Gengarite Tiering Discussion [read post #383]

[RowDog]

3. Don't assume Mega Gengar can only run four moves. It has like 10 useful moves depending on the set. Some people want Taunt, others might not. I prefer Substitute, a lot of people like Destiny Bond better. The standard attacks are Shadow Ball/Sludge Bomb/Focus Blast but nothing prevents you from using Thunderbolt or HP Fire/Ice.

I kinda laughed a little here, because I could have taken the first sentence the wrong way. We are not trying to say that M-Geng doesn't have an immense movepool, but like every Pokemon it is only limited to 4 moves, and this will determine what it can and cannot beat. Some sets won't be able to cover certain Pokemon, while others may cover those but not some of the ones in the first set. Though generally a good player will design a set to get rid of the Pokemon that they need to get rid of so in the end it should work in the M-Geng player's favour.

At this point in time, I'm finding it hard to bother anymore. I don't think a Pokemon or anything should be banned if absolutely necessary, but if it is doing everyone a favour then I cannot be bothered arguing anymore. I feel that there have been some really good points made on both sides of the spectrum, but I feel like the pro-ban will eventually get its way.

 

[Cowtao]

Didn't wanna throw my hat in this but seeing as everyone and their dog is, wynaut?

Frankly before I continue I just wanna say this in regards to people saying that there are checks and counters towards Mega-Gengar. Mentioning regular Gengar having checks and counters is the same as Mega-Gengar having vise versa is IRRELEVANT. Another thing, this isn't an official ruling where Smogon will outright ban the item, Gengarite. This is a discussion of it and not a suspect test.

On the topic for Gengarite, yes. It has nearly everything going for it except defense. It's very hard to compare this pokemon to anyone else because it isn't like anyone else at all. You could argue that this is the second coming of Deoxys-A or Chandlure ST from the B/W days but there are multiple qualities that can outshine both of these pokemmon respectively. M-Gengar has a wide movepool, ridiculous stats, and an amazing ability.

M-Gengar has a wide variety of tools at it's disposal that gives it the edge against other pokemon. Dazzling Gleam, Shadow Ball, T-Bolt, Ice Beam, Sludge Wave, Perish Song, Disable, Protect, etc. This alone makes Mega Gengar feared because you will have no idea what set a Mega-Gengar will run and there is no safe way of knowing without having to sack a pokemon or wasting protect PP figuring out what it's going to do. It's even worse than Blaziken in that respect! The stats also factor into this devilish Mega-evolution.

Unlike other pokemon in it's tier [As of now in 11/27/2013], there is no other pokemon that has a high Special Attack value of 170 Base stat. This is less then 10 for Deoxys-A! It even got a defense raise and a Speed raise so a lot of problems regular Gengar had will be buffed out with Mega Gengar. With that, even moves that would be considered a niche or next to useless on Gengar will become a tool of destruction like Icy Wind, Hypnosis, or Perish Song. The defense raise also prevents Scizor from OHKOing with it's Bullet Punch. Scizor, a pokemon that was supposed to counter and check Gengar to begin with, now crumbles before it. The speed raise is enough to outspeed the entire unboosted tier leading M-Gengar to be tied with Jolteon. That's not it for Mega-Gengar though, it got a tool that made it even worse.

Shadow Tag, The ultimate ability that makes everyone weep in agony. In B2/W2 ST Chandelure was considered an animal in the tiers that should be tamed and put into Ubers. While I thought everyone was over exaggerating, on a pokemon like Gengar instantly turns into disaster. With the movepool, the Special attack, and the speed he doesn't need an item! He can instantly start causing damage with no problem. However, there are some other sub arguments that have been brought up in the past 39 pages.

Some might find Mega-Gengar underwhelming because of it's low defense and can be easily revenge killed back. While this is entirely true [for the most part] there is a role that Mega-Gengar plays that nobody seems to understand about a pokemon as unique as the Shadow Tagged demon. Mega-Gengar is supposed to be taken down easily because that's it's job as a trapper. If Mega-Gengar manages to trap and KO one of your support pokemon that is in the way for the former to start setting up and sweep, it has done it's job. It even pushes it's boundaries by damaging more parts of the team before it can be revenge killed so yes, it can be revenge killed but in a way that it won't matter to the former's team to start setting up and outright win the game.

I may or may not be wrong with my view and that is entirely up to you to believe that. The point of this whole discussion is to formally talk about what it can do, what the future holds for it, and what we can do to append it from breaking the meta game. So yeah, we can be wrong but we don't need to fight about it. Now let's find a sound conclusion we can all agree to and find out what Gengarite is to the world of OU and Ubers.

 

[Skyblade12]

Skyblade12
Predicting double switches. As I said, you have to predict an incoming MGengar and switch to your counter-pick simultaneously.

Or, Mega Gengar comes in with Volt-Turn, Baton Pass, or Revenge kill, and you're just hosed.

And, I'm sorry, but "predict perfectly is the ONLY way to stop it" is pretty indicative that it's broken.

MoosyDoosy
Yeah, okay. That's what the scout/phazer is for, as it finds out what MGengar aims to counter, which also gives the scout/phaze player some information on the rest of your team's sets.

Noting that each time you try to scout/phaze, you're taking damage from a not-inconsequential 170 Base Special Attack, and quite possibly losing your scouter. Again, assuming Mega Gengar lets you scout it.

anubite
Actually, MGengar switches on the third Perish turn in order to not be KO'd by his own Perish Song, and the opponent can't switch because Shadow Tag is in effect. The way Shadow Tag works, it disallows the player from even choosing to switch, so you can't even elect to try to switch on the basis that MGengar will switch out. Now, if a patch was released by GAME FREAK/Nintendo that changed this to allow the player to choose to switch regardless of whether it will necessarily work, Perish Trap in singles would be finished.

