Sleep and Shadow Tag in BW RU [Both Banned]

[Denial]

Since old gens lower tiers are now officially unlocked, it's the right moment to start making moves on probably the most controversial RU tier.

BW RU has always been getting complains from many players, to the point where it was suggested from multiple people to be removed from our most important team tournament. This is cause of multiple reasonings; may it be the different tiering of the past, or the mechanics of the gens itself, but it is pretty clear that people don't enjoy the tier. What i believe would be the right move for now is following the most recent OU bans and extend them to our tier. Of course i'm talking about Sleep and Shadow Tag.

Now, we all know how stupid BW sleep is. Getting one Pokèmon to sleep is basically like killing them, and when the tier has many good abusers like Lilligant, Smeargle, Jynx or Amoonguss it's obviously gonna show up in most games. There's obviously no counterplay to this other than running Sleep Talk on random Pokèmon and hope for good rolls with it, and when the tier is alredy filled with many uncompetitive factors this is only the cherry on top. For this reason, i would like to suggest a Spore, Hypnosis, Sleep Powder, Yawn, Dark Void, Sleep Powder, Grass Whistle, Lovely Kiss & Sing ban, with the removal of Sleep Clause of course.

Gothorita is the same as Gothitelle was, traps our defensive options and make teammates go brrr. In all seriousness, many defensive staples like Qwilfish, Slowking, Tangrowth, Amoonguss, Cryogonal, and Alomomola are totally helpless against it, other than running Shed Shell and we all know how suboptimal that is, it has been argued forever. It can also easily trap Choice Locked mons like Choice Specs Sceptile or Choice Scarf Durant if locked in the right move. Baton Pass Durant and Eject Button Alomomola also give it a lot of free opportunities to trap. All in all, Gothorita only enables broken stuff to be even more broken, and removing Shadow Tag from the tier would only help towards a more healthy metagame.

Tagging all people that played at least 2 games of BW RU in the past year of RU team tours or/and made Semis of the 2 last BW RU Cups:

a bunch of tags

SOMALIA Amukamara Lilburr Finchinator DnB tko Pujo Aeroblacktyl dcae hs Ninjadog Raahel Meru byronthewellwell Vileman MetalGro$$ Gelbel3c Indulge in dreams Amaroq Pinboim3 RaJ.Shoot BKC Chill Shadow KW The Leprechaun trace eifo Pohjis Saria Bebo Spl4sh mael soTsoT Eternal Spirit esche MZ EviGaro Accelgor Bobby Dagen

Of course, everyone is encouraged to share their opinions on the matter. Thanks for reading.

 

[eifo]

Gonna keep it short since i'm tired. I agree with removing both. BW sleep is ridiculous. Firstly, it hits all types in this gen. Moreover, you're never waking up due to the way bw mechanics work, where the sleep roll resets after you switch out. This means you effectively have to sack a mon to sleep in any given game it is brought. The only counterplay is sleep talk, which is rather unreliable. Having to run a sleep talk mon on every team does not seem particularly healthy to me either. Finally, with regards to STAG, i believe it is inherently not competitive. There is no counterplay outside of shed shell, which again, it seems unhealthy to run shed shell on several of your mons, just on the off chance that you run into Goth. In conclusion, Sleep and STAG both have unhealthy effects on the meta and reduce the skill involved, in my view. Thus, I believe it would be for the best if they were removed.

 

[BKC]

100% agree with banning both, especially shadow tag

 

[Lily]

No real need to go into too much detail since luna already did, sleep is just ridiculous this gen and should be banned from any competitive BW format and Goth promotes degenerative gameplay that has no place in the tier. Definitely agree with banning both and would agree with banning them from all other BW tiers too.

 

[Daruma]

Hey, i didn't play any game in this tier in RUPL but i've played the tier a bit (side PLs, help in prep during last RUPL) and I'll give my thoughts about Sleep and Shadow Tag.

Sleep

Sleep is just broken in BW and as Luna said, having a Pokemon sleeping is litteraly having a dead Pokemon. Tangrowth and Amoonguss take advantage of it really easily. For example, Tangrowth has 2 viable sets, being the tank one and the Offensive one.

Tank Tangrowth

Tangrowth @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Def / 16 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Power Whip / Giga Drain
- Hidden Power Fighting / Hidden Power Fire
- Synthesis / Leech Seed

Offensive Tangrowth

Tangrowth @ Life Orb / Choice Specs
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 112 HP / 252 SpA / 144 Spe
Modest Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power Rock
- Sleep Powder

Both of them are very powerful (maybe a bit too much) and they would still be 100% viable without Sleep Powder (well maybe the Tank one will be less used with Stun Spore and probably less viable but Specs Growth will still be perfectly usable).

