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

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Haruno

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So this is basically the gist of this: Because we are using way more stuff that gets fucked by Gothitelle in XYUbers than in BWUbers we are getting fucked by Gothitelle. Therefore Gothitelle is broken and i dont wanna play with it. I understood that right, yes?
Heres my proposal to solve this problem: Stop using all those shitters that get fucked by Gothitelle or atleast give them a way to fight back (Roar). I fail to understand how you can claim something (i.e. Gothitelle) as broken when its even freaking average in OU (yep Goth aint good that good in OU which is a metagame below that of Ubers where 'anything goes'). I seriously cant comprehend this. Did the ubers community suddenly decide against finding and using solutions against simple stuff like this (the easiest being dont use shit that loses to Goth - not like Ubers had much diversity anyways).

I hate the idea of not having a tier where you cant use every single Pokemon. Mons are there to be used not to be looked at. And now youre seriously discussing to take those Mons out of the only tier they can be used at (or re:Goth one tier it can be used at even though its perfectly fine on tier lower).

Stop being whiny about what cards youre dealt instead try to come up with a plan to still win. Atleast thats how i perceived Ubers to be.
So in other words just run offense right? Also ubers and ou are two completely different metagames and using one to compare the other is a fallacy in itself. Example given, kabutops is shitty in BW ubers because it's bad in BW ou, clearly that wasn't the case so I don't see how you can bring ou up as your basis.
 

Conflict

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Re: Gengarite

Yes Gengar with Shadow Tag might be broken. Yes it is undoubtedly strong. And it has a strong movepool to boot. Now the question at hand is: Is Mega-Gengar broken in every match? Does it always impact every match it is in in such a way that it favours the one that is using it? Is Mega-Gengar an auto-win? And if so why isnt everyone using it?
Does Mega-Gengar require preparation? Yes of course it does. It requires a certain amount of preparation in the same vein that Kyogre demands it. Ubers is a centralized metagame around a few key threats (centralization is btw a good thing because it limits the amount of possibilities thus lowering the matchup-factor) and the playerbase has to find ways to fight off those key threats. Thats how it has been in the past and i hope that that is the way it will stay in the future.

Now how can one deal with such a versatile threat like Mega-Gengar? First off you can limit the amount of times it can come in by using stuff that doesnt allow Gengar to come in and deal havoc easily. Abuse Mega-Gengars not so stellar bulk. Secondly you can tack a shed shell on stuff that is defensive and prone to getting trapped (i.e. Blissey, Resttalk-Palkia - also bluffs other items, tank Xerneas). Or you could use pursuit in conjunction with a Mon that Mega-gengar can switch into (i.e. TTar, MScizor, etc.) although that leaves you with more risks and less ways to fight back. Support-Arceus isnt that good with Mega-Gengar around - that is certainly right. So maybe we should once again move away from support arceus. Support Arceus wasnt used much in BW (Defog wasnt good back then) - CM/SD were the main sets. So if we start using more of those offensive Arceus-forms then naturally M-Gengar will have more problems switching into them. Nowadays almost every Ubers-team includes a Defogger for the sake of it not because it desperately needs one.
Also keep in mind that without Soul Dew Latias were forced to rely on shitty Kyogre-Checks but when SoulDew Latias is released we will have once again a solid Defogger that can deal with Kyogre easily and wins 1v1 vs. Gengar (either Psyshock or Roar while taking ~50% from an SE Shadow Ball) granting us also more freedom with our choice of an Arceus-forme.

Lastly ive seen Xerneas wrecking highlevel battles more often than any other Uber-Mon this Gen. Xerneas can deal with anything with the right moveset but noone is claiming it is universally broken. Thats just how it goes in Ubers - abuse the broken shits (literally all are broken in some regard) in your best way.

Haruno: Yep you could say that. Ubers always had more offensive teams than defensive ones in Generations prior (minus ADV) why do we now need a huge array of stall. Stall was always though of as an outlier in Ubers and at one point in DPP stall was basically nonexistant (until someone managed to build a decent stallteam taking the threats into account). So just find a way for stall to deal with those Shadow-Taggers thats all you need to do to make it viable. Hard? Yes. Impossible? I doubt it.
 
Re: Gengarite

Yes Gengar with Shadow Tag might be broken. Yes it is undoubtedly strong. And it has a strong movepool to boot. Now the question at hand is: Is Mega-Gengar broken in every match? Does it always impact every match it is in in such a way that it favours the one that is using it? Is Mega-Gengar an auto-win? And if so why isnt everyone using it?
Does Mega-Gengar require preparation? Yes of course it does. It requires a certain amount of preparation in the same vein that Kyogre demands it. Ubers is a centralized metagame around a few key threats (centralization is btw a good thing because it limits the amount of possibilities thus lowering the matchup-factor) and the playerbase has to find ways to fight off those key threats. Thats how it has been in the past and i hope that that is the way it will stay in the future.

Now how can one deal with such a versatile threat like Mega-Gengar? First off you can limit the amount of times it can come in by using stuff that doesnt allow Gengar to come in and deal havoc easily. Abuse Mega-Gengars not so stellar bulk. Secondly you can tack a shed shell on stuff that is defensive and prone to getting trapped (i.e. Blissey, Resttalk-Palkia - also bluffs other items, tank Xerneas). Or you could use pursuit in conjunction with a Mon that Mega-gengar can switch into (i.e. TTar, MScizor, etc.) although that leaves you with more risks and less ways to fight back. Support-Arceus isnt that good with Mega-Gengar around - that is certainly right. So maybe we should once again move away from support arceus. Support Arceus wasnt used much in BW (Defog wasnt good back then) - CM/SD were the main sets. So if we start using more of those offensive Arceus-forms then naturally M-Gengar will have more problems switching into them. Nowadays almost every Ubers-team includes a Defogger for the sake of it not because it desperately needs one.
Also keep in mind that without Soul Dew Latias were forced to rely on shitty Kyogre-Checks but when SoulDew Latias is released we will have once again a solid Defogger that can deal with Kyogre easily and wins 1v1 vs. Gengar (either Psyshock or Roar while taking ~50% from an SE Shadow Ball) granting us also more freedom with our choice of an Arceus-forme.

Lastly ive seen Xerneas wrecking highlevel battles more often than any other Uber-Mon this Gen. Xerneas can deal with anything with the right moveset but noone is claiming it is universally broken. Thats just how it goes in Ubers - abuse the broken shits (literally all are broken in some regard) in your best way.
This is an argument but I feel the reason that Mega Gengar is being suspected is the fact that it shuts down stall, an entire playstyle. This argument just doesn't really work, for example if you run special sets to counter a certain pokemon, maybe consider the Pokemon unhealthy for the meta instead of trying to justify it? I'm not an avid Ubers player or an experienced one but from just what i can see, this Pokemon greatly limits the style of play in Ubers and I feel would be unhealthy.
 
Conflict DPP balance and stall are decent.
Find a way to deal with shadow tag on stall? Impossible.
I'm not sure about others but I don't like a metagame where only offence is viable.
 

Soul Fly

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I'll maybe requote my post in the internal discussion we had, but parts of it may be irrelevant now, and in some facets the discussion has moved forward.
There's little to argue about the brokennes of gengar, even though I'm absolutely fine with a gengar meta, most top tier players want a ban and I guess their opinion is more legitimate in this regard. Anyways this isn't the purpose of the post.

My post on this regard will be short.