Which wouldn't happen. Seriously, it's just not. Any time you attempt to switch while Shadow Tag is up, you would be wasting a turn, because there's no way to both try to switch and do something else. Anyone who forgot they were up against a Trapper (any Trapper, not just a Shadow Tag trapper) or forgot they were in a trapping move would lose turns. While the competitive demographic may find it helpful, it will just frustrate and drive away the majority of the Pokémon fanbase.

I suppose I must agree, however, that MGengar's presence in a match vastly changes the pace and playstyle of the match on both sides, as letting it deploy successfully can be game-ending. I think, though, that there is a possibility that MGengar can be beneficial to the competitive scene. Yeah, okay, laugh all you like, but hear me out first:

You can't stop it from deploying. Again, Volt-Turn. Baton Pass. Revenge Kill. Even if you can stop cold switches, Mega Gengar can come in and do its job.

MGengar is essentially the single most anti-meta thing ever to exist. If you want to survive/mess with teams running MGengar, you will have to run unpredictable sets. MGengar wants to snipe a foe with a particular role on the team, a particular set, but most often relies on the target's typing to do so. If you can run those same sets on the wrong Pokémon, MGengar's nicely customised moveset might turn out to be completely ineffective. MGengar can end up taking out a target Pokémon, only to be revenge-killed and then find out that that Pokémon wasn't running the set Gengar wanted to counter, but a different Pokémon on the team was. Pokémon that fill a particular role with an unusual typing but end up UU/RU/NU due to being "suboptimal" in that role can suddenly become OU-viable because MGengar fails to predict them. If this tactic is sufficiently successful, MGengar will see less usage while at the same time the tactic becomes universal; the relative "suboptimal" nature of these sets ceases to matter as many different Pokémon see common distribution because MGengar cannot predict this many different viable sets. The previous domination of a few select Pokémon due to their stats and relative comparison to "other Pokémon in the metagame" ceases to exist as that list includes 200+ Pokémon.

TL;DR version: Mega Gengar encourages people to use obscure Pokémon from other tiers, which in turn encourage even more obscure Pokémon to be used. Smogon OU collapses in a fairly spectacular manner, and Mega Gengar ceases to be an overpowering threat as its success depends on there being a very limited number of "viable" counters to any particular core. Not as likely as I wish it was, but still possible.

This is the definition of "too centralizing". It's also the single WORST thing that could happen to the metagame. As much as I loathe the metagame for various reasons ("slapping on Double Team and hoping your opponent misses" is nothing but luck based non-strategy, yet doing the exact same thing with Focus Blast or Hydro Pump and hoping they hit is a "calculated risk"? I think we'd see a rise in No Guards, Keen Eyes, 100% accuracy moves, and Always Hits moves, while at the same time seeing a severe drop in 90-% accuracy moves, and therefore OHKOs and Hyper Offense if we allowed even a single stage Evasion boost in battle), I freely admit that it is designed and honed to be as fair and balanced as possible. Having a single Pokémon that completely shifts the way the game is played as you are admitting is tantamount to destroying any semblence of fairness or strategy. Whether either player carries Mega-Gengar would suddenly dictate what game you're playing, and what is viable, making the entire match a system of pot luck. As soon as people start running Never Used or Under Used Pokémon just to counter Mega-Gengar, players without them will start showing them just WHY those Pokémon are in the lower tiers.

And this is assuming that those NUs or UUs actually can stop Mega-Gengar, which you have not yet proven or even strongly argued for.

What if you run Taunt on the Pokemon that MGengar is there to snipe? Of course, this only works for Pokemon that don't normally run Taunt as part of their set but still learn Taunt, and even then they will be forced to use a moveslot that might be taken up just to deal with MGengar. Of course, this could simply cause players to devise strategies through which Taunt is useful on that set, or a similar one, to benefit them outside of dealing with MGengar.

What if you scout/phaze MGengar as I suggested? You are then forced into a prediction war with your opponent, where you have to predict if he'll predict you switching to the Pokemon he needs MGengar to take out. It's all about mindgames; for example, you could lead your opponent on by playing into their hand just long enough for them to switch in the thing that needs MGengar's protection. They'll likely predict you switching to the counter, as you've been making fairly obvious plays thus far, and switch in MGengar, to which you switch in your counter-pick on the same turn.

Scouting and phazing him hurts you long run. You still can't stop him. He is too powerful, and too carefully crafted to take out his target. Either you never send your target out, in which Mega Gengar wins without being played, or you predict perfectly and double switch, in which case you're right back where you started, gaining you nothing. Or you fail to predict, and lose. Prediction or no, Mega Gengar against its target equals a dead target. All you've done is removed the one turn grace period for switching out, which Mega Gengar is not going to mind at all.

What I don't understand is why we aren't talking about Protect's role in all of this.

