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

[haxiom]

I don't really say much on Smogon, but here's my opinion at least.
From playing a lot of Ubers in gens 4-6, there are obviously pokemon that are clearly more overcentralizing, so to speak, than others. That being said, Ubers wasn't treated as a tier as much as a banlist until some time around gen 5.
Now I keep seeing the arguments that nothing in Ubers should be banned because there will always be "overcentralizing things", or that since it's Ubers nothing should be banned. Those are not valid arguments, and said arguments reflect your knowledge and skill level about the tier. Pokes like Kyogre or EKiller Arceus are extremely versatile, but still have checks and counters.
Anyway, I know I shouldn't bring up Gothitelle when this is a Gengarite discussion before Shadow Tag as a whole. But at least in my opinion, Gothitelle, while a strong force, can really only do so much, and can often find itself as near deadweight against more offensive teams.
As oppose to Mega Gengar, who can fit on any team and do well. The reason for this is its versatility. Due to its movepool, one can make Mega Gengar run specific moves to remove most, if not all, of the biggest threats to your team, offensive or not. Other Shadow Tag users are etremely limited in their sets. A Shadow Tag user can be deemed useless due to team MU, but as I previously said, that's not a concern for a team if you just build Mega Gengar well. And even if you can't handle the opponent's team with it, Destiny Bond takes the icing on the cake. If it's useless, just go kamikaze, waiting for the right moment. In the meantime, you can dish out damage.
An argument I have been seeing is that you still have to mega evolve first, so you're able to switch into a check. If your moves, for some reason, doesn't cover the check, you can just switch out. Granted, other Shadow Tag users can too, but again other ST users are a lot more limited. Or say you sent out Gengar on a double down. If you know that the opponent's pokemon is not choiced, you are free to mega evolve. But if it is choiced, you can run protect to not only scout the locked in move, but also freely mega evolve to get ST, as well as your beefed up stats.
My points lead to my conclusion that while Shadow Tag is an incredibly powerful ability, Mega Gengar is over the top, being able to do everything your team dreams of wanting, something the other ST users cannot do. Gengarite should be banned, but Shadow Tag should stay.

Just saying grounds for ban aren't overcentralization and brokenness but rather uncompetitiveness. Therefore I am not a fan of the "Gar should be banned because it is so good" argument.

 

[MMII]

Basically, bop. (the source isn't significant, literally the first thing that came up for "definition of choice in video games")

the key definition for those who don't want to look

Interesting choices
According to Sid Meier, a [good] game is a series of interesting choices. In an interesting choice, no single option is clearly better than the other options, the options are not equally attractive, and the player must be able to make an informed choice. (Rollings & Morris 2000, p. 38.)

 

[hyw]

Basically, bop. (the source isn't significant, literally the first thing that came up for "definition of choice in video games")

the key definition for those who don't want to look

Interesting choices
According to Sid Meier, a [good] game is a series of interesting choices. In an interesting choice, no single option is clearly better than the other options, the options are not equally attractive, and the player must be able to make an informed choice. (Rollings & Morris 2000, p. 38.)

How is this relevant to the questioning of whether Mega Gengar ghouls be banned from Ubers? Also, sorry for reiterating but if someone who's both knowledgable and pro-ban could numerically list out all reasonings supporting a ban of Mega Gengar, that would be fantastic as it would help everyone focus on the largest picture concerning this massive war of opinions.

 

[Haunted Diamond]

Ok. I believe I've laddered enough to give my real insights on this.

So I tried to get the reqs a second time with another alt, and this time I mostly used a shadow tagless Hyper Offense. My experience? Well stall in particular was one of the hardest things to face for me and I have to say that it definitely isn't so easy to beat stall without shadow tag. But to be honest, two of the best matches for me in a while were against stall (one of them against C-allstar, hell of a match).