If we're banning anything here, I'd like to Have Shadow Tag banned in ENTIRETY and NOT Gengarite because on principle that sounds like a fairer proposition.

Regardless of how it's been twisted into semantics we ARE banning a pokemon (or more specifically a forme) which has NEVER been done before and frankly doesn't sit well with me. We are LITERALLY making an exception in this regard because the other clauses were inherited being global to all smogon metagames, or done after being universally banned in lower tiers and Ubers actually suspect tested to remove many of them, instead to the contrary. So yes this is unprecedented, and Swagger, OHKO etc make for poor comparisons (imo)

I think some ubers players will agree with me that Gothitelle and Wobbufet are (though in a lesser degree) 'unfairly' forcing decisive plays in the same manner as Mega-Gengar.
So if the argument of "Megagar is not overpowered but uncompetitive because the fundamental singles mechanic of switching is completely undermined", then it's only right we ban the ability as a whole, otherwise this just comes off as an attempt to remove annoying pokemon and leaves the taste of 'tiering/balancing' as we do with other tiers in Smogon, which just doesn't sound right with Ubers.
 
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This is an argument but I feel the reason that Mega Gengar is being suspected is the fact that it shuts down stall, an entire playstyle. This argument just doesn't really work, for example if you run special sets to counter a certain pokemon, maybe consider the Pokemon unhealthy for the meta instead of trying to justify it? I'm not an avid Ubers player or an experienced one but from just what i can see, this Pokemon greatly limits the style of play in Ubers and I feel would be unhealthy.
But the problem is that Ubers has traditionally not cared about diversity or health of playstyles or Pokemon. This is actually the appeal of Ubers to many people. It's a metagame with all the Pokemon and items available - you abuse the cheapest, most broken strategies, figure out how to counter the cheapest strategies, and you figure out how to win with the most powerful threats. If stall must be lost, then que sera sera. If what you have to do to win is to run lots of Pokemon from a very small group that outrun or ohko Megagar, so be it. And while stall has been around since Gen 2, you don't see people complaining about the fact that Ubers is ruthless to less popular playstyles, like baton pass or trick room - because if you use them, you aren't really playing to win. To save stall because of megagar is arbitrary because, in a way, Ubers is "supposed" to be ruthless to the playstyles and Pokemon that aren't fit to survive in it. In my mind, a Pokemon being "unhealthy" in Ubers because it kills defensive playstyles isn't a valid argument for Ubers. Besides, stall is still viable anyway (albeit severely crippled).

The real question in my mind is whether it's uncompetitive to the point where lesser skilled players can win over more skilled players because of it's insane trapping capabilites.
 
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gengar-mega.gif


"My name is gengar, because of my awesomeness, people are starting to quit XY Ubers. Not only I can bring down an entire stall team by myslef but along with that I can also kill at least 2 mons in an offense team. Thanks to my awesome ability "shadow tag", i have killed countless blobs. Some people say that i'm so awesome that the only way of stopping me is by using pursuit trappers such as tyranitar/scizor, but I run focus blasts and hidden power fire to make sure no one bi**hes with me. But I have heard that people want me to get banned due to my awesomeness, I guess I'll have to wait for gen 7 to release then, so I can show you my awesomeness again".

Farewell.
 
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Alright, having read through this whole thread I'm going to make my first stab at an argument here. I do not think mega gengar should be banned, as firstly it requires a turn of "set up"- like many other strong mons in ubers (geoxern, arceus, etc). Yes it is different in that it only needs to set up once, but its frailty makes set up rather difficult. Secondly, I'd like to address general complaints about it ruining playstyles: it's not. let me tell you why: the pokemon you design it to beat (blissey, supportceus and the like) are only going to be beat if they're on your team. People are complaining about support arceus being gobbled up by shadow tag currently, but in BW ubers, as has been brought up, goth wasn't that great, there were no support arceus to gobble. I think that with the meta currently catching on to the utility of shadow tag, we need to wait and let stall meta catch up. Goth is only useful because of mons in the meta it preys on, and against a lot of teams won't do anything, and against some can almost win the game by sniping a supportceus. but this is not too far off from any pokemon catching a scarfer or something that cant do anything to it and setting up all over it. Yes it removes switching as a mechanic, but I don't think that's banworthy, as there are exceptions in ghost types. If stall reverts a bit to the meta of earlier this year and goes back to Giratina as the primary defogger (partly because of the predominance of mega gengar as it was booted to ubers) shadow tag stops invalidating that playstyle as much. When xern got popular, stall adapted. Then xern teams adapted and subgeo and LO lure sets developed. Then stall teams adapted to deal with it. Currently shadow tag offense/balance has adapted to beat stall, which is normally a harder matchup for a lot of those teams. I am confident that with all at our disposal in ubers stall will develop anew to deal with this (and I'd bet money giratina is involved). Moody is entirely rng based and uncompetitive. Swagger is entirely rng based and uncompetitive. OHKO moves are entirely rng based and uncompetitive. Endless battle is uncompetitive entirely because the goal of it is to not have a match result. Shadow tag is not rng based at all. Shadow tag has a very competitive goal in mind. I do not think mega gengar should be banned. I do not think shadow tag should be banned.
 
The root of the problem is simply Shadow Tag. It's as simple as that. We can go through this whole process, and end up getting rid of Gengarite, but all that will lead to is other Shadow Tag users finding their way onto teams instead. This isn't a problem in just Ubers, it's everywhere. Shadow Tag, as a whole, removes any form of control the opponent ever hoped of having, and sweeps it under the rug as if it never happened. The only Shadow Tag user that you're able to "work around" is Wobb, and that's because you know every single one of their sets, and you play accordingly. He also can't do anything outside of sending back your own attacks, far less detrimental than trapping things locking them into (insert set up move) and doing as you please. As it was stated, like the BP nonsense in OU, by banning Gengarite, you don't remove the problem, you simply move the problem on to the next 'mon. Thus, creating a problem for something that could have simply been taken care of the first time.

Screw Gengarite, let's get to the meat and potatoes of it.
 
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Curious; if that is so, why is Gothitelle in C, while Mega Gengar is considered S-Class in the viability ranking thread?
Cause it's incorrect. It should be higher.

M-Gar is no more broken, uncompetitive, metagame-definining, teambuilding-affecting and extremely-annoying-to-play-against than Kyogre, Xerneas, Arceus and all the other titan of ubers.
I'm strongly against this ban.
The difference between Mega Gengar and the other Uber titans is that Mega Gengar sort of does what it wants. Kyogre has checks, you're freely able to switch in to Palkia or w/e to take care of it; Xerneas can't sweep if its checks are still healthy, so that can be handled by playing smartly and preserving them; Extremekiller can be burned, etc. But Mega Gengar just traps and kills what it wants, generally.

Mega Gengar isn't overpowered, it's just "uncompetitive." And yes I hate that shitty buzzword as much as many people, but it's easier to say than "stupid bullshit that lets one player take total control of a match." Yes, ubers is a tier where stuff is allowed to be hilariously centralizing and broken; this suspect test is just too see if people believe an "uncompetitive" (bleh) element in ubers should be allowed, just because it's a pokemon forme and banning it would be there'd be a forme that could not be used in any smogon singles meta. I'm sure if Gothitelle and Wobbuffet were the only pokemon with Shadow Tag, and proved too bullshit for even ubers, people would be less reluctant to ban Shadow Tag, like what was done with Moody.
 
