Gen 6 np: XY Ubers Shadow Tag Suspect Test - Stuck In The Middle With You

[Clone]

Does this suspect mean that Gengarite is effectively banned from the metagame? Because how can one use Mega Evolve Gengar without using Shadow Tag?

If Tag were to be banned, then that would be the case, so yes, technically speaking mega Gengar would be banned. But this doesn't apply until a decision has been made. So it's not like OU where they ban the things they are testing during the Suspect process.

 

[Fireburn]

You have until November 2nd, 11:59 EST to make ladder reqs (3 weeks from today).

 

[MMII]

PSA: I can only click the delete button so fast. From now on, if you aren't posting to discuss the subject of Shadow Tag and whether or not it is uncompetitive, you risk receiving an infraction. This includes one liners and other senseless drivel called an argument. (don't fret too much on this last bit, you just need to put some minimum thought into your post)

 

[MMII]

Gotta lead by example I suppose.

I believe Shadow Tag is inherently uncompetitive because it removes switching, a fundamental mechanic, in such a nondiscriminatory fashion that it goes as far as to remove choice* from the victim. The term "fundamental" is not being used lightly here as it is upon this mechanic that the entire game of singles battling, and thus every metagame, is built upon. The removal of choice can also be found present in every single element justly banned by an existing clause in the Ubers metagame and is therefore an argument founded upon precedent, as opposed to a personal interpretation of the metagame's philosophy. Furthermore, it reflects the official unofficial definition of uncompetitive that the OU council did us the favor of providing to reflect how the community has used the refashioned term throughout its history.

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

This can be luck-based, but doesn't have to be (see: 4th gen Wobb, who was effective enough then to remove the ability to "do anything about it" largely from the enemy player, and was banned for uncompetitive-ness); but most uncompetitive strategies that are banned usually have a high appeal to luck.

While there is always luck involved in Pokemon, the problem is the degree to which control is taken away from the player. Removal of autonomy is the key to an uncompetitive tiering decision or clause.


Note: the word "degree" as there are many game aspects that remove autonomy, but the problem is degree of removal (Moody / Double Team remove more autonomy than Quick Claw or fast U-Turn/Volt Switch).

Whether the "degree" of autonomy removal is uncompetitive is debatable, and is subjective (based off of player experience).

This diagnosis becomes even more evident when you examine the symptoms of the illness the metagame is currently suffering, as beautifully described here by edgar.

With all that being said, I think Shadow Tag right now is rather uncompetitive, it puts the user in a way better position than the guy who's playing against it, the opponent has to make aggresive plays most of the time to beat it. Trying to counter it on teambuilder is kinda pointless because I'd rather almost ignore such thing and not run very sub-par sets such as Shed Shell Blissey than acomodating my whole team just so it can beat 2 pokemon that are very versatile and are 1 step ahead of you almost everytime, I'd rather just consider it a prominent weakness rather than making my team worse. I'm lazy to type the whole thing so I'd just end up saying Shadow Tag extremely limits teambuilding and during the battles, plays that you're allowed to make.

Despite the fact that this removal of choice only occurs over the span of a handful of turns, the implications and the consequences of those turns echo throughout the entire battle and frequently to the point of determining its results. This creates an effect similar to a fly trapped in a spider web where the victim vainly struggles against an outcome that was already decided by an, often times, unavoidable trap.

*-Definition of the word choice as used in this context

Interesting choices
According to Sid Meier, a [good] game is a series of interesting choices. In an interesting choice, no single option is clearly better than the other options, the options are not equally attractive, and the player must be able to make an informed choice. (Rollings & Morris 2000, p. 38.)
See fun.
source

 

[The Manifold Curiosity]

I'm going to repeat some of the arguments I made about shadow tag during the Gengar debate because they are relevant here.

First lets talk about how shadow tag is used in this metagame. The primary benefit of this ability is to be able to trap key Pokemon who are preventing your current Pokemon from getting the upper hand and winning. It is important that your s tag mon is kept healthy during the battle so that it can perform its role when the opportunity arises. This translates to having to use 5 pokemon in the game until you have the right opportunity (in case the opponent has a coverage move that would do lots of damage to the shadow tag mon), which can strain your team. This is why I never use shadow tag myself, the pressure it puts on my other team mates did not justify its benefits.

Now in order to get the opportunity to trap you have to lure the desired pokemon out. This requires multiple high skill plays to do this with the reward being that you trap your pokemon. This is very different from other Un-competitive play-styles such as Swagger, bp, elevation etc. Users of these strategies only have to follow a simple formula to achieve success most of the time. With shadow tag you have to be a highly skilled player to take full advantage of its ability. I have always have great respect for those that succeed to trap the right pokemon because they have outplayed me. The presence of this ability has forced both players to play competitively for several turns. No other supposedly un-competitive play-style does this.

I strongly disagree with the concept that shadow tag removes choice either. In reality there are plenty of competitive choices available to the user prior to the game. This includes Baton pass, roar/dragon tail, U-turn/volt switch, being a ghost, having shadow tag and red card (there is also shed shell although it is a inferior choice). All of these moves have uses outside of dealing with shadow tag. This is contrary to other un-competitive teams where there are only a few niche moves available. Giving your support mon one of these moves will not cripple it, but it will put you at a great advantage against a shadow tag user. You can bluff that you have no options to save your key mon from shadow tag and force your opponent to make expensive choices (such as sac a mon) to succeed in trapping. By escaping at the last moment you have turned the tables and potentially cost the shadow tag user the game (most shadow tag mons don't care how low their hp is after killing so they are now useless). By luring the shadow tag mon in you still have choices available, but these choices only exist if you have build your team properly.