For MGengar to get off a Perish Trap it needs to 1) use Perish Song 2) Protect 3) Protect a second time in a row 4) Switch out to a "safe" pokemon

If MGengar is doing all 4 of these actions and you cannot cause sufficient damage to 1) kill gengar on the turn he Songs 2) kill gengar at the point there is a 50% chance you get a second attack on him 3) use a move on the pokemon he switches to that makes setting up to sweep 4) In the case of spamming sub instead of spamming protect the very fact you could have taunted him to prevent sub even if he were faster than you on the turn he songs (your opponent has to make a perfect prediction that you will either A) taunt him or B) attack him and either perish song or taunt that turn)... et cetera

If MGengar has Sub, Taunt, Protect, Perish Song he must correctly taunt to block your taunt on turn one, then song on turn two - but you're forced to attack him now anyway so he does damage this turn. Or, in the case of perish song on turn one and you taunt him, he can no longer protect/sub/taunt and has to switch out or take struggle damage on top of the damage you will cause him next turn... or you attack him when he perish songs anyway and receives that said damage... And really, if you have uturn/volt switch he can't stop you from switching out the turn he songs (and this forces him to switch out in 2 turns)... And really, if you have roar/whirlwind he also can't stop that, since protect no longer makes you immune... If you outspeed MGengar (like a Ninjask or something), you can also baton pass to a counter before he songs (or hell, after he songs, doesn't really make a difference).

There are numerous potential counter plays and your opponent needs to make perfect prediction in order to avoid them all.

Really, if you analyze the actual set of circumstances that have to occur for a Perish Trap to work without the MGengar/his team suffering a debilitating amount of damage that negates the loss of your pokemon... you will come to the conclusion this discussion is overblown and full of theory; theory that can only be properly debunked at this point with a suspect test.

If you analyze the actual set of circumstances required for Mega-Gengar to run a Perish Trap set, I think you'll find that most of them are facing Pokémon which won't be able to kill him before his turn is up, protection or no. It is meant for bulky walls that his attacks can't wear down. If you're being walled by a defensive Pokémon, how many of them run enough powerful attacks to KO Gengar, even if they predict the Perish Song perfectly? Blissey can't even touch Mega-Gengar.

 

[Norge]

Mega Gengar not only tears apart stall teams without tons of phazers, but also just bulky walls in general. A combo of Mega Gengar taking out bulky mons like Tyranitar and Goodra via Perish Song and a fast cleaner like Talonflame can really run through any stall or balanced teams. This is the definition of an Uber supporter, which has been posted only a million times. Regular gengar, while have Levitate and recovery, can't do this as effectively due to lower speed, bulk, and firepower. I vote for ban of Gengarite from OU.

 

[ModelT]

SO I read about 80% of this thread. *Headache*

I agree, Gengarite (Or Mega-Gengar) ought to be Ubers only, if not banned. (Gengar can go ahead and hang out though, he's legit)

My reasoning is simple.
Gengar has many sets that allow it to be a fluctuating threat on any team, and completely unpredictable in a game that's about making the correct predictions in order to win. Gengar simply has access to too many powerful and differnt roles it can play. Like Mewtwo and all of the Mew clones. He's too powerful and too veritile for OU. He can Tag / Song. He can 3 Attack / Bond, which itself is a vesitile set. He is Crazy powerful (170 base SpA), super fast (130 Speed). It's unbalancing. Plus, after he MEvolves (Assumng your opponet just switches and you sluff some attack whatever) and pull him out, you're ready to Tag anybody now.

 

[doughboy]

A long bus ride gives me the time to finally write about this.

Frankly I don't even understand how this discussion has gotten this far with people still clinging on to the idea that Mega-Gengar is fair game. It isn't. Here is the main point:

Mega-Gengar isn't the end-all, be-all sweeper that many think it is (no that was Blaziken ;0). What Mega-Gengar is, however, the end-all, be-all specialized partner to a sweeper. "Specialized" is the really important term here. Yeah Mega-Gengar can't run shadow ball/focus blast/sludge bomb/destiny bond/perish song/thunderbolt/whatever. But that isn't the point. The point is that Mega-Gengar DOES have those options and so much more at its disposal to create the most efficient way to remove the counters and checks to an A-Grade sweeper. (Looking at you myw)
Come on, give me a Poke and let's see the specialization at work:

Talonflame:

Hide

- Shadow Ball (Slowbro)
- Focus Blast (Tyranitar, Lucario, assortment of Rock types)
- Energy Ball (Rotom-W, physically defensive Gastrodon, assortment of Rock types)
- Thunderbolt (rest talk Gyarados, assortment of water-types)

DD Gyarados (waterfall/EdgeQuake):

Hide

- Shadow Ball (Slowbro, Jellicent, Celebi)
- Energy Ball (Rotom-W)
- Hidden Power Fire (Ferrothorn, Forretress)

SD Lucario(CC, Extremespeed, Bullet Punch):
- Shadow Ball (Aegislash (at full health), Jellicent, Trevrant, Slowbro, Celebi)
- Hidden Power Ice (Gliscor, Landorus-T, Dragonite)
- Thunderbolt (Defensive Gyarados)
- free moveslot woh-hoo


And if you really want to open a huge can of worms look at the soon to be released Landorus-I:

Hide

- Shadow Ball (Latias, Sp. def Jellicent, normal Gengar)
- Sludge Bomb (Celebi, Rotom-W)
- Perish Song (Blissey/Chansey, Amoonguss)
- Substitute

All of these guys have their sweeps enabled extremely easily by Mega-Gengar. A player constantly has to play around Mega-Gengar and can not confront the an opposing threat directly. If the player does choose to counter a threat directly, they run the risk of being trapped on the turn they switch in or on the turn after immediately countering the threat. That large two-turn risk warps the game towards offensive play styles and makes playing a defensive playstle a liability.

