Official XY Ubers Shadow Tag Suspect Voting

[Puralux]

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

I don't think that Shadow Tag is broken or uncompetitive , up to a certain point obviously , but in my opinion Mega Gengar and the other two Shadow Tag users doesn't exceed this limit. Mega Gengar , the most influenced Shadow Tag user in the ubers metagame lacks some important factors like defenses and no more immunity to ground type moves , this involves high risks to setup and with preparation you can avoid him almost in every matchup. Gothitelle is more predictable than Mega Gengar , is a sort of Crocune and can sweep teams easily , but is still a predictable pokemon and with pokemons that have very high base stats in attacks and defenses , in my opinion , is not broken , moreover Dark types forces Gothitelle to switch. Shadow Tag adds a new style in the ubers metagame , and as long Shadow Tag doesn't exceed that limit , in my opinion , is not broken or uncompetitive. We should also remember that we are in ubers , the tier of overpowered pokemons for Overused , with generally high base stat pokemons.

 

[Luxuryball13]

Ban

The ability to prevent switching makes it so difficult to play around it, between the paranoia of knowing is just there and necessity of swiching around makes it so "Most" playstyles can use it and little pokemons can beat it, in optimal conditions, While Balance can use it to get rid of offensive checks, HO and offense uses it to beat counters, and it can even be use by stall[toxic] to slowly get rid of stall breakers/opposing win conditions, While not unstoppable does give the opponent in my opinion "an advantage" that independent of his play style "Can" use to achieve victory without the need of too much effort.

 

[Water Drone]

First off I didn't see a single Gothitelle getting reqs, so I feel as if this is really just a second attempt at banning Gengarite. That said, I don't think Gothitelle is bad in any way. I feel like some people just don't understand how it really functions. Gothitelle is an insanely powerful Pokemon, setting up on so many pokemon like SpDef Sylveon, Blissey, Support Arceus and others. If played right, it will easily sweep your team.

More on to Shadow Tag as a whole, I think it's a very good ability. Like others have stated in the discussion thread, however, I feel like ubers should be a tier where I can use anything I want. Nonetheless, Shadow Tag is amazing for its ability to remove one threat that may block your one Pokemon from sweeping. For example, if someone's only reliable check to Kyogre is Palkia, If I remove that with shadow tag, I'll have an insanely easy time picking off the rest of your team with Kyogre. The ability to choose one pokemon and essentially remove it from play is incredible.

However, it is relatively easy to get around Shadow Tag. First off, its really easy to predict a shadow tag pokemon. If I have my blissey in, and you have a gothitelle, 90% the time you're switching in your gothitelle, and I know that. I'm going to take advantage of that and switch into a favorable matchup for Gothitelle, or Mega Gengar even. Not even to mention the fact that you can use Shed Shell. People use Shed Shell for similar trapping situations in OU, its really no different in ubers. If you really dont want to be trapped, use the item thats at your disposal. All in all, Shadow Tag is a really good ability, really solid. But in the end I do not think its game-breaking. It's really easy to beat with hyper offense, easy to predict, and, It can effectively be detrimental if your opponent has a really well built team. I just don't think it should be banned, really.

NO BAN.

 

[ohgeedubs]

Shadow Tag: Abstain

I don't think Shadow Tag is anywhere near unambiguously competitive or uncompetitive, so I must abstain. Shadow Tag demands people use very specific sets on very specific pokemon/teams to not be (too) ST weak. In this way, it's pretty similar to preparing for other big Ubers threats, like Extremekiller. And similar to Extremekiller, you might "prepare" for it, but still be forced into a losing position, because the opponent used an unusual option to screw over your check - like HP Fire or Thunder Mega Gengar vs. Refresh or Shadow Force Arceus/ grass knot kyogre. Many things in Ubers are ridiculously powerful to the point of making it difficult to check properly, but shadow tag's presence doesn't make the risk vs. reward process of choosing what to run really that different than preparing for other threats. But Shadow Tag IS way more threatening to the extent of making the metagame stupid matchup based, but that makes it OP/overcentralizing, not necessarily uncompetitive... UNLESS there's a particular breaking point in which suddenly "too matchup based (more than it already would be) = uncompetitive." If we've crossed that threshold, then shadow tag is the culprit and should be banned, but I don't know what the threshold is.

As for trapping removing choice (switching) making it uncompetitive, I think it's pretty obvious that stuff like Encore, Taunt also remove choice, but obviously switching is the most important choice. So removing options in itself isn't uncompetitive, it's just that removing switching is the most OP. But the threat of it causes 50/50s that are generally in the ST user's favor, brought to threaten, pressure, and potentially trap, if the opponent was not prepared for it. That to me is actually okay, since pressuring/threatening to trap/setup on something/whatever by the mere presence of a mon is a staple of competitive play (even if ST is more devastating and easy to abuse). But ST vs ST causes a lot of really weird 50/50s for BOTH users, in a way that is a) not risky to use in the sense that Gengar generally pulls its weight (goth is more risky) b) often immediately and irreparably shifts the advantage to the trapper, and that to me sounds like and (and when I watch Ubers tournaments) looks like a crapshoot. Still, baton pass also creates a lot of 50/50s, and baton pass vs. baton pass is 50/50s / luck incarnate and looks even stupider. Since nothing has been done about BP, I still don't know where this threshold is. I'd lean towards both being pretty uncompetitive, but it's not like you can't bring a team not weak to BP/that particular ST user's team, and it just goes back to the whole matchup thing again and Uber's philosophy.

