Official XY Ubers Shadow Tag Suspect Voting

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Shadow Tag: BAN

A lot of thought was needed into this vote, as this is potentially banning an entire Pokemon(well, forme) from ubers(Mega Gengar). I'm voting ban because I deem the mindgames inherent in Shadow Tag and the removal of switching—a fundamental mechanic in Pokemon—uncompetitive. Shadow Tag is one of those abilities that force you to play differently from the mere presence of it. Ubers is a tier where nearly everything is absurdly powerful and it's hard to carry more than one check to most things. The so-called "50/50s" that Shadow Tag creates are tilted in the abuser's favor. Should the victim lose just one of these turns, they could lose the game, while the abuser can usually just try again later in the game. This is where the uncompetitiveness lies. Now, is it uncompetitive enough to be banworthy? Yes. As I previously said, Ubers is a tier where nearly everything is absurdly powerful, and it's hard to carry multiple answers to the threats in the tier. This means that losing your only check to a threat makes a much larger difference than it does in other tiers. The removal of switching is also removal of choice during the trapping turns of Shadow Tag to the point where it is uncompetitive. The trapping turns of Shadow Tag, while sometimes not that long, can have more impact than a larger portion. With all of this in mind, Shadow Tag should not be allowed in the Ubers metagame.
 
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warzoid

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Shadow Tag: Do Not Ban

A Shadow Tag ban is basically a ban on three specific pokemon, since Gothitelle and Wobbuffet are practically useless without Shadow Tag. In my opinion, none of them are uncompetitive to a banworthy extent.

Wobbuffet is hardly used in OU, let alone Ubers. Its inability to deal damage without taking damage and lack of options really hold it back. If Wobbuffet were the only Shadow Tag pokemon, no one would be considering a ban.

Mega Gengar is much more broken than Wobbuffet. It has great offensive stats and an incredible movepool including Destiny Bond and Perish Song. It can trap counters to sweepers like Xerneas and eliminate them, paving the way for a sweep. However, trapping pokemon is much easier in theory than in practice. In my experience, it's usually bad players that let Gengar trap their key pokemon. If you decide that it's more important to set up more Spikes with Klefki when your opponent has a Xerneas, that's not Gengar's fault. The fact that Gengar requires a turn to Mega Evolve also makes it much harder to trap the pokemon you want to trap. Gengar is also easily Pursuit trapped. Gengar usually gets a kill every game with Destiny Bond, but pokemon like Geomancy Xerneas also usually get at least one kill every game as well. The Perish Trap set wrecks stall, but is not very good against common offensive teams. Stall can eliminate Perish Trap Gengar with a smart double switch to a Pursuit trapper, although a well-played Gengar is very hard to deal with. Although Gengar does hurt stall's viability, I don't think it is uncompetitive.

Finally, Gothitelle is more rarely seen than Gengar but is still dangerous. The standard Calm Mind/Trick Room set can destroy teams that are not prepared. However, the set is often dead weight against teams without trappable support Arceus and other trappable pokemon.

Shadow Tag is powerful, but not uncompetitive like Swagger. I am thus voting to not ban Shadow Tag.
 

Fireburn

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It was a pretty close vote, but the results are in.

Out of the 193 qualified voters, 127 voted and 9 abstained, leaving 118 votes for or against the banning of Shadow Tag. We rejected a total of 18 Ban votes and 43 Do Not Ban votes for flawed or ill-formed reasoning. If your post has been deleted from this thread, your vote was rejected. To avoid public shaming, we have chosen not to reveal the rejected votes here. If you wish to know why your vote was not accepted, PM myself, Melee Mewtwo, or Jibaku and we will do our best to give you a prompt response.

Here are some of the criteria used to judge the arguments presented by voters in the thread:

  • Overly subjective arguments
Subjective arguments that boiled down to "I never had an issue beating Shadow Tag" or "I don't think Shadow Tag is fun to play against" were not accepted.
  • Incoherent/absent arguments
There were a number of votes where it was impossible to understand logic the poster was following, if any. There were also quite a few posts that just explained to us what Shadow Tag abusers did in the metagame (often innaccurately) and then attached a vote to it.
  • Position founded upon flawed metagame understanding
Arguments that over/under played the impact of Shadow Tag within the context of an entirely ridiculous vision of the metagame weren't accepted as they showed a clear misunderstanding of the subject.
  • Flawed understanding of Ubers's approach regarding suspects
A sort of blanket way to cover a few isolated but somewhat common voting position that hinged upon a complete misunderstanding on what or why Ubers would or would not ban an element and under what conditions that element should be examined.


  • Incomplete arguments
The most telltale sign of regurgitation, many posts would have an out of place one liner that would be interesting if developed but was never expanded upon.
  • Teambuilding/playstyle restrictions
There were a few arguments complaining about the inability to use certain Pokemon or the weakening of certain playstyles. Ubers doesn't concern itself with these things so these arguments weren't accepted.
  • No distinction made for Shadow Tag
There were arguments that resembled something interesting, however they would also resemble commonplace situations found elsewhere and no effort was made to show what distinction the presence of Shadow Tag may have added.
  • 50/50s
Arguments complaining about 50/50s in attempts to impose a luck based perspective on Shadow Tag weren't accepted. There were, however, exceptions made to those posts that explained how those "50/50"s favored the Shadow Tag abuser and how they were unique from other commonplace coinflips.


  • Reciprocity
Basically boils down to two wrongs don't make a right.
  • Unjustified claims
There were often arguments that would make claims regarding limitations and tradeoffs that could lead to Shadow Tag being uncompetitive but what these limitations were were never actually mentioned and remained entirely vague despite the repetition.
  • Ignores competence of opposing player
There were a few arguments that assumed Shadow Tag was *always* going to make the obvious plays and this made it really easy to predict around. Obviously, this is fabricating scenarios with a bias against Shadow Tag abusers and is completely separated from reality.
  • Appeal to tradition
Arguments founded upon the fact that Shadow Tag was never banned before. Fallacious on multiple levels and outright disproved by Swagger Clause.


The final results are as follows:
Ban: 30 (52.6%)
Do Not Ban: 27 (47.4%)


With a majority vote of 52.6%, Shadow Tag has been deemed uncompetitive and is now banned from Ubers, effective immediately. We will probably revisit Shadow Tag once ORAS is released, but for now this it how it is.

Thank you to everyone who participated. We hope that you will continue to enjoy Ubers when ORAS arrives.
 
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Fireburn

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There have been discrepancies with other community members regarding how things were handled and we are working on sorting them out. Shadow Tag will remain unbanned until everything is settled.

I apologize for any stress or outrage this may have caused any of you.
 

Fireburn

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Shadow Tag is officially not banned. You can read about why here. For transparency's sake, and because we have decided to toss the paragraph system, I have also gone through and undeleted all the posts so that everyone's vote is visible and is counted.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this test. Have fun with ORAS!
 
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