BTW just a couple of more points:

- Pursuit trapping isn't a great strategy for combatting mega-Gengar. First, the time you get the opportunity to pursuit trap a well played Mega-Gengar is when is has done its job already of killing a threat to the sweeper it's paired with. Second, no common pursuit trapper outspeeds mega-Gengar (you can try lol scarf krookadile). So you can get hit back hard yourself or destiny bonded as in CB scizor's case. Third, pursuit trapping mega-Gengar could be exactly what the opponent wants you to do so he can buy a setup opportunity for a sweeper.
- Mega-Gengar isn't a shabby offensive threat itself. Base 130 speed with its phenomenal coverage means it can pull off a late game sweep of its own if he Gengar user has kept him around. It also can revenge kill faster offensive threats and some slower scarfs pretty nicely. Did you know it can outspeed +1 Adamant DDnte?
- Defensive threats to fellow sweepers is not the only thing it can trap to further an end goal for a team. For example, I made a Mega-Gengar whose specialized function was to kill all opposing Rapid Spinners in OU. That stall team did very well.
___________________________________

So overall, I would say that Mega-Gengar deserves the boot from OU. It can enable its user to execute his or her own strategies too easily by removing an opponent'a counter to that strategy. If the opponent does decide to couterplay the Gengar user's strategy, they do so at a high risk; a risk that is much greater than the Gengar user's own play.

Stupid hidetags messing up q.q

 

[Erico9001]

He's pretty damn annoying. You just can't check him with any defensive Pokemon! What's a porygon2 or blissey ought to do when he can just speed in a sub to avoid paralyze and then perish song. It's like a one hit ko move! This means we have to rely on revenge kills to take him out, but that is far easier said than done.

 

[56k]

The whole point of megaevolutions is they are so ridiculously strong, you almost have to run a mega slot if you want to win in any format. Most of them shred through each other after 1 boost, but some like big mac and zam have really strong (by far not the strongest) attacks and dat speed. The game just isn't really about other types of strategies, pokemon is clearly a game of having multiple outs to overpower. Tactics come into play, like hazards, or stalling tactics or offensive strategies, but everyone should be playing to win and winning consistently takes a team with something on the level of megagengar or megakangaskan or megapinsir. If you support that one megamon with the teammates (or in the case of gengar and venusaur, support the team), but also leave yourself subtle chances like status and custap berries, then you can win against any other team. Skill takes it further. Certain team playstyles might have died out like hail stall, rain stall, trick room but you can still use, say, sand stalling as the main strategy to get everything down into priority sweeping range. You can use hail to troll damage on rock/steel/ground teams and set up a megapinsir sweep after they get worn down. I hardly really think gengar is public enemy number one right now, and he doesn't fuck up teams as badly now that people know wtf he can do. He's really really good but not tangibly more than some other top tier OUs. Megaevolutions and future event pokemon or new abilities might keep introducing new threats and having as many of them coexisting with tension against each other keeps the meta here on its toes and perfectly playable.

 

[AOPSUser]

The whole point of megaevolutions is they are so ridiculously strong, you almost have to run a mega slot if you want to win in any format. Most of them shred through each other after 1 boost, but some like big mac and zam have really strong (by far not the strongest) attacks and dat speed. The game just isn't really about other types of strategies, pokemon is clearly a game of having multiple outs to overpower. Tactics come into play, like hazards, or stalling tactics or offensive strategies, but everyone should be playing to win and winning consistently takes a team with something on the level of megagengar or megakangaskan or megapinsir. If you support that one megamon with the teammates (or in the case of gengar and venusaur, support the team), but also leave yourself subtle chances like status and custap berries, then you can win against any other team. Skill takes it further. Certain team playstyles might have died out like hail stall, rain stall, trick room but you can still use, say, sand stalling as the main strategy to get everything down into priority sweeping range. You can use hail to troll damage on rock/steel/ground teams and set up a megapinsir sweep after they get worn down. I hardly really think gengar is public enemy number one right now, and he doesn't fuck up teams as badly now that people know wtf he can do. He's really really good but not tangibly more than some other top tier OUs. Megaevolutions and future event pokemon or new abilities might keep introducing new threats and having as many of them coexisting with tension against each other keeps the meta here on its toes and perfectly playable.

Again by your logic we should unban Xerneas to see how people can cope with it.

In the case of Mega Gengar, you are supporting your teammates with your Mega, and Megas aren't that strong--Mega Zam is weaker than LO Zam for example. Mega Gengar doesn't need to be stronger, it just needs to be played well, because if you play it well the lack of power compared to LO attackers doesn't matter.

You can Hail or Sand stall things into a sweeper's KO range but Mega Pinsir still can't get past Skarmory no matter what. Talonflame can't get past Rotom-W either, but if you put Energy Ball on your Mega Gengar, it doesn't need to because Mega Gengar kills it for him.

Also Pokemon is not a game to just overpower. Even GameFreak knows this--it bans stuff like Kyogre from all of their metagames. And even if it is, at Smogon we interpret the game into our own, FAIR, metagame, where skill is needed to win given a good team against another good team. With Mega Gengar Mega Gengar+sweeper vs. Mega Gengar+sweeper is the only real "fair" matchup, since Mega Gengar+sweeper vs. 6 mons, will, if you play well, almost always give the Mega Gengar user the win.

 

[FlameUser64]

Skyblade12 Other Pokémon such as Blaziken have been banned to Ubers because they have only a few counters, and these counters "aren't OU material", thus forcing players to run one of a certain few otherwise non-OU Pokémon to counter them. The success of Mega Gengar relies on it only having to target a very low number of potential counters to your team, which destroys current OU because when only 1 or 2 Pokémon "exist" in OU that can counter your team, it's easy enough to trap and KO any of them easily with one blanket Mega Gengar set.