What is my point? Shadow tag has simply made many players lazy and i have to say skill-less in dealing with stall and balance. Despite what many people think that stall will be OP after the ban of mega gengar and later shadow tag, the former techniques of using a wallbreaker to wallbreak and then a sweeper to sweep still works! And trust me it makes the battles a lot more interesting. Shadow tag has made the games a lot more boring and has made the meta game so lazy and incompetent in dealing with two decent play styles (aka STALL and balance).

I would very much like to see shadow tag out of this metagame as I believe a shadow tagless metagame will be much more interesting and the players will put a lot more skill in team building/battling. I hope people will notice that.

 

[hyw]

Could someone who's both knowledgable and pro-ban numerically list out all reasonings supporting a ban of Mega Gengar?

I think it would help to outline everything and get things straight to clear any clutter in all of these back-and-forth arguments. :)

 

[Edgar]

I don't think posting the reasons here would help at all, a lot of pro-ban supporters have different reasons as of why they want to ban it. But in the end, they want it gone. If you really want to do that yourself though, you should go on past pages to see what "knowledgable" pro-ban users have stated about Mega Gengar, I'm pretty sure Sweep, Fireburn, Melee Mewtwo, Dice and Hack have posted already.

 

[Perseu]

Firstly, i would like to say that Shadow Tag is an incredibly strong ability with a very low distribution, with only 3 viable users, namely: wobbuffet, goth and M-gar.
The fact it that, no one here founds the first two broken or anything like that, c'mon guy, these ones aren't even ubers...

About M-gar:
The combination of immunities, ultra wide movepool, super high stats and shadow tag makes it an unbeliaveble contender in the ubers enviroiment. And the combination of all these factors is what made Gengarite be banned from OU play. We have mons with huge movepools, with high stats, with godsend abilities and lot of others examples, but M-gar sports every single of them, so it got banned, this is also the reason that goth and wobby are not banned from regular OU (wobb was released when team preview came out).
Gengar's movepool is also what makes it even more powerful. You dont have to be offensive, even holding titanic attaking status, you can be a devil supporter, or a demon revenge killer, and Gengar does have tools to make this happen very often.
If you plan to ban something, suspect GENGARITE, not shadow tag
I, myself, dont have a specific opinion about all this stuff, because I think we already have brokenmons that make the Ubers metagame be so ugly and unhealthy (Xer..cough cough...neas...), because you guys treat Ubers as a simple idiot banlist, not a nice and cool playable metagame that lots of guys like me like to play. There's Sleep clause because, without it, any game would be completly dumb and idiot, and we have swagger clause because it turns the game into a coinflip. Following these thought lines, Mega Gengar does not fit well.

Sorry for my bad english.

And, cmon, ubers allow evasion... There are guys in the ladder sweeping teams with a single Muk, leave gengarite alone and suspect xerneas, hah.

 

[Boxesftl]

I have read through this entire thread and there have been many convincing elements to both the pro-ban and anti-ban sides. Evidently enough, this topic is a complex issue and challenges the very foundation of what of the Uber tier is. I am satisfied with the idea that the Uber tier is a legitimate tier as any other that is comprised of Pokemon that are too "strong" for the Overused tier. The word "strong" there is being as a broad term to encompass a Pokemon's overall ability to generate advantage over the other team and includes but it not limited to its moves, stats, typing, ability, sets etc.

Mega Gengar is a strong Pokemon, perhaps even the strongest that Pokemon has ever seen with regards to its ability to trap certain Pokemon and almost guarantee a strategic advantage to the user. Mega Gengar is not unique in the amount of advantage that it can generate. There are other Pokemon like Kyogre and Xerneas, two very strong Pokemon themselves, that can also generate an exceptional amount of advantage. Mega Gengar is only unique in the way it generates this advantage: by trapping Pokemon and either hitting with its impressive Special Attack stat or forcing the Pokemon to take itself down with Taunt and Destiny Bond.

