Gen 6 np: XY Ubers Gengarite Suspect Test - In The Shadows [READ POST #71]

[Hugendugen]

In the wake of the Swagger Clause, we've had a number of complaints regarding the effect that Mega Gengar and by extension Shadow Tag has in Ubers. Some even called for them to be removed from the metagame. However, as you know, Ubers is and always has been incredibly cautious when it comes to discussing bans, so this is bound to be a contentious issue. I spoke to a number of experienced players as well as long time members of the Ubers community and the responses varied widely, from "please ban Shadow Tag entirely" or "please ban Gengarite" to "please don't ban a thing". What makes this different from any of the previous clauses, like the Moody Clause or the Swagger Clause, is that we would not just be banning an ability or a move, but removing a Pokemon form entirely. With that in mind, I consider this the most important decision in Ubers tiering history and, as a result, don't feel comfortable making it alone. We will therefore be putting it to the Ubers community at large, through a suspect test.

Shadow Tag, of course, prevents the opponent's Pokemon from switching out, with the exception of Ghost type Pokemon as of Generation 6. It was first introduced as Wynaut and Wobbuffet's signature ability back in Gen 3, where it was banned from OverUsed, but never from Ubers. This remained the case until Gen 5, with the advent of Hidden Abilities, where Shadow Tag was given to Gothitelle and teased to Chandelure, but ultimately replaced by Infiltrator. Gothitelle was allowed and Wynaut/Wobbuffet were both unbanned from OU play. However Gen 6 brought us Mega Evolutions and the infamous Shadow Tag Mega Gengar, boasting much better speed, offensive capabilities and movepool than any of the previous users.

Proponents of the ban argue that it limits the teambuilding process and is ultimately uncompetitive, while opponents argue either that we should never ban Pokemon or forms from Ubers or that Mega Gengar simply isn't uncompetitive enough to warrant a ban. There is a precedent for removing aspects of the metagame that are almost entirely luck based or incredibly uncompetitive, for instance the OHKO, Moody and Swagger Clauses. The aim of this suspect test is to gauge both whether we are comfortable removing a Pokemon form entirely and then whether Gengarite or Shadow Tag as a whole in fact are sufficiently uncompetitive.

Of those who are pro-ban, some argue that Shadow Tag as whole should be banned, including on Wobbuffet and Gothitelle, while others argue that Mega Gengar is the only real offender and therefore simply that Gengarite should be banned. We will start by testing Gengarite and in the event that people do vote to ban it, we will then test the ability Shadow Tag. This allows us to make a decision on Mega Gengar before the Ubers Grand Slam kicks off, but also gives us adequate time to test and consider both options.

The laddering phase of the suspect test starts now and will end at midnight GMT+1 between Sunday the 24th and Monday the 25th of August (6pm EDT on the 24th of August). To get a chance to vote, you will need to achieve a COIL rating of 2400 or more on Showdown's Ubers (suspect test) ladder, which has now been reset. After consulting Antar, we decided on a B value of 29. This means that a player with a GXE of 100 would need to play 40 battles to qualify, while 60 is the lowest possible GXE that a player can qualify with (if they play infinite battles). To work out roughly how many battles you would need to play, plug your GXE into the following formlua:

N=29.0/log2(40*GXE/2400)

Google Calculator works great for that.

Here are a few sample values:

GXE N
100 40
90 50
85 58
80 70
75 91
70 131
65 252
60 Infinite

Once the laddering phase is over, we will have a week for voting which ends at midnight GMT+1 between the 31st of August and the 1st of September. Those who vote will also be required to personally write a paragraph explaining why they voted for the option that they did. Votes that do not include a paragraph or which are based on poor reasoning will not be counted.

The purpose of this thread is to give you guys the opportunity to discuss the test while it's ongoing. I'd love to hear how the wider community feels, but please use common sense when posting. Be polite towards others, put thought into your post and, if you can, try to back up your arguments with data or examples, rather than simply throwing out assertions. We'll be heavily monitoring the thread and deleting anything that isn't deemed helpful or appropriate. Furthermore, please don't go off topic in this thread. For example, please don't discuss other potential suspect tests or how this may affect other metagames. While it may be convenient, we are not required to use the same clauses as OverUsed. Evasion Clause, which we removed in Gen 5, is an example of this. In a similar vein, don't justify your argument based on how well Shadow Tag users perform in other metagames. There are many existing examples of Pokemon that perform better in Ubers than they do in lower tiers.

We may also be running a research tournament with Gengarite banned to gauge what the metagame would be like without it. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the test. Now get out there and start laddering!

 

[dice]

since i was the main proponent of this, here was my original thread if you haven't read it in regards to gengar

aka fuck gengar

With the Grand Slam approaching, I'd like to take some time to sit back and reflect upon the current state of the Ubers metagame. Take note of the use of the word metagame; as of last generation with the clause testing in BW2, Ubers became more than just ban list. Of course, the ulterior motives of the testing were mainly to revitalize the relatively stagnant ladder and introduce users to the tier that had formed. After all, all non-OU tiers are inherently given the task of tier exposure. However, following suit, it created a metagame and changed the definition of Ubers. Instead of simply being a ban list, Ubers became, quoting bojangles, "the metagame with the least amount of bans possible."

The goal of this post is to attempt to prove that the current state of the Ubers metagame is uncompetitive and to provide solutions if deemed so as well by the community. It is practical to agree that all tiers in official tournaments should be competitive. A precedent of this is the removal of Challenge Cup from the Frontier. Rationality dictates that if one is going to win a prominent tournament, it should be as skill based as possible. Thus, if Ubers is deemed uncompetitive, it should either:
a.) be removed from all official tournaments it is in, namely SPL and Grand Slam
or
b.) be fixed in a way that doesn't threaten the integrity of the tier.

