Official XY Ubers Gengarite Suspect Voting

[Ed]

Gengar is undoubtedly the best user of STAG, rather an abuser of it. It can eliminate opposing 'mons with the appropriate support move, render support/walls almost always useless, which is further supported by a blazing speed stat and an absurd Special Attack stat. But what should strike out to most players is that Mega Gengar isn't the problem, Shadow Tag is. That ability is what makes Gengar dangerous, making it capable of doing it whatever it wants to do once (AND ONLY) it Mega Evolves. The Mega Evolution aspect is also a factor since Gengar doesn't have it immediately, as it doesn't immediately have Shadow Tag. Gengar can only come in on certain occasions in a battle not frequently, usually in the process of weakening a team, and a player has to know HOW to play Gengar and WHAT to do with it and WHEN, because you can't blatantly throw it in and expect it to always do its job without any backfire. Also, Gengar doesn't have very good overall defenses, hence why it is popularly used to get rid of counters to its team swiftly. Its support movepool is very excellent, from moves like Taunt to Perish Song, it's guaranteed to extinguish a counter. Everything that was stated above just summarizes what Mega Gengar does in the tier, and certainly I do agree Shadow Tag gives it an uncompetitive edge, but not unfair. Essentially, Shadow Tag is the sole reason why Mega Gengar is super effective (pun intended) in the Ubers tier, and previously in the early stages of XY OU. If Gengarite were to be banned, it wouldn't solve the problem of Shadow Tag because eventually other Pokemon with the ability will come to exploit it as well.

With that, my vote is NO.

 

[Mob Boss]

Really like that purple ghost and like to use it alot although is it broken indeed. It can trap and eliminate threats to the team allowing your pokemon to have an easier time to sweep, can take care of the stall playstyle itself and makes it unviable, and the taunt and dbond will ensure 1 kill on the opponent with its high and that shadow tag ability (high sp attack is the icing of the cake). Not alot of pokemon can bluff of easily taking down a 6plus arceus and any other boosted pkmn so you can take out your opponents win condition and then use yours to sweep or damage the opposing team. The turn to mega evolve is not that much of a holdback and it can even apreciate the levitate ability in some occasions. Alot of people argue how xerneas can devistate in the uber enviroment but imagine a pkmn that can trap the certain pkmn and weaken it enough to the point that it really is not a counter no more and this is what it does. Gengar can do so much and then you talk about the uncompetive perish song set, that it is just not competive and has even a higher chance of working than the swagger coinflip which was banned because of this. Gengar has no counters and you can only check it but other than the deoxys forms, blaziken and the scarfed pokemon, nothing can really revenge it and the gengar team has the teamates to take care of this. I used gengar with twave support during the suspect test and like this I could take out a boosted xern itself and had dbond for backup so I mean. It is really broken and deserves the banhammer, really gonna miss it if it gets banned tho. (the effect of taking out boosted threats in the metagame does not outweight the unhealthyness it is for the tier and the said healthy effect of taking down boosted threats can just be as broken as for the team it is being used on for the teamate of gengar to have a chance of it boosting and taking down the weakened opponent.) Also alot of people say mindgames but its not really gonna switch into nothing unless its sure its not threatened and this can backfire so easily so this is not a valid excuse. (as well as scarf pkmn suffering on being set up fodder and with para support, blaziken can be rendered useless and think bout this, blaziken protects and you switch your para support, lets say thundy and then u get parad. The blaziken can also choose not to protect and then the gengar instead chooses to attack and I love 50-50 mindgames but they are not competitive adding more reason to ban this so... (also I'm new to the meta so I hope I listed everything and hope my reasons were valid)

Ban Mega Gengar

 

[user php]

I vote No Ban.

Reasoning: While it is true that MGengar is a good Pokemon, and removes the ability to switch, which is considered one of the most important aspects of switching, there is more to MGengar in actual play than there is on Paper. First of all, it can't actually trap on the first turn, which no matter what anyone says, is huge. Discussing the three major play styles of Mons; HO (Mega Gengar can't switch in on most Mons, due to its huge fraility, which is another let down) / Balance (Balance has enough Offensive FirePower to make sure that the Pokemon you let MGengar trap is one that is not detrimental to the outcome of the game in the relevant situation. Run a solid Pursuit User) / Stall (Undoubtedly where MGengar strives most, but it is similar to SpecsOgre, an inherent weakness to stall teams unless you have a dedicated counter to this said mon, so you will need to take this into account into team building). Also on the argument of, MGengar removes Pokemon X, so your Pokemon Y can sweep. It sounds great on paper, but it is in fact hard to pull of if your Opponent catches on, and acts accordingly. As stated before, MGengar is pretty frail, so it will have limited opportunities to switch in. Bringing in an example, user Chubby Penguins known Chansey team has few problems with MGengar as all the Mons on the team bar Chansey can 1 v 1 for Gengar, which in most situations is what MGengar can get you against a well Built, well played team. Additionally, Mega Gengars Sp.Attack stat while great, is not good enough to actually KO most Ubers Pokemon w/o SE Coverage, where it will probably get KO'd by itself due to fraility. Also, I think MGengar does add something positive to the Meta Game, it gives you another tool, another Offensive Mon to help you try and pull out your ultimate game plan. Without it, Stall would be broken in me eyes. Also removing things is not something new, we had Wobefutt in DPP, which was immensely good at its job due to No Team Previw, being able to remove Pokemon X, and Pave a Path for Pokemon Y to sweep, and it was still dealt with. I am for banning Gothitelle tho as I feel it is inherently more broken. Note; I do think MGengar is uncompetetive, but not to the point of banning it.

 

[franklinfrank]

Ban

Mega Gengar, and by extension Shadow Tag as a whole, is an extremely uncompetitive aspect of the ubers metagame that deserves to be banned. In a tier filled with threats such as Arceus, Kyogre, and Xerneas, the ability to trap the opponents checks/counters to these pokemon and eliminate them is absolutely devastating, as without these checks/counters, it becomes extremely difficult to stop these threats. Mega Gengar possesses the speed, offensive firepower, movepool, and ability in Shadow Tag to accomplish just this. Thanks to shadow tag, Mega Gengar eliminates the ability to switch, thus nearly guaranteeing a kill, or at worst a one for one trade thanks its access to both Taunt and Destiny Bond. If there's one weakness Mega Gengar has, it is the fact that it requires a turn to mega evolve, allowing the opponent one turn to switch. However, in addition to the 50/50s Mega Gengar causes with regards to whether you/your opponent will double switch into it and trap the opponent's pokemon, this scenario causes even more 50/50's with regards to switching out/staying in vs pursuit/other move. This potentially can place the fate of the entire game on a few 50/50's, and I believe that is an uncompetitive aspect that needs to go. This is not even considering the fact that Mega Gengar can run the moves to help beat these pursuit trappers, such as hp fire for scizor and will-o-wisp for other pursuiters. In conclusion, Mega Gengar and Shadow Tag are both uncompetitive aspects of the Ubers tier that both should be banned.

