Nice to see some very well developed arguments on this topic. While I'm against both bans (I'd be neutral on the complex ban but it's not happening so irrelevant), I am sympathetic towards those who argue Shadow Tag is uncompetitive. Ultimately I think common sense will prevail on Sableye; it's not bulky enough to kick out while a good range of Magic Bouncers is nice for keeping the hazard war diverse. Defog is a horrible move for non stall teams while there are too few good spinners (and fewer who actually like to run the move). In any case if you have good options for Scald you should be ok vs Sableye. It also loses a lot of CM wars due to low bulk and poor Sp Att. Nasty plot and Tail Glow punish these flaws even further. It is of course a brilliant addition to many teams but no more than many current OU threats.
Goth is much more controversial because using it takes no skill. However all it's doing is (at best) turning the match into a 5v5. A team shouldn't automatically lose (especially to such an easily beaten playstyle as stall) by losing one pokemon. Chansey is omnipresent in OU so having only one answer to it is pretty unforgivable. Skarmory goes down fast in OU due to the massive power creep, so removing one thing shouldn't make it unbeatable. Clefable is more of an issue; since few things carry Steel or Poison coverage it is reasonable to assume a team might only have one thing to beat it. However in practice most pokemon that are powerful enough to beat Clefable will just blow Goth apart (bearing in mind its low speed even when scarfed). This is the real problem I have with the ban: Goth itself only has the stats for NU, and can't actually switch in on many of the things it's supposed to cripple. The other Shadow Tag users are cool but pretty useless in practice so I'd maintain the status quo and wait until something else monstrous like gengar gets the ability before banning anything. Shadow Tag would not be a loss to the tier but we must remember that one of our primary goals is to remain as true to the game as possible: ie. avoiding bans unless really necessary. Is Goth broken? No. Is it centralising? Not overly. Is it uncompetitive? It's easy to use but so are Chansey and Scizor.
Ultimately I must applaud stall players for finding a tactic that makes their playstyle relevant after the power creep. If Goth goes so too does stall and I think that does more harm than good to our tier.
Goth is much more controversial because using it takes no skill. However all it's doing is (at best) turning the match into a 5v5. A team shouldn't automatically lose (especially to such an easily beaten playstyle as stall) by losing one pokemon. Chansey is omnipresent in OU so having only one answer to it is pretty unforgivable. Skarmory goes down fast in OU due to the massive power creep, so removing one thing shouldn't make it unbeatable. Clefable is more of an issue; since few things carry Steel or Poison coverage it is reasonable to assume a team might only have one thing to beat it. However in practice most pokemon that are powerful enough to beat Clefable will just blow Goth apart (bearing in mind its low speed even when scarfed). This is the real problem I have with the ban: Goth itself only has the stats for NU, and can't actually switch in on many of the things it's supposed to cripple. The other Shadow Tag users are cool but pretty useless in practice so I'd maintain the status quo and wait until something else monstrous like gengar gets the ability before banning anything. Shadow Tag would not be a loss to the tier but we must remember that one of our primary goals is to remain as true to the game as possible: ie. avoiding bans unless really necessary. Is Goth broken? No. Is it centralising? Not overly. Is it uncompetitive? It's easy to use but so are Chansey and Scizor.
Ultimately I must applaud stall players for finding a tactic that makes their playstyle relevant after the power creep. If Goth goes so too does stall and I think that does more harm than good to our tier.
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