Metagame np: SS DOU Stage 6: Pay Your Way In Pain | Shadow Tag Remains Banned

[MajorBowman]

Oh no, you thought we had forgotten?
The show is only gettin' started
The road is feelin' like a pothole
Sit down, stand up, head down, hands up, and
Pay your way in pain
You got to pray your way in shame
​

The time has finally come for the long-awaited Shadow Tag suspect test. After being a controversial fixture in Doubles OU for the majority of the pre-DLC and Isle of Armor metagames and pro-ban movements dating back to the latter stages of SM, Shadow Tag was removed from DOU during the second round of council votes after the release of Crown Tundra.

The disdain for Shadow Tag is largely rooted in the inflexibility it forces upon players during both teambuilding and battling. The prevalence of pivoting moves like U-Turn and Parting Shot skyrocketed as a means of combatting Shadow Tag as only a very small subset of DOU Pokemon were unaffected by Shadow Tag. While problematic in SM DOU (and the main reason behind the SM Gengarite ban), Gothitelle and Gothorita, the relevant Pokemon with access to Shadow Tag, gained access to Fake Out in Sword and Shield, making Shadow Tag that much more oppressive. There is somewhat of an opportunity cost to using Shadow Tag in that Gothitelle and Gothorita are lacking in many other areas; their base stats are unimpressive at best, and their movepools aren't particularly wide. However, they have access to just the right set of attacks and just enough stats to make them far more than ability bots. As such, there was hardly a team that couldn't abuse Shadow Tag in some way, and the DOU Council decided that the metagame would be better off without it in October.

Since Shadow Tag has existed in DOU since its inception, it might seem excessive to quickban it at a somewhat arbitrary time. For this reason, the Council believes that Shadow Tag deserves a full suspect test to fully evaluate whether it is or was an unhealthy element of the metagame. This test will be treated as a test to unban Shadow Tag, meaning that at least 60% of voters need to be in favor of dropping Shadow Tag back into DOU for it to happen.

Important: The laddering period will last for a total of nine days.

Laddering Period
Start: Friday, May 21st at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)
End: Sunday, May 30th at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4)

All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! Doubles OU ladder on a fresh alt with a name of the form "DOUBO [name]". For example, I might register the name "DOUBO Bowman" to use on the suspect ladder.

To qualify to vote, you must achieve a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may subtract 1 game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. As always, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE is fine.

Minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

Shadow Tag will be legal during this suspect.

 

[zee]

No one's said anything yet so I hope to kick off some discussion. I will absolutely be voting ban on Shadow Tag. Switching is a fundamental part of Pokemon and anything that restricts that is tearing apart the natural and dynamic balance of competitive play and should absolutely be the textbook definition of "broken". but to provide a bit more depth:

You can judge how good a metagame is by how relevant Shadow Tag was

Our metagame is already quite restricted as is, and I'm certain that this will solve very little, if any, of our issues while introducing new ones at the same time. SMB brought up Shadow Tag in the stage 5 thread so I'm going to quote his post from there, hope this is okay

Gothitelle is great at punishing these offense builds, using items like choice band or choice scarf has a higher cost on a metagame with shadow tag. Urshifu and kartana can't ohko goth, which means the threat of setting trick room is always there and this fact alone will make more playstyles be viable. Balance builds wouldn't feel as close as being owerwhelmed as they feel right now since mons like urshifu or zygarde would claim 1 or 2 kills at best.
Nevertheless there is a question worth mentioning, will the addition of gothitelle on offensive builds make them better? This is hard to answer right now. I don't see goth fitting on any of the popular offense teams at the moment except maybe set up (which is not that popular rn tbh). Hopefully on the next few weeks we will have a clear answer to this question.

What I have bolded is absolutely what I fear with the introduction of Gothitelle. I think that Pokemon such as Zygarde, Kartana, and Urshifu would become even more reliable as offensive Pokemon than they already are by paired with them, both heavily easing prediction and locking out their respective checks and counters. Not to go too much into detail on the above, but I see this far more as a Gothitelle problem than any one Pokemon, because if we were to ban the abusers they'd just go from Urshifu to Kartana to Zygarde to Heatran all the way down the line. Gothitelle's introduction of Fake Out this gen also means that it exhibits far more control on the board than it ever could before, further enabling its partners. This isn't even getting into dangerous setup Pokemon like Zygarde, Kyurem-B, Kommo-o, etc.

All of this doesn't even begin to describe Gothitelle's ridiculously large and diverse toolkit that can make it customizable from team to team: this is not a linear or predictable Pokemon by nature. Packing Fake Out, Trick Room, Taunt, Heal Pulse, Hypnosis, Ally Switch, Charm just to name a few of the quite valuable moves in its toolbox, it's quite easy to see that the Pokemon has no shortage of options, which makes it even harder to account for in the builder while also making it even easier for it itself to support its partners.

Of course, I will be playing and building with Goth during the ladder period to confirm my suspicions, but at this point, I've been around the block long enough to know damn well how this is going to end up.

I understand people are a bit upset because maybe Shadow Tag wasn't given its due process. Maybe people are bored of the meta and just want some change, or maybe people think that it's genuinely the best step for the tier moving forward. However, I encourage everyone with a stake in this tier to do their due diligence, load up your favorite team with or without Goth, get your reqs, and keep this uncompetitive ability out of our tier.

EDIT: burns graciously linked me the tweets that I was thinking of when I made that quote. go follow his twitter because I said so:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1116469702325358592

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1209257922661900293

 

[Actuarily]

As someone who’s been asking for this suspect, figured I’d give my two cents. First, as many have pointed out, it’s premature to have anyone’s mind made up about how they’ll be voting, as none of us truly know the impact shadow tag (gothitelle basically) will have on the meta, as it’s never existed other than at a brief period where other things like Melmetal and Marshadow were legal. I’m certain everyone will go above and beyond just getting the reqs to vote in order to truly test how it fits in the metagame.

I think the only place we can really look to try to get some idea of Goth’s impact is games from DLC1. This is where Goth had it’s full toolbox of moves, including fake out. Now obviously there’s new Pokémon that can be paired alongside it, but there were still many threats that it worked well with (Kommo, Urshifu, weather, etc.)

I’ll look at some of the games from the last weeks of Smogon Snake Draft, since this was basically where the DLC1 meta left off, and was honestly at the height of Goth’s usage (10th in the tour) and was where people were nominating it for tier 1 in the VR.

Playoff tiebreaker: Umbry vs Tenzai: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8dlc1doublesou-526975
In this match, Gothitelle is playing against an offensive team with a ghost type (Dragapult), and due to the offense on the board, Goth is never able to switch in and trap anything as the opposing Pokémon could just double target Goth’s ally. It’s essentially deadweight in this matchup.

