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Gen 6 np: XY Ubers Gengarite Suspect Test - In The Shadows [READ POST #71]
- Thread starter Hugendugen
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Hugendugen has to set A LOT of permissions so voting thread will take a bit. (he's also got a busy schedule so yeah, patience please)
milkyway, Sleep isn't luck based but it's still banned for being uncompetitive so obviously your definition is flawed.
minority, your comparison of Tag to moves like Taunt is flawed. Taunt and co. limit your options that you have to choose from. Your Pokemon that's Taunted can either attack or you can choose to switch out to something else. Shadow Tag goes beyond simply limiting the number of options and removes the fundamental mechanic that allows the player to make interesting choices in the first place.
Quick reminder that it's not at all against Ubers philosophy to ban a Pokemon. It is against the Ubers philosophy to allow some element to render the metagame uncompetitive.
milkyway, Sleep isn't luck based but it's still banned for being uncompetitive so obviously your definition is flawed.
minority, your comparison of Tag to moves like Taunt is flawed. Taunt and co. limit your options that you have to choose from. Your Pokemon that's Taunted can either attack or you can choose to switch out to something else. Shadow Tag goes beyond simply limiting the number of options and removes the fundamental mechanic that allows the player to make interesting choices in the first place.
Quick reminder that it's not at all against Ubers philosophy to ban a Pokemon. It is against the Ubers philosophy to allow some element to render the metagame uncompetitive.
It looks like I'm too late to quality to vote, but I just thought I'd post my opinion.
Correct me if I'm off. I personally always thought of uncompetitive as a luck based element of the game. That is to say, it is close to impossible for your opponent to win if you're just lucky enough. Double Team could make any move miss except the few always hit moves like Swift and Aura Sphere. Sheer Cold can knock out any Pokemon in one hit except those with Sturdy or a Focus Sash (and Wonderguard, if I have to be that specific). A Sleep inducing move + Substitute can render the enemy team immobile depending on how many turns the sleep lasts. Moody along with Substitute and protect can also activate evasion, giving it the same problem as Double Team.
I suppose you could make the argument that this applies to a lesser extent to paralysis and moves that induce flinching, so you could say Togekiss is ban worthy under the same logic, but it seems to me that this applies that there are more viable ways around these problems (Ground Types, faster Pokemon), and the odds of flinch/paralysis occurring tend to be capped at a much lower amount that Double Team.
I've always seen the trapping caused by Mega Gengar as at least partially skill dependent. Sure, there's some element of luck involved in predicting, but the same could be said of any Pokemon. I also don't know why there is such an obsession over "counters". Yes, they're important but they're not everything. Team Viewer is an extremely useful tool. I don't leave out a Skarmory when my opponent has Magnezone and I don't leave out a Heatran when my opponent has Dugtrio. That's just asking for trouble. Similarly, I try to avoid putting myself in a situation where I would even have to switch out if Mega Gengar were to come out. Rather than trying to "counter" Mega Gengar I try to not use a Pokemon that would have to switch out against Mega Gengar in the first place. That, or keep access to U-Turn, Volt Switch, or Shed Shell. Though in the unfortunate event that does happen, Pursuit Spiritomb is an option as a revenge killer, which is good in its own right for handling Mewtwo and Deoxys as well. The one turn delay before Gengar can obtain Shadow Tag is worth mentioning as well. Ubers is a fast paced metagame with a lot of fast and heavy hitters. There are a lot of Pokemon that Gengar shouldn't really switch into in the first place like Darkrai, Mewtwo, Deoxys-A/S. Shed Shell/Shadow Ball is also an option for bulkier Pokemon like Blissey/Lugia.
I honestly never saw Mega Gengar as anymore of problem than Arceus, Kyogre, Darkrai, or any of the common Ubers. I personally don't think "removing the option of switching" is reason enough to classify it as "uncompetitive" or ban it from Ubers.