Option a.) is a simple fix; however, it would be to the dismay of many Ubers players, including myself, and would remove a timeless SPL standard. I mean, let's be real: seeing Ubers in SPL is pretty unique as it has behemoths like Arceus and Kyogre duking it out. It's interesting and far different from any other tier in the generation. Additionally, it is far more sensible to fix the tier, if possible and deemed necessary, rather than just remove it from tournaments. Even though many not think it, the ladder is still existent and said metagame would still be flawed. Subforum tournaments also hold some merit in the tournament wins spreadsheet McMeghan maintains, and we wouldn't want to see Eo's name rise higher in the ranks due to his unfathomable luck via team matchup. Thus, I will be focusing on option b.).

Before I get to the real meat of this, I believe that am a qualified enough Ubers player to be creating this thread. I was the most expensive (to the dismay of my manager) Ubers player in SPL5 and made several of the teams used in it. I began playing the tier in BW and have been actively involved in it for almost two years, playing it extensively. I do not wish to have my thread discredited because of perceptions that I am not actively involved in the tier and do not know the metagame. In fact, many others of the top Ubers players such as Melee Mewtwo, Sweep, Blim, and PROBLEMS have recognized problems with the XY Ubers metagame as well that were unseen in past generations. This is not an individual cry for help.

Now, the real doozy. What is so uncompetitive about Ubers? What makes it, in my opinion ,an unhealthy metagame to put in official tournaments? Historically, Ubers has surprisingly been a very balanced metagame. By many, DPP and BW Ubers are seen as two of the most fun tiers in their individual generations as they offer a wide variety of Pokemon and team styles. Whether it be from luck, creativity, of some actual intelligence displayed by GameFreak, Ubers has always settled in the past to be balanced while still allowing for creativity with no interference. However, this generation has displayed characteristics thus far which have not been indicative of Ubers past, namely far more centralization and increased emphasis on team matchup.

Centralization isn't particularly a bad thing. GSC OU has 3-5 standard builds and small permutations as teams, but is regarded as one of the most skill reliant metagames in Smogon history. Though, in the case of XY Ubers, centralization is mainly a symptom of team matchup. I won't bother delving into the centralization aspect as it isn't relevant to uncompetitiveness; it has simply resulted from the problem at hand.

The introduction of Mega Gengar into the Ubers environment has, to put it lightly, thrown the tier into disarray. Previously, the only usable Shadow Tag Pokemon in the tier were Wobbuffet and Gothitelle. The former was a viable option on Hyper Offensive teams, typically having a set-up sweeper such as SD Rayquaza, but it was a niche Pokemon and wasn't very splashable since you had to teambuild with it in mind. Gothitelle was, for the most part, hardly viable last generation. The introduction of Mega Gengar brought forth a Pokemon which had almost everything in its kit that it needed to be effective: speed and power (it has more SpA than Mewtwo and the same base speed), a good typing to use the ability (Ghost / Poison has unique resistances and the ground immunity before the Mega Evolution is very helpful) and an excellent movepool. Having both Taunt and Destiny Bond is a godsend. This cannot be overstated. In a singles environment with team preview, Gengar can plan which Pokemon it needed to take out with Destiny Bond to most benefit the team and put its plan in action. Shadow Tag itself is an intrinsically broken ability the Pokemon which uses it gains all momentum and can dictate the pace of the game. At worst, Gengar can typically one for one vs any team and attempt to knock out a key player in order for a teammate to sweep. This kind of support and power is an unprecedented feat and has created the massive team matchup issue that is present in the Ubers metagame.

I've waited to post this thread for a few reasons. First, I was curious if Mega Gengar was truly the problem instead of lack of preparation. The most popular answer for Mega Gengar throughout the short history of the tier has been Pursuit Mega Scizor. However, this is hardly an adequate answer. Pursuit / Bullet Punch is a 50/50: if the Gengar switches while you Bullet Punch it when it's low HP, you be forced to face its wrath later in the game. If you Pursuit it and it Destiny Bonds, you have just lost your Scizor which is typically a team's main answer to ExtremeKiller Arceus, Xerneas, and also a team's Defog Pokemon. Shed Shell Blissey on stall gained notoriety halfway through SPL to prevent Gengar from damaging the stall core which is unique, but Shed Shell cannot be applied to a Pokemon which is practically a necessity on every team as a glue, Arceus. Even if you can somehow justify Arceus-Ghost + Shed Shell Blissey, there are still 4 other Pokemon and I assure you that you cannot make an adequate team which 5 Shed Shell Pokemon, or without a Pokemon which is prone to Mega Gengar. Other Pokemon that rose in popularity to help against Gengar were Pursuit Chople Tyranitar and Pursuit Aegislash (seems odd, but the standard Gengar ran no Shadow Ball at the time). However, not only the metagame adapted: Gengar did too. It began running a few different moves from its standard set to maintain its power in the face of teams beginning to try and prepare it for it: Will-o-Wisp to nail many of the Pursuiters, Shadow Ball for Aegislash and a STAB, Substitute to scout the switch to a Tyranitar, and Hidden Power Fire to stop Scizor have all revealed themselves. Gengar is a somewhat versatile Pokemon, and the situations it creates make a metagame mainly revolving around team matchup. If the Gengar can trap your Pokemon that stops its partner from sweeping, win a 50/50, pull a good double switch, etc. you are probably going to lose. Gengar itself is far more dangerous and potent than its "checks"; this means that it can be far more liberal with its ability to make plays. That, coupled with Shadow Tag, almost assures that you cannot outplay the Gengar.