 

[capefeather]

Gengarite: Do Not Ban

People talk a lot about things being uncompetitive, but there's no way of explaining the existing Smogon rules consistently without considering the power of the object under scrutiny. I think of uncompetitiveness not as a factor separate from power, but as a factor that decides how easily something can become too powerful. There are many elements of the game that could be construed as "uncompetitive" or "too luck-based", but they don't get banned despite being fundamentally the same as elements that do get banned. For example, SwagPlay is essentially parafusion on crack, but one's banned and the other's not because one's too powerful - so powerful that a worse player could viably send in a SwagPlay team against a better player in a tournament, and bs a win. Evasion is another example; while it's sometimes argued that evasion is pointless to ban from lower tiers, for now it is the case that evasion moves are not banned in Ubers, but are banned in every other Smogon singles tiered format. An extreme example is Moody, which is so uncompetitive that it even makes Bidoof too powerful. Even the notion of removing choice is subject to this, because a Shadow Tag Pokemon still comes with opportunity costs and the notion itself only applies to the short term. I agree that switching is a fundamental element to the skill in singles, but removing that temporarily isn't necessarily a total violation of the long-term dynamics of switching in a game.

So now for the main event: Is Mega Gengar too powerful? Well, there's a significant amount of guessing involved when Gengar initially switches in. If you switch in a faster Pokemon and Gengar uses Destiny Bond, your Pokemon's screwed. If you switch in a slower Pokemon and Gengar has Perish Song, your Pokemon's probably screwed. Else, Gengar switches out and has full access to Shadow Tag the next time around, but it's potentially sacrificed momentum. Even after Gengar has Mega Evolved, it still has to switch in again, leading to more guessing and/or long-term considerations. This depiction glosses over a lot of complicating factors, a lot of which go against Gengar (mainly how hard it is to switch in due to its frailty), but even ignoring those, such high-stakes decisions aren't new to Ubers. The format is teeming with extremely powerful Pokemon with wide coverage, such as Zekrom and White Kyurem, which force the player to guess which move the opponent will use. The difference is that it's the "government" (game mechanics) rather than your fellow "market" competitor forcing your hand, and that just feels really shitty. In fact, DPP Ubers Wobbuffet is very similar to Mega Gengar, if not more consistent due to the lack of team preview in Smogon DPP and Wobbuffet's strategy being less reliant on what the opponent is doing.

Ultimately, there's still some subjectivity in what could be considered too powerful. I can see people wanting to ban Gengarite despite the long-term parallels with wall-breakers and DPP Wobbuffet. DPP Ubers was a different time and I can understand if people have a preference for breaking a bit from the old mentalities that helped make Ubers what it was years ago. I simply don't have such a preference, though. People can "tournament-engineer" OU all they want, but I would prefer that Ubers keep having a different mentality from that. I see the existing bans simply as making Ubers reasonably playable and skill-based, and I don't think that Mega Gengar detracts from that.

 

[Fiend]

Shadow Tag is the what really makes Mega Gengar so great. Shadow Tag just compliments Mega Gengar extremely well and lets it potentially ruin your checks and counters to top tier mons, letting sweeps come from what is essentially nowhere. However, this is (usually) much easier said than done as double switches do happen and M Gar is extremely frail, creating some problems in the execution of this strategy. But when anything is successfully trapped, there tends to be little you can do to come back from this deficit, bar hax. Yet this fact remains true for all Shadow Tag (ab)users; the main difference between this being how easily the trapping is done in comparison to other pokemon. But this is not grounds to ban Mega Gengar, at least in my opinion, especially since Ubers is the safe haven of exceptionally great pokemon, it's where the broken pokemon dwell and make their home. Ubers should not ban a pokemon from the tier (again imo), but rather an ability itself. As thus, keep Mega Gengar in Ubers.

TL;DR: Keep M Gar; Shadow Tag is what forces what is essentially a sacking of a pokemon, and is what is so deadly. The ability itself is the problem.

 

[MeHerman]

