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

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I wanted to stay out of tiering discussions as much as possible, but since haxiom wrote up such a beautiful post I felt like I should too. Like haxiom I feel that Mega Gengar should be innocent until proven guilty, and looking through the arguments raised I can't judge Mega Gengar as guilty. I simply don't find the arguments for banning anywhere near convincing.

Pro-ban
There are a few other pro-ban arguments that I've seen not addressed by haxiom; I'll put those at the end.

Gengarite should be banned because it has a great combination of speed, power, Taunt, Destiny Bond, and Perish Song in addition to Shadow Tag which makes it uncompetitive.

I find this reason silly because under the fancy wording it's an argument for banning Mega Gengar because it's too strong. It's already been stated that Arceus and Xerneas (two of the biggest threats in the metagame, arguably even bigger than Mega Gengar) would not be suspected. Banning Mega Gengar because it's too strong goes against the fact that Arceus and Xerneas won't be suspected.

Gengarite should be banned because it forces an overly matchup based metagame which is inherently uncompetitive.
It's already the case that games are matchup-dependent. Here're a couple of quotes:

By Edgar, who as far as I know is pro-ban: "When teambuilding for Ubers, don't try to directly counter every single Offensive/Defensive threat, I have yet to see a team that it is able to do that, in other words, it is nearly impossible to achieve, especially in a generation like XY, where team matchup decides a lot of the battles, the best you can do is build a team that can do well against standard builds and hope that your opponent doesn't bring that threat you're weak to."

By Donkey in his RMT, commenting about his Sticky Web team, my emphasis: "The Second Game: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-1521
Problems using the polished Shuckle version. He had a significant matchup advantage, which is part of Sticky Web's niche. Also, he is the one who thought of using Mental Herb."

I don't see how Mega Gengar makes games even more matchup-dependent.

Gengarite should be banned because it takes away meaningful choice by preventing the opponent from switching.

There are a few of things going against this reason. The first is that often one does not actually have a choice, for example if you have CM Kyogre in against a Scarf Zekrom, you kinda have to switch. You don't have to, but if you want to win (and still have a Zekrom check available) you still kind of have to. The second thing is that it's an argument against banning Shadow Tag, not Gengarite. We're suspecting Gengarite, not Shadow Tag. Finally, Shadow Tag has existed since Gen 3. If it wasn't banned then because of taking away meaningful choice in previous generations, why should it be banned now?

Gengarite should be banned because it naturally forces a lot of 50/50s in the current metagame, which is unhealthy and uncompetitive.

I'll address this together with the "Gengarite should not be banned because it encourages high level prediction and double-switching" pro-ban argument. haxiom feels that Dice hit this one pretty hard; I do not. The point is that 50/50s are coin flips only if both players play completely randomly. Humans aren't random. It's possible to read the other player and predict what he'll do - and in the end that's largely what Pokemon is about, isn't it? I'll cite another example as well. Rock-Paper-Scissors is a perfectly balanced game in which it's impossible to gain an advantage over a computer who chooses its weapon as random. Why, then do Rock-Paper-Scissors tournaments exist? These tournaments work because humans are not random.

So while Dice may not think so, I'll say I think that the doubling Mega Gengar causes is a skill.

Gengarite should be banned because it limits teambuilding to a point where most fairies and grass types are almost unviable, and is therefore uncompetitive.

Implying we don't see Fairy or Grass types, but Xerneas still dominates the usage charts and Sylveon still got an analysis. Even in the two stall teams that Donkey posted, there are two Fairies and two Grass types. Grass types are rarer, but it seems to me that Ho-Oh is a bigger factor in why they're uncommon than Mega Gengar. I'm not convinced. Besides Stealth Rock limits teambuilding to a point where the Rock-weak types are severely hindered (especially those 4x weak to SR) and I don't see anyone calling for SR to be banned.

But Gothitelle and Wobbuffett ...

The problem with this is that it's Gengarite that's being suspected, not Shadow Tag. Any arguments based on Gothitelle and Wobbuffett are irrelevant here.

Gengarite should be banned because it often gets more than one KO a match.

I think this argument is naive. Deoxys-S is unlikely to get any KOs, yet it's a perfectly viable Pokemon. StallTwo isn't likely to get many KOs, which doesn't make it unviable. It's a team effort and the winner is the one who faints all his opponent's Pokemon.

Anti-ban
I think there are some arguments against banning that wasn't addressed by haxiom, which I'll put at the end of the post.

Gengarite should not be banned because it encourages high level prediction and double-switching.
Addressed above.

Gengarite should not be banned because this is Ubers, and we do NOT ban stuff in Ubers.
This argument is obviously flawed because we do ban stuff in Ubers. Sleep clause, OHKO clause, even Prankster clause exist. However we can amend it to be more meaningful: we do not ban Pokemon in Ubers. A Gengarite ban is essentially banning a Pokemon. Can you imagine a Pokemon that's too uber to be uber? What about if someone's favourite Pokemon is Mega Gengar, and he can't use it anywhere? I personally find both scenarios rather distasteful.

Some people might ask what happens then if there ever is a Pokemon whose only ability is Moody - do we ban or not? I'll say we cross the bridge when we get there. We're not there yet, and hopefully we'll never be, but if it ever comes to pass that's when we decide what to do.

Gengarite should not be banned because it is to fragile to do anything useful.
This argument is silly because Deoxys-A is even more fragile and it's still a legitimate threat in the tier.

Gengarite should not be banned because it takes one turn to mega-evolve, allowing opportunities to revenge or pursuit trap it.
As haxiom said Pursuit trapping Mega Gengar is not a guaranteed business, but nonetheless this one turn taken to mega evolve is a big deal. It means you have one get-out-of-jail-free card; you can switch to a Pokemon like Kyogre that can sponge Mega Gengar without problems and threaten to sweep. It means if the other guy still wants to trap your Grass Arceus / Sylveon / whatever, he has to outplay you one more time. With team preview giving players advance warning of an opposing Mega Gengar, I feel like one can't complain about a Mega Gengar popping up out of nowhere and trapping one's Grass Arceus (or similar).

Gengarite should not be banned because, like any other Pokemon, it is beat in the teambuilder.
I think this argument is a good one. Most of the Pokemon that are trapped by Mega Gengar have some way to beat it. There's a reason why Grass Arceus's analysis page has a slash for Earthquake (curiously, Stone Edge is slashed first - apparently QC thinks Ho-Oh is a bigger threat than Mega Gengar, and yet here we are suspecting Mega Gengar instead of Ho-Oh). Even those that cannot outright kill Mega Gengar can usually equip Shed Shell and run. Yes there's a rather big cost associated with not having Leftovers or whatever, but the point remains that if you want to escape from Mega Gengar, you usually can. It's just a question of, do you want to?