However, it seems to have mainly centered around this concept that people continue to refer to as "competitiveness" and the idea that Mega Gengar's ability Shadow Tag makes the game less competitive. After reading both arguments, I have to say that this is the part of the argument that I am most unsatisfied with. The pro-ban side have brought up agreeable points that once a Pokemon has been trapped by Mega Gengar, the player no longer has the option of switching out. I agree that it eliminates an essential part of Pokemon battling. However, I have not been convinced it eliminates the "competitiveness" or skill of the game mainly because it seems too narrow-minded, to be candid. Winning and losing is considered when the battle is over - that is when the culmination of both players' sets and choices have been displayed and the one that had the better sets and made the better choices, however knowledge-based or arbitrary-based they may be. I'm emphasizing the idea that skill is shown through the course of the entire battle and not just an exchange or two of Pokemon.

With that, I disagree that Shadow Tag somehow defeats the concept of "competitiveness". From a broader aspect, Mega Gengar and by association, Shadow Tag, is a threat that has the ability to generate advantage for the player, a threat like any other. The opposing player has knowledge that his or her opponent has that threat and therefore has the ability to make plays to protect himself against it just as the other player has the ability to utilize the Pokemon to the best of its and the player's ability. The point I'm trying to make is that, with every other threat in the Uber metagame, there is skill in playing around and combatting Shadow Tag. If one's opponent has a Mega Gengar, he or she should analyze the situation and be wary of allowing indispensable Pokemon from being trapped by Mega Gengar.

For example,
I have a Scarf Palkia on my team that is preventing my opponent's Kyogre from sweeping. He sends out Kyogre to threaten one of my Pokemon. At this point, it would be pertinent to consider the possibility that my opponent will double switch to his Mega Gengar predicting my own switch into Palka to trap me.

This is no different from me double switching into a Pokemon that would pose a much bigger threat to the whole of my opponent's team.

For example,
A player GeoXern on my team and he notice that his opponent's team is exceptionally suscpetible to a sweep. He could switch in my Breloom to threaten his opponent's weakened Ho-Oh. He would then double switch into Xerneas and proceed to setup with little difficulty because his opponent would then have to switch out to a Pokemon that can better handle Xernas or could risk staying in. Maybe my opponent will realize that they could be in danger of a sweep and make the risk of not switching out Ho-Oh because of the larger overall impact it could have. I find the argument of 50/50 switches to be invalid because I could just as easily send out Breloom, predict him to switch out and use another move to hit the Pokemon coming in hard. There are many scenarios that can happen. Making those sort of choices, on both sides, is what determines battles and sometimes they can be arbitrary but they are never certain - that's just how predictions work.

This also includes the strategy of positioning; in this case being wary of knocking a Pokemon out to allow Mega Gengar to have that free switch. Additionally this also includes the strategy of preparation; in this case equipping the Pokemon or others with moves or sets that can also combat against. These are things that a player can do (meaning choices) before their indispensable Pokemon are trapped. With a threat as dangerous as Mega Gengar, preparation can seem overcentralizing but that is not any different from how Ubers normally is.

I have yet to hear an argument that properly convinces me that Mega Gengar severely eliminates choices because, from my point of view, there are so many more factors that go into a battle and to say that that Mega Gengar traps an essential Pokemon and creates a hole in the opponent's team is too simplistic. It takes skill to trap just as it takes skill to avoid being trapped. It takes knowledge to create a strong team that can function from many different positions and situations. Mega Gengar is a very strong Pokemon and that should not be understated. Mega Gengar may be one of the most biggest threats in the Ubers tier. Does it perform its job well? Yes. Does it perform it too well? I suppose that would be something valid to bring up if this were not the Ubers tier.

I hope someone from the pro-ban side can illuminate how Mega-Gengar and Shadow Tag take away this aspect of "competitiveness" because right now, it seems to me that if anything, it makes the game even more "competitive".

Edit: Some bolding. An "an" to an "a".

 

[AlphaNeria]

Here's an example that illustrates something that doesn't seem to have been discussed so far.

