Official XY Ubers Gengarite Suspect Voting

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Sam

i say it's all just wind in sails
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Gengarite: Ban

When discussing whether or not something is "uncompetitive", there's a lot of problems communicating what it actually means. The reason I am voting to ban is because Shadow Tag (and by extension, Gengarite/Mega Gengar) removes a fundamental aspect of player choice in competitive battling. Although it would be wrong to say that Mega Gengar completely eliminates skill from matches, it puts opponents on an unequal field, requiring the opposing player to have to be multiple steps ahead to avoid any trapping, or provide optimal trapping (basically, lose your worst Pokemon). I feel that this discrepancy overshadows any skill it may take to use Mega Gengar effectively.
 
Gengarite: Do Not Ban

I can see why people would want Mega Gengar banned. Most of its checks are shaky at best, and if a prediction against an opposing Mega Gengar goes south, the opponent gains a lot of momentum. Taunt and Destiny Bond with Shadow Tag is definitely a godsend, capable of severly denting stall, and its already large movepool combined with an amazing speed and special attack stat does nothing to shunt its amazing power.

However, even though this Pokemon is extremely powerful and deserves to be higher than S Rank, I do not believe that Mega Gengar is uncompetitive enough to deserve a ban. First of all, though Shadow Tag may seem like a very OP ability, eliminating the opposing player's choice to switch, Gengar can certainly be played around before it can mega. Gengar cannot trap an opposing Pokemon immediately, unlike Gothitelle, who can trap an opposing Pokemon right away and set up. If the opponent can switch out into something they can sacrifice/check, they can limit Mega Gengar's ability to KO an important Pokemon, or just outright KO it if the opportunity presents itself. Now this may sound like, "Just outplay the coinflip," but I would think that a skilled and experienced Ubers player would be able to out-predict an opposing Mega Gengar at least once, and at most, only lose 1 or 2 Pokemon against it. Or they can trap an opponent's important Pokemon to great effect before they can, since everyone else can similarly use Mega Gengar as well. And even so, Mega Gengar or not, 50/50s are still and will always be a part of competitive Pokemon. In addition, Mega Gengar does not have the full power to destroy a well-built team completely, if it's frailty and weakness to faster revenge killers is any indication, and successfully trapping an important Pokemon on the opposing team does not always equal game over. Another weakness Mega Gengar possess is its 4 Moveslot Syndrome. It cannot dent or trap all of its checks at once. Without Focus Blast, Tyranitar wins. Without HP Fire, Scizor wins, Without Taunt/Destiny Bond, Gengar can be set up on or KOed outright, and so on and so forth. While running checks specifically meant to take out Mega Gengar is overcentralizing for sure, I'm pretty sure that in the Ubers tier, overcentralization does not matter at all. If people prepare teams to have checks for Xerneas, shouldn't they have checks for Mega Gengar as well?

All in all, if Mega Gengar was so truly OP that anyone fighting against it would complain and whine (e.g., if both of its defenses were raised by a 100), and overall, top the usage stats by a wide margin so that you run into it every game, then I would be calling to ban it as well. But as of what I've seen of Ubers overall, I just don't think it's uncompetitive enough to warrant a ban.
 
Abstain

couldn't decide which vote would be better for ubers because it depends a lot on personal preferences (imo) and it's not ridiculous as moody
(which can win games without influence from your opponent)
 

DetroitLolcat

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I'm voting Do Not Ban for Gengarite.

I believe the pro-ban crowd is twisting the definition of "uncompetitive" in order to remove an annoying but not harmful element of the Ubers metagame. Shadow Tag is the primary motivation behind this proposition; Mega Gengar would really be nothing special in Ubers without the ability to prevent most opposing Pokemon from switching. Switching is not a right afforded to both players at all points in the match. Just as there are perfectly competitive ways to dissuade or prevent the opponent from attacking you, there are perfectly competitive ways to prevent the opponent from switching out. Mega Gengar does not "remove skill from the game" (unlike Evasion Clause, which clearly does and remains unbanned...); it needs a free turn in which the opponent almost always both knows what the Gengar is going to do and gives the opponent a turn to react. The Mega Gengar player has to nearly throw away a turn in order to begin accomplishing whatever it wants to accomplish Mega Gengar. This becomes difficult to do if the opponent has Pursuit trappers or certain setup sweepers (bulky CM Arceus comes to mind). I consider that both balanced and competitive. When I played with and against Mega Gengar on the Ubers ladder, it was not easy finding opportunities to trap opposing Pokemon. When I won with Mega Gengar, it was usually because i outplayed my opponent. When I lost to Mega Gengar, it was because I left Pokemon in that I shouldn't have against it. It was no different than losing to or defeating any other Ubers powerhouse.
 