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Here's my thoughts:
170 SAtk, 130 Speed and a rather large movepool.
With a god-blessed trait MegaGengar can do a lot of things (make setup field for a lot of statboosters, for example). But it's not uncompetitive at all, 'cause he need a skilled player for shine in the Ubers. MegaGengar needs skill for using it (bar Perish Song), so why it's uncompetitive? And why propose only PerishTrap when he can do a lot of other things (used wisely)? Because you can't stop it? In a tier when 1/2 of the Ubers are overcentralizing and overpowered? We're in Ubers, not in OU.

I simply think banning Gengarite is useless and not banworthy.
I think banning PerishTrap AT THE VERY LEAST is a "good" (meh) choice, 'cause i think it's the only thing uncompetitive (meh again).
 
Anyway i feel it has become pretty clear after reading all this, that a big amount of people agree with that shadow tag itself is the root of the problem, not just gengarite. for me personally, it all needs to go at the same time to make any sense or we are just doing this wrong. I am well aware that Gengarite suspect =/= a single mon suspect but it is actually pretty confusing how that is the case even for me, so take a wild guess at what new posters will think will you?

Regarding Gothitelle:
It is true that Gothitelle essentially didn't become better itself in the generational shift, but as mechanics changed, and of note Defog Arceus arrived, which was terrific for Gothitelle. I have heard some silly and ignorant arguments about not using things that Gothitelle can trap but it isn't that easy. Ubers has always been a tier where hazards reign supreme and stall teams where very hard to execute in practice because of the hazard pressure combined with Ghost-types so strong that spinning was impossible. This often lead to hazard ridden games where both sides had multiple hazards up, which favored the hazard resilient and often more offensive team. Enter Defog Arceus, a mon that is better than any rapid spinner could ever be- you are suddenly able to execute mons like Lugia and Ho-oh much easier but virtue of this change but as it stands- every stall mon hates hazards as they impede their walling capacity. I for one welcomed this change with open arms as it looked to be a healthy twist for a stale meta (even through generational transitions, both dpp and bw were still based on strong dragon attacks+hazards). However, Defog Arceus have one big flaw- their lack of offensive presence makes them targets for Gothitelle who can easily get +6, trick room and proceed to wipe out a majority of your team unless you carry a Dark-type/Pursuit Scizor. There is no counterplay. You can try all you want catching Gothitelle with your pursuit user on a 50-50 switch, that's about it. And that is, IF you have a pursuiter. I probably should mention that Defog Arceus aren't Goths only targets. We have a pair of Xerneas checks (Klefki, Bronzong), Kyogre check (Palkia outside rain, Dialga without roar), Yveltal checks (Sylveon, defensive Xerneas, flame Blissey), Ekiller checks (Clefable, Quagsire, Lugia if you run Taunt which is perfectly viable). The archetype Gothitelle fares the worst off against, HO, is still troubled by Trick Room, the most common 4th slot on Gothitelle. It doesn't make it good vs those teams, but it's still salvageable in certain cases, although it doesn't really matter as you can cater the rest of your build to smash HO while goth takes care of the bulkier teams unless ofc they are running suboptimalities like roar on their Arceus and shed shell on multiple targets.

The way Shadow Tag lets Gothitelle do this is more uncompetitive than something I ever seen in two years of a supposed broken environment. It isn't just that the strategy is incredibly good, it's incredibly far away from the spirit of competitive mons where switching is the key mechanic, at least in singles play. This is where the line is drawn for me- I hear that Shadow Tag isn't really better than Kyogre, Xerneas or even Arceus-Normal, but I say that comparison is irrelevant for this discussion. The line is between something being "extremely threatening" and something being "uncompetitive" which I think Shadow Tag in itself is coutresy of its mechanics. When people talk about Gengarite as the main abuser, you are merely pointing to usage and consistency, but in the terms of uncompetitiveness we must focus on Shadow Tag itself for this test to be legitimate. I know I might sound very opposed to this test, which I am since we are taking an utterly garbage direction which will just end up in more bureaucracy as we need a second test or suspect discussion we should be having right now. Don't get me wrong, I think Gengar is a massive **** and it is an uncompetitive mon too, but as it this thread plays out we are putting other Shadow Tag users and in extension Shadow Tag itself behind the curtain. Before anyone claims I have interepreted this part wrong I will just say again that I am well aware of that discussion should still take the direction of discussing Shadow Tag/Gengarite and not Gengar as a mon, the problem is new posters won't make out this difference- which I honestly think we have already seen.
 
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To be honest I didn't want to say anything here, but now its time to say something. Gengar is broken and most teams are weak to the Taunt + 3 Attacks (Taunt+Destiny) Set for a reason! It has a decent coverage an it can easily do mindgames against things like Lando-T or Groudon or Gliscor. If you are not weak to that Set you have mostlikely Pursuit Aegislash or something with Pursuit in your team. Well Pursuit is kinda shaky because my Reflect Type Gengar set is coming, I saw many people using it, because its not weak to those Pursuit users and you can easily burn them. Thats why it works. Its underrated but broken and beats the pursuiters and the real counters. This Set works because of Shadowtag. You can easily trap Pokemon and stall them to death! The same thing is with Gothitelle it works well with Stickyweb because it is very slow and can outspeed -1 Arceus. Wobbu doesn't need a ban, because you can easily play around it and Wobbu has a perfect counter with Ygod. Same counts for Gothi. In my opinion its hard to ban Shadowtag at all, because if you do that, you are not able to use Wobbu HO anymore. So back to the topic M Gengar ban is needed would most people say, but I say no. Most teams are Xern or Specs Kyogre weak, do they get a ban? Nope and now off topic: Ubers is a playable bantier, do we seriously need to ban a pokemon in a bantier? Thats kinda redundant imo
 
I'll make a tl;dr post later but right now I want to clear some more things up so I don't have to delete more posts.

Conflict Sweep didn't really give you a good answer, or at least, he only gave a partial explanation. It is a fair point, still, that new sets and mons are being used this gen that weren't used in previous gens. As hack has explained, they aren't being used cause we are a bunch of hipsters but to address threats we wouldn't be able to otherwise. Not using these mons in order to avoid being Gothitelle food isn't really an option because by avoiding losing to Gothitelle, you make your team free for the rest of the metagame or, most likely, the other 5 mons on Gothitelle's team. (You can understand this without even understanding the meta. If you built a team that wins after Goth traps X, Y, or Z and the opponent isn't using X, Y, or Z then the job's already done at team preview) This reasoning also extends to Shed Shell, btw. Most mons aren't worth using if they aren't running an item so what point is it to have a mon that you can save from Shadow Tag when it does jackshit for the team as a result.

Anyways, the other big reason that Gothitelle is so dangerous now is because of the weather nerf. This is a mechanic change that has enormously impacted the Ubers metagame and I don't think it gets talked about enough. I'm going to just talk about what it means for Gothitelle, though, to not go off topic. Pokemon in general deal a lot less damage than they used to in BW as a result of this mechanics change that allows Gothitelle to actually use that special defense he has. Palkia and Kyogre are two very easy examples. Gothitelle can setup on both of them now because Palkia doesn't have rain-boosted Hydro Pumps to break through Gothitelle in a one-on-one scenario like it could before. Kyogre's Choice Scarf Surf's will run out of rain before Gothitelle drops, nevermind getting locked into some other coverage move.

(There are some other details like, Fairy-type, that's changed things but they kinda just concern specific cases.)