Player A has a Scarf Kyogre in. He uses Water Spout as his opponent, Player B, switches to Palkia. Player B has obviously outplayed his opponent, correctly predicting the water move, and switched in a Kyogre counter. He can now attack with little danger, and the advantage lies with him. If Player A now predicts the Thunder and goes to (say) Landorus-T, but Player B uses Hydro Pump instead, that advantage turns itself into a kill.

Suppose however that Player A has a Blissey. In this case there's almost nothing that Palkia can do to Blissey (the Focus Punch set is virtually non-existent, in my experience), and Player A can switch to Blissey with little danger. Note the same choice of words as in the previous paragraph; this is intentional. Player A can switch to Blissey with little danger, and therefore it's arguable that Player B doesn't really have an advantage (unless he double switches out of the incoming Blissey, more on this later).

Finally suppose further that in addition to Palkia, Player B also has a Mega Gengar that's already mega evolved. In this case Player A can no longer switch to Blissey with little danger, because a double switch to Mega Gengar annihilates him. It's no longer clear who has the advantage, because if Player A goes to Blissey as Player B goes to Mega Gengar, Player A loses a Pokemon; on the other hand if Player A stays in with Kyogre as Player B goes to Mega Gengar, Player B loses a Pokemon. Game on.

If Mega Gengar is banned, then the third situation cannot arise. In this case if Player A has a Blissey, he has a clear-cut choice on what to do. He almost doesn't need to think: just switch to Blissey. The only thing that could cause an issue is if Player B double switches to something that breaks through Blissey, but if Player A has seen what other Pokemon Player B has (team preview), he can evaluate if his Blissey-counter-counter is in shape to fight Player B's Blissey counter. Is the answer is yes, the choice is very clear-cut, and in spite of correctly predicting Kyogre's water move Player B essentially has no advantage.

It seems to me that a Mega Gengar ban turns many of the difficult plays, such as the "do I switch in Blissey and risk him going to Mega Gengar?" play, into safe ones ("of course I switch in Blissey"). This would remove complexity from gameplay and seems to be detrimental to a good game. From the philosophical point of view that many people have been approaching the suspect test from, I wonder what the pro-ban side has to say about this?

 

[hyw]

I'd like to know if the majority of the pro-ban group share the same mindset as AlphaNeria because I think that such a thought process is absolutely preposterous. In the example he/she that illustrated, it should be perceived NOT that Mega Gengar is overpowered, but in fact that Blissey is underpowered. As such, the scenario he/she illustrated is NOT an evidence of the uncompetitiveness of Mega Gengar or Shadow Tag, but rather the inability of said player A to play well in a competitive fashion. For example, player A could have given Blissey Shed Shell, could have opted for a different method of beating Palkia that is simultaneously not weak to Mega Gengar such as Lugia, Dialga, and Klefki. The player also has the option of sacrificing a Pokémon to Palkia to gain momentum, following the sacrifice by bringing in one's own Palkia solution, such as Kangaskhan, Xerneas, and Zekrom.

AlphaNeria also assumes as if Blissey is completely helpless against Mega Gengar, like a lot of these pro-ban arguments, which is ignorant. Blissey ties at worst with Mega Gengar with the proper preparation, learning Psychic, and even holds moves like Thunder Wave in its arsenal. Lastly, I want to note that if I were to be using a team consisting of Choice Scarf Kyogre and Blissey as my only Palkia switch-in, I would pressure my opponent to fail in Mega evolving his/her Gengar; in your argument, you assumed that Gengar had easily already Mega Evolved, which is far from easy without wasting a moveslot to Protect despite its omnipresent case of 4MSS.

In conclusion, I'm totally down to banning Mega Gengar if it is uncompetitive...but I still can't see why this is the case. Of course it is difficult to deal with, just like Extreme Killer Arceus Normal and -Ghost and Xerneas, but with an accordingly built team and correct plays, Mega Gengar should be far from causing too much of a problem and should be able to be played around just like any threat I'm any tier.

 

[MMII]

Neria, replace Mega Gengar with any strong physical attacker and you are good to go.