I vote to not ban gengarite/mega gengar from the ubers tier.
Full disclosure, I am primarily an ubers player who dabbles in OU and other tiers, so please don't hate on me too much if I say something stupid about OU (see 6 and 8) in this paragraph/essay/dissertation/novel. ;)
A few reasons why not to ban:
1. Gengar/Mega gengar is not a switch in to anything. And you'd like it to be so you could trap things like gothitelle does.
I don't think I will find many arguments that before it mega evolves gengar is one frail pokemon. It is frail in OU never mind ubers, so I don't think I'll get much argument there. Of course it does get a slight bulk increase to defenses of 60/80/95 once it mega evolves but that is still not all that great in a tier where 120 is the minimum your attack or special attack stat that any respectable ubers pokemon should be hitting, and usually most self-respecting special attackers in ubers have at least a base 131 special attack stat. Take for example a weaker special attacker. Weaker than Kyurem White, Kyogre, xerneas (scarf psychic makes gengar sad and if you haven't used scarfed xerneas you should it wrecks), deoxys-a, mewtwo, palkia reshiram. Take uninvested unboosted arceus. Arceus, while an amazing poke has only a base 120 sp attack stat, is less or much less than the more conventional special attackers I listed above. So let's do a calc: 0 SpA Zap Plate Arceus-Electric Judgment vs. 28 HP / 80 SpD Mega Gengar: 145-172 (54.1 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Univested this poke two hit KOs mega gengar, even if it has already mega evolved and has some bulk investment and is hitting mega gengar on its bulkier special defensive side. So if you can't switch in mega gengar you basically need a free switch into it and therefore you usually have to let a pokemon faint (they don't die, they just faint), so if you have to destiny bond with mega gengar to take something out that is two pokes you've lost just to get mega gengar to work which is not a good trade for you. Remember the above calc is if mega gengar has already mega evolved, which brings me to my next reason why not to ban.
2. Gengar with gengarite has to mega evolve to gain shadow tag.
This in some ways makes it easier to play around than gothitelle. Gothitelle can switch in on support arceus going for recover and you're trapped. Gengar not yet mega evolved tries the same thing and then you can still switch that first turn, into say banded ho-oh (good luck switching into that monster), pursuit trap aegislash/scizor, or a scarfer. This is a big disadvantage for mega gengar. Another reason not to ban.
3. Who cares if mega gengar is over centralizing?
I don't buy the argument that mega gengar over-centralizes the tier or limits team building, because even if it did, which is debatable, that would be okay. This is ubers. This tier/ban list is already very over centralized. Take for instance Kyogre. It is very difficult, to not run a kyogre, counter (rest talk dragon tail sp def palkia, arceus grass or arceus water, the latter I have less experience with), kyogre switch in or kyogre check on every team you make. That is just the nature of ubers. Kyogre limits team building. E killer arceus limits team building. Xerneas certainly limits team building. If mega gengar limits team building, so what? Powerful yet competitive threats have been apart of ubers for as long as I've played the tier.
4. Gengar does not make stall unplayable.
Stall is incredibly powerful. I've watched many a high level tournaments and seen stall due so well and top players really use it successfully and while you now have a threat to stall in mega gengar. Gengar by no means beats stall all by itself or makes stall unplayble. Take for example this battle where I'm using one of Donkey's stall teams (I usually don't run stall but I wanted to try it because it looked fun) and I'm battling a very respectable user who had a mega gengar. And by very respectable user I mean rarecandydrugger who as I type this is #2 on the ubers ladder, and in the very recent past was #1. Now I should lose right? I should just forfeit because I heard mega gengar just destroys stall. And this is mega gengar in the hands of a good player and I don't even have a pursuit aegislash or scizor, oh no! What am I going to do? http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uberssuspecttest-156608043
Well of course I won and it just goes to show that stall is not completely dead because mega gengar is allowed.
5. Gengar is not swagger/moody/evasion pass(?)
When I think of bans in ubers, I think of abilities/moves that are totally luck based by nature. Swagger: 45% chance your opponent will not be able to do something the turn you use it and 50% until your opponents pokemon breaks out of confusion. OHKO: Fissure 30% chance the opponent faints no ifs ands or buts. Moody: made bidoof viable in ubers. These are the moves and abilities that turn the game into a coin flip/dice roll. They are no fun (in my opinion) and take no skill, they're just luck. That's why they are banned. Mega gengar you have to play around, sure, but that takes skill. I admit that sometimes taunt destiny bond can be a similar situation, but I don't think you can make an argument that mega gengar is any where in the league of swagger/OHKO/moody etc. Unlike these other moves and abilities, gengar needs so much more help, such as a free switch, a turn to mega evolve, not getting smacked upside the head by a choice scarfer, pursuit user or shadow sneak, to work. Really, I think this would be the only real reason to ban a pokemon from ubers is if it is luck based or "uncompetitive." Gengar, in my opinion, is not luck based like some of these more bannable/moves and abilities. It just takes skill to play around.
6. Mega Gengar can't have an item besides its gengarite.
This inhibits gengar in a lot of ways. First it makes it less appealing for gengar to run substitute because unless you run substitute (sub)/pain split you're slowly killing yourself and if you do run these two moves then you are really limited in terms of coverage. And don't tell me gengar wouldn't like to run sub. Sub is practically a staple of gengar in OU because it mitigates to some extent its pathetic bulk. Second Gengar is somewhat more predictable because I always know what item it is going to use. I know it is going to have gengarite. I know my choice scarfer out speeds it. I don't have the same luxury with most other mons. Is that kyogre scarfed or specs? Is that ho-oh banded or sub? What kind of arceus is that? I don't know. But when you see gengar you at least know how fast it can be and how hard it can hit. Third gengar can't have a life orb and gengarite at the same time. So what you say? So, I hear a lot about how powerful gengar is but consider the following (said one Bill Nye the Science Guy): "252 SpA Life Orb regular old run of the mill Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus: 173-204 (38.9 - 45.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO" and "252 SpA Mega Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus: 162-192 (36.4 - 43.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO." Regular old gengar with a life orb, hits harder than mega gengar. Gengar, while it gains speed when it mega evolves basically loses potential power. This is why I don't every buy the argument that gengar is too powerful, when I hear "as much special attack than kyurem white" etc. Fourth, mega gengar takes up the mega slot for your team. No mega lucario, kangaskhan, or blaziken for you. Also, soon this will mean no mega kyogre or groudon. So this is a non-trivial opportunity cost for running mega gengar.
7. Knock off
As I'm sure you already know knock off is really popular this gen and it absolutely destroys mega gengar due to its physical frailty and weakness to it. Fortunately for mega gengar the only two real spammers of knock off in ubers are lando-t and blacken. However gengar would really like to switch in to landorus-t otherwise on a predicted eq, stealth rock or toxic but it just can't as freely because of knock off.
8. In my experience on the ladder, people have spoken with their feet (or more precisely their precious team spots) and said that mega gengar is not that great
If mega gengar was so good than wouldn't everyone be running it? Now I know that usage is not how we are supposed to be evaluating a pokemon for a potential ban, which is why this reason is 8th on my list and not 1 or 2. But I remember when life orb tornadus t was spamming hurricane and it was on every single team before its ban in 5th gen ou and how mega kangaskhan and mega lucario was on like every team in 6th gen when they were allowed. Their usage clearly signified that something was broken about those mons and I just have not seen the same thing happen with mega gengar. I'm saying it hasn't flooded the ladder like I would think something that is so broken it needs to be banned should. And if it is going to be banned from ubers it better be super worthy.
9. This is ubers. We don't ban pokemon. (Just abilities and moves)
This is more of an opinion than an argument but I think that it lies at the heart of what I think the ubers tier is. An over-centralized ban list of super powerful pokemon. And, in my opinion, mega gengar fits right in. It's not uncompetitive just powerful.