Correct me if I'm off. I personally always thought of uncompetitive as a luck based element of the game. That is to say, it is close to impossible for your opponent to win if you're just lucky enough. Double Team could make any move miss except the few always hit moves like Swift and Aura Sphere. Sheer Cold can knock out any Pokemon in one hit except those with Sturdy or a Focus Sash (and Wonderguard, if I have to be that specific). A Sleep inducing move + Substitute can render the enemy team immobile depending on how many turns the sleep lasts. Moody along with Substitute and protect can also activate evasion, giving it the same problem as Double Team.
I suppose you could make the argument that this applies to a lesser extent to paralysis and moves that induce flinching, so you could say Togekiss is ban worthy under the same logic, but it seems to me that this applies that there are more viable ways around these problems (Ground Types, faster Pokemon), and the odds of flinch/paralysis occurring tend to be capped at a much lower amount that Double Team.
I've always seen the trapping caused by Mega Gengar as at least partially skill dependent. Sure, there's some element of luck involved in predicting, but the same could be said of any Pokemon. I also don't know why there is such an obsession over "counters". Yes, they're important but they're not everything. Team Viewer is an extremely useful tool. I don't leave out a Skarmory when my opponent has Magnezone and I don't leave out a Heatran when my opponent has Dugtrio. That's just asking for trouble. Similarly, I try to avoid putting myself in a situation where I would even have to switch out if Mega Gengar were to come out. Rather than trying to "counter" Mega Gengar I try to not use a Pokemon that would have to switch out against Mega Gengar in the first place. That, or keep access to U-Turn, Volt Switch, or Shed Shell. Though in the unfortunate event that does happen, Pursuit Spiritomb is an option as a revenge killer, which is good in its own right for handling Mewtwo and Deoxys as well. The one turn delay before Gengar can obtain Shadow Tag is worth mentioning as well. Ubers is a fast paced metagame with a lot of fast and heavy hitters. There are a lot of Pokemon that Gengar shouldn't really switch into in the first place like Darkrai, Mewtwo, Deoxys-A/S. Shed Shell/Shadow Ball is also an option for bulkier Pokemon like Blissey/Lugia.
I honestly never saw Mega Gengar as anymore of problem than Arceus, Kyogre, Darkrai, or any of the common Ubers. I personally don't think "removing the option of switching" is reason enough to classify it as "uncompetitive" or ban it from Ubers.
Sleep is super interesting.
I would say sleep is not uncompetitive. But again, if you just look at how Pokémon battling works a mechanic that allows you to full on incapacitate the enemy and give yourself free turns is just REALLY pro. Easily better than any other because every other strategy involves trying to do stuff while your opponent does stuff. lol
But sleep ruins the game the same way M-Gengar does. Without sleep clause, rather than having interesting complex battles the “competition” degrades to just trying to put a lot of the enemy’s team asleep so you can set up stuff on them.
The thing that is interesting about sleep is that similar to Shadow Tag (with Shed Shell) there actually is a solid anti-sleep tactic you can employ. Shed Shell’s issue is its total lack of viability outside of trapping, but anti-sleep tactics have a different issue. Running Sleep Talk on your Pokémon can totally be viable but when huge fractions of your team and possibly your enemies team are relying on Sleep Talk to accomplish things in a sleep plagued metagame matches turn uncompetitive very fast. Control IS out of players hands as every turn rng selects their moves for them. Not only that but the sleep counter itself is rng and so player have to deal with choosing between Sleep Talk and guessing that they’ll wake up.
If Sleep talk were not a move I think you could have a “competitive” metagame without sleep clause. It would be an even more unhealthy metagame than what Ubers is, but it would be competitive. However Sleep Talk is a move and it’s our nature as players of the game to get bored when we do the same crap over and over. And so in a sleep centric metagame people turn to Sleep Talk so that they can branch out. And everything becomes uncompetitive from there.
