Metagame np: USUM DOU Stage 3 - Ghosts That We Knew

[n10siT]

My initial response was far too aggressive and condescending and I apologize for that. That is not what the DOU community is like, we want to be helpful, not rude. I especially did not mean to make it seem like you have no voice for only playing on the ladder, as that is just not true. So, apologies to Red Pill PUA

That said, tournaments don’t work in such a way where you get paired up against your “buddy” every single time. Pregame scouting and creating a team to beat that players play styles is a part of it, sure, but my point is that our resident tournament champions are going to be a lot better at Pokémon than anyone who tops the ladder, and that isn’t a knock on anyone who’s very good on the ladder.

Also, it’s online Pokémon we play for no money, so it’s all irrelevant, but our Seasonal tournaments and our showcasings in Smogons elite invitational tournaments are about as relevant as it gets. My good friend SMB won TWO seasonals this year, an unheard of feat and accomplishment and we are all super happy for him and proud of him. That accomplishment is a lot more relevant than getting to 1800 elo on our PS ladder, simply because the average opponent in any given tournament round is going to be better than the average opponent you play on the ladder. And in later rounds, you’re beating a good opponent who has prepared against you, which is even cooler.

If you are genuinely confident enough you would win tournaments, then join them! We will have another seasonal tournament in the fall, and we will have multiple fun forum tours in the mean time and after. I absolutely want you and everyone who plays exclusively on ladder to become a part of this community because it is really a fun place to be and you will learn a lot about playing Pokémon at a high level.

For example, I was a moron when I joined. I thought hitmonchan was good in XY DOU, i even nommed it on the VR. I’ve come a long way since. There’s no barrier of entry besides putting the work into getting better, and if you’re already better than us, come walk the walk!

 

[Demantoid]

Something that is definitely frustrating both to play against and to think about "well fuck, thats actually a good pokemon" is Chansey. And god i hate myself for saying this and im not cleaning up the mess that auraray is gonna make in his pants but it might be time to revisit marshadow.

 

[kamikaze]

If being on top of the ladder is not enough to have a voice on here ill be happy to hijack and win these tournaments. Since that seems to be the only measure of knowledge you guys seem to be using as a prerequisite to prove if someone knows what they are talking about.

There is a Doubles Ladder Tournament starting shortly where you qualify for a single elimination bracket based on your ladder scores. So that may be exactly what you are looking for, playing on ladder like you have been and being able to use that as a stepping stone to take a stab at tournaments.

The tournament environment is best of 3 where you may change your team between games and generally it is good to have multiple good teams at the ready to swap between if you wanna make it far.

edit: its up https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/doubles-ladder-tournament-ii-2018.3641789/

 

[Red Pill PUA]

There is a Doubles Ladder Tournament starting shortly where you qualify for a single elimination bracket based on your ladder scores. So that may be exactly what you are looking for, playing on ladder like you have been and being able to use that as a stepping stone to take a stab at tournaments.

The tournament environment is best of 3 where you may change your team between games and generally it is good to have multiple good teams at the ready to swap between if you wanna make it far.

edit: its up https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/doubles-ladder-tournament-ii-2018.3641789/

Man I should have done this. Been smashing all the dlt players and i'm currently number one on the ladder at the time of typing this. I would have got a bye week.

There is nowhere else to go after being number one, Next time for sure ill start competing in your tournaments.

also still, free marsh and jurachi. Everybody is calling for a retest so when is this retest going down?

 

[talkingtree]

The tournament's still going on, so you have time to qualify during the last cycle

 

[Red Pill PUA]

Some people wanted proof that i really be slaying them on this game. So posting it. My other account is also lesspurplemorerain that I also just got in the top 15 number one on the ladder AGAIN with.

Edit:

Yeah my elo is currently now 1880 being number 2 on the ladder, 35 points higher elo than when I was number 1. Currently no dlt players from this cycle or the previous have a higher elo than 1880 and now im at 1896 elo. I might break 1900.

I would have been the number one seed with a bye week in the whole dlt tournament if I just started my lesspurplemorerain account with a dlt in front of it as stated before, I dont understand why you guys all got mad about me speaking FACTS before.

But I dropped the mic and the issue is settled now. Remember it was you guys who attacked me first for having an opinion on unbanning marsh and co, i'm just defending myself.

