Gen 6 np: XY Ubers Gengarite Suspect Test - In The Shadows [READ POST #71]

[Inspirited]

I'm responding to just this part since it summarizes your post, but correct me if I'm wrong.[...]

I would suggest reading this paragraph of my post at least:

[...]The problem with Gengarite and Shadow Tag is that everything that takes place and directly involves them is completely in the hands of the players. The RNG has no say in the team match-ups and the way the match-up executed. We are dealing with new reasoning in "<suspect> greatly amplifies the importance of team match-up" if I read all of your posts correctly (apologies if I didn't). This is competing with strategies that are almost all RNG based, have had extreme over-centralization issues (and I mean EXTREME x_x), and a strategy that FORCES a forfeit from one of the two players if executed correctly. The most comparable reasoning is the reasoning that banned the endless battle strategy, but they are still for from comparable. The reasoning for Endless Battle Clause was also very well accepted among very experienced players. This is not the case here at all which raises the question: Does this reasoning warrant a ban on Gengarite or even Shadow Tag as a whole? Myself, I think that a large split and that it is sitting right on the blurred line between uncompetitive and unbalanced is enough proof to show that it isn't.

I didn't put a Tl;Dr next to my ending statement because I felt that it didn't summarize my thoughts and reasoning well enough. In short though, I just don't think amplifying team match-up matches the extremities of any previous ban from Ubers. Like I said in the paragraph, the closest clause to these potential bans is Endless Battle Clause. This strategy accelerated any match into an endgame that would never end, meaning the only way out was a timeout or a forfeit from one of the two players since it stopped all switching and made sure no play could be made if used correctly. This is the extremity that banned the endless battle strategy. Shadow Tag does not do this to a game and allows a match to continue once the Shadow Tag user faints, or the victim faints meaning there is no pseudo-endgame involved. Where Shadow Tag and the endless battle strategy are similar is their issue on team match-up. Endless battle preyed on stall and balance much easier than hyper offense since the infamous Funbro could trap support Arceus-Water, -Rock, -Fairy, Hippowdon, Blissey, Stalltwo, Klefki, Heatran etc. and begin its pseudo-endgame. Shadow Tag users (primarily Gothitelle) also prey on stall and balance, but this is where the similarities end. These Pokemon open up a window for a sweeper, which is far less extreme than ending the game all together. The game is not over when the Mega Gengar removes what it needs to (or doesn't), the sweeper still needs to be brought in safely and be able to set up what it needs to in order for the game to end. We are essentially lowering the bar on what we ban which is something that I am uneasy about voting for.

[...]I feel that your are missing the point of the team match-up issue. The point is that it eclipses the importance of skill, just like excessive luck, hence making it uncompetitive. Luck and team match-up are both inherent variables in deciding Pokemon battles. That doesn't mean they are inherently bad, and they're not as long as skill is still what primarily decides the fate of a game. But what Shadow Tag does it that it makes team matchup more important than skill. When other variables start becoming more important than skill, that's where the metagame stops being competitive.[...]

All it does is make skill much more important for the person facing Shadow Tag if there is a bad match-up against them. The same can be said for Stall vs a monstrous Stall-breaker such as Stalltwo or Calm Mind Refresh / Substitute Arceus formes. Beating the match-up is not unheard of, and it relies on skill in high stakes situations. I have been teaching myself how to draw out and trace a person's play style well enough to harass Shadow Tag teams even when the match-up is not favorable whatsoever. You are right about Shadow Tag shifting the balance of skill, but it doesn't entirely eclipse it at all. Where you say that team match-up is more important than skill, I say (for now) that team match-up amplifies the importance of skill for the person with the least favorable odds.

Wanted to make a longer post but I keep losing power. ;[

Please do make it longer when you can, I am interested in reading it.

 

[C AllStar]

As a stall player primarily, I obviously hated Mega Gengar (actually I hate goth more but it isn't the suspect now) as well as Shadow Tag. In my opinion, Shadow Tag is the core of the problem rather than Mega Gengar so I will mainly talk about Shadow Tag here rather than the suspect.

Shadow Tag is uncompetive. Unlike previous causes like OHKO and Swagger, ther isn't luck involved in it. The main problem is Shadow Tag makes matches being matchup reliant to the extreme. This makes players with lower skill level having a higher chance to win against more skillful players if team matchup is favourable. Like Melee Mewtwo have said previously, two Shadow Tag teams fighting each other is basically based on whose sweeper's check is less and easier for Mega Gengar to remove. For example, Team A's main sweeper is GeoXern and Team B's check to it is Kelfki while Team B's main sweeper is Ekiller and Team A has Landorus-T and Mega Scizor to check it. Both teams have Mega Gengar to clear the path for the sweepers. Just from the start, Team B has a much easier time since the team just need to remove Klefki for a GeoXern sweep while Team A need to remove or severely weaken Landorus-T and Mega Scizor in order to sweep with ekiller. It is even more difficult for Team A if Team B also packs something like U-turn Klefki, making predictions even harder for Team A. Team A is forced to make more 5050 predicts in order to save Klefki from being trapped as well as preventing Xern to get any set up opportunites in all cost. With such restrictions, even Team B is used by a worse player than that of Team A's, Team B still has a better chance of winning.

I recognize that Shadow Tag is something that actually takes skill to use. It isn't anything brainless like Moody that with luck, even the most skillful player can be fucked up. However, there is a similarity between them. Moody allows players with little to no skill to beat skillful players through luck. For Shadow Tag, it allows players with lower skill level to beat players with higher skill level as long as the team matchup is favourable. Unlike other team matchup issues, the unfavourable team matchup cannot or at least extremely hard to be remedied through skill level or team structure. Once trapped by Mega Gengar (Shadow Tag), the option of switching is lost, forcing the player to face an unfavourable matchup and have their key member removed. By such, people with lower skill level can easily gain control of the game when team matchup is in their favor.

I hate people saying that Ubers is a banlist and people should only adapt rather than complain (btw, this is the same argument that appears in every suspect discussion especially in PO). Ubet WAS created as a banlist at first. However, the playerbase of Ubers kept on growing and had slowly developed into a competitive tier. I respect the original nature of Ubers and agree that bans in Ubers should be minimized and broken shouldn't be a reason for banning. However, Ubers is now a competitive tier with huge player base. As a competitive tier, things that a considered uncompetitve should be banned. What makes Shadow Tag uncompetitive is how it makes battles being virtually Rock, Paper, Scissors. It isn't THAT extreme but if you have an unfavourable matchup against a Shadow Tagger, you are forced to risk 5050s every turn you are using the mon that is prone to be trapped and the 5050 is totally favoured tk your opponent. That takes away the concept of good teambuilding (not entirely since some matchups are neutral while too bad teams are obviously not going to win) and makes every battle a wild guess on what the next opponent is using. This is what makes Shadow Tag unhealthy for the tier.

Currently, I am using a stall team with Ho-oh, Rhyperior, Gastrodon, Poisonceus, Chansey and Spiritomb. Spiritomb is the obscure shit I used it order to trap the shadow taggers. However, despite 'adapting' to it, my team still faces the problem of having unfavourable matchup against Shadow Taggers as shown from the following replays.


http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uberssuspecttest-145625143

In this game, my stall team faces a joke team with all three shadow taggers. Despite facing a joke team, my stall team has an extremely hard time due to bad matchup. I risked 6 5050s in the first 6 turns in order to get Gothitelle removed. However, the threat of Wobuffet and Mega Gengar is still there. With the help of Wobuffet, Mega Gengar had an easy chance to mega evolve. While I immediately switched in my Infiltrator Spiritomb which is a guarantee trap against most Mega Gengar sets, my opponent surprised me by using SubDisable Perish Song Gengar, which escapes from Spiritomb. Fortunately, later of the game I actually guessed right and trapped the Mega Gengar for the win. Even though I have won the match, the bad team matchup forced me to beat numerous 5050s unfavourable to me, giving me a much lower chance to win the match regardless of skill level.


http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uberssuspecttest-145702148

This match features me vs mm2, which uses Gothitelle in his team. Early in the match, I was forced to make predicts for the potential goth trap. Ultimately, mm2 used this as an advantage and worn down my Spiritomb and killed my Poisonceus. My Chansey is trapped and killed as well. If it wasn't mm2 choked for some reason and some hax towards the end, I won't be winning this matchup.

