Kinda been johning this thread in terms of making posts but there were a lot of things about this post that irked me.
I'm not sure I have much to say that hasn't been said already. A lot of the argument I've prepared is similar to other posters', and a lot of the Ubers players that we generally consider to be established and respected have already made their viewpoints quite clear, largely leaving various players from lower tiers who (I assume) have literally never played Ubers before this suspect to represent both sides of the ban/anti-ban debate. I'd like to echo the general sentiment that this suspect should never have started with Gengarite, as it implies that Gengarite is more uncompetetive than any other Shadow Tag Pokemon (is it actually possible for one thing to be more uncompetetive than another?). I already think that calling Mega Gengar "uncompetetive", "imbalanced", or whatever buzzword posters are hooked on nowadays is an absurd notion, and the fact that the suspect started with Gengarite with no option to ban Gothitelle makes me incredibly mad.
Okay there's not much to discuss here since I don't necessarily disagree that a Shadow Tag test should have come first, but this is how we're doing it.
I feel that a lot of posters, particularly the aforementioned ones that hail from lower tiers, fail to differentiate between the state of brokenness in ubers and the state of ban-worthiness. One of the things a lot of us seem to forget is that brokenness is not criteria for a ban in ubers; otherwise, we would have banned Darkrai last generation, or the various Mewtwo forms this generation. Things are banned from ubers solely because of an uncompetetive factor, and Mega Gengar does not fit the fundamental definition of uncompetetive because it does not create statistically unfavorable odds for the opposition as they attempt to deal with it. Indeed, in most cases, all it comes down to are a few 50/50s the turn after Gengar's mega evolution. This is in stark contrast to previous subjects of bans in ubers such as Swagger and the wallbreaking OHKO moves, which undeniably created statistically favorable odds for the user of said imbalanced "strategy" whilst taking "skill" out of the opposition's hands as they attempted to deal with it. Any user with sense will agree that Mega Gengar is hilariously broken, which is certainly criteria for its S-Rank status, but not cause for a ban.
.
You're making the same mistake that other people are making that the few turns in which Mega Gengar is involved do not influence the match that much. Not going to link or explain it again but please see the SPL games Dice linked in his first post, the turns in which Mega Gengar gets to do things definitely influence and often decide the match. And if you wanna argue 50/50's, I'd like to point out that 50/50's are
not skill:
Harsha said:
Let me define a 50/50. In a 50/50 scenario, one side will emerge victorious, while one side will lose the turn. Both sides have the option to choose their move. Whether they choose correctly or incorrectly is up to chance. There is an equal chance of winning and losing the turn for both sides. A 50/50 is, for all intents and purposes, a coin flip.
I hate seeing people spout "outplay the coin flip" bullshit. You cannot outplay a coin flip. In a true coin flip scenario, you have an equal chance of winning the turn as you have of losing the turn. Everyone emulating Haunter's custom title needs to realize that he was quoting somebody as a joke. I have confirmed this with him.
Now, that said, one side may have more to gain from winning a coin flip than the other. Somebody will certainly quote me and tell me that my example is irrelevant, but I will draw a comparison regardless. Consider the example of a real-life bet riding on the outcome of a coin flip. Should one person lose, he loses 50 dollars. Should he win, he receives 100 dollars worth of merchandise. The other person wins 50 dollars if he wins the coin flip, but loses 100 if he loses. Granted, this is a dumb situation, but just because the stakes are different for both sides does not change the fact of the matter: this is a coin flip. Anybody who claims otherwise is simply dense.
"Coming down to a few 50/50s" is basically telling us to outplay the coinflip. I know this post is from an OU suspect thread, but since we're arguing competitiveness and not brokennness, this is perfectly relevant.
A more developed argument I've seen in PS!'s ubers chatroom and in this thread is that Mega Gengar has the ability to trap borderline anything it wants and then pave the way for something else to sweep, but there is a lot more strategy to this than some posters seem to realize. Mega Gengar needs a turn of mega evolution to trap anything, at which point the opponent can switch in a check to it. I'm trying to avoid mentioning Gothitelle since this is not a general STAG suspect, but it must be noted that Gengar's obligatory turn of mega evolution is one of the main things that separates it from its uncompetetive cousin Gothitelle, which can simply waltz in on a support Arceus lacking Punishment or a physical STAB and eliminate it. Because Gengar needs this turn of mega evolution to trap anything, it is not toxic enough to warrant a ban.