Boxes, I think your points boil down to the first of the two perspectives I mentioned earlier.

You are seeing the outliers and exceptions and concluding that because these exist, people can manage. I'm seeing the multiple cases where Shadow Tag causes issues and saying these shouldn't be happening.

You talk about the global picture and how Tag doesn't have an exceptional influence over it.

Firstly, I disagree with that and I think the SPL games are some quick examples to show that it is a deciding factor in many games. To explain this quickly, good teams tend to have the right blend of pressure and switching room to be able to handle just about every threat well enough. It takes repeated good plays getting the key mon (to break the opponent's defensive backbone) into a position to apply it's pressure, because a single turn won't do it. Tag does not need repeated plays, you trap them once and it's finished. It's not difficult to trap, the 50/50 double switches are the worst case scenarios. Your only hope is that you have some plan B (which you can't afford have for many threats).

Secondly, it's not about being able to beat it. Tag does not need to give teams a 100% success rate to be toxic for the game. I don't think I need to elaborate too much on how it is, I've explained many times already in this thread and it doesn't seem like you were contesting that fact, anyways.

 

[shrang]

I think my problem with that line of thinking is that:

1) They aren't so much exceptions and outliers, more like small sacrifices you need to make to make yourself less susceptible to Shadow Tag. They are sacrifices, sure, but they aren't anything major, IMO. For example, running Dark Pulse on Grassceus may cost you WoW, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal.
2) Sure, there are problems with Shadow Tag, I won't deny this. If SHadow Tag wasn't there, those problems, in theory at least, shouldn't be there. However, my contention is that if we can handle them (even if it means making a few sacrifices), why then shouldn't we?

 

[AlphaNeria]

Neria, replace Mega Gengar with any strong physical attacker and you are good to go.

Can you elaborate? For example replace Mega Gengar with Mega Blaziken in Player B's team, and then add Giratina in Player A's team. Then if Player B predicts the incoming Blissey and switches to Mega Blaziken, and gets it right, Player A is still home free because he can switch to Giratina with essentially no cost. If Player B predicts the incoming Giratina - that's three consecutive successful predictions - and goes to Palkia, Player A can still go back to Blissey. I don't see the point.

Also I don't see what's so bad about 50-50s. If two top players play each other, one would expect each of them to win 50% of the time, essentially a 50-50.

 

[Tomahawk]

AlphaNeria, I disagree. From reading your post, it seems like counters existing at all are uncompetitive, and the whole stall playstyle. Do you think every time you switch in a Palkia on a Water Spout,you deserve to be rewarded a KO? Maybe against HO teams, but not vs teams with a defensive backbone.

 

[AlphaNeria]

Well I certainly don't think that every time I switch in Palkia on (choiced) Water Spout I should get a KO, but I think it's sensible that I should get some advantage. That advantage need not be a KO, but can be things like:

1) Getting a layer of hazards up, or using Defog
2) Getting damage onto a Pokemon without reliable recovery
3) Getting status onto something

In this case Blissey can absorb Palkia's attacks with almost no trouble. This means the player with Blissey has a very obvious path set out before him even after Palkia switches into Water Spout:

Palkia switches into Water Spout, takes ~30% damage.
Palkia attacks with e.g. rain Hydro Pump vs. Blissey, Blissey takes ~30% damage.
Blissey uses Softboiled and is back in tip-top condition. Palkia switches out to Blaziken.
Blaziken uses Swords Dance (not a smart move, but it's just an example) as Blissey switches to Giratina.
Blaziken is stuffed, switches to Palkia, Giratina uses WoW, Palkia takes a bit more damage.
Giratina switches back to Blissey.

So in this stall loop Player B achieves nothing while his team gets worn down while Player A has only been making safe plays. Player A might as well be playing on autopilot, because that's how obvious the choices are for him. Unless things like hazards are up, he doesn't have to think, and yet he's risking nothing. Player B double switching here doesn't really help either, since if he switches Mega Blaziken to Palkia against Blissey, predicting the incoming Giratina, Player A can still switch back to Blissey for no loss.