 

[GraylyHen94]

Marshadow being revisited would balance out Gengar, Metagross, and Incineroar in a heartbeat. It would also have the consequences of broken beating broken, although I'm not taking a strong stance on those three being as powerful as Marshadow. I mean he's not unstoppable but Jesus Christ does he pack the 7-Starred punches. There's nothing wrong with wanting to bring him back down, if things go to shit then we can just do it to em again. It's not like there's a tourney with money on the line that Marsh would effect, it's all in the spirit of wanting to balance the game and introduce new threats to the meta to see if it can be brought to a smooth scale.

As for what someone mentioned earlier, I actually do support Kangaskhan being brought back in but, and this is going to go nowhere but I have wanted to say it for a while, she should only be brought back if we voted to complex ban Seismic Toss/Mud-Slap + P Bond. I understand and respect the commitment that Smogon has made to avoiding complex bans due to the slippery slope that it is. You guys have always been hard on it and never slipped up on it, except maybe when Baton Pass was being figured out, but I think that allowing it for Kangaskhan would be acceptable. She was integral to DOU in ORAS and, while nerfed this gen to P Bond only being 25%, I greatly miss her presence on the field and loved building around her. Seismic Toss is absolutely horseshit this gen and it's terrible that it came to be that way, but I support testing her without it and seeing how things pan out. Two impacts she has are a much faster and viable Fake Out compared to other Mons not named Incineroar, as well as a physical Pokemon who can't be instantly shit to death from Intimidate cycling because of her Power-Up Punches. She was fine with PB ST last gen but then again we had some dank Fighting types to put her through a wall, GameFreak decided to shit all over Fighting types this gen with strong Fairy types. Marsh could bring that down but that loops back to Marsh's test and how that pans out.

I am aware that this is a sketchy topic and know ahead of time what the answers will be like, and I'm cool with that. Just something that I've wanted to talk about for a long time

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

ITT we discuss how Zekrom would fit into the current DOU format. Its arguably the least viable of all Doubles Uber and the most likely of the bunch to be unbanned. So are you for or against a suspect of this mon?

Questions to try to answer:

• What are its biggest strengths and weaknesses? Do the Strengths out weight the Weaknesses or vice versa?
• Which of the current pokemon on the viability ranking would take a lose viability if Zekrom is allowed? Any mons would rise in viability as a check?

I see its bulk as its best asset: 100 HP, 120 Def, and 100 SpD. I believe its most comparable to Kyurem-B who has lower defensive stats but high HP, so Zekrom would probably be best with Sub. Its biggest weakness is its speed, being out-sped by some major threats such as Lele and Kyurem-B

Zekrom would replace Zapdos as the bulkiest Electric mon, but other viable electrics also have there own unique characteristics that would not be fazed out by an introduction of Zekrom. As a physical attacker Lando and Incinroar will remain top tier if Zekrom where to become popular.
A potential loser would be Fini, its Calm Mind set would not help versus stab bolt strike.
252+ Atk Teravolt Zekrom Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tapu Fini: 338-402 (98.2 - 116.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
And probably the biggest loser would be Volcanion, Zekrom resists its two main moves (although switching into steam eruption is risky for a physical) and kills it with Bolt Strike

 

[Level 51]

ITT we discuss how Zekrom would fit into the current DOU format. Its arguably the least viable of all Doubles Uber and the most likely of the bunch to be unbanned. So are you for or against a suspect of this mon?

Questions to try to answer:

• What are its biggest strengths and weaknesses? Do the Strengths out weight the Weaknesses or vice versa?
• Which of the current pokemon on the viability ranking would take a lose viability if Zekrom is allowed? Any mons would rise in viability as a check?

I see its bulk as its best asset: 100 HP, 120 Def, and 100 SpD. I believe its most comparable to Kyurem-B who has lower defensive stats but high HP, so Zekrom would probably be best with Sub. Its biggest weakness is its speed, being out-sped by some major threats such as Lele and Kyurem-B

Zekrom would replace Zapdos as the bulkiest Electric mon, but other viable electrics also have there own unique characteristics that would not be fazed out by an introduction of Zekrom. As a physical attacker Lando and Incinroar will remain top tier if Zekrom where to become popular.
A potential loser would be Fini, its Calm Mind set would not help versus stab bolt strike.
252+ Atk Teravolt Zekrom Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tapu Fini: 338-402 (98.2 - 116.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
And probably the biggest loser would be Volcanion, Zekrom resists its two main moves (although switching into steam eruption is risky for a physical) and kills it with Bolt Strike

At the risk of taking n1n1 seriously, I've moved this post to this np thread, where it would at least be more appropriately positioned.