Do Not Ban

Mega Gengar is an insanely powerful threat. But it's not uncompetitive (I'm defining uncompetitive as removing meaningful choice). Looking at the thread, forcing 50/50's and removing choice seem to be the two biggest issues players have with M-Gar, and I do not believe that these things make M-Gar uncompetitive. M-Gar does force 50/50's, but forcing 50/50's is uncompetitive when the choice goes to the RNG (swagger, where it is literally impossible to control whether you hit yourself or not), but it's not uncompetitive if both players still have a choice. For example, whether to switch in Xerneas or a ground type into Zekrom is pretty much a 50/50, but it's not uncompetitive even though you could lose your Zekrom check with one wrong switch (even though Zekrom's Bolt Strike doesn't OHKO Xerneas, Pokemon is not a vacuum and so prior damage and/or hazards must be considered). A player can still switch if they predict M-Gar is coming in (and you don't have to be a psychic to predict when it's coming) and switch to a counter. Neutral base 90 scarfers outspeed and I can't think of one that can't OHKO M-Gar. There is also Infiltrator Spiritomb, and while Spiritomb is a random shit pokemon, it has always been the ubers mentality that if random shit is required to counter a threat, players are expected to run said random shit. People may complain that many specialized M-Gar counters will go down in order to beat M-Gar due to destiny bond, but that's kinda besides the point, since the point of running Spiritomb is just to take out M-Gar. Yes, the fact that someone is running one pokemon just to beat M-Gar means that M-Gar probably is overcentralizing, but that doesn't matter in ubers. Once M-Gar is in, the option to switch is removed and so that could be called uncompetitive, but the player who is trapped already made a choice not to switch out the trapped Pokemon turn before. Therefore, that removal of choice is not uncompetitive.
 

Haruno

Skadi :)
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Do not ban

Choosing to not ban because if gengarite doesn't get banned then piexplode/dice will quit ubers I don't see what differentiates gengarite from other top tier threats in such an extreme that it would be deemed uncompetitive and thus ban worthy. Probably summarized in a few points.

Restricts team building: Does it force people to not run sylveon/chansey/blisssey/fairyceus or w/e else is considered gengar bait because of its sole existence? Sure. though I don't see how the inability to run said mons is a bad thing since in a similar vein, kyogre/ho oh/xerneas and other top tier threats as opposed to forcing your opponent to not run certain mons, these top tier threats instead mandate you to run a check to them on every successful ubers team. I don't see how gengar's "team building" restrictiveness is different than other top tier threats since we're not trying to make unviable mons become viable but instead we're trying to make a more competitive metagame, and if the metagame is leaning more towards offensive teams because of gengarite, then so be it. The point of the suspect isn't primarily to make stall/balanced viable/better but rather to increase the skill needed in both playing and team building. As soviet so eloquently put it, if mega gengar is making the meta heavily favor heavy offense then that's what players should do as opposed to trying to be different and getting curbstomped by gengar.

Forces 50-50s between doubles/tauntdbont shenanigans: Does it force a good amount of 50-50's with double switches and/or dbond/taunt shenanigans? Sure but what's the difference between mega gengar's 50-50's and say zekrom's ability to force 50-50's every time it comes in? There's no difference in terms of overall effect on a game's outcome for the winner/loser of the 50-50 caused by either. Since competitive battling as a whole is essentially just glorified guess work, and how the removal of gengarite won't make 50-50's less prevalent in competitive battling, I don't see why this would make it deemed uncompetitive. Is it different in the way it forces 50-50's as opposed to something like krom/geoxern? Sure, but it's not to such a degree that it would be considered uncompetitive since in the end the better player will win the majority of the time which is different than uncompetitive elements like moody/swagger/ohko clause that allows a worse player to just luck their way to victory.

Shadow tag gives it unparalleled support capabilities: This is true on paper, in the sense that gengar can cherry pick threats and open up the way for another mon to sweep or for your team to break the opponents team. However it's much harder in practice due to needing both a turn to mega evolve + having shitty bulk. Does gengar give phenomenal results when used properly? most certainly and I'm not arguing that, however in order for said results to happen, the mega gengar user has to correctly predict properly to achieve said results, and since prediction is a fundamental aspect of pokemon, this would be considered a good thing. Since it still boils down to the mega gengar user making proper predictions to achieve said results. Due to this fact, I can't really see how mega gengar's support capabilities make it uncompetitive since if anything it encourages more prediction on both ends with a high risk-high return for either which we strive to achieve in the ubers metagame.