This are my two cents on the issue. Though I think that Shadow Tag is the core of the uncompetitive problem, Mega Gengar is part of the Shadow Tag issue too. While the one turn of Mega Evolving can be played around, this isn't that easy in practise due to Mega Gengar's incredible verstility. The current Ubers metagame is too matchup reliant and takes away skill from the game. If losing the team matchup, you need to win numerous 5050s as shown from the replays above to have a chance to win. I would say that Gengarite (Shadow Tag) is uncompetitive and deserves to be banned from Ubers.

 

[shrang]

Yes that shows why a poor player with shadow tag might lose in a reasonably favourable matchup, HOWEVER what if the player doesn't misuse it? At the top level of play, versus someone who knows how to use shadow tag, you cannot play around it or outsmart someone over it unless the matchup is favourable for you, even if both sides are using shadow tag. What you're saying doesn't hold water since it relies on the player being incapable of using their tools, which is a blatantly stupid assumption.

I know you are not making this argument directly, but I find it incredibly annoying when people make absolute arguments for things like this. It's postulated that in two player of same skill and those who don't misplay and if they're both using Shadow Tag, then the person with the favourable team matchup will always win. The problem with that assumption is that you've found something to blame and you're already attributing anything to that already. I was against this back in BW1/BW2 OU with all the "Drizzle makes team matchup unbearable" thing because the game is not just about all that. If you fall into that mentality that every time you see an unfavourable matchup you tell yourself you're going to lose because of it and there's no way to reverse it no matter how well you play, you've already beaten yourself. In reality, it's very different from that. Yes, I won't deny that it will be more difficult for you to pull off a win, but is it really guaranteed that you would lose? If you think that, you're a pessimist at best and a self-deluding fool at worst. Many things can happen in a game, and you can still have a shot at making some amazing predictions and simply outplay them. I know you all hate my IRL examples and I know I've made this comparison before, but consider Roger Federer vs Rafael Nadal during their rivalry before Djokovic and friends came along. Federer was easily the best all-round player, but Nadal had one thing that fucked him up a lot, which was his massive top-spinning lefties forehand into his weakest side, his backhand side. Nadal was like a counterteam to Federer, if you will. It gave him a huge advantage, and most people of the time where Federer lost during that time, at least in Grand Slams, was to Nadal. However, did Federer just throw down his racquet and beat himself every time he played Nadal? No, he went out and played Nadal like a professional instead of calling for "omg fuck lefties ban them". He won quite a lot of matches against Nadal too, even on clay, despite the disadvantage that he had to face. So tl;dr, just because you have a disadvantageous team matchup and you both have Shadow Tag, you're only guaranteed to lose if you tell yourself that.

 

[RufflesPro]

I think Mega Gengar is ban-worthy

You can't say something isn't banworthy because you can use it yourself, so we don't ban Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Lucario from OU because you can you use it yourself? OK let's put Shaymin-Sky in OU and it's not broken simply because everybody can use it, not really it doesn't work that way; it never did.

Mega Gengar is extremely good in the current metagame, at least knocking out 1 pokemon of the opposing team, with Mega Gengar you can choose what pokemon(s) you want to knock out, which means basically it can potentially be the only pokemon that can stop Xerneas sweeping on the opposing team [Say Scizor or Arceus-Poison] simply by Taunt, Destiny Bond, amazing coverage, amazing speed, and amazing typing

Think about it, you want your EKiller to sweep even stall teams? Slap Mega Gengar with the standard set of Shadow Ball / Sludge Bomb / Taunt / Destiny Bond and you basically just got rid of Giratina, Skarmory, and Quagsire - all of which EKiller can't kill (well unless overheat vs. skarmory) without even having to sacrificing your Gengar and then you can D-Bond on Scizor or Hippo to even further support EKiller in sweeping.

If Mega Gengar is played right, the score will become usually 5-4, losing only Mega Gengar to 2 pokes is common Mega Gengar can do it, but any decent player can make the score 5-5 with the most advantageous pokemon on the opponent's team lost.



IDK about Shadow Tag, shadow tag is extremely good, but not all pokemons using it are good, Mega Gengar is extremely good and so is Goth, but Wobbuffet isn't as good as the others and even with Shadow Tag doesn't deserve a ban IMO, Shadow tag is good, but it's more that users are good, Wynaut and Gothorita, for example, are not good users of Shadow Tag.

So I'm Pro-ban for Mega Gengar, but js if we ever do shadow tag probably not.

 

[Worthlessnoob]

I think Mega Gengar is ban-worthy

You can't say something isn't banworthy because you can use it yourself, so we don't ban Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Lucario from OU because you can you use it yourself? OK let's put Shaymin-Sky in OU and it's not broken simply because everybody can use it, not really it doesn't work that way; it never did.

Mega Gengar is extremely good in the current metagame, at least knocking out 1 pokemon of the opposing team, with Mega Gengar you can choose what pokemon(s) you want to knock out, which means basically it can potentially be the only pokemon that can stop Xerneas sweeping on the opposing team [Say Scizor or Arceus-Poison] simply by Taunt, Destiny Bond, amazing coverage, amazing speed, and amazing typing

Think about it, you want your EKiller to sweep even stall teams? Slap Mega Gengar with the standard set of Shadow Ball / Sludge Bomb / Taunt / Destiny Bond and you basically just got rid of Giratina, Skarmory, and Quagsire - all of which EKiller can't kill (well unless overheat vs. skarmory) without even having to sacrificing your Gengar and then you can D-Bond on Scizor or Hippo to even further support EKiller in sweeping.

If Mega Gengar is played right, the score will become usually 5-4, losing only Mega Gengar to 2 pokes is common Mega Gengar can do it, but any decent player can make the score 5-5 with the most advantageous pokemon on the opponent's team lost.



IDK about Shadow Tag, shadow tag is extremely good, but not all pokemons using it are good, Mega Gengar is extremely good and so is Goth, but Wobbuffet isn't as good as the others and even with Shadow Tag doesn't deserve a ban IMO, Shadow tag is good, but it's more that users are good, Wynaut and Gothorita, for example, are not good users of Shadow Tag.

So I'm Pro-ban for Mega Gengar, but js if we ever do shadow tag probably not.

This is an Ubers Suspect Test, not an OU one. Why do people keep posting evidence for Mega-Gengar being overcentralizing or too powerful when this is Ubers (a tier for the mons broken in standard play)?

 

[Haunted Diamond]

Mega gengar is by no means too powerful. Same obviously goes with goth. They just have a tool that takes real skill away from this game.
BTW, let's not forget that perish song gengar actually traps tyranitar...
Edit: Art Vandelay IMO The difference between kyogre and smash pass and shadow tag this gen is the fact that they had checks and counters, shadow tag doesn't.

 

[Edgar]

I personally think that the reason Gothitelle "hasn't made enough impact" in the Ubers metagame is because it is under Mega Gengar's Shadow (PUN ABSOLUTELY NOT INTENDED jajaja xD). It wouldn't surprise me if people started running Gothitelle more if Gengarite gets banned, Shadow Tag in general shares at least 1 purpose in some teams (At least from what I've seen): Trap certain pokemon so a certain strategy can achieve. Just a random example, if Mega Gengar gets banned, I can't trap Mega Scizor and kill it with Hidden Power Fire for my Xerneas to sweep anymore, except I can. How? Hmm maybe I can use Choice Specs Hidden Power Fire Gothitelle to trap and destroy Oo. I'm just saying, just because the mayority of the players aren't using Gothitelle or Wobbuffet, it doesn't mean that they're not as threatning as Mega Gengar. People will find ways to exploit what is left of a certain aspect of the game (look at Yu-Gi-Oh TCG, some decks are still played even though they get nerfed). Putting that aside, I'd say Gothitelle is more threatning than Mega Gengar, I stated my thoughts on that somewhere in page 3 so if you want you can look at them. And also, don't bring viability ranking stuff to a suspect test, they're irrelevant as it doesn't really show some mons' true potential.