 

[MajorBowman]

ITT we discuss how Zekrom would fit into the current DOU format. Its arguably the least viable of all Doubles Uber and the most likely of the bunch to be unbanned. So are you for or against a suspect of this mon?

Questions to try to answer:

• What are its biggest strengths and weaknesses? Do the Strengths out weight the Weaknesses or vice versa?
• Which of the current pokemon on the viability ranking would take a lose viability if Zekrom is allowed? Any mons would rise in viability as a check?

I see its bulk as its best asset: 100 HP, 120 Def, and 100 SpD. I believe its most comparable to Kyurem-B who has lower defensive stats but high HP, so Zekrom would probably be best with Sub. Its biggest weakness is its speed, being out-sped by some major threats such as Lele and Kyurem-B

Zekrom would replace Zapdos as the bulkiest Electric mon, but other viable electrics also have there own unique characteristics that would not be fazed out by an introduction of Zekrom. As a physical attacker Lando and Incinroar will remain top tier if Zekrom where to become popular.
A potential loser would be Fini, its Calm Mind set would not help versus stab bolt strike.
252+ Atk Teravolt Zekrom Bolt Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tapu Fini: 338-402 (98.2 - 116.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
And probably the biggest loser would be Volcanion, Zekrom resists its two main moves (although switching into steam eruption is risky for a physical) and kills it with Bolt Strike

just gonna nip this one in the bud immediately

there is an exactly 0% chance zekrom is ever freed in dou

carry on

 

[Tony]

Let's shift the discussion towards the only actual issue with doubles OU then: Mega Gengar. For the record I'm very aware I'm not a top doubles player whatsoever, but I have been an invested spectator and casual player for well over a year and I've managed three official team tournaments featuring the tier, too. This tier has gradually grown to be one of my favorites on the website and I think only Mega Gengar stands in the way of achieving (near) perfection.

I've been reading through this thread to look into how things stood in terms of community standing during the previous look at Mega Gengar, as well as starting a harmless movement in the doubles OU server (please don't ban me) in an attempt to start the discussion again. For starters I think this discussion should only be about Mega Gengar and not a Shadow Tag ban overall. Bans should be kept minimal and simple, and Mega Gengar is the only true abuser of the ability. Another solution that's being brought up is unbanning Marshadow instead of banning Mega Gengar. However, I think you'd just be replacing one problem with another, while it doesn't even make Mega Gengar much worse in the first place. Don't forget Marshadow was banned for being extremely unhealthy to the tier itself! As for Mega Gengar's issues itself...

Mega Gengar is near impossible to position around. Unlike other Pokemon with trapping abilities, Mega Gengar is stupidly fantastic outside of its ability as well. Consider its speed, consider its ridiculous special attack, consider it having STAB Shadow Ball AND Sludge Bomb, which is a combination only resisted by Tyranitar in the top three tiers of the DOU VR (and not to even mention Sludge Bomb's poisoning rate...). It speed ties with opposing Mega Gengar and Tapu Koko, and both opposing Mega Gengar and Tapu Koko are OHKOd and capable of OHKOing back, making the reliance on speed ties a very real one. Think about how many games in both SSD and the current DOU seasonal have been decided by a speed tie involving Mega Gengar already.

As for its defensive shortcomings and arguable inability to switch into play, don't forget that Mega Gengar has absurd synergy with Incineroar, which is considered to be one of the best Pokemon in the tier, too. Defensively Incineroar helps protecting Mega Gengar via Intimidate, Fake Out and keeping out the Ghost-types Mega Gengar can't trap with Shadow Tag. On top of that its slow U-turn makes bringing in Mega Gengar safely way easier, which adds a whole new dimension of positioning yourself against a potential trap.

Mega Gengar's trapping is broken and the one blemish on your beautiful tier. Let's come together as a people and make sure SMB's Zygarde's sacrifice wasn't for nothing..