So yeah, Sleep, itself, is not uncompetitive. But because its strongest counter strategy IS uncompetitive it could be argued that sleep clause is maintaining the competitiveness of the game. Alternatively you could lift Sleep Clause and ban Sleep Talk for being uncompetitive and we could have a competitive but super boring sleep centric metagame. But I think most everyone would agree the solution we have is better.
I guess the point would be that in the case of sleep we have banned an element of the game that is, itself, not uncompetitive, however we did do it to maintain a competitive metagame. What’s interesting is that we opted to “nerf” the competitive but “broken” part of the issue rather than the actual uncompetitive part (Sleep Talk.) It is a clause that protects competitiveness but that executes the protection in a way that attacks the “broken” element so that people don’t turn to the uncompetitive counter element nearly as much. And the result is an overall metagame that is more competitive WHILE being much more interesting and fun.
So I think Sleep Clauses does set a president for maintaining a “fun” metagame by attacking otherwise competitive elements. The only thing that is confusing about it is that in sleep clause’s case there are also uncompetitive elements that are purged in the process. In Gengarite’s case the only uncompetitive element we could be purging is matchup dependence.
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I don't know about you, the thing that pushed me to vote to ban sleep due to the luck elements (Sleep Talk, sleep counter resetting times), but each to their own, I guess. The fact that Butterfree could sweep Ubers teams was not a problem for me. Sure, I agreed that sleep was overbearing, but the thing that really pushed it over the edge for me was the luck elements.
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Saying sleep is luck based is as stretched as arguing Gar's 50/50s are what makes it uncompetitive. Looks like a case of misinterpreting a made-up word and then trying to retroactively have the things it was made up to describe matchup with the new meaning it was given. btw, if sleep isn't uncompetitive your definition of uncompetitive is bunk.
I do not acknowledge that Gar's 50/50s make it uncompetitive but sleep is luck based, like I already said, there are more reasons than just this as to why it is uncompetitive, obviously I acknowledge that sleep is uncompetitive.
Sleep is luck based, this is a fact, and to refuse to acknowledge that fact is a face plant to all rational thinking.
These are mechanics definitions:
Sleep lasts for a randomly chosen duration of 1 to 3 turns.
Sleep Talk randomly chooses one of the user's moves other than Sleep Talk itself and uses it.
Well... if the conservative definition of uncompetitive is bunk, then maybe....
If we're looking at the extended definition that "limiting options" is uncompetitive in addition to lack of player control, we could possibly capture sleep under that definition since putting an enemy to sleep limits you options to do nothing or switch out (at least if you're looking at it turn by turn)
Under the conservative definition Sleep, itself, is actually perfectly competitive. it's a player contorted strategy one or both players can implement. the most "uncompetitvie" thing about it is the whack accuracy. Otherwise the players themselves are deciding the outcome of the battle with their own choices. The player who puts is opponent to sleep is just making the smart choice to limit his opponent's options the same way he/she could limit their oppoennt's options by trapping them. Or even the same way they could limit their options by KOing the their Pokemon (though this is a much less efficient way to limit options. It's also the one way to limit options that I'm sure you would consider competitive regardless of definitions) But both players are making the choices in the battle, and before the battle (in what strategies they bring)
I don't want to put words in someone's mouth but to say "sleep is luck based" i would think a person is referring to a "sleep centric metagame" with just the word "sleep." As in "matches in a sleep centric metagame are more heavily luck based because Sleep Talk, the main method for countering sleep, is luck based and uncompetitive."
At any rate sleep itself (and not the byproducts of the metagame it creates) is like Shadow tag in that it could potentially be competitive or uncompetitvie depending on how define the word "competitive" (strategies that are player controlled but limit option, or just elements that are not player controlled?) If you are reffering to the sleep metagame then it's uncompetitvie by both definitions though.
Anyway I personally think the extended definition is way more "bunk" than the conservative one as it crosses over into the territory of "broken" which I've pointed out before.