I see trapping abilities as positive contributors to a competitive metagame and would hate to see it banned.

 

[ApplepieFTW]

I'm going to repeat some of the arguments I made about shadow tag during the Gengar debate because they are relevant here.

First lets talk about how shadow tag is used in this metagame. The primary benefit of this ability is to be able to trap key Pokemon who are preventing your current Pokemon from getting the upper hand and winning. It is important that your s tag mon is kept healthy during the battle so that it can perform its role when the opportunity arises. This translates to having to use 5 pokemon in the game until you have the right opportunity (in case the opponent has a coverage move that would do lots of damage to the shadow tag mon), which can strain your team. This is why I never use shadow tag myself, the pressure it puts on my other team mates did not justify its benefits.

Now in order to get the opportunity to trap you have to lure the desired pokemon out. This requires multiple high skill plays to do this with the reward being that you trap your pokemon. This is very different from other Un-competitive play-styles such as Swagger, bp, elevation etc. Users of these strategies only have to follow a simple formula to achieve success most of the time. With shadow tag you have to be a highly skilled player to take full advantage of its ability. I have always have great respect for those that succeed to trap the right pokemon because they have outplayed me. The presence of this ability has forced both players to play competitively for several turns. No other supposedly un-competitive play-style does this.

I strongly disagree with the concept that shadow tag removes choice either. In reality there are plenty of competitive choices available to the user prior to the game. This includes Baton pass, roar/dragon tail, U-turn/volt switch, being a ghost, having shadow tag and red card (there is also shed shell although it is a inferior choice). All of these moves have uses outside of dealing with shadow tag. This is contrary to other un-competitive teams where there are only a few niche moves available. Giving your support mon one of these moves will not cripple it, but it will put you at a great advantage against a shadow tag user. You can bluff that you have no options to save your key mon from shadow tag and force your opponent to make expensive choices (such as sac a mon) to succeed in trapping. By escaping at the last moment you have turned the tables and potentially cost the shadow tag user the game (most shadow tag mons don't care how low their hp is after killing so they are now useless). By luring the shadow tag mon in you still have choices available, but these choices only exist if you have build your team properly.

I see trapping abilities as positive contributors to a competitive metagame and would hate to see it banned.

I do see how it limits choice. You say "just use roar/phazing/etc" but that does not at all prove that it doesn't limit choice, in fact it proves the contrary. From what you said I can conclude you do agree shadow tag would be inherently uncompetitive if there was no way to escape it meaning it would always limit your choice no matter what item/typing you have. But since this is not the case, I guess I'm supposed to just run shed shell on everything or use mono-ghost to avoid stag's uncompetitiveness. Now that sure is a limit to the options I have, it limits my choice. It basicly forces me to run a bad item that makes it so I can unequally compete with other pokemon that do are using a good item on their pokemon. It lessens my ability to be able to successfully compete.

You also say that the fact that you know stag is gonig to trap you makes it so that you have to play better, as to avoid getting trapped. This so called "outplaying" is no more than being put in a situation of risk versus reward, where the risk is much much bigger than the reward. So lets imagine this situation: you have a scarf kyogre in vs an opposing scizor. Scarf kyogre is your win condition, ad it can sweep your opponents team without any trouble once his arceus-grass goes down. You also have a mega evolved gengar in the back. You best play right here would be to just click surf/water spout. If they switch to arceus grass, you can just switch to gengar next turn, but it could also happen that your opponent will predict the switch into gengar. Switching into gengar predicting the arceus grass is a good play, because if you get rid of arceus, kyogre sweeps. You understand the situation your opponent is in, he needs to avoid letting grasseus being killed at any cost. Because of this he has to either very aggressive/defensive, and it makes it so he has to make unnecessary risks just because of how the stag will fuck him over otherwise. Shadow tags always gives the user an advantage, which leads to the game not being equally competitive for both players. There is so little reason to not use shadow tag because it puts you ad advantage, and your opponent at a significant disadvantage. So back to the scizor, if he leaves it in he can succesfully pursuit trap mega gengar which results in kyogre not sweeping his team. Oh wait but the gengar user also has a xerneas, and scizor was his check. Oh well, he can just switch out to preserve the mega scizor right? Yeah that's the thing, he can't. And once again, his ability to choose what he wants to do is limited, he cannot make an interesting decision.

 

[Fixed]

Gotta lead by example I suppose.

I believe Shadow Tag is inherently uncompetitive because it removes switching, a fundamental mechanic, in such a nondiscriminatory fashion that it goes as far as to remove choice* from the victim. The term "fundamental" is not being used lightly here as it is upon this mechanic that the entire game of singles battling, and thus every metagame, is built upon. The removal of choice can also be found present in every single element justly banned by an existing clause in the Ubers metagame and is therefore an argument founded upon precedent, as opposed to a personal interpretation of the metagame's philosophy. Furthermore, it reflects the official unofficial definition of uncompetitive that the OU council did us the favor of providing to reflect how the community has used the refashioned term throughout its history.

It is a personal interpretation, your logic is flawed. If all banned Pokemon had been blue in colour, that would not make it a precedent to ban all blue Pokemon. Furthermore, OHKO moves and Swagger do not remove interesting choice ("Is it worth risking my Zekrom by switching it into his Sheer Cold Kyogre or not").