...Also I just borrowed a team from the "Sample Teams for Starting Ubers" thread, and laddered with it without much prior knowledge of Ubers - just to see how easy it really was to get reqs - so I don't think it would be fair for me to vote either way.

 

[MoxieInfinite]

sry didnt know threads worked like that, and i probably shouldve read the rules. i sincerely apologize.

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

While I do believe Shadow Tag is very restrictive, and there's very little opportunity cost of using it, I don't think it should leave. What I think should be the point of Suspect Testing for a tier, is to make every playstyle about as equally viable as possible, and I do not believe banning Shadow Tag helps enough with this. If you want XY Ubers to be as versatile as possible for playstyles, you not to ban a ton of more centralizing shit. I can use the GSC OU Snorlax argument for this. Lax is by far the most centralizing Pokemon, and you're pretty much forced to run several soft checks (and at least one hardcounter to CurseLax), Snorlax does a lot of positive things for the metagame; it is the tiers main stallbreaker (Belly Drum / STAB of choice / Rest / EQ, FB, LK), and gives stall a win-condicion outside of Toxic + Spikes. Lax also has a check-all feature with its amazing defenses, something offense greatly appreciates if its going up vs an opposing non-Explosion heavy offense team. With Lax gone from GSC, stall would reign a lot more, and GSC would be very alike what new and inexperienced players think GSC is now. Same could be said with Druddigon in BW RU I feel. Very versatile both for offense and defense, and the many ways of Druddigon'ing was one of the main reasons I liked RU in BW.

But a lot of Ubers Pokemon doesn't do this. Kyogre forces you to run at least one hard-check, but doesn't do you a lot of things defensively (I might underestimate Kyogre's defensive abilities here, but I don't think I do). Would the metagame be closer to balanced if Kyogre left? Alone, probably not that much, but if you remove a lot of other shit, yes. But you aren't gonna do that, because it's Ubers. And that's why I don't think Shadow Tag should leave. Unlike Swagger, Moody, OHKO moves, etc, Shadow Tag isn't a game of numbers. I also don't think Gothitelle is legitimately strong enough to even stand up to a lot of the powerhouses in Ubers. If anything, Mega Gengar should've left; but I was against that too. I know you've got a lot of new tools like mainly Defog Arceus, but why wasn't Gothitelle as awful in BW Ubers? Why wasn't it looked at then? And what will actually happen to Mega Gengar if S-Tag leaves?

What I feel like my point is: If you wanna make Ubers a good tier, you've gotta ban a whole lot more than Shadow Tag. If that was to happen, it'd probably vote ban. But this is Ubers, and overpowered shit won't be tested (which I don't think they should be either), so I'm voting no ban.

Hope this is enough, if not, PM me or whatever so I can write more.

 

[tennisace]

shadow tag: Do not ban

I do not believe that Shadow Tag is "uncompetitive". For something to be uncompetitive in my eyes, it must entirely take the outcome of turns out of both players hands. Swagger does this, as turns are decided by which way the coin flips. Evasion also does this, though it is skewed more towards the player using evasion moves. Trapping a Pokemon does not involve the RNG at all; you can't just auto-pilot and win with Mega Gengar / Gothitelle. You still need to actually position yourself in the course of the game to trap threats to your team, whether it be through sacrificing a Pokemon, double switching, U-turn, etc. All of those moves come with an opportunity cost for the user in the form of potential misplays.

 

[Phozon]

Shadow Tag: BAN

I used two teams on the ladder, one abusing STag and another with no STag user. I can safely say that using my team w/ my STagger (M- Gar) It was easy to get around thing that often caused my team problems. The fact that Gar was so versatile made it so easy to take something down depending on what it was. "Oh a really strong sweeper I can't beat? Destiny Bond" , "Oh (insert support poke here) taunt it, bring in set up sweeper, or D bond to win" Sadly, I saw no Goths, but I saw a Wobb or two, and while I never used it, it fulfills the same role as Gar just in a different way. It still traps and can counter/ magic coat the threat to death, or lock a supportive poke into a supportive move w/ encore and allow something else to come in and sweep/ set up. The fact that you have a poke that allows you some sure fire way around whatever might be troubling your team, can cause an unhealthy balance to the meta game, and other than ghosts or mold breaker users being able to switch around it, there is no easy way to avoid being trapped STag users. Basically, the opponent needs to rework their game plan to work around the major set back that the STag user threw at them. Also,their move pools allows them everything they need to beat just about any poke 1v1 whether it be by brute force, or stalling them out, STaggers, can do anything in between . Due to the STaggers, ideal move pool, lack of ways to "break" the ability, and their ability to take on a wide rage of threats towards teams, Shadow Tag should removed from competitive play.