As I see it, sleep is a competitive element that indirectly generates an uncompetitive metagame. However rather than removing the actual uncompetitve element of the game (Sleep Talk and it's rng) Sleep itself was pseduo-banned in a way that that element is much more tame. The result being that we purge the uncompetitive side effect of sleep AND get to have a much more enjoyable metagame. Setting the president that certain competitive strategies that are too central can be removed to maintain the games "fun" and 'balance" even in Ubers.
I have mostly ignored this thread because I didn't like the quality of the arguments used to justify a Gengarite ban, and after recently reading through the whole thing again I must say I still cannot find any good argument to ban Gengarite. In this post I will reply to some of the points made in this thread. I will ignore anything that does not try to show that Gengarite/Shadow Tag is uncompetitive, as uncompetitiveness is the only reason to ban anything from Ubers.
Argument: Mega Gengar forces many 50/50s with the combination of Shadow Tag, Taunt and Destiny Bond.
The above sentence is definitely true, but it does not imply that Mega Gengar is uncompetitive. Unlike "50/50s" in situations such as Zekrom vs. Ground+Fairy, with Mega Gengar there is often no risk/reward analysis involved, which some people find uncompetitive. However these 50/50 situations are no different from moves with imperfect accuracy. A common situation is one where the Mega Gengar user has to find the right moment to Taunt, while the opponent is trying to attack while Gengar uses Taunt or otherwise stall out the PP of Destiny Bond. In this situation the Mega Gengar user has a probability of 8/9 to win the mindgame and take the opposing Pokemon down. Both players should know what they have to do (i.e. there is no risk/reward analysis involved, it is clear what the optimal strategy is), so the situation is equivalent to Gengar using a move with an accuracy of 8/9. I think I don't have to explain why low accuracy moves should not be banned for uncompetitiveness, so the ability of Gengar to create equivalent situations doesn't make it banworthy either.
Argument: Mega Gengar causes games to be decided by team matchup.
This argument is commonly worded as "preventing switching/removing choices is uncompetitive", but it basically comes down to the fact that with Mega Gengar it would be too easy to get winning matchups where Gengar can trap the (only) check/counter to one of Gengar's teammates. The fact that XY Ubers is very matchup reliant can legitimately be seen as a problem, and it would make some sense to ban something if that ban causes games to become less matchup reliant. I don't agree with this argument in Mega Gengar's case though. Firstly there is the issue Minority Suspect pointed out, that an objective line should be drawn between Gengar and other game elements that amplify team matchup reliance like Sticky Web (or other elements that remove choice like Taunt, if you prefer that version of the argument). I think there is a far bigger flaw though, because I can't see how the tier would become any less matchup reliant if Gengarite (or Shadow Tag) is banned. The metagame after a ban would have many more stall teams and defensive Pokemon that currently have to watch out for Mega Gengar. Of course other ways to defeat stall than Shadow Tag will be used, including annoying Taunt mons like Heatran, hard hitters like Specs Kyogre and stallbreakers like Refresh Arceus formes. However these ways of breaking stall are just as matchup reliant as Shadow Tag mons. Opponent has a Giratina and you have Refresh Ekiller, gg. Opponent has a defensive Yveltal, gl. In fact, as long as Defog mechanics stay the same, we will never get anything close to the gen 5 metagame which some of you are trying to create. The point is simply that without lots of hazards on both sides it is much less important to keep momentum and apply smart double switches, which takes a lot of skill (risk/reward analysis). With only few entry hazards the game will always be focused on who brought the right Pokemon to break the opponent's defensive core, and it does not matter whether this Pokemon is a trapper with Shadow Tag or just a conventional wallbreaker.
tl;dr 50/50 argument is bs, and team matchup reliance is caused mainly by Defog, not Shadow Tag
Argument: Mega Gengar forces many 50/50s with the combination of Shadow Tag, Taunt and Destiny Bond.