Gengarite takes skill to use.
I think this is a legitimate reason. It's not hard to say "just switch Mega Gengar in on your opponent's Blissey", but you still can't do that willy-nilly because you need to find the space to mega evolve, you can be double switched out of, you need to be able to play around your opponents' team until you can force the Blissey out and trap it, and so on. This isn't like Moody or Prankster Swagger. With Prankster Swagger one can almost write a simple program on how to play: if the other Pokemon is not immune to Thunder Wave or already paralyzed, use Thunder Wave. Else if the other Pokemon is not already confused, use Swagger. Else if you are not already behind a Substitute, use Substitute. Else, attack. It works against almost everything (there are exceptions such as an opponent that's managed to Substitute and Own Tempo Pokemon, but you get the idea). Same goes for Moody, and arguably evasion as well since one can rely on Double Team / Minimize working against almost every Pokemon, but not Mega Gengar.

Gengarite takes up mega evolve slot.
No escaping from this one. Using Mega Gengar means you don't get to use other mega Pokemon, and some of the other mega Pokemon are very strong: Mega Blaziken, MMX and MMY, and Mega Scizor spring to mind.

Finally there are a couple of questions I'd like to ask pro-ban players, because I've not seen them answered.

1) If Mega Gengar is so good, why is it that many other Pokemon are more common? Last I checked, Groudon, Xerneas, Arceus and Kyogre were all more common than Mega Gengar, even at the top end of the ladder. I did not look at every replay, but in the finals and semifinals of the SPL there were 6 Arceuses (every team had one!), 4 Yveltals and only 3 Mega Gengars. Why?
2) If Shadow Tag is so uncompetitive, why is it that it wasn't banned in previous generations? It's not like trapping strategies didn't exist, I vaguely remember a Sub + Hone Claws Dugtrio strategy meant to trap Pokemon that spam Thunder in previous generations. Wobbuffett's ability to trap Choice Scarf Pokemon and open up a sweep has been known since at least Gen 4. One cannot switch out of it, it takes away meaningful choice, etc, and yet it's never been banned. Why?
 
Mega Gengar still has one pretty big flaw which can be exploited to ensure your team isn't weak to it if it's such a big concern to you; the fact that it has to mega evolve first, which gives you the opportunity to switch to a Pursuit user like Mega Scizor (probably the best one imo, because it gets psuedo STAB on it thanks to technician and always OHKO's if Gengar tries to switch out even with 0 Atk investment, and it's never dead weight since it can Defog and also prevents Xern from being able to sweep if you can get some damage on it before it sets up, which isn't hard).

Other trappers don't give you this opportunity and thus the only way to truly counter them is by putting a Shed Shell on whatever it is you don't want to get trapped, which technically makes them even more restrictive on team building. The thing is though, the other trappers have never been a problem in the history of Ubers and nothing's really changed in this gen which makes them directly any better (they've actually possibly gotten slightly worse due to the new mechanic with Ghosts, not that they were really used for that anyway). Therefore, they aren't much of a point to consider in the debate, and since Mega Gengar has ways and means to play around it via team building, it's difficult to say it's an actual ban-worthy problem. Thus, I still hold that Mega Gengar should remain legal in Ubers.
 
Mega Gengar still has one pretty big flaw which can be exploited to ensure your team isn't weak to it if it's such a big concern to you; the fact that it has to mega evolve first, which gives you the opportunity to switch to a Pursuit user like Mega Scizor (probably the best one imo, because it gets psuedo STAB on it thanks to technician and always OHKO's if Gengar tries to switch out even with 0 Atk investment, and it's never dead weight since it can Defog and also prevents Xern from being able to sweep if you can get some damage on it before it sets up, which isn't hard).

Other trappers don't give you this opportunity and thus the only way to truly counter them is by putting a Shed Shell on whatever it is you don't want to get trapped, which technically makes them even more restrictive on team building. The thing is though, the other trappers have never been a problem in the history of Ubers and nothing's really changed in this gen which makes them directly any better (they've actually possibly gotten slightly worse due to the new mechanic with Ghosts, not that they were really used for that anyway). Therefore, they aren't much of a point to consider in the debate, and since Mega Gengar has ways and means to play around it via team building, it's difficult to say it's an actual ban-worthy problem. Thus, I still hold that Mega Gengar should remain legal in Ubers.
Not trying to either support or rebut the argument, but I should note that no Pursuit user (edit: except, maybe, Mega Aerodactyl) is a MGengar answer, Scizor included, as HP Fire MGengar is a thing, and even if the roll is not kind to MGengar and HP Fire doesn't OHKO Scizor, it will trigger another coinflip for Scizor player: whether to Bullet Punch and take down Gengar if it decides to stay or go for Pursuit if it decides to switch out. While it is much less of a "guess it!" 50/50, and a safer and thus more correct play will often exist in such situation, it still can happen.
 
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As such, Mega Gengar creates many one-for-one sacrifices, which is "a strategy that can bear no fruit".
Just lol. The ignorance in that statement is outstanding. Let's say I have one counter or check to a huge threat. If Gengar forces a one-for-one on that counter on a double switch, then I lose. My opponent has forced a win-condition.
"well you got outplayed if he got his gengar in" - it's hardly a fair playing ground. If my opponent mispredicts, he can switch again and I can't force such a severe punishment on this misplay. Also, if I don't bring a counter to a threat, then that threat can just beat my team anyway. It's a guessing game, but one that is always going to be favored on the side that has the STAG user.
"well you should have more than one counter or check" - this is Ubers, it is very rare to have an answer for most of the metagame. A lot of teams work on the ethos that they will just force a win condition before the opponent.
Basically, I think we can handle Mega Gengar, and banning it would be very bad for the image of the Uber tier.
So we care more about the image than the game itself? Not that I agree, if anything trying to help Ubers will give it a better image and will be more steps on the way to people recognising it as a metagame used in tournaments rather than a banlist.
Clearly, a Pokemon simply having the ability Shadow Tag does not make it broken. However, this doesn't mean that Shadow Tag won't remove choice the game. For example, Sunkern would not be an broken user of Shadow Tag because it cannot really benefit to trap and eliminate certain Pokemon due to its low base stats. Pokemon trapped by Sunkern would still not have the choice of switching out. Gothoritha is a more relevant example. This level of removing choice is so insignificant that I think it is tolerable for the Uber metagame. In fact, the unbanning of Evasion Clause last gen supports this idea.
On this logic, we should allow Sunkern and other shit pokemon to run Swagger and evasion movesets, because they aren't broken.
You have completely missed the point. This isn't about something being broken, it's about something being fundamentally bad/uncompetitive in the metagame.

Things like usage and how good something is are indepedent from what is being discussed. OHKO moves, confusion-status moves, evasion, endless battle, etc. - all of these things are weighted against you if you use them (i.e. they aren't broken) (arguably, there may be a few exceptions), but they're banned in all metagames because it's bullshit and no-one wants that in tournaments or on the ladder.
 
On this logic, we should allow Sunkern and other shit pokemon to run Swagger and evasion movesets, because they aren't broken.
You have completely missed the point. This isn't about something being broken, it's about something being fundamentally bad/uncompetitive in the metagame.