Semifinals. Ezrael vs Qwello Lee:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8dlc1doublesou-526435
Taunt Gothitelle vs fullroom. Gothitelle is able to lock Indeedee + Hatterene in against Necrozma, meaning they can’t do a lot of damage. Hatterene is firing off powerful spread attacks, but Goth’s bulk and use of heal pulse means that Necrozma ends up with full health. Goth is really useful here, preventing TR from getting up (Qwello likely didn’t click TR out of fear it would just get reversed) and healing off damage on Necrozma. Pretty effective Goth use, but unfortunately it still ends up in a loss.

Semifinals - Umbry vs Tenzai:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8dlc1doublesou-526590
Here Gothitelle is able to trap and allow its ally (Mew) to remove Umbry’s best hail counter in Excadrill. This is a textbook example of how to use goth, trapping the opponent’s most important Pokémon. However Goth’s non-existent offensive pressure means the opponent is able to stall out turns of TW, and once the opponent gets a free switch in after Excadrill is fainted, goth’s usefulness is over. Overall great example of what Goth can do very well.

Week 9 - Tenzai vs Qwello Lee:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesubers-525403
While Gothitelle does win in an interesting endgame, it doesn’t do too much throughout the match because a ghost type (Aegislash) sits on the field for the entirety of the game. Qwello’s team is very interesting though, and shows some of the cooler things Gothitelle can enable. It allows a Pokémon like Snorlax to be viable enough, as it’s the perfect partner to set TR, and try to create a position for Snorlax to get off a belly drum. There’s potentially a lot of lesser used Pokémon that could be viable when paired with Goth in this new meta. Koko + Regieleki? Maybe stakataka or Glastrier? Who knows.

Ultimately Gothitelle when used correctly can be a great weapon to eliminate your opponents most important Pokémon, but that does require a lot of positioning. Gothitelle’s lack of offensive pressure can make it deadweight in certain matchups (especially vs teams with ghost types). There’s also no lack of pivot Pokémon able to reposition against it. It can be used both as a semi-room setter and as a TR counter. Lastly, hopefully it could enable some lesser used Pokémon into being viable.

 

[Yoda2798]

No one's said anything yet so I hope to kick off some discussion. I will absolutely be voting ban on Shadow Tag. Switching is a fundamental part of Pokemon and anything that restricts that is tearing apart the natural and dynamic balance of competitive play and should absolutely be the textbook definition of "broken".

This was already discussed on Discord, but people shouldn't be going into this suspect with their vote a forgone conclusion. It's not conducive to the suspect process if people are going in with a closed mind. I get that people's existing thoughts are going to influence their decision, but we can do better than this. On a related note, people "haha" reacting others' posts is also bad form.

I very much disagree with this notion that trapping=inherently broken. Even setting aside weaker forms of trapping like Arena Trap or Thousand Waves, historically it's not like Shadow Tag has always been broken in DOU either. Mega Gengar is banned in SM (and arguably should be in XY as well), but that has 170 Special Attack and 130 Speed going for it, combined with a near unresisted STAB in Ghost. Gothitelle, on the other hand, isn't banned in any DOU oldgen (and Shadow Tag neither). In SM some people believe it's problematic (I don't), but if you told me you think Goth is broken in XY or BW DOU then you're wrong. This all isn't to say that Gothitelle can't be broken this gen, but arguing that it is because "trapping is always broken" isn't a solid argument.

So then, what has changed this generation to make (nearly) everyone suddenly agree Gothitelle/Shadow Tag's a problem then? As has been mentioned, it's the addition of Fake Out to Gothitelle's arsenal. Gothitelle functions as a support Pokemon, meaning it's reliant on other Pokemon putting on pressure to make progress, such as setup Pokemon like Kommo-o or hard hitters like Urshifu. Trapping support is the main utility Goth brings to the table, but it has often struggled in being too passive outside of that. Heal Pulse and the like can support Gothitelle's partner, but if that teammate doesn't already match up well against the trapped foes they do little to change that.

Fake Out allows Gothitelle to more proactively support its partner, greatly strengthening its ability to enable Pokemon. Fake Out (mostly) can't be ignored, and won't be moving last like most of Goth's moves will. Taking a Pokemon out of commission for a turn is super strong when combined with trapping for reasons I'll explain. One reason is they can't switch to take advantage of Fake Out and effectively make it a wasted turn. Conversely, it (temporarily) stops Pokemon from being able to pivot out with moves like U-turn. Setup Pokemon in particular benefit from the flinch support, as Gothitelle gets even better at providing scenarios to harmlessly boost up. Note that this doesn't just mean using Fake Out while you setup, it can also be used to say, prevent Rillaboom or Incineroar from pivoting out while Kommo-o switches in to Clang.

Offensive partners likewise benefit from Fake Out. When combined with Urshifu, a target can be prevented from moving, switching, or Protecting. Even without the benefit of Unseen Fist, Fake Out helps pin down opponents for the KO, able to immobilise their partner while they get taken out, or preventing the target themself from fighting back. Pokemon such as the ones Zee mentioned like Kartana, Zygarde, or Heatran hit hard and can benefit a lot, but the support is quite universally helpful. This is an important point I feel, that with Fake Out, Gothitelle goes from a Pokemon really only justifiable with setup to an invaluable support on basically any team. Fake Out really does give Goth that extra oomph factor to go from mostly an ability bot to something seriously good, whether you think that's broken or not.

Qwello’s team is very interesting though, and shows some of the cooler things Gothitelle can enable. It allows a Pokémon like Snorlax to be viable enough, as it’s the perfect partner to set TR, and try to create a position for Snorlax to get off a belly drum. There’s potentially a lot of lesser used Pokémon that could be viable when paired with Goth in this new meta. Koko + Regieleki? Maybe stakataka or Glastrier? Who knows.

Ultimately Gothitelle when used correctly can be a great weapon to eliminate your opponents most important Pokémon, but that does require a lot of positioning. Gothitelle’s lack of offensive pressure can make it deadweight in certain matchups (especially vs teams with ghost types). There’s also no lack of pivot Pokémon able to reposition against it. It can be used both as a semi-room setter and as a TR counter. Lastly, hopefully it could enable some lesser used Pokémon into being viable.

I'd like to respond to some of the points you make here. Firstly, enabling less used/viable Pokemon should not be a consideration, that's not what tiering is about, the focus of the suspect is on Gothitelle/Shadow Tag itself.