 

[Windsong]

Abstain

In order to accurately voice an opinion of Shadow Tag on a competitive level, I would simply need more experience playing with it in high level matches rather than the smattering of ladder games, which as of now are my only experience with the XY Ubers tier. I consider Shadow Tag to be a fundamentally flawed ability that removes the single most significant competitive aspect of the game and is, on paper, something that should immediately be removed to facilitate the most competitive game atmosphere possible. However, my experience playing both with and against users of Shadow Tag mons in Ubers has been lackluster (under sixty matches, only coming from this sole suspect test). For intrinsically logical reasons (primarily those outlined by Melee Mewtwo in the suspect thread and BKC in his Gengarite vote), I would like to see the ability removed, but I don't feel that I can accurately assess its place in the Ubers metagame to the point where I can make a valid and informed pro-ban vote.

 

[Starmei]

Shadow Tag:Ban

I think S-Tag should be banned because it causes so many crucial 50/50s, restricts your ability to switch and makes the game unfair. It becomes difficult to outplay and win every 50/50 in the entire game and the moment you get one wrong then you lose a valuable pokemon that more than likely checks/counters a sweeper on the opposing team. I think this is unfair because it makes the outcome of the match rely on 50/50 chances and makes it unbalanced. It can enable players who are 'worse' to beat more experienced, 'better' players by forcing them to make more reckless plays due to the fact that they need to keep pokemon X (Grassceus for example) alive in order to check/counter pokemon Y (Kyogre) otherwise it would tear the Grassceus player's team apart. It can also come in vs your win condition and kill it with a DBond/Perish Song. So to sum up it restricts your ability to switch (Or forces unhealthy 50/50s) meaning you either lose a wincon or vital check/counter to something on the opposing team with the potential to sweep your team.

 

[malefic]

Shadow Tag: Ban

(forgive me if i am vague at points/rehash my arguments for the Gengarite suspect, i don't have much time this weekend to sit and write about this at length)

Shadow Tag prevents opposing Pokemon from switching out. The freedom to switch is one of the main factors defining competitive Pokemon as a skill-based game. Shadow Tag subverts this by punishing players excessively for their mispredictions, in that their Pokemon (say, a bulky Fairy-type) is irreversibly trapped. Many such situations are, at their heart, purely 50/50s — do you let your healthy defensive Xerneas stay in on the opponent's Life Orb Yveltal and risk a switch to Mega Gengar, which traps and kills it easily, or do you switch out, potentially letting a teammate get maimed by Yveltal when you had a perfectly good check in on it? That Gengar takes a turn to Mega Evolve mitigates this issue somewhat, but it is exceptionally easy to do so vs slower, bulkier teams.

Countermeasures to this, such as having a Pursuit user such as Tyranitar on the aforementioned stall teams are viable options, but note that the Gengar user can tailor its moveset to nullify one or more of such strategies depending on team needs. For example, a moveset of Will-O-Wisp/Rest/Reflect Type/Taunt allows Gengar to defeat common Pursuit trappers in Tyranitar and Scizor with ease.

The use of a Shed Shell on defensive Pokemon and Dark Pulse on certain Arceus formes are other examples of adaptations that began to propagate at some point. Unfortunately, these are downright suboptimal options. Dark Pulse (Punishment for Gothitelle) on support Arceus formes is virtually useless outside of hitting Shadow Tag users, and takes up a moveslot that can otherwise be dedicated to a move that sees much more general use, such as Will-O-Wisp. The same goes for Shed Shell on defensive Pokemon, which have to give up the general utility of Leftovers for an item that sees highly specific use.

Gothitelle poses problems of its own, notably differentiating itself from Mega Gengar in that it does not require a turn to Mega Evolve in order to gain Shadow Tag. Of late, things like Double Team Gothitelle are beginning to catch on, which cannot be healthy for the metagame for obvious reasons.

tl;dr I am for a Shadow Tag ban so we can steer clear of 1) an uncompetitive metagame element in Shadow Tag, and 2) unhealthy metagame centralization that stems from 1).

 

[Zeraken]

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban
While laddering to get reqs, I used Mega Gengar in every battle on my HO team. To be honest, Mega Gengar was almost certainly the least valuable member of my team. It usually pulled the least weight of any of my six. Like any other Pokemon, Gengar is better against certain strategies and weaker against others. (To be fair, I did not see hardly any stall teams, where Gengar could have pulled more weight.)

