice.

Interestingly, Generation IV broke the norm and had 3 out of 4 unconventional members of the Elite Four, with Bug, Ground, and Fire making up the first three match-ups. Psychic was defaulted too for the final one, however. Poison also appears when Koga takes the stage in Generation II. In any case, those types are mostly outliers, but there is nothing to say we can't use ANY type at all, really.

Aaanyway...

I think we are mis-categorizing Bolas if we just slap Dragon onto him and call it good. While Sarkhan is an obvious shoe in for the type, Bolas doesn't actually have all that much affinity with other Dragons. (Other than killing them.) I believe a diversity of Fire/Fighting(red), Psychic/Ghost(blue) and Dark/Poison(black) Pokemon would be more fitting for Bolas' roster. (With maybe a Dragon thrown in for good measure.) Perhaps an entire cast of dual-types that fit two of the types listed above? Houndoom, Chandelure, Sableye, Hydreigon, Drapion, Blaziken/Infernape/Emboar...

Really, I think Bolas would be less about the type and more about the usefulness of his... pets.

@Yxoque: That is a startlingly well placed type for Gideon. A++. Perhaps Fighting/Steel?

@Confused: Hmm... I'm not so sure about Ground for Garruk, though. He honestly seems like a trainer that would eschew pokemon "training" in the conventional sense and just live with his pokebuddies in the wild. He may be better types as Grass, but only really use the burly ones. Grass/Ground? Grass/Normal?

Ehehe. Grass/Dark, yes. Because Liliana is a meanie.

...pretty sure I'm over-thinking all of this. All I know is that Ground i my favorite type and I would like to see it done justice. Mill_Crab probably has the poster boy for Ground nailed down in Koth, though. That's as solid a choice as you can get.

Let's see, in my brain world:

Gym Leaders
1st Gym (Garruk using Normal Type like Kangaskhan, Ursaring, Bouffalant, etc.)
2nd Gym (Nissa using Grass/Poison Type)
3rd Gym (Chandra using Fire Type)
4th Gym (Ral Zarek using Electric Type)
6th Gym (Koth using Ground Type and maybe a Magmar as a finisher.)
7th Gym (Liliana using Dark/Ghost Type)
8th Gym (Jace Beleren using Psychic Type)

Elite Four:
(Sorin Markov using Pokemon that specialize in sleep, drain, and confusion effects.)
(Karn using Steel Type)
(Tezzeret using pokemon that double as objects.)
(Nicol Bolas using Dragon Type)

EDIT: Both Gideon and Elspeth would run a non-badge fighting Gym where you earn a different fighting Pokemon depending on which one you fought.

Which is really what I think is likely.
Though in tradition's sake, I'm still of the opinion that your rival should be the champion. Of course, you name your rival. Let's just say he/she'd be the first walker you cross and be unbearably smarmy because you don't know what happened. I mean, isn't it obvious, you're a planeswalker, geez. And they've been doing it for a while now and clearly so much better than you are at it.

Gyms don't do twin types, just something to consider for everyone suggesting more. We HAVE to nail down what their type, not what their overlap would be.
Garruk really doesn't have anything to do with grass types. If that were going to go to anyone, that'd likely be Nissa. I support the Ground type for Garruk though, because the ground types were usually the tough tanky beasts, like Rhyhorn.


Koth really goes more for Rock types, with some bit of the overlap into ground and steel, but rock would be his primary type I should think.
And his star would be Steelix!

My split suggestions are more of an "or" and less of an "and" though there are plenty of Pokemon that double up in those types.

Okay, to go through everything we have so far (In no particular order):
Solid:
Jace: Psychic
Chandra: Fire
Ral: Electric
Sarkhan: Dragon
Gideon: Fighting
Kiora: Water
Koth: Ground (since there's so much overlap with rock and steel by nature, this does let us hit all those for his team.)
Liliana: Ghost
Sorin: Dark
Karn: Steel

Undecided:
Elspeth: Fighting or Flying?
Nissa: Grass or Poison?
Garruk: Normal, Fighting, or Ground?
Tamiyo: Fairy? Dunno, it's still too new.

Not touched:
Tibalt: ????
Domri: Half tempted to stick Bug on him
Tezzeret: Steel is the only thing that really fits, but it's probably best to just... not use him.
Ajani: Normal maybe?
Ashiok: Dark/Psychic. Hve to dual type him, which pretty much disqualifies him.
Xenagos: ????
Vraska: ????

Non-gym associated:
Bolas. Because we'd need a Team Rocket.
Probably drop Tezzeret in for this as well.

Garruk normal imo.
Elspeth can take flying
Vraska poison
Nissa grass
Tamiyo getting fairy is fine.

Domri, tibalt, tezz, ajani, xenagos: no clue atm