Gen 6 np: XY Ubers Shadow Tag Suspect Test - Stuck In The Middle With You

[MMII]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-177069182

I take that back, shadow tag does let shit players beat good ones lol

edit: that's edgar btw

 

[ApplepieFTW]

^ maybe mention that 21-23, and then the outcome of the game are the relevant turns to your comment
also hey dont be callin my opps for the xy team tour shit ,,,,,

e: @below, yeah guys. negative 50/50's rh. choice being limited, before and while getting trapped. players not being able to equally compete. right here this replay.

also its funne because edgar plays this guy too n___n oh that was the tour replay yo wtf a good player getting wrecked by something uncompetitive, its like swagger all over again hint hint hint. shoutouts to stag for being uncompetitive so my team doesn't get even farther behind n__n

 

[Edgar]

Yeah HeyHarold never switched his Arceus-Grass into the Kyogre, instead he chose to make agressive plays, I wonder what the reason may be.

 

[Kebabe]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-177069182

I take that back, shadow tag does let shit players beat good ones lol

edit: that's edgar btw

Just gonna point out that there was no reason for HeyHarold to not recover with Arceus on Kyogre on turn 23 If the opp went to gar g-knot would have put it into moonblast range from scarf xern. Ofc players gonna loose to STag if they choke away the win lol.

 

[ApplepieFTW]

Just gonna point out that there was no reason for HeyHarold to not recover with Arceus on Kyogre on turn 23 If the opp went to gar g-knot would have put it into moonblast range from scarf xern. Ofc players gonna loose to STag if they choke away the win lol.

Just to not wreck this as a sample replay, if we're using this to base arguments off of we should just imagine mgar was at full HP (if this wasn't obvious already)

 

[Kebabe]

Just to not wreck this as a sample replay, if we're using this to base arguments off of we should just imagine mgar was at full HP (if this wasn't obvious already)

The disadvantage with having to take a turn mega-evolve is that you might have to take damage to do so. Therefore its a more likely scenario that m-gar isnt at full

 

[Edgar]

Just gonna point out that there was no reason for HeyHarold to not recover with Arceus on Kyogre on turn 23 If the opp went to gar g-knot would have put it into moonblast range from scarf xern. Ofc players gonna loose to STag if they choke away the win lol.

That's not really the point, imagine if Gengar was at full and not at 50%. Nah nah you can't really say that's true 100% of the times, in this case it didn't receive damage the turn it mega evolved, if I remember correctly

 

[MMII]

hi guys, it's not something to be arguing about. Just a little thing I came across. The point isn't to nitpick details as much as just grab two essential concepts:
1) even if the player with tag is ass, the simple threat of it pushes better players to play blind aggression which means, with the right luck, shit players can beat good ones
2) edgar couldn't do jack shit about tag besides making blind ass plays

EDIT: If you don't like the anecdote, so be it. It's absolutely trivial.

 

[Kebabe]

hi guys, it's not something to be arguing about. Just a little thing I came across. The point isn't to nitpick details as much as just grab two essential concepts:
1) even if the player with tag is ass, the simple threat of it pushes better players to play blind aggression which means, with the right luck, shit players can beat good ones
2) edgar couldn't do jack shit about tag besides making blind ass plays

Then just post the concepts and not bad examples, and do you have anything backing up your statements? Personally I have never felt that way about STag, at least not more then playing vs lets say a band Ho-Oh. I guess it comes down to not having too many STag targets if you lack a solid pursuiter (i.e. Sand Stall) (with the Ho-Oh example it is to not have too many mons that gives it a free switch in unless you have a really good answer, maybe Arc-Rock) Some team structures might not be viable with STag around but I dont really see the problem with that

 

[shrang]

Regarding the Edgar vs "bad player" log:

Who are you to judge that player was "bad" (at least in that game)? Sure, I won't deny that Edgar's a far superior player for the most part and his opponent was making lots of new player mistakes and using silly sets like SubSD Ekiller, but it doesn't change the fact that (I'm going to avoid the word "outplayed" here because it causes confusion) Edgar was the one who made the wrong choice. No-one forced him to. Basically, you can see it in two ways: 1) Edgar overpredicted his opponent, or 2) his opponent predicted Edgar's switch out to Heatran with Grassceus and Water Spouted the Heatran (ie he outpredicted Edgar). Either way, both players were in total control of their situation at the time, one player made the right decision and the other didn't. Isn't that the basis of all Pokemon battles?