Opposing Mega Gengars usually were not much of a threat as well. My team was constructed in a way to minimize the threat of Mega Gengar or Shadow Tag users on the other team-- Choice Scarf Zekrom, in particular, was one Pokemon on my team that heavily took advantage of opposing Mega Gengars. Given this experience, I feel that Mega Gengar, while powerful, is still able to be defeated through careful play and teambuilding. Mega Gengar and Shadow Tag users make certain strategies and pokemon less usable, but the same could be said for any other powerful pokemon, and thus I feel that Mega Gengar and Shadow Tag users fit the Ubers metagame while adding a unique dimension that must be accounted for. Thus, I vote not to ban.

 

[johnvelong]

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

I will be arguing in favor of keeping shadow tag in ubers because it is COMPETITIVE (yes, you read that right). It is competitive for 2 reasons: it brings balance to the metagame between HO and full stall teams, and because it can be PREPARED for when teambuilding.
It brings balance to hyper offensive teams, which have taken a large hit this generation due to full stall teams that have been built, and support arceus forms. Full stall teams such as the one used by Quantum Camel with spiritomb, chansey, rhyperior, ho oh, gastrodon/tentacruel, etc. are very tough to beat, even in high ladder and by very skilled opposing players. Shadow tag can bring some balance back to the large advantage that stall has in the situation of HO vs. stall by removing one large check in the Stall team. Whether it be gothitelle, Gengarite, or wobbuffet doing the shadow tagging, all can open up a hole and make the game a bit more fair. HO teams often need a wallbreaker, or a stallbreaker, and shadow tag helps accomplish this. To make an analogy, drag mag teams use magnezone with magnet pull to break the opponents steel pokemon down, so that the rest of the HO dragon team can sweep (back in gen 4 and gen 5). The same is true for shadow tag and HO teams today in Ubers. If you want to ban stag, you might as well ban magnet pull as well because they effectively do the same thing. Now you notice that magnet pull is not under consideration: this is because there is merely not enough use of magnet pull to break defensive teams down because defensive teams have PREPARED for this, and often do not run ferrothorn as one of their main walls. And if they do run ferro, then they must be prepared for a magnet pull user. The only reason that stag is under consideration is because it used more. However, defensive and stall players could just as easily prepare for stag by using ghost pokemon (bulky ghostceus, giratina, giratina-o) as their walls, and they quite often do. It is completely fair to use these pokemon as walls, and offensive teams will have to find another way around them. All stag does is provide the user a way to clear the opponent's stalling pokemon or arceus support form. This is extremely competitive, because the opponent can prepare for it in their team building process by using darkceus for gothitelle and gengarite, and other ways as well. If you want to ban stag, you need to be able to argue that it is uncompetitive. Everyone who seems to be pro ban says something along the lines of "It is unfair to have to prepare a pokemon to be able to deal with just stag by wasting a move slot, or running a different item (shed shell blissey)". However, I believe that it is completely fair to have to prepare for this. Teams that are running blissey or chansey need to do so at some opportunity cost. By having stag around, the opportunity cost of these pokemon is increased to a point where there is MORE of a balance between full stall and HO teams. Even balance teams need to be prepared for stag, as it can break one of their walls or heal bell or arceus form pokemon down. Without stag, there will be a large shift towards stall teams, and the average turns per game will go way up. Well you might be saying, this isn't a bad thing. But not everyone wants to be playing 200-300 or longer turn games, and hence the reason HO and offensive team builds exist. It is completely unfair to nerf HO and offensive teams by banning stag. Now if we look back to the previous suspect test, it was only for gengarite. Gengarite was ultimately not banned because it was clear that Gengarite is clearly competitive. MMY and even fast mewtwo sets with pystrike can completely destroy Gengarite, and prevent it from mega evolving, and Mewtwo is used very often, so teams dont even have to make much of a switch to combat Gengarite. Now the suspect test is for stag as a whole, but the focus seems to be predominantly upon Gothitelle. The only other stag abuser worth mentioning is wobbuffet, and he is very rarely ran on teams, and definitely does not merit a ban himself because at best he can only attempt to predict the opponent's move, or encore them. Clearly, Gothitelle is now the pokemon under main question. Gothitelle, like Gengarite, brings balance to offensive teams by letting offensive teams take out the opponent's bulky support arceus form, an otherwise very difficult task. Bulky arceus forms are often A rank ubers tier pokemon, and need very little support and have extremely low opportunity costs to use. By having stag around, their opportunity cost is increased, and balance is leveled in the metagame between offensive and defensive team styles. As user blackeus showed during the suspect test by using darkceus support, he was able to ladder very high because his arceus form was able to deal with gothitelle, mewtwo forms, and gengarite effictively and easily. blackeus illustrated an important point: stag CAN BE PREPARED FOR! For these reasons, I argue that stag is completely competitive and does not warrant a ban.

Please let me know if my vote counts. I see no reason as to why it would not count. I have kept up with the current metagame discussion, I have illustrated my OPINION clearly on the topic, and have definitely written a lengthy enough paragraph.