Things like usage and how good something is are indepedent from what is being discussed. OHKO moves, confusion-status moves, evasion, endless battle, etc. - all of these things are weighted against you if you use them (i.e. they aren't broken) (arguably, there may be a few exceptions), but they're banned in all metagames because it's bullshit and no-one wants that in tournaments or on the ladder.
I think you're misunderstanding his argument. Moonclawz and I have talked about this and we are very much pro-ban on Shadow Tag, if you cared to read the end of his post. He was making the argument that Shadow Tag doesn't need to be broken on all mons to be banworthy. On that note the two of you agree.

EDIT:
Regarding shrang:
I didn't take about this earlier since no-one was using the argument, since it now looks like people are using it as the main line of attack, I may as well talk about this. I was arguing with WreckDra about this yesterday, so I may as present this a bit more fluently. This whole 50/50 argument is really flimsy, actually. There are a couple of things wrong. Firstly I don't see how the 50/50 with the Shadow Tag switch-in is different to any other 50/50 in the game. The only thing objectively different about this 50/50 to say, a Specs Reshiram vs your Groudon (and you have to predict whether it would Blue Flare/Draco Meteor so there isn't really a safe switch-in), or a CB Zekrom vs your Kyogre (again whether you have to switch to your Ground or your Fairy) is the timing of the 50/50. One happens in the turn, one happens before. It's still a 50/50. I fail to see how this "oh I can't switch in my *insert Kyogre counter* into Kyogre because I might get trapped by Gengar" is uncompetitive. You decide when to switch your mon in, and you pay for the consequences for a bad switch. If you call this a coinflip, you may as call every "prediction" in Pokemon a coinflip. You could have a Xerneas in against CB Zekrom and you're "predicting" that they'll go into Scizor so you can bring in your Specs Kyogre, instead they Bolt Strikes your face and kills your Kyogre. You lost that "coinflip" (I know, I know, it's not a 50/50, but it was a gamble nonetheless, one your opponent won). The difference between this and the other bans we've done is that YOU made the decision, not some arbitrary judge known as the RNG. I can't see how this is uncompetitive. Why are we calling certain 50/50 "coinflips" and calling others "choices"? If you predicted wrong, you got outplayed. If we're going to complain about these "coinflips", why the hell are we playing Pokemon?

Secondly, this argument is still implying that this one 50/50 (or multiple 50/50s) has a direct causative relationship with the outcome of the battle. Just because you won this "50/50" and brought your Gothitelle in against someone's Grassceus and wrecked it suddenly means you've won the game. In my previous posts, I have addressed why this is not the case, so I'm not going to go into detail apart from highlight the main points that:
- Just because you've trapped the victim does not mean that you've successfully removed it (Taunt/Destiny Bond 50/50s, Shed Shell, U-turn/Volt Switch, some trapped Pokemon simply doesn't care)
- A lot of things can happen between the trap and kill and the end of the game which can tip the favour just as much (minus hax, even though hax is probably more significant than many factors in a game)
- If your team only has one thing stopping itself from being totally annihilated by another threat from the opposing team that is easily removed by Shadow Tag, you've made a shit team. I know you all don't like the "get gud" argument, but sometimes I'm just going to call things for what they are.

Another thing that was brought up was the C Allstar vs Melee game (http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uberssuspecttest-145702148) which people are citing for the "50/50s" that Shadow Tag brought up. This game is a horrible example for pro-banners, actually, since it proves MY point. Even though Melee won some "coinflips" on threatening to use Goth to trap specific mons and thus baiting out Spiritomb and therefore taking out multiple mons, he still fucking lost. What more evidence do you want that I am now using a game which people are using as an example to ban S-Tag as an example to show that even though you can trap or threaten to trap certain mons and thus force "50/50s" that the person still lost? Did Shadow Tag have a causative result to multiple mons getting killed? Yes. Did it have a causative relationship to the result of the game? No. It's just another game of Pokemon, where Melee outplayed his opponent but still got resulted in getting outplayed in the end, nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, those examples you gave are indeed coinflips. There are a couple things about these coinflips that differ from the ones Shadow Tag makes. First, most dedicated walls can take attacks of both typings quite comfortably. For example, support Landorus-T and Groudon can take CB Dragon Claws nicely enough to retaliate and don't get KOed by Outrage which results in a free switch to the Fairy type. Second, they tend to have a much greater impact towards the end of the game, when the pokemon you mentioned are the last remaining on each side. This position is generally reached at an even 2v2, where unfortunately pokemon games are hard to tie and end up being decided by said 50/50. On the other hand, Shadow Tag 50/50s can remove threats/obstacles to teams at a previously-neutral 6v6 state. I'd much rather play rock-paper-scissors at the end of the game, when each of my opponent and me had our chances to outplay (note: not out-predict, I think there's a difference) the other than engage in a 50/50 at the beginning of the game before I've had those chances.

Of course, this only argument only holds water if 50/50s have such a great impact on the game, as you said. You point to the C All Star vs MM2 game as an example of C All Star winning despite losing crucial mons to guessing around STag. Yes, any game is winnable with sufficient luck and opponent misplays. MM2 not only played very nervously around Gastrodon before losing half his team to Ho-oh but also proceeded to lose two of the 50/50s you described as well as missing a potentially game-saving fire blast. Having to win in such a fashion shouldn't be the price to pay for being Roared out to Chansey on the turn Dialga dies to burn.
 
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Voting Do Not Ban on Gengarite.

I base this on 208 uberssuspect ladder games without having used MGengar at all. The most dangerous MGengars I faced were those that didn't make much use of its annoying traits (perish song, destiny bond, taunt, etc), but rather those that simply use its great SpA and Speed, combined with immunity to Extreme Speed. Against MGengar, I was never truly out of options or lost due to anti-competitive mechanics. Ultimately, the turn required to mega-evolve derails Gengar's ability to act as a silver bullet to take out a key threat. It can do so after mega evolving, but at that point your opponent is required to outplay you to some degree, which runs counter to the notion of being anti-competitive. MGengar does not act as a magical win button, or even as a perfect assassin for any singular threat. If it started off Mega-Evolved, or if team preview did not exist, then it likely would. But it does not, and team preview does exist.
 

Empress

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"well you got outplayed if he got his gengar in" - it's hardly a fair playing ground. If my opponent mispredicts, he can switch again and I can't force such a severe punishment on this misplay. Also, if I don't bring a counter to a threat, then that threat can just beat my team anyway. It's a guessing game, but one that is always going to be favored on the side that has the STAG user.
"well you should have more than one counter or check" - this is Ubers, it is very rare to have an answer for most of the metagame. A lot of teams work on the ethos that they will just force a win condition before the opponent.

So we care more about the image than the game itself? Not that I agree, if anything trying to help Ubers will give it a better image and will be more steps on the way to people recognising it as a metagame used in tournaments rather than a banlist.
If you don't bring a counter or check to Mega Gengar, that's your problem. And if your opponent does get his Gengar in, it takes a turn to Mega evolve, which any good player would use to their advantage to kill it right there or bring in a counter. Its pre-mega speed is 110, which several things can outrun. Also, you do realize that Ubers is a banlist as much as it is a metagame? You can't even put Gengar and Swagger on the same level here, as Swagger's inherent luck based mechanics took any skill out of the metagame. It takes skill and a good matchup to get Mega Gengar in and mega evolve in the first place. If you can't do that, then kindly get off the ladder for good players' sake.