Mega Gengar is different from Blaziken in that the counter strategy for it is simply "target is using the wrong set as a lure for MGengar while another Pokémon runs the set MGengar wanted to deal with, and shows itself after the decoy KOs MGengar/lures in MGengar for the revenge kill", or possibly "there's about 6 different Pokémon out there that can run sets that counter my team and they're all of different types and I can't possibly guarantee that MGengar counters all of them, nor can I identify them on sight based on team preview". It's not "1 or 2 counters that 'aren't OU material'", it's "so many checks that 'aren't OU material' that OU has to redefine itself around their existence".

A lot of Pokémon currently in OU get there not by being powerful in their own right, but by the way they stack up against Pokémon that made OU in previous generations. This results in a few core Pokémon that are actually powerful enough to be used on a large number of teams, and a pile of extras that are there because they can work around them, while a number of other legitimately powerful Pokémon (Most of Gen V UU's Fire-types and a wide variety of Ice- and Flying-types) end up not seeing OU use because the "pile of extras" happens to counter them too. With MGengar around, their use in OU despite SR weakness/weakness to types common in OU is justified by their ability to run important sets while not being the generic OU Pokémon who normally does so. If MGengar wants to get rid of a certain Special-walling set, he'd better be able to do so to 3+ different Pokémon with potentially vastly different typings, Abilities, offensive options, and even stat spreads.

I'm not saying any of this is terribly likely, as much as I wish it was, but I think that if Mega Gengar stayed around it could theoretically result in a full reboot of OU where everything has to build up again from the start.

And for the counterpoint, everyone here keeps raising good points of why it can be ridiculous to try to play around. Although I think a complete reboot of OU with a much larger variety of viable Pokémon would be fun, I doubt everyone else here would appreciate that and I am also not convinced that it would actually work that way. I still think a quickban is a bad idea because, as they say, "The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is none".

AOPSUser
As I recall, Mega Alakazam is fast enough that it doesn't have to run Timid anymore, and Modest Mega Alakazam outpowers and outspeeds Timid Life Orb Alakazam.

 

[AOPSUser]

AOPSUser
As I recall, Mega Alakazam is fast enough that it doesn't have to run Timid anymore, and Modest Mega Alakazam outpowers and outspeeds Timid Life Orb Alakazam.

And you are using your Mega slot on that why? It has literally 5 more Speed and just a tiny bit more power.

Plus the main reason to use Alakazam is Magic Guard Focus Sash anyways, and obviously Mega just ditches that.

 

[FlameUser64]

Hey, I was just pointing out that you had your facts wrong. I wasn't saying anything about reasons to use Mega Alakazam over something else, even though I'm sure there are hilarious ways to take advantage of it such as Traced Lightningrod.

Edit: Also, Modest Mega Alakazam is Timid LO Alakazam with slightly more speed and power and no Life Orb recoil.

 

[BlowingBubbles]

I don't know if Mega Gengar is quick-ban worthy but he definitely has a negative impact on the metagame. I don't play hyper-offense so I can totally see how Mgar puts limits on your game play once it mega evolves. You can't take out an opposing pokemon with the "wrong" pokemon of yours because Mgar will switch in and take you out and you won't have an option to switch out. This is true of pursuiters and trappers in general but at least those have limits on what they can trap. With pursuiters and trappers, you at least have an idea of what they want to trap or are capable of trapping, whereas Mgar can be specialized to trap most threats in the meta game due to its versatility. (And you only have to specialize Mgar to snipe those that hamper your sweep.) The thing with Mgar is that once you figure out its move set, one of your pokemon is most likely dead. You only have one safe chance to scout out one move on the first turn when it mega evolves. A competent player will not use its moves carelessly, as it only kills what it's intended to kill. Now, playing Mgar correctly takes some skill, but I think much less than playing against it. It is relatively easy to get Mgar in thanks to VoltTurn, which is ironically an effective way to play against it as well. However, I think that risk vs reward favors the Mgar player, as the correct VoltTurn decision by the Mgar player most likely results in the opposing pokemon fainting, but the correct decision by the opposing player means mere escape and momentum gain. Also, let's not pretend that Mgar is useless outside of trapping -- 170 SpAtk and 130 Spd are hardly low.

 

[AOPSUser]

Hey, I was just pointing out that you had your facts wrong. I wasn't saying anything about reasons to use Mega Alakazam over something else, even though I'm sure there are hilarious ways to take advantage of it such as Traced Lightningrod.

Edit: Also, Modest Mega Alakazam is Timid LO Alakazam with slightly more speed and power and no Life Orb recoil.

Do you not get the Magic Guard part.

That is the reason to use Alakazam in OU.

I wouldn't try to compare Mega Alakazam to Mega Gengar.

 

[Skyblade12]

Skyblade12 Other Pokémon such as Blaziken have been banned to Ubers because they have only a few counters, and these counters "aren't OU material", thus forcing players to run one of a certain few otherwise non-OU Pokémon to counter them. The success of Mega Gengar relies on it only having to target a very low number of potential counters to your team, which destroys current OU because when only 1 or 2 Pokémon "exist" in OU that can counter your team, it's easy enough to trap and KO any of them easily with one blanket Mega Gengar set.

Mega Gengar is different from Blaziken in that the counter strategy for it is simply "target is using the wrong set as a lure for MGengar while another Pokémon runs the set MGengar wanted to deal with, and shows itself after the decoy KOs MGengar/lures in MGengar for the revenge kill", or possibly "there's about 6 different Pokémon out there that can run sets that counter my team and they're all of different types and I can't possibly guarantee that MGengar counters all of them, nor can I identify them on sight based on team preview". It's not "1 or 2 counters that 'aren't OU material'", it's "so many checks that 'aren't OU material' that OU has to redefine itself around their existence".