 

[EmbCPT]

Let's shift the discussion towards the only actual issue with doubles OU then: Mega Gengar. For the record I'm very aware I'm not a top doubles player whatsoever, but I have been an invested spectator and casual player for well over a year and I've managed three official team tournaments featuring the tier, too. This tier has gradually grown to be one of my favorites on the website and I think only Mega Gengar stands in the way of achieving (near) perfection.

I've been reading through this thread to look into how things stood in terms of community standing during the previous look at Mega Gengar, as well as starting a harmless movement in the doubles OU server (please don't ban me) in an attempt to start the discussion again. For starters I think this discussion should only be about Mega Gengar and not a Shadow Tag ban overall. Bans should be kept minimal and simple, and Mega Gengar is the only true abuser of the ability. Another solution that's being brought up is unbanning Marshadow instead of banning Mega Gengar. However, I think you'd just be replacing one problem with another, while it doesn't even make Mega Gengar much worse in the first place. Don't forget Marshadow was banned for being extremely unhealthy to the tier itself! As for Mega Gengar's issues itself...

Mega Gengar is near impossible to position around. Unlike other Pokemon with trapping abilities, Mega Gengar is stupidly fantastic outside of its ability as well. Consider its speed, consider its ridiculous special attack, consider it having STAB Shadow Ball AND Sludge Bomb, which is a combination only resisted by Tyranitar in the top three tiers of the DOU VR (and not to even mention Sludge Bomb's poisoning rate...). It speed ties with opposing Mega Gengar and Tapu Koko, and both opposing Mega Gengar and Tapu Koko are OHKOd and capable of OHKOing back, making the reliance on speed ties a very real one. Think about how many games in both SSD and the current DOU seasonal have been decided by a speed tie involving Mega Gengar already.

As for its defensive shortcomings and arguable inability to switch into play, don't forget that Mega Gengar has absurd synergy with Incineroar, which is considered to be one of the best Pokemon in the tier, too. Defensively Incineroar helps protecting Mega Gengar via Intimidate, Fake Out and keeping out the Ghost-types Mega Gengar can't trap with Shadow Tag. On top of that its slow U-turn makes bringing in Mega Gengar safely way easier, which adds a whole new dimension of positioning yourself against a potential trap.

Mega Gengar's trapping is broken and the one blemish on your beautiful tier. Let's come together as a people and make sure SMB's Zygarde's sacrifice wasn't for nothing..

Hard agree. I've been expressing my strong distaste with Mega Gengar's presence in the meta for months and I honeslty don't understand how it went through the suspect test. Tony and I have been discussing this subject for a while, so my opinion is the exact same as his.

 

[MajorBowman]

The biggest issue with a Gengarite suspect right now is that our most recent test was Gengarite and there really hasn't been much of a change since that suspect. There haven't been any important Pokemon releases other than Zeraora, which hasn't significantly affected Gengar's viability in either direction, and the outcry for a Gengar retest has largely been from the same people who were calling for a ban before and during the first test. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I don't think Gengar is good and I personally think a Gengar retest is the next logical step after we look at something else, but neither of the TLs are comfortable with testing the same thing twice in a row with little to no reason other than a resurgence in Gengar discussion.

 

[Pocket]

Why not a re-test? It has been half a year since the last Gengar test - although there may not have been major additions to the metagame since then outside of Zeraora, it did give us a longer play time with or against Gengar in important tournaments, such as the Snake Draft and Ssnls to re-assess our stance on Gengar. The last Gengar test was a close one, Gengar barely escaping being banned. Gengar is obviously a highly controversial suspect that warrants testing IMHO.

 

[Tony]

Fair enough, but while there might not have been a huge change in terms of new releases, there have been big tournaments like Pocket referred to, which are an even bigger breeding ground for metagame development. I'm also including your seasonals in that, because the top doubles players sign up for those as well (which is awesome btw). Another note is that unlike lower tiers on Smogon there isn't much reason to consistently keep producing (unique) suspect tests in tiers like OU or doubles OU, because there are no new Pokemon joining your tier except for significant releases like Intimidate Incineroar, for example.

I think eliminating the idea of a retest just because there hasn't been a different one in between would be a real shame. Considering the nature of your tier I'd say it shows there are no other issues worth addressing, which makes not having any tests in between a luxury if anything.