I could go on but I hope this explains enough why it's such a logical fallacy to be comparing Shadow Tag in XY Ubers to Shadow Tag in past generations or other tiers. These are all different metagames with different threats and mechanics. There are plenty of other Pokemon that can be used to illustrate how these differences can favor different Pokemon. Also for whatever its worth, I did actually use Gothitelle to success back in gen 5 in the very first Ubers Open. I was also a terrible scrub and awfully lucky so I'm not going to recommend them as anything to really look into but that also kinda just goes to show just how skill-less Shadow Tag is.

Also, please try to keep the tone of your posts to not be so aggressive. Had it been anybody else I would have just deleted what you wrote but seeing as a reputed player wasn't aware of these things, they clearly weren't as self-evident as I would have otherwise assumed. Although, it's also quite clear that you haven't spent any time playing this metagame so perhaps it would be better to do so in the future before you reduce the arguments of others to a bunch of whines.

Re: Fireburn's post on not banning a mon. Fireburn is right that it's a misconception. Just because Gengar may no longer be viable doesn't mean you can't actually use him. That may sound superficial but the while argument is based on the principle that you can use whatever pokemon you want in Ubers, regardless if it's ridiculously powerful or utterly useless.

Re: Clauses should only be based on luck. Sleep Clause and Specieis Clause demonstrate that clauses aren't just about luck. Luck isn't some sort of demon that gets us tryhards all hot and sweaty. We dislike it because it, if taken to the right degree (see: the lack of evasion clause), can remove the aspect of choice from the metagame. Choice is such a massive part of video games and one of the things that defines the medium. I'm not going to go much into detail on it because you can read all sorts of fantastic stuff about it when googling about and video games. The important thing to keep in mind here is that we, the members of this community, value choice significantly in the way we engage with the game of Pokemon. It's why a made up, buzzword term like uncompetitive still has merit. Just because the word is bullshit doesn't mean the ideas we use it to summarize are as well.

Re: Not every Shadow Tag abuser is broken. Not every OHKO / Moody / Sleep abuser is broken either. We traditionally haven't nitpicked about who's broken with the uncompetitive shit and who isn't. We've just banned the uncompetitive element if an abuser has shown that it really is uncompetitive enough to impact ubers to the point of eliminating the power of choice from its players. Admittedly, this suspect test isn't really following that precedent but I think you can understand why we are side-tracking from tradition with this case. However, I think that if you can demonstrate that at least two abusers are uncompetitive it proves that Shadow Tag isn't the exception case it at first appears to be and should be banned in its entirety. Thus the jump from a Gengarite Clause to a full Shadow Tag Clause.

Also, just to make it clear in case you missed Fireburn's edit. We aren't talking about any paradigm shift in the ubers philosophy. Only discuss if you think Shadow Tag contradicts the current ubers philosophy. For reference, here's a direct citation of ibojangles (the fomer tier leader) on the definition of ubers:
Ubers is the competitive metagame with the least amount of bans – we have no Pokemon banned in fact.

Lastly, beyond this post please avoid talking about Shadow Tag users other than Mega Gengar. We are only focusing on that particular one atm so the others are off topic. I don't mind if you talk about Shadow Tag in general or you mentioning that you feel Mega Gar isn't enough. Just don't go further than that and talk about specifics regarding Goht, wobb, etc.
 
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Wow, reading all these based explanations makes me wonder why no one realized this a couple of months ago, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the amount of hate being carried towards the shadow tag mons is just incredible, a while ago, more than half of the community never had any issues with shadow tag, it's amusing how the whole community changed it's decisions in such a short amount of time.
 

Fireburn

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This is not a misconception it is a fact.

Banning Scizorite would be banning an item that creates a set for a Pokemon because Scizor is viable in Ubers without its mega. Same goes for Blaziken and Mewtwo, but not for Gengar. Gengar has two sets and both require Gengarite; the act of taking its only sets is the same as banning the Pokemon because you cannot use them. Every Gengar is intended to be used as Mega and thus the act of banning its mega would effectively ban the Pokemon from play. It's similar to if you banned Speed Boost on Blaziken in gen 5: you are effectively banning every viable set that mon can run and therefore are banning it entirely. If this still isn't clear enough Mega Evolutions have their own unique combination of BST / abilities / typing which makes them essentially a Pokemon, and banning the method to using cede Pokemon is the same as banning the Pokemon because the outcome is the same: you are restricted from using that unique combination.

I'm not necessarily anti-ban, but banning Gengarite is banning a Pokemon and that needs to be recognized.
If you consider Scizorite an item, then by definition Gengarite is also an item because both of them are the same thing: Mega Stones. Gengar is not special in this regard. You seem to be confusing banning Gengarite with banning Gengar itself which is not the case. No one is stopping you from using Gengar if Gengarite is banned.
 
I can say I saw this coming. Though I haven't played ubers immensely this gen (though I have so in 5th and 4th gen), shadow tag has typically been suspected not only due to uncompetitiveness but also restricting to team building (at least in other tiers, though for ubers, this doesn't really matter, as ubers is different from the other met as in that it is hyper over centralized in the first place). Though HO has the least of problems with mgar (as the HO playstyle exhibits enough offensive pressure to where mgar can have a difficult time trapping much or even mega evolving before it gets blitzed), stall and balanced playstyles are another thing entirely. Typically on stall and balanced the only pursuit trappers I see that are viable in the metagame are one-dimensional aegislash, scizor, and tyranitar. However, even with these few pursuit trappers(in which case pursuit is not exactly reliable; part of what makes mgar so threatening is that it has both taunt and the ever so nasty destiny bond), Mgar can typically (with the help of a double switch, a switch onto a status move like toxic, a slow or predicted voltturn, or deaththrotter) come in and trap a key glue or support mon like arceus or a xern check and eliminate it with ease after it mega evolves (which essentially isn't very hard to do over the course of a battle), and essentially give the user of mgar an easy advantage. In a sense, part of what mgar ( really shadow tag as a whole) uncompetitive even in the ubers meta is that it can severely hamper other playstyles like stall and balanced. Part of the reason why HO is used so often on the ladder (other than the fact that it is a much easier playstyle to adapt to) is that, in particular with mgar teams, it isn't exactly difficult to eliminate an important check to ekiller, xern, or yveltal, a defogger, or an important gluemon in general especially with mgar's (or even gothitelle's support movepool) that other playstyles especially make use of. The ubers metagame (which has served primarily as a banlist) has usually essentially been a balanced meta (though a naturally hyper centralized one with these titans that storm the meta) and a competitive meta no less. Though shadow tag as a whole is a bigger problem (gothitelle on sticky Web teams is a very useful asset to say the least, as it easily can out speed and screw over supportceus forms especially that are prevalent on stall and balanced playstyles and go as far as stall them out to death). The only thing to note is that wobbleffet and lol wynaut aren't exactly unhealthy for the meta. Well whatever, suspect should be interesting. I am on the fence with this suspect, as stall and balanced are still most certainly viable regardless and there are factors that restrict said effectiveness of shadow tag users. Gothitelle, for example, really only functions on sticky Web teams, as it is very slow and can't do its job as well without it. Mgar actually had to mega evolve first before it can trap, etc.
Edit:Now tbh, the only arguments I have seen for banning gengarite are based upon uu arguments as to why it should be banned (I.e. limits playstyles and is overcentralizing, which doesn't really matter in a meta like this one.)
 