 

[Asmodean]

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

I do not consider Shadow Tag to be harmful to the metagame to such a degree that warrants a ban. After a lot of matches on the ladder and watching tour game replays, I feel that instead of making the game uncompetitive (damn, I did not want to use that word), shadow tag adds another element for which the opponent has to prepare for, much like common threats of the metagame like Kyogre, Xerneas, Arceus, et al. With sufficient preparation and good plays, one can avoid being trapped, and in some cases, trap the trapper itself.
I also do not feel that a mediocre Shadow Tag user would be able to win against a better player who does not use Shadow tag. In the first place, both players are at a liberty to use tag, and the good player should be sufficiently prepared for it, knowing that it is an important threat in the current metagame. As far as removal of choice is concerned, it is a shortcoming on the part of the player who gets trapped and not an inherent brokenness of shadow tag as one can avoid getting trapped by making use of unorthodox sets which gives the game of pokemon a creative side.
Making pokemon less viable (Grassceus, Fairyceus, etc) is not an issue Ubers should care about and neither should be the fact that obscure checks (AV Spiritomb, etc) need to be used to counter Shadow tag.
Even the presumption that Shadow tag makes games matchup based falls apart if you consider the fact that almost all games are matchup based to a certain degree and on can not always prepare for every threat possible.

 

[Dread Plate]

Shadow Tag: Do not ban

Alright, just to make this as quick and concise as possible I voted no ban because this ability, though it limits a fundamental aspect of the game, does so while also maintaining a level of competitiveness. This may seem like backwards logic, since most everyone would agree that this ability is uncompetitive regardless of how they vote, but based on what I saw while getting reqs people don't even properly use Shadow Tag. They used it as a tradeoff, for the most part. I feel as though if something is going to be classified as uncompetitive and put to a suspect test, all of the bad people that don't know anything about the tier should be able to use it flawlessly. I have seen so many people lose to horrible players because the were set up on by Xerneas or they lost to BP, I have not seen someone lose to a bad player who used Shadow Tag because it takes a person with advanced knowledge of the tier and better than average skill to properly use and abuse Shadow Tag. And in my opinion, I am often more afraid of Gothitelle than I am Mega Gengar based solely of its sweeping potential when it traps something. MegaGar can come in and neuter some sort of wall and go into something else to set up, but Goth will set up on walls and take them out after setting up and then even sweep from that point. This being said, I played 74 games while laddering for suspect and I did not see one Gothitelle, only the occasional MegaGar.

I, personally, have never felt threatened by the Shadow Tag ability. When I start a game I will get nervous when I see mons that I know are threats, but I never felt like a pokemon with Shadow Tag was a threat. More of an annoyance. I can understand why people would ban this ability. Too me it is just another part of the game, and the meta has adapted around this fact.

 

[Cirdec]

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

For me Mega Gengar is the only good abuser of Shadow Tag, and I have already stated in the Gengarite voting thread my opinion of not banning it. I will say it again, while Shadow Tag is a bit uncompetitive on Mega Gengar, it is not competely broken. First, the turn requirement for mega evolution is not always easy to get, especially against full offense teams. Gengar 350 speed is not that impressive because Darkrai and all Arceus formes are faster. Also, when Gengar managed to mega evolve, it is not guaranted to get rid of the Pokémon you want to. Common choice scarfers such as Kyogre and Zekrom outspeed Mega Gengar and OHKO it. Mega Mewtwo Y and Deoxys-A are also naturally faster. Mega Bliaziken outspeeds it after a speed boost.
And even some slower Pokémon can be tricky to take down, Yveltal because of Sucker Punch or U-Turn. Landorus-T can also use U-Turn. Versus defensive/support Pokémon such as Arceus, Groudon and Dialga there are still some 50% scenarios to success the sacrifice with Destiny Bond, because of Thunder Wave/Will-O-Wisp. Blissey can use Flamethrower against Mega Gengar or Shed Shell. Mega Scizor and Tyranitar also give big trouble to Mega Gengar because of Pursuit. That is why while Mega Gengar Shadow Tag + Taunt + Destiny Bond is a lame combo, it requires some skill to achieve it's potential. Using Mega Gengar does not guarante win and will not always success its role. Using Mega Gengar takes your mega slot, that means no Mega Mewtwo, Mega Blaziken, Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Scizor. The other users of Shadow Tag, are not as threatening as Mega Gengar.
Gothitelle is frail because of it's low base HP and it is slow. It is very weak for Uber standards on the offensive, hence it needs Calm Mind and a Pokémon who allows it to set up, which is hard to find in the Uber metagame, full of powerful Pokémon. While it can trap effectively some Arceus supports, against offense teams, it is totally useless as it doesn't have the bulk to trap and KO anything. That makes Gothitelle very risky and unreliable to use, either it will be very helpful, either it will be useless. Unlike Mega Gengar who is effective against any kind of team.
Wobbuffet is very specialized, it's role is either to beat Choice locked Pokémon or help teamates to boost. But its job is not that easy to accomplish. Despite his high base HP, it is often 2HKO by most of Uber sweepers, which means Wobbuffet can't switch directly in order to counter them. So it often requires to sacrifice a Pokémon to give the opportunity for Wobbuffet to take down a sweeper. And sometimes it comes to 50% of doing the right move, between choosing Encore or Counter/Mirror Coat, when it is facing a boosting sweeper. Also Yveltal and Darkrai, very common Pokémon in Ubers, counters it because Dark type nullifies Mirror Coat. Wobbuffet, at the cost of being poisonned of burned, can set up Encore and Safeguard on a support Pokémon to help a boosting sweeper. However it does not guarante the sweeper won't be stopped, as there are Pokémon like Lugia, Dialga, Groudon, who can phaze. Hence like Gothitelle, Wobbuffet works well against defensive teams, but is weak and hard to use against offense.
As a conclusion, I want to say, while Shadow tag limits team building, this is the base of Ubers, they are threats that any good teams must prepared for, such as Kyogre, Xerneas and Arceus. For all of these reasons, I don't think Shadow Tag deserve a ban.