Everyone on the anti-ban side keeps saying it takes "strategy" to use Mega Gengar. What is this magical strategy you speak of?
And what exactly checks Mega Gengar? Checking something means you can switch in on certain moves and stop it from doing its job. What are you gonna do? Switch in a Scarfer? Switch in a Yveltal that can still die if Gengar DBonds on the Sucker Punch? Gengar switches back out and then when it comes back in you can't switch your Pokemon out. These Pokemon you described are
not checks because they cannot stop Gengar from doing its job. Yeah, you can argue Mega Gengar has to come back in, but that's not impossible as some people make it out to be...it's not like you have to hard switch Gengar into Palkia's Spacial Rend every time. You can double switch (worst case scenario), use U-turn/VSwitch (these mons tend to work well with Gengar anyway), bring it in on a sac or revenge kill, or just bring it in on a resisted hit from a wall that it can easily trap. Or, you know, take advantage of the fact Mega Gengar has 170 SAtk and 130 Speed. Or heck, if your team needs a Gengar set that can wreck HO, use Protect to guarantee that free Mega Evolution against EKiller, Darkrai, Landorus, etc. This brings me to my next point:
Now, the main issue a lot of posters have with Mega Gengar is that it has the ability to trap theoretically any check and eliminate it, a line of thought that ignores the omnipresent Yveltal as well as two relevant scarfers in Zekrom and Kyogre and a handful of tanky Pokemon like Shed Shell Blissey, but I'll address those soon enough. Some people have the idea that this trapping factor coupled with Mega Gengar's versatility warrants a ban. It doesn't. A lot of users overemphasize the prevalence of random coverage moves such as Will-o-Wisp, Reflect Type and Icy Wind, which in reality are hardly used outside of gimmicky tour settings... as an active and relevant ubers player, I've never even seen some of the random moves posters bring up in this thread in serious matches. Said users will cite these niche moves as hallmarks of Gengar's versatility when in reality they provide Gengar with far less versatility in terms of what it can eliminate in any given match. The Mega Gengar user is forced to make choices that will allow them to beat some checks at the cost of losing to others. For instance, the Gengar user can run a specialized move such as Hidden Power Fire over, say, Focus Blast, meaning that they can defeat Specially Defensive Mega Scizor in exchange for getting counter-trapped by another Pursuit user in Tyranitar as well as missing all the other perks of Focus Blast. The Mega Gengar user can run a Reflect Type set and have an easier time against most Pursuit Pokemon and a handful of stallier Pokemon at the cost of being fairly useless versus offensive archetypes (For what it's worth, I have a
showcased RMT that features Reflect Type Mega Gengar in a "tour setting" importable and standard Mega Gengar in a "ladder setting" importable because Reflect Type is too matchup-reliant to be useful in any random casual match). While the Mega Gengar user
can pick and choose what Pokemon they want to eliminate with their set, said set is a far less catch-all answer to the metagame than some think, and though the Gengar beats some checks it will always fall to others.
Going to ignore the parts where you toot your own horn and focus on your core argument.
Here's the thing about those "random and bizarre" coverage moves - they are perfectly valid options if they benefit your team. Gengar doesn't need to trap everything - it is a customizable Pokemon that can that trap
whatever your team needs it to beat. Icy Wind is perfectly valid if you want to be able to Mega Evolve against Deoxys-S and to OHKO Landorus-T and Gliscor. You even made an RMT with Reflect Type/WoW Gengar, can't really argue that set is gimmicky or bad now can you?
There is a very successful team that uses Thunder Gengar. The problem here is that Gengar retains a lot of general utility no matter what moves it runs because it can still use DBond and/or Taunt to trap and kill the things its attacks don't cover. Reflect Type is probably the most specialized set but even that isn't a huge deal since it can still beat Pursuit trappers.
