Shadow Tag in BW RU

[Windsong]

Hey guys, with RUPL coming up pretty soon, we're going to have one of the handful of yearly chances to play the great tier that is BW RU. Unlike a lot of the other BW tiers, RU never really got the chance to fully stabilize (heavily b/c it took too many rounds to remove Nidoqueen and then the post queen meta wasn't fully explored). In recent years some players have had issues Shadow Tag Gothorita, which can add an element of cheese to the game that isn't great (conceptually) from a competitive standpoint. In practice, I don't think Shadow Tag is a huge issue as of now, and BW RU is a dead tier bar two annual tournaments, but there's nonzero precedent to removing stuff that adds distinctly uncompetitive elements to the game.

I'm aware that messing with past generation tiering is somewhat taboo, but I believe we should strive to make any tier still seen in tournament play--even if extremely infrequently--as competitive as possible, and if removing minor uncompetitive elements does that, I see no harm done.

I don't feel super strongly one way or another about this, but paging Molk SilentVerse Honko august Nails Arifeen lighthouses Chill Shadow Ajna phantom DittoCrow Rakan MrAldo Meru atomicllamas Oglemi Hot N Cold Kushalos -Tsunami- in case any of you want to give input here. Again, I'm relatively fine with the status quo as is, but this has been a topic of discussion amongst prospective RUPL managers as of late, and given the mixed comments I've heard on the topic it merits some discussion.

 

[august]

To be honest I've never really liked Gothorita simply because it has the chance to trap a ton of things on defensive builds, which makes the playstyle as a whole much less viable (a decent goth + sweeper team will always beat even the fattest stalls). The rest toxic cm set has the ability to take down guys like Alomomola and defensive Cryogonal (even offensive if goth is specially bulky, see Heist vs Liberty several SPLs ago) and can stop weak fighters fairly easily. I won't be playing in the upcoming RUPL but I would definitely support a shadow tag ban as I think the metagame is much more balanced without it.

Just my quick 2 cents, feel free to highlight me if you'd like some evidence to back it up

 

[lighthouses]

I think any discussion on this topic just boils down to whether shadow tag is inherently uncompetitive or not, which i definitely think it is, but this discussion already took place during the whole goth argument for oras ou, and it can honestly go on forever.
If shadow tag was deemed uncompetitive in oras ou then i don't see why we shouldnt view it as such in bw ru, because even if goth is fine in this meta i think it's safe to assume that it doesnt really serve any purpose(it doesn't define any playstyles nor does it help keep any overbearing pokemon in check) so it probably wont hurt to just ban it.
Also the whole 'going for the matchup' thing is already ridiculous in bw ru as it is, only good can come out of removing a cheesy strategy such as this.

 

[Finchinator]

Not really a conventional RU player by any means, but I’m 15-4 in this tier over the past 3 years of RUPL and I think I have a good enough grasp on the metagame to comment, so I hope that’s alright.

Goth trapping here isn’t nearly as good as it was in day ORAS OU with Gothitelle or other lower tiers (especially BW NU, btw, where it’s probably even more busted), but it is still so easy to abuse. The things August mentioned such as Cryogonal and Alomomola are big ones, but this can also be applied to passive Slowking sets, non-lead Explosion Qwilfish, Amoonguss, and numerous other Pokemon needed to form defensive backbones — the overall point is the classic ‘Goth eliminates/cripples a defensive Pokemon and then counterplay to specific offensive threats later on is limited to levels far below acceptable’ and it applies here in the same way it does other contexts. While BW RU is a metagame where offense is common and obviously viable (been seeing more usage than not in modern RUPLs, but that’s also more because newer generation players tend to be trying their hand at it and default to this style more often than not), defensive teams have been seen quite a bit over the years and discounting them in a context like this isn’t at all acceptable.

I suppose there’s also another argument that can be made for it restricting common choice users like Durant from clicking Superpower and whatnot, but this is far less noteworthy and substantial than the former argument admittedly. Regardless, I would support this ban and if it wouldn’t trickle down to BW NU automatically, then I would support it there as well (suppose that is for another thread, however).

 

[Oglemi]

Idk, considering how I think alo itself is kinda broken I don't think goth is that big of an issue. It's more of a liability than anything if your opp brings any kind of hyper offense, physical tomb and friends mean you basically trade goth for alo (granted not a bad trade but still), and you're basically saccing a teamslot in the hopes your opp brought something weak and trappable anyway.