As most of my points are primarily anecdotal, here are some replays and logs with commentary by Melee Mewtwo about some SPL battles, the highest level of Ubers playing:

Manaphy vs aim: Aim brings a HP Fire Mega Gengar that easily removes Manaphy's Skarmory and leaves him completely open to both Double Dance Groudon and Ekiller.

Hack vs MM2: (not to toot my own horn, I signed up for SPL to gather replays specifically for this kind of discussion so I'm going to cite my games a lot) I was very, very weak to Klefki and risked going into a hard game where I'd have to fight a Grass Arceus with a field full of hazards. However, through a dumb lucky play I was able to remove Klefki from the equation before it could setup any hazards and later eliminate the bothersome Grass Arceus, ending the game with a very commanding margin.

Kebabe vs MM2: This game featured a previously obscure Shadow Tag user that has quickly climbed to notoriety, Gothitelle, to trap and remove Kebabe's support Arceus early on so that I could use Mega Kangaskhan to maintain full control of the game.

Sweep vs MM2: This game uses the final and sorely underrated Shadow Tag abuser, Wobbuffet, to force the setup of my Geomancy Xerneas and have it in the position to sweep past the remaining 5 Pokemon on Sweep's team and win the game. Unfortunately, a haxy Moonblast drop on my turn of setup prevented the victory forcing me to hax the win back later on. All the same, it still shows just how damning Wobbuffet can be despite the more limited teambuilding options it has in comparison to the other Shadow Tag abusers.

If I need to provide more logs and commentary of good matches, I can do so.

So: Mega Gengar's presence vastly threatens the tier and removes player skill from the equation by virtue of being able to eventually trap a Pokemon of necessity in order for a teammate to sweep. This can make player skill obsolete in a 1 v 1 situation, which shouldn't be what is showcased in an official tournament. Gengar is uncompetitive.

As a point of reference, OU recently defined uncompetitive as the following:

Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hand's of player's decisions-- and do so to a degree that can be considered uncompetitive.

In layman's terms, this means that in a context of the game, the better player should typically have a better chance of winning. With Gengar, I do not truly believe you can say that this holds true in Ubers. Team matchup takes skill out of the players hand. Of course, it's always existent in almost every metagame, but as previously stated, Gengar's mixture of power AND support is unprecedented. Wobbuffet was deemed broken for support characteristics in Gen4, and Shaymin-S was deemed broken due to both luck, speed and power. Gengar is practically a mixture of the two and completely skews skill by virtue of its presence. Of course, this is Ubers, but it has the characteristics of two past banned Pokemon. I'm just trying to convey how much of a threat it really is if you haven't plyed the metagame.

So, my proposal to this is rather obvious. Either implement a Shadow Tag or Gengarite clause in Ubers. Be sure to note bojangle's wording about the new definition of Ubers. The "least" amount of bans possible may have to encase Gengarite or Shadow Tag. There is no metagame truly without bans, even the current state of Ubers as clauses do exist. As shown in Melee Mewtwo's commentary, other Shadow Tag users can cause team matchup issues as well. CM Rest Gothitelle can trap a bulky Arceus and 6-0 their team if they lack a Dark-type for the most part. But... this is minor nitpicking and not where I'd like the main discussion. I don't particularly care about which would be implemented if a change occurs, I would just like something to be done. Or maybe my concept of broken differs from everyone elses. What do you think?

To conclude this rather large post, Melee Mewtwo brought up a good point to me as for Shadow Tag clause if it was implemented: would it apply to lower tiers? I agree with him in saying that it would not. OU, UU, RU, and NU are all interconnected by usage; however, Ubers is a seperate entity and is in no way affected by any other tier. As Melee Mewtwo put it, it would be like applying an OU ban to something in Doubles. But this point is mainly trivial and nonimportant. If another tier wishes to have a Shadow Tag clause, they would be free to do so, but not forced to from my perspective.

Thank you for your time.

e: I left the solutions for this post rather open ended as I was unsure of what would necessitate a ban while still maintaining the tier's integrity. If Shadow Tag Clause is the best solution, this is what I support.

 

[Godmaster]

Sounds cool. Personally I love the perish,sub,protect, and destiny bond set. It's fun to use but I HATE it when someone uses it on my kyogre or other core member of my team. I'll participate in this. I WANT IT BANNED.

 

[Conspire]

LOL

"uncompetitive" is becoming a buzzword at this point

 

[trc]

The main problem with Mega Gengar is that it possess that same factor that causes other Shadow Tag users to be banned in lower tiers, just on a much larger scale. Switching is probably the most key dynamic in singles play; by being able to switch out of a threat and into something that isn't threatened by the opponent's Pokemon, we force our opponent to have to go into something that can deal with our threat, and so on. However, the main reason Shadow Tag users are widely thought to be "uncompetitive" is because generally teams have 1-2 solid answers to a given Pokemon and perhaps a few other Pokemon that beat it 1v1. Shadow Tag users can simply "clear the path" for a sweeper, which means it opens a hole on the opposing team far more easily than just a standard wallbreaker. Typically with Pokemon banned from OU, they are not overpowering in the slightest due to their great qualities in OU being matched by a large amount of Pokemon in the Uber tier. However, the aspects of Mega Gengar proven to be broken in OU are exactly the same in Ubers, regardless of the extra bulk or power that these threats possess. The thing that makes Mega Gengar different from Gothitelle and Wobbuffet is obviously the fact that it has better stats and movepool (Taunt, Destiny Bond, Perish Song), so there is a lot less risk involved while the reward in all three cases is the same.

 

[Nabilla Benattia]

I personally disagree with bans in ubers that are skill related, Gengar is over centralizing, but Ubers has always been over centralizing, it's a side effect of making a tier for broken mons. Gengar is a skill based pokemon, this isn't swagger or moody, it's entirely up to skill, yeah Gar can remove threats well, but if Gengar is broken extreme killer is broken, this sets a bad precedent for the meta, and I'm very anti ban.