 

[asterat]

What bothers me most about the pro-ban arguments is that the whole idea of a "better player" losing is completely arbitrary. Who are we to declare certain players good or bad? And on top of that, who are we to declare what should be allowed and what shouldn't? Personally, I think that ubers should be a metagame of little to no restrictions- that's the appeal of it. You get to use crazy powerful pokemon, and you don't have to follow traditional rules. I think that we should view ubers as something different than all of the other tiers, almost as a different game in a sense.

Despite this, I think I'm ultimately pro ban. The philosophical reasoning behind banning or not banning is kind of too detached from the metagame to me, and I'd prefer to just do it based off my personal opinion. I like a metagame where you can use fairy and grass type pokemon throughout a match without getting picked off. Gothitelle is an even bigger pain, it can trap a lot of mons if used correctly, and while matchup reliant, I am a balance/bulky offense player, and it makes my playstyle of choice under pressure for the entire game to the point it is not as good as hyper offense, which is something I do not want to see.

 

[Clone]

So I've avoided this thread after like the first few pages, but since I get to vote, I'll post my thoughts.

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

The basis of this test is whether or not STag is uncompetitive. Not whether or not its OP. It is the latter, not the former. Uncompetitive in relation to the game of Pokémon is something RNG related that neither player has 100% control of. An example of this is Swagger. Swagger was a move that was heavily RNG reliant that also took things out of the players' hands. Neither player had full control over the situation, but the Swagger user did have an advantage in that using something like Ditto, spamming Substitute, or simply boosting was made exponentially easier whenever the RNG. Decided to say 'fuck you' to the opposing player.

So what does this have to do with STag? It has to do with the fact that STag is not RNG reliant and it does not take control out of either player completely. Yes, a mon is trapped. No, the trapped mon isn't completely useless. Yes, supportceus falls to Taunt Mega Gengar, but it still has the free will to choose which move to use. It doesn't matter if you might die before you even get to use your move. That's just something being OP, not uncompetitive. Ubers is full of OP shit and that has never been the basis for a ban and it shouldn't be now. Most of the pro ban arguments I've skimmed through all lead to tag being OP, rather than uncompetitive.

And just so I don't have to keep defending my point across multiple pages, I'll just explain why tag isn't uncompetitive. As previously mentioned, it is not RNG reliant, and even in its presence both players have free will of choice. Once a mon is trapped, that free will of choice for the trapped mon is still present, even if it is limited. Just because the choice is limited doesn't mean that the choice doesn't exist. I've mainly seen arguments on the pro ban side saying that tag takes away a players choice. It doesn't. It simply limits it. The only true exception is when Gothitelle tricks a choice item onto a mon. Otherwise, that free choice goes from choosing moves and switching, to just choosing moves. As long as that choice remains, competitiveness remains. It's just like how in chess when one person puts the other in check. The other player still gets to make a move. It's just that his move is limited to only being able to protect the king. It's the same principle. The choice is limited, but it exists, therefore leaving at least some element of competitiveness.

Now, I see where the pro ban side is coming from. STag is obviously a big issue, which is something I saw in my endeavors while laddering. Removing something like Poisonceus to make way for a geoxern sweep is really fucking frustrating when all you can do is burn the damn thing while it slowly kills you with Shadow Ball. It's no fun, and its OP as balls. However, this is Ubers, and things should not be banned for being OP / centralizing. That literally goes against the Ubers philosophy. If tag was this big of an issue in OU (which it's not, thankfully), then I'd vote to ban it in a heartbeat. But this is Ubers, and tag is just one of the many OP Threats that plagues this meta. It's definitely high up on the list, but that's pretty much irrelevant when things like CB Ho-Oh, Extremekiller, GeoXern, SpecsOgre, and a whole bunch of other shit run the tier.

So in essence, Shadow Tag isn't uncompetitive like it is Overpowered. Based on OPness alone, it does not warrant a ban and I will be voting as such.

 

[Focus]

I was going to start typing up another obnoxiously long response but then I read this

[shrang quote here]

and realized we are done here. This is literally all I was trying to prove with my exchange with you. Yet here it is, straight from the horse's mouth, that during those trap turns Shadow Tag is uncompetitive.