 

[Art Vandelay]

1) I fear that inexperience / lack of knowledge will derail the topic and people will fail to realize why Gengarite is actually being reviewed here. Most anti-ban arguments are centered around this one ideology - "You can't ban things from Ubers".
2)This is a very big decision, and one that will make Ubers history, so I implore you all to make rational thoughts before making a decision like this if you can get the requirements.

1) - Whatever the inexperienced may say have no impact on the actual suspect test. The worst they can do is spam and they'll get their posts deleted.
- I would be wary of people making decisions by reading walls of text (not even questioning if the arguments are good or bad) instead of actually experience said issue while laddering. Once again, no one will "fail to realize" anything when they can either get curb stomped by the "match up dependance" (meaning they probably won't get reqs = no say on the test) or notice on their own.
- I agree on the anti-ban argument you mention not being reason enough, but I feel that, like yourself, many pro-ban users are not reading anything else from the other point of view. Match ups occur in every videogame in existance because nothing is made equal. Hell, even in sports (Pacers had a better matchup to Heat than say, OKC even though OKC was a better team overall than Pacers) you see stuff like that. RTS and fighting games have them too and every time an unfavorable matchup happens, sure one player will have the upper hand but it's not auto forfeit as people are implying here. If anything creates more matchup knowledge and the meta evolves from it (as people have been pointing out about players using trappers and M-Gengar re-adapting in turn using HP Fire and stuff like that). Shouldn't stall players adapt to lessen the negative impact of having Mega Gengar on the other team?

2) - Apparently the reqs are set so that not every random player gets to vote (key word: apparently). So that means these ppl are very capable of coming with a decision on their own (whatever that is).
- It seems some have preconceived ideas that aren't willing to change and for the sake of the suspect are just copy pasting teams (sigh what is this? OU?) to get the reqs. Good job there, the meta will sure become healthier with ppl like you

 

[MMII]

Reqs don't weed out bad players. They are just there to make sure you have a minimum understanding of the metagame and are willing to put in the effort to do what you think is right for the metagame. We know who the good players are, if we wanted to just poll them we would have. The whole point of this suspect test, which is actually unprecedented, is because Hugen doesn't feel comfortable making the decision alone and would rather have the community at large decide.

Emperor: These anecdote games don't show anything. (I'll address that indirectly later) Also, it was pointless to nitpick the Kyogre example. Yes, high level players can tell that's a Scarf Kyogre at team preview because there's a logic in teambuilding. Even if there was doubt, you never bring Goth in to check a healthy Kyogre like that. You trap it on Surf for the most part. (I've trapped on Spout before but I had a team that allowed me to do that) Seeing as how Player A needed to use Scarf Kyogre to win while Player B just needed to trap it, there's no worries about allowing Player A to take a kill so that Player B could take that game.

Shrang: You complained about some irrelevant OU examples that weren't involved in anybody's arguments and were only there because lazy copypasta citations yet you are now drawing a direct parallel to an OU example? Regardless, I've already shown how you can't compare the two when I provided a quick example on how when two teams played, one lost at team preview because of Shadow Tag and detailed how. The fact that you keep saying outplay Shadow Tag shows you have been completely missing the points of the pro-ban arguments. I'm going to try to rehash the pro-ban arguments for extra clarity later on in this post.

RE: Git Gud - Please, stop using this argument and its variants. It's very easy to throw out baseless criticisms of not having adapted or being a bad teambuilder and then leave it to others to answer to them. If you want to make these sort of arguments; give us specific examples of teams that adapted, ways you can outplay Shadow Tag, etc.

RE: Tag isn't luck based and without precedent - First of all, not every existing clause ban a luck based element. Sleep Clause is an excellent example. No, it was not banned because of Sleep Talk rolls and Darkrai speed ties, although that certainly adds to things. If that were the case, sleep would have been outright removed. Instead, we limited sleep to only one Pokemon at a time because there's strategic value to the status. (plus tradition) Sleep Clause exists because unlimited sleep is overbearing, skill-less, and lacks true counterplay. I'm not going to repeat why Lum Berry and Sleep Talk weren't legitimate answers, you can look at the old clause testing thread in Cold Storage for that.

Secondly, Shadow Tag is luck based. Team Matchup is pure luck and hoping you get the better dice roll on that is what high level Ubers has degraded to. You've got plenty of examples for that. It may not be the chance generated by the game itself but it's still chance.

Thirdly, we don't clause luck elements because they are luck elements. Hell, we'll even intentionally embrace luck to a certain degree - see Characteristics of an Ideal Metagame. There's a fundamental reason behind why we target these specific luck elements and that's because they remove the power of choice from the player. This is the same problem that exists with Shadow Tag.

To illustrate how silly it is to be looking at Ubers so superficially, I'm going to use the Jibaku Thought Experiment.

Suspend reality for a second and imagine Game Freak made a Pokemon who only had one ability. Imagine that, that ability made it to where if the opposing team had any Pokemon Smogon considered Uber, you automatically won the game. The Pokemon itself didn't have anything particularly broken about it for the OU metagame so it was never banned to Ubers, either.

What would you do? Would you ban the ability and thus a Pokemon?

The whole point of this thought experiment is to examine what you truly hold as the fundamental principle of the Ubers metagame. Would you ban the Pokemon so that there was an actual competitive metagame that people could enjoy? Or would you stick to the don't-ban-any-Pokemon philosophy and leave Ubers to becoming OU (and likely to be removed from tournament play)? Or would you justify the no ban because the Pokemon's ability isn't luck based?

Anyways, back to actual arguments.

RE: Stop using stall - This kinda falls under the "git gud" BS but I want to single it out. Being able to use "stall" isn't what pro-ban users are arguing (the ones who are, are stupid). Secondly, Shadow Tag users can still create match ups that can not be won against "offense". I'd elaborate but "offense" can mean just about anything since these terms are so vague and shitty. Also, there's more to it than just showing some team that Gothitelle doesn't destroy so which I'll elaborate on shortly.

RE: Hugen's point - Shadow Tag clause isn't about being too strong, the fact that people think this is what is the issue shows I really need to try to clarify things. Also, that was directed at things like GeoXern. The fact this suspect test is happening shows, at the very least, that hugen himself is willing to consider the possibility of Shadow Tag being more than just "too strong".

RE: Hack's team - Sub Gengar obliterates that. P sure old Gengar can just Focus Blast once it's in on Arceus-Grass and you can't do a thing. Gothitelle + Specs Kyogre is next to impossible to win as well since you just need to trap Grass Arceus. Wobbuffet can use Arceus Grass to give free setup to Ekiller which then sweeps the team, lol.

RE: It takes skill to use Tag - It takes skill to use Moody if you switch it out after getting boosts or, more realistically, don't know how to start SubProtect cycles. It takes skill to use OHKO if you try using it on a mon that outspeeds and OHKOs you. It takes skill to use sleep if you click sleep on a mon that's already sleeping over and over. So on so forth. Point is, you can't use the argument that you can play sub optimally to say that an element is skill based. Surprise shit can fuck you over if you tried abusing any other currently claused element as well. This isn't even really addressing the core issue with Shadow Tag because it's not about Shadow Tag being a "win button".

Okay, so now I will elaborate what is wrong with Shadow Tag.

Yes, Shadow Tag has very effective users and is extremely powerful
Yes, Shadow Tag is overcentralizing
Yes, Shadow Tag invalidates, to an extent, some team archetypes
Yes, Shadow Tag lets lesser players beat better players
Yes, Shadow Tag massively amplifies the team matchup factor
Yes, a solid team with Shadow Tag is overall better than a solid team without Shadow Tag

and if Shadow Tag were only these things we wouldn't be here discussing the possibility of banning it. What is fundamentally wrong with Shadow Tag, what makes it unbearable in a competitive metagame, is that Shadow Tag removes the power of choice from the player by removing his/her ability to switch, the tool of skill and depth in this game, when it traps a Pokemon. There is no arguing this point. There is no pro-skill button that you can press to get out of these situations. You can only hope you don't run into it. That fact alone would be grounds for banning it.