Also, I feel you're overselling Goth's flaws a bit here. The prevalence of good pivot Pokemon means positioning for an ideal board state for trapping isn't too difficult, with Fake Out on Gothitelle itself also helping the desired teammate to get in safely. Additionally, a team having a Ghost-type certainly doesn't mean Goth is deadweight, that still leaves 5/6 Pokemon it can trap and flinch. Gothitelle and Dragapult were both prominent during DLC1, and while obviously a Ghost is still relatively bad for it, that didn't totally invalidate it when there was one. Same with pivot Pokemon also being prominent in DLC1 while Goth was (and arguably in part because of it), but it still being good. I believe umbry is going to make a post talking about her games you discussed so I'll leave that to her.

 

[variationonatheme]

This was already discussed on Discord, but people shouldn't be going into this suspect with their vote a forgone conclusion. It's not conducive to the suspect process if people are going in with a closed mind. I get that people's existing thoughts are going to influence their decision, but we can do better than this. On a related note, people "haha" reacting others' posts is also bad form.

Um.. no one ever complained about the "haha" reactions when I made serious/well intentioned posts that happened to be outside of the consensus here. I think it's fine. If people have strong reactions, they should be able to express them somehow. There's no downvote option. Would you prefer folks use a sad face? A lot of people have strong negative reactions to Goth Stag (because Goth now has fake out as you mentioned) and may not agree with Actuarily's post supporting the suspect, but that doesn't take away from him obviously being one of the best players in the current gen 8 DOU Meta.

I don't think there are many people who are excited about this particular suspect, and let's be honest does "pay your way in pain" sound fun? The result seems to be pretty likely that people will ultimately want to keep the ban.

Frankly, the suspects that would come from Emilio's recent suggestions seem a lot more interesting and relevant, (but I get that you guys had already committed to the Stag thing, because at the time you may not have had other good ideas for suspects). I don't think Goth is "broken", but Goth influences/limits gameplay in a very negative way. Frankly, I don't think Urshifu and Scope Lens Kartana are "broken" either, in the sense that everyone feels they need them on their team, but again they definitely have a negative effect on the Meta in my opinion, e.g., by making intimidators less relevant (I was wrong about them being tier 1 in the current Meta--meteor beam in particular really sucks for Incin) and limiting counterplay. I don't see that as materially different from my criticism of Rillaboom and the fake out fest that the Meta has become (FO Goth wouldn't help that), but I'm supportive of anything that will make the Meta more playable/fun, and bagging Urshifu would be a good start (and might somewhat lessen the need for Rilla).

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

I don't think there are many people who are excited about this particular suspect, and let's be honest does "pay your way in pain" sound fun? The result seems to be pretty likely that people will ultimately want to keep the ban.

Frankly, the suspects that would come from Emilio's recent suggestions seem a lot more interesting and relevant

From
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dou-tiering-surveys.3682958/

• Over half of respondents in each survey would either support or not be opposed to a Shadow Tag suspect test

It was widely agreed by survey that stag should be suspected next. Jumping on the bandwagon for a suspect that was proposed only a week ago as a better idea doesn't make sense. The survey is a great way to make sure everyone has their opinions shared, not just the loud mouths who get the most reactions. I am happy that they are following what was asked for in the survey and look forward to the suspect. Not sure how I will vote but I like the room tours with stag free bc you get more competitive games than during the ladder suspect, so a better idea of how much effect it could change the game

 

[Toxigen]

Im gonna try to be as clear as possible since i never really wrote a meaningful post in suspect threads. I think the whole point about Shadow Tag is the fact that a crucial mechanic like manual switching is completely gone, and i cant justify it existing in a competitive metagame. Now, i understand that this was done as a result of a community survey vote, but even then i dont think there was a strong enough support for a Shadow Tag retest (i personally would expect a much higher percentage than what the surveys showed to justify a retest), and since discussion about other Pokemon was actually starting to get place in the old thread (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...w-tag-quickbanned.3672010/page-2#post-8848573), im sure we could have waited a little longer and talk about what can be done with what we have already in the tier. If a metagame has a problem, and that problem is that offensive teams are stomping literally every other playstyle, adding something that prevents you from switching is never going to be the solution.

In the OP theres a bit that i really dont agree with:

1) their stats are unimpressive at best; i disagree. 70/95/110, with a decent enough typing and good support such as Intimidate and the aid of things like Sitrus Berry, make sure that this Pokemon stays on the field for enough time to make the impact that you need in order to win the game, and that gets me onto the next point

2) their movepools arent particularly wide; i also disagree with this statement. Gothitelle can run Fake Out, Trick Room, Helping Hand, Heal Pulse, Ally Switch, Taunt, or even more niche options like Charm or even Thunder Wave as another means of speed control. This makes sure that depending on what your team needs, Gothitelle will never feel like deadweight on the field, especially since you can recycle Fake Out and you either have to option to protect in front of it if you dont want to get killed by Goth's partner, or get TR'ed in the face while you decide to protect. Pair this with a pokemon like Urshifu that can ignore protect and you got yourself a core that destroys 2 fundamental parts of Doubles OU. This combination of Fake Out and TR, just adds more to an ability that was already problematic in earlier generations (much less in BW)

This is not a sign of a healthy Pokémon, since counterplay doesnt seem to be great unless you run switch moves/items on almost all of your Pokemon, and sometimes its not enough because of Fake Out. To me this screams restriction in the builder.

I also want to touch on the reason this suspect was made in the first place, which was to give the people thier voice on Shadow Tag. This is the step in the right direction, i love that everyone has their say through a community survey and we get to be more involved with how the tier develops. We also need to make sure that not everything that comes out of a survey is gospel, and we need to have stronger support for future suspects. People either thought that it was probably broken but should be tested anyway, which further confirms the sentiment of giving the voice to the community, or they didnt have a strong opinion on it, while not being opposed to a suspect. The percentage of people that actually thought Shadow Tag was not broken and should be tested didnt even show in the graph. This doesnt look to me like a strong case for a Shadow Tag suspect test, not to mention the other votes that didnt really support it, which were not a few. As for the discussion that started in the old thread, that wasnt jumping on any bandwagon, rather than an actual discussion of what people were starting to notice, which is that certain pokemon like urshifu and kartana make defensive counterplay incredibly hard to use, and that it was definitely worth taking into consideration a possibile suspect, wether it was for Urshifu or Scope Lens. Also, while i think its good to read these posts to have a basic understanding on what the suspect is about, i encourage everyone to have an open mind on both sides of the argument, and ultimately play the suspect ladder to form your definitive opinion.