 

[MajorBowman]

I'm not necessarily saying we're eliminating the idea of a Gengar retest just because it was the last test, but I think there's an unavoidable connotation of "well we didn't like how the last one went so let's try again" if we were to do Gengar twice in a row. I get that SSD2 and a couple Seasonals have happened since and that Gengar is still at the top of the totem pole, but for me to be comfortable testing something twice in a row I would need to see a pretty large portion of the active community (moreso than for a regular test) rallying for it and it just doesn't feel like that's been happening. I pay pretty close attention to trends in both seasonals and bigger team tournaments like Snake and all I've noticed are the standard fluctuations in what's popular at any given time without much of an influence from Gengar itself other than still being probably the best mega in the tier. If people have truly had time to re-assess their opinions on Gengar and came to the conclusion that it was more problematic than they had originally believed, that would be a completely different story. However, I really can't say that I've noticed any difference in public opinion since the last test and redoing it now would simply feel like a mulligan to me.

At the tail end of Gen 6, DOU suspected Jirachi and Azumarill, both of which remained in the tier. Jirachi was then quickbanned by the council, which sparked one of the biggest controversies in doubles history. Obviously a retest and a quickban aren't the same things and I'm not at all suggesting that a Gengar retest would send us spiraling into controversy again, but I'm not too keen on coming anywhere close to reliving that debacle. Like I said, I am fully open to looking at Gengar again down the road, but I'm not a big fan of the prospect of approaching overmanagement with two consecutive tests of the same Pokemon.

 

[kaori]

With respect, XY Jirachi and SM Gengar are only vaguely comparable, a council quickban without public consultation and a full blown public retest are two entirely different things. I think an example of overturning public opinion would fall more in line with, say, a Marshadow retest, as it is something that the community deemed to be banworthy and a retest of it could be viewed as council members pushing their own personal interests by not receiving the results they wanted. Gengar failed to be banned by a razor-thin margin and speaking personally in the time since the last suspect I've absolutely had a change of heart. I was very shaky on Gengar the first time around, and had I had the time to get reqs I would have probably voted no ban due to how uncertain I was. In the time since I've become very convinced that Gengar is a problem in this tier and should be removed.

 

[stax]

I'm not necessarily saying we're eliminating the idea of a Gengar retest just because it was the last test, but I think there's an unavoidable connotation of "well we didn't like how the last one went so let's try again" if we were to do Gengar twice in a row. I get that SSD2 and a couple Seasonals have happened since and that Gengar is still at the top of the totem pole, but for me to be comfortable testing something twice in a row I would need to see a pretty large portion of the active community (moreso than for a regular test) rallying for it and it just doesn't feel like that's been happening. I pay pretty close attention to trends in both seasonals and bigger team tournaments like Snake and all I've noticed are the standard fluctuations in what's popular at any given time without much of an influence from Gengar itself other than still being probably the best mega in the tier. If people have truly had time to re-assess their opinions on Gengar and came to the conclusion that it was more problematic than they had originally believed, that would be a completely different story. However, I really can't say that I've noticed any difference in public opinion since the last test and redoing it now would simply feel like a mulligan to me.

At the tail end of Gen 6, DOU suspected Jirachi and Azumarill, both of which remained in the tier. Jirachi was then quickbanned by the council, which sparked one of the biggest controversies in doubles history. Obviously a retest and a quickban aren't the same things and I'm not at all suggesting that a Gengar retest would send us spiraling into controversy again, but I'm not too keen on coming anywhere close to reliving that debacle. Like I said, I am fully open to looking at Gengar again down the road, but I'm not a big fan of the prospect of approaching overmanagement with two consecutive tests of the same Pokemon.

While I sympathize with the council's decision I disagree with the justifications for disallowing a gengar retest. Many doubles players have continuously reiterated how problematic and nasty it is to play versus and have waited for months for another suspect. I, myself, have spoken with numerous of the newer vgc players and we've all agreed of how difficult it is to play vs gengar in a 6v6 format. The first test itself was one vote short from a ban. It came at a time when incineroar was just released and players did not yet figure out how to best abuse it with its type synergy and slow u turn capability with the cat. This coupled with the emergence of kartana essentially making a perfect core around gengar that people just had no knowledge of during the first test. I would try to make a poll(actually serious) asking players about gengar before just deciding that it is the same as the first test.