We've got a zero tolerance policy on uncompetitive elements otherwise we couldn't call Ubers a competitive metagame. I'm not going to bothering responding to any bullshit special pleading and lol at Tag in past metagames, didn't stop Swagger Clause. I've got what I wanted, thanks for the chat.

I've been reading your arguments in this thread for quite a while, but this one lost me. By zero tolerance policy, do you mean that any uncompetitive element should be banned? Because that seems pretty absurd. One could easily argue that something like, say, Whirlwind takes away control of the game's events to a significant degree and is therefore an uncompetitive element, and I think it's pretty safe to say that most players can accept a competitive Pokémon metagame with phasing moves. The distinction between competitive aspects and a competitive metagame is subtle, but important.

More to the point, I certainly consider modern XY Ubers a competitive metagame. There are surely dozens of viable teams, the majority of matches I've been in had a good amount of interesting choice, a great player can beat an average player almost all the time, and I find the highest-level matches to be far more interesting than simple coin flips. Even with Shadow Tag allowed. It may not be an ideal competitive metagame, but Ubers has never tried to be anywhere near ideal (aka balanced) except by accident. Also, Shiny Mega Gengar looks baller as f

 

[MMII]

Focus I like the rest of your post but please avoid slippery slopes and strawmans. (i'd just edit out but you made the two chain together and I don't want to destroy what you are trying to say in the rest so yer)

Similar song for asterat. Just a heads up to folks to not piggyback off of his first half to enter a debate on the meaning of "bad player" and who has the right to claim somebody is such. That would be another red herring.

 

[shrang]

I was going to start typing up another obnoxiously long response but then I read this

I think this address's your main concern Applepieftw, because (at least judging from our conversation) your main point was that regardless of what happens later in the game, it is still "uncompetitive" (for the lack of a better word) in the turns that you are trapped. I don't disagree this point, but my point is that whatever happens in each turn cannot simply be extrapolated to the whole game level (coming back to my "causal" and "global" argument).

and realized we are done here. This is literally all I was trying to prove with my exchange with you. Yet here it is, straight from the horse's mouth, that during those trap turns Shadow Tag is uncompetitive.

We've got a zero tolerance policy on uncompetitive elements otherwise we couldn't call Ubers a competitive metagame. I'm not going to bothering responding to any bullshit special pleading and lol at Tag in past metagames, didn't stop Swagger Clause. I've got what I wanted, thanks for the chat.

Okay, I think we've come to a relatively good understanding through our conversation on IRC, but I'll clarify this.

Firstly, we've agreed to use the (shitty) OU council definition of uncompetitive, so I'll just bring it up again:

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.

As you can see, the word "uncompetitive" appears twice in that definition. The first usage of the word gives a meaning to word, the second time attaches a condition. The circular logic in the definition makes it difficult to define properly, but the way I see it, both of these have to be true (both the meaning AND the condition) for something to be truly considered uncompetitive.

Okay, as you're not wrong in pointing out, I acknowledged that during the turns in which you are trapped, that it is "uncompetitive". I meant this in the first usage of the word in the definition only, ie I'm only acknowledging that it takes away (a certain amount of) autonomy during the turns that you are trapped. However, if you've followed everything else I have said, in no way do I agree that the second part is true. So basically, in that quote, it can be summarised to:

Do I think that S-tag takes away autonomy? Yes, to a certain extent during the turns that you have an unprepared Pokemon trapped.
Do I think that that it's to a degree that it can be considered uncompetitive? No

I'm pretty sure you've read my reasoning many times on why I don't believe that 2nd condition is true, I don't think I need to repeat it again.

This is also what I found so jarring and confusing about your "zero tolerance" statement in relation to the definition above, which you're using. Focus touched on this in his post, but I really want to reinforce this point. Do we have a "zero tolerance" on uncompetitive game elements (in the sense of "removing autonomy" only), or "zero tolerance" on uncompetitive in both the meaning AND condition in which has to be true? There are plenty of things in the game that "take away your autonomy" which we are perfectly fine with (eg phazing as from Focus's post). Do you mean we have a zero tolerance on those things (things that only fulfill the "removing autonomy" section of the definition), or do you mean we have a zero tolerance on things that fulfill both conditions (ie things that take away autonomy to the point where it can be considered uncompetitive)? Like Focus highlighted in his posts, there's a difference between "uncompetitive elements" (I'll add here in the sense of taking away autonomy) and an uncompetitive metagame (presumably due to uncompetitive element X).