 

[Hack]

I personally disagree with bans in ubers that are skill related, Gengar is over centralizing, but Ubers has always been over centralizing, it's a side effect of making a tier for broken mons. Gengar is a skill based pokemon, this isn't swagger or moody, it's entirely up to skill, yeah Gar can remove threats well, but if Gengar is broken extreme killer is broken, this sets a bad precedent for the meta, and I'm very anti ban.

This is exactly why we never should have started with a gengarite ban. As simple as it sounds calling Gengar the main offender of Shadow Tag, the real uncompetitiveness lies in the ability itself and new people will just see a Gengarite suspect discussion instead of the big picture: this is tangential to the test itself. Also many skilled players know that the real problem lies in Gothitelle, who cannot be counterplayed due to it not needing to spend on turn with another ability. With Gengar having to use a turn to mega evolve, it might seem like a skill based mon but in reality we are aiming towards discussing the brokenness of Shadow Tag, not mega Gengar. The way I feel it is that we might as well scrap these tests if we can't attack the focal point of the problem- Shadow Tag itself.

 

[dice]

Conspire ubers is a hypercentralized metagame and always has been

kyogre had near a 50% usage rate last gen or something ridiculous-- please don't confuse centralization with uncompetitiveness. i note that it's a buzzword but i have previously defined what it entails so it isn't a baseless term.

gengar takes some more skill compared to swagger or moody, sure, but you're placing focus on the semantics of precedents in that gengar /must be as broken/ as the instilled clauses rather than looking at the bigger picture in which its impact on both teambuilding and emphasis on team matchup perverts the integrity of a otherwise wholesome game in the tier.

i'm shocked you toss out gengar being uncompetitive by asserting that you can "play around it". please read my thread OP before deducing any more of these claims. switching is what creates "skill" in singles for the most part and gengar takes away the main feature which gives the player freedom to act effectively. this is an inherently broken strategy and never before has it been on such a busted pokemon as mega gengar.

also please do not reference gothitelle in overused as compared to ubers. this is ridiculously ignorant and shows you have not played ubers in the capacity to which you are qualified to be posting in this thread. gothitelle in ubers is a million times better than it is in ou fwiw and because a shadow tag poke isn't "uncompetitive" in another tier doesn't mean it applies in ubers because this tier is a separate entity and your evidence is tangential as per the topic.

have a nice day.

 

[pokelord223]

I feel that the Gengarite item should be banned from the ubers tier. Mega-Gengar is without a doubt, a huge force with shadow tag, and as we all know, it can trap and eliminate whatever it so pleases on the opponents team (barring ghost types of course). This shadow tagging makes it incredibly easy for extremely powerful set-up sweepers such as extreme-killer (Swords dance normal-arceus) and Xerneas to waltz in, set up with their respective moves, and proceed to absolutely trash the opponents team due to Mega-Gengar having either crippled or KO'd the counter(s)/check(s) that the opponent planned to use in the face of your set-up sweeper of choice. In addition, the pre-mega form is offers some utility, as it is able to levitate over ground type attacks and spikes allowing it to enter battle unharmed in some scenarios. Another problematic factor about mega gengar is it's extremely wide move pool, which gives you the freedom to customize your 'gar so that it can be even more effective at trapping and killing a certain pokemon that would give your team and/or sweeper trouble. So, for all the reasons I've stated above I feel the gengarite item should be banned from the ubers.

 

[haxiom]

Here are my thoughts. I think Gengar is broken, but not really uncompetitive and here's why. The argument is that preventing switching is inherently uncompetitive. However, I don't think other Shadow Tag abusers are nearly as scary and ban worthy as Gengar, I mean, who thinks Wynaut is ban worthy? I feel like it's that Gengar is just so good at trapping, with the good utility in taunt and stuff, but being "too good" goes back to broken. If there was a mon relatively as good and overcentralizing in another tier, it would be banned in a second. So, I feel like it is dependent on whether or not we want it to set a precedent as the first mon banned by being so good, or whether we want to keep Ubers as is. I personally hate Gengar, but I don't set the philosophy of what Ubers even is. For me, this isn't even a matter of is Gengar broken or not, it's more about the nature of Ubers itself. So, in other words, I want it banned, but my current understanding is that Ubers is that sort of borderline "banlist," so it should not be banned. Correct me if my understanding of Ubers is flawed though.

 

[totoTavros]

Could people possibly run a Shed Shell?

 

[haxiom]

Could people possibly run a Shed Shell?

People do on things like Blissey

 

[Secret Dragoon]

Hey this 2400 Coil. Does this have to be on the Ubers ladder or the Ubser (Suspect) ladder?

 

[Nabilla Benattia]

This is what i feel is exactly why we never should have started with a gengarite ban. As simple as it sounds calling Gengar the main offender of Shadow Tag, the real uncompetitiveness lies in the ability itself and new people will just see a Gengarite suspect discussion instead of the big picture: this is tangential to the test itself. Also many skilled players know that the real problem lies in Gothitelle, who cannot be counterplayed due to it not needing to spend on turn with another ability. With Gengar having to use a turn to mega evolve, it might seem like a skill based mon but in reality we are aiming towards discussing the brokenness of Shadow Tag, not mega Gengar. The way I feel it is that we might as well scrap these tests if we can't attack the focal point of the problem- Shadow Tag itself.

I agree with this to an extent, and certainly shadow tag is a much better suspect than Gengar, but ultimately Ubers is the tier for brokenness to some extent, Shadow tag, although broken is still skill based, and can be played around (although it is VERY difficult). Ultimately, in my mind a ban in ubers should be based around changing the meta to purge purely luck based abilities from the game, I don't agree with banning things from ubers just for their perceived brokenness.