On this logic, we should allow Sunkern and other shit pokemon to run Swagger and evasion movesets, because they aren't broken.
If you're gonna troll, do it right.
 
If you don't bring a counter or check to Mega Gengar, that's your problem.
After reading this i lost all faith in your arguments. What exactly counters a pokemon that has Shadow Tag?
protip: its impossible unless you have twisted definitions of what a counter is.
 

Empress

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After reading this i lost all faith in your arguments. What exactly counters a pokemon that has Shadow Tag?
protip: its impossible unless you have twisted definitions of what a counter is.
On the turn Gengar Mega evolves, bring in your counter. Something like Darkrai has a good type matchup against it. If Gengar traps something that it can't kill, then the thing that it can't kill is a counter.

I'm just speaking through experience here; I never had a problem with Mega Gengar throughout my climb to suspect reqs.
 

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On the turn Gengar Mega evolves, bring in your counter. Something like Darkrai has a good type matchup against it. If Gengar traps something that it can't kill, then the thing that it can't kill is a counter.

I'm just speaking through experience here; I never had a problem with Mega Gengar throughout my climb to suspect reqs.
Gengar can switch.
 
On the turn Gengar Mega evolves, bring in your counter. Something like Darkrai has a good type matchup against it. If Gengar traps something that it can't kill, then the thing that it can't kill is a counter.

I'm just speaking through experience here; I never had a problem with Mega Gengar throughout my climb to suspect reqs.
Mega Gengar outspeeds, and then this happens.
252 SpA Mega Gengar Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Darkrai: 350-412 (124.1 - 146%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Focus Blast is analysis standard for Mega Gengar so this is kinda unavoidable. You have to bear in mind the very thing you could be using to beat Gengar is actually what Gengar wants to trap and KO (think HP Fire Gengar to trap Scizor) which then means Gengar has A) Done its job and B) Is still alive to Destiny Bond another Pokemon or even trap something else.

Or if Gengar doesnt have a favorable matchup with whatever you brought in it can just... switch out.
 

Empress

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Mega Gengar outspeeds, and then this happens.
252 SpA Mega Gengar Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Darkrai: 350-412 (124.1 - 146%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Focus Blast is analysis standard for Mega Gengar so this is kinda unavoidable. You have to bear in mind the very thing you could be using to beat Gengar is actually what Gengar wants to trap and KO (think HP Fire Gengar to trap Scizor) which then means Gengar has A) Done its job and B) Is still alive to Destiny Bond another Pokemon or even trap something else.

Or if Gengar doesnt have a favorable matchup with whatever you brought in it can just... switch out.
I actually never saw a Gengar with Focus Blast. Perhaps the players that I faced just weren't using it properly. Still, just because something can switch doesn't make it uncounterable….
 
I actually never saw a Gengar with Focus Blast. Perhaps the players that I faced just weren't using it properly. Still, just because something can switch doesn't make it uncounterable….
Well you see, now that Gengar is evolved (since you failed to counter it pre-evo) it actually IS uncounterable by the definition (Counter implies it can switch in and beat it btw) it can now come in on whatever it wants to and either Destiny Bond it (so its done its job) or outright KO it before it can do anything (meaning it can Destiny Bond something else). The ladder is generally very bad with Mega Gengar and trapping mons in general which is where i'll bet a fair few people got their opinions of Mega Gengar from.
 

Empress

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Well you see, now that Gengar is evolved (since you failed to counter it pre-evo) it actually IS uncounterable by the definition (Counter implies it can switch in and beat it btw) it can now come in on whatever it wants to and either Destiny Bond it (so its done its job) or outright KO it before it can do anything (meaning it can Destiny Bond something else). The ladder is generally very bad with Mega Gengar and trapping mons in general which is where i'll bet a fair few people got their opinions of Mega Gengar from.
Hm. Fair enough. This is perhaps the most civilized response I could have received. Good work. Shrang's pro pic and custom title speak the Ubers ladder pretty perfectly. I still stand behind no ban because of my personal experience, and the fact that even some official Smogon articles agree that one-for-one sacrifices often "can bear no fruit", but I appreciate the more well-thought out responses to the pro bans, like yours.
 
After reading this i lost all faith in your arguments. What exactly counters a pokemon that has Shadow Tag?
protip: its impossible unless you have twisted definitions of what a counter is.
Well you see, now that Gengar is evolved (since you failed to counter it pre-evo) it actually IS uncounterable by the definition (Counter implies it can switch in and beat it btw)
Well, considering the number of different definitions I see for the word "uncompetitive" I don't see why we can't start getting a little more liberal with our use of the word "counter" as well. (I'm kind of joking, but also the heavy part of my heart is dead serious)

Anyway, while we're still on this thread and the vote isn't over, I think Focus said that most compelling anti-ban things ever and I want to talk about it a little:
Ubers is in a period when it is no longer reasonable to fully prepare for all of the major threats, and I don't know how this can be adequately fixed without a push to ban even more things down the road. I'm not a fan of slippery slope arguments, but you must realize that the banning of Gengarite would mark a dramatic change in the mindset of the Ubers community. The over-emphasis of team match-up that is attributed to Shadow Tag is a symptom that Ubers has many threats that can cut through teams like butter, and that the metagame is centered around relatively few Pokémon. This problem will not go away any time soon, and I embrace Ubers as a fundamentally different type of metagame than OU, UU, or the lower tiers.
I think there is a very high level of truth to the reality of "team matchup issues." I don't think this alone made me feel anti-ban. But it was one of the more thought provoking concepts put forward. In my experience even when I've spent a long time team building there's always one monster or one set on a specific monster that I'm just shakily prepared for at best. And anything I do to prepare for it just seems to make my team slightly weaker to another set or threat, or take away my ability to punch through a certain wall to one of my threats. Or Something! The point is I can very easily see how Ubers might be close to a tipping point. Kyogure, Arceus, Zekrom, Xerneas. Every generation bring us more new threats to prepare for.
ubers has dangerous threats at every corner, and the list of counters to them isnt exactly stretching down the block.
It gets harder and harder to put all the resists on your team that you need to. Mega Gengar exacerbates team matchup issues now. But 2 generations down the road matchup issue will be around regardless of Shadow Tag. In fact, in the future, the ability to trap something may be your only surefire way to prepare yourself for everything.
I think Ubers will be far more enjoyable without Mega Gengar for now, but it's something to consider about the future. I could see my self beginning to lean anti-ban a generation or 2 down the road when Ubers becomes a "match up based shit fest" regardless of Shadow Tag and Gengarite. As, to me, with my old-school definitions, the only reason to be pro-ban now is for the issues with balance of strategies rather than any idea that there is something uncompetitive going on.
 