I personally don't understand the idea that Shadow Tag removes choices to an extent that it makes the game significantly less enjoyable. Of course, when your Chansey is trapped by a Mega Gengar the 10 or so turns that it takes for Gengar to kill the Chansey do not have any choices in them. If every turn in Pokemon was like that the game would not be fun. But you quickly click through those turns and after Chansey has been killed there will be many interesting choices again.

With all that being said, I think Shadow Tag right now is rather uncompetitive, it puts the user in a way better position than the guy who's playing against it, the opponent has to make aggresive plays most of the time to beat it. Trying to counter it on teambuilder is kinda pointless because I'd rather almost ignore such thing and not run very sub-par sets such as Shed Shell Blissey than acomodating my whole team just so it can beat 2 pokemon that are very versatile and are 1 step ahead of you almost everytime, I'd rather just consider it a prominent weakness rather than making my team worse. I'm lazy to type the whole thing so I'd just end up saying Shadow Tag extremely limits teambuilding and during the battles, plays that you're allowed to make.

Well yeah...if you refuse to prepare for a certain Pokemon or playstyle then any opponent who uses it will be in a way better position than you. And as with any bad matchup you will often have to play very aggressively, this is not limited to Shadow Tag at all.

There is so little reason to not use shadow tag because it puts you ad advantage, and your opponent at a significant disadvantage.

This is not only overexaggerated to the point where it makes no sense anymore, it is also a brokenness argument, and nothing will get banned for brokenness.

 

[The Manifold Curiosity]

I do see how it limits choice. You say "just use roar/phazing/etc" but that does not at all prove that it doesn't limit choice, in fact it proves the contrary. From what you said I can conclude you do agree shadow tag would be inherently uncompetitive if there was no way to escape it meaning it would always limit your choice no matter what item/typing you have. But since this is not the case, I guess I'm supposed to just run shed shell on everything or use mono-ghost to avoid stag's uncompetitiveness. Now that sure is a limit to the options I have, it limits my choice. It basicly forces me to run a bad item that makes it so I can unequally compete with other pokemon that do are using a good item on their pokemon. It lessens my ability to be able to successfully compete.

You also say that the fact that you know stag is gonig to trap you makes it so that you have to play better, as to avoid getting trapped. This so called "outplaying" is no more than being put in a situation of risk versus reward, where the risk is much much bigger than the reward. So lets imagine this situation: you have a scarf kyogre in vs an opposing scizor. Scarf kyogre is your win condition, ad it can sweep your opponents team without any trouble once his arceus-grass goes down. You also have a mega evolved gengar in the back. You best play right here would be to just click surf/water spout. If they switch to arceus grass, you can just switch to gengar next turn, but it could also happen that your opponent will predict the switch into gengar. Switching into gengar predicting the arceus grass is a good play, because if you get rid of arceus, kyogre sweeps. You understand the situation your opponent is in, he needs to avoid letting grasseus being killed at any cost. Because of this he has to either very aggressive/defensive, and it makes it so he has to make unnecessary risks just because of how the stag will fuck him over otherwise. Shadow tags always gives the user an advantage, which leads to the game not being equally competitive for both players. There is so little reason to not use shadow tag because it puts you ad advantage, and your opponent at a significant disadvantage. So back to the scizor, if he leaves it in he can succesfully pursuit trap mega gengar which results in kyogre not sweeping his team. Oh wait but the gengar user also has a xerneas, and scizor was his check. Oh well, he can just switch out to preserve the mega scizor right? Yeah that's the thing, he can't. And once again, his ability to choose what he wants to do is limited, he cannot make an interesting decision.

You are dismissing the inherit play-style of shadow tag users, which is they target a specific mon to trap. Lets say you want to take out Scizor so that your GeoXern can sweep. Or that you are playing stall and Scizor is your defogger. You are wrong that it is not equally competitive, the shadow tag user has to use 5 pokemon until the conditions are right while the other can use 6 freely. This does balance things out based on the experience I had using and fighting against shadow tag. It is equally competitive. And I would stop emphasizing on shed shell, there are many other options available that do no make that pokemon worse. Roar is always a good move, it stops set up sweepers and using hazards breaks sashes. You may have limited the choice, but unlike elevation that choice has not made your team any worse.

Anyway back to my scenario. All you have to do is run U-turn (a very good move in general) along with your usual bullet punch, roost and defog/sword dance and your team is protected from the worst of shadow tag. You don't have to have 6 pokemon that resist shadow tag, you only need 1 or 2 max if your team is defensive (a defogger and a cleric). Everything else can run its usual sets because everything else should have moves that can inflict significant damage on the shadow tag pokemon.

 

[MMII]

It is a personal interpretation, your logic is flawed. If all banned Pokemon had been blue in colour, that would not make it a precedent to ban all blue Pokemon. Furthermore, OHKO moves and Swagger do not remove interesting choice ("Is it worth risking my Zekrom by switching it into his Sheer Cold Kyogre or not").

I personally don't understand the idea that Shadow Tag removes choices to an extent that it makes the game significantly less enjoyable. Of course, when your Chansey is trapped by a Mega Gengar the 10 or so turns that it takes for Gengar to kill the Chansey do not have any choices in them. If every turn in Pokemon was like that the game would not be fun. But you quickly click through those turns and after Chansey has been killed there will be many interesting choices again.