 

[Art Vandelay]

I'm ok with people trying out suspects in Ubers as opposed to taking decisions without considering the player base (*cough*BPnonsenseOU"council"*cough*). But what really irritates me is the total arbitrary "definition" of words that are used to force arguments. Yes, I am talking about the word "uncompetitive". This is a Ubers subforum that unfortunately shares the same webpage as OU; however it is very clear in the OP how the Ubers metagame is not defined or altered by whatever "decisions" or in this case "definitions" the OU might come up with. As such, I'd refrain myself from using such borrowed "terms" (uncompetitiveness) for the sake of presenting an argument. It just doesn't have a place here. If you are against or in favor of the ban I'm sure you will find much more eloquent, better based arguments than just citing a rather bigoted, arbitrary "definition" done by a subforum with dubious credibility. Let whoever gets the reqs vote and end of story.

 

[dice]

I agree with this to an extent, and certainly shadow tag is a much better suspect than Gengar, but ultimately Ubers is the tier for brokenness to some extent, Shadow tag, although broken is still skill based, and can be played around (although it is very difficult). Ultimately, in my mind a ban in ubers should be based around changing the meta to purge purely luck based abilities from the game, I don't agree with banning things from ubers just for their perceived brokenness.

you're ignorant of the tier and the history if you think ubers is simply "the tier of brokeness". it has always been renowned as balanced metagame without player interaction.

you make the claim shadow tag is "easily played around" yet i do not see how this is the case. you practically have to double switch correctly into a chople tyranitar and then die to destiny bond and hope they don't have a yveltal in the back (ttar + fairy is very redundant so you won't have a yveltal check left) or something lol. this is a very strewn out and arbitrary scenario, but i mean.. switching is the core function of competitive play and derives perceived skill. you cannot simply "play around it". you're trapped. read my OP for logs of spl, the highest form of ubers play, in which shadow tag made a huge difference and not even the best players could "play around" it.

I'm ok with people trying out suspects in Ubers as opposed to taking decisions without considering the player base (*cough*BPnonsenseOU"council"*cough*). But what really irritates me is the total arbitrary "definition" of words that are used to force arguments. Yes, I am talking about the word "uncompetitive". This is a Ubers subforum that unfortunately shares the same webpage as OU; however it is very clear in the OP how the Ubers metagame is not defined or altered by whatever "decisions" or in this case "definitions" the OU might come up with. As such, I'd refrain myself from using such borrowed "terms" (uncompetitiveness) for the sake of presenting an argument. It just doesn't have a place here. If you are against or in favor of the ban I'm sure you will find much more eloquent, better based arguments than just citing a rather bigoted, arbitrary "definition" done by a subforum with dubious credibility. Let whoever gets the reqs vote and end of story.

the term and definition were coined for a universal meaning for the word uncompetitive created by the ou council and not the playerbase. that is, a group of 5 intelligent players attempting to express the meaning of the word. this is a minor subpoint of the overall argument, but you're supplementing a straw man by being presumptuous about the credibility by labeling the subforum, and thus the definition, "bigoted, arbitary.... dubious" when the supposedly unreliable subforum had nothing to do with the actual post i quoted.

uncompetitive is a universal term and not just strictly applicable to the overused metagame. if you notice the nuances within the post, you'll see that it applies to all metagames and forms of singles.

once again, this isn't even a major detail and you're magnifying the ramifications of borrowing a simple definition in the argument.

 

[Nabilla Benattia]

you're ignorant of the tier and the history if you think ubers is simply "the tier of brokeness". it has always been renowned as balanced metagame without player interaction.

you make the claim shadow tag is "easily played around" yet i do not see how this is the case. you practically have to double switch correctly into a chople tyranitar and then die to destiny bond and hope they don't have a yveltal in the back (ttar + fairy is very redundant so you won't have a yveltal check left) or something lol. this is a very strewn out and arbitrary scenario, but i mean.. switching is the core function of competitive play and derives perceived skill. you cannot simply "play around it". you're trapped. read my OP for logs of spl, the highest form of ubers play, in which shadow tag made a huge difference and not even the best players could "play around" it.

Oh no someone disagrees, I better insult their skill level! I've played ubers since Gen five, so I'm certainly not a veteran, but I've played the tier for a while, and ubers is a metagame for broken pokemon, the pokemon check each other, but for me the uniqueness of the tier is the challenge of trying to find a way to beat the insane power that the opposing team has. I never claimed shadow tag was easy to play around. I specifically said it's difficult to play around actually, I said possible, which it is to an extent. I don't think Gengar is healthy for the meta, and I think that it is certainly extremely centralizing, but so is every other threat in the tier, but it's what nintendo gave us, and this is a tier where the most powerful pokemon battle the most powerful pokemon. I suppose we're disagreeing on what the ubers tier should be, and for me I think the brokenness of a pokemon, as long as it's brokenness is built on skill, shouldn't be banned on the principal of what the ubers tier is. I respect that other players want the tier to be a more balanced metagame, which is ultimately why it's a vote. I probably could have worded my thoughts on the brokenness of shadow tag better, and I'll edit that now I guess.

 

[Haruno]

Here are my thoughts. I think Gengar is broken, but not really uncompetitive and here's why. The argument is that preventing switching is inherently uncompetitive. However, I don't think other Shadow Tag abusers are nearly as scary and ban worthy as Gengar, I mean, who thinks Wynaut is ban worthy? I feel like it's that Gengar is just so good at trapping, with the good utility in taunt and stuff, but being "too good" goes back to broken. If there was a mon relatively as good and overcentralizing in another tier, it would be banned in a second. So, I feel like it is dependent on whether or not we want it to set a precedent as the first mon banned by being so good, or whether we want to keep Ubers as is. I personally hate Gengar, but I don't set the philosophy of what Ubers even is. For me, this isn't even a matter of is Gengar broken or not, it's more about the nature of Ubers itself. So, in other words, I want it banned, but my current understanding is that Ubers is that sort of borderline "banlist," so it should not be banned. Correct me if my understanding of Ubers is flawed though.