 

[Transcendent God Champion]

Gengarite: Do Not Ban

Reasoning: Not only is Mega Gengar (and Shadow Tag Pokémon in general) far from the best Pokémon in Übers (and thus it would be inconsistent to ban Mega Gengar while keeping the better Pokémon such as Arceus, Xerneas and Ho-Oh in the tier), but banning a Pokémon from Übers is also fundamentally inconsistent with the very idea of the Übers metagame itself, which is supposed to be a metagame in which all Pokémon can be used. Additionally, not only do I not see how Mega Gengar makes the game "uncompetitive" in any way (how exactly does eliminating "player choice" by preventing the opponent from switching any different from using Taunt against a Pokémon without a single attacking move, or sending in a Choice Scarf Kyogre and clicking Water Spout against a remaining team consisting of, say, Arceus-Rock, Ho-Oh and Mega Mewtwo X?), but it is also my personal belief that even if something did make a Pokémon metagame "uncompetitive" by adding more luck to it, that is hardly a justification for banning it, as let's face it, luck, whether it is in the form of 50/50 predictions, team matchups, "hax", or making guesses (educated, but still) about what moveset an opponent's Pokémon is running on a crucial turn (for example, making an important guess about whether the opponent's Mewtwo holds Mewtwonite X or Mewtwonite Y, or whether the opponent's Arceus-Ghost is Calm Mind or Swords Dance on a turn in which one automatically loses if they guess incorrectly), is omnipresent in every single Pokémon metagame anyway ever since the first generation.

 

[Lady Gaga]

Mega Gengar guarantees the user the ability to choose and kill at least one opposing pokemon. M-Gar requires a turn before being able to trap any non ghost or shell shed mon but if the M-Gar comes into a mon who is vulnerable to it and uses substitute while the other mon switches out, the next mon is guaranteed to die because of perish trap or destiny bond (if the mon is faster than the M-Gar behind the sub). The ability to kill any mon of your choosing gives a player an open opportunity go for a setup sweep with mons like GeoXern and Ekiller and the opponent would not be able to do anything about it after their check was perish/dbond trap killed.

BAN MEGA GENGAR

 

[Orphic]

Okay so I'm going to vote for **NO BAN**

My reasoning:
The term uncompetitive is not a common one in pokemon to say the least, and I still don't believe M-Gengar/Gengarite creates uncompetitivity in the ubers metagame. While shadow tag may force your opponent to stay in with something that dies to Mega Gengar, it can be easy to simply switch in something the next turn that destroys it. I've seen the point made (by shrang or sweep?) that shadow tag only affects one or two turns a battle, and that this isn't a large impact on the outcome of the battle itself. Therefore, the use of Mega Gengar or seeing on on your opponents team doesn't automatically decide the outcome of the battle or give greater advantage to the user of Mega Gengar in said battle.
Furthermore, I actually believe something like this can benefit a healthy metagame which stops something like ubers, where it can be very easy to become stale with no bans and no shifts. The inclusion of Mega Gengar causes variety in teambuilding and also even during battles effects the plays you make to avoid getting caught up in it's trap.
I don't feel like I need to address the arguments for banning in my paragraphs so I won't, this is just my two cents :)

 

[Xfing]

Ok, might as well do it now.

Please do not ban Gengarite.

My reasoning is going to be difficult to encapsulate in a single paragraph, but there are several reasons I don't think Gengarite is uncompetitive. Firstly, it's the notion that Mega Gengar guarantees the removal of at least one Pokemon from the opposing team. Which I have, in the course of my testing, found to be a greatly exaggerated notion and in many cases, far from being true. While Gengar is obviously very threatening, and even more so if its user is skilled, there are numerous strategies one can employ to shut Gengar down before it does too much damage. Whch leads me to the second point: the many ways one can deal with Gengar preclude any talk of metagame overcentralization. There are at least five Pokemon that can stop Gengar dead in its tracks with no aid, and many more become capable of doing so with team support. Fourthly: As any other Pokemon, Gengar is matched favorably against certain types of teams, and not so favorably against others. That also diminishes its perceied "brokenness" in my view. Fourthly: If left in, Mega Gengar will encourage players to find new ways to beat it, which will be a driving force for the evolution of the metagame. Also, you still don't know what AS and OR will bring, they might bring to the fold a Pokemon easily capable of stopping Gengar. Fifthly: Dealing with Gengar requires skill, just as using it does. Striving to become good enough to use Mega Gengar successfully or defend against it successfuly are things intrinsically competitive and promote thought and strategizing. Simple maneuvers such as baiting and switching still work against Gengar, as do prediction skills. Just like with anything else in the game. And finally, if all else fals, I simply don't think that the necessity of sacrificing a Pokemon in order to get rid of an enemy one is uncompetitive in itself - strategy is the art of weighing your options and their win-loss ratios. While comparisons of Pokemon to chess are not necessarily founded, both are turn-based strategy games and in both you have to make sacrifices. Mega Gengar only reduces your choice as to which Pokemon to sacrifice. But as said in pont 5 - if you're a really good player, you'll be able to predict when the enemy wants to switch Gengar in and act accordingly.

 

[Inflikted]

Don't ban

Reasoning

Personally, I consider Mega Gengar unhealthy and overpowered in ubers; in one word, broken. That's the point though: i consider it broken, NOT uncompetitive. Mega Gengar is "just" an overpowered trapper; that's why I'll mainly talk about trapping in this post, as Gengar being different from other trappers (i.e. way more powerful) does not mean anything in my opinion, as we don't ban pokemon from ubers because they're more powerful than other ones. If the point is trapping / uncompetitiveness, i'll talk about that. I don't care about stats and movepool because this is not OU.

Trapping has always been a very important part of competitive play, and I don't think it removes the skill from the game or the control from the players' hands. First off, it limits choices for a limited number of turns, which can be crucial, but it won't always be like that. Moreover, the player using the trapper has to determine what he needs to trap, while the opponent has to get smarter and avoid situations where his key pokemon gets trapped. We can easily see that the player using the trapper is usually in the better spot, as determining what pokemon he has to trap is significantly easier than avoiding your own pokemon getting trapped. But "easier" still does not mean "fail-safe", as the opponent can still come out on top if he's smarter; a trapper is a powerful weapon, but it does not auto win. The opponent also has the opportunity of running a trapper on his own team, and this brings reciprocity to the whole thing, in a way that user shrang described very well in this post.

I'm also quite surprised by the fact that nobody really complained about trappers in Ubers for generations, while suddenly everyone goes ban-happy now. Okay, the metagames were different, but can really a metagame change make a Pokemon / ability / whatever uncompetitive? In my opinion, no. The introduction of things such as Defog Arceus and support Xerneas or w/e made Shadow Tag extremely good, and thus broken in this particular metagame. BUT it did not turn them from "tolerable" to "uncompetitive" as it did not change how the ability works. You may argue, saying that Swagger has been there for a long time but it has been banned just a few months ago. True, but Swagplay has always been not competitive by itself as it is entirely luck based, and it was never suspected because it was never really a thing. Likewise, Shadow Tag was not a thing and now it is, but unlike Swagplay, it does not turn the game into an entirely RNG-based garbage.