As for the mon itself, it is stupid to play. The biggest problem is the mirror. I know it sounds stupid to blame it on the tie, but the mirror literally always comes down to the tie. I've seen so many games come down to the tie that modest or even bulky gengar is frankly unviable(the 6v6 trap is too valuable to not risk the tie). The winner of the tie then gets such a snowball that they almost never lose and this is the most common mega so this situation happens frequently. I didn't use gengar much in snake just so I didn't have to deal with this stupidity. Shadow tag is also still stupid even outside of the mirror as well. I've had so many times where I or an opponent would just pin a mon into a bad position and then rip through the partner to an easy victory. I've realized that even chansey isn't that reliable versus it since psywave is unreliable and a smart player will just keep attacking the partner. It's comparable to azu rachi of last generation where u could make the right play but still get boned because the opponent has gotten their gengar in a checkmate position.

Finally about the comparison to the azu rachi test of last generation. I'm probably repeating what's already been said but, that decision was controversial because of the way it was handled, not whether azu rachi was problematic itself. The decision was unprompted, had no community input and the council did not communicate effectively as to why one day, they just randomly decided to ban jirachi. The duo itself was probably broken but there could've been a better way to handle its re-test. Though it does seem that this test is being driven by singles players mostly, a lot of doubles players have leaned towards a retest but just haven't expressed it publicly for a long time.

 

[Ezrael]

I don't know anything about tiering philosophy and suspecting and so on, so all I can do is talk about how completely idiotic mega gengar is.
There are two main reasons I think Gengar is banworthy. 1) it's the best mon in the tier by a pretty wide margin, and 2) mirror matches are cancerous.
The first statement is pretty controversial. when asked for the best mon, mons like incineroar or landorus come to mind, for their splashability and versatility. The one pokemon that has no proper counters, however, is Gengar. Gengar can come in on any pokemon, trap it, switch in the counter, take a knock out and eliminate your team's whole answer to something. I've been playing DLT and SSD, and have played a bunch of sets of dou and not once did I have a team that felt like I had a truly positive matchup vs mega gengar due to its ability to invalidate counters to the other parts of its team. Gengar can also be run with good pokemon, unlike charizard. When you put gengar on a team, you can run pretty much any core around it that you want; gengar doesn't hamper your team building because it occupies a niche not currently taken up by the strongest pokemon in the metagame: incin fini kart lando. So gengar doesn't hamper your teambuilding, can eliminate counters to other parts of your team, and has no real counters in teambuilding (beating it in play is possible)

However, none of this would be a problem, or at least wouldn't be anywhere near as much of one if gengar mirrors weren't cancerous to play. Landorus and Incineroar don't feel like problems because the way in which each one interacts with itself. Landorus beats landorus, but only by resisting ground and reducing its damage. Same for incineroar. Both mons interact in a healthy manner because they beat themselves in a slow, measured way that adds to the complexity, consistency, and skill of the game. Not so with Gengar. Gengar is almost forced to run max speed to be able to speed tie itself (and tapu koko), and because of gengar's ability to pivot on its teams, gengar mirror matches often have board positions where you have gengar vs gengar. Neither gengar player is able to switch out, as then they completely lose board position and also one of their mons gets chunked on the switch in. Further, switching out is unfavorable because it can be theoretically read into and you lose even more board presence for it. So most players feel they have to, and often indeed do have to go for the tie. This leads to pretty cancerous positions. Take this replay of mine from SSD vs MajorBowman (sorry jake) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7doublesou-403917. I manage to get myself into a very strong position up through turn 8. turn 9, my opponent reveals some slight information that enables him to break my sub. Now, I still should, under normal pokemon conditions, be quite favored; I have gengar and incineroar, two strong answers to opposing gengar, and gengar fini incineroar, three strong checks to lele. I am forced, however, to go for the speed tie with Jake's gengar to potentially win the game, and I lose it. I am able to pull the game back, but the speed tie had way too much impact in the outcome of the game.
A similar situation happened to me in week 1 of SSD, where I played Emforbes. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7doublesou-393967
Again, the game is close, and we're both playing solidly. Eventually, however, it has to come down to me shadow balling his gengar, or him shadow balling mine (on turn 10). I win the tie, and win the game.
This situation has come up again and again on ladder as well, and even in my DLT top 16 set. too many times I'm forced to shadow ball my opponent's gengar and just hope. That's not good pokemon.
If gengar wasn't as good, so it was possible to have teams that were good and also favored vs it, or didn't have as cancerous of a mirror match as it does, I might err on the side of no test and/or no ban. However, playing the best mon in the tier vs itself feels like flipping a coin for the game in a way that is almost built in from team preview. That shouldn't happen.