Except the logic I'm arguing is found in the arguments behind the previous bans. I'm not the only one to pull this up, clearly the OU council found the same thing when they decided to manifest the unwritten definition behind the word "uncompetitive". Which, btw, is a word often used to justify bans in ubers and even used in the definition of ubers provided by bojangles. Your comparison is beyond strained and practically a strawman.

Of course OHKO and Swagger eliminate choice, all you do when they are involved is just pray to god and hope you don't get haxed.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity

You act like the loss of Chansey doesn't have any significant impact to the rest of the game and doesn't have the large potential to decide its outcome. It's very likely the series of interesting choices is broken at the moment Chansey is trapped and the rest of the game is simply going through the motions and/or praying to that mexican god again.

 

[MMII]

You are dismissing the inherit play-style of shadow tag users, which is they target a specific mon to trap. Lets say you want to take out Scizor so that your GeoXern can sweep. Or that you are playing stall and Scizor is your defogger. You are wrong that it is not equally competitive, the shadow tag user has to use 5 pokemon until the conditions are right while the other can use 6 freely. This does balance things out based on the experience I had using and fighting against shadow tag. It is equally competitive. And I would stop emphasizing on shed shell, there are many other options available that do no make that pokemon worse. Roar is always a good move, it stops set up sweepers and using hazards breaks sashes. You may have limited the choice, but unlike elevation that choice has not made your team any worse.

Anyway back to my scenario. All you have to do is run U-turn (a very good move in general) along with your usual bullet punch, roost and defog/sword dance and your team is protected from the worst of shadow tag. You don't have to have 6 pokemon that resist shadow tag, you only need 1 or 2 max if your team is defensive (a defogger and a cleric). Everything else can run its usual sets because everything else should have moves that can inflict significant damage on the shadow tag pokemon.

Yo mate, "competitive" has nothing to do with balancing out numbers like that. You aren't far from the same flawed logic sparksbalde was proposing earlier, just going in the opposite direction. Not even going to get into just how inaccurate your depiction of the metagame is cause it's completely irrelevant, in this case, to whether Tag is uncompetitive or not.

 

[ApplepieFTW]

You are dismissing the inherit play-style of shadow tag users, which is they target a specific mon to trap. Lets say you want to take out Scizor so that your GeoXern can sweep. Or that you are playing stall and Scizor is your defogger. You are wrong that it is not equally competitive, the shadow tag user has to use 5 pokemon until the conditions are right while the other can use 6 freely. This does balance things out based on the experience I had using and fighting against shadow tag. It is equally competitive. And I would stop emphasizing on shed shell, there are many other options available that do no make that pokemon worse. Roar is always a good move, it stops set up sweepers and using hazards breaks sashes. You may have limited the choice, but unlike elevation that choice has not made your team any worse.

Anyway back to my scenario. All you have to do is run U-turn (a very good move in general) along with your usual bullet punch, roost and defog/sword dance and your team is protected from the worst of shadow tag. You don't have to have 6 pokemon that resist shadow tag, you only need 1 or 2 max if your team is defensive (a defogger and a cleric). Everything else can run its usual sets because everything else should have moves that can inflict significant damage on the shadow tag pokemon.

Yeah your 'counter arguments" aren't arguments at all because they aren't relevant to the competitiveness of stag. While I disagree with your balancing out logic (you are assuming that gar would be deadweight until a certain scenario, which makes no sense at all because by that logic every pokemon is deadweight), I'm just going to say something about that only part that is relevant; the scizor part. What you fail to see is, if you click u-turn, you lose your scizor. You have once again proven my point. You have to play crazy risky just to avoid getting trapped, with little to no reward. If you meant this scenario 1v1, hp fire is a common and good move on mgar which is specifically there to wreck scizor/ferrothorn, so thats not great logic either. And the fact that u-turn does let you go out into another mon still means you can't switch out and your choice is still limited lol. If you could just switch you wouldn't have to worry about getting killed by hp fire etc.

 

[Fixed]

Except the logic I'm arguing is found in the arguments behind the previous bans. I'm not the only one to pull this up, clearly the OU council found the same thing when they decided to manifest the unwritten definition behind the word "uncompetitive". Which, btw, is a word often used to justify bans in ubers and even used in the definition of ubers provided by bojangles. Your comparison is beyond strained and practically a strawman.

Of course OHKO and Swagger eliminate choice, all you do when they are involved is just pray to god and hope you don't get haxed.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity

You act like the loss of Chansey doesn't have any significant impact to the rest of the game and doesn't have the large potential to decide its outcome. It's very likely the series of interesting choices is broken at the moment Chansey is trapped and the rest of the game is simply going through the motions and/or praying to that mexican god again.

Ok so you are basically arguing that Shadow Tag takes away autonomy/control from the player, fair enough. The whole part about all other bans involving choice is at best irrelevant then.

Judging from your thoughts on the Chansey example, the problem would be that the existence of trappers creates many team matchups that heavily favour one of the two players, which gives the other less choices/less control/whatever (we clearly don't want these situations, so no need to discuss exactly what is the problem here). I acknowledge that team matchup is a real issue in XY Ubers and it makes sense to suspect the causes of it (whether this is Shadow Tag or not). But in the Gengarite suspect you explained to me that this is not the reason why you want to ban Shadow Tag so now I'm confused...

 

[ApplepieFTW]

Ok so you are basically arguing that Shadow Tag takes away autonomy/control from the player, fair enough. The whole part about all other bans involving choice is at best irrelevant then.