At least it would be if this were OU. As demonstrated by Evasion Clause testing, philosophy alone is not enough to ban an element from Ubers. There needs to be a practical application of this broken element that shows it does have an actual, realistic impact on the metagame. That's where the earlier 6 facts come in. That's also why we aren't starting with a Shadow Tag suspect test. Until this test, it was widely considered that only Gengar had that actual, realistic impact on the metagame. That opinion seems to have changed now, which will set us up nicely for step two and shows that this two-step process was a good idea.

This is fine all these earlier arguments don't show anything. Yes, you have established that Shadow Tag isn't an auto-win button. Yes, you have shown that some teams are less Shadow Tag weak than others. Yes, you have proven that in certain matchups you can potentially play around, but not against, Shadow Tag.

But you have still all granted that Shadow Tag has an actual and realistic impact on the metagame. You have also failed to refute the point that when you do enter Shadow Tag trap situations, which has been established to be quite often, the victim can not make any choice that would allow him to escape it.

It's why I was called boring when I trapped some poor kid's Chansey with Gothitelle. Those insults were an expression of the powerlessness of the player and the lack of enjoyment as a result. We play this game to enjoy ourselves.

The strongest argument I have seen against Shadow Tag clause is that all of this is simply not enough. I disagree. When a SPL manager has no reason to spend an extra half K on Dice over myself in an auction because both of us are capable of building a Shadow Tag team to cheese the other at Team Preview, we have a problem. When people can no longer enjoy themselves because they can only mindlessly click buttons while the opposing player remains in full control of their Pokemon with a Shadow Tag abuser, like Gothitelle, we have a problem.

So yes, I would vote to ban Jibaku's hypothetical ability and thus a Pokemon along with it. I will do the same with Shadow Tag and I hope I'm not the only one.

 

[Hack]

I agree with mm2 for the most part but

RE: Hack's team - Sub Gengar obliterates that. P sure old Gengar can just Focus Blast once it's in on Arceus-Grass and you can't do a thing. Gothitelle + Specs Kyogre is next to impossible to win as well since you just need to trap Grass Arceus. Wobbuffet can use Arceus Grass to give free setup to Ekiller which then sweeps the team, lol.

most of these examples are plain wrong. one free ekiller set up doesn't beat the team, i have triple checks for a reason. Gengar can focus blast, but has to hit twice in a row if it predicts the switch in (49 % chance) and often win a 50-50 between me crunching or pursuiting. Sub gengar is a non issue as sand residual damage, coupled with any chip damage (let's say gengar switches in on a resisted judgment, loses 35 %) makes sub impractical to use lol. often you waste too much damagebesides sub is overhyped af and only really worth it on perish sets. i see its uses but afaic giving up 25 % of your health can be really detrimental on gengar as it needs as much hp as it can have. i believe taunt+dbond is so much more useful for plenty reasons.

specs ogre+goth is hard to refute but it mostly is based on how healthy kyogre is, being at full health is of course problematic. remember that goth can't trap both grassceus and blissey.

I still disagree but not gonna elaborate since it's not a point that is really relevant to core discussion. ~MM2

PS: I still think this two-step process is shit

 

[Asmodean]

Just my random thoughts:
I did not think that banning stuff is a very Ubers-y thing to do seeing as it is a tier where people can use whatever stuff deemed to be broken by lower tiers. I am still vacillating between an anti-ban and pro-ban attitude regarding Gengarite in particular, and Shadow Tag in general. Mega-Gengar has helped me win numerous matches, but it does take skill to use properly, has to win 50-50's and has poor defenses that compromise it's longevity. Granted that it is very good at doing it's job, but so are various other pokemon.
I also found pokemon like Gothitelle and Wobbuffet intensely annoying and downright dangerous if played well, but I still hesitate to call them 'uncompetitive' despite some excellent explanations given above. If asked to vote right now, I would be against banning Gengarite, but there is still almost a month left for it and my view may change.

PS: I just completed the reqs using this team if anyone wants to use it: http://pastebin.com/Hq49dEF7

 

[Laurel]

Banning Shadow Tag is overkill, the problem is not Shadow Tag the problem is Mega Gengar. Mega Gengar has offensive utility and speed that has never before been seen on a Shadow Tag Pokemon.

• If you have Geomancy Xerneas use Mega Gengar to trap Scizor or Klefki.
• If you have Scarf Kyogre, use Mega Gengar to weaken Palkia.
• If you have Extreme Speed Arceus use Mega Gengar to weaken Groudon and Hippowdon or kill Tyranitar.
• If you have Geo Xern, Scarf Kyogre, and EKiller Arceus, use Mega Gengar to kill any of those checks to sweep.

Mega Gengar is very uncompetitive. Currently, I see no reason to not use Mega Gengar on every balance or offensive team. I'd estimate about 90% of the time it traps and kills at least one Pokemon, and more often than not two. Mega Gengar strategy: Kill Pokemon X, Destiny Bond Pokemon Y. Then because theres so much other overpowered things in Ubers (but that's why it's fun) and it's close to impossible to run two checks to Arceus and two checks to Xerneas, bring in one of those Pokemon, press the set up move, then sweep. Mega Gengar is brain dead as heck to use, and it removes most strategy from the game...

No Shadow Tag makes stall a little stupid broken :{|}, it's already good with Mega Gengar, imagine it without Shadow Tag. However, I do support a Mega Gengar ban additionally because it allows for more freedom making stall builds which I think is healthy for the metagame. Shed Shell Blissey goml...

 

[shrang]

Oooooooookay, let's look at this

Emperor: These anecdote games don't show anything.

Aren't you using replays as your evidence as well? Sure, I'll grant you they are of higher quality since they come from elite tournament games, but they're still anecdotes regardless.

Shrang: You complained about some irrelevant OU examples that weren't involved in anybody's arguments and were only there because lazy copypasta citations yet you are now drawing a direct parallel to an OU example? Regardless, I've already shown how you can't compare the two when I provided a quick example on how when two teams played, one lost at team preview because of Shadow Tag and detailed how. The fact that you keep saying outplay Shadow Tag shows you have been completely missing the points of the pro-ban arguments. I'm going to try to rehash the pro-ban arguments for extra clarity later on in this post.

Secondly, Shadow Tag is luck based. Team Matchup is pure luck and hoping you get the better dice roll on that is what high level Ubers has degraded to. You've got plenty of examples for that. It may not be the chance generated by the game itself but it's still chance.

Again, you keep making that statement in bold like it's the crux of your argument, but you keep missing the obvious flaw in which you blame what is essentially a team matchup problem on Shadow Tag. Condensed down, it's "OMG look team matchup makes the game uncompetitive, to fix it, we must ban Shadow Tag!" I hope you'll eventually realise how stupid that really sounds. Again, I acknowledge what you say that Shadow Tag makes things worse and (to an extent) takes away choice from the player since it stops switching, but your argument still recognises that team matchup is the core problem, and as a remedy, your answer is to ban... Shadow Tag. Right.