 

[AlphaNeria]

Then that's the player's fault to not prepare for Fire Blast Ekiller. I didn't bother to write that much on that particular example but the lack of ghost coverage (or ground, but Earthquake is far too useful) allows many more things to wall Ekiller. Nothing stops you from running Giratina-O + Mega Scizor when both of the mons have additional utilities other than walling Ekiller. This isn't anything about team matchup. It is about one player having lack of understanding to the meta and not preparing for some threats. The problem with Shadow Tag is while you can pack multiple checks to certain dangerous threats, you cannot do the same for Shadow Tag. It is pretty easy to scout the opposing Ekiller's set and counter it with the right mon but you can only face Shadow Tag with one single mon. There is no way to tell about the set of the opposing MegaGar or Goth before you get trapped and you can't think of any countermeasure to it before it actually traps something. This is certainly different to any threat in Ubers.

I dunno how you find it easy, because I generally do not. In my experience Ubers has many Pokemon that are too dangerous to scout simply because they hit so hard. Let's take Xerneas, because it's the biggest culprit in my opinion. Suppose it gets in safely on something and it's going to use Geomancy. You get to bring in your checks, which are Scizor and Blissey. I use these two examples since I've used them before as my Xerneas checks.

Now Blissey beats Xerneas without Psyshock / Focus Blast, while Scizor beats Xerneas without HP Fire. On the turn it uses Geo, which do you go to? Let's begin with Blissey. Are you going to go to Scizor now to "scout" the Psyshock / Focus Blast? If Xerneas doesn't have Psyshock / Focus Blast, it's going to attack with Moonblast for obvious reasons. If that's indeed the case and you bring Scizor into that Moonblast, it won't survive to do enough damage to kill Xerneas anymore. "Scouting" for Psyshock / Focus Blast gets Scizor killed. In the same way, if you go to Scizor first and then Blissey to "scout" the HP Fire, if Xerneas doesn't have HP Fire it's going to attack with Moonblast. If that connects Blissey won't be able to check Xerneas anymore. You can bring Blissey / Scizor on the Geomancy, but you can't bring them in on +2 Moonblast and still expect them to check Xerneas.

In my experience I simply risk the Ekiller / Xerneas / etc having the appropriate coverage move. The cost of checking if Arceus has Grass Knot to hit my Groudon, or Stone Edge to hit my Yveltal, etc is just too high, especially if hazards are up. I may be missing something, but if so please point it out.

EDIT: About the Edgar replay, after watching it aside from not using Recover on turn 23, two thoughts:

1) Sacrificing Scizor to Ekiller looks like a bad choice to me. Even weakened Scizor's Bullet Punch is good priority. Why not sacrifice Heatran instead?
2) Seems to me that Smeargle deserves as much credit as Mega Gengar, because it put to sleep one of Edgar's two Kyogre checks. Just curious, why not lead with Grass Arceus against the Smeargle instead? You're immune to Spore, and can Defog whatever it does.

 

[kingmidas]

I dunno how you find it easy, because I generally do not. In my experience Ubers has many Pokemon that are too dangerous to scout simply because they hit so hard. Let's take Xerneas, because it's the biggest culprit in my opinion. Suppose it gets in safely on something and it's going to use Geomancy. You get to bring in your checks, which are Scizor and Blissey. I use these two examples since I've used them before as my Xerneas checks.

Now Blissey beats Xerneas without Psyshock / Focus Blast, while Scizor beats Xerneas without HP Fire. On the turn it uses Geo, which do you go to? Let's begin with Blissey. Are you going to go to Scizor now to "scout" the Psyshock / Focus Blast? If Xerneas doesn't have Psyshock / Focus Blast, it's going to attack with Moonblast for obvious reasons. If that's indeed the case and you bring Scizor into that Moonblast, it won't survive to do enough damage to kill Xerneas anymore. "Scouting" for Psyshock / Focus Blast gets Scizor killed. In the same way, if you go to Scizor first and then Blissey to "scout" the HP Fire, if Xerneas doesn't have HP Fire it's going to attack with Moonblast. If that connects Blissey won't be able to check Xerneas anymore. You can bring Blissey / Scizor on the Geomancy, but you can't bring them in on +2 Moonblast and still expect them to check Xerneas.