Judging from your thoughts on the Chansey example, the problem would be that the existence of trappers creates many team matchups that heavily favour one of the two players, which gives the other less choices/less control/whatever (we clearly don't want these situations, so no need to discuss exactly what is the problem here). I acknowledge that team matchup is a real issue in XY Ubers and it makes sense to suspect the causes of it (whether this is Shadow Tag or not). But in the Gengarite suspect you explained to me that this is not the reason why you want to ban Shadow Tag so now I'm confused...

I don't think matchup is at all an issue/argument and while stag is not primarily the cause, it also is irrelevant because matchup is not something you can ban. If stag would make it THAT much more uncompetitive (much much more matchup based) to the point where you auto-lose if you face stag, yeah then it becomes a better argument. But what really makes it uncompetitive is not the team preview but how you have to play against the stag user.

Stag is definitely not the only thing that causes heavily favoured matchups, this also happens with things like defog giro vs scolipede offense etc etc, so you can't directly say stag is what causes team matchup, its just a factor. If you could find enough solid arguments/reasoning to make the role stag has in team matchup a factor in its uncompetitiveness it could also turn into an argument of its own, but that hasn't been done yet.

e:

This is not only overexaggerated to the point where it makes no sense anymore, it is also a brokenness argument, and nothing will get banned for brokenness.

It is not a brokenness argument, because stag is what creates this problem and it does so because of the mechanics that I'm proving uncompetitive. Also I found this: "And as with any bad matchup you will often have to play very aggressively, this is not limited to Shadow Tag at all." pretty interesting. I'll have to think about that.

 

[MMII]

Ok so you are basically arguing that Shadow Tag takes away autonomy/control from the player, fair enough. The whole part about all other bans involving choice is at best irrelevant then.

Judging from your thoughts on the Chansey example, the problem would be that the existence of trappers creates many team matchups that heavily favour one of the two players, which gives the other less choices/less control/whatever (we clearly don't want these situations, so no need to discuss exactly what is the problem here). I acknowledge that team matchup is a real issue in XY Ubers and it makes sense to suspect the causes of it (whether this is Shadow Tag or not). But in the Gengarite suspect you explained to me that this is not the reason why you want to ban Shadow Tag so now I'm confused...

The concept of autonomy/control described in the definition of uncompetitive is essentially the same as the concept of choice I repeatedly refer to. (or at least very heavily related)

Team matchup is symptomatic of Shadow Tag's inherent uncompetitiveness. I'm not so adamantly pro-ban because of these symptoms, but because of the philosophical violation of the Ubers ideal that the presence of Shadow Tag creates. I'll refer to these symptoms in my arguments because it is often through analyzing the symptoms that we are able to properly diagnose an illness.

 

[Edgar]

Well yeah...if you refuse to prepare for a certain Pokemon or playstyle then any opponent who uses it will be in a way better position than you. And as with any bad matchup you will often have to play very aggressively, this is not limited to Shadow Tag at all.

Why should I excesively prepare for something like Mega Gengar or Gothitelle when there is no consistent way of checking them without letting them do their ob at least once, except by playing perfectly around them. I guess you don't feel bad for being resistricted to not using Defog Arceus formes that are not Ghost without a pursuit trapper or making a lot of risky plays (that don't fall on the category of high risk vs reward thing btw, which determines how good a player is) during the game (good teambuilder alert) (good player alert) (good teambuilder alert again).

 

[Fixed]

Why should I excesively prepare for something like Mega Gengar or Gothitelle when there is no consistent way of checking them without letting them do their ob at least once, except by playing perfectly around them. I guess you don't feel bad for being resistricted to not using Defog Arceus formes that are not Ghost without a pursuit trapper or making a lot of risky plays (that don't fall on the category of high risk vs reward thing btw, which determines how good a player is) during the game (good teambuilder alert) (good player alert) (good teambuilder alert again).

No, I don't feel bad if any Pokemon or strategy doesn't work well (which isn't even clear at all in the case of Defog Arceus). If your point is that teams without Defog Arceus also have weaknesses (to hazard stacking), then that is a valid argument that can be discussed. It would help a lot if the pro-ban supporters admitted that the only valid reason to ban Shadow Tag is the fact that this gen is heavily matchup reliant, and not some abstract nonsense about removing choices.

Edit: deleted a part because I didn't read his post well enough

 

[MMII]

You completely missed his point. He was initially saying that preparing for Tag is futile because doing so requires you to bend ass-backwards on top of wasting your time doing so because you'll *still* be weak to Shadow Tag. Therefore your best bet is to just yolo it and hope you don't get screwed when team preview pops up. Your response was basically implying that he's having those troubles with Shadow Tag because he doesn't use appropriate measures to prepare for them. His retort was that your understanding of teambuilding must be quite shallow if you believe there's some miracle cure that he's refusing to use.

Ultimately, this point isn't essential to the discussion at hand. It just bothered me how you tried to twist his words the way you did. You're playing with the nuances "excessive" and "very sub-par", that edgar made sure to specify in regards to preparation, to make it appear as if edgar doesn't prepare for Tag and even create this myth that there's an existing form of adequate preparation in the first place, which he mysteriously, yet deliberately, chooses to ignore.