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If you are doing any of the following, you are playing badly and deserve to lose:
Exposing mission-critical pokemon to things that threaten them for longer than absolutely necessary. If you're not confident that your final sweeper will survive an iron head from that guy's Scarf Genesect, maybe keep it hidden until you're ready to bring it out.
Building teams where all 6 pokemon are absolutely critical in every matchup. I know that when I see someone's team, it is usually the case that one of my pokemon simply does not have much utility, or it has a lot of overlap with one of my other pokemon. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with your team, it just means that you've got something that can take a Dark Void or whatever.
Building teams that cannot handle the most common threats in the metagame. That includes Mega Gengar, GeoXern, Stealth Rock, Extreme Speed, or anything else really good and common.

Mega Gengar only punishes things that are already mistakes. It does a really really good job of it, sure, but if you're building a team with flaws or playing badly, you can't complain when the other person takes advantage of that. And pokemon has always been about making measured sacrifices for greater advantage later on.

I don't know if this is where we vote, but I'm voting
No ban
 

Minority

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What exactly counters a pokemon that has Shadow Tag?
protip: its impossible unless you have twisted definitions of what a counter is.
Smogon has an official definition for checks and counters which require switching, so obviously under these definitions nothing can check / counter Mega Gengar unless all of your team outside of your check / counter is immune to Shadow Tag. Despite the official definition I prefer Melee Mewtwo's definition of a check which is basically:

Stuff that stops the opponents stuff from doing what its supposed to.

These aren't the exact words but it was something along those lines, anyways how we define a check is important to the perception of Shadow Tag.
 
I didn't feel like making another post for a while coz I'm rely lazy but I think that there are something to be said before the vote.

I didn't take about this earlier since no-one was using the argument, since it now looks like people are using it as the main line of attack, I may as well talk about this. I was arguing with WreckDra about this yesterday, so I may as present this a bit more fluently. This whole 50/50 argument is really flimsy, actually. There are a couple of things wrong. Firstly I don't see how the 50/50 with the Shadow Tag switch-in is different to any other 50/50 in the game. The only thing objectively different about this 50/50 to say, a Specs Reshiram vs your Groudon (and you have to predict whether it would Blue Flare/Draco Meteor so there isn't really a safe switch-in), or a CB Zekrom vs your Kyogre (again whether you have to switch to your Ground or your Fairy) is the timing of the 50/50. One happens in the turn, one happens before. It's still a 50/50. I fail to see how this "oh I can't switch in my *insert Kyogre counter* into Kyogre because I might get trapped by Gengar" is uncompetitive. You decide when to switch your mon in, and you pay for the consequences for a bad switch. If you call this a coinflip, you may as call every "prediction" in Pokemon a coinflip. You could have a Xerneas in against CB Zekrom and you're "predicting" that they'll go into Scizor so you can bring in your Specs Kyogre, instead they Bolt Strikes your face and kills your Kyogre. You lost that "coinflip" (I know, I know, it's not a 50/50, but it was a gamble nonetheless, one your opponent won). The difference between this and the other bans we've done is that YOU made the decision, not some arbitrary judge known as the RNG. I can't see how this is uncompetitive. Why are we calling certain 50/50 "coinflips" and calling others "choices"? If you predicted wrong, you got outplayed. If we're going to complain about these "coinflips", why the hell are we playing Pokemon?
The point is there is zero way to solve the problem unless you are changing the game mechanics. Yes, in a Pokemon game, more often than not hax occurs. However, it is simply impossible to ban crits or freeze or something like that cause it is the game mechanics created by game freak. Pokemon showdown, as a stimulator, is not supposed to change game mechanics. However, we ban things that FORCES HAX like Moody, OHKO, Swagger etc. While some may argue about the 25% chance of full paralysis, the point of not banning moves like T-wave is they actually serve a more important purpose which is reducing the opponents' speed while the entire purpose of things like Swagger is to force hax. You are not going to stop the situation of Reshiram vs Groudon unless you are banning every Pokemon in existence. However, the entire purpose of Mega Gengar is to force 5050s and remove the most important threat in the opposing team. This is what makes it ban-worthy.

Besides that, there is a significant difference between coin flips and choices. The above situations on Reshiram vs Groudon and Zekrom vs Xerneas are more about making choices cause a more skilled player can value the risk and reward of every action and make the move with best reward. Even if he predicts wrongly, it isn't impossible to recover from the damage if the action with least cost from predicting wrongly is made. However, for Mega Gengar, the player against it have to risk every time it sends in the threat Mega Gengar is going to trap. There is absolutely no clue whether Mega Gengar will be sent in or not since you don't even know who you are battling. Every human mind thinks differently and there is no 'right decision' at all. For Mega Gengar, predicting wrong means being trapped and not getting a chance to recover since the mechanics of Shadow Tag forces either 5050s (EQ Arceus formes etc) or guaranteed removal of a key threat (Clefable etc) while other situations like the ones you mentioned does give skillful players a chance to recover. The coinflip situation is another kind of RNG actually determined by the opponent you facing which is completely random. Good luck finding a skill to beat this.

Secondly, this argument is still implying that this one 50/50 (or multiple 50/50s) has a direct causative relationship with the outcome of the battle. Just because you won this "50/50" and brought your Gothitelle in against someone's Grassceus and wrecked it suddenly means you've won the game. In my previous posts, I have addressed why this is not the case, so I'm not going to go into detail apart from highlight the main points that:
It actually has a direct impact to the game's if you don't count Mega Gengars used by bad players. A half decent player will be able to identify the most important thing for the Mega Gengar to trap and force an easy win condition.

- Just because you've trapped the victim does not mean that you've successfully removed it (Taunt/Destiny Bond 50/50s, Shed Shell, U-turn/Volt Switch, some trapped Pokemon simply doesn't care)
Of course you won't trap something obviously packing Volturn or don't care about trapping. Mega Gengar isn't something that is brainless to use. Shed Shell severely hampers any Pokemon from doing their job and one of the most important Pokemon in Ubers, Arceus formes can't even run Shed Shell. Good luck winning high level matches with Shed Shell teams btw. The Taunt/D-bond 5050s is another coinflip which further proves Mega Gengar being uncompetitive

- A lot of things can happen between the trap and kill and the end of the game which can tip the favour just as much (minus hax, even though hax is probably more significant than many factors in a game)
There is hardly any way to recover from Mega Gengar trapping(not including trapping random things that won't affect the match) apart from extreme skill level difference, choking or hax. The same can be said about other clauses. One may kill 5 pokes with a Sheer Cold ScarfOgre but that doesn't stop the remaining ScarfOgre from the opposing team winning the speed tie and killing 6 pokes in a row back. The match of me vs mm2 defines choking since I'm definitely going to lose if Melee doesn't set up Trick Room. That's like setting up +6 in all stats with a baton pass team and accidentally pressed switching out. It is only some sort of deprecated cases that isn't going to prove anything.

- If your team only has one thing stopping itself from being totally annihilated by another threat from the opposing team that is easily removed by Shadow Tag, you've made a shit team. I know you all don't like the "get gud" argument, but sometimes I'm just going to call things for what they are.
Tell me how to make an Ubers team with a secondary check to everything lol.