I also think that the argument about Mega Gengar shutting down stall is irrelevant. Ubers is not OU or a lower tier where all playstyles should be preserved, ubers is the metagame where you have to adapt to the broken stuff, not a metagame where you wait until the tier leaders suspect everything that makes your beloved new stall team bad.

I know the metagame would be generally more enjoyable without Mega Gengar, but this also applies to other centralizing stuff (that people always adapted to, at least in Ubers). If a tier above ubers existed, I would have voted to ban Gengar due to proven brokenness, but its brokenness is just not enough to justify a ban in this case.

Also apologies for my bad English / redundant phrases and stuff, I don't have so much free time to dedicate to this kind of things atm, but I hope this post meets the quality standards anyway.

 

[ApplepieFTW]

Almost everyone posting a paragraph here seemed to vote on something they made up themselves, here is what we ARE SUPPOSED to vote on:

I think of lot of newer users are treating this discussion like an OU Suspect Discussion thread, but this is different. We are not asking if Gengarite is overcentralizing or overpowered. We are asking this question: Is Gengarite an uncompetitive element of the metagame that needs to be removed to preserve the competitive integrity of Ubers, within the current paradigm of Ubers? Your posts should be dealing with this question. This is NOT an OU Suspect thread; treating it like one can and will result in deleted posts and possible infractions. If you are confused as to what might be considered "uncompetitive", see the other clauses such as OHKO, Moody, Swagger, etc. That'll give you some place to start thinking about it.

Ye, so I wont be touching the stuff that is irrelevant. Other people have done that enough. Okay, so is it uncompetitive? Early on in the thread a lot of meaningful discussion happened relating to this question, but then people were starting to make up their own definitions of 'uncompetitive'. I get were they are coming from as I also think the current definition is pretty bad in some ways, but it is very good in some other ways. Now at first I thought the definition listed below was an absolute definition we had to vote on, but I talked to mm2 on irc* and he told me that every description was fine, as long as it relates to the previous clauses. A description that would also justify the swagger, ohko, moody etc clauses.
So this is my description of uncompetitive:

When something is uncompetitive, in MY eyes, it is something that doesn't involve competition. Swagger does not involve competition, it is hoping for a dice roll in the code. Gengar, by my definition, IS competitive as it actually does involve competition.

This is the the description as stated by the OU council (which isn't official, more of a summary of how the term is commonly used)

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.

Now this is where the trouble for me began. Both of these definitions seemed 'right' to me, but I had to chose one. I realised I hadn't looked at the second part of what we had to vote on, only the uncompetitive part: Is Gengarite an uncompetitive element of the metagame that needs to be removed to preserve the competitive integrity of Ubers, within the current paradigm of Ubers?. Now, to decide what definition I would use, I had to look back at some of the predecessors; sleep in particular. I'm not going to write a paragraph on why sleep should have or should have not gotten banned, but I think most (if not all) agreed it was uncompetitive. Sleep was however uncompetitive because of how the meta, and more so the game, was at the time. It was banned because everyone mostly agreed it was not a healthy competitive aspect, but more so because it was not a healthy aspect in the meta we wanted. The better player could win just because of sleep turn dice rolls, and turned the game into a shitfest of sleep spam to the point where you basicly needed sleep spam of your own to combat their sleep spam or needed to run a team full of sleep-checks/counters because of sleep's ridiculous mechanics and you could even go as far to say a team that didn't abuse sleep was usually inferior to one that did. Sounds familiar? Its basicly the gengarite scenario, just exaggerated. The better player is more unlikely to win: sleep rolls, but also the way mega-gengar removes interesting and skilful choice because of stag. A shitfest of (mgar/sleep)spam to the point where a team without it become worse (to a certain extent): the way sleep was spammable and made a player unable to do anything, and without sleep it was harder to combat it, and keep up to par with this abusable strat, sort of like mgar can just disable any mon it wants depending on coverage, and it has gotten to the point where you might as well just run mgar in come with any sort of offensive mon because you really have little reason not to as you need to combat the terrible thing that is mgar removing your checks and counters by removing theirs and trying to sweep before they do. If it hasn't gotten to this point already, it will. From writing this it has become pretty clear that the second description describes the predecessors better (the same can be said for the other clauses, because at their core they still were uncompetitive, but the way the game was/worked is what made them effective abuse this uncompetitiveness). I am happy to say that, yes, mega gengar is an uncompetitive element of the metagame that needs to be removed to preserve the competitive integrity of ubers, because it is uncompetitive within the current paradigm of ubers.

Gengarite: Ban


PS: I started writing this for the suspect discussion, but felt it would screw my thingy up if I would go removing the sentences that are a bit out of context (I did with some parts), because writing already isnt the easiest thing for me. I'm also sorry if I haven't been able to fully get my point across, I think I have, but Dutch and stuff so ye ,, Convo isn't relevant tbf, its not something to further construct my point, I'm sure you have plenty of paragraphs to still go trough.

*

convo with mm2

13:30 ApplepieFTW just to be sure, the definition of uncompetitive used in the suspect is the same one as in ou?
13:30 ApplepieFTW 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.
13:30 ApplepieFTW like, this is the one we have to base our vote off of
13:30 Melee_Mewtwo it's a universal definition
13:30 Melee_Mewtwo people use the same word in ou as they do in ubers
13:30 ApplepieFTW ok, just wanted to make sure
13:30 Melee_Mewtwo but no you don't have to base your decisions off of it
13:31 Melee_Mewtwo like you can just explain in simple words
13:31 Melee_Mewtwo the long way
13:31 Melee_Mewtwo why you think something isn't good for ubers
13:31 Melee_Mewtwo uncompetitive is just a shortcut like every other term
13:31 Melee_Mewtwo you don't have to use it if you think its too vague still
13:31 ApplepieFTW O. so since we have to vote on competitiveness of mgar, can we also use another definition?
13:32 Melee_Mewtwo yeah you can
13:32 ApplepieFTW because this one already describes things for me, of sorts, and IF this is the absolute definition of uncompetitive and the one we HAVE to use im voting ban
13:32 Melee_Mewtwo just make sure whatever definition you come up with
13:33 Melee_Mewtwo is founded in the precedent of the previous clauses
13:33 ApplepieFTW ah
13:33 ApplepieFTW ye
13:33 ApplepieFTW urg that is hard then
13:33 ApplepieFTW guess I'll go back to deciding which definition is more objective
13:33 ApplepieFTW ty
13:33 ApplepieFTW cleared things up
13:33 Melee_Mewtwo well the most objective defintion
13:33 ApplepieFTW mine or that one
13:33 Melee_Mewtwo is the one in dice's qoute
13:34 Melee_Mewtwo cause it was just the ou council
13:34 Melee_Mewtwo looking at how folks used the word
13:34 ApplepieFTW aa
13:34 Melee_Mewtwo and putting it in actual clear cut words
13:34 Melee_Mewtwo what they meant when they talked about it
13:34 ApplepieFTW o so its not 'official' at all, just a summary of what people usually use it as
13:34 Melee_Mewtwo yeah
13:34 ApplepieFTW so more of a guideline
13:34 ApplepieFTW ah okay
13:34 Melee_Mewtwo not really a guideline but its just not
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo set in stone
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo i mean you can use the term
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo for past suspects
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo and it applies
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo so its completely valid
13:35 ApplepieFTW ye
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo don't worry about getting lost in the semantics
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo we are just asking if
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo banning shadow tag is something that sticks to what
13:35 Melee_Mewtwo ubers has been defined as
13:36 Melee_Mewtwo if it has the precedent founded by the other clauses
13:36 Melee_Mewtwo dunno if that clears things up
13:36 ApplepieFTW hm yeah it does
13:37 ApplepieFTW but now I feel terrible because I dont think I can morally vote to ban mgar anymore (depending on what definition I go with), ty