 

[BelmontGabriel]

Shadow Tag: Abstain

In my opinion the ability Shadow Tag is definetely one of the best abilities but it's not uncompetetive. It's a part of Ubers and it has its part in balancing the tier. Of course some people want Shadow Tag to be gone because its one of the things HO hast to offer against stall but that doesn't mean that stall can't win a match if the opponent has a Shadow Tag User. With Shadow Tag being gone people will consider other things like Xerneas to be broken and you'll have to ban that too. In the end we'll end up with a tier above Ubers and nobody wants that. In the past "broken" things were banned and after that people noticed that the "broken" thing wasn't the Problem. I think Shadow Tag is one of these Cases but I also can understand the people to want it gone. Abstain!

 

[orch]

Do Not Ban

Shadow Tag is a very good ability. There's no denying that Shadow Tag creates some extent of match up issues in the ubers metagame. However, match up issue is not a reason to ban something. It is banworthy when it takes away a sufficient degree of autonomy. Shadow Tag merely stops the switching. I don't think that removing the ability of switching is sufficient benchmark for removal of autonomy. Let's examine something that removes sufficient degree of autonomy. Swagger made it so that you could not attack 50%. This makes you posses literally no way to make counterplay half of time versus Swagger. However Shadow Tag does contain counterplay in terms of teambuilding and move selection. It promoted interesting meta development between Shadow Tag and other mons to counterplay. Also, that removal of switching has been deemed acceptable until now.

Just a side note, Double Team Gothitelle only points out that Evasion is broken.

 

[HeIIraiser]

Shadow Tag: Ban

Mega Gengar has two immunities, high stats, good speed, good and wide movepool, and with shadow tag it becomes very powerful. Mega Gengar is a fantastic suport pokémon, since you pretty much will kill what you are aiming to kill to make your late game sweep happen if you play correctly. And it also has fast Destiny Bond to get a cheap kill. On the other hand, gothitelle is also very threatening with its Calm Mind + Rest moveset, being able to beat many pokémons in the tier and offer a cheap and good support for the rest of the team.

Now concerning Shadow Tag alone, my problem with it comes from the fact that there are very few checks to many of the common threats in the metagame (Refresh+SD Arceus, choiced Kyogre, Xerneas, Yveltal, etc). For example, the only checks to Xerneas are Mega Scizor, Aegislash, Klefki, Choice Banded Scizor (rare in the tier) and Bronzong (very rare in the tier), while the checks to Kyogre are Palkia, Arceus Water, Arceus Grass, Blissey, Dialga and Gastrodon. If you pay attention, its easy to see that the majority of them (bar rare sets like roar Dialga) can be used as setup bait by Calm Mind Gothitelle or trapped and killed by Mega Gengar. As Shadow Tag prevents the foe from being able to switch out; the inability to switch (one of the key mechanics of pokemon), the lack of viable checks to the most dangerous and common threats in the metagame and also the ease of which Gothitelle and Mega Gengar can remove these checks from the game makes me vote for a Shadow Tag Ban.

 

[Worthlessnoob]

Do Not Ban

I understand there are supposedly certain uncompetitive elements to Shadow Tag, but I'm voting to keep it in Ubers. It's clear that Mega-Gengar and Gothitelle are the biggest offenders as Ubers only bans uncompetitive elements if they are relevant (i.e. evasion was unbanned in Gen5) so I'll mainly explain why I think those two are not uncompetitive.

