Like you did with your lucky Gym idea, base them off of battle mechanics. Take gimmicks to their logical extremes. I could see a Gym with longevity as the theme. Recycling good items, healing moves, status effects that waste the player's turns, Drain tanking + Block/Mean Look, etc.
oh the memories
let's get a team going
blissey with the same moves (softboiled > recover),
pain split-recycle-softboiled-block leppa mew,
wish-heal pulse-mean look-recycle gardevoir
any suggestions?
these sound like fun. i've made a little list of all the suggestions i've gotten and my own ideas.
here's what else i have so far
>Elite Four use four different weather teams. - not really sure about this for the elite four. one pokemon with air lock ruins it. maybe for a gym
>Have a "Stall" Gym where the trainers/leader focus on bulky Pokemon and Burn/Poison/Curse/Wrap-like moves.
Gym ideas:
>Stall Gym (Burn/Poison/Curse/Wrap-like moves) - this one seems pretty good
>Disguise Gym (Ditto, Zorua line, Rotom, Mimikyu, Voltorb line, etc.) - there's not really much of a gimmick to this one.
>Momentum Gym (focus on moves like Rollout, Fury Cutter, Echoed Voice, etc. Leader's Pokemon all hold a Metronome) - another one i like, maybe add an accuracy boost/evasion dropping move for added
>Powerup Gym (trainers all use a variety of buffing moves; leader's team consists of 3 Baton Passers with different buffs, Focus Sashes, and a sweeper, with the goal being to stop the "runner" before it reaches the "goal", or at least eliminate the "baton"; could possibly have a racing theme to keep in line with the Baton Pass gimmick of the leader, and how well Speed Boost would fit on a generic trainer here) - i like this one a lot
>PP Gym (Pressure, Spite, and Grudge, plus defensive moves like Protect/Detect; could possibly also work as a trainer or two/a Pokemon for the leader of the Stall Gym) - definitely ties in with the stall gym but its interesting
>Mirror Gym (have it be the final gym; game records your team at each Gym clear - each trainer uses a level-scaled version of your team at the time you cleared the gym, with proper evolutions and natural moves replaced with later natural moves; Gym Leader copies your team exactly) - could be interesting, but difficult to make
>Drain/heal Gym (drains hp, focus on healing and high hp-based attacks) - similar to the stall gym, but the high hp/hp based attacks definitely separate them
>6 Imposter Ditto with different items. - they'd all just appear as dittos
>A Gym that uses random teams for each trainer and the gym leader, you will not know the strategy that the gym leader will use until you fight him and it will change every time - running a randomizer basically. don't like this one much. Randomness tends to make the games far too easy to cheat, just keep reloading the save until you get a weak enemy team.
>Trick Room Gym: - would need more to it than just trick room
>Setup Gym: anything with Dragon Dance or Double Team should work - similar to the powerup gym, minus the baton passing. One one hand, it'd be easier for the gym leader, he wouldnt be entirely screwed when the baton passer dies, but on the other, it keeps from supercharging the pokemon which is the main gimmick to the powerup.
>TM Gym: all pokemon use movesets entirely comprised of tm/hm/egg/tutor moves, nothing learned from level up. - Trainer really can't prepare for this one, definitely an idea for later in game
> Double battle only gym: - not quite what i was thinking. its a little bland.
>Gym where a random weather effect is automatically set up at the start of each battle. Gym leader has 4 different teams tailored for any type.: - its not bad but i dunno about this one. maybe if we added attacks that benefit, e.g. thunder with rain dance, solar beam with sunny day, etc.