 

[Alexey]

Vote: ban

A preliminary note with regard to terminology: I would like to specifically point out that when I use words such as "most", "majority", it means that I do acknowledge the fact that there are certain counter-examples to the relevant statement, but I
believe that they are way too specific to succesfully debunk the argument. It seems obvious, but I simply fear that it might be lost when the reader is tired, which is a possibility, and I may end up misunderstood.
-------

So, I believe that the way Mega Gengar operates within the Ubers metagame is uncompetitive due to the fact that its presence on one or both teams engaged in a battle causes a sequence of turns when players have to guess (this is the keyword) whether the trapper will switch in on the next turn. These 50/50s are substantially different from the 50/50s which leave room for reading the opponent and outplaying him/her or choosing the strategically safest and thus more correct play (these can’t really be called 50/50s in the first place) in that both plays will (in an absolute majority of cases) be the “more correct” ones for the Mega Gengar player. The opponent, on the other hand, would only have a way of outplaying the Mega Gengar player if the latter is dumb as hell and always switches in Mega Gengar into something he or she wants to trap or makes the switches various, but in an absolutely obvious pattern, such as “2 turns without a Gengar switch, and I switch Gengar on turn 3, then rinse and repeat if needed”. It is true that such situations can arise during any battle, but never are they an inevitable sequence which quite often begins on Turn 1, and rarely do “normal” matches have them in large amounts, as is the case with most Mega Gengar-involving matches. In addition, the risk for Mega Gengar player is often considerably lower during such sequences due to the facts that Gengar can switch at will and that, in most cases, the worst scenario for MGar is a double down because Destiny Bond is a thing. As in such cases the opponent (or both players, if both have Mega Gengars) has to guess, even if the correct guess will enable to take the MGar down without losing something (e.g. successful Dragon Dance on DBond or switching Pursuit MAerodactyl in on Taunt or Sludge Bomb), they are nevertheless guesses, and as such are almost as luck-based as Moody, Swagger, and OHKO moves. Luck is still luck, regardless of whether the actual coinflip or dice roll (come think of it, it will usually be a dice roll rather than a coinflip) is done by the RNG or by the player in his or her head, and if something brings luck to a game to this extent (I acknowledge that some completely luck-based things can be irrelevant, such as accuracy lowering moves), it is, in my opinion, uncompetitive. As I have no problem with banning something from Ubers for being uncompetitive, I vote to ban Gengarite.

 

[Asmodean]

Gengarite: Do Not Ban

My reasoning:
PS is a simulator that attempts to model the pokemon games as closely as possible. Within this structure we develop a tier system to make the metagame interesting and to give it a certain hierarchy. Usually the tiers are demarcated by how 'powerful' a pokemon is, but ubers, being the highest tier of all, has certain different rules. Ubers has been defined as the tier with least possible amount of bans and we must enforce a ban iff it pertains to something which harms the competitive integrity of the metagame and makes it unfeasible to play.
The other clauses so far relate to elements of chance(OHKO clause, Moody Clause) or to certain 'uncompetitive' game elements (Sleep Clause, Species Clause). Banning gengarite would hence be something new entirely and would translate to a pokemon being entirely unplayable in any official tier, which is something unprecedented! I do not think I am comfortable with this as I am not convinced of gengarite being an uncompetitive game element.
Gengarite allows gengar to mega-evolve into one of the most prominent threats of the ubers metagame, with excellent speed and great special attack. In addition to this, it gets shadow tag and a combination of taunt + destiny bond, which combined with its good speed and immunities almost always allows it to take out one opponent pokemon. This makes it a strong pokemon, perhaps even the strongest pokemon in the metagame, but I do not see how it makes it uncompetitive.
My feeling about shadow tag is that it is just another mechanic that we have to work around. We work against the sheer power of Specs Kyogre, Ekiller, GeoXern by using some dedicated counter or a set of loose checks, but gengar enables you to remove those checks and ensure a sweep. But, the opponent is free to use a check to gengar itself as it is fairly easy to kill owing to its frailty. So in my opinion, checks and counters to gengarite exist and even if they are obscure, you may have to use them if you want to be completely sure of beating gengar (This is similar to using Gastrodon or Shedinja against standard Kyogre).
The opponent is also free to use his own mega gengar and this ensures that whoever plays his team better (by way of making better decisions in-game) is almost always certain to win, barring hax. I think this improves the level of play by forcing each player to predict when mega gengar will come into play and make good moves to avoid being trapped by it.
Thus, I do not think that gengarite is an uncompetitive element of the metagame and instead feel that the metagame must grow and adapt to answer this threat instead.

 

[brokenwings]

In my opinion, shadow tag is by its very nature an uncompetitive ability, removing choice and creating 50/50s that are quite unlike anything else in the game. It's hard to come up with reasoning that hasn't already been explained better by someone else, but I'll try to come up with an example here. Say you have an arceus-grass as your answer to scarfed Kyogre, while your opponent has a scarfed Kyogre and an evolved Mega Gengar. Every turn he brings Kyogre out is a 50/50, you could stay in and he water spouts, while you lose a pokemon, or he can double switch to Mega Gengar, "predicting" your Arceus-Grass to come in, and you lose your answer to scarfed Kyogre. In this case, there is no "correct play" as each turn is just a 50/50. This essentially turns the match into one giant guessing game after another, which I believe is NOT something that can be considered competitive. It's pretty easy to see how this restricts teambuilding as well, as trying to include at least one check to every prominent threat in the tier is hard enough in itself. However, I don't think Mega Gengar is the true culprit here, Shadow Tag is in itself a busted ability in a game so heavily reliant on switching.