I think to some extent this is why Knock Off is fairly common on Blaziken: if one is able to get Blaziken in against Blissey, then one will (often) be able to force a long-lasting advantage, even if the other team has solid Blaziken walls.

 

[MMII]

Wait nerai, are you suggesting that in a Shadow Tag free metagame people are going to have to build proper teams and are going to need to outplay the opponent overall in order to win, instead of just slapping Tag on your team and making that one key "play"? Oh damn, I never thought of that...

(I hope you don't take the sarcasm personally, it was just an easy way to get the point across)

Shrang:"
First of all, giving up on Will-O-Wisp for some random Dark-type move that only hits Mega Gengar isn't a "small sacrifice" that's "not a big deal". Will-O-Wisp is huge for because it allows your Arceus to serve as a blanket check for just about every physical attacker while Dark Pulse is only a situational solution against Mega Gengar, exclusively. (You need to have prior damage and outspeed cause otherwise you get hit with sludge Wave and cry) You are still going to lose your Grass Arceus against Gothitelle, Wobbuffet is still going to use you as setup fodder, and now you are much, MUCH more vulnerable to whatever 5 other mons you'll see on a Shadow Tag team, lol. (as if Grass Arcues wasn't bait enough this gen)

These gimmicks are what I was referring to as the outliers. The exceptions are referencing the fallibility of Shadow Tag.

Sure, there are problems with Shadow Tag, I won't deny this. If SHadow Tag wasn't there, those problems, in theory at least, shouldn't be there.

I'm glad we are on the same page concerning the toxicity of Shadow Tag. All that's left is to understand that 100% success rate is not a precedent for clauses. OHKO only has a 30% success rate and it may not even hit the key Pokemon. Swagger only works 50% of the time, can wear off while you are in play, and gives the other guy a free SD. You can make a small sacrifice and run Noctowl to handle sleep spam. Moody needed the free turn or the Speed boost / really haxy Evasion boost otherwise you aren't going anywhere. You can run into a Mega Gengar team that needs to stop Defog in order to beat Ho-Oh and can only stop Defog Grassceus with its Mega Gengar, good thing you got Dark Pulse!

Or, you know, Sheer Cold can hit everything you have to break SpDef Kyogre. You can keep hitting yourself in confusion. Darkrai was running Thunder or Taunt. Moody got that Speed boost with the Protect. The other player brought Gothitelle. Sucks you have no control over these things and just have to hope for the best.

 

[Tomahawk]

AlphaNeria, what you're saying sounds a lot like not wanting stall as a playstyle to exist at all. And certainly, if Palkia is your Giratina switchin on a team with Mega Blaziken, you're doing something wrong. Player B here, is losing because 1) his team isn't very good, has no ways to deal with stall, 2) he doesn't know how to play against a stall team.

 

[haxiom]

AlphaNeria, what you're saying sounds a lot like not wanting stall as a playstyle to exist at all. And certainly, if Palkia is your Giratina switchin on a team with Mega Blaziken, you're doing something wrong. Player B here, is losing because 1) his team isn't very good, has no ways to deal with stall, 2) he doesn't know how to play against a stall team.

Yeah I'm in complete agreement. When you play stall, you have to try to force situations where you, well, stall and your opponent kinda goes along taking damage and eventually breaking. Of course, going back to the original you have a Gengar (which could kind of be x stall breaker) to break out of those situations.

You are effectively saying, if I can't break stall, it's unfair.

EDIT: k this is kinda off topic I realized...

 

[Edgar]

I don't really get why people against the ban use the "stall will be too powerful" argument, Mega Gengar is not the only stallbreaker that is availiable in XY Ubers, if anything, it appears as the most efficient but, there's a lot more stallbreakers than Mega Gengar lol. I'd mention them but I'll just link the Teambuilding Compendium for you to look at the list.