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Fireburn

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I think of lot of newer users are treating this discussion like an OU Suspect Discussion thread, but this is different. We are not asking if Gengarite is overcentralizing or overpowered. We are asking this question: Is Gengarite an uncompetitive element of the metagame that needs to be removed to preserve the competitive integrity of Ubers, within the current paradigm of Ubers? Your posts should be dealing with this question. This is NOT an OU Suspect thread; treating it like one can and will result in deleted posts and possible infractions.

If you are confused as to what might be considered "uncompetitive", see the other clauses such as OHKO, Moody, Swagger, etc. That'll give you some place to start thinking about it.
 

shrang

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Alright since only serious posts are allowed, I'm going to get this shit off my chest. I originally wanted to say all this shit in the IS thread when it was brought up, but I was really just too busy and couldn't be fucked. People tend to retort to my points without even reading them and frankly offer no intelligent responses to me whatsoever, so I was reluctant to. Just a warning though, what I say will annoy a number of people, but since I'm not allowed to be smartass about this, I may as well not mince my words. You all know what kind of person I am when it comes to things like this, so you shouldn't be surprised.

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.

I'll just address a few key things that people will definitely throw at me. First thing is that "well we have all the clauses that are technically bans, so why can't we ban Gengarite". I'm going to address this simply as these as "uncompetitive" clauses. Now, I know people who read Dice's post on IS know that he defined uncompetitive differently to what I'm defining it (for the record it's the one used in OU, which is "Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hand's of player's decisions-- and do so to a degree that can be considered uncompetitive."). Firstly, that's not what autonomy means, but I'll address this a bit later. However, I'm going to define uncompetitive simply as a game aspect or strategy that makes the game unfair and creates opportunities for one player that gives them an advantage over the other that handicaps them and is something that they cannot inflict on their opponent in return. You might think that this definition is pretty much the same as the one used in Dice's post, but the last bit is the most important. An example would be a hypothetical game mechanic that prevented you using Ubers against an opponent that were using Ubers. The other example, is obviously, what our clauses are based off, which is luck. Pretty much all of our clauses with the exception of Sleep and Species (which I'll address later) are based on luck, and for a good reason. Being lucky in a game that rewards luck so heavily gives the lucky player an advantage that the unlucky player cannot inflict back at them. You can run Moody vs opposing Moody players and it won't be the better player that wins, but the players who was most lucky with their boosts. The difference with Shadow Tag/Gengarite is that you have the option of using it against your opponent too. Your opponent might trap and kill some important mon on your team, but so can you. It is still fair. It's kind of like how both sides of the war had machine guns in World War I. Sure the machine guns were overpowered and it was very difficult to get rid of them without resulting in mass casualties, but the war was still relatively fair in the sense that both sides lacked a key advantage that the other could not inflict in return (very unlike how America had nukes and Japan didn't).

Sleep Clause: While I did vote to ban this, let me say it was NOT because it made stuff like Darkrai way stronger than they were normally. I frankly couldn't give a shit that Melee wrecked your face with that Butterfree of his. You had the opportunity to do that in return, or run priority, or run Lum, or whatever. That was not the issue I had with it. Personally, I actually didn't find Sleep Clause as bad as many of the others did. It was actually enjoyable in its own way (stuff like Prankster Psycho Shift/Rest Murkrow were very fun to use). The problem I had with sleep again, came down to the the bit which I say "handicaps you and is not something you cannot inflict on your opponent in return", which is again the luck aspect of it. You couldn't control what Sleep Talk picked, nor could you prevent yourself waking up early when you were in the middle of clicking Sleep Talk, and whatever. It was still very luck based, and in the end, if you were unlucky, you lost not because your opponent was better than you, but because you got lucked out.

Species Clause: Personally, I can't actually offer a reasonable explanation why this is a ban. What I can say though, is that I don't see as a ban for something that's uncompetitive. The only thing I can think of is that it would make the game infinitely dull if all you see from your opponent is 6 Charizards or something (which I can actually picture some nub doing if it WAS allowed). I would also say something like 6 Ekillers wouldn't even be broken, it would just be 6x the suck.

Dice's uncompetitive definition: Okay imma break this down. Sorry to pick on you, Dice, but since your OP is what whole thing is based off, I may as well use that as my discussion point.
- Firstly, this definition was the one used in OU. This is actually important to note, because OU has very different standards from ours.
- Autonomy: "Control of (the game's) events" is NOT what autonomy means. Auto = self, and nomy (nomos) = law. It means following a law that you set yourself, ie freedom to choose your own actions. So, I don't think we should even talk about autonomy because you are NOT free to choose your actions, as they are dictated to you by your circumstance and what you perceive to be the wisest move in a given setting.

Dice's own interpretation: In layman's terms, this means that in a context of the game, the better player should typically have a better chance of winning. With Gengar, I do not truly believe you can say that this holds true in Ubers. Team matchup takes skill out of the players hand. Of course, it's always existent in almost every metagame, but as previously stated, Gengar's mixture of power AND support is unprecedented. Wobbuffet was deemed broken for support characteristics in Gen4, and Shaymin-S was deemed broken due to both luck, speed and power. Gengar is practically a mixture of the two and completely skews skill by virtue of its presence. Of course, this is Ubers, but it has the characteristics of two past banned Pokemon. I'm just trying to convey how much of a threat it really is if you haven't plyed the metagame.

- I can't see how Gengar itself makes poor players beat good players, tbh. I really think the main problem here would be the team matchup (which no amount of banning will EVER fix). The easiest test for this is if you take one of those things out, would it still make a poor player beat a good player? If we take away Mega Gengar, you'd still have a team matchup problem, which I were a shitty player that just counterteamed you, I'm still going win, Gengar or no. If you somehow take away team matchup but leave Gengar (which I know is impossible), would it really give me such advantage? I can honestly not give you a proper answer to this question, but I doubt anyone can, and if you can't answer that question, how can you that Gengar is uncompetitive?
- Wobb/Skymin are not proper comparisons. Those two were banned in OU, and we're talking about Ubers. Don't compare apples and oranges. Neither Skymin nor Wobb were even considered for bans in Ubers in DPP even though they were banned in OU.

Trapping: Okay, I get Shadow Tag and trapping is a big deal and you all hate how Gengar and Goth trap shit too easily. It DOES take control away from the game. However, what makes me completely unconvinced is the fact that you can run exactly the same thing. You can trap their weakest link and find a way to win too. Again, it is still fair game because you can retaliate in the same way, and if you couldn't, it's because your team is more susceptible to trapping than your opponent is, which means it's your own fault. Again, I understand team matchup changes how Gengar affects different teams and therefore one Gengar user might have a distinct advantage, but why is banning Gengar the solution? Sure, Gengar adds to the problem, but where's the logic in banning it? It's like blaming violent video games for mass shootings. You're not going to solve the team matchup issue by banning Shadow Tag and Gengarite, you know.

Stall: This argument is just dumb. Like really, we have the "cutting entire playstyles" bs in lower tiers, which is fine, because they are tiers don't have a big 'WE DON'T BAN SHIT" label on them. Firstly, if stall is wrecked by Gengar/Gothitelle, why should we care? If it's not viable, then you don't use it. It's not like you have to use stall to win games. Secondly, stall is thriving even with Gengar/Gothitelle around, so this entire thing is just retarded.

tl;dr - I'm fucking disgusted that I had to rant on such a massive scale about things that should be so obvious if you all just decided to think rationally instead of getting pissed off and getting banhappy about everything. This place is such a nanny state it's not funny. If people stopped bitching about shit like this I wouldn't have to waste an hour of study time typing this abomination up. Thanks.
 