I find it a bit hard to believe that both you and Fireburn both take that tennis post so damn literally. Just because I made references to OU and professional tennis does not mean I'm using OU and tennis to outline specific metagame-related things. If you read the post carefully, you'd see that it was about the defeatist mentality with respect to team matchup and Shadow Tag that is a theme in your arguments. Team matchup is not just a luck of the draw thing either, it's as much educated guesswork (what you should bring into a tournament match to counterteam depends on observation of your opponent), as well as a psychological thing that you have to overcome if you're not going to fall into the defeatist attitude. You always assume that if you have a poor team matchup and Shadow Tag, that you're guaranteed to lose. Like I said, this is a gross oversimplication at best and hyperbole at worst. Look, I know this is your experience of what you you've seen in your games and a lot of other people and I respect that, but just because you haven't seen contrary evidence doesn't mean you can make such an absolutist argument. I'll just quote my refutal to Fireburn here:

Shadow Tag, on the other hand, still requires you to outplay your opponent. This is also not to mention the fact that Shadow Tag isn't even a 100% success rate thing either. Gengar can't run Taunt/Shadow Ball/HP Fire/Focus Miss/Destiny Bond/Perish Song all the same set, so there will be things you can't trap and things you can. There's also the question of getting Gengar in safely (I've seen shit like Dark Pulse Grassceus from Orch), Mega Evolving, or even predicting between Taunt/Destiny Bond (eg will Ekiller set up SD again while you DBond, or will it kill you with Shadow Claw as you Taunt it). Even then, removing that counter isn't the be all and end all in bring out your GeoXern or Ekiller or whatever to sweep. You opponent can still stop that sweeper from setting up, killing it outright while you're doing so, setting up their own sweep while you're trying to find switch-ins, and the whole issue of secondary checks. You're hopelessly oversimplifying the whole thing if you think Shadow Tag is the one silver bullet that would fix anything.

So, you can't just say that Shadow Tag trapping your counters to another sweeper is either guaranteed in and of itself AND that just because you've trapped and killed that counter, you're guaranteed to win after that (which is not). On top of that, your opponent could execute the exact same strategy against you in the first place. You're implying that the whole game is just boiled down to trap you counter, win, when the game is so much more sophisticated than that. You might think I'm discounting your arguments because I'm stubborn, but when you ignore so many other factors and having so many gaping holes in your argument, can you really blame me for being skeptical?

To illustrate how silly it is to be looking at Ubers so superficially, I'm going to use the Jibaku Thought Experiment.

Suspend reality for a second and imagine Game Freak made a Pokemon who only had one ability. Imagine that, that ability made it to where if the opposing team had any Pokemon Smogon considered Uber, you automatically won the game. The Pokemon itself didn't have anything particularly broken about it for the OU metagame so it was never banned to Ubers, either.

What would you do? Would you ban the ability and thus a Pokemon?

The whole point of this thought experiment is to examine what you truly hold as the fundamental principle of the Ubers metagame. Would you ban the Pokemon so that there was an actual competitive metagame that people could enjoy? Or would you stick to the don't-ban-any-Pokemon philosophy and leave Ubers to becoming OU (and likely to be removed from tournament play)? Or would you justify the no ban because the Pokemon's ability isn't luck based?

And you're mocking me for my examples and analogies. There's a reason that what you've highlighted is a thought experiment, and it's not because GF hasn't made it and probably never will. It's more of the fact that you've pulled out a paradox that itself cannot be solved. For more background on why that thought experiment doesn't work, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox. It's not exactly the same as what is outlined, but if such a thing existed, you'd have to remember that both players get access to it. So, who wins? You'd have to look at that to base your decision to ban or not ban. If they cancelled each other out, then it would just be Ubers 5v5 and completely balanced and I wouldn't ban it. If there was some mechanic that was skill-based in sorting who won, then I wouldn't ban it either. If it came down to coin flip like a speed tie, then yes, I would ban it. Don't ask what you think is a rhetorical question when it's actually not.

It takes skill to use Tag - It takes skill to use Moody if you switch it out after getting boosts or, more realistically, don't know how to start SubProtect cycles. It takes skill to use OHKO if you try using it on a mon that outspeeds and OHKOs you. It takes skill to use sleep if you click sleep on a mon that's already sleeping over and over. So on so forth. Point is, you can't use the argument that you can play sub optimally to say that an element is skill based. Surprise shit can fuck you over if you tried abusing any other currently claused element as well. This isn't even really addressing the core issue with Shadow Tag because it's not about Shadow Tag being a "win button".

Pit two people with Shadow Tag together and you get whoever is better wins. Sure, the person with a favourable matchup has a significantly better chance of winning, but like I've illustrated above, you're oversimplifying it if you think he's going to win 100% of the time. On the other hand, pit two people Moody together and you get whoever gets important boosts wins (or whoever wins a speed-tie with Taunt Glaile). Sure your luck can turn around, but the end result is that the match is purely luck based.

What is fundamentally wrong with Shadow Tag, what makes it unbearable in a competitive metagame, is that Shadow Tag removes the power of choice from the player by removing his/her ability to switch, the tool of skill and depth in this game, when it traps a Pokemon. There is no arguing this point. There is no pro-skill button that you can press to get out of these situations. You can only hope you don't run into it. That fact alone would be grounds for banning it.

At least it would be if this were OU. As demonstrated by Evasion Clause testing, philosophy alone is not enough to ban an element from Ubers. There needs to be a practical application of this broken element that shows it does have an actual, realistic impact on the metagame. That's where the earlier 6 facts come in. That's also why we aren't starting with a Shadow Tag suspect test. Until this test, it was widely considered that only Gengar had that actual, realistic impact on the metagame. That opinion seems to have changed now, which will set us up nicely for step two and shows that this two-step process was a good idea.

I know you've made the "removal of choice" argument a lot, so let me address this. Sure, Shadow Tag removes your choice to switch at that given point (well technically not all choice, but I'm not going to go into Shed Shell and shit). However, to say it removes choice away completely is again, simplifying the entire game to one moment. Sure, you've removed what people can do in one (or more) matchup in the game. However, they still retain freedom of choice in the rest of the game. I mean if we had 6 viable Shadow Taggers that can make a viable team, then I'd agree with you that you can take away freedom to switch for the entire team unless you run a team of Ghosts or Shadow Taggers or (Shed Shell users or U-turn users of your own). Even THEN, just because you've trapped something Gengar doesn't mean you've removed ALL choice from the player. There are many situations where you'd have to predict where Gengar would Taunt or Destiny Bond, for example. Sure, it's a 50/50, but in the end, it is your choice which move you think your opponent is going to use. It is nothing different to when you have your Kyogre out against your opponent's Scarf Zekrom, and you have the choice to go to Lando-T or Xerneas. As your other question of whether this has caused enough of an impact on the metagame, I'm not convinced by the rest of your arguments or by my experience that it has.

It's why I was called boring when I trapped some poor kid's Chansey with Gothitelle. Those insults were an expression of the powerlessness of the player and the lack of enjoyment as a result. We play this game to enjoy ourselves.

And I've been called a hacker because I've destroyed other poor kids with animal teams, Double Drought, Hydro spam and other nonsense teams. Yes, I know most of those are ladder nubs (although I have beaten quite a lot of decent players with all of those things), but please leave the emotive connotations out of this.

 

[shrang]

Sorry for double posting, but I want to make something clear about the "removal of choice" argument. I hate to turn this into a slippery slope so I won't make it part of this debate, but the whole removal of choice thing is dangerous to lay down as precedent. Maybe I'm just paranoid here, but pretty much every Pokemon in the game has a potential to have a "removal of choice" component. For example, Xerneas removes or curbs the choice of running Choiced Dragons, Kyogre forces you to run Palkia/Gastro/Ferrothorn/whatever. All of them remove choice in a way. Now again, I'm not using this as a counterargument to the Shadow Tag scenario (I've got much better rebuttals above), but if we do ban Shadow Tag, I hope people are not ridiculous enough to use that justification for whatever is convenient to their case later on.

 

[MMII]

1. The reason those anecdote games didn't show anything were because they didn't respond to the core argument. (the one I explained in my post)

2. No, I plainly laid out what was the crux of my argument later on in my post. The team matchup factor is a supporting argument in demonstrating the unhealthy damage it has caused on the metagame to show that Shadow Tag has realistically impacted the metagame.

3. I've already granted this when I laid out my arguments and shown how this doesn't respond to the core argument. There are, btw, matchups that you lose from preview, as a result of Shadow Tag, and no amount of positive thinking power is going to change that. Some aren't quite to that extent, as well.