A lot of Pokémon currently in OU get there not by being powerful in their own right, but by the way they stack up against Pokémon that made OU in previous generations. This results in a few core Pokémon that are actually powerful enough to be used on a large number of teams, and a pile of extras that are there because they can work around them, while a number of other legitimately powerful Pokémon (Most of Gen V UU's Fire-types and a wide variety of Ice- and Flying-types) end up not seeing OU use because the "pile of extras" happens to counter them too. With MGengar around, their use in OU despite SR weakness/weakness to types common in OU is justified by their ability to run important sets while not being the generic OU Pokémon who normally does so. If MGengar wants to get rid of a certain Special-walling set, he'd better be able to do so to 3+ different Pokémon with potentially vastly different typings, Abilities, offensive options, and even stat spreads.

I'm not saying any of this is terribly likely, as much as I wish it was, but I think that if Mega Gengar stayed around it could theoretically result in a full reboot of OU where everything has to build up again from the start.

And for the counterpoint, everyone here keeps raising good points of why it can be ridiculous to try to play around. Although I think a complete reboot of OU with a much larger variety of viable Pokémon would be fun, I doubt everyone else here would appreciate that and I am also not convinced that it would actually work that way. I still think a quickban is a bad idea because, as they say, "The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is none".

AOPSUser
As I recall, Mega Alakazam is fast enough that it doesn't have to run Timid anymore, and Modest Mega Alakazam outpowers and outspeeds Timid Life Orb Alakazam.

Except it's not that simple. It never really is.

It's not that there are only a few OU viable counters to any one sweeper. It's that there are only a few counters to any sweeper, period. Most "counters" to a particular Pokémon fall into a single category. It's not just "lol, run the counter set". You need the correct typing, moves, and stat distribution to counter. Some Pokémon are stopped by a bulky water. What bulky water it is doesn't really matter. Gengar can counter them all.

The number of OU viable counters is unimportant. What matters is that you only have six Pokémon on a team. In order to run more than one successful counter to any OU viable sweeper, you need to give up critical team diversity, and allow yourself to be destroyed by something that you don't have coverage for. There are currently eighteen types, and over a hundred different type combinations. Countering them all on a single team is basically impossible. If you spend two Pokémon to counter a single threat, no matter what that threat is, you are going to have an extra hole in your lineup, and you will be destroyed when you face an opponent who can exploit that.

You say that running UU or NU would make teams less predictable? You're right, I suppose. But if you're walled by, for example, bulky waters, any bulky Pokémon with similar resistances is going to be immediately suspect. Is it going to be your counter? Maybe not, but if not, your counter is probably not going to succeed anyway. It might have the right stats and move, but the wrong typing. Or the right typing, but the wrong bulk. You can only pull a Pokémon so far out of its comfort zone.

This is why Mega-Gengar is so potent. Not because it can counter the common threats, but because it can counter whatever stops your team. It is one of the only "catch-all" answers in the game.

Not to mention that, as I pointed out, IF such a setup were to occur (which is the definition of over-centralization), it would result in a most unhealthy metagame. Sure, it would get rarely used Pokémon more used (although, again, you've given no answer that any of them are viable Mega Gengar checks). So what? When the first three quarters of the game is spent trying random moves to scout and figure out what the heck the opponent is carrying, there is a lot less strategy and thought going into the game.

 

[56k]

MegaAlakazam is exactly what I was talking about, a megapokemon that hits harder than megagengar, is faster, ohkos it and actually ohkos a LOT of things, and has a nice try for an ability but not as good as others. However I think the only set worth using is CM. I also think it's hard to say that megagengar + 5 always has the edge over other mega teams just because there are other godly ones out there. Obviously the admins and community can do whatever they want but I have serious doubts about exactly how centralizing gengar is in particular. Plenty of things discussed in this thread revenge it, and plenty of things also prevent it from megaevolving if they're facing down. Pressure from common and good pokemon (true OUs, not things only around to deal with gengar) like Aegis and talonflame mess it up pretty good. You don't need to clutch onto your walls in every single match because gengar isn't in every single match. When he shows up, you put up a fight. And after he traps your cleric you execute plan b or plan c. Why did he trap your cleric? Why did he trap your defensive wall? There's only one pokemon that gengar can trap at any given time and you control what that pokemon is. His stall breaking / support breaking aspect is what makes him playable instead of using ttar or kangaskan or lucario. If his ability was something different then we'd complain he sucks kinda like megalakazam. Instead he has an awesome ability, and it might have been broken if this was gen 3 but pokemon is played differently now. With generation VI, 6v6 singles got a power creep nuke dropped on it and things that seem uber might not be.

 

[MoosyDoosy]

Skyblade12
Predicting double switches. As I said, you have to predict an incoming MGengar and switch to your counter-pick simultaneously.

MoosyDoosy
Yeah, okay. That's what the scout/phazer is for, as it finds out what MGengar aims to counter, which also gives the scout/phaze player some information on the rest of your team's sets.

anubite
Actually, MGengar switches on the third Perish turn in order to not be KO'd by his own Perish Song, and the opponent can't switch because Shadow Tag is in effect. The way Shadow Tag works, it disallows the player from even choosing to switch, so you can't even elect to try to switch on the basis that MGengar will switch out. Now, if a patch was released by GAME FREAK/Nintendo that changed this to allow the player to choose to switch regardless of whether it will necessarily work, Perish Trap in singles would be finished.