I personally agree with Hack (I didn't read any other post besides his cus I'm lazy), Gothitelle is the main problem in the "Shadow Tag bs matchup" and starting the suspect test with banning only Gengarite is going in the wrong direction. Although Gothitelle is not nearly as common as Mega-Gengar, it is still the major abuser of Shadow Tag from behind the scenes in my opinion. I think most of people can agree that the player using the Shadow Tag user is just in a major advantage throughout the battle than the one who is facing it. Shadow Tag, due to its massive ability to support many different types of teams, from Sticky Web to Spikes Stacking, or even teams that rely on "X" sweeper as a win condition that rely on a Shadow Tag user to trap the check/counter and therefor, open the path for said sweeper to set up and win the game. Personally I, for the most part, always thought Gothitelle was a very situational mon, after I looked back at an old replay where it shows how effective Gothitelle is against teams that have a bulky Arceus form that is not Ghost/Dark. The truth is, everytime I have to face Gothitelle I get paranoid from the time I have to pick my lead, A way I look at it is: "My opponent has a Kyogre, it is most likely Scarfed so Arceus-Grass might be the optimal lead, Oh wait! He has a Gothitelle, what if he leads with it and traps my check and sets up CMs all over me, then Kyogre would sweep me afterwards". Different sceneraio, leads have already been picked, you lead off with lets say Landorus-T and your opponent leads off with Kyogre: "Shit he didn't lead off with Gothitelle predicting Arceus-Grass lead, now I have to switch out to Arceus so I don't lose my Landorus and check "X" mon later, oh wait, he still has that Gothitelle which can trap my Arceus on the switch and then sweep me with Water Spout" (This can be applied in a lot of different scenarios regarding the pokemon involved). This in my opinion is a good example of how the Shadow Tag user allows the player to accommodate in a much easier way than the other player that is facing it. And I know a lot of people are gonna say "You can always predict around it", fuck no, in this type of situations, where Shadow Tag predictions exist, I consider them 50/50s because, when you predict the Shadow Tag user to come in you can stay in and attack but, you know at the same time, if your opponent predicts that and doesn't switch your mon with get popped because of an overprediction. However, if both players switch out the Shadow Tag user will win the coinflip as it has now trapped "X" mon and now "Y" mon can sweep.

Regarding the replay: I know my opponent wasn't very skilled, that does not matter when discussing this because as you can see, I got a matchup that was very favorable for my Gothitelle. My opponent had a ResTalk Xerneas and a Bulky Arceus Rock, both get beaten by Gothitelle, As you could see the drops that the opposing Xerneas got on my Gothitelle I was still able to set up to +6 and let's be honest, if his Giratina had Roar over Dragon Tail the game would have ended in a Gothitelle sweep as Scizor was at +6 Psyshock range and the rest can't just break it lol. Of course, not counting the other 4 Offensive pokemon that I had on my side hehebwoi. So yeah, Goth is a (ban me please) ass pokemon and Shadow Tag gives the user more options and makes him feel more comfortable when using it while it limits the opponent's options and plays he/she can make, which sucks btw.

Sorry for the use of bad words :]
 
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Wow, reading all these based explanations makes me wonder why no one realized this a couple of months ago, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the amount of hate being carried towards the shadow tag mons is just incredible, a while ago, more than half of the community never had any issues with shadow tag, it's amusing how the whole community changed it's decisions in such a short amount of time.
I know that dice, donkey, hack, sweep, myself, etc have been critical of tag from the beginning. Hugendugen can testify that I was bothering him about it quite early into XY, I went into SPL with the explicit intention of showing just what Shadow Tag can do, especially those that aren't Gengar. Nobody spoke up about it because the metagame was new and we wanted to see if adaptation was really an option. Our patience has run out and it's clear from the year long history of XY ubers that adaptation isn't possible because Tag can still adapt right back since Shadow Tag ubers is a game played in team builder.

Gonna snip your post up some and reduce it to the essential arguments where possible

Anyway, this whole thing is ridiculous. -tl;dr I hate bans and everybody bans too much
Although I appreciate that you used this history lesson to illustrate that background from which your viewpoints were born from but it's irrelevant and mostly distracting. Even if we (collective for the entire smogon community) were just a bunch of shitty as players that banned a bunch of crap cause we couldn't be assed to adapt doesn't mean we don't have valid arguments concerning Shadow Tag. It's also entirely possible that we are right about this and that is completely independent from whatever else we decided to ban.

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.
You are making the false assumption nobody has put the effort to adapt to the metagame. iirc, Dice has already listed examples on how the metagame has adapted to Mega Gengar. To provide another anecdote, I wasn't even aware that anybody beyond myself felt very strongly about the threat of Gothitelle. When I first started talking about him, it seemed like every other top player considered it a matchup reliant gimmmick that only works on Sticky Webs teams. You can even see that from the current placing on the viability threat list. I pretty much found out this week that, actually, now nearly every top player, including those that initially criticized Gothitelle, agree that it is an incredibly broken threat that removes the power of choice from the player. So yes, we have adapted our strategies to the metagame and they are in favor of abusing the uncompetitiveness of Shadow Tag to win far more games at the team preview than ever before.

If you think there is more adaptation that could take place, why don't you show us instead of making the blind claim that we haven't tried and aren't still trying. Every one of us want to win and every one of us would like to be known as that guy that conquered Shadow Tag.

Also, we certainly aren't here because we are a bunch of sissies that can beat Shadow Tag. On the contrary, I desperately need Shadow Tag if I want to remain a relevant player in tournaments. Anybody who knows anything about my battling and building habits know I'm pretty poor at picking up on player patterns and making smart plays. It's gotten to the point where I ask the Helix Fossil to make difficult, no right answer plays for me. You can see this in my SPL games among others. My strengths as a player comes from the enormous amount of time and dedication I have put into studying this metagame which has given me a fairly strong familiarity with my potential options, making me a stronger teambuilder than otherwise, and allowing me to deconstruct the teams of others to identify weaknesses and identify patterns in teambuilding to some success. Shadow Tag allows me to emphasize these traits in my favor by constructing sure-fire win conditions basd on the building patterns of my opponents that I spend large amounts of time studying. It also eliminates the need to make difficult plays by removing the power of choice from my opponent and the tool through which they can display their strength of skill over myself.

I'm not advocating for a Shadow Tag clause because I can't handle it myself. I'm pushing for one because, above all else, I care about the ubers metagame that I have fallen in love with and about the ubers community that I want to share a beautifully deep and expressive game with.

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.
I think you are trying to make a counter point to some semantics argument somebody else has presented. fwiw, I agree with you. I don't really care what we call whatever we are doing to Shadow Tag by clausing it. The main idea here is that it deserves to be removed from competitive play just as much a s all those other things we claused. I don't give two shits if you call it banning or not.

However, I'm going to define uncompetitive simply as a game aspect or strategy that makes the game unfair and creates opportunities for one player that gives them an advantage over the other that handicaps them and is something that they cannot inflict on their opponent in return. You might think that this definition is pretty much the same as the one used in Dice's post, but the last bit is the most important.
It is the same. The difference is whether or not you recognize the illusion of choice as an actual choice. Opting to use Shed Shell on every one of your pokemon to avoid Shadow Tag may seem like you have a choice but, in reality, the extremely terrible team that you would be using has an extremely diminished shot at winning in comparision to just yoloing it and hoping you don't get fucked over by the Shadow Tag matchup. The illusion of choice is a very valuable concept in game design to help compensate for the physical limitations of video games and, yet, still give the player the impression that he is in control of their actions and that those actions have meaning. However, it's not very useful in a competitive environment like we have here where the players explicitly search every nook and cranny of the game's design to find the options that have the highest rate of success. The option that has the highest rate of success is trying to bullshit your opponent in the team builder with Shadow Tag. I think that has been pretty clearly demonstrated by the arguments of the XY ubers metagame's best players and in its tournaments so I won't repeat it.