Now, I know Melee's been hammering at me with the "oh you don't need 100% success to be uncompetitive", but this counter-argument misses the point. The point is that Shadow Tag, unlike some of the other clauses we've put in place, while it might take specific turns out of your hands, does not take the entire game out of your hands. I know OHKO clause has been brought up a couple of times. I frankly did not care that your Pokemon could easily take out its counter if you got lucky and hit a 30% move. I cared because OHKO moves itself, if you were lucky enough, could win you te game by itself. I've seen people get 6-0'd by ScarfOgre spamming Sheer Cold. WHat used to be Evasion Clause and Moody Clause follow the same principle. Sleep is similar, and like I said, I don't give a shit that Darkrai was OP, or Melee could rape your face with his Butterfree set, my reason for banning it was the fact that again, Sleep took the entire game out of your hands because you could not control what Sleep Talk did or when your Sleep counter ended. This, is an example of what I call uncompetitive, not the crap that people have been feeding this discussion.

Another thing that was brought up was the C Allstar vs Melee game (http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uberssuspecttest-145702148) which people are citing for the "50/50s" that Shadow Tag brought up. This game is a horrible example for pro-banners, actually, since it proves MY point. Even though Melee won some "coinflips" on threatening to use Goth to trap specific mons and thus baiting out Spiritomb and therefore taking out multiple mons, he still fucking lost. What more evidence do you want that I am now using a game which people are using as an example to ban S-Tag as an example to show that even though you can trap or threaten to trap certain mons and thus force "50/50s" that the person still lost? Did Shadow Tag have a causative result to multiple mons getting killed? Yes. Did it have a causative relationship to the result of the game? No. It's just another game of Pokemon, where Melee outplayed his opponent but still got resulted in getting outplayed in the end, nothing more, nothing less.
I have talked about this just now and won't repeat again. Choking is not something that proves your point in any way.

Lastly, we are not here to make Ubers a "better" metagame, that is not the purpose of the tier. It is high time people stopped trying to make the metagame into what they think it ought to be and got used to what it actually is.
I don't see the point of not making changes to the Ubers tier simply because it is originally created as a banlist. If China kept its old cultures and didn't reform in the recent years, China will remain as a third world county till now. If Mega Gengar is proven toxic to the metagame there is no reason to keep it not banned.

I heard that some people saying the mega evolving turn allowing opponent to react making it not uncompetitive. The opponent can send in a pursuit trapper to kill the Mega Gengar. However, the truth is Mega Gengar has multiple ways to get around Pursuit trapping and some Pursuit trappers only work for a certain variant of Mega Gengar. Mega Scizor can trap non-hp fire variants and Aegislash can trap non-Shadow Ball variants. Spiritomb is the most universal 'counter' to Mega Gengar but can still fail to trap some variants like Protect+Disable(justinjiaxinghu), Dazzling Gleam, Reflect Type etc. In fact, this even further emphasizes team matchup as you are unable to know what move set the opposing Mega Gengar is having until you are facing it, when you can no longer switch. You can only pray for having the right matchup and successfully trap the Mega Gengar.

Another anti-ban point I have seen in this thread is why isn't other shadow tag abusers banned in previous generations if it is really that uncompetitive. The reason for this is people have not realized the problem before this generation, which Mega Gengar arise to be one of the hugest threats in Ubers. There is near to zero usage for Gothitelle and Wobbuffet in Ubers until the recent months where they are found to be a threat. The same can be said about Quagsire being considered shit in OU until people realized how useful Unaware Quagsire is for OU stall. Mega Gengar has the perfect tools to abuse Shadow Tag which makes people aware about the problem of Shadow Tag and things like Gothitelle are slowly getting attention.

I'm not going to write any more right now cause I feel that the points are only being repeated over and over. Btw, is it allowed to copy paragraphs from my posts for the vote cause I'm too lazy to write any more of it IMO.
 
Page 18 I skimmed so hard I'm kinda hesitant to be posting just yet. I've also skimmed some of the longer, less interesting posts on the couple previous pages. I'm just mentioning this because if I haven't addressed you point by the following, please bring it up cause it's probably because I didn't read it.

Most of the discussion that's been going on since pretty much 9 tales of ninetales (I think is the name...) made his hide tag tl;dr post has been focusing a lot on breaking down terms and getting to the root of the issue. It's a very good direction but I think the discussion has been heavily bogged down by semantics. Not to say clear definitions doesn't have place in this discussion but there's an over reliance on this vague terms and it's making the conclusions drawn equally murky.

First off, I want to point out the telephone effect that's happened to bojangles's quote. Last time I saw it, it was something like "Ubers is the tier with the least amount of bans" or something like that. To refresh memories, here's the word for word quote:
Ubers is the competitive metagame with the least amount of bans
I'm bringing this up because I think this quote is very important thing to keep in mind, well beyond the case of Shadow Tag. This is the most accurate and clear definition of the Ubers philosophy I've ever seen and I think it's an incredibly powerful reference point.

Also, don't even bother me about the context that quote comes from. It's a really fucking stupid objection because it has no affect on the validity of the statement in the slightest. There is nothing in that quote that says this only applies to that particular ubers suspecting test period. Furthermore, this definition can quite clearly be seen in observing Ubers history yourself, it definitely applies in every decision Ubers has made. Btw, this is the same reasoning for why the dismissal of the uncompetitive quote is also bullshit.

Anyways, moving onto those semantics I was talking about. The first major one I want to get at are variations of "Is Ubers a tier or a banlist?" This is a really stupid distinction to try to make. Real quick: "verb - To arrange in layers. To cascade in an overlapping sequence." Obviously, the word isn't being used as a verb here but this was a quick definition search through TIbot on IRC and you should be able to understand what I'm talking about now. Ubers is both a tier and a banlist. In fact, the way Smogon is currently structured, every banlist is a tier. Yeah, LC Ubers is the tier above LC even if nobody plays it. I'm not going to go much further on explaining the nuance, you guys should understand at this point why it's stupid spending time trying to decide what you define Ubers as.

However, I think there's an underlying idea behind those dumb statements that isn't dumb. This is actually a recurring problem for a lot of the buzzwords and terms being used in this discussion and hopefully this post will help clear things up.

The term folks are lacking here is metagame, which is a game within a game. Within the game of Pokemon we have built a new game by adding another layer of rules to the ones already existing within vanilla Pokemon. Ubers is a metagame, the existing clauses are proof of this. The underlying idea behind the tier v banlist I think is that, because of the names used, this simple fact isn't entirely realized by everybody. We call the Pokemon banned from Smogon's OU metagame "Ubers" but that list of mons isn't the same thing as the metagame we play and are here discussing that we also call "Ubers". This is why claims like "we can't ban Pokemon from a banlist" is stupid because we aren't talking about "Ubers" the banlist. This confusion comes from competitive Pokemon being orginally even more OU centric than it was before. In the this metagame you can play with the "Ubers" (banned) Pokemon so it was called Ubers when it became a metagame. There is no actual relationship between what is considered banned from OU and the state of this metagame.