The above sentence is definitely true, but it does not imply that Mega Gengar is uncompetitive. Unlike "50/50s" in situations such as Zekrom vs. Ground+Fairy, with Mega Gengar there is often no risk/reward analysis involved, which some people find uncompetitive. However these 50/50 situations are no different from moves with imperfect accuracy. A common situation is one where the Mega Gengar user has to find the right moment to Taunt, while the opponent is trying to attack while Gengar uses Taunt or otherwise stall out the PP of Destiny Bond. In this situation the Mega Gengar user has a probability of 8/9 to win the mindgame and take the opposing Pokemon down. Both players should know what they have to do (i.e. there is no risk/reward analysis involved, it is clear what the optimal strategy is), so the situation is equivalent to Gengar using a move with an accuracy of 8/9. I think I don't have to explain why low accuracy moves should not be banned for uncompetitiveness, so the ability of Gengar to create equivalent situations doesn't make it banworthy either.
Argument: Mega Gengar causes games to be decided by team matchup.
This argument is commonly worded as "preventing switching/removing choices is uncompetitive", but it basically comes down to the fact that with Mega Gengar it would be too easy to get winning matchups where Gengar can trap the (only) check/counter to one of Gengar's teammates. The fact that XY Ubers is very matchup reliant can legitimately be seen as a problem, and it would make some sense to ban something if that ban causes games to become less matchup reliant. I don't agree with this argument in Mega Gengar's case though. Firstly there is the issue Minority Suspect pointed out, that an objective line should be drawn between Gengar and other game elements that amplify team matchup reliance like Sticky Web (or other elements that remove choice like Taunt, if you prefer that version of the argument). I think there is a far bigger flaw though, because I can't see how the tier would become any less matchup reliant if Gengarite (or Shadow Tag) is banned. The metagame after a ban would have many more stall teams and defensive Pokemon that currently have to watch out for Mega Gengar. Of course other ways to defeat stall than Shadow Tag will be used, including annoying Taunt mons like Heatran, hard hitters like Specs Kyogre and stallbreakers like Refresh Arceus formes. However these ways of breaking stall are just as matchup reliant as Shadow Tag mons. Opponent has a Giratina and you have Refresh Ekiller, gg. Opponent has a defensive Yveltal, gl. In fact, as long as Defog mechanics stay the same, we will never get anything close to the gen 5 metagame which some of you are trying to create. The point is simply that without lots of hazards on both sides it is much less important to keep momentum and apply smart double switches, which takes a lot of skill (risk/reward analysis). With only few entry hazards the game will always be focused on who brought the right Pokemon to break the opponent's defensive core, and it does not matter whether this Pokemon is a trapper with Shadow Tag or just a conventional wallbreaker.
tl;dr 50/50 argument is bs, and team matchup reliance is caused mainly by Defog, not Shadow Tag
So what are you trying to argue? Are you trying to say that sleep isn't luck based and therefore ST's 50/50's are therefore uncompetitive (because you're saying sleep being luck based is wrong), or are you saying that sleep IS luck based and ST's 50/50s aren't uncompetitive (the reverse)? You can't have your cake and eat it you know.
(Explanation - you can't say sleep is not luck based if you say Shadow Tag's 50/50s are what makes it uncompetitive following your logic, unless you're arguing ST's 50/50s are not what makes it uncompetitive... which if that's what you're arguing, then that's fine and I take the above back, but you are going to factor those ST 50/50s in, then you got a massive contradiction)
*Fuck this is so hard to word properly*
Also, I've explained why the whole ST causes 50/50s argument is bs. Read Minority's post about sleep being luck based. Really though, if you could choose the move Sleep Talk picked, and you knew how long the sleep counter lasted, I'd have been all for Sleep Clause being removed in Ubers (or even OU and lower, in fact).