 

[dice]

a presumed position on shadow tag users that has manifested throughout this and the last thread is that these pokemon can be ineffectual in some matchups, but i've never found this to be the case. gothitelle is a surprisingly versatile pokemon despite having 3 moves be a given; trick room, heal bell, reflect, charm, and even the gimmicky miracle eye give it wiggle room for versatility. this can and will prove to be of some use in any given matchup, whether it be a simple heal bell and sack to revive your paralyzed geo xern, or simply a way to save your toxic'd arceus. gengar obviously has many more options to explore. an underrated and deadly gengar set, albeit slightly inaccurate, is hypnosis which can garner many many free turns and knock outs. wobbuffet, despite its negative discussion in this thread, is actually a pretty cool pokemon. ya, sure, it's the hardest shadow tag user to fit on a team; however, giving a free set up turn to something like blaziken or lucario or xerneas or arceus or rayquaza... you get the picture. this post isn't to delve into why i feel shadow tag is broken as i think i've done enough of that. instead, i just wanted to kinda get some discussion started on the versatility of the actual users and how they skew a fair gamestate even further.

if no one has checked out my other thread, i'll just cp what i consider to be one of my best teams and it utilizes goth pretty effectively

Hide

Groudon @ Lum Berry
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 16 Atk / 236 Def / 8 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Roar

Klefki @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Atk / 200 SpD
Careful Nature
- Play Rough
- Spikes
- Heal Block
- Thunder Wave

Arceus-Water @ Splash Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: null Atk
- Judgment
- Calm Mind
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover

Giratina-Origin @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 128 Def / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shadow Force
- Defog
- Shadow Sneak
- Dragon Tail

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psyshock
- Heal Bell
- Rest

Ho-Oh @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 176 Atk / 52 SpD / 32 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Sacred Fire
- Substitute
- Roost

 

[dice]

It would help a lot if the pro-ban supporters admitted that the only valid reason to ban Shadow Tag is the heavy reliance on team matchup in this gen, and not some abstract nonsense about removing choices.

also this quote dumbfounded me a bit. accusations and implications the metagame is team matchup based /without/ shadow tag, let alone with it, is a mighty thing to say. this implies that you have carefully investigated and tested a metagame without shadow tag and somehow determined authoritatively that the current gen has a heavy emphasis on team matchup without.. or you're just tossing out fallacies for the hell of it. regardless, i do not subscribe to this belief. the metagame adaptations to the overpowered non-shadow tag pokemon such as xerneas have been noticable. almost all teams barring hyper offense carries two checks to it and have effective countermeasures to it. ferrothorn, kangaskhan, klefki, specially defensive kyogre, ho-oh, lugia, scizor, etc. are all seen on well built balanced teams in attempts to overcome xerneas, and the metagame has gotten to a point where xerneas is actually covered well. it is definitely the #1 sweeper and pokemon to watch out for, but that doesn't make it team matchup based; it creates a gamestate where the best players can effectively preserve their sweepers and their checks and counters.... yveltal, arceus-ghost, and all the other top threats are always able to be covered with pokemon such as xerneas and refresh extremekiller. the metagame is actually quite balanaced until you bring shadow tag into the mix; instead of skill and preservation, blind 50/50s with major consequences make or break games. is this really healthy? do you really think the removal of choice is abstract? do you really think its nonsense?

i reckon you wouldn't really have ran into any of these blind 5050s or the likes since you ran screens hyper offense on the ladder; however, i can provide logs of these scenarios and which autonomy takes place if you wish.

i'm not going to bother touching on how shadow tag 5050s are different from your typical "should my zekrom use an electric or dragon move" since this has been argued previously, but they are drastically different.

essentially, i disagree with your assertion that this gen is matchup based and i do believe shadow tag is one of the main proprietors of this issue.

also: if your very vague wording was hitting on the fact that the current metagame is matchup based.. well.. thanks for helping us prove our point. what i wrote above helps justify that shadow tag creates a major rift in the current state of ubers and is extremely unhealthy and uncompetitive for the metagame since i believe developments have made it far less matchup based in other areas such as xerneas

 

[Fixed]

Yes I meant that the current gen 6 is heavily matchup based, sorry if I wasn't clear.

--

I read your post about 10 times now, and I must be misreading something because I don't understand it.

essentially, i disagree with your assertion that this gen is matchup based and i do believe shadow tag is one of the main proprietors of this issue.

So you think this gen is not matchup based...then what does "this issue" refer to? In case you meant to write 'agree', I don't understand the first half of your post.

--

Anyways, my point is that the main argument to support a Shadow Tag ban would be along the lines of "XY Ubers is heavily matchup based, and Shadow Tag is the main reason for this" and that Edgar's point basically comes down to this. He concludes that no matter what you run, you are either weak to Shadow Tag or you are using Pokemon that are otherwise very sub-par. It is not helpful for the discussion if many users bring up different versions of the same argument and we treat these are fundamentally different arguments. The argument you laid out in the first half of your post is also a variation of the same argument. If you need to win some 50-50s to not outright lose you have a horrible team matchup. If you are talking about situations where a 50-50 decides the game for both players, those happen all the time even when Shadow Tag is involved, especially in late game situations but also early game with some HO teams.

--

And about the "removing choices" argument which comes from Melee Mewtwo and gets repeated by some other users, yes I do find it abstract nonsense. I may have missed something in the 20+ pages of Gengarite discussion, but as far as I can see the argument is mainly based on a double meaning of the word "choice", on the one hand Shadow Tag removes the choice (option) to switch and on the other hand we don't want a game without interesting choices (decisions) to make. I could be misunderstanding, but at least this is how many people tried to explain it to me.