Gothitelle is far more restrictive than gengar just fyi. And overcentralization =/= ban, uncompetitiveness = ban. Two completely different things. If we were going to ban things for overcentralization then fucking politoad would've been banned in BW OU straight from the start.

I actually do have a post ready for if I manage to make reqs, but I'll refrain from posting atm since I feel gengarite isn't the main problem and although it limits the effectiveness of some pokemon (pretty much everything weak to poison that doesn't have some form of speed boosting move) it can and has been played around as shown by games in upl and spl, both prestigious tours. If we were talking about banning shadow tag as a whole however....................................... well I'd be all for that.

 

[Fireburn]

Repost from Dice's thread, its more directed towards Shadow Tag itself but it applies to Gengarite as well:

I've been thinking about this a lot since banning things from Ubers doesn't really sit well with me, but I think Shadow Tag deserves an exception. Firstly, I don't feel as if we're trying to ban an individual Pokemon (i.e. like how some people were trying to get Arceus banned in BW), which is where I personally draw the line at bans in Ubers. When I think of Ubers as an "everything goes" tier, I think of it in terms of Pokemon; that is, you can use any Pokemon you want. This is because we do have precedent for banning other things such as abilities (Moody) and moves (OHKO clause) for uncompetitiveness, so I feel like calling Shadow Tag into question is fine and doesn't risk violating any principles of Ubers. That being said, you could say it would be indirectly banning Mega Gengar since Shadow Tag is its only ability, but its important to remember that Mega Gengar isn't really its own Pokemon. It's a midbattle forme-change caused by an item. It's not like Rotom or Deoxys where you send it out as Rotom-Heat, Deoxys-Speed, etc...you send it out as Gengar, and then you can choose whether or not to Mega Evolve to take advantage of the Mega forme's attributes (some people will wait to mega evolve to capitalize off of Levitate from personal experience). So if we do clause Shadow Tag, we wouldn't be indirectly banning Mega Gengar the Pokemon but rather Gengarite the item, which I don't think is an issue in terms of preserving the Ubers paradigm. I feel as if some of you already make this distinction, but I feel like its a good one to make in case anyone was leery of banning stuff from Ubers for that reason.

Secondly, Shadow Tag is honestly a stupid ability in Singles where switching is such a core aspect of both offensive and defensive strategy. I believe it is uncompetitive in a similar way Moody is because there is virtually no counterplay against it. To put it a different way, Moody and Shadow Tag both consistently generate situations in which you are helpless to do anything about it. While Moody accomplishes this through stalling for RNG rolls, Shadow Tag does it by completely canceling out what is arguably the most important game mechanic in Singles play. I know MM2 already touched on that but switching (or at least the THREAT of switching or giving "free" switches to other Pokemon) is the main reason why the concept of counterplay is present in Pokemon and it influences everything from teambuilding to predicting to making game plans. It's why you can be active and reactive and its why Pokemon isn't just Rock-Paper-Scissors with 18 different kinds of rocks. Shadow Tag ignores this core mechanic by forcing 1 vs 1 situations that is completely dependent on what happens to be facing the Shadow Tag user. This is where Shadow Tag removes skill from the game because you can't really stop this from happening; the Shadow Tag Pokemon can dictate what it wants to kill and your opponent has no reasonable way to prevent or counter this matchup using skill unless they can somehow win without switching in the STAG vulnerable Pokemon all game OR pack backup checks to everything their Pursuit user or whatever was also checking...which is not realistic at all and forces highly restrictive team builds on all team archetypes such that the entire metagame is based on team matchup.

I'm not going to go into much detail about how we've tried to adapt because Dice and Melee Mewtwo already covered that. All you need to know is that Pursuit can be countered and doesn't help against the mons that don't need a turn to Mega Evolve before STAG is active.

Essentially, Pokemon battles are resolved by three main factors: teambuilding, luck, and skill. Ideally, we want skill to be the most important factor, because we strive to make a competitive metagame. Even Uber Pokemon like Arceus, Kyogre, and Xerneas require skill to use effectively. Moody (and Swagger) subverts this by making luck the predominant factor in deciding matches. Shadow Tag subverts this by straining teambuilding so much that matchup becomes the predominant factor in deciding matches. Either way, the end result is the same: skill is no longer the predominant factor in deciding matches, which is why Moody and Swagger were banned. This has nothing to do with centralization or even balance (see GSC with supreme overlord Snorlax), since Ubers is hypercentralized by nature (see DPP/BW where Kyogre was on nearly 50% of all teams). We don't care if Ubers is overcentralized or even somewhat imbalanced. We do, however, care if Ubers is competitive, which Shadow Tag is infringing upon. Because of this, and the fact it doesn't involve banning an individual Pokemon, I feel like Shadow Tag clause is fine to implement in order to preserve the integrity AND competitiveness of Ubers.

tl;dr - Making an exemption for Shadow Tag clause is good and we're not breaking any principles of Ubers (i.e. banning individual Pokemon and still being the meta with the least amount of bans) by doing so. I know I was kind of rambling so apologies for that, I hope this makes sense to you guys. X_X

Also one reminder to everyone - I and the other Ubers mods will be keeping a very close eye on this thread. Do not break the rules outlined in the OP or derail the thread with pointless tangents or vitriol. Doing any of the aforementioned will result in deleted posts and possible infractions, so keep your nose clean!