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No I think he is trying to say the main arguments for each ban are not luck, but both the sleep talk rolls and the 50/50s are trying to force in luck as the uncompetitive argument, so that they nicely fit the precedent all the rest of our bans have shown.
Ah I see you have edited it since I loaded the page
You do realize uncompetitive was a term coined to describe sleep as well as a couple other elements that were already banned? If your "conservative" definition doesn't describe a word it was created to describe then your definition is bullshit. Furthermore, you realize Sleep Clause existed before Sleep Talk even existed and that you also couldn't wake up and attack in the same turn so there wasn't any risk of a surprise wake up? Even if you want to ignore its origins and talk about Sleep Clause in terms of the gen 5 testing there's a lot of things wrong with that claim. There were, for starters, other "alternatives" to dealing with sleep like Lum Berry or Insomnia that weren't luck based as well as substitute for the sleep abusers to handle surprise wake ups. What's more, all these "solutions" were the only options as a by-product of what really made unlimited sleep uncompetitive. The most obvious proof of this is the fact that these are still the options most teams use to deal with limited sleep so if the luck involved was what was wrong with sleep we did a very bad job of handling it. No, what limiting sleep changed is that now you can switch to a new Pokemon after one of them has been put to sleep. Unlimited sleep doesn't allow that option because it'd just donk the new Pokemon with the status and you remained in the same situation as before. This ridiculously indiscriminate punish essentially removed switching as an option and thus removed the interesting choices in the metagame and reduced it to a crapshoot of surprise Lum Berries and lucky sleep turns. Which is why arguing sleep is luck based is about as ass backwards as arguing Tag is luck based because it reduces the metagame to pre-game scouting and team matchup as well as lucky 50/50s during the game itself. These things are symptoms not the root cause.
(so yeah shrang, I'm not trying to have my cake and eat it. I think the 50/50 arguments for Tag are bs as well.)
btw, fixed, this confusion of symptoms with the actual issue is what's flawed with that second paragraph of yours. I forget the term for it but it's not an argument that you can work backwards.
(so yeah shrang, I'm not trying to have my cake and eat it. I think the 50/50 arguments for Tag are bs as well.)
btw, fixed, this confusion of symptoms with the actual issue is what's flawed with that second paragraph of yours. I forget the term for it but it's not an argument that you can work backwards.
hmmm... I guess you're right. Certainly about the other options for dealing with sleep. And probably about the historcial use of the word uncompetitive too. That's a little weird because the definition I've always seen shouldn't really capture "sleep." Maybe the most likely thing is that when people define "uncompetitive" they never give the full definition?
Eitherway you break it down the result is the same. Sleep Clause's reasons for existing in Ubers are pretty comparable to the reasons for a Gengarite clause. But I think you've pretty much nailed the truth about Sleep clause in this post.
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We (Smogon) has a standardized definition for this that is kinda good regardless of the fact it's from OU. Anyone who says "uncompetitive" I assume they mean this definition or something very close to it, otherwise they would be running around calling oranges apples.
Let's put it this way. We ban things that are 1) uncompetitive and 2) overpoweringly dominant. In the case of uncompetitiveness, I agree with Sykikal's basic definition that something is uncompetitive if that something is luck-based to the point that you can never lose if you're lucky enough. This applies to evasion (which I think should be banned ...), Moody, Swagger, OHKO moves, etc. Another way of looking at this is that you can do something without thinking. With evasion you can just spam Double Team and hope the other guy misses (exceptions apply to stuff like Thunder in rain but you get the idea). With Moody you spam Protect / Substitute until you get enough boosts to sweep, and so on. It's possible to play around these things but they restrict teambuilding to the point that it's better they're banned. These are things that I'd call uncompetitive.