 

[shrang]

Why should I excesively prepare for something like Mega Gengar or Gothitelle when there is no consistent way of checking them without letting them do their ob at least once, except by playing perfectly around them. I guess you don't feel bad for being resistricted to not using Defog Arceus formes that are not Ghost without a pursuit trapper or making a lot of risky plays (that don't fall on the category of high risk vs reward thing btw, which determines how good a player is) during the game (good teambuilder alert) (good player alert) (good teambuilder alert again).

Again, why is this even an argument? This argument is pretty much an overcentralisation one, and we have made it clear that we are not accepting overcentralisation arguments because every Pokemon and their mother massively centralises the metagame in Ubers. You can ask why we have to carry Palkia to check Kyogre even when certain Kyogre sets can still beat Palkia (also Ekiller, GeoXern, etc etc I can go on and on). Like Melee's said before, we can limit teambuilding all we like and it would not affect our definition of "uncompetitive" in any way.

I'll address Melee's points (AGAIN) later, but I think the above has to be put to bed right now.

 

[Edgar]

Again, why is this even an argument? This argument is pretty much an overcentralisation one, and we have made it clear that we are not accepting overcentralisation arguments because every Pokemon and their mother massively centralises the metagame in Ubers. You can ask why we have to carry Palkia to check Kyogre even when certain Kyogre sets can still beat Palkia (also Ekiller, GeoXern, etc etc I can go on and on). Like Melee's said before, we can limit teambuilding all we like and it would not affect our definition of "uncompetitive" in any way.

I'll address Melee's points (AGAIN) later, but I think the above has to be put to bed right now.

Why are u twistin my words, if anything you're helping my argument a bit, you mentioned pokemon that are consistently checked by said checks/counters, there's also the fact of knowing the meta and what are ur dealing with, if some random dude on ladder popped ur Palkia with CM HP Dragon Kyogre that does not count, nor u find CM Kyogre in this gen anyways, which is the only set that beats Lefties Offensive Palkia. GeoXern is gay but there are several ways of checking besides of having an exact counter, won't mention them here because it's not the topic at hand. Kyogre will always lose to Palkia, Ho-Oh will always lose to Arc-Rock, Yveltal will always lose to Fairy Arc or Defensive Xern and so on. With Shadow Tag users like Gothitelle and Mega Gengar, that does not happen often. Mega Gengar, as mentioned countless times before, can run literally anything that would help it get passed it checks or counters, Pursuit Scizor? HP Fire! Ttar? Focus Blast? Ho-Oh and Kyogre? Thunder! But yea, with Gothitelle u can run Charm to lower Ttar's or Aegis' Atk stat when they try to Pursuit trap u and preserve if u need to trap somethin else, Heal Bell is also annoyin as Dice mentioned. I think you got my point already but I will say it once again in case u didnt. Shadow Tag users laugh at the metagame while such "overcentralization" happens and in my opinion, it's not really fair to compare it to any other threat in the Ubers metagame, and the real one, not the Mono-bird or Mono-Dinosaur meta.

 

[Expulso]

Why are u twistin my words, if anything you're helping my argument a bit, you mentioned pokemon that are consistently checked by said checks/counters, there's also the fact of knowing the meta and what are ur dealing with, if some random dude on ladder popped ur Palkia with CM HP Dragon Kyogre that does not count, nor u find CM Kyogre in this gen anyways, which is the only set that beats Lefties Offensive Palkia. GeoXern is gay but there are several ways of checking besides of having an exact counter, won't mention them here because it's not the topic at hand. Kyogre will always lose to Palkia, Ho-Oh will always lose to Arc-Rock, Yveltal will always lose to Fairy Arc or Defensive Xern and so on. With Shadow Tag users like Gothitelle and Mega Gengar, that does not happen often. Mega Gengar, as mentioned countless times before, can run literally anything that would help it get passed it checks or counters, Pursuit Scizor? HP Fire! Ttar? Focus Blast Ho-Oh and Kyogre? Thunder! But yea, with Gothitelle u can run Charm to lower Ttar's or Aegis' Atk stat when they try to Pursuit trap u and preserve if u need to trap somethin else, Heal Bell is also annoyin as Dice mentioned. I think you got my point already but I will say it once again in case u didnt. Shadow Tag users laugh at the metagame while such "overcentralization" happens and in my opinion, it's not really fair to compare it to any other threat in the Ubers metagame, and the real one, not Mono-bird or Mono-Dinosaur meta.

I think what shrang is saying is that the checks and counters to these Pokemon are sub-par because they over-centralize so much; for example, Arceus-Rock would be way inferior to Arceus-Water or Arceus-Electric in a meta without Ho-Oh (no, I'm not suggesting we ban Ho-Oh [not even mad if we do tho]). To quote the analysis:

Finally, it is worth highlighting that due to its poor defensive typing, Rock Arceus's usage over another Arceus forme should be well-justified. For example, Water Arceus and Electric Arceus are, on the whole, defensively sturdier fomes that can check many of the same threats as Rock Arceus, albeit not nearly as well or consistently.