I also agree with Yoda on their last paragraph, making less used pokemon more viable isnt the focus of this suspect. The real focus is Shadow Tag, on wether you think it does good or bad for the tier, everything else doesnt matter. Gothitelle is obviously gonna change the landscape of the metagame, but the focus should remain on how it affects it and not how Random UR pokemon fares with it.

To summarize everything, Im against unbanning Shadow Tag because of the reasons ive already stated earlier, i think gen8 Goth is problematic and the addition of new Pokemon that can abuse trapping will ultimately not do any favours to the current state of the metagame.

 

[choicebadkyurem]

I know no one probably cares but I’m voting ban on shadow tag I see no way screwing over mons with out pivot moves can make the meta better except maybe allow urshi to trap and kill broken ass Kyube other than that it just allows hard hitters to hit harder which isn’t a good thing imo also not allowing people to get 6 feet away from you with no masks in the age of Covid is not a good thing stop giving Pokémon Covid goth :Changry: closing thoughts: Shadow Tag is bullshit give me points towards my badge by banding it thank you and goodbye.

 

[RelicanthPrimal]

Im gonna try to be as clear as possible since i never really wrote a meaningful post in suspect threads. I think the whole point about Shadow Tag is the fact that a crucial mechanic like manual switching is completely gone, and i cant justify it existing in a competitive metagame. Now, i understand that this was done as a result of a community survey vote, but even then i dont think there was a strong enough support for a Shadow Tag retest (i personally would expect a much higher percentage than what the surveys showed to justify a retest), and since discussion about other Pokemon was actually starting to get place in the old thread (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...w-tag-quickbanned.3672010/page-2#post-8848573), im sure we could have waited a little longer and talk about what can be done with what we have already in the tier. If a metagame has a problem, and that problem is that offensive teams are stomping literally every other playstyle, adding something that prevents you from switching is never going to be the solution.

In the OP theres a bit that i really dont agree with:

1) their stats are unimpressive at best; i disagree. 70/95/110, with a decent enough typing and good support such as Intimidate and the aid of things like Sitrus Berry, make sure that this Pokemon stays on the field for enough time to make the impact that you need in order to win the game, and that gets me onto the next point

2) their movepools arent particularly wide; i also disagree with this statement. Gothitelle can run Fake Out, Trick Room, Helping Hand, Heal Pulse, Ally Switch, Taunt, or even more niche options like Charm or even Thunder Wave as another means of speed control. This makes sure that depending on what your team needs, Gothitelle will never feel like deadweight on the field, especially since you can recycle Fake Out and you either have to option to protect in front of it if you dont want to get killed by Goth's partner, or get TR'ed in the face while you decide to protect. Pair this with a pokemon like Urshifu that can ignore protect and you got yourself a core that destroys 2 fundamental parts of Doubles OU. This combination of Fake Out and TR, just adds more to an ability that was already problematic in earlier generations (much less in BW)

This is not a sign of a healthy Pokémon, since counterplay doesnt seem to be great unless you run switch moves/items on almost all of your Pokemon, and sometimes its not enough because of Fake Out. To me this screams restriction in the builder.

I also want to touch on the reason this suspect was made in the first place, which was to give the people thier voice on Shadow Tag. This is the step in the right direction, i love that everyone has their say through a community survey and we get to be more involved with how the tier develops. We also need to make sure that not everything that comes out of a survey is gospel, and we need to have stronger support for future suspects. People either thought that it was probably broken but should be tested anyway, which further confirms the sentiment of giving the voice to the community, or they didnt have a strong opinion on it, while not being opposed to a suspect. The percentage of people that actually thought Shadow Tag was not broken and should be tested didnt even show in the graph. This doesnt look to me like a strong case for a Shadow Tag suspect test, not to mention the other votes that didnt really support it, which were not a few. As for the discussion that started in the old thread, that wasnt jumping on any bandwagon, rather than an actual discussion of what people were starting to notice, which is that certain pokemon like urshifu and kartana make defensive counterplay incredibly hard to use, and that it was definitely worth taking into consideration a possibile suspect, wether it was for Urshifu or Scope Lens. Also, while i think its good to read these posts to have a basic understanding on what the suspect is about, i encourage everyone to have an open mind on both sides of the argument, and ultimately play the suspect ladder to form your definitive opinion.

I also agree with Yoda on their last paragraph, making less used pokemon more viable isnt the focus of this suspect. The real focus is Shadow Tag, on wether you think it does good or bad for the tier, everything else doesnt matter. Gothitelle is obviously gonna change the landscape of the metagame, but the focus should remain on how it affects it and not how Random UR pokemon fares with it.

To summarize everything, Im against unbanning Shadow Tag because of the reasons ive already stated earlier, i think gen8 Goth is problematic and the addition of new Pokemon that can abuse trapping will ultimately not do any favours to the current state of the metagame.

agreed especially on the limiting builder part, i feel stag forces u to run more pivots and/or counters to goth and its common paired stag mons. banned stag allows more static teams to be more viable.

 

[Deleted User 464209]

No one's said anything yet so I hope to kick off some discussion. I will absolutely be voting ban on Shadow Tag. Switching is a fundamental part of Pokemon and anything that restricts that is tearing apart the natural and dynamic balance of competitive play and should absolutely be the textbook definition of "broken".

It's completely farcical to call switching any more fundamental then trapping; they were both put into the games by gamefreak, and it's Smogon that is arbitrarily ripping things out with its own contrived notion of how the game "should" be. Argue shadow tag is too strong or whatever, but all the made up ideas of "fundamentally broken" and "inherently uncompetitive" are bunk.

Note: I don't care for a result either way, as I rarely play Doubles, but this same self-righteous stuff comes up everytime there's a trapping-related test in any tier.

 

[Grandmas Cookin]

I think it’s been said already but adding broken elements to a format with already broken elements will not solve the issue. Fundamentally Shadow Tag is broken. Removing a core game mechanic in switching simply by being on the field is not in anyway balanced. While I respect the responses in the community survey and responded with being in favour of a retest, I was hoping for a suspect tournament similar to the skymin retest. While I wasn’t around during that test, I’ve played enough of the dou ladder to know that no person participating in the suspect test would be able to get an accurate, and unbiased view of stag simply by playing 30-40 games on ladder come this weekend. And while actively participating in room tours in the doubles room may give more experience, I’ve already noticed that many players aren’t even adjusting teams to include gothitelle or account for its presence in the teambuilder. 2 weeks with an essentially “new” element will not give time for tour players to get an accurate understanding of stags impact on doubles.

Old gen formats are still plagued by shadow tag, specifically gen 6. While it may just be specifically gengar in xy thats the issue, I dont think shadow tag has a place in any tier, especially one as prone to rng as xy. But this is gen 8 we are testing in right now, so this point can be saved for another time.