I suppose I must agree, however, that MGengar's presence in a match vastly changes the pace and playstyle of the match on both sides, as letting it deploy successfully can be game-ending. I think, though, that there is a possibility that MGengar can be beneficial to the competitive scene. Yeah, okay, laugh all you like, but hear me out first:

MGengar is essentially the single most anti-meta thing ever to exist. If you want to survive/mess with teams running MGengar, you will have to run unpredictable sets. MGengar wants to snipe a foe with a particular role on the team, a particular set, but most often relies on the target's typing to do so. If you can run those same sets on the wrong Pokémon, MGengar's nicely customised moveset might turn out to be completely ineffective. MGengar can end up taking out a target Pokémon, only to be revenge-killed and then find out that that Pokémon wasn't running the set Gengar wanted to counter, but a different Pokémon on the team was. Pokémon that fill a particular role with an unusual typing but end up UU/RU/NU due to being "suboptimal" in that role can suddenly become OU-viable because MGengar fails to predict them. If this tactic is sufficiently successful, MGengar will see less usage while at the same time the tactic becomes universal; the relative "suboptimal" nature of these sets ceases to matter as many different Pokémon see common distribution because MGengar cannot predict this many different viable sets. The previous domination of a few select Pokémon due to their stats and relative comparison to "other Pokémon in the metagame" ceases to exist as that list includes 200+ Pokémon.

TL;DR version: Mega Gengar encourages people to use obscure Pokémon from other tiers, which in turn encourage even more obscure Pokémon to be used. Smogon OU collapses in a fairly spectacular manner, and Mega Gengar ceases to be an overpowering threat as its success depends on there being a very limited number of "viable" counters to any particular core. Not as likely as I wish it was, but still possible.

And how do you think these "unorthodox" pokemon will do against the real OU threats out there? Also, more food for thought. Even if you replace pokemon in a stall team to try and counter Mega Gengar, it won't work. In fact, they'll probably be more weak and do far less damage than OU tier stall pokemon as Mega Gengar proceeds to PS + ST all of the unorthodox and orthodox stall pokemon. Also, say your team is offensive. The 3 Atks + Destiny Bond set will still destroy your team since Mega Gengar still is fast and very powerful; aka hitting first to kill. And also, if there's an unorthodox pokemon that I'm unaware of, the first thing to do would be to probably scout out that pokemon in order to see what it does to ensure that Mega Gengar can still do its role. And if I feel threatened by that unorthodox pokemon in any manner, Mega Gengar can just switch out.

Besides all that crap theorymonning, there's one point in your argument that really bothered me. That I would kill the target pokemon only to find that another pokemon had that set. Let me reiterate this: Mega Gengar helps sweepers perform their roles by sniping out walls and threats. I would be aiming for a pokemon depending on if it hampered my sweeper's ability to sweep; aka walls, immunities, key resistances, etc. If I want my Lucario to sweep and you have a Skarmory, I will not take out your Skarmory with Mega Gengar because I am scared that it will run a Spikes set. I will take it out because it can wall my Lucario.

 

[AOPSUser]

MegaAlakazam is exactly what I was talking about, a megapokemon that hits harder than megagengar, is faster, ohkos it and actually ohkos a LOT of things, and has a nice try for an ability but not as good as others. However I think the only set worth using is CM. I also think it's hard to say that megagengar + 5 always has the edge over other mega teams just because there are other godly ones out there. Obviously the admins and community can do whatever they want but I have serious doubts about exactly how centralizing gengar is in particular. Plenty of things discussed in this thread revenge it, and plenty of things also prevent it from megaevolving if they're facing down. Pressure from common and good pokemon (true OUs, not things only around to deal with gengar) like Aegis and talonflame mess it up pretty good. You don't need to clutch onto your walls in every single match because gengar isn't in every single match. When he shows up, you put up a fight. And after he traps your cleric you execute plan b or plan c. Why did he trap your cleric? Why did he trap your defensive wall? There's only one pokemon that gengar can trap at any given time and you control what that pokemon is. His stall breaking / support breaking aspect is what makes him playable instead of using ttar or kangaskan or lucario. If his ability was something different then we'd complain he sucks kinda like megalakazam. Instead he has an awesome ability, and it might have been broken if this was gen 3 but pokemon is played differently now. With generation VI, 6v6 singles got a power creep nuke dropped on it and things that seem uber might not be.

Mega Alakazam is a joke and should not be brought up in a serious discussion.

If Mega Gengar is in on something it OHKOes, that thing is screwed.

If Mega Alakazam is in on something it OHKOes, that thing will switch to Blissey.

Gen 6 doesn't have that much power creep. It's mostly speed creep at this point, and Mega Gengar still outspeeds most non-Scarfers in OU. In fact, Mega Gengar is the cause of so many offensive teams, and as such any Gen 6 power creep comes back to him. If we didn't have him, we would have viable stall teams.

 

[56k]

I guess the power and speed go together because things like medicham and talonflame and xerneas exhibit different positions in the spectrum. I don't think of gengar as the culprit of stall kind of dying out, but the fact that stall was already dying in gen v, and now pokemon are even stronger, possibly crossing over a critical power level. The overall power in OU is just objectively too much for hard stall to really exist at all, but every single good stall pokemon is still viable as an individual.

 

[RedBomberX]

I have a question and I'm too lazy to scroll through all the posts to see if it was answered.

Gengar can learn Perish song and basically trap a Pokemon that's not a ghost type and kill it with Perish song. Could Gengar than switch out to another Shadow Tag Pokemon like Woubefett or Gothitella for example. Has this been tested?