An example would be a hypothetical game mechanic that prevented you using Ubers against an opponent that were using Ubers. The other example, is obviously, what our clauses are based off, which is luck. Pretty much all of our clauses with the exception of Sleep and Species (which I'll address later) are based on luck, and for a good reason. Being lucky in a game that rewards luck so heavily gives the lucky player an advantage that the unlucky player cannot inflict back at them. You can run Moody vs opposing Moody players and it won't be the better player that wins, but the players who was most lucky with their boosts. The difference with Shadow Tag/Gengarite is that you have the option of using it against your opponent too. Your opponent might trap and kill some important mon on your team, but so can you. It is still fair. It's kind of like how both sides of the war had machine guns in World War I. Sure the machine guns were overpowered and it was very difficult to get rid of them without resulting in mass casualties, but the war was still relatively fair in the sense that both sides lacked a key advantage that the other could not inflict in return (very unlike how America had nukes and Japan didn't).
Your argument is fallacious because you automatically assume that when both players have Shadow Tag, the best player wins. This becomes a circular argument where you demonstrate it's a skilled based strategy because you have already assumed in your argument demonstrating so that it is skill based. The reality is that when two tag players play eachother, the one with the better team matchup will win consistently because it takes zero skill to apply your shadow tag strategy before the other guy when it already matchup in it's favor starting the game off with that player in the favorable position to do so. You using Shadow Tag abuser of your own doesn't allow you to reverse the ineeitable anymore than you could have without it. You just give yourself a shot at being that guy with the ez team matchup win instead of your opponent.

Dice's uncompetitive definition: Okay imma break this down. Sorry to pick on you, Dice, but since your OP is what whole thing is based off, I may as well use that as my discussion point.
- Firstly, this definition was the one used in OU. This is actually important to note, because OU has very different standards from our
No it doesn't. The definition didn't establish what level of uncompetitive is the "cut-off". It just explicitly states what people meant when they used the made up term. It even outright says that it's up to us to determine if something is uncompetitive enough.

I hope you aren't going to try to argue that the OU relevant illustrative examples it provides are a part of the definition.

- Autonomy: "Control of (the game's) events" is NOT what autonomy means. Auto = self, and nomy (nomos) = law. It means following a law that you set yourself, ie freedom to choose your own actions. So, I don't think we should even talk about autonomy because you are NOT free to choose your actions, as they are dictated to you by your circumstance and what you perceive to be the wisest move in a given setting.
Yes, you are free to choose your own actions as long as there isn't bullshit like Shadow Tag. Certain choices may imply more risk but sometimes those higher risk choices are the right choices because of there higher risk and the fact the cover options the lower risk choice does not. There is no objectively right choice when you are playing against another human being and his choices impact yours as much as your impact his. That illusion of choice occurs when you remove the power of choice from the other player with bullshit like Shadow Tag.

- I can't see how Gengar itself makes poor players beat good players, tbh. I really think the main problem here would be the team matchup (which no amount of banning will EVER fix). The easiest test for this is if you take one of those things out, would it still make a poor player beat a good player? If we take away Mega Gengar, you'd still have a team matchup problem, which I were a shitty player that just counterteamed you, I'm still going win, Gengar or no. If you somehow take away team matchup but leave Gengar (which I know is impossible), would it really give me such advantage? I can honestly not give you a proper answer to this question, but I doubt anyone can, and if you can't answer that question, how can you that Gengar is uncompetitive?
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity
No we aren't trying to completely remove team matchup, just remove an element that pushed that factor to the point of eliminating that power of choice from the player. Yes, we have demonstrated that by all sorts of talks about the metagame based on extensive experience and logic. Unless you want us to speculate on what a Tag free metagame would look like? We could run a tournament for that!

- Wobb/Skymin are not proper comparisons. Those two were banned in OU, and we're talking about Ubers. Don't compare apples and oranges. Neither Skymin nor Wobb were even considered for bans in Ubers in DPP even though they were banned in OU.
I think these were just the examples included in the citation. (idr the context and too lazy to go to page 1 to check) Ignore them, they don't change the definition nor the points that use it.

Trapping: Okay, I get Shadow Tag and trapping is a big deal and you all hate how Gengar and Goth trap shit too easily. It DOES take control away from the game. However, what makes me completely unconvinced is the fact that you can run exactly the same thing. You can trap their weakest link and find a way to win too. Again, it is still fair game because you can retaliate in the same way, and if you couldn't, it's because your team is more susceptible to trapping than your opponent is, which means it's your own fault. Again, I understand team matchup changes how Gengar affects different teams and therefore one Gengar user might have a distinct advantage, but why is banning Gengar the solution? Sure, Gengar adds to the problem, but where's the logic in banning it? It's like blaming violent video games for mass shootings. You're not going to solve the team matchup issue by banning Shadow Tag and Gengarite, you know.
See earlier points. It's not about fair, it's about expressing ourselves and our abillities through the power of choice.

Also your video game example is bullshit because we can show the direct impact Shadow Tag which you can't do with video games and shooting.

Stall: This argument is just dumb. Like really, we have the "cutting entire playstyles" bs in lower tiers, which is fine, because they are tiers don't have a big 'WE DON'T BAN SHIT" label on them. Firstly, if stall is wrecked by Gengar/Gothitelle, why should we care? If it's not viable, then you don't use it. It's not like you have to use stall to win games. Secondly, stall is thriving even with Gengar/Gothitelle around, so this entire thing is just retarded.
I agree, it's dumb to be presenting arguments like overcentralization and killing x playstyle as a reason to get rid of Tag. Those have never been valid arguments in ubers.
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
Shrang - You can run Moody vs opposing Moody players and it won't be the better player that wins, but the players who was most lucky with their boosts. The difference with Shadow Tag/Gengarite is that you have the option of using it against your opponent too. Your opponent might trap and kill some important mon on your team, but so can you. It is still fair. It's kind of like how both sides of the war had machine guns in World War I. Sure the machine guns were overpowered and it was very difficult to get rid of them without resulting in mass casualties, but the war was still relatively fair in the sense that both sides lacked a key advantage that the other could not inflict in return (very unlike how America had nukes and Japan didn't).
I agree with what you're saying in this part as being true, however I don't agree with your overall stance.

Shrang - Species Clause: Personally, I can't actually offer a reasonable explanation why this is a ban. What I can say though, is that I don't see as a ban for something that's uncompetitive. The only thing I can think of is that it would make the game infinitely dull if all you see from your opponent is 6 Charizards or something (which I can actually picture some nub doing if it WAS allowed). I would also say something like 6 Ekillers wouldn't even be broken, it would just be 6x the suck
In terms of the history of this, it was originally created way back when in stadium days when someone won an official Nintendo Tournament (they did have tournaments in Stadium in Japan) using 6 of the same Pokemon (I believe it was Chansey). That was the original source of implementation. Afaik the reason Hugen gave me why we didn't retest it like the other clauses was because streetmons existed, i.e. it would essentially become the same as another tier. I don't think retesting it is ridiculous, but it would become a hugely different game.