 

[Haruno]

Oh I just realized that due to needing gengarite banned in order to get a shadow tag suspect limits my options significantly and pretty much forces anyone that thinks goth/wobb are broken while gengarite is competitive/non broken are pretty much forced to ban gengarite. Oh well.

 

[dice]

Oh no someone disagrees, I better insult their skill level! I've played ubers since Gen five, so I'm certainly not a veteran, but I've played the tier for a while, and ubers is a metagame for broken pokemon, the pokemon check each other, but for me the uniqueness of the tier is the challenge of trying to find a way to beat the insane power that the opposing team has. I never claimed shadow tag was easy to play around. I specifically said it's difficult to play around actually, I said possible, which it is to an extent. I don't think Gengar is healthy for the meta, and I think that it is certainly extremely centralizing, but so is every other threat in the tier, but it's what nintendo gave us, and this is a tier where the most powerful pokemon battle the most powerful pokemon. I suppose we're disagreeing on what the ubers tier should be, and for me I think the brokenness of a pokemon, as long as it's brokenness is built on skill, shouldn't be banned on the principal of what the ubers tier is. I respect that other players want the tier to be a more balanced metagame, which is ultimately why it's a vote. I probably could have worded my thoughts on the brokenness of shadow tag better, and I'll edit that now I guess.

i didn't insult your skill level; however, i did state you were ignorant of the tier and its history based on your claims. i could hardly care about someone's skill level in a tier when discussing it-- i just care about the quality of their claims and evidence.

you've repeatedly stated gengar is managable to play around. if so, i'd really like some tips since i'm just clueless in this aspect. how do you manage such a feat? this is a serious question by the way. i still have problems against mega gengar for reasons stated in my thread OP in the first post. to reemphasize: pursuit is a 50/50, shed shell ruins durability on most pokemon and it is not viable to have a team with multiple shed shell users without being weaker to multiple pokemon, and gengar can adjust its set to cater to its "counters".

like i said above: ubers is a hypercentralized metagame and we can agree on this and i am unsure why you bring it up. being centralized doesn't indicate brokeness; however, magnifying the aspect of team matchup and making games less reliant on simply trapping a pokemon and then destroying with a partner is not skill based. anyone can just trap a pokemon, die, and then go to town with a partner if they have basic knowledge.

you keep making circular arguments without refuting the points presented and keep essentially saying "gengar is centralizing but no broken because it's skill based" with absolutely 0 support and lack of even anecdotes or reasoning.

it's very bureaucratic of you to want to maintain the lack of clause addition, but it has been stated that uncompetitive additions to ubers can force an exception and this is one of those exceptions in my opinion.

 

[Nabilla Benattia]

i didn't insult your skill level; however, i did state you were ignorant of the tier and its history based on your claims. i could hardly care about someone's skill level in a tier when discussing it-- i just care about the quality of their claims and evidence.

you've repeatedly stated gengar is managable to play around. if so, i'd really like some tips since i'm just clueless in this aspect. how do you manage such a feat? this is a serious question by the way. i still have problems against mega gengar for reasons stated in my thread OP in the first post. to reemphasize: pursuit is a 50/50, shed shell ruins durability on most pokemon and it is not viable to have a team with multiple shed shell users without being weaker to multiple pokemon, and gengar can adjust its set to cater to its "counters".

like i said above: ubers is a hypercentralized metagame and we can agree on this and i am unsure why you bring it up. being centralized doesn't indicate brokeness; however, magnifying the aspect of team matchup and making games less reliant on simply trapping a pokemon and then destroying with a partner is not skill based. anyone can just trap a pokemon, die, and then go to town with a partner if they have basic knowledge.

you keep making circular arguments without refuting the points presented and keep essentially saying "gengar is centralizing but no broken because it's skill based" with absolutely 0 support and lack of even anecdotes or reasoning.

There's no need to be patronizing. It just comes off as rude. I've repeatedly said it's very hard to play around. I suppose you don't care what I have to say at all by your responses, which begs the question why respond? Team matchup is a core piece of sixth gen, OU is extremely matchup reliant as well, as are all of the other tiers. It's part of the game. My argument is as circular as yours, as the only response I've received so far is "you're wrong because trapping is broken" and I've responded in kind with "regardless of how broken trapping I don't support banning non luck based pokemon in ubers." My argument is circular because you keep going back to the same point. I don't even disagree with you on Gengar's qualities, everyone knows how good it is at doing it's job. There is skill in trapping because of Gengar's weaknesses, it has to come in on double switches, toxics, or moves it's immune to, it needs a free turn to mega evolve, which is very easy to find I will give you, and it often has to chose between coverage against top threats and support moves, which do leave holes in what it can trap. I'm not arguing Gengar isn't amazing (possibly the best pokemon in the tier, certainly the best at what it does), I'm arguing that regardless of whether it's exceptional at it's role it is a skill based pokemon, and banning skill based pokemon in Ubers goes against the purpose of the tier. If there's any history that you'd be gracious enough to enlighten me on, by all means inform me why I'm wrong. You haven't given me a reason you've only said there are reasons and that I don't know them.

 

[malefic]

My 2c

Gengarite is hardly the root of the issue at hand. Take a couple of examples: if regular Gengar got Shadow Tag, it would be a far, far more broken mon than Mega Gengar is. An otherwise completely lackluster Pokemon like Gothitelle is actually a huge threat on the same, if not a greater scale than Mega Gengar, being able to instantly trap and remove instrumental Pokemon such as Palkia and support Arceus and come out of it completely unscathed. I believe the following statement has been rehashed multiple times, but I'm just going to reiterate that Shadow Tag warps the fundamentals of game mechanics; the ability to switch defines Pokemon as a predominantly skill-based game, and denying an opponent that entitlement is inherently uncompetitive. Naturally, since Mega Gengar is a recipient of this ability, it is part of the problem. In light of the above, I appreciate the sentiment driving this suspect, but it's really just something that can be bypassed for efficacy's sake. Just suspect Shadow Tag already.