Because this could be really annoying if it works basically gengar can set up perish songs and take out major targets without sacrificing himself.

 

[nyczxjay]

I have a question and I'm too lazy to scroll through all the posts to see if it was answered.

Gengar can learn Perish song and basically trap a Pokemon that's not a ghost type and kill it with Perish song. Could Gengar than switch out to another Shadow Tag Pokemon like Woubefett or Gothitella for example. Has this been tested?

Because this could be really annoying if it works basically gengar can set up perish songs and take out major targets without sacrificing himself.

There's no need to the Perish song set runs Sub and Protect to stall out 2 turns. You switch out on the 3rd turn and your opponent can't so their pokemon dies while Gengar is free to trap again.

 

[Erico9001]

I guess the power and speed go together because things like medicham and talonflame and xerneas exhibit different positions in the spectrum. I don't think of gengar as the culprit of stall kind of dying out, but the fact that stall was already dying in gen v, and now pokemon are even stronger, possibly crossing over a critical power level. The overall power in OU is just objectively too much for hard stall to really exist at all, but every single good stall pokemon is still viable as an individual.

Actually it is the culprit. While it is harder to counter the the other megas, they can still be countered by defensive pokemon. In fact my current team does a very good job with it. It's just when the mega gengar comes out, defensive pokemon can't do anything about it.

 

[RedBomberX]

There's no need to the Perish song set runs Sub and Protect to stall out 2 turns. You switch out on the 3rd turn and your opponent can't so their pokemon dies while Gengar is free to trap again.

Oh wow O_o Your right can't believe I didn't see that the first time O_O

Wow this could be a problem then XD

 

[Chou Toshio]

I'm going to propose that even if Mega Gengar isn't over-powered, it's definitely uncompetitive.

To me, the biggest problem with Mega Gengar is that Gengar itself is already so dangerous, and the fact that you don't know whether it will or won't mega evolve on your first encounter with Gengar is really problematic. Add to the fact that the enemy can choose whether or not to mega evolve, and the situation becomes even more problematic.

For instance, if I was fighting a regular gengar, expecting it to substitute, I could call the blough, stay in and attack to break the sub and see the situation from there-- switching out of Disable WAS the best strategy against Subgar last meta. NOW though, I might do the same thing, but after I break the sub, I could potentially lose the option to switch-- a huge problem when Gengar could next potentially disable my one attack able to hit it effectively.

Meanwhile, even if I DO switch, now I'm fighting a Gengar behind a free sub...

Because of Shadow Tag, even the chance of a Mega evolution makes me want to switch into Tyranitar/Scizor immediately (without knowing ANYTHING about Gengar's set)-- but even with Assault Vest, Gengar can 2HKO them both with Focus Blast. This is almost unavoidable when Gengar can use Sub.

The thing about Gengarite is that even if Mega Gengar itself is not too hard to handle, the combination of the threat of Mega Evolution plus gengar's natural unpredictability and trolliness creates incredibly unfair and uncompetitive situations-- where you can kind-of-sort-of fight to predict, but every instance of prediction is undeniably in favor of the Gengar user-- and later in the game, if Gengar doesn't get trapped/killed on the initial go, it's Shadow Tag completely removes the ability to predict to fight.

Add in the threats of Destiny Bond / Perish Song sets (let's face it, Pokebank is just around the corner) in addition to sub-disable, and just flat out LO, and Gengar is just way too unpredictable, way too threatening, and just way too flat-out-uncompetitive to be fair for use in competitive OU.

While Gengar's power is pushing on ridiculous, all the even more ridiculous, over-powered priority attacks kind of damper that. But the real problem with Gengar isn't broken power, but uncompetitiveness-- the fact that in many common battle situations, Gengar eliminates strategy, and eliminates the ability to fight back. It makes the game uncompetitive-- Like moody, like BW/DP Deo-S, like DP Wobb.

Honestly, this thing is more gay than Deo-S in BW. This thing is more gay than Moody. It's extremely comparable to DP Wobbaffet in its effect on the meta-- except it's way more broken in XY than Wobba ever was in DP. I hope it doesn't take months of a player like ipl spamming this to troll the ladder for people to realize Shadow Tag Gengar is terrible for competitive Pokemon.

 

[FlameUser64]

Sure, Mega Gengar can have its moveset designed to take out whatever stops your team... as long as that list doesn't include more than 3 Pokémon in all the tiers that have sufficiently varied typings/movepools/abilities/etc. But it's definitely true that having such a variety of things that can run sets to block you would be unusual. The issue isn't having to run all of them on your team to stop Mega Gengar. The issue is that if too many exist, Mega Gengar's role becomes less reliable as there's a chance of its highly-specialised set failing when the thing it's designed to get rid of isn't there, and something else with an equal or at least sufficiently similar effect on your team is. Now you've wasted your Mega slot on an overspecialised Pokémon that can't necessarily do much to the opponent's other stuff.

What I was saying about substituting a fake in for the real counter to bait Gengar, however, was that you can do something like run an offensive Skarmory while having something else that can wall with screens/Cotton Guard/etc.

All of that said, you know what? Whatever. While I tend to be against banning much of anything on a conceptual level (especially nonsense like Evasion, where no-miss moves are very commonly available, as are no-miss phasing moves and the new-and-improved no-miss Toxic-used-by-Poison-types, as are things like Foresight, No Guard, Keen Eye, etc.), and as much as I would love to see what would happen if Smogon's entire metagame was rebuilt from the ground up, this thing is almost certain to be a serious problem in the future for many teams. I doubt it'll be much of a problem on PS though, since nobody running Mega Gengar knows what they're doing yet.