 

[Finchinator]

Idk, considering how I think alo itself is kinda broken I don't think goth is that big of an issue. It's more of a liability than anything if your opp brings any kind of hyper offense, physical tomb and friends mean you basically trade goth for alo (granted not a bad trade but still), and you're basically saccing a teamslot in the hopes your opp brought something weak and trappable anyway.

It can be a liability (often only crippling one thing, not getting a single kill, and/or being death fodder later on) against more offensive teams and nobody is denying that, but you kind of accept this as an inherent opportunity cost of integrating Goth into your team when building, I reckon. It still does force people to play with it kept in mind (i.e: not locking into Superpower with Durant or Leaf Storm with Rotom-C at the wrong time if your set is revealed), but the overall presence of Goth vs faster paced teams does not allow it to enact the envisioned role, not at all.

I also think that you understate the nature and relative gains/losses in a long-term sense of the "trade" you mention between something like Alomomola and Goth seeing as this trade literally breaks open the game for a well-built Goth team, still leaves Goth alive for later which can come into play depending upon the specific match-up, and leaves the defensive team or balanced team borderline helpless depending upon the specific situation. I feel like it is plain and simple an unhealthy element that does come with a legitimate downside, but you have to consider the capabilities and the restrictions that come with it as well and those simply aren't competitive or really ok for any metagame to have, hence the dealing of similar situations in other metagames (not like Gothitelle was great in OU itself either outside of niche trapping, even if it was a bit better than this admittedly).

 

[MrAldo]

I... I sincerely Im no expert on this metagame to make a decision of the level. I grasp the general concept of why Goth can be a pretty uncompetitive element in this metagame but I feel by view will be hella biased and based mostly on how Gothitelle affected ORAS OU as a whole, which is way different to what bw ru is.

I dont helping other people test in this tier alone is enough to share an objective opinion, and I havent seen goth in any of the test games I have done :V I guess I can tag someone else over me? Feel col49 will have something to say, something better to share.

 

[col49]

hey. so while i've been a pretty big advocate of airing this concern, i am of the mind that we really do not need to ban this pokemon, or perhaps more appropriate is to say that within the greater context of this tier and the precedents set in its heyday i feel this pokemon is no more demanding of attention than any other hot-button topic within the meta (drudd / mola / ant / moltres, etc). i find myself pulling much from silentverse's post as far as mindset going towards this pokemon; it is a high-risk, high reward pick that can be entirely devastating (finch's example of mola removal is absolutely on point in this regard) but also entirely avoidable. it is to the detriment of this argument that the metagame in question is so infrequently returned to, as the matter discussed in regards to the short shelf-live between the departure of queen and the end of the bw2 era has left little more than one brief window (rupl) for players to return to the metagame and actively consider its development, and even then 9 times of 10 players will simply be pulling from a however-old bin pasted down from the rupl before that. to that end, has any heed been given to the inclusion of shed shell mola on teams that feel their pacing and defensive integrity are significant to the point of teching for this niche trapper? to be certain there are in fact sizable losses in game-per-game consistency to be had in dropping leftovers, but for a pokemon such as this (and amoonguss as well, of course), the loss in turn-per-turn recovery to fool-proof a gothorita and spin a match-up crippling pick to a 5-6 disadvantage seems like a reasonable trade if you pay it some mind. to liken it to a recent metagame adoption, max speed drudd is indescribably worse at committing to 1-for-1 trades and punishing sloppy fwg building, however numerous players decided one particular match-up (the drudd mirror) was worth accounting for in much the same way as i describe here. as has been touched upon, it's not as if gothorita has been the nail in the coffin for defensive building, and in truth drudd is itself far more difficult to address for all the deviation it can provide. most other defensive pokemon can find themselves just as comfortable in adapting to the theoretical gothorita, if not moreso for the more broad application of these techs: speed crept encore clef, dtail slowking, even curse / knock ferroseed. it can reimburse itself in some way through exploitation of superpower or leaf storm locks, sure, but it rarely if ever can do so in such a way that does not prompt a death fodder on behalf of the goth user, which to me is no more contemptuous than an esca pursuit.

as i see it, gothorita lacks the consistency to be trvly damning to any particular archetype, and at best prompts the builder to more actively weigh his options beforehand. dnb

 

[Nails]

[5:59 PM] Nails: anyways
[5:59 PM] Nails: i think stag is cancer
[6:00 PM] Nails: and goth is kinda trash but i don't ever mind banning cancer trash

like it doesn't do much other than matchup fish (if you manage to catch stall it prolly wins, but if your opponent isn't running mola for some reason it suuuu