I'm going to vote BAN.


(This isn't relevant to my argument, but after reading through most of the other posts in the main suspect thread, I think this suspect test is kinda subjective, as one persons opinion of what is "uncompetitive" might differ from someone else, and in the end it really just comes down to what kind of tier you want this to be.)

 

[Steve Angello]

No Ban
The reason why I wouldn t ban Gengar is, that you can easily avoid the 50/50s and you can guess the set right by looking in the preview. RT Gengars are most likely in defensive teams and if Gengar is paired with Arceus or Xern its most of the time offensive. I don t think Gengar is too broken for the Uberstier but the Shadowtag ability is broken in my opinion. The problem wouldn t be solved if just Gengar gets the ban because people would spam Gothitelle, which happens atm. Wobbu doesn t deserve the ban in the Uberstier but Gothi and Gengar need one. I understand the points of other users but the problem isn t Gengar, its Shadowtag and thats the reason why I want the ST ability suspect and not the Gengar ban first.

 

[Louisxd]

BAN

Shadow Tag is as uncompetitive as other stuff that has been banned on Ubers as evasion and swagger, it takes the autonomy out of the player. Uncompetitive can be seen as things that break game elements, invalidate important game mechanics, or otherwise detract from skill being the primary method of deciding Pokemon battles. Shadow Tag in the version of a strong pokemon as Gengarite makes the invalidation of the switching mechanic more detrimental for the other player and so on Gengarite should be banned.

 

[xDesch]

I vote against the ban.

Gengarite is obviously what makes Gengar one of the best Ubers in the game (still not "the best one" in my opinion). He has the almost uniqe ability to trap pokes and remove key threats. While this can sound a little overwhelming, it's not. At least not in my opinion. Now while the lower tiers would remove such a metagame defining poke, I believe that Ubers is different, not minding pokes that have 50%+ usage (like Kyogre in earlier gens and Xern now) who centralizes the meta, and limits teambuilding. Gengar is good, no doubt, but he really struggles to "kill pokemon x, so pokemon Y can sweep." Defeating a Palk, so your Kyogre can sweep is not that easy. The reason is that one, crippling turn Gengar needs to mega evolve to get his ability activated. Because of it, he needs to get 2 successfull switch-ins to safely Mega Evolve and succesfully trap his opponent. But it doesn't stop there. Against a Palkia, they can T-Wave, Toxic (to lure out the Taunt), or just go for low accuracy moves (and even fishing for hax in that way...) to play around a Gengar. a Yveltal also has his means of playing around a Mega Gengar, who's not even close to guarantee to beat him. Gengar is very versatile as well, being able to switch sets accordingly to what he wants to trap, but everything considered, he struggles to do what he's supposed to do at times. He's not close to be guaranteed to pull of what he's supposed to do enough times for him to deserve a ban. But that's just my honest opinion.

 

[Cirdec]

My vote: Do not ban Gengarite

Paragraph: While Shadow Tag is a bit uncompetitive, it is not competely broken on Mega Gengar. 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.
Also I think Ubers is a tier where every Pokémon should be playable, no matter how broken they are. This is the basic definition of Ubers, the only tier when you enjoy to use the most powerful Pokémon. Banning a Pokémon from Ubers would mean you have no way to use this Pokémon in any official tier, it would be kind of sad. If you play Ubers, you must accept to face the most broken Pokémon and adapt it. Mega Gengar is overcentralizing the metagame by limiting teambuilding. But Kyogre, Xerneas and Arceus are as well. I don't think Gengarite deserve a ban for all these reasons.

 

[Bidoofs Crazy Videos]

Do not ban Gengarite.

There are several reasons that I'm adamant about keeping Mega Gengar in the Ubers metagame. Firstly, the idea of “uncompetitive” going along with Shadow Tag must be brought up, since the entire point of Pokémon battling is competition. While Shadow Tag does remove the ability to switch, I do not believe this to be uncompetitive in any aspect because the opposing player is (almost always) going to be well-aware if the opponent is using a Pokémon with Shadow Tag just from the Team Preview. This gives them to opportunity to work around the fact that their opponent is going to be bringing a Shadow Tag user, specifically Mega Gengar, and it’s their responsibility to be able to work around that. It’s not Swagger, with that coin flip making the difference between the win and the loss, it’s not Moody getting to plus six evasion out of sheer luck by protect stalling, it’s not a Choice Scarved Kyogre hitting six sheer colds in a row; it literally has nothing to do with a force that can’t be controlled by either of the players. It’s strategy. As well as this, Gengar actually has to be in for a turn in order to acquire Shadow Tag. This is an enormous aspect to consider. The fact that it isn’t readily available from turn one is massive. It can actually give Chansey, perhaps, the ability to do something since Gengar hasn’t Mega Evolved yet. It could switch in onto Chansey, but not having Mega Evolved, the player can (fairly simply, in my opinion) predict that and bring something else in to force the Gengar out, both preventing it from Mega Evolving and trapping something. Of all my Ubers battles, there was only one time a Mega Gengar trapped my Chansey, and that was because I mis-clicked. I do believe that it is able to be played around, and there’s no reason it should be considered uncompetitive. Of course, those saying that it is uncompetitive bring up the “strong” point of the fact that when it does trap thing, it can indeed kill them or make them useless, as is almost always the case with Chansey and Blissey. The problem with the fact that it has a great ability to trap something is the fact that other Pokémon can create the same effect as well. And by that, I don’t mean trapping. I mean that they also have the ability to kill other Pokémon or make them worthless. If the opponent’s Palkia has fainted and they don’t have anything to switch in to my Choice Specs Kyogre’s Water Spout, there’s absolutely nothing uncompetitive about that. As well as that, it doesn’t even mean that the entire game is over, either. If a Gengar just traps my Chansey, does that mean that the entire game is over? No. It’s not overpowered, no so OP that it should be banned from Ubers. In total, I feel that the Gengarite should not be banned. Gengar doesn’t have such a fair advantage over every other Uber that it’s absolutely ridiculous; it can’t just sweep a team by itself or KO every single Uber just because it can switch in at the right moment. Shadow Tag on Mega Gengar is a matter of skill when it comes to dealing with it, and having had many Ubers matches at this point, I truly believe that the Gengarite is in its proper place and is not to be banned.