In my experience I simply risk the Ekiller / Xerneas / etc having the appropriate coverage move. The cost of checking if Arceus has Grass Knot to hit my Groudon, or Stone Edge to hit my Yveltal, etc is just too high, especially if hazards are up. I may be missing something, but if so please point it out.

Just a little nitpick, no arceus normal should ever run stone edge, and grass knot is sorta a joke set to be quagod. Also blissey and scizor can't hope to beat an xerneas at 100% anyway. Scizor revevges with prior damage and blissey attempts to stall it out with toxic with another soft check. now in the senario of scizor and blissey if we factor in shadow tags influence you can't hope to really beat a healthy xerneas if you have nothing to deal 40% on the set up, as shed shell blissey can't beat xerneas after SR, and flamethrower variants get weakened/traded for. not to mention a healthy mega-gengar can eliminate normal scizor even if it doesn't have hidden power fire. Point is mega-gengars influence is justifiably addable to nearly any scenario in which a set up sweeper or cleaner needs some help, even though your example here is slightly flawed in the first place.

 

[Haruno]

Just a little nitpick, no arceus normal should ever run stone edge, and grass knot is sorta a joke set to be quagod. Also blissey and scizor can't hope to beat an xerneas at 100% anyway. Scizor revevges with prior damage and blissey attempts to stall it out with toxic with another soft check. now in the senario of scizor and blissey if we factor in shadow tags influence you can't hope to really beat a healthy xerneas if you have nothing to deal 40% on the set up, as shed shell blissey can't beat xerneas after SR, and flamethrower variants get weakened/traded for. not to mention a healthy mega-gengar can eliminate normal scizor even if it doesn't have hidden power fire. Point is mega-gengars influence is justifiably addable to nearly any scenario in which a set up sweeper or cleaner needs some help, even though your example here is slightly flawed in the first place.

Yo how is that logic different than HO not using their ekiller because their opp has a blaziken in the back threatening to sweep? How is that different from not using a xerneas because your opp has a scizor in the back threatening to sweep and vice versa? How is that different from playing your elec immune/resistances carefully when your opp has zekrom? How is this different from keeping your ho oh check safe when your PPP has a Ho oh?

The list goes on and on. How the fuck does shadow tag in itself act differently?

Edit: I agree that shadow tag does do that but how is that uncompetitive or banworthy? Without a case there then you can't hope for a ban with faulty logic.

 

[ntiller]

I made reqs and unless something changes my mind, I'm voting to keep Shadow Tag unbanned. This is because I think Shadow Tag is overpowered and not uncompetitive. The reason I think Shadow Tag is not uncompetitive is that it doesn't minimize the importance of the decisions both players make during teambuilding and gameplay, unlike incredibly haxy mechanics such as Moody and OHKO's.

If I win because I successfully trap my opponent's key counter, I know that it was my strategic decisions made during teambuilding and gameplay that led to my victory- it wasn't that the RNG decided it liked me (or at least, the RNG didn't matter any more than it does during a "normal" game of Pokemon). If I lose because my opponent was able to trap my key counter, then again, I know that it was their strategic decisions that led to my defeat.

The people who are saying that "Shadow Tag is uncompetitive because it takes away an important option of the opponent, thus removing an interesting decision" (I hope I got this position right, I don't want to strawman) don't seem to understand that getting a certain matchup with a STag mon is often a victory condition. Once you get the right matchup, the game (can be) effectively over- but that doesn't mean that the player decisions that lead to that position didn't matter, they did. They mattered tremendously. While Shadow Tag might remove certain options from the opponent, it certainly doesn't make player decisions in general unimportant- and thus should not be banned for being uncompetitive.

 

[MMII]

I would say they didn't matter if I lost to a couple turns of trapping no matter how much I outplayed the dude before and after, but I guess that's just me.

 

[Haruno]

I would say they didn't matter if I lost to a couple turns of trapping no matter how much I outplayed the dude before and after, but I guess that's just me.

Then you clearly didn't outplay your opponent if they managed to still persevere due to shadow tag which only happened due to good moves on their part.

edit: Here's some random potential examples. You "outplayed" your opponent for the whole game till they're left with a fast sableye with swagger, and then they proceed to spam swagger + foul play + sub until you eventually lose due to never getting to make a move since you always hit yourself in confusion. That would be an example of losing in a couple of turns that you had no control over which is why swagger was deemed as uncompetitive.