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ucks) but i don't really think it's healthy to have it around... really i don't care too much. it's way better on paper than in practice, it's pursuit weak, it doesn't even pretend to have stats. normally that would point to a mon where you keep it around for strategic diversity but shadow tag is the biggest mistake in mons. prolly slightly leaning ban if my feet were held to the fire, it's not the biggest issue in bw ru or even top 5 but it's the least impactful reasonable ban and allows people to continue playing the same bw ru so it's probably a slightly positive change.

edit:
[6:08 PM] Nails: do u think i should add more us
[6:08 PM] SilentVerse: yes
[6:08 PM] SilentVerse: that was a disappointing amt imo

 

[phantom]

Meddling in past gens is just bad policy. Unless the circumstance is particularly extreme or there’s a new mechanic discovered that deserves to be addressed, past gens should be left alone. Past gen bans in general create issues of their own where people just don’t know the tier anymore, and given how infrequently they’re played, it would take a long time before those tiers settle. I’d like to avoid past gen bans if possible. In this case, Gothorita’s ostensible brokenness is offset by the fact that it experiences minimal usage and a poor winrate in one of the two tournaments it’s used in. Just this past RUPL, Gothorita was seen ~8 out of 62 games and only in two of those games did Gothorita do anything other than die. The average usage and poor consistency shows that Gothorita is not something that’s so problematic that it deserves to be retroactively banned. It could be argued that banning it results in a slight improvement in the tier’s quality, and while that’s a fair point, the negligible impact of said ban is reason enough to deem it unnecessary. Gothorita just isn’t a game breaking mon and is usually a non-issue in the vast majority of RU games. I’d be inclined to consider a ban if there was more support for it, but given the community’s ambivalence towards a prorspective ban and the lack of evidence that helps support a ban, I personally don’t feel comfortable taking action on goth at this point in time.

 

[atomicllamas]

I guess I'm not 100% sure how tiering old gen lower tiers would be done, but in other old gen lower tiers the TLs of the current gen have always called for the vote so I assume the current tier leaders of the tier are also responsible for the past gen when reasonable (ie they played that gen). Personally my thoughts have been covered by phantom's post in this thread as well as Silentverse's post in the RUPL manager sign up thread. I do not believe it is a good policy to mess around with tiering in past generations in general, especially lower tiers which no longer experience much meta game development, and if I were to support tiering BW RU there are several pokemon (Moltres, Durant, Druddigon, Alomomola) which would be more worthy of a suspect in a traditional sense. At this time I am not interested in holding any kind of vote on BW RU Gothita, and intend on allowing it in RUPL.

This is of course assuming myself and phantom are responsible for tiering BW RU, maybe Hikari can clarify if / how past gen lower tiers are supposed to be tiered.

 

[august]

Idk, considering how I think alo itself is kinda broken I don't think goth is that big of an issue. It's more of a liability than anything if your opp brings any kind of hyper offense, physical tomb and friends mean you basically trade goth for alo (granted not a bad trade but still), and you're basically saccing a teamslot in the hopes your opp brought something weak and trappable anyway.

I wouldn't call it a trade if you have toxic rest goth...

252+ Atk Black Glasses Spiritomb Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Gothorita: 84-98 (25.9 - 30.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252+ Atk Spiritomb Shadow Sneak vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Gothorita: 68-84 (20.9 - 25.9%) -- 0.7% chance to 4HKO

 

[Hot N Cold]

Regardless of Gothorita being broken or not in this tier, this issue should be addressed to General Tiering in Black & White. I don’t think Gothorita its particularly better in RU than Gothorita in NU or even Gothitelle in OU where actually weather wars took an important part in the whole game.

Personally I don’t think Gothorita its broken in this tier, its the typical Pokemon which is much better in theory than in practice. Gothorita has being few used in RU tournaments, in the last BW SPL in 2014 only was used 6% of the time. The most recent tournament was the past RUPL where was little used with a poor win ratio, as Phantom mentioned before.

With this I want to say that looking at the usage stats and replays, we didnt see anything spectacular from Gothorita to suspect it in this tier. This is why I’m against taking a drastically choice as is banning Gothorita without a proper suspect test at this point when theres no enough evidence about Gothorita being broken in this tier.

If something wants to be done about this topic I understand that the way do it its related about banning/suspect Shadow Tag from Black & White, not just discriminate by tiers because I understand this is about generational philosophy in 5th gen. Its uncompetitive Shadow Tag and must be banned? Thats the question.