Personally I think stag is broken, and will not be changing my current vote from keep banned, as I feel there are more broken elements to the format that need to be looked at before we could even consider stag ever returning to dou. My frustrations (albeit few) with the tier right now would not be solved by adding stag, and would probably further compound them.

 

[Human]

I have largely believed that Shadow Tag has gone without being explicitly suspected because we can all agree that establishing the board positions required to make Shadow Tag impactful is interesting. Replace the board position management done by Gothitelle/Shadow Tag with something else, and the better player still wins. The thing is that Shadow Tag itself is a mechanic that warps how matchups play, it destroys ways to interact and play things out, requires direct answers, and most of which aren't particularly effective.

On top of everything else, Shadow Tag makes potentially balanced Pokemon broken. In the spirit of keeping a simpler ban list, the decision to keep Shadow Tag available is fundamentally attached to remove different elements instead. What we have seen right now, by starting off with a Shadow Tag ban, is that these elements by and large are not broken, so it would be Shadow Tag being broken and making them go over the top. So the process of leaving it out and officially suspecting it later feels like the correct way to judge Shadow Tag on its own.

Why are Gothitelle and Shadow Tag more broken now than before? The addition of Fake Out on top of everything else now lets Gothitelle (and its teammate) switch out early on into even more advantageous positions than ever before, and I believe that made Gothitelle too strong for DOU even before the DLC and expect it to make it only stronger now. I am very skeptical that it will be balanced, but I'll do my best to enjoy and have fun with what I currently anticipate to be one of the broken during the Suspect Test.

 

[Darkmalice]

We had this post from Yoda

This was already discussed on Discord, but people shouldn't be going into this suspect with their vote a forgone conclusion. It's not conducive to the suspect process if people are going in with a closed mind. I get that people's existing thoughts are going to influence their decision, but we can do better than this. On a related note, people "haha" reacting others' posts is also bad form.

And then we have multiple subsequent posts ignore this and state a foregone conclusion about how Shadow Tag is broken. Many of these don't or barely even consider the metagame and have their foregone conclusion based mostly or entirely on theoretical arguments abut the concept of Shadow Tag preventing switching. Yeah we all know that it limits choices by stops switching. Despite this theory, Shadow Tag is allowed in the previous DOU metagames (Goth allowed in 5th, 6th and 7th Gens, Mega Gengar also in 6th), and the discussion of Shadow Tag as a whole was considered in the 7th gen Gengarite suspect test. Theoretical arguments about Shadow Tag stopping switching being broken (or not broken) whilst only considering the impact on the metagame or other changes like Fake Out as after thoughts or not at all should absolutely not be a foregone concluion. Especially when the theoretical arguments are fundamentally flawed by simply having been deemed not broken in previous metagames where the entirety of the theoretical argument of no switching applies.

It's also worth considering that one of the largest reasons behind the Gengarite suspect test was that too many matches came down to winning the speed tie between opposing Mega Gengars i.e. who Shadow Balled the other one first. This was in large part influenced by Shadow Tag, as the option of switching to a resist meant it was trapped and was too often considered a disadvantageous state for the player to switch (which in turn fuelled the overoccurence of "I have to Shadow Ball, and if I outspeed I win, or if I don't outspeed or switch out I lose" argument). However, this reasoning is reflective of the impact that Mega Gengar had on the metagame as opposed to simply "no switching = don't need to test this it's broken". Goth didn't have the same level of negative impact on the metagame and was considered not broken.

I also want to touch on the reason this suspect was made in the first place, which was to give the people thier voice on Shadow Tag. This is the step in the right direction, i love that everyone has their say through a community survey and we get to be more involved with how the tier develops. We also need to make sure that not everything that comes out of a survey is gospel, and we need to have stronger support for future suspects. People either thought that it was probably broken but should be tested anyway, which further confirms the sentiment of giving the voice to the community, or they didnt have a strong opinion on it, while not being opposed to a suspect. The percentage of people that actually thought Shadow Tag was not broken and should be tested didnt even show in the graph. This doesnt look to me like a strong case for a Shadow Tag suspect test, not to mention the other votes that didnt really support it, which were not a few. As for the discussion that started in the old thread, that wasnt jumping on any bandwagon, rather than an actual discussion of what people were starting to notice, which is that certain pokemon like urshifu and kartana make defensive counterplay incredibly hard to use, and that it was definitely worth taking into consideration a possibile suspect, wether it was for Urshifu or Scope Lens. Also, while i think its good to read these posts to have a basic understanding on what the suspect is about, i encourage everyone to have an open mind on both sides of the argument, and ultimately play the suspect ladder to form your definitive opinion.

We only had Shadow Tag for a week in the post Crown Tundra metagame. Was it broken during that time? A lot of people said yes, and imo this was the majority viewpoint. At the same time, there was a lot of uncertainity as well, even within the cohort who though it was broken. It was a short time, and it was paired with other suspects that greatly warped the metagame and may have impacted the effectiveness of Shadow Tag (Melmetal, Urishfu, and Marshadow all benefited from the presence of Shadow Tag). This was compounded by having Shadow Tag legal in previous metagames where it's effect on the metagames were considered less and lower portions of people considered it to be broken. The decision making towards deciding to suspect test it should not only address the "not broken and should be tested" category but also reflect the uncertainity of whether it's broken or not (categories 2 and 3 together fill over half the gap).

 

[zee]

I was not planning on making this post but I've seen enough posts that followed my own that I feel like I should say something.

It was pretty stupid of me to rush in and make the post calling for the ban, this is not debatable. As many have said, it totally invalidates the suspect process itself. This is not my intention, of course, quite the opposite, the reality of the situation is it's my first time participating in a suspect that I'm truly invested in the result as opposed to "oh this looks fun let me fuck around on ladder for a bit" and I think I got too excited. My post should not have gotten the amount of engagement that it did (though its important to mention I don't likewhore I guess) and I wish people wouldn't read into what I said too much because of the stuff on my postbit or my social connections but too little too late I guess.

SMB The_Bandit I especially feel like this is important to say because of our interactions on discord regarding this, I don't want any lasting bad feelings because of what was said in a 3 day period between this announcement and the actual test. I anticipate hearing thoughts from both of you when the ladder goes up and hopefully we can properly test and explore the metagame to make the most informed decision we can. I know for sure I'll be back in this thread when I feel I've got ample games and replays to back up however I'm feeling.

My excitement and general interest in building have lead me to build a few teams as I'm intending to run up the ladder tomorrow when the test is made live. I figured I'd share this build I worked on if anyone wants to explore a Goth build, nothing special but I think the concept is effective. Triple pivot and a bunch of the mons that I'm hypothesizing will appreciate Goth's presence the most. Goth moveset not final.