Mega-Gengar is obviously very centralizing as it can trap so many things using its large movepool. Gothitelle can beat nearly all support Arceus forms and pretty much any defensive mon. Even though the turns while the Shadow Tagger is in play is very excruciating as Goth often takes forever to kill your Support mon, that's clearly not the uncompetitive aspect as people can argue playing stall is excruciating as well. However, I also don't think the potential for MegaGar and Goth to decide games is uncompetitive either. I do agree its infuriating when your forced to make doubles to avoid Shadow Tag, but sometimes you still get out-maneuvered anyway. On that note though, there are other mons that can often decide games as well. I think the use of Shadow Tag isn't too different from using lures. For example, if I run the subpar Stone Edge on my ekiller in order to beat Defensive Yveltal, that can decide games as well. If Yveltal gets knocked out, ekiller will sweep through the rest of your team, and if it lives then a Mewtwo in the back will likely have a field day spamming Psystrike without repercussion. It is less relevant than Shadow Taggers, but the same thing applies in that it may cost you the game and yet you had no way to prepare for that. That's just one example of a lure; there are plenty others.

Thirdly, even though the 50-50s involved in Shadow Tag are annoying, I think the methods to avoid them make it not as luck-based as something like Swagger. Goth can beat Support arc, but you can avoid that with Roar (for non-taunt variants), Punishment (non-charm), or just running Ghostceus so you won't get trapped. Other mons with less options can run Shed Shell. I do realized those options are a bit lackluster, but in my opinion, the fact that they usually work means you don't instant-lose (no skill involved) to teams with effective Shadow Taggers, which is the part that's relevant in Ubers. Unlike Swagger or Evasion, you have plenty of options to protect yourself against this centralizing threat.

As such, I conclude that Shadow Tag is not uncompetitive or at least not enough to separate itself form using lures to accomplish the same goal (albeit, lures are more broad and less easy to use) and is not devoid of skill either. The fact there are several possible countermeasures make it far from clearly uncompetitive elements like Swagger. You don't put your fate in the hands of RNG or autolose when using a STag weak mon, which makes it in my eyes, not uncompetitive enough to be banned from Ubers.

 

[alwayswimmin]

Shadow Tag: Ban

It's pretty clear that Shadow Tag decides games by condensing the number of turns into only a few meaningful ones right before the trap. Doing this inherently invites 50/50s, as players are forced to guess on which turn the Shadow Tag Pokemon will come in. 50/50s are the real kicker for me - I'm perfectly fine with games decided with a small number of turns if it remains skill-based, but I fail to see how prediction in a game of Pokemon is skill.

(One can presumably avoid these scenarios altogether by never using Pokemon weak to Shadow Tag, but never switching in a Pokemon's check just because it loses to Mega Gengar is easily a worse outcome than taking the risk and is one of the many other negative consequences of Shadow Tag.)

One could argue that this condensing can also be said of setup sweepers -- the turn of setup condenses the game. I disagree since the setup sweepers in the current metagame have counters that need to be removed first. If a setup sweeper were introduced that had no hard counters which could OHKO after the sweep (for instance, if Geomancy boosted Physical Defense as well), and the only way of stopping that sweeper was to double into a check on the turn it is switched in, I'm firmly in favor of banning the sweeper or the setup move. I think it's unfortunate that many Ubers players gawk at the notion of banning setup sweepers, since I see no problem in doing so if the setup sweeper in question truly condenses the game and invites such 50/50s.

Both cases result in a shortening of the game into only a few meaningful turns. The choice to double or to not double invites 50/50s. Some players veil 50/50s under the glorified term "prediction." To me, this is no better than guesswork.

 

[iliketrains11]

Shadow Tag: Abstain
In all the time I was laddering, I almost never saw someone using shadow tag. I ran into mega Gengar probably 3 times, and I never saw a Gothitelle as much as I can remember, so I didn't really get a good idea of playing against shadow tag.

 

[dEnIsSsS]

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

Gengar and Gothitelle are capable of trapping a lot of defensive Pokemon such as defensive Arceus, Pink blobs (it forces people to run Shed Shell Blissey), defensive Palkia, Dialga and Xerneas, etc etc. Gengar can also eliminate slower offensive threats by OHKO-2HKOing with its powerful attacks or even by using other methods such as Destiny Bond. Gothitelle can revenge kill Pokemon with stat drops from Draco Meteor such as Specs Dragon types or even choice locked Pokemon using non STAB moves, such as Kyogre locked in Thunder or Ice Beam. But the fact that both players can abuse Shadow Tag it makes me think that Ubers is more like a Chess game. Once you make your game plan, you have to think about how to preserve your win conditions (from the Shadow Tag users) and what defensive/offensive threats you have to eliminate so you can have a succesful sweep. Shadow Tag is very painful to defensive play styles such as bulky offense and stall because every single member is a valuable piece that makes the team perform at its best. If a Shadow Tag user manage to trap a Xerneas counter, for example, Xerneas can easily have a sucessful sweep. Shadow Tag makes the Ubers metagame into something unique and forces people to think a lot before making decisions, after all it is the only place where you are allowed to use pretty much everything not named Moody and OHKO moves.