 

[Charlotte]

I'd understand not wanting to resuspect back-to-back if was only 3 or 4 months, that would feel too soon, but 6 months is a long time. That's ~1/6th of the entire gen's main life span (assuming 3 years). Even less reason for controversy given that there was a simple majority in favour of the ban in the original test, and iirc it would have met the required super majority with the tc warriors removed.
There's little I can add that others haven't as to why Gengar continues to be a major problem. I do feel that Gengar's potency scales with player skill at a far higher rate than other mons in the tier. At lower and mid level play it can just feel like a normal mega, but at the higher and top end is where it gets ridiculous. The faster scaling pushes it past an acceptable threshold, beyond "they just played well" and into "Gengar user's options fundamentaly outclass the opponent's".
I genuinely can't see things getting better for the tier while Gengar remains. I really do plead for a retest.

 

[Fran]

i don't feel like making a long post, but if pretty much everyone agrees gar's a problem then whats the issue? marsh has been retested after a shorter time, even though it was much less influential... at least give us a suspect, it doesn't mean anything its going to get banned if its against the peoples will, it just gives us an opportunity to revisit our stance on gar after a couples of playing in a metagame dominated by it. the first vote happened not a long time after the lax ban and its completely understandable that not everyone was able to predict how exactly will the new format develop.

 

[qsns]

short post because I really don't have much to say about Gengar that hasn't already been covered, but I do appreciate the TLs being more considerate about suspect testing. Even as someone who plays a good amount of XY and despises Jirachi, that ban decision seriously undercut my faith in the council and even though I disagree with the current plan, it's much better than the alternative of not having a discussion.

That said, I think the majority of the DOU community who voted no ban was just wary of even further metagame shifts after Snorlax's ban (me being one of them), and I would argue there has been a large shift in public opinion since then. There have been significant metagame evolutions in the cores surrounding Gengar, and the ones including it are a serious cut above the rest when it comes to effectively executing a gameplan with minimal disruption by the opponent. I don't think a Marshadow resuspect is nearly at the priority level as something that is terrorizing high-level games left and right and I hope the council reconsiders this course of action.

 

[DaAwesomeDude1]

I know I haven't been playing gen 7 at all recently but I have kept up with snake/occasional seasonal games and meta trends and I can tell that gengar is a pretty big problem. All of its issues have already been stated so I'm not gonna rehash it again but as someone who originally voted no ban on the first gengar suspect, I figured I should explain my stance. I was uncertain that gengar was broken and my main issue with it was the turn it took to mega evolve. Since gengar doesn't offer immediate trapping, unlike gothitelle, I believed that it allowed the opposing player to correctly position themselves to better handle gengar. Back then, gengar's third slot was random coverage moves, like dazzling gleam for kommo and hp ice for zygarde, or taunt and very few people used sub. From what I've seen nowadays, sub is by far the best third slot because it essentially eliminates this supposed flaw in gengar. This is generalizing it a lot but either the opponent stays in and breaks gengar's sub, which assuming since you sent out gengar against those opposing pokemon, you wanted them trapped, or they switched out and now have to deal with a gengar behind a sub, which allows the gengar user to switch out to an appropriate answer. In addition, the suspect started in mid May and incineroar has been out for roughly 2 months and snorlax was recently banned. At the time, the meta hasn't completely settled yet and I was afraid that banning gengar would lead to a snowball effect where pokemon like the previously suspected deoxys-a and mega metagross would become way too powerful. I haven't been very vocal about this but I definitely support a resuspect.