I'm only adressing minor points here, Melee has covered the more significant things.

In terms of people's viewpoints, I strongly align myself with Hack, Dice, and Melee. I do appreciate Shrang's lack of advocation for their viewpoint, and after listening to his arguements I merely wish to respectfully agree to disagree.
 
I agree that Shadow Tag should be due to its ability to render support/weak attackers useless (CM Gothitelle, Mega-Gar, encore Wob) or to get at least one definite kill on a poke, thus paving the way for a set-up sweeper (d-bond Mega-Gar, Counter/MC Wob).
But I was wondering what would happen to Mega-Gar if it does get banned...
Wob has another ability (Telepathy) but it essentially means that it would drop down to RU/NU as it can't trap, but it can still be used.
Gothitelle has Frisk (hardly useful) and Competitive (which can be handy for against Defog users), so although it will drop to maybe UU or RU, it can still be viable with decent special bulk.
But Mega-Gar will be gone as it only has one ability which is on the verge of being banned. It would only be able to used in non-competitive battles, essentially removing an entire set for a poke from all competitive stages.
So I propose maybe instead of removing the ability altogether, or Gengarite, maybe just limit the moves it can have. I know it sounds kind of weird and possibly unorthodox, but it has been done before in a slightly different manner, through the Baton Pass clause (limiting the pokes who know it on a team) and the Endless Battle clause (can't have Leppa, Recycle/Harvest, Heal Pulse on same set).
In both of these clauses, the final verdict was because it didn't take much skill to execute both sets, and can easily result in a win (or forfeit in regards to Endless Battle), much like it doesn't take much skill for Mega-Gar to use Perish Song or D-bond to easily remove a threat/support poke, and thus paving the way for a sweep.
So I guess I feel that we should just simply ban Perish Song and D-Bond (and possibly Disable to some extent, as a choice locked poke can easily get struggled to death if Mega-Gar is faster -- but it's not as prominent as Perish Song/D-bond) from Mega-Gar, thus reducing the chances tremendously of it getting a free kill, while also allowing for it to stay in the metagame as more of a revenge killer/offensive pivot (with taunt/disable) which are completely viable and competitive ways to play the game.
Just my 2 cents.
If this doesn't seem like the way to go then I'm perfectly fine with banning Shadow Tag altogether.
 
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I think that Gengarite (and stag Wobbuffet) should not be banned, but STag Goth should be banned. I'll explain a little bit more with this post.

I believe that bans in Ubers should be based on two criteria.
  1. The item/ability/move/whatever in question must be uncompetitive. (I don't think I need to define this any more than everyone else already has)
  2. The item/ability/move/whatever does not contribute positively to the metagame.
So where do the current bans fit in?

Sleep Clause: it fulfills both criteria - it is uncompetitive, makes teambuilding restrictive and contributes nothing to the metagame. Everyone is forced to play a certain way.
Species Clause: similar story to sleep clause.
Swagger, OHKO and Moody Clauses: these are uncompetitive, and they contribute negatively to the metagame. Every battle turns into dice rolls or coin flips, and skill no longer is a factor in the outcome of the match.

So how does STag and Gothitelle and Mega Gengar fit into all this?

I'll talk first about Gothitelle. Unlike mega gar, it doesn't require spending a turn to mega evolve. That means that it can immediately switch in and trap any Pokemon of its choice. This means that if a player sees a Gothitelle on the enemy team, they must be extremely cautious in playing their defensive Pokemon, or they may risk losing their support arc, defensive kia, or whatever, and potentially lose their xern/ogre/ekiller/whatever check, immediately putting them into a highly disadvantageous position. For an example scenario: if the enemy sends in Kyogre, it's pretty much a 50/50 to send in something like Grassceus - if the enemy double switches into Goth in that turn, the game is practically over right there. Grassceus is more or less guaranteed to be eliminated, putting the enemy at a one mon advantage, and allowing Kyogre to clean up afterwards. I must stress that the immediate trapping potential of Gothitelle is what sets it apart from Mega Gengar. It is certainly uncompetitive, easily putting one player at an advantage with a factor entirely out of his/her control. Furthermore, it does not contribute positively to the metagame - players lose the element of choice when they are faced with it. Skill is no longer a factor when you have a support arc and the enemy has a gothitelle, and the battle turns into a guessing game.

Again, Mega Gengar needs that one turn to mevo in order to be truly threatening. Without that one turn, it would undoubtedly be the most broken threat in ubers. But it isn't. Gengar's frailty limits the chances where it can mega evolve. It has a number of interesting immunities, true, but that does not mean it can safely switch into anything. If the opponent predicts a switch into Gengar and uses the appropriate move to prepare for this, Gengar can take serious damage, and it can be neutralized as a threat. Gothitelle, on the other hand, does not need to fear this - it can safely switch into moves like normal or resisted judgement from uninvested arc, and continue wreaking havoc. Furthermore, Gengar's lack of immediate trapping presence means that players can play relatively freely before Gengar mega evolves - they can use Blissey, Xerneas, etc. without having to worry about being trapped and immediately put into a disadvantageous position. Even after it mega evolves, Gengar's lack of bulk once again means that it is limited to few situations where it can switch in.

Futhermore, Mega Gengar often trades one for one with other mons. Flamethrower Blissey cannot be taken down without Mega Gengar falling as well, unless Mega Gar happens to be running Focus Blast, and it manages to hit at least 3 Focus Blasts in a row (which has a 34.3% chance of occurring), or it gets a high roll on every sludge bomb hit while poisoning on the first turn (again, unlikely). Against Lugia, Mega Gengar must run Shadow Ball, and even then, Lugia must not have Multiscale up. Against support Arceus, if Judgement is not resisted by mega gar (water, rock, fire, steel, etc.), and mega gar does not have a super effective move to hit Arceus with, Arceus cleanly 2HKOs, again, a one for one trade. Compare this to Gothitelle, where the result is almost always a one mon advantage for the Gothitelle user.

Additionally, Mega Gengar often is forced into 50/50s. This means that against a Pokemon like ekiller, Mega Gengar must successfully choose between Taunt and Destiny Bond, and in some cases, attacking. Assuming Mega Gengar has already mega evolved, both mons are at full HP and both are healthy, there are a number of possibilities.

Ekiller uses Earthquake, Mega Gengar uses Taunt. Mega Gengar loses.
Ekiller uses Earthquake, Mega Gengar uses Dbond. One for one trade.
Ekiller uses Swords Dance, Mega Gengar uses Taunt. Ekiller loses a turn, and is forced to attack the next turn, either resulting in a one for one trade, or Mega Gengar may choose to switch out.
Ekiller uses Swords Dance, Mega Gengar uses Dbond. Mega Gengar loses a turn, Ekiller gets a boost, and the 50/50s continue.

Other examples of mons that force megagar into 50/50s are Groudon (offensive sets can set up, while support sets can twave or roar out if mega gengar makes a mistake), Ho-oh, Palkia, Rayquaza and countless others.

It is uncompetitive, yes. But I believe that it contributes positively to the metagame - it gives players another tool to use in their arsenal, and adds diversity and depth to the metagame. Mega Gengar is one of two viable poison types in the Ubers metagame (the other being Poison Arceus), and provides an interesting offensive check to a number of Pokemon, while possessing a very unique defensive typing.
 
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