4. I wasn't asking a rhetorical question. I said it was silly to look at Ubers on a superficial level and asked that question so that readers could identify what is their core belief. I stated that was what it was for and I didn't respond to the questions I posed after explaining the thought experiment. I only gave what *I* would answer to it after laying out my arguments for Shadow Tag to demonstrate from what perception of Ubers I am coming from and how that perception leads me to answering both that hypothetical and to the current issue and anything else in regards to ubers. (fwiw, I assumed it was obvious that if both mons were active and the abilities applied the game would go to a tie. I should have mentioned that because it was a silly assumption to make as you've shown)

The issue with your parallel was that you were clearly stating that the two situations and mentalities were the same and/or similar. (the "this" pronoun being brought up as present in the OU example) They are not at all alike and you may not have the same response to them because of the starch differences. Funnily enough, I could use myself as an anecdote to show that such people exist as I was far from convinced by their nebulous and vague team matchup arguments back then as well. They never convincingly demonstrated to me that every team had a potential hole to be exploited that couldn't be covered by better teambuilding. I never challenged it, though, because I was not familiar enough with the metagame to do so. In this situation, I've quite clearly demonstrated an example of where an unavoidable loss may occur. (short of hax) Furthermore, team matchup is, again, not the crux of the argument further separating the two cases.

5. Nope, not oversimplifying it. Talked about this in my post.

6. Again, already acknowledged that you can play around it (but not against) and avoid the situations where the power of choice is removed. However (as I'm sure I already said), once you are in those situations (going to assume the other guy didn't choke on the shed shell gimmick which is just another case of avoiding the situation), situations that happen very often, you can not make any meaningful choice.

The fact that only one (sometimes two) Pokemon on the opposing team can accomplish isn't reason enough to not do something about it. There may have been only one moody abuser that you had to luck past but that didn't stop us from acknowledging that this isn't an element that shouldn't be accepted in our metagame. (Don't tell me it was because you could use 6 Moody users because you can use 6 Shadow Taggers as well if that's all it takes.) Reasons being that there shouldn't be such a blatant removal of the power of choice that results directly from said element, especially when it has such large implications for the rest of the game. With Shadow Tag, as with most of the other claused elements, far too many games are decided from those brief moments where the BS was successful.

The 50/50 with Mega Gengar scenarios are kinda a mixture of avoiding the scenario where you have no choice and the fact that a coinflip isn't really a meaningful choice. It still doesn't mean that the many, many sure-fire-you-are-screwed-and-can't-do-jack-shit moments that Shadow Tag creates don't occur nor that you can avoid those from happening as often as they do.

7. It was a quick example to show I'm not talking out my ass about this bothering players. We can ignore it, though, it doesn't really change anything.

8. I agree, the logic in those situations is not the same as the one here.

 

[Steven Stone]

mega gengar is uncompetitive? i guess it is...... a little. Forcing 1vs1 whenever the user wants to is a completely uncompetitive thing but the mega gengar stats alone don't deserve a ban...but we can't do another thing else. We can't ban shadow tag because it will ban a pokémon that i haven't seen really much in the last time (Wobbuffet) and if we nullify it, the pokémon with the unique ability of shadow tag will be useless. if there's no other ban option that doesn't affect the others greatly... ban Gengarite(even when gothitelle can still do the job, but less efficiently).

 

[ZoroDark]

i'm not fantastic in explaining my sentiments into words but i'll try

first and for all i'm adamantly against the idea of banning a mon (which is exactly what a gengarite suspect thread would mean, whatever fancy names people may give it) in ubers. this is the place where we play with overpowered mons and that's the whole charm of ubers, getting rid of that main principle would have massive consequences on the whole tiering process and the ubers metagame as well. there's also the case of slippery slope: first it's gengarite/mega gengar, next up would probably be shadow tag. But what happens after that? Xerneas maybe? it's very easy to use the terms "over centralizing" and "uncompetitive", both of which i think are bullshit, on xerneas as well.

second of all i don't really see how gothitelle and mega gengar are different from other big threats like kyogre and xerneas. of course they don't allow switches which is a huge difference, but the way you deal with stag abusers and other big threats comes down to the same thing in practice: you have to beat them in the team builder. if you don't want to lose to mega gengar you need to run a pursuit trapper (ttar, scizor, aegis lash, spiritomb which isn't any more niche than gastrodon or some geoxern checks). if you don't want to lose to gothitelle you can prepare for that in the team builder just as well by minimizing the amount of pokemon it can trap on your team. you can run roar palkia (which is the same as running twave palkia to not allow xern set ups) or pursuit mons again to trap gothitelle after it trapped something from you. if you're desperate, you could always run punishment on arceus which suddenly turns the table on those match ups and makes it a very favorable one for you. anyway the last example is a little far-fetched, but stag abusers aren't any different from other powerhouses in that you can and should take measures against them while building a team.

Okay, so now I will elaborate what is wrong with Shadow Tag.

1. Yes, Shadow Tag has very effective users and is extremely powerful
2. Yes, Shadow Tag is overcentralizing
3. Yes, Shadow Tag invalidates, to an extent, some team archetypes
4. Yes, Shadow Tag lets lesser players beat better players
5. Yes, Shadow Tag massively amplifies the team matchup factor
6. Yes, a solid team with Shadow Tag is overall better than a solid team without Shadow Tag

and if Shadow Tag were only these things we wouldn't be here discussing the possibility of banning it. What is fundamentally wrong with Shadow Tag, what makes it unbearable in a competitive metagame, is that Shadow Tag removes the power of choice from the player by removing his/her ability to switch, the tool of skill and depth in this game, when it traps a Pokemon. There is no arguing this point. There is no pro-skill button that you can press to get out of these situations. You can only hope you don't run into it. That fact alone would be grounds for banning it.

1. ok nothing wrong with that
2. maybe it does but over centralizing is a garbage argument in a tier where xerneas gets close to 60% usage and kyogre around 40%
3. i don't agree with this. there's very effective teams of every archetype in this metagame, more so than in bw2 or dpp.
4. i think this is bullshit but i guess this is something we'll have to agree to disagree upon
5. it probably is a factor in making xy ubers matchup reliant, but banning it will not magically make all match ups even. it's not like the stag user always has the match up advantage either, gl hf with gothitelle against ho as one example. in the end it pretty much evens out so this is no argument imo
6 i think this is bullshit too, very much depends on both teams.

also considering the "removal of choice" is basically THE argument the pro-ban side is presenting here i'll say something about it quickly even though i might be reiterating shrang a little. your choice is only removed when the stag user is in. that's only a very small sample of a match. you still have the choice to build teams that have countermeasures against stag users. you can say you're then playing around stag, but if it's beaten, it's beaten which is enough for me.

 

[MMII]

It's very easy to dismiss buzzwords as bullshit and not address the arguments behind them. It's also easy to throw out a fallacy that scares people into making a decision out of fear of establishing some bullshit, non-existent precedent.

The problem with arguing that something resembles something else when they function very differently is that they don't actually resemble each other much at all. In this case, even if your Palkia drops you can still sack something you don't need or throw out that weak water resist for a one time forced switch. Your only counter measure for Shadow Tag is what you punch into Team Builder. I could go on to explain how those proposed changes don't solve the problem because they only address one Shadow Tag abuser and / or makes your team a lot shittier vs the other 5 mons you might play against on the Shadow Tag team but I'm assuming those examples aren't terribly important to your argument. The whole argument still functions under the assumption that nobody has considered these things before nor tried to implement them. As if we are all just here bitching cause we don't know how to teambuild properly.

You argue against those 6 observations but still agree to the conclusion that Shadow Tag has a very real impact on the metagame when you said "stag abusers and other big threats". Which means you could be 100% right about those counter-conclusions (since for the most part they boiled down to "You are wrong, I'm right") but those details are irrelevant since we both agree on the earlier conclusion.