However if we made an example off of shadow tag which would be your opp willingly sacking his whole team bar one set up sweeper just to remove your only check(s) to said setup sweeper with shadow tag. In that scenario although you might've been "outplaying" your opp due to the huge difference in mons remaining, they were ultimately able to have a much better win con and thus win. That's the scenario you're describing as well which you got fucked in a couple of turns due to shadow tag, but that would ultimately be due to your opp making better choices than you overall and thus winning.

Can shadow tag potentially turn a supposed win into a loss? Sure. but that's no different than how other mons might run surprising sets to fuck you over anyhow.

 

[ntiller]

I would say they didn't matter if I lost to a couple turns of trapping no matter how much I outplayed the dude before and after, but I guess that's just me.

If you were really outplaying your opponent, you wouldn't let them achieve the Shadow Tag matchup they're trying to achieve. And, if there is no viable line of play that allows you to do this, then your team simply matches up very badly against their team. Regardless of which is true (they outplayed you or their team beats your team), player decisions aren't made to be unimportant.

Sometimes, it will look like you are outplaying your opponent while he baits you into a Shadow Tag trap. Sometimes, you really will be outplaying your opponent, but he will make a comeback by finding a way to trap your key Pokemon at the last moment. Neither of these things is the same as your opponent's Bidoof boosting evasion 3 turns in a row and going on to sweep your team.

 

[Fireburn]

The replay discussion is starting to go a little overboard and you could easily argue that I just got haxed badly (between Dragon Tail and then Gliscor not critting any EQ's), so let's not derail the thread too much.

Still a funny replay though, even if it was at my expense lol.

 

[MMII]

I assumed replays would make things easier but I suppose not.

The issue here is you are stuck in a circular logic in which you assume that the only way to arrive at a scenario in which you are trapped is by being outplayed, therefore you were outplayed. There's of course an asterix attached to note those exceptions that can be attributed to some activity of the game's RNG while completely failing to grasp the concept that luck isn't discouraged simply for the sake of being luck. It should be obvious that this is not the case, such as shown earlier in the nuances between choking as well as, obviously, what has concerned and justified existing clauses.

There's just an excessively bureaucratic approach coming from the majority of the anti-ban arguments. Perhaps this can be attributed to the general inexperience and ignorance, in regards to the metagame in question, that is evident within said demographic. Perhaps the subtleties of the debated element is also at fault, as the impact it has is not nearly as in-your-face as most setup sweepers that are constantly alluded to in comparison. Regardless of what it may be, those presenting these types of arguments are apparently pushed into questioning Shadow Tag in regards to Ubers policy and even the policy itself rather than analyzing at face value what is actually taking place. This results in endless, circular arguments on semantics, subjective measuring, and appeals to tradition. There is certainly murkiness on the subject of policy, as is made evident by the numerous false dichotomies like "tier vs banlist" or "op vs uncompetitive" that run rampant. However, this is neither the time nor the place for such discussion and, frankly, those (or rather the one) who have (has) the authority to determine such policy have (has) not been participating in the many arguments concerning it.

The fact of the matter is that Shadow Tag is very problematic. This is because by bringing it into a game, I am bringing with me the almost certain potential to rob my opponent of the possibility to act in contradiction. You can take your ruler made of Xerneas to measure the size and scope of that interdiction and compare it to other accepted elements but it doesn't erase the fact. Nothing else that isn't itself subject to a potential ban produces the same effect and is currently found present in the metagame. This isn't tolerable despite whatever contrived reasons one might conjure to excuse it. Even the best players are not psychics and, even those who might be, will sometimes find themselves trapped by the inevitable. There needs to be some way for the opposing player to fight against what is taking place, however small. Not simply be forced into a state of passivity and charged with cleaning up the mess afterwards or somehow preventing the monster from even beginning its motion.

I suppose you can take this as my last direct participation in this discussion. I'll try to limit my role to one simply of moderator, possibly clarifying things when necessary. Ultimately, a large portion of this hinges on having a certain understanding and perspective of the metagame and the lord knows how two people don't see this game in the same light and can never convince the other to change their outlook. I've made the mistake of chasing down endless tangents to the point where I doubt anything I say would be welcomed with careful consideration. I suppose I handled poorly the knowledge of being in the minority and was far too vocal. Hopefully, some new opinions will give this thread the much needed change of pace.

 

[Fireburn]

It got real pretty quickly in this thread.

Please try to be civil to each other or I will have to take more drastic actions.