See, this is one of the huge reasons Mega Gengar and by extension Shadow Tag and XY is so matchup based. Your ability to "beat" Gengar depends pretty much entirely on what set its running. This isn't something you can predict from team preview either.
I made a big post about this already that focused on Pursuit (which is the only way to maybe "check" Gengar by preventing it from doing its job), but actually beating Gengar i.e. stopping it from doing its job doesn't depend on skill as much as it depends on Gengar's set. Mega Gengar and by extension Shadow Tag either decides games in the teambuilder or forces you to make coinflip plays to prevent it from getting in on something it can trap. Neither of these involve skill deciding the game or having an actual, meaningful choice in the matter (hence uncompetitiveness), now does it? You can look at SPL games played by "active and relevant" Ubers players if you need proof of that.
And the only checks Mega Gengar does abuse especially well anyway are Pursuit Pokemon; there are still plenty of checks that Gengar struggles to touch without incredibly bizarre coverage like Thunder. There are checks that outspeed it by means of a choice scarf (Kyogre, Zekrom), priority (Yveltal, etc.), natural bulk (Shed Shell Blissey, Specially Defensive Kyogre, bulky Ho-oh, etc.) as well as ways to pressure it so it can't safely mega evolve (such as with a team with several strong and fast Pokemon), a common aspect of hyper offense that aids it in checking Mega Gengar.
Already said why these aren't checks. And if Pursuit is the one way of potentially getting rid of Gengar without doing its job, and its the thing Gengar can work around with the most success...how is that not a problem?
I don't really want to response to the last sentence because, quite frankly, it's stupid. Hyper Offense isn't the only team style (and HO that uses Sticky Web or Scolipede DOES give Gengar chances to wreak plenty of havoc), and unless you're running 6 Pokemon faster than something with 110-130 Speed (if you are your team sucks and I shouldn't have to explain why) you're not shutting Gengar out completely, period. Protect is also a thing if you want a Gengar that fares extremely well vs the omnipresent EKiller HO teams since it takes away the one edge HO does have in dealing with Gar which is reducing opportunities to Mega Evolve.
I'll be largely uninterested in any response to this post and am uninterested in any other argument in this suspect thread; any pro-ban argument that isn't tackled by the points I have covered is largely steeped in unnecessary and dull semantics, which I'm hardly interested in pursuing. I'm not going to drive up my postcount by arguing in circles with anyone that opposes me unless it turns out that I missed something in my arguments. The purpose behind this post was simply to voice my stance on Gengarite.
Not trying to be rude, but I will be frank: your arguments are flawed, your tone is dismissive, and you show a grave misunderstanding of how one actually "checks" Gengar. It is not good for either side of this discussion that you dismiss the other arguments as being steeped in "unnecessary and dull semantics" because it indicates that you either don't know how to properly respond to the points made or just didn't read the thread. Statements like "git gud" or "dumb semantics" without reasoning backing them up just make the anti-ban arguments appear weaker because you're relying on cop-out statements rather than actually debating the points made.
Also I want to respond quickly to one other thing:
With that being said, I don't think Shadow Tag is broken either. While at one point I believed it was, after having the ability allowed in Ubers for the past 4 generations, you have no excuse but to adjust to it. Too many people that are pro-Gengarite ban will shift their ideology into now focusing strictly on a Shadow Tag ban, despite NEVER complaining about it before, just for the sake of removing Mega Gengar from the tier.
Whether or not STAG was allowed in the previous generations is irrelevant. Whether or not people never complained about it before is irrelevant. Things change. XY Ubers is a completely different metagame with Taggers that were either buffed through metagame shifts (Goth, Wobb) or are new and extremely potent (MGar), and as such it should be treated as its own entity. A lot of the people who want to see a STAG test happen say so because of the underlying philosophical concerns of what needs to be tested or complaints about other Shadow Tag users such as Gothitelle. I haven't seen a single person post in this thread (yet) saying they are willing to ban Shadow Tag as a whole just to get Mega Gengar out of the tier. That's all I'll say about it since I don't want to go off on a tangent.