You've pretty much agreed to what was argued and then proposed that because you don't always lose to Shadow Tag then that's good enough. Problem with this argument is obviously that that has never been established by any other clause as a necessary line to cross before you do anything about it. OHKO only has a 30% chance of working and it only KOs one mon. (You can imagine what I would say about the other clauses) You could propose that as part of a change in the ubers philosophy in regards to addressing clauses but that's not on the table in this thread.

I think you would have gotten a lot more mileage out of the argument that Ubers should never ban a Pokemon. That's a totally viable premise and there aren't really any counter-arguments one could provide if it was well supported. The only drawback to it is that if we do decide this direction for Ubers we'd have to fully assume all the consequences of it. Such as, Ubers no longer being viable for feature in any sort of official smogon tournament because of the introduction of a Pokemon who's only ability is uncompetitive and we can't ban it as a result. (which is exactly what it faces right now with Mega Gengar)

Actually, on second thought, ibo has already stated that Ubers could consider a banning a Pokemon that was making the game uncompetitive in that very same post that I already cited him. (I shit you not, he even used the dreaded buzzword) Seeing as that was the former ubers tier leader and this thread isn't about establishing a paradigm shift, then I could use this citation as a counter-argument to the premise that Ubers shouldn't ever ban a Pokemon.


Sorry, for the shitty tone in this post. I'm miffed because things are getting repetitive itt. Most of all, I'm deeply frustrated by the fact that I have to face the harsh reality that my beloved Charizard Y team is currently too inconsistent for use in the upcoming Ubers open. I'll probably have to use some dice team and fuck him for being right. I hope my temper doesn't distract you from the legitimate arguments I'm presenting.

 

[nyttyn]

I think you would have gotten a lot more mileage out of the argument that Ubers should never ban a Pokemon. That's a totally viable premise and there aren't really any counter-arguments one could provide if it was well supported. The only drawback to it is that if we do decide this direction for Ubers we'd have to fully assume all the consequences of it. Such as, Ubers no longer being viable for feature in any sort of official smogon tournament because of the introduction of a Pokemon who's only ability is uncompetitive and we can't ban it as a result. (which is exactly what it faces right now with Mega Gengar)


Actually, on second thought, ibo has already stated that Ubers could consider a banning a Pokemon that was making the game uncompetitive in that very same post that I already cited him. (I shit you not, he even used the dreaded buzzword) Seeing as that was the former ubers tier leader and this thread isn't about establishing a paradigm shift, then I could use this citation as a counter-argument to the premise that Ubers shouldn't ever ban a Pokemon.

Hasn't the entire premise of Ubers been "banlist first, tier second," with what few bans Ubers HAS had mostly been for the sake of a competitive game? Mega Gengar, in and of itself, doesn't reduce the game to luck (except matchup, more on that in a second), it's not impossible to beat, and it's already been established that the better Mega Gengar player has a higher chance of winning, assuming that two players both use Mega Gengar. The only thing that Mega Gengar does that could be considered luck is that it exaggerates match-up, but it has already been established that there ARE options, albeit ones that one would consider sub-optimal, to deal with Mega Gengar (Shed Shell on non-arceus, just for example).

I'm just a casual Ubers player who plays from time to time, but it seems clear to me that, unlike the coin flip that is swagger, unlike the sleep talk 33% rngfest that is sleep, you can in fact outplay Mega Gengar, even if that does severely limit your options. And, as a result, I do think that banning an entire pokemon which does not boil the game down to luck just for the sake of the competitive scene that just happened to develop around a banlist kind of undermines the reason why said banlist was introduced in the first place.

No Pokemon will ever be banned from Ubers (unless it makes the game uncompetitive)...

I started playing this tier with the impression that Pokemon bans would be entirely off the table, save for abilities such as Moody (or a hypothetical mon who only learned OHKO moves, and would thus be de facto banned due to OHKO clause) which reduced the game to little more then a series of coinflips. The fact that a pokemon ban (and yes, since Mega Gengar is a pokemon, it's really not very different from banning Arceus-Ghost or Giratina-Origin) is even on the table simply because it constrains the meta is honestly kind of frightening.

I know this post will probably be full of a lot of dumb points because, again, I only casually play Ubers and I'm far from the Tournament level, and I doubt that I'll manage to qualify for reqs, but I wanted to voice my concerns about this potential ban. As shrang said better then I could have

Anyway, this whole thing is ridiculous. When I first started playing this tier in DPP, I was under the expectation that I was playing a tier that didn't care that Pokemon were overpowered, lacked counters or overcentralising. The explanation was that this was a banlist that all the broken shit were dumped into. Sure, I understand that we actually DO have restrictions like OHKO clause and stuff like that, but I understand they were there to set boundaries so dumb players couldn't beat better players just because they lucked out (to be fair, this happens anyway, since crits and misses fuck me over on a regular basis anyway, but I also understand that those things are supposedly uncontrollable). The tier stuck to its mantra for two generations and a bit, and it's primarily the reason why I play this tier, because people understood that to be good at this game, you adapted to the metagame instead banning shit that pissed you off. If Kyogre was too strong, you ran shit like Quagsire (at the time), or stuff like Palkia and Latias to check it (latter two still hated Thunder Wave). We didn't ban Kyogre even though it dictated the way a lot of games panned out. When I started playing gen 4, people weren't TOO ban-happy in the lower tiers so I was able to tolerate it (UU got pretty ridiculous in the end, but it didn't get too bad). Fast forward to gen 5, and I could not get into UU at all because shit was getting banned left right and centre. I slowly pulled out of OU because people got so fucking lazy that I just had enough (see Genesect, Tornadus-T and the dumbest ban of all Lando-I). Ubers was pretty much the only place where people did not cave into their desires and get rid of shit just because it was slightly overpowered. Believe me, there were plenty of broken shit in gen 5 Ubers that toasted you at a moment's notice. Why did we not ban those things? The reason was it was understood that the goddamn tier was banlist and under no circumstances we ban things. We understood the primary thing that makes this tier what it is is our key tenet that says this is the place that banned shit ended up. If we got rid of this condition, we lose everything that this tier has stood for. Banning Gengarite or Shadow Tag means betraying the fundamental reason that we play Ubers, and no, just because we call it "Shadow Tag Clause" does not change the fact that we banned it. If it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, I'm going to call it a duck.

[...]

And I care in the sense that banning Shadow Tag would destroy the one principle of Ubers that I believe inviolate. Banning Shadow Tag destroys the integrity of Ubers. You might have the illusion that the metagame might be better without it, but there's no point in playing Ubers just because there's something that remotely unadaptable. You might think KFC would taste better if we introduced beef into the menu, but I care that KFC stays with chicken.

 

[The Manifold Curiosity]

I have to echo what nyttyn and Shrang have said. I never thought I would see the day when a pokemon is being considered to be banned from ubers, and it fills me with horror. Yes Mega-Gengar is one of the best pokemon around and when played right can cripple a team and win the game for you, but that is no different to what Kyogre and Xerneas can do to a unprepared opponent. These 3 mons dominate Ubers and unless you have at least one good answer to them, you lose. That's how Ubers always have and always will be, deal with it.

Gengar takes skill to use due to its extreme frailty and the fact you have to mega-evolve before you can trap your opponent, which gives your opponent a chance to respond. Due to the offensive pressure of ubers you have to be careful when you switch in, cause you might only get one shot in taking out on of your opponent's pokemon. And due to the nature of perish-song Gengar is almost dead by the end of it (unless you trap a Chansey). Using Mega-Gengar (which I have used in the past) takes far more skill than swagger and elevation teams. It even takes more skill than baton passing, because you are not following a set procedure, you have to bide your time and carefully decide when its time to send Gengar out. Get it wrong and you lose a Mega easily. You have to be a high level player to make the most of Gengar (likewise with Geomancy Xerneas) and turn him into a real monster, which is fine by me.