The other major words that have been misused are "uncompetitive" and "broken". The issue with these words (unlike the earlier ones) are that this are made up terms to describe common concepts used in the community. So I can't simply reference the dictionary and move on. Furthermore, one of these terms are used in Bojangles's quote which is extremely significant. So, then, how can we settle the semantics and come up with a meaning? Well, like I said, these words are terms to describe common concepts used in the community so that means, instead of looking at a dictionary, we should be looking at the community's history to find those raw concepts that these words have been born to summarize. Luckily, a group of folks already did that for us. They did it because they needed a clear definition for their OU metagame but there's no reason it shouldn't apply to Ubers when it works just as well. However, if you are dubious of the definition you can still take a look yourself. What's the consistent premise(s) behind previous bans in Ubers?

I've explained it in this conversation here and have even reduced it to the bare mechanics of the game for extra clarity. I've even taken it a step further in various posts in this thread and talked about the implications of these bans / the mechanics they affect on a more fundamental, game designy level.

On the topic of extracting the premises from Ubers's history, there's a few things I want to also bring up. Many have brought up luck as the fundamental reason behind previous bans and that's not very accurate at all. Sleep Clause is a very clear example on where luck is by no means the primary concern but I want to take it a step further. Luck is not something that is inherently bad for a metagame like Ubers. The reason luck becomes an issue is because of the way it affects the things I've brought up earlier about switching and player choice. I'm fairly certain I've elaborated on that relationship multiple times before, I'm just adding this paragraph to remind folks that something doesn't need to be luck based for it to be "uncompetitive" or, in other words, fall into the precedents and same line of logic established by the previous bans.

Also, I want to remind folks of another precedent found in Ubers history. That's the fact that something doesn't need to only been unhealthy on paper but also needs to have some form of abuse that makes that philosophically undesirable element an actual concern. There was some mentions of "why not arena trap" earlier and, although I think scubasage already covered it, I wanted to bring it up again that other trapping elements (like arena trap) suck ass and that's why we aren't mentioning them. Also, no, that doesn't mean we are banning Tag simply because of the effectiveness of its abusers in the metagame (what most people like to dub "brokeness") but because their effectiveness reveals the underlying potential of the element to contradict Ubers philosophy as a "competitive" metagame. (I'm assuming by now we are all more or less on the same page as far as the term competitive goes)

Anways, tl;dr: Don't focus on nitpicking definitions, look to see if the proposed changes are founded in precedent instead. Also, "ban luck" is not the precedent that has been established.

Lastly, fwiw, I don't really care for the 50/50 arguments. It's certainly an unwanted symptom but I don't think it's at the root of the issue and is too stretched of an argument to be used as justification. Plus you can go off on nasty tangents with an argument like that. I think some of the underlying ideas of shrang's post are accurate in that respect.
 
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Minority

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However, the entire purpose of Mega Gengar is to force 5050s This is what makes it ban-worthy.
?????

If the purpose of Mega Gengar was to force 50-50s it would not be S rank, it would be lower than Chansey rank with all the other gimmicks. Mega Gengar has legitimate use. Unlike users of Swagger, no user of Mega Gengar chooses it because they set out to force 50-50s, they choose it because it's insanely good at what it does. If it always forced a 50-50 it would not be insanely good, it would be ass.
 
?????

If the purpose of Mega Gengar was to force 50-50s it would not be S rank, it would be lower than Chansey rank with all the other gimmicks. Mega Gengar has legitimate use. Unlike users of Swagger, no user of Mega Gengar chooses it because they set out to force 50-50s, they choose it because it's insanely good at what it does. If it always forced a 50-50 it would not be insanely good, it would be ass.
I think his idea is to successfully evade being trapped you have to win the 50/50 every time (or you get one free turn to mess up if Gengar hasn't mega-evolved), so it isn't a 50/50 in the sense that the odds of success for the Mega Gengar user are not 50%; they are indeed much higher.

In a similar vein the 50/50 between Taunt vs Destiny Bond is also not a 50/50 but rather a 87.5/12.5 since if each player randomly chooses one of the eight turns to attack/taunt respectively, the probability that the Gengar user successfully trades threats is 7/8 while the other player has to guess correctly each of the eight times.

I think 50/50 as a term is misleading, and Gengar's ability to force and thrive off 50/50s by no means implies that it is unviable.
 
Well, misleading in the sense that the odds are not actually 50/50. Clearly the odds are in Gengar's, or any STag Pokemon's, favor, but it's still a game of chance and an excruciating one for the other player.

EDIT: Let's not lose focus that Shadow Tag, due to its high odds of success, can easily pick off Pokemon and bite a hole in a team's defensive core. The reason why this game of chance involving Shadow Tag is so bad is because of the incredible disparity in reward with regard to risk taken.
 
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shrang

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I didn't feel like making another post for a while coz I'm rely lazy but I think that there are something to be said before the vote.



The point is there is zero way to solve the problem unless you are changing the game mechanics. Yes, in a Pokemon game, more often than not hax occurs. However, it is simply impossible to ban crits or freeze or something like that cause it is the game mechanics created by game freak. Pokemon showdown, as a stimulator, is not supposed to change game mechanics. However, we ban things that FORCES HAX like Moody, OHKO, Swagger etc. While some may argue about the 25% chance of full paralysis, the point of not banning moves like T-wave is they actually serve a more important purpose which is reducing the opponents' speed while the entire purpose of things like Swagger is to force hax. You are not going to stop the situation of Reshiram vs Groudon unless you are banning every Pokemon in existence. However, the entire purpose of Mega Gengar is to force 5050s and remove the most important threat in the opposing team. This is what makes it ban-worthy.

Besides that, there is a significant difference between coin flips and choices. The above situations on Reshiram vs Groudon and Zekrom vs Xerneas are more about making choices cause a more skilled player can value the risk and reward of every action and make the move with best reward. Even if he predicts wrongly, it isn't impossible to recover from the damage if the action with least cost from predicting wrongly is made. However, for Mega Gengar, the player against it have to risk every time it sends in the threat Mega Gengar is going to trap. There is absolutely no clue whether Mega Gengar will be sent in or not since you don't even know who you are battling. Every human mind thinks differently and there is no 'right decision' at all. For Mega Gengar, predicting wrong means being trapped and not getting a chance to recover since the mechanics of Shadow Tag forces either 5050s (EQ Arceus formes etc) or guaranteed removal of a key threat (Clefable etc) while other situations like the ones you mentioned does give skillful players a chance to recover. The coinflip situation is another kind of RNG actually determined by the opponent you facing which is completely random. Good luck finding a skill to beat this.
Actually, there's no difference. Predicting wrong and sending in your Jirachi into Blue Flare from Reshiram because you're predicting a Draco Meteor means you've lost your Dragon switch-in. Now Reshiram can spam Dragon Pulse/Draco Meteor at will. There's no way to recover from this because you Pokemon is fucking dead. Now unless we want to somehow be allowed to use Revives, you are not changing that fact. The difference between this 50/50 and the 50/50 with Shadow Tag, is again, the timing. Nothing more, nothing less. You are still the one in control of the situation, it is your own fault if you've brought in your Shadow Tag-trappable mon into a Shadow Tag double switch, not the fault of Shadow Tag. If your opponent beats you in a mind-game of when they're going to switch by capitalising on your fear of Shadow Tag, that's kudos to your opponent, not to Shadow Tag.