Overall due to these reasons, i'm unable to see mega gengar as uncompetitive for the ubers metagame. Is it broken/overpowered/overcentralizing? Most definitely. but the goal is to make ubers more competitive and to remove uncompetitive factors which mega gengar is not. So because of that Im voting to not ban.
 
I'm still a bit undecided, but I'd better go ahead and post since the deadline is tomorrow.

Mega Gengar's combination of traits is what makes it so uncompetitive. It's fast as balls, hits pretty hard, and has an extremely large movepool in addition to having Shadow Tag. The italicized part is the most important, because it essentially allows Mega Gengar to pick and choose what it needs to trap and kill. Is Mega Scizor stopping your GeoXern from going bananas on your opponents team? No problem, use HP Fire Mega Gengar and proceed to wreak havoc. Defensive Yveltal stopping your EKiller from unleashing God's Wrath? Use Perish Trap Mega Gengar (that one wasn't the best example, but you should get the point). That brings me to another point: Mega Gengar forces 50/50s (I know that's a bit of a buzzword now, but here me out). If we go back to the Mega Scizor vs Mega Gengar example, either the Mega Gengar user kills you with HP Fire while taking a Bullet Punch or Mega Gar switches and dies to a Pursuit. It's pretty much GG if the former happens, and there's absolutely nothing Mega Scizor user can do about it. I mean really, this thing is almost impossible to prepare for due to its movepool and insane trapping abilities. Shed Shell is the only way you can escape this beast, and that's no good since it leaves you vulnerable to a bunch of other stuff due to not hitting hard enough/lack of reliable passive recovery.

Well, I hope that paragraph was good enough to get my vote to count. If we want Ubers to be an official and competitive tier, Gengarite needs to go first. BAN.
 
I personally think that Mega Gengar is one of the best Pokemon in the Ubers meta. Since it was introduced into Ubers i has made many great Pokemon not viable like Arceus-Grass and Chansey. Now I do think Mega Gengar is broken, but I don't think it is uncompetitive. It actually takes skill to win, where as previous bans were things like swagger and Moody could make unskilled players win purely based on luck. On top of that, I personally think it would be worse for the tier as a whole to ban Mega Gengar because it could open up more bans in the future. My vote is to keep Mega Gengar in Ubers.
 
DON'T ban
Mega gengar is obviously really strong but it's not ban worthy in my honest opinion, it doesn't remove skill from the game at all.

It's true that when specs kyogre is locked into water spout mega gengar has a "free" suicide-kill (dying is not free, and you've probably lost a pokemon already to a monster specs water spout), or if chansey is trapped then Gengar can taunt and slowly kill it without any risk at all (I know, please don't use chansey , it's just an example).

However there are choices being made to get to that point, when to mega evolve, when to taunt/Dbond, which offensive moves to use (or not use , if you like perish trapping) and of course team building which goes both ways. A team can be very dangerous by using mega gengar's amazing support correctly but the other team can also prepare (by putting pressure so gengar can't mega evolve safely, or not relying on a single pokemon to check Xerneas , even just use their own mega Gengar). In my opinion all of this is skill based.

It may not be pretty to see quite inferior sets/pokemon being used (like dark pulse support arceus , spiritomb , or shed shell whatever) , it's also not pretty to face 50/50s (some of them are not even true 50/50s since risk/reward, and player tendencies exist in the real world ) but not pretty situations when dealing with top tier have existed in pokemon (and a lot of competitive games) and will continue to exist with or without Mega Gengar.

.... Hopefully with mega gengar, and shadow tag.
 
Mega Gengar is an unhealthy force in the Ubers metagame. It’s ability to remove switches is the main reason causing it to be uncompetitive. While Mega Gengar does take certain skill level to use, it exaggerates team matchup’s influence on the game’s rather than the players’ skill. Unlike what some people said, the key pokemon that Mega Gengar have trapped usually directly affects the match outcome since it is pretty hard to have a secondary check to everything in a tier filled with op shits like Ubers. Even both teams carry Mega Gengar, the team with less and easier things that the opposing Mega Gengar needs to trap tends to lose more regardless of skill level since it is totally impossible to outplay con flips and know when exactly the opposing Mega Gengar is in. Once trapped, there is no way out thanks to Shadow Tag and the team lacking a key check to a sweeper in the opposing team is forced into an extreme disadvantage. This creates pokemon games similar to a more complicated version of rock-paper-scissors and reduces skill from the game.