No point in editing my own post since it's been quoted and everyone who cares about this test has seen it already. Let's all do our best since recent discussions suggest this won't be the only test we're getting soon. See you guys on the ladder tomorrow night.

 

[GenOne]

gg, gold god n1n1 :)

No disrespect intended to the inventor of Salamence...but in all seriousness we have all of one viable flying type named Zapdos-K in this metagame that is immune to Arena Trap, so if trapping is inherently so broken please give sash Arena Trap Dugtrio a try and thank me later when you're famous! :)

In reality, there are actually four different takes that seem to cover most of the playerbase here:

1. Trapping as an ability is broken, regardless of what Pokemon imposes the trapping.
2. Shadow Tag is too powerful of an ability, but only when paired with Gothitelle or Gothirita, given the other utilities and attributes they compress into the same team slot. (This argument can be expanded to include Mega Gengar if talking about past gens, but this thread is for SS DOU...)
3. Trapping isn't broken in DOU, but other elements of the meta deserve scrutiny
4. Trapping isn't broken in DOU, and neither is anything else

I'll address each of these takes below.

1. Trapping as an ability is broken, regardless of what Pokemon imposes the trapping.

• If this is your stance, I challenge you to ladder for reqs with Dugtrio.
• Use Trapinch or Diglett if the above challenge is too easy.
• Win a roomtour with the above if real.

2. Shadow Tag is too powerful of an ability, but only when paired with Gothitelle or Gothirita.

• If this is your stance, I challenge you to ladder with Wobbuffet.
• Use Wynaut if the above challenge is too easy.
• Win a roomtour with the above if real.

3. Trapping isn't broken in DOU, but other elements of the meta deserve scrutiny

• If this is your stance, I commend you and look forward to hearing more about your position in this thread; the onus is on you to convince DOU to change the status quo!

4. Trapping isn't broken in DOU, and neither is anything else

• See above

...I should mention there are a few other possible takes to consider - most commonly referred to as "hot takes":

• Gothitelle and Gothirita are broken even without Shadow Tag, but trapping isn't inherently broken
• Just run Shed Shell lmao
• Ban Diglett, that shit needs to go!
• Free Kyurem-W
• Registeel is the GOAT
• we shoulda suspected melmetal instead

As for my view going into this suspect...I don't actually care enough to have a strong opinion on anything other than Registeel, which is the GOAT. But if I'm disclosing my bias at first glance, I'm in the take #2 camp; I think Gothitelle/Gothirita will lead to an unhappier (but not unplayable) metagame. It's the combination of their trapping + their other utility options that make them a bad influence on the meta. And really I just mean Gothitelle, but Gothirita to Gothitelle is what Wartortle is to Blastoise; if Blastoise was for some reason banned Wartortle can basically do the same thing.

TL;DR Registeel is the GOAT

 

[Yoda2798]

Suspect laddering has begun! Suspect alts must be of the form "DOUBO [name]" to qualify, see the OP for more details. The thread for posting reqs can be found here.

The suspect ladder will be up until just over one week from now, Sunday, May 30th at 8:00 PM Eastern time (GMT-4).

 

[HeatEdgeSword]

After suspect laddering for a while (and failing spectacularly), even as someone who disliked Shadow Tag before the quick ban in DLC 2, I have to say, I'm against having Shadow Tag remain in Doubles OU as the suspect test has further showcased how broken it is in the current format.


The brief history of Gothitelle in Generation 8
Before the DLCs, Gothitelle has proven itself to be one of the biggest threats in Generation 8 with it getting Fake Out to give further momentum along with other support options, most notably Helping Hand, Trick Room, or Heal Pulse. During the period where Dynamax was not banned, people began experimenting with its pre-evo, Gothorita with almost the same efficiency. Once Dynamax's out of the picture, Gothorita's usage vanished.

However, the introduction of Urshifu Single Strike in Isle of Armor did not favor Gothitelle as it happened to its greatest counter due to having a strong Wicked Blow that ignores Protect with Unseen Fist with it being immune to Psychic. But fortunately, Urshifu was deemed too overwhelming to handle and was hit by the banhammer. With it and Volcarona temporarily gone, it didn't take long before Gothitelle regains its position as it did before.


What I've experienced in the suspect test
From what I've seen, Gothitelle is probably at its worst in Crown Tundra as it further escalates the already infamous core of Urshifu Rapid-Strike/Kartana/Zygarde to unbearable levels as it prevents the opponent from switching provides them with plenty of supporting options.

The worst part of Gothitelle has to be Hypnosis, when Hypnosis ever lands, any sleeping victim's only mercy is to wake up on its first sleeping turn as it's unable to switch out due to Gothitelle's Shadow Tag and lets its ally prey on them. If the splashability of Gothitelle was already bad enough, then the unhealthy nature of Gothitelle's Hypnosis solidifies the opinion on why Shadow Tag should not be allowed.

Edit: I also would like to delve deeper into Fake Out. While it's already an important move, I feel like the presence of Gothitelle warps the move into "who clicks Fake Out first gets the advantage" as it allows too many Fake Out users present on the field, this feels awfully like Mega Gengar speed ties except it doesn't involve around OHKO yourself.


Why ban Shadow Tag and not Gothitelle alone
This is perhaps the biggest debate regarding Shadow Tag in general, so I will go into detail about why I think Shadow Tag should be banned and not Gothitelle (something that I heavily disagreed on unless maybe Generation 7 DOU) as far as I remembered anyway.

• Wobbuffet is not relevant in Doubles at all due to how lackluster it is and therefore should be ignored for the topic of Shadow Tag. Even when looking at Singles, Wobuffet hasn't been banned to Ubers after Generation 4 before Shadow Tag was banned. If Wobbuffet (or Arena Trap Pokemon for that matter) has the same efficiency as Gothitelle, then it still would be better to look upon the ability itself anyway and not the individual Pokemon that can abuse Shadow Tag.
• A Gothitelle ban alone would not solve anything as Gothorita would fulfill the role. While one could make the argument that why not suspect test all of the Gothitelle line instead, Gothitelle is the more relevant one aside from the time where Dynamax was allowed, so people would mostly use Gothitelle in the suspect test anyway (I know it's like saying water is wet but you get the point). Finally, also streamlines the ban from potentially three Pokemon to one ability.