So I don't see Gengar to be even close to ban-worthy. But what disturbs me the most is banning a pokemon in Ubers which goes against what Ubers is all about; using overpowered pokemon and not caring how over-centralizing or overpowering they are. I am happy enough with the uber community making the meta-game more competitive and less haxy, but this is one huge, HUGE step too far. It goes against the founding principle of Ubers of being a Pokemon banlist, which is one of the main reasons Ubers still exist. Now if there was some 680 stat mon with moody (as its only ability) I could see a special case (maybe!) being made as it would ruin the meta. But Shadow-tag is not even close to that and does not rely on any sort of dice-rolling.

I hope I manage to get Coil 2400, I'm slowly getting there. But if they banned Mega-Gengar then I would be devastated to the point I would probably abandon Ubers altogether (expect for the occasional joke team to try out certain legionaries), because all it will be is some super OU tier without the balancing. Sorry for making this personal but I strongly believe banning Mega-Gengar would be the single worse thing that could happen in this tier and would ruin Ubers forever. Please don't do it!

 

[Orphic]

Hey everyone.
I got the suspect reqs before considering posting here in order to use the ladder to gather my thoughts about Mega Gengar and whether it is 'uncompetitive' since I am not usually an ubers player. I went into each battle with those thoughts in mind, especially when a chance for M-Gar to do it's thing would arise. Here are some of my experiences with Mega Gengar and how I think it affects the meta:

While at first I thought that Shadow Tag wouldn't be too big of an influence since Mega Gengar is quite frail and I could only really see it being an issue for Xerneas'. However, I have taken another view towards this because of the way Mega Gengar can unfairly manipulate battles in your favour, giving your opponent no chance to respond. When trapped, you control your opponent through moves like disable, destiny bond and taunt. My main concern was even how I felt doing this to my opponent. My main sweeper being kyogre, I was able to bring in Mega Gengar on Kyogre checks such as chansey and ferrothorn and force them to either struggle to death because of taunt or force ferrothorn to gyro ball and die from destiny bond leaving kyogre with easy targets for surf and water spout. To me, the fact that my opponents would have absolutely no choice in their mons demise and the fact that kyogre could run down the rest of their team does show me that Mega Gengar is uncompetitive.

Something about a vote to ban something from ubers makes me uneasy however, Mega Gengar would be the first pokemon that wouldn't be allowed to be used anywhere. However, for me this doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss it, if something's uncompetitive and needs to be banned then so be it.

 

[Fiend]

Honestly it seems that Mega-Gengar, not just Shadow Tag, is the what is so infections to the Ubers environment. The ability to single handedly dismantle stall teams, or at least a core from said stall team, is alarming. Used correctly, Mega-Gengar is insane. Being able to Perish Trap Pokemon better than basically everything is godlike. So what if it's frail, it just needs to take one hit to use Perish Song, Protect next turn, then hopefully use Substitute. That being said, it is inherently frail, harder to use against offensive threats, really only making this consistent against some walls or something that has nothing neutral to hit Gengar with, somehow. Yet it can opt to go a more offensive route, letting it revenge kill decently well, and even eliminate some of your sweepers checks/counters (arguably more effectively). It's fucking annoying to deal with. I can see it being banned, easily. Just going to take what quote Laurel here to why Mega-Gengar is fairly bullshit,

• If you have Geomancy Xerneas use Mega Gengar to trap Scizor or Klefki.
• If you have Scarf Kyogre, use Mega Gengar to weaken Palkia.
• If you have Extreme Speed Arceus use Mega Gengar to weaken Groudon and Hippowdon or kill Tyranitar.
• If you have Geo Xern, Scarf Kyogre, and EKiller Arceus, use Mega Gengar to kill any of those checks to sweep.

Mega Gengar is very uncompetitive. Currently, I see no reason to not use Mega Gengar on every balance or offensive team. I'd estimate about 90% of the time it traps and kills at least one Pokemon, and more often than not two. Mega Gengar strategy: Kill Pokemon X, Destiny Bond Pokemon Y. Then because theres so much other overpowered things in Ubers (but that's why it's fun) and it's close to impossible to run two checks to Arceus and two checks to Xerneas, bring in one of those Pokemon, press the set up move, then sweep. Mega Gengar is brain dead as heck to use, and it removes most strategy from the game...

Though, effectively removing said counters and checks doesn't guarantee victory, it indubitably makes it so stupidly easy to win. However, Ubers has always been a banlist for OU (and banning something from a banlist is amusing), which is what causes such as schism the community regarding this suspect. I'm just barely saying it should stay, just because this is Ubers and not any other tier. Mega Gengar is borderline uncompetitive in my opinion, though just not broken enough.

EDIT: The forums on my phone sucks. Fixed parts that made this harder to read.

 

[Haunted Diamond]

I just want to add something, I'd rather we have a healthy and enjoyable tier than having to tolerate everything in the tier just because "we aren't supposed to ban things from uber". We should be a tier not a banlist.

 

[Kebabe]

It's frustrating to look at all this post by people who really think you can just choose a moon and take it out with gengar. As a stall player you can accept the one for one, gengar vs pursuiter and still have a intact core. For example look at C AllStar destroying the ladder with his spiritomb stall and myself using a similar tomb team to win the xy uber tournament and go undefeated with it in the group stages of the home fields tournament. The statement that gengar singel handily destroys stall is just false.

 

[Kebabe]

Re posting this post by orch b/c it was excellent and really gets to the core of the problem with this suspect test. (I hope it was deleted in the first place just because the stupid response by Haruno and the following discussion)

Just consider this as a reply to Melee Mewtwo 's posts in general, since he talks about "choice" in depth. And, his posts have considerable of additional bullshit that are irrelevant and I don't care about replying to. (Just a btw, your thought experiment was just ridiculous. Gengarite does not automatically faint all uber mons in existence. It's not even comparable smh.) I think that his position on gengarite can be summed up to "gengarite (consequently shadow tag) is uncompetitive because you can't switch, so you cannot respond to gengarite".

I just want to make few sidenote here: this thread has been derailed to goth/shadow tag discussion which is irrelevant for this suspect test. So, I will make particular effort to only focus on gengarite and ignore all other shadow tag abusers. I just want to emphasize this point. So, you're not going to see me saying anything about goth family/wobb family until the frame of this discussion is changed.

Which also brings to my second point. Hugendugen , please make it possible for us to vote "Gengarite is not uncompetitive, but shadow tag still warrant a suspect test". It would be nice to vote for something that is consistent with my belief. Being forced to ban something that I legitimately don't think is uncompetitive to test something else that is might be actually uncompetitive is heavy handed and unfair. I know that MANY other people share this position. Please respond to this asap.

Back to the relationship between gengarite and choices. Firstly, I want to make it crystal clear about my opinion of gengarite. Gengarite is possibly the best pokemon/item/semantics (/s) ever to be released. It's a ridiculously broken pokemon. I expect absolutely no argument about this point. I contend that gengarite restrict teambuilding, centralize metagame, and is a real force of XY Ubers metagame.

My view is that gengarite eliminating every single possible choice is just bullshit. Pro-banners fail to acknowledge that there's actually choice to be NOT weak to gengarite. Despite of what people say, pursuit does work and it can easily abuse the 1 turn of non-shadow tag to trap and kill gengar-mega. To claim otherwise is preposterous, and I can gather and post a horde of replays displaying successful pursuit traps. The 1 turn of no shadow tag is a huge and devastating flaw of gengarite.

Now, gengarite is also vulnerable to the other 4 choices that your victim has. The such choices are "moves". This might be shocking but, there are moves that actually can punish and inflict massive damage to gengarite so that it is forced to do 1 for 1 or risk being useless. For god's sake, this is ubers. All uber pokemon has massive move pool. If you can't find anything that delay or deter gengar-mega from killing you, then you shouldn't bother building teams. (yes, this is a git gud argument, a lot of ppl use crappy stag weak teams and want to ban stag [hello piexplode/nayryz/krau])

The only reason for banning gengarite should be that it is impossible to prepare for gengarite in any time, including team builder, or that it is a undesirable addition to ubers (a subjective criteria, but that's why we banned stupid/luck based stuff). If you think that gengarite qualifies one of these two criteria, then please post explaining how it qualify such criteria.