 

[emforbes]

I haven't ever posted in a thread like this so I’m just gonna let my thoughts flow. I just wanna start out by saying I’m fully convinced that sm is the most competitive dou, and doubles as a whole has ever been. While 2018 has been my first full year playing dou, I got to play xy in DPL, and bw in dou tour. I have very few problems with sm, mgar being one of them. I think pretty much everything about why the mon is unhealthy and broken has been said already, so I’m just gonna close out by giving my perspective as someone who has been loving abusing how powerful gar is. Probably my favorite thing about using it is the absurd consistency, game after game it rarely fails to display how ridiculously good it is. Forcing popular “checks” like scarf lele, lando, zygarde, incin, etc to attack the gengar slot in hopes of freeing themselves from the restrain gar puts on their options, those same checks can get removed easily with mons like scarf gene, and tecrage lando/zyg. These setups are even easier to perform because of the introduction of incin coupled with the slow u-turn it provides, and holding your position as the gengar player with sub. I could probably go deeper into my love for playing with the mon, but I don’t want this post to be too long. That being said, despite how much I enjoy using it, and how badly gar’s ban will ruin my builder, I’d really hate to see any more important tournament games be decided on speed ties. Dou will definitely be a better tier with the removal of gengar.

 

[Psynergy]

I haven't been very involved in DOU since this DPL so maybe I'll come off as uninformed, but one thing that's bugging me about all this support for a Gengar suspect is that none of these reasons actually convince me that a Gengar test should precede a Marshadow test that is seemingly in the cards. Don't get me wrong, I do think the opinions on Mega Gengar are pretty clear and people want a Gengar suspect for good reasons, but that seems exactly why a Marshadow test should come first. As far as I can tell this meta isn't a wildly heavy setup meta that would be flipped on its head with Marshadow's reintroduction, and it is a Pokemon that does have its strengths against Mega Gengar (and just as importantly, its weaknesses), so it does have potential benefits to bring to current meta in addition to being a somewhat controversial ban in the past. I don't currently play this meta but I'm no stranger to this meta, and I do think there's plenty good reason to retest Marshadow at some point.

Yes, there is a lot of support for a Gengar suspect right now from top players after several months of this current meta and I think that's an important point, because in the past this meta has suffered a lot from meta-relevant Pokemon being slowly introduced after previous Pokemon are banned. The fact that Gengar is still getting called for another test at this point convinces me that a Gengar retest should happen. However, I know a few people like GenOne have commented many times on how constant addition and removal of meta elements has resulted in us playing an incomplete meta and I think this is a point that gets overlooked too often, and actually supports a Marshadow test before a Gengar one. I'm not saying that the introduction of say Intimidate Incineroar is enough to make Marshadow "Not Broken" but I think it's a much more convincing point in favor of a retest than "this meta has had plenty of time to develop and Gengar is still the best Mega and I think it's broken." Oversimplifying yes but you get the idea.

Now I do think Marshadow gets unfairly demonized by this community and so many will disagree with my opinion on Marshadow, but the meta we have now is different than the meta we had with it previously, and if it's going to be tested I think it makes more sense while Gengar is still in the meta. There's a number of scenarios that arise from a Marshadow suspect and I think they're all beneficial in the long run.

1. If Marshadow's presence is deemed acceptable and it has a positive effect on the meta that tones down Gengar, it's a very clear win scenario. To preempt the inevitable question, this is different than the "broken checks broken" fallacy (which sometimes isn't even a fallacy but that's a different discussion), because if we're letting Marshadow back in that assumes that enough of the community thinks Marshadow is not broken.
2. If Gengar is deemed still problematic even with Marshadow around, I think that's even more reason to test Gengar shortly after because clearly having another strong Ghost-type isn't impacting the meta enough to hamper Gengar's presence. Another win scenario.
3. If Marshadow remains banned then we can set the Marshadow question to rest permanently (win scenario). Most importantly, Marshadow remaining banned still allows for a Gengar test, ideally shortly afterwards (win scenario). We also avoid the very real issue of a Gengar retest feeling like a mulligan (a win for the council), which I don't think people are respecting enough. I genuinely think this community has an issue with "mulligan" scenarios that are unfairly blamed on "randoms that sway the result" more often than it actually happens. I'm not saying it hasn't happened before though.
4. The remaining scenario is that Marshadow is unbanned and people think it's broken, but this is a faulty scenario that implies this community is really going to unban a Pokemon they think is broken.

I think any scenario here benefits the community in the long run so I feel like a bit more patience pays off the best. I'm not saying all this because I really want Marshadow back or don't want Gengar banned, in fact I would probably agree with banning Gengar. I've seen a lot of posts disagreeing with the council decision to not to want to test Gengar next though, and I respect that opinion, but I think there are more benefits to a Marshadow test regardless of the outcome.