That's what over-centralization does: it makes people use less effective or niche Pokemon to beat a certain powerful threat. However, Shadow Tag over-centralizes less, or at least not more, than some powerful Pokemon; Ghost-types cannot be trapped, Dark-types (see: Pursuit) beat all the Shadow Tag users, and there are many Pokemon the Shadow Tag users cannot trap. On offense, many Pokemon are too powerful for Mega-Gengar and Gothitelle (and maybe Wobbuffet) to switch into, like Lustrous Orb Palkia, Kyogre, Yveltal, Mewtwo, Ho-Oh, offensive Arceus forms, and more; on stall, many Pokemon, like Blissey, carry Shed Shell (I concede that this is an example of over-centralization to a degree), or cannot be trapped by certain Pokemon; for example, Gothitelle cannot trap Heal Block Klefki. Balance usually carries few Pokemon that can be trapped by Mega-Gengar, Klefki, or Wobbuffet, and brings a Pursuit-trapper if they do.

"Shadow Tag is uncompetitive!" is another argument I would like to address. The definition of uncompetitive is listed below:

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

This can be luck-based, but doesn't have to be (see: 4th gen Wobb, who was effective enough then to remove the ability to "do anything about it" largely from the enemy player, and was banned for uncompetitive-ness); but most uncompetitive strategies that are banned usually have a high appeal to luck.

While there is always luck involved in Pokemon, the problem is the degree to which control is taken away from the player. Removal of autonomy is the key to an uncompetitive tiering decision or clause.


Note: the word "degree" as there are many game aspects that remove autonomy, but the problem is degree of removal (Moody / Double Team remove more autonomy than Quick Claw or fast U-Turn/Volt Switch).

Whether the "degree" of autonomy removal is uncompetitive is debatable, and is subjective (based off of player experience).

Note: Individual Pokemon can be banned for a combination of "overpowered" and "uncompetitive" characteristics-- see 4th Gen Deoxys-S and 4th Gen Shaymin-S bans

In my opinion, Shadow Tag does not take away a significant amount of autonomy-at least, not enough for it to be banned. You always have control; the moves you can choose, and sets you can run, are different choices the player can make that affect the outcome. True, Gothitelle can trap and set up on any Pokemon that cannot significantly harm it; however, that's the player's fault for not preparing for it. In addition, like any other threat, Shadow Tag can be played around with clever double switches, U-turn, Volt Switch, or Baton Pass, or other ways to beat it on individual Pokemon. Shadow Tag users are just new threats that must be prepared for differently; instead of bringing one designated counter, each Pokemon must be equipped to check it (or have a Pursuit trapper, the option I like less). This is a change, but not necessary a negative one; the metagame can and will adapt.

Finally, I'd like to talk about Shadow Tag in regards to Ubers philosophy. According to bojangles, the BW Ubers tier leader, Ubers is "the metagame with the least amount of bans possible." That alone tells us that we should not ban Shadow Tag unless it is absolutely necessary; as you can see from my paragraph above, I don't believe it is. Personally, I see no way Shadow Tag violates Ubers philosophy; sure, it causes reliance on team matchup to a degree, but so do many things. As I said earlier, it's a player's fault for not being prepared for a threat, and Shadow Tag, while very effective, is still just another threat. Team matchup is inherent in Pokemon; if your team is all grounded, relatively frail threats, then you are going to get torn apart by Sticky Web. Without wallbreakers / stallbreakers, lures, or powerful setup sweepers, Stall tears you apart; see where I'm going with this?

In conclusion, I believe that Shadow Tag should not be banned. Thank you!

tl;dr read the thing

 

[Fireburn]

In my opinion, Shadow Tag does not take away a significant amount of autonomy-at least, not enough for it to be banned. You always have control; the moves you can choose, and sets you can run, are different choices the player can make that affect the outcome. True, Gothitelle can trap and set up on any Pokemon that cannot significantly harm it; however, that's the player's fault for not preparing for it. In addition, like any other threat, Shadow Tag can be played around with clever double switches, U-turn, Volt Switch, or Baton Pass, or other ways to beat it on individual Pokemon. Shadow Tag users are just new threats that must be prepared for differently; instead of bringing one designated counter, each Pokemon must be equipped to check it (or have a Pursuit trapper, the option I like less). This is a change, but not necessary a negative one; the metagame can and will adapt.

Gonna cut you off right here and ask you to tell us, specifically, how one prepares for or adapts to Shadow Tag. Saying "it must be prepared for differently" is a blanket statement and telling players that its their fault for not preparing for it is a "git gud" argument (which was not acceptable for the previous test and is not acceptable now) unless backed up with specific examples.

(Also as an aside, the statement that Gothitelle can't trap Heal Block Klefki is false, orch posted a set literally just last page that is capable of doing so.)

 

[tutterydiglett]

Gonna cut you off right here and ask you to tell us, specifically, how one prepares for or adapts to Shadow Tag.

One example off the top of my head is Shed Shell Blissey. Players have "adapted" to Shadow Tag by forgoing Leftovers and using an item that would help them "prepare" for Shadow Tag. Of course, I'm not telling you to slap Shed Shell on goddamn everything, but it is an example of how players have adapted to Shadow Tag.

Okay these are my thoughts but: The Ubers tier has existed for a very, very long time. Ubers players quite literally play with the most OP, broken, god status, S-Rank mons that no other tier can deal with. I don't know about you, but I play Ubers because I'm able to legally have fun with these giant whales and big ass dragons. I suppose Shadow Tag is also one of these "titans of the game". We say it is uncompetitive (perhaps it really is), but like every single strategy out there, it can be played around. Be it VoltTurn, Shed Shell, Pursuit users, there are viable ways to beat it.

Remember, we are the Ubers tier.