 

[steve_man]

Vote: Do Not Ban

Reasoning: I don't believe Gengarite deserves the boot for many reasons. The question that everybody seems to be asking: "Is Mega Gengar uncompetitive?" My answer is no. Take Swagger and Evasion (which I know is not banned in ubers for example. Those are defined as uncompetitive because it works the RNG / system and randomizes the game itself. When played correctly, Mega Gengar does remove your opponent's "choice" of Pokemon and probably will take it out or at least turn it into a 50/50, it wasn't the game that did removed my opponent's choice, it was MY decision / educated guess. Because of this, I do not consider Gengarite uncompetitive.

 

[Killua kun]

I state by saying that I am not an avid player of the xy ubers tier, but I wanted to take part in this suspect testing, because it is the first time in history that a currency item in uber. Gengarite is deservedly uber, thanks to trait shadow tag, who manages to trap any pokemon and overpower him thanks to his base speed, also having enough poor defenses also can be very dangerous with destiny bond. The suspect test I tried her perish trap set and I have to say that it was really helpful for stop Ekiller pokemon arceus, choice as specs kyogre, cb ho-oh, they're very dangerous threat, but also a playstile as the stall is limited in his own way. To stop using even assault vest spiritomb, and this indicates how far the team building.
I prefer to abstain from voting

 

[Newton Alves]

Ok, so i've been using Mega Gengar for some time now. While i don't think it's that broken (and it's not the reason why gengarite is being suspected, as was stated in the discussion thread), i believe it's rather "uncompetitive". This term was not very clear in this context to me, so i looked it up on the Oxford dictionary: "Characterized by a desire to avoid fair competition" was one of the definitions. I know this definition is kind of obvious, but the word "fair" was very important when i was thinking about the matter.

It's important to note that i didn't have problems with other players using Mega Gengar at all. The following paragraphs are based on what i have experienced while I was testing Mega Gengar. Well, this is how i came to that conclusion.

I used mostly stall during the laddering phase, testing Mega Gengar in the proccess. That means the perish trap set and the basic set everyone uses (taunt, DB + 2 offensive moves). In every team i made, he was important in eliminating threats with his sets. Defensive pokémon can't do much against him. Choice-locked pokémon are screwed by protect/sub + disable (unless they are scarfed AND can kill Mega Gengar in one hit) and most offensive pokémon are defeated with destiny bond. Yes, i know it's not possible to use all of those tactics at once, but it really depends on what your team needs. With good teambuilding, Gengar is always at its full potential (killing whatever is capable of giving your team trouble, in most cases). My main stall team (defensive core was Sylveon, Lugia and SDEF Arceus-normal) needed the perishtrap set and Gengar did its job perfectly. Also, i don't agree with the "you have to evolve Gengar first" anti-ban argument. Evolving .Gengar as soon as possible is very important while using this pokémon and takes skill to do it without giving your opponent a free turn. Prediction and team preview are completely essential for this.

Mega Gengar is not a easy win pokémon and it does take skill to use it, but i always felt like cheating when i won with him. If a choice banded pokémon (or specs or any pokémon with just one viable move against Mega Gengar) defeats one of my team members, i can just send Mega Gengar in, trap whatever non-ghost is there and kill it with DB or perish song+ disable + protect (not in that necessary order). How is that remotely fair? That means the opposing player can't kill one of my pokémon without letting himself in Mega Gengar's shadow tag and hence being screwed up. That is not very fair in my opinion, even if it does take skill to mega evolve Gengar without giving away free turns. Shadow Tag is not very competitive to me because switching out is something remarkably important to any kind of competitive pokémon metagame. This is valid for our multiple tiers in showdown. This is valid for VGC, doubles and triples. Most importantly, this is valid for Ubers. Switching out is very important to the competitive metagame and taking this option away from your opponent is unfair.

I know my point might be a paradox (and weird), but i believe the combination of correct usage + Gengar's ridiculously amazing movepool and stats + Shadow Tag (which is the real problem in this equation) = unfairness. Ubers is a great tier and gengarite doesn't make any good to it from i understand, and this is coming from a Mega Gengar user. It's not luck-based (swagger...), however i believe its absence in the tier will provide a more fair and more competitive metagame, which is the point of the suspect test. No player should have such an asset while playing. This is the clear example of gamefreaks not giving a single damn about singles and creating pokémon that were not meant to be played outside of doubles (VGC). In my opinion, Mega Gengar simply doesn't work competitively in any kind of metagame based on singles battles, including ubers.

Again, even if it does take skill to properly use Mega Gengar at its full potential, i think it's not fair (competitive) and it's not a fun aspect of ubers (the ability of not letting most pokémon switching out, which is one of the things players can do in a battle: switch out and choosing one of your 4 moves).

So, for this reason, ban Gengarite.

PS: i don't properly agree with the 50-50 pro-ban argument. Team preview and good prediction are capable of helping the player figure out what set Gengar will be using. Poker works in a different but somehow similar way. I don't see this as entirely luck based. This is not like rolling a dice (swagger and ohko moves). Regarding Destiny Bond, it's indeed somehow luck based, but not entirely (again, prediction). I sincerely don't consider this as something that different from the Zekrom/Reshiram (is it going to use draco meteor/outrage or bolt strike/blue flare? should i switch to my fairy type or my ground type/flash fire user?) example used in the discussion thread. It's worth pointing out that a choice-locked mon can switch out of it's bad decision, while a pokémon that is already trapped can't and is punished by this. Even though your pokémon can just stay there or attack Gengar (and kill it, which is already something), i'm unsure about this argument. Nevertheless, this isn't something i thought t would be important to discuss in my main paragraphs because i'm already voting for the ban anyway.

 

[Asterya]

Gengarite : Ban
I really think that gengarite (shadow tag to be accurate) makes this meta unhealthy for several reasons. The first thing is that switching is one of the most important parts of competitive play so if you trap something that can't do anything to you, you've got a free kill. Secondly, what makes the difference between M-Gengar and other STAG users is the high speed and awesome SpA that m-gengar have. Because it is easy to trap a threat to the team and beating it with a great movepool in sludge bomb, shadow ball, focus blast, taunt, destiny bond, substitute etc.. And i really insist about the movepool because it's one of mega gengar's advantages that let it beat many pokemon in this meta.
That's why i want to ban gengarite, make the meta a bit more balanced. However i'm afraid of the fairy types after the ban especially geoxern and cm fairyceus.