It actually has a direct impact to the game's if you don't count Mega Gengars used by bad players. A half decent player will be able to identify the most important thing for the Mega Gengar to trap and force an easy win condition.
Um, no it doesn't. The logic you're implying is horrendous. Just because it increases the chances does not imply that there is a causative relationship. The battle between you and Melee clearly rebuffs that notion. Again, things happen between the trapping and the end of the game. You and other pro-banners are still implying that just because you've won this one 50/50 you've won the game, like somehow this one choice suddenly mitigated every other choice made in the game. I'm sick of seeing such ridiculous oversimplification. I've gone into great detail why this line of thinking is complete bogus.


Of course you won't trap something obviously packing Volturn or don't care about trapping. Mega Gengar isn't something that is brainless to use. Shed Shell severely hampers any Pokemon from doing their job and one of the most important Pokemon in Ubers, Arceus formes can't even run Shed Shell. Good luck winning high level matches with Shed Shell teams btw. The Taunt/D-bond 5050s is another coinflip which further proves Mega Gengar being uncompetitive
- Shed Shell: This is the strawmanning of Shed Shell that I was attacking a while ago. Just because I mentioned Shed Shell does not mean I am running Shed Shell on all of my Pokemon. When I say Shed Shell, I mean using it on specific Pokemon that are particularly Shadow Tag weak. About Arceus formes, if most of them gets destroyed by Shadow Tag, perhaps it's time to recognise that it's not that great of a mon and time to find alternatives.
-50/50s: Again no different from any other 50/50 in the game


There is hardly any way to recover from Mega Gengar trapping(not including trapping random things that won't affect the match) apart from extreme skill level difference, choking or hax. The same can be said about other clauses. One may kill 5 pokes with a Sheer Cold ScarfOgre but that doesn't stop the remaining ScarfOgre from the opposing team winning the speed tie and killing 6 pokes in a row back. The match of me vs mm2 defines choking since I'm definitely going to lose if Melee doesn't set up Trick Room. That's like setting up +6 in all stats with a baton pass team and accidentally pressed switching out. It is only some sort of deprecated cases that isn't going to prove anything.
It doesn't change the fact that Melee lost after outplaying you with the threat of Shadow Tag. I know you made an analogy to China's development later (which I'll address quickly later), I'd suggest you learn something else from the Chinese, a famous saying: "Seek truth from facts". Melee choking is your interpretation, the fact is that he lost. I'm going to look at the game from the facts, and the facts clearly rebuff your notion of Shadow Tag 50/50s are causatively linked to results of matches.

Tell me how to make an Ubers team with a secondary check to everything lol.
I'll just give you an example. Just because I somehow lost my Skarmory, doesn't mean I'm suddenly x-0'd by ExtremeKiller. While no, technically none of my other Pokemon are counters, they can still, as a team, stop an Ekiller sweep (in most cases).


I don't see the point of not making changes to the Ubers tier simply because it is originally created as a banlist. If China kept its old cultures and didn't reform in the recent years, China will remain as a third world county till now. If Mega Gengar is proven toxic to the metagame there is no reason to keep it not banned.
Actually, you know what happened when China tried to discard its culture? It isn't the reform and opening up policy that you're referring to (which is still quite possible to keep Chinese culture WITH reform and opening up). What actually happened was something that happened for 10 years before the reform and opening policy. If you know your history, you might remember that this was called... wait for it... the Cultural Revolution. I don't think I have to bore you with history to tell you that the Cultural Revolution was a complete fiasco. The damage was done that Chinese architects have to go to Japan to learn about Tang Dynasty architecture, ffs. What I'm seeing in the banhappy policy shifts in this tier is not like reform and opening up, but more like a Cultural Revolution. We have people calling to ban GeoXern. I'm not going to name and shame but they know who they are. The purpose of the Ubers tier is not to have an optimal metagame, as much as you want it to be. If Mega Gengar is proven toxic, there IS a reason to keep it unbanned, and it's because we don't ban things as a principle. I'm not really concerned with Shadow Tag itself getting banned, but more of this toxic "we want to make the metagame perfect therefore bans are justified" mentality, which would only get worse with Shadow Tag getting banned, I assure you. If you want the optimal metagame, it's about time you considered not playing Ubers.

Anways, tl;dr: Don't focus on nitpicking definitions, look to see if the proposed changes are founded in precedent instead. Also, "ban luck" is not the precedent that has been established.
When you are banning things with no other bases on specific words, I think it's incredibly pertinent to argue the validity of your definitions. Your definition is clearly different from mine. The precedent that is set is not "ban luck", true, but luck is the substantive element that underlines pretty much all our bans to date. The goal of our bans was to remove "uncompetitiveness", the method in which they were "uncompetitive" was luck. Do NOT confuse those two. If you're going to call something else uncompetitive, you're going to have to logically explained WHY it is now uncompetitive, and I have argued why I believe you are wrong in your reasoning for that assertion. Like I said, you keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.
 
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if you're so put off by the dynamic of actually ~banning something~ in ubers, my first and foremost proposal was removing ubers from official tournaments if we wished to maintain the current stature of it. however, trophies and competitiveness are two things that we can all agree are mutually inclusive. it has been clearly stated that this removal will not happen. as such, please do not post or vote on your personal opinion about how you think ubers should stay. instead, focus on the arguments made by each camp and vote accordingly.

i would like everyone to rethink their stance on the issue.

i would also like to reiterate that many players are missing the point on the double switches that shadow tag may cause. shrang may not know this, surprise surprise, ad hominem ad hominem; however, effective double switches made by good players take risk vs reward, the integral concept of pokemon, into play. if shadow isn't involved, typical double switches which are almost always a "if i am correct, i gain an advantage. if i am wrong, i will not become so behind as to where i cannot come back". with tag involved, however, it is truly a crapshoot of intuition for the most part. there is no skill in a 5050 where one option gives you the upper hand and one option can lose you a very important pokemon which can almost acertain a gigantic momentum loss. as i've mentioned previously, on such a busted pokemon as gengar, this simply eliminates what i would consider a barrier of skill and the better player doesn't always win in these situations.

also, arceus is an integral pokemon for a reason. especially in this metagame, it is almost impossible to build a solid team with so many pokemon now requiring individualized checks and counters without it. please do not state that arceus may not be that good of a pokemon after all, since, if you have any experience building a serious team, you would know that it is practically impossible to be competitive without it and it is a necessary "Evil" if you somehow push the best pokemon in the game together with implications of suboptimal.

i'm not going to post any further, but i do wish that all users would consider banning mega gengar as i truly believe it would create a more solid environment and open ubers's doors to a competitive game once again
 
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