Important stuff
Abra, Cranidos, and Gastly are all banned.
Also, I've started a council with unfixable and kexmex (I don't know his smogon name). Decisions will be based on a simple majority in the council. If you want to join the council, just be a good presence in the thread, and knowledgable, and I will try to approach you.
This.Whoa whoa, i get an abra and cranidos ban, but why Gastly? In all honesty, its somewhat easy to wall, and it can't take any hits. It doesn't hit hard enough without life orb, and dies to a poke; while it often doesn't have the power to clean ohko stuff. IMO Gastly is a good cleaner, but not all that much better than greninja in OU, because it just can't OHKO a lot of mons.
I get the feeling it's being banned alongside Abra due to their similarities (almost all references to Gastly for the last 2 pages have had Abra attached to them...), but there really are core differences that set them apart.
Abra was a very potent Pokemon that could sweep even prepared stall teams thanks to Psyshock off base 210 special attack which killed specially defensive walls, and was equally strong against HO thanks to its ability to evade any OHKO thanks to its focus sash and pretty much get a guaranteed kill thanks to it if the HO team wasn't using Stunky. Calm Mind sets were also another possibility that could rip through anything bar Drowzee.
Gastly, on the other hand, I haven't seen any pro-ban rallying on from the community and was just banned straight up.
I mean, it almost has the same special attack stat, but there are many differences which make one ban worthy but not the other. First of all, it doesn't have Psyshock. Huge difference. This essentially makes Gastly a joke for stall teams really. At worst it can taunt, but as long as you have an attack that it isn't immune to you can probably 3HKO it in return. While this is different for HO teams, there are still many relevant checks that can switch in and take a hit to force it out. It can't pull off sash like Abra which means it's prone to being pressured with an OHKO (read: relatively often). and compared to Abra the lower speed is far easier to deal with.
There have been valid complaints for the Abra and Cranidos bans - but the community hasn't even really even talked about Gastly. Why ban it? You didn't even post any justification.
Give it a suspect test where all arguments talking about it won't be through Abra, at least.
EDIT: On an additional note, I don't even think Gastly warrants use over Mega Gengar due to Shadow Tag's ridiculous utility. If anything deserves to be checked out it's that.
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