In conclusion, free zamazenta, it loses to goth

 

[h2h-99]

I think shadow tag absolutely should be banned for quite a few reasons

First Shadow Tag basically bans you from switching which is a absolutely crucial part of Pokémon battles without switching you would be forced to die every time a Pokémon that is a treat to yours gets sent out. Now I said basically bans switching because there are still ways to switch via pivot moves like uturn and volt switch however forcing people to use these moves to switch not only stops Pokémon that can't learn these moves from switching but stops some of the Pokémon that can from using another move that might be better then the pivot move.

In summary shadow tag SHOULD be banned because it disables a part of Pokémon battles and if for some reason shadow tag isn't banned players will continue to use it and ruin battles in doubles OU

 

[emma]

After qualifying for voting requirements and hearing the discussions on Smogon and Discord, I have decided to vote to ban Shadow Tag. Trapping support, with Generation's 8 addition of Fake Out to Gothitelle's repertoire, is extremely broken. Taking (nearly any) Pokemon out of commission for a turn while also preventing both Pokemon from switching, is immensely oppressive when paired with not only strong set-up monsters (Dragon Dance Kyurem-Black), but also merciless attackers (Urshifu-R, Kartana). In particular, Urshifu-R offers little counterplay, as the opponent cannot switch or Protect, and probably can't even move either. Fake Out Gothitelle gives the user an unhealthy amount of board control while playing. It's extremely easy have Gothitelle sit on the field and shield itself with Fake Out and Protect while you pivot in (either by directly switching or pivot moves such as U-turn Rillaboom or Parting Shot Incineroar) one of your threats and either claim your own kill or start boosting for little-to-no cost. Fake Out especially makes it extremely easy to bring in something for free since one of the opposing Pokemon can't even do anything to stop you.

Furthermore, Gothitelle will never be useless on the field when running Hypnosis. At the beginning of my ladder journey, while running Heal Pulse, there were times (not always) when Gothitelle was doing nothing on the field, and while it was providing trapping support, it wasn't wrapping the game around itself. However, when I began using a move that gives me a 60% chance to psuedo-KO a Pokemon, Gothitelle went from regular broken to extremely broken. As you might guess, when your opponent's Pokemon are asleep and can't switch, it is effortless to click buttons and win. Even when Hypnosis misses, I never felt that I was punished for it, since Gothitelle is still providing trapping support and has the initial turn of Fake Out. Clicking Hypnosis was low-risk, high-reward, and further made it clear how broken this Pokemon is. To be clear, even without broken Sleep, I still believe Gothitelle is very much banworthy in Generation 8 because of the addition of Fake Out.

Gothitelle breaks the fundamentals of Pokemon and wraps the game around itself. Ban Shadow Tag.

 

[|Powerman|]

So after finally getting the epic reqs I wanted to talk about S-tag so here we go.


Shadow Tag

When I first came on to thee doubles scene, I liked it, seemed pretty fun to play, and it was different from singles. Next after I got somewhat involved in the community I started to regurally check the forums. I noticed something when I did this, that Shadow-Tag was being propped up by a group of people, particually SMB and Emma. The latter sugested to make a survey to gouge the opinion of the playerbase on Kyu-B, but spesicially Shadow Tag. My response was that it probably was broken but I wanted it to be suspect tested anyways.
I REGRET SAYING THAT.
You see, I was a naive poor little man, who wanted to suspect test it since not only was curious, but to see how getting reqs was like.
I REGRET THINKING THAT.
So I went along my merry day, and when the page went up I was a happy soul, as I can get the reqs, even if I had to wait to start. I was like hey, what can go wrong?
A LOT.
So first I tried Emma's wonderful team, then there were one to many times where I was trapped by goth vs a genesect, and litterally could do nada. Next I tried Z-strats offense, wooo, guess who got their Urshifu-R, and Kart trapped, MEEEE. Then after trying out my own team, then getting fucked by you guessed it, Goth, I decided that if I was to be loosing, then I'd at least have a fighting chance, and stole zee's team.

Haha funny goth sleep.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1345428100

This replay shows how goth basically put a team to sleep, and giving my zygarde a very good posibility to sweep. (Ignore the fact that I missed at least 5 hypnosis that apparantly a goth thing.) If it weren't for haze, Zygarde for sure would've steamrolled that team.

Anyways speaking of Zeefables awesome team, here's a simple guide of what you wanna trap.

+
You wanna trap all steel and grass types, besides HH Rillaboom, you pretty much delete them.
+
Your job now is to be a funny man and delete all psychic types from the face of the earth, meaning that you just U-turn, or Iron head the Necrozma and Lele. Not only that, but you also can delete something on good on paper such as Zapdos and Shifu thanks to its wide coverage.
+
Bacically trap the water and electrics. You know the Urshifu-R and that fini person. Not to mention, if slower, you block fini's misty surge/blockage of Hypnosis.
+
This is bacically anything that shifu man is strong against, rocks, fires, darks, ect, and Urshifu will knock em out, especially since goth can taunt the incin trying to switch out with parting shot.
+
So finally we have this, in my mention above it does great on fires, so you can dd up on non threathining mons such as Heatran and Taunted Incin. And also get down to kill any electric rilla saved you.

Conclusion
So in conclusion what have we learnt, besides the fact that s-tag is broken and should be banned well, all I know is that its quite funny to trap Amoonguss and Incineroar since their so annoying. So good luck with s-tag on the latter, and see you when I vote not only ban, but banish to the underworld.

 

[choicebadkyurem]

Continuing the trend of posting twice I am here once more. After playing with hypnosis Goth for 30 games I have decided goth is uncompetitive mons at its core is rng and often you try to lessen said rng by playing around it but how the fuck do you play around goth? Switching in Fini ope now there’s a rilla and you have to switch oh wait you can’t I forgot now you lose to rng haha git gud. You can throw away your center pice mon like a dd Zyg and then Hypnosis your way to a win that’s just gross like I felt dirty using it for the suspect test. In my last post I joked about goth spreading Covid but after playing with it I realized it’s so cancerous it’s spreading its cancer WTF Goth!!!
1.Help stop cancer by keeping goth band.
2. Just use Geezing 0 SpA Gothitelle Psychic vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Weezing-Galar: 222-264 (66.4 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO what a good counter hmm yes.
Tldr: Keep Goth band it’s spreading cancer and commas.

 

[Darkmalice]

Having played and gotten reqs, my thoughts are that it's broken as well. The combination of Shadow Tag + Fake Out + acceptable bulk makes it too easy to set up KOs and flowchart (make a plan based on the opposing team preview where you can with relatively little effort and prediction set up a winning position). Not very broken but broken. Part of the blame goes to the generally offensively geared metagame where hard-hitting teammates can too easily take advantage of Shadow Tag (Urshifu most notably due to Unseen Fist, though others like CB Zygarde work too) and metagame trends can be flowcharated against. Also can trap disabled flows with stat drops from Incineroar or Hypnosis from Goth - I agree with emma that Hypnosis is an overall low risk / high reward move.