The other reason to ban things is when they are blatantly overpowered to the point they dominate everything else. This applies to stuff like RBY Mewtwo and Sleep clause. I'm treading on thin ice here, but I'd predict that without Sleep clause Darkrai would be pretty close to unbeatable: it could sleep something, Substitute while fishing for 2- or 3-turn sleep, and recover health with Dream Eater. Enemy sleep talkers would be taking 12% damage every turn from Bad Dreams, and are likely to be slower than Darkrai. So if every team has to have Darkrai, then the strategy is overwhelmingly powerful and it's better to ban it.
I would not say Mega Gengar satisfies "uncompetitive" as described above. As for "overpoweringly dominant", not every team uses Mega Gengar, and even in things like the SPL finals the team without Mega Gengar won. So I will not call Mega Gengar overpoweringly dominant either. Now it is possible that players will get better, recognize the potential of Mega Gengar, etc, and start using it more. If that does happen and Mega Gengar comes to utterly dominate the usage charts (utterly dominate - it needs to dominate to the point that non Mega Gengar strategies are not viable), then I'll change my mind and vote for a Gengarite ban. Until then though, I'm voting to keep.
PS: There's at least one thing banned that isn't uncompetitive and overpoweringly dominant, as described above - species clause. I personally think it should be removed, but I can understand if others think it leads to utter chaos. Still, I'd be interested in seeing how a metagame without species clause would look like, and if it really is crazy.
Umm, can you explain this?
I kinda already have before so I won't go into too much details. Basically, the problem with working the argument backwards is obviously that a lot of things could be attributed with causing team matchup factor to shoot up. I don't think that's inherently uncompetitive much like you claimed in your post. However, it's certainly a symptom for something and in this case it comes down to how Tag removes choice. You misunderstood the argument that I had been presenting and confused the root issue (the removal of choice) with the end result (extremely amplified team matchup) which makes it a lot easier to simply dismiss. The root issue in this case violates the fundamentals of the game which is a very different animal as an argument.
lol, that's what's happening on this thread though.
I mean either the definition is based in subjective reasoning, or it's too vague, or nobody knows what it actually is. Otherwise there wouldn't even need to be a discussion, we'd just look at the definition and see that trapping either is or isn't uncompetitive.
Darkrai was not even close to unbeatable during the end of the Sleep Clause test. In fact, people overprepared for Darkrai so much that you were better off not even bringing one. The only time Darkrai was of much use was at the beginning of the test, when most people on the ladder didn't even know there was a suspect test happening. The way I remember it, Sleep Clause was reinstated mostly for the purposes of making the metagame less reliant on team matchup and less Darkrai/Genesect-centric. I imagine that keeping some type of continuity with previous Uber metagames was also one of the reasons why so many people voted to keep Sleep Clause, and perhaps that is why Species Clause was never tested (someone can correct me if I'm wrong).
As much as I hate to admit it, there is precedent for banning Gengarite for reasons of balance alone. I still don't think Gengarite is quite a big enough problem to justify removing Mega Gengar completely from competitive play, but to each their own.
...
Team matchup reliance isn't a symptom of the uncompetitiveness of Gengarite, it is the reason why Gengarite is arguably uncompetitive in the first place.
I beg to differ and I already have elaborated on why. My point was simply that you shouldn't confuse the two arguments and group them together the way you did.
While I agree with the majority of what you said I find that your argument of not using something on your team is a little flawed. If you have a pokemon on your team that is used to check/counter multiple threats in the meta game and the opponent brings in a threat then you will either be forced to sack something or switch in your counter. The opponent can then double-switch out to M-Gengar and trap that wall effectively punching a hole in your team's core. So by not using something until Mega-Gengar is taken care of, isnt the best strategy. I do see where you are coming from though and the strategy can be employed to a certain extent.
Also in our paragraphs for the suspect test, can we give credit to people in them sort of like a bibliography? Because some people have stated arguments that I hadnt thought of but I agreed with or they expressed it much better than I did. So I guess I'm wondering if I can quote people or give them credit at the end so it isnt plagiarism? Ex: "Quote" explanation of why I agree with said person.