 

[Ecuacion]

Shadow Tag: Ban

Shadow Tag is one of the best abilities in my opinion. With it, you can just trap everything the pokemon can counter and destroy it. This concept is really insane for the metagame because you can't switch. Countering a pokemon consist on switch in a pokemon that can resist its moves and beat it, so you can't counter a pokemon with the ability shadow tag. Especially in Ubers where there are a lot of dangerous set-up sweepers like Xerneas or some sets of Arceus, a pokemon that can just trap and kill the sweepers counters is really insane. Mega-Gengar is basically the only dangerous pokemon with shadow tag, because Gothitelle and Wobbuffet have poor movesets in comparison. However Gothitelle can also be a threat with its rest + calm mind set or tricking walls like Chansey, so the fact that there are few pokemon with the ability does not prevent it for being incredibly present in the current metagame. For these reasons I voted ban for Shadow Tag.

 

[Sae]

Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

Well I guess I'll just lay out my thoughts. Even though I may not 'main' Ubers, it is still by far one of my favorite tiers and BW Ubers was probably my favorite tier primarily because it was how I first learned how to play competitive Pokemon. Still, I try to keep track of all main tiers (because I believe being a diverse competitive battler leads into better battling overall) and this Ubers suspect seemed rather important so I jumped on the ladder to do this.

I honestly do not think STag is broken based on how what I experienced on the ladder and from all the battles I've been watching. Is this thought based on that Ubers has several more broken threats in the tier? No. It's just that STag, while it did corner me a lot and influence my decisions, did not overly aggravate me like say Swagger or playing someone irl who uses OHKO moves. The only time I really had a problem with STag was when I was forced to keep my Mega Mewtwo X vs a Mega Gengar and the Mega Gengar won the speed tie. Sure in this instance I was forced to attack (thus removing my choice from the equation), but as I was contemplating on that move, I expected my opponent to send in Mega Gengar to risk that speed tie because it was his optimal play and at the same time it was my optimal play to keep Mega Mewtwo in because the rest of my team would have been outsped and 2HKO'd from the range of HP they were at.

In terms of teambuilding being restricted by STag: it never really bothered my teambuilding. Because I never really had a serious Ubers team for XY prior to the suspect, I was busy experimenting with what could work and what didn't. How did I go about teambuilding? I looked up the Ubers TeamBuilding Compendium. My main concern was Kyogre switch-ins, Ho-oh check, Xerneas check, Electric resist, etc. It just ended up that most of the time I was building to beat these things, I always had a solution to the three trappers. Honestly, I still find Magnezone in OU who has Magnet Pull more annoying when I teambuild in that tier than I did worrying about STag mons for Ubers. It was hard to build a team that could adequately check everything whether it was Ekiller to CM Gothithelle trapping a key mon, but I had a response for each thing including STag without overworrying about each little thing. Would I ban Arceus for such a diverse mon? No, yet some form of Arceus is there to always ruin my day. That's just to be expected. Overpreparing for one threat may leave you vulnerable to another threat and I just never felt like I had to overprepare for STag too.

Through this suspect I just felt like STag did not affect the choices I made nearly as much as I thought it would from reading the arguments on the forums. Yes, it did limit my choices and yes I can see why people would find that noncompetitive. However, I still feel like Xerneas and Ho-oh were what caused me to dread when battling since they can just tear entire teams apart when given the free switch. Xerneas with Rock Slide was also getting popular which made it an even stronger threat because I ran Bulky Band Ho-Oh as my wall breaker and a Xerneas check if it didn't carry Thunder or now Rock Slide. STag is a major threat in the tier allowing for these two mons to do their jobs, but I felt that if I got swept it was more of me misplaying than STag itself being broken. I know for a fact Mega Gengar isn't broken and I'm glad we had a separate test for STag specifically, but after this resuspect on the ladder I just can't conclude that STag is broken/uncompetitive either.

Either way the vote goes I just have to say that this suspect was fun and look forward to seeing how the meta turns out.

 

[Enki]

Shadow Tag: BAN
Shadow tag is an ability that make pressure and matchup, giving supporto for all the team and could kill anything.
Due to it, balanced and stall playstyles are death, because shadow tag users can trap anything destroying one at time all, this ability makes the game very uncompetitive.
The shadow tag's users are Wobbuffet, Gothitelle and MEGA GENGAR, the last one in the most common.
The first one is not very common in Ubers and it has a big bulkyness and a nice movepool, such as Encore, Counter, Mirror coat and Destiny Bond, trap and kill.
Gothitelle is a cancer mon for Stalls, it trap anything, trick it, setup, can recover thanks to rest and kill all thanks to +6 boost in SAtk and Sdef.
The last one is THE trapper, mega gengar makes pressure against all, it has a cool movepool, great stats and a huge ability, makes him one of the feared threats of the tier.
Only it makes a huge change in stall/balanced defoggers, before its climing of the usage, the most common type of arceus defogger was fairy and grass/water, now only water exist, mgengar ko there.
Mega gengar abuse to destiny bond, who gives him a free kill, uncompetitive again. After its mega evolution we can only revenge kill it.
In the ladder I see a big change of play, thanks to Shadow Tag, and for this, in my opinion, it should be banned, and I vote BAN.