Amoonguss is a useful Pokemon in the BW RU Metagame, it is a less powerful sleep move user than Tangrowth but it remains usable. His usage rate in RUPL was way lower than Tangrowth's but it remains a bit too powerful with Spore, having a 100% accuracy while Tangrowth's Sleep Powder has a 75% accuracy.

Amoonguss

Amoonguss @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 88 Def / 52 SpA / 116 SpD
Calm Nature
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Clear Smog / Sludge Bomb
- Stun Spore / Synthesis / Hidden Power Fire

Liligant is another strong Sleep user with it's access to Sleep Powder. It pairs well with Quiver Dance, becoming a very powerful wincon with this set. It can quickly become hard to handle and some teams just can't do anything against it.

Quiver Dance Lilligant

Lilligant @ Life Orb / Lum Berry
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Sleep Powder
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power Rock / Hidden Power Fire

To sum-up, Sleep doesn't have any viable counterplay in the tier and the gen5 mechanic make it way too much broken.
I think Sleep is Banworthy.

Shadow Tag

Shadow Tag is another problem in BW RU. I don't consider it as much powerful as Sleep but it probably remains as a ban worthy ability. It's only viable user is Gothorita and it is somewhat an uncompetitive Pokemon.
Gothorita can win games by itself, trapping your wincon's counter and killing it quite easily (especially powerful against Alomomola and Slowking). I don't think this mechanic should stay in the tier and I think it should be banned.

To sum-up :
- Sleep is just broken and should absolutely be banned (every sleep move, not only Spore and Sleep Powder)
- Shadow Tag is probably a bit too powerful for this metagame and its counterplays aren't always very viable (using shed shell on Alomomola and Slowking can be bad sometimes) and should be banned too.

 

[Finchinator]

Shadow Tag should be banned in BW RU (and NU). It is not a competitive ability in the context of the metagame.

I do not view sleep as broken in BW RU, but you can make an argument it is not particularly competitive, especially with the abundance of Sleep Talk roulette coming in to play.

If anyone posts serious objections, I will gladly elaborate on either or both.

 

[Plague von Karma]

Mostly played this casually with Molk (I was the friend) and never had the chance to play in tours, but I agree with what's been said here and believe the tier would see massive improvements with these gone. There's definitely bigger fish to fry (Moltres and Durant) but these are easily implemented bans that I'd argue should be standard across BW as a whole. I don't have much to add outside of wanting to not see Chlorophyll Lilligant put my ass to bed when that's what Durant is meant to do when princess carrying me to victory.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Former council member chiming in to say we should have done more. Ban them both.

 

[Clementine]

I'm very new to this tier overall and haven't faced nor used Gothorita/Shadow Tag in a serious tournament game yet so I won't give my opinion on this yet, but I 100% agree with the idea of banning Sleep

Sleep in BW is notoriously difficult to handle due to the brutal gen5 sleep mechanics and even though the tiers are obviously extremely different, this is very similar to how centralizing and obnoxious it was in OU. The possibility of straight up KOing a mon with a move as dumb as Spore makes sleepers extremely difficult to switch into in their own right, but it can also easily free another mon in the back. Sure, running Sleep Talk on a Choice mon or a defensive pivot such as Amoonguss limits the absurdity of sleep in general, but it's a highly unreliable strategy due to the sheer randomness of Sleep Talk rolls, and it's definitely restricting in the teambuilder. Sleep adds an unhealthy random factor to many games and the outcome of some games can entirely depend on how lucky one of the player is with sleep turns or Sleep Talk. This is definitely an uncompetitive, ban worthy element of this tier that should 100% go as soon as possible.

(sorry for typing mistakes and possible nonsense it's 2am right now)

 

[Vileman]

Gonna go ahead and agree on banning both. Sleep has always been absurd. Getting in the sleepers isnt particularly hard and you can only hope that your sleep talker (why must we use this!!) will roll something useful when you need it.
Meanwhile shadow tag just gets free kills on defensive mons, no counterplay at all as it does its job quite linearly. Can't add much else as previous posts have done a good job at addressing the issues.

So yeah im up for suspect/outright banning both, think it would be a great step foward to the tier (discussion on moltres/durant later on maybe??)