Yeah, that's fine. There's no strict right or wrong way to do the paragraphs, just clearly explain why you are voting the way you are and make sure there's a solid logic behind it.
Actually, if you look at the actual problem of sleep, you can still get it down to a problem of luck. The reason is simple actually. Even without Sleep Talk and berries and sleep-preventing abilitites (ie Gen 1, when Sleep Talk did not exist), let's just imagine if we removed Sleep Clause how we would play the game. You would either 1) wait for sleep to run out (which the length is random) and hope you don't get killed first, or 2) preemptively use sleep against your opponent by sending in the fastest sleep inducer you know exists. The first scenario is partly based on luck but I will give you the point that sleep effectively removes choice (which I'll address in a bit). However, who wins in the second scenario, assuming that both players try to do the same thing to each other (since the first scenario is obviously putting the receiver at a disadvantage)? The answer is easy - whoever wins the speed tie and whoever hits the sleep-inducing move. What is that based on? Oh wait, that's based on luck. I guess this is the sort of situation which is relatively close to that thought experiment you brought up like 15 pages back. Here, you have something that resembles something that wins the game for you automatically (it isn't, but for all intents and purposes of the argument, let's just pretend it is). I gave you my answer how I would proceed. If it was skill-based on that winning condition, then we keep it. If the two "auto-win" mons cancelled each other out, we should keep it. If it's decided by the RNG (which in this case it's based on speed ties and accuracy), then we should ban it, which is why Sleep Clause exists. So, like it or not, sleep is still very much luck-based in its very core even if you take away what we now associate with luck aspects. Add to that what we actually have now (Sleep Talk), I'd still argue that sleep is very much luck-based even you can't see it that way.
Aside from that, I'll just focus on your argument itself of sleep effectively taking choice away from the game. I'll concede that yes, Shadow Tag has similarities to full-blown sleep in that regard. However, you have pointed out the similarities, but you'd also be wise to point the (very major) differences. Do you remember that post where I highlighted how if it was possible to have an entire viable team of Shadow Tag users, that you may have a point with this? Well, from what you've described, that is pretty much the consequence of unchecked sleep. You can switch to another mon, but it'll just be put to sleep, effectively removing choice for all your Pokemon and therefore the entire game. Now, is this the case with Shadow Tag? I have long argued that it is not, and is probably the one thing I have stressed again and again. While I don't deny that Shadow Tag takes away choice for one or more scenarios in which the Shadow Tag mon is (we'll just discount Shed Shell/Ghost-types/etc for the time being), that one choice that you are denied by Shadow Tag does not render an entire game of choices moot. If you think I'm downplaying the impact of that one turn, then I'm going to say you're overexaggerating it. In most games, from my experience and from what I've watched, Shadow Tag usually has impact on probably 1-2 switches. You can cherrypick games where Gothitelle goes on a full-on sweep (which I've watched quite a few), but most of them are 1) Gothitelle is extremely lucky that it doesn't get critted once in like 20 turns in which that 1 crit would have ended it (I'm not banking on hax for this because it should be expected that you get a crit by then), 2) even if did it's in the background of counters being eliminated (which case it's no different to any other sweeper) and 3) cherrypicked evidence doesn't get you very far. So, bringing it back to Sleep Clause, this sounds very much like Sleep Clause-controlled sleep. You are allowed to put one Pokemon to sleep (which again, for all intents and purposes of this argument = removed from the game), just as for Shadow Tag (most of the time), you remove one counter from the game (again assuming you're actually successful in removing it). If that is the case, then why is it so bad? We're not calling for a full-blown ban on sleep moves (you and I aren't, anyway), so why should we call for a Shadow Tag ban? You yourself argued that we ban ST on 1) it removes choice, and 2) the choices made on a game have significant enough impact. From what I've just outlined, I don't think it causes enough impact like what we would have if we had uncontrolled sleep.
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