 

[skies]

I'm going to try for REQs, and here's my reasoning about this suspect test. As multiple people have already said, Mega Gengar in itself is not the problem, Shadow Tag is. As stated by malefic, Gothitelle is a pretty niche Pokemon by itself, but Shadow Tag makes it instantly a large threat. The ability to trap anything (except Ghost-types but w/e) and completely remove them is just creating a game with technically 6-5. Shadow Tag can trap something with a bad move, lock it into it, and then proceed to remove it. For example, a big component like Defog users can be removed without worry, therefore defeating the purpose. Shadow Tag, in itself, is not counterable. How exactly can you counter it, really? The Pokemon cannot switch and they're forced to stay in and be smacked about. The only ways out are U-turn, Volt Switch, Baton Pass, and Ghost-types, and not all of these can be on every single team. Mega Gengar can trap Pokemon like Chansey, or any other defensive threat really, and effectively remove it making its partners even harder to take on. For example, Mega Gengar + Xerneas is a combination that can storm through defensive teams and is just not fun to be completely honest. To sum it up, I believe Shadow Tag is broken, not Mega Gengar in itself, so banning Mega Gengar would not be a good idea.

Also, here are my thoughts on why Mega Gengar is not broken. As stated in my last paragraph, Shadow Tag is a huge detriment to any opposing Pokemon and Mega Gengar is so strong because of it. Mega Gengar really doesn't have good bulk by Ubers standards and it can be beaten. My main flaw with it is that it takes a crucial turn to Mega Evolve, and if the opponent predicts this and goes right to a counter, then the whole purpose of 'trapping' is stopped and it competes with other Megas as well. To go back to malefic's post again, Gengar with Shadow Tag would be an issue because it instantly comes in with Shadow Tag. Mega Gengar is strong and all, but once you realize its Special Attack isn't actually all that high because it can not hold Life Orb or Choice Specs to bolster its Special Attack, you see how it isn't really as strong as 170 appears. Its Speed is good, but it also is 110 for a turn which can be crucial. Mega Gengar is insanely strong, don't get me wrong, but I don't see it as the problem, I see Shadow Tag as the problem.

Now the main issue with banning Shadow Tag is that it impacts Gengarite and all other users, versus if just Gengarite was banned then Gothitelle and Wobbufett would still be used. The whole thing about banning Shadow Tag I'm concerned with is that it effectively does make Gengarite banned because Mega Gengar has no option, thus making it impossible to use whatsoever. Unless there is a loophole I have missed, I don't really see how this would be gone about. Also, after writing the previous two paragraphs and I read through Dice's post and honestly, as weird as it may sound after everything I have said, I have to agree with a lot of it. Mega Gengar does open up holes in the opposing team for a teammate to possibly sweep later on in the game, effectively being a godsend of a teammate. And as previously mentioned, Taunt + Destiny Bond is fucking awesome and shouldn't be undersold. It's great, but I go back to my first paragraph that Shadow Tag is the culprit at hand, not exactly Mega Gengar.

TL;DR:
Shadow Tag is the broken issue at hand, not Mega Gengar itself.


EDIT: I realized this talked all about how Shadow Tag is broken and not Mega Gengar in itself, so I edited it to really reflect my point that this post is not a long post about banning Shadow Tag, but merely how Mega Gengar in itself isn't broken but Shadow Tag is. Ya feel?

 

[Boltaway]

I feel really conflicted about this. I know that if this were OU, I'd ban Gengarite / Shadow Tag in a heartbeat (and seriously, why haven't we?), but Ubers operates differently as a tier and that's what I love about it -- that despite the centralization and brokeness of everything within, it's come out surprisingly balanced. Despite the cries of "BAN GEOXERN!!!1!" earlier this gen, people innovated ways to play around or revenge-kill it and now I don't think there's been much of an outcry anymore. Here, however, is where my conservative view of Ubers is most seriously challenged.

This is because Shadow Tag operates on a fundamentally different level than all other things we've had in the tier. Switching is the fundamental mechanic of singles battles and it's where skill comes from. In nearly every match, switches and moves based off predicted switches influence the course of the match and creates a dynamic, skill-based battle. We understand "uncompetitiveness" to be something that removes autonomy from the hands of the player. When your opponent can't switch or make any possible plays, then how is that not any different swagger?

Yes, I am comparing Shadow Tag to swagger. Because at their core, they remove autonomy from the opponent and such makes them uncompetitive.

The above is talking strictly about Shadow Tag as an ability. I realize that Gengarite is slightly different sense the opponent has one period of grace where they are allowed to switch and that, to an extent, makes it less uncompetitive than Gothitelle. But after that one turn is over, it's no different from Gothitelle, except it has base 170 special attack and base 130 speed. It allows Kyogre, E-killer, Xerneas or whatever Pokemon you want to easily sweep the opponent's team since both can run the appropriate coverage move to dismantle their checks. I don't care if it's broken under the support characteristic, and I want to make it clear that anyone arguing Shadow Tag as broken is completely missing the point. It's laughable actually. Overcentralizing is not broken is not uncompetitive. Ubers is a banlist and a tier and tiers should aim to be competitive -- I believe that's generally agreed upon. If we have an ability that uniquely removes this element, then does it deserve a place, even in Ubers?

Although I feel that Shadow Tag itself, not Gengarite, is the problem here, I will reserve most of my judgements until I ladder.

However, I want to make it clear that this is the only non-evasion ability/Pokemon ban I would ever consider voting for in Ubers and I hope that we make it as clear as possible because I do not want to create any precedent for this.