Fake out makes Goth stronger compared to its performance in previous metagames where it felt weaker compared to other Pokémon. That isn’t felt with fake out which helps greatly to set up KOs. Many Pokémon not having protect and your own Urishfu enable you to truly abuse Fake Out, and Goth has the bulk to tank a hit from most Pokémon whilst the other is flinched (and Goth can often take multiple attacks).

On another note, I did have a match or two where it came down between Speed ties between my Goth and opposing Goth due to who has the faster Fake Out, Taunt, or Hypnosis, nor was switching out a good play in those scenarios as opposed to risking the Speed tie. That is something I can as being relatively common and burdersome, having matches decided by coin flips.

I don't request my survey vote of "might be broken but should be tested though." My opinion would have been uncertain without the test.

My team in case you're interested. It's based on the Rilla HO team. Thoughts on the team:

• Goth has enough SpD to always survive Modest Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball whilst reaching a bonus point, enough Speed to outrun Timid Amoonguss and to help speed wars. FO + Hypnosis + Taunt + Protect is the moveset I found most useful. Hypnosis was the best "let Goth do something option" and Protect and Taunt, though not always useful, were really useful when they were needed. In comparison other options like Heal Pulse and Thunder Wave I found myself wanting less and their omissions had less impact even when I wanted them.
• Urishfu and CB Zygarde are both hard hitters that can take advantage of Shadow Tag for flowcharting setting up KOs. Urshifu especially with Unseen Fist eases flowcharting since it can set up one-turn KOs by eliminating switching and Protect, and Zygarde's Thousand Wave can trap if you need to switch Goth out
• Kartana is excellent for closing matches with Tailwind and Grassy Terrain offence. Goth and teammates can help set this up by eliminating specific opposing Pokemon like Incineroar
• Multiple Fake Outs and pivoting really helps with board control
• Scarf Incineroar was designed as an anti-metagame pick, with enough Speed to outrun Thundurus (aiming for Kartana, but I figured may as well outspeed any potential ladder defiant Thundurus/Tornadus), enough Attack EVs to OHKO Dragapult with Knock Off, rest in HP. You can Flare Blitz Rilla and Kartana before they move or Ursifhu OHKOes you, outspeed non-Scarf Lele and Necrozma for a quick Knock Off, removing Necrozma's Power Herb before it can Meteor Beam (though sadly none of the Necro I fought had Power Herb) or use an early Parting Shot for quick stat drops. Gels well with Goth for trapping stat drops. Definitely want Flare Blitz + Knock Off + Parting Shot, Fake Out is filler but was still useful from time to time and I never found myself wanting to use anything else.
• Rillaboom is standard bulky set to help the team as glue and tank attacks that the rest of the team lacks the bulk to do. It and Incineroar helps checks Ghost-types particularly Dragapult who I was afraid of since you can't trap them
• I never once found myself wanting to use Superpower with Zygarde, so switched to Scale Shot and have zero regrets. I won one match because of it, and would have won one of my losses had I put Scale Shot on my team then. I've got enough Fighting-type coverage with Urshifu and Kartana, whereas Scale Shot gives me better matches against opposing Dragon-types like opposing Zygarde. Coincidentally I never used Extremespeed, but I still recommend keeping that move.
• Obviously doesn't like teams with multiple Intimidate users or WoW Sableye, but they are not meta. More meta-relevant dislike is Galarian Zapdos

Saved a replay of a Goth vs Goth team mirror. Scarf Incineroar put in a large amount of work.

 

[umbry]

Got my reqs yesterday and I'm set on voting to keep shadow tag banned, this ability enables degenerative gameplay and limits any sort of counterplay in a format where, due to its nature, defensive counterplay is already very little or close to nonexistent.

Overwhelming gothitelle (stag's best user) offensively doesn't even work most of the times, fake out+protect+the new hypnosis trend while constantly keeping your opponents in check with shadow tag is able to generate so much tempo than I honestly can't think of a better way to abuse a gothitelle than your own taunt gothitelle that is faster than your opponent's. Hypnosis specifically allows goth to make use of every single free turn to remain a threat during the entire game, it's honestly crazy how a 60% accuracy move can be so oppressive but there's very little you can do to stop it besides dodging or running taunt on every pokemon, fini and koko both get trapped/abused by gothitelle's common partners so terrain resets don't work consistently, especially when rillaboom is so common.

Another reason which makes shadow tag so unhealthy is the way it affects board positions, gothitelle is too much of a centralising mon both in the builder and in-game. Your pokemon are not allowed to hit the field most of the time and games may very well end in a couple of turns because of early leads and repositioning, especially against two of the best stag abusers dragapult and urshifu (another pokemon we might want to look further into if I'm being honest).
human's post and emma's post also did a great job at covering this part so give those a read.

tldr; shit's broken I'm voting ban.

 

[RelicanthPrimal]

Voting ban.

Goth brings a smelly playstyle that stinks, by using fast mons to snipe stuff with little counterplay. It can lead to a rock paper scizors (jk scizor trash) of the lead partner to mirror goths. In normal games, theres also some rock paper scissors but u can switch when u get outled. Also goth lets u revenge kill too easily if goth partner dies u bring in revenge killer that they cannot switch out, or when one of ur mons dies bring in goth to lock opponent's current 2 mons. fakeout really pushed this nonsense to another lvl, letting u neuter one of the 2 mons, the other is easily sniped. The hypno stuff was very fun to play against too, thanks for that yall.

 

[GenOne]

I laddered and got reqs, mostly using teams that looked something like this:

I know there are other variations but a lot of teams I've seen follow a similar formula. And the whole game now is just trying to trap stuff that is weak to Goth's partner, leaving them defenseless by sleeping them so they can't protect or move first, then dealing a finishing blow with whatever HO brute on your side has a the best matchup against what you've pinned down.

Gothitelle is such an awful presence on this metagame lol. It's not just Shadow Tag in a vaccum that makes Gothitelle problematic - it's also the absurd support movepool and good bulk that Goth offers for teams, and I don't think I need to explain why this new hypnosis trend is cancer.

Given the premise of this suspect is free Shadow Tag or ban Shadow Tag, I will be voting to ban Shadow Tag. But really I do think it's just Gothitelle and Gothirita that are problematic; I laddered with this shit too and trust me it wasn't very good:

But I would sooner use Dugtrio than Wobbuffet anyways because of its nice access to Screech, and Dugtrio is already legal, so fighting to free Wobbuffet isn't exactly a hill I need to die on.