 

[DnB]

sleep and shadow tag are both absolutely broken in BW as a whole, RU is the only lower tier where both are pretty prominent with amoongus & goth, everything has already been said, ban both

we should also go forward and do the same thing for UU & NU, i'll start working on a thread tomorrow :)

this ban will also help a little bit with the moltres & durant problem, although both dont need trapping/sleep to work, it will make it easier to deal with them because you dont have to worry about losing/risking your check because you had to switch it into a sleeping move or some stupid goth set, but they can still be a problem. a stag + sleep ban will be a huge step into the correct direction tho

 

[Bughouse]

Please do not require BW NU to have a separate thread to discuss these two points as they can 100% be applied reciprocally to NU and would have basically full agreement. Sleep isn't a big issue in BW NU since close to the only viable and reliable user is Butterfree, but that's also to say banning it wouldn't have a major impact to BW NU anyway. Meanwhile, we all know BW Sleep is bonkers. No loss there.

Shadow Tag however is even worse in BW NU than BW RU, so any arguments to ban it from BW RU should certainly apply downward. Goth is still the same Goth, but the general power level of the tier is even lower, so targets for trapping and setting up are even higher. Below is an example of how Goth can warp teambuilding in BW NU, and I think many of these arguments apply to BW RU as well, particularly since one of the most Goth-bait mons, Alomomola, is a staple of both BW NU and BW RU.

Goth is absurdly restrictive to teambuilding and even when you think you've made a goth-proof team that maybe has only one mon CM Goth can set up on, let's say a Alomomola with Wish, Protect, Toxic, Waterfall and no Shed Shell, which is a set that would cause a huge risk vs Goth if you can't OHKO a +6/+6 goth... but maybe you think this is ok because you have CB Punishment Primeape to revenge (nearly OHKOs Goth after it has 2 CMs, cleanly does after 3+) Well.... tough luck when you run into a Goth that instead of Eviolite Rest Calm Mind Psychic Thunderbolt/Toxic is instead Trick Scarf Calm Mind Rest Psychic... this goth gets to +6 vs this Alomomola, heals itself to near full, tricks back its scarf, and then finally takes out Alomomola, and threatens to sweep from +6/+6 and the crucial scarf that protects it from being revenged by CB Primeape.

This is even ignoring that you don't even necessarily need Goth to sweep itself... just trapping and taking down, say, a Regirock, with Specs Energy Ball, might be all you need for Charizard or Swellow or Kangaskhan, etc to win your NU game. Similar examples of X offensive mon is only checked by Y defensive mon, but Y can be trapped and removed by Goth abound in BW RU as well.

 

[mael]

I'm super down for banning both, but Shadow Tag in particular. The sets goth uses are self-sufficient in the sense that they can dismantle several otherwise really good teams, by taking out 1-3 key members of a team and that's it. Nonetheless the biggest problem lies, as per usual with trapping abilities, in how it supports the already borderline broken mons in the tier. Obviously the most prevalent issue that people see with BW RU are Moltres and Durant usually, but I do think that issue is highly inflated due to how restrictive goth makes teambuilding. We could solve 2 or more problems with one ban here and the potential loss is minor or none.

The issue with sleep is just the mechanic in BW and the fact that Sleep Talk is not a move you want to be forced to run, because a) it's gambling and b) it's highly restrictive in the teambuilder, which again ends up aggravating the already mentioned issues the tier has. It adds to the load. Remove one or two things there and free up the options in the teambuilder and who knows if the other problems remain problematic.

 

[Denial]

Thanks everyone for posting so far / reach me out in pms if they couldnt post here. First of all, BW RU Cup signups, so go signup for that. Since both Moltres and Durant we're brought up multiple times in this thread, imo it was better to first move with more "soft" bans to see how things would work out in the BW Cup, then make a discussion and see if actions on the two is still necessary. Would appreciate signups for this tour then so that we could have a better discussion about the two in the future.

 

[Hogg]

My apologies for the delay in responding. Given the support in this thread and on Discord, you have the OK to move ahead with a vote on sleep and Shadow Tag.

 

[Bughouse]

Honko let me know that the way this was implemented on Showdown is as a ban in BW RU but not inherited to the tiers below it.
I understand that we're not following transitivity here, and that's fine as a general policy.

That said, as I requested in my previous post, can we at the very least please not need to have the same discussion about these issues as pertains to BW NU and just put the same two things up for a vote by the qualified BW NU playerbase (for the record, PU already banned them, which they were able to do because BW PU was not official and thus not part of the tier lock.)

 

[DnB]

That said, as I requested in my previous post, can we at the very least please not need to have the same discussion about these issues as pertains to BW NU and just put the same two things up for a vote by the qualified BW NU playerbase (for the record, PU already banned them, which they were able to do because BW PU was not official and thus not part of the tier lock.)

this.

Sleep isnt that strong in NU, but there are still some users and shadow tag is way better. I think we can simply start a vote on it