 

[Genesis7]

So I just got reqs a couple minutes ago and my feelings on M-Gengar is not to ban. I used him on my team and obviously faced him a lot on the ladder, I think the main reason I feel that he isn't broken is because every team has a member that can out speed it and switch in so it is very manageable and makes Destiny Bond not as large as a threat as it could potentially be. Obviously the suspect test comes from his ability Shadow Tag which I only found myself using correctly a few times (I'm very new to the tier) and I NEVER saw used correctly (i.e. they didn't trap one of my mons and kill it) I believe part of the reason why this is is because Gengar has no staying power so once it gets the chance to mega-evolve it usually dies soon after, so the ideal way to play M-Gengar is to get him to mega-evolve and then get him out alive to use him as a good switch-in later in the game. The problem is that I rarely had a chance to do that and none of my opps did either however, I can see how a much more experienced player than me could use M-Gengar to his full potential. If someone could link me some replays of a good player using Gar well that would be very appreciated!

 

[haxiom]

So I just got reqs a couple minutes ago and my feelings on M-Gengar is not to ban. I used him on my team and obviously faced him a lot on the ladder, I think the main reason I feel that he isn't broken is because every team has a member that can out speed it and switch in so it is very manageable and makes Destiny Bond not as large as a threat as it could potentially be. Obviously the suspect test comes from his ability Shadow Tag which I only found myself using correctly a few times (I'm very new to the tier) and I NEVER saw used correctly (i.e. they didn't trap one of my mons and kill it) I believe part of the reason why this is is because Gengar has no staying power so once it gets the chance to mega-evolve it usually dies soon after, so the ideal way to play M-Gengar is to get him to mega-evolve and then get him out alive to use him as a good switch-in later in the game. The problem is that I rarely had a chance to do that and none of my opps did either however, I can see how a much more experienced player than me could use M-Gengar to his full potential. If someone could link me some replays of a good player using Gar well that would be very appreciated!

So... don't ban it because the ladder sucks too much to use it well?

Real talk- first of all broken does not ban a mon in Ubers. I'm getting sick of "brokenness" in this thread. On a different note, you make it sound like switching to faster mons beats Gengar. First of all, you can't switch other than the first turn, and even if you do, it switches out, and comes back in when you can't switch to scare it out. As for replays, I don't have any on me atm because I am on my phone but I'm sure other users have some.

 

[Genesis7]

So... don't ban it because the ladder sucks too much to use it well?

Real talk- first of all broken does not ban a mon in Ubers. I'm getting sick of "brokenness" in this thread. On a different note, you make it sound like switching to faster mons beats Gengar. First of all, you can't switch other than the first turn, and even if you do, it switches out, and comes back in when you can't switch to scare it out. As for replays, I don't have any on me atm because I am on my phone but I'm sure other users have some.

I'm trying to get someone to give me examples of why Gengar should be banned so I can make a more informed decision.

 

[haxiom]

I'm trying to get someone to give me examples of why Gengar should be banned so I can make a more informed decision.

See dice's post(the one right after the OP)

 

[Hill]

I'm not going to post a long reasoning text because my english is not that good, I'm just posting here to point out most of you are overlooking the most relevant aspect of Mega Gengar: It takes one turn to have Shadow Tag.

That fact alone is very important as it really differentiates M Gengar from other Shadow Tag users, and should be one of the main topics on a discussion whether Mega Gengar is uncompetitive or not.

 

[AlphaNeria]

AlphaNeria, what you're saying sounds a lot like not wanting stall as a playstyle to exist at all. And certainly, if Palkia is your Giratina switchin on a team with Mega Blaziken, you're doing something wrong. Player B here, is losing because 1) his team isn't very good, has no ways to deal with stall, 2) he doesn't know how to play against a stall team.

That's a good point actually. I did not think about it that way. And come to think of it, switching Palkia into Kyogre is a rather obvious move too. Not entirely risk-free in the case of Thunder, but still rather obvious.

I will have to think about it.