Some people claim that the turn Mega Gengar needs to mega evolve gives Pursuit trappers a chance to come in and take it out, making it less uncompetitive compared with other Shadow Taggers. However, the problem with pursuit trapping is wether the pursuit trapping is successful or not also depends on team matchup. From alternative attacks like hp fire, shadow tag to niche moves like disable, reflect type, Mega Gengar has the possibility to beat ever Pursuit trapper in existence. The successfulness of Pursuit trapping ultimately depends on team matchup, which is another kind of luck. Running two answers to Mega Gengar is not a solution since you can only send in one of them per time. If Mega Gengar has a way to get around the ‘answer’ you send in, one key pokemon on your team is almost guaranteed to be screwed since you have no way to send in your secondary ‘answer’ to it.


To conclude, Mega Gengar creates games with less emphasis on skill. Gengarite is certainly uncompetitive and deserves to be BANNED from the Ubers metagame.
 

Fireburn

BARN ALL
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Gengarite: Do Not Ban

Let me start by saying that I unquestionably feel that Gengarite is uncompetitive as balls for many reasons. It elevates the importance of luck and team matchup such that skill is not the primary element of deciding games through stuff like multiple coinflip predictions, its ability to remove almost anything from the game, the inability to counterplay it due to Shadow Tag removing switching (which means it all comes down to luck and teambuilder), the sheer difficulty of stacking multiple checks to Ubers Pokemon which magnifies the importance the turns in which Gengar acts can influence the outcome of the game (which is proven by evidence from tournament matches), and the fact that the only real way to check Gengarite ALSO depends entirely on team matchup. Apologies for the massive run-on.

However, singling out Gengarite does not fix the problem. It incorrectly assumes Gengarite alone is the issue when the ability Shadow Tag (hi Gothitelle) is actually the problem, and I feel like that unless we ban the thing that is actually uncompetitive then we are kind of just spinning our wheels. While I understand that Gengarite would be banned anyway if STAG were banned, I would much rather Gengarite be disallowed from Ubers as a consequence of a STAG ban rather than Gengarite itself being banned. Cherry-picking Gengarite goes against Ubers precedent and philosophy, where it has always banned the problem itself instead of specific abusers (example: we banned Moody rather than banned Smeargle, banned Swagger rather than banned Prankster + Swagger or Klefki, etc). We should stick to that philosophy and test/ban what is uncompetitive - which is Shadow Tag.

Now that we're getting a full STAG test, I don't see a reason to ban just Gengarite as it will not solve the real issue at hand. I don't want to set a precedent that cherry-picking stuff to ban is okay, especially when there is no reason to do so.
 
I did a ton of laddering during this suspect test simply because i love Ubers and i wanted to fully understand how overpowered Gengarite is so that i could make a completely informed decision. After a lot of thought i have decided I want Gengarite banned from the metagame.
The main reason i believe Gengarite needs to go is not a mystery to any good Ubers player, as we all know Ubers is full of absolutely deadly sweepers. Extreme Killer, GeoXern, Mega Blaziken, Groudon... and to play Ubers successfully you need to have ways of dealing with them, and if you're playing with a stall team the way to do that is to send out a couter. But if the opponent has a Mega Gengar they can simply double into it, trap and remove the counter paving the way for a late game sweep with said sweeper. For example, lets say you want to sweep the opponent with an Extreme Killer, the opponents stops to your Extreme Killer are Skarmory and a secondary stop being Support Arceus Grass, all you have to do to win is remove these counters with your Gengar, and you've essentially won the game. And even if you misspredict mega Gar even has usable bulk to take weak and resisted hits well. One could argue that mega Gar is easy to stop through Pursuit trappers. But the main three pursuit trappers in ubers are tyranitar, aegislash, and scizor. All of these pokemon are one or two hit ko'd by moves that are commonly run by Gengar, those being focus blast for tyranitar, shadow ball for aegislash, and HP fire for scizor, forcing you to use pursuit trappers like spiritomb that are only good for that one task in ubers.
This is why i believe Mega Gengar should be banned from Ubers.
 
Gengarite: Do Not Ban

Rationale:

There is a fairly-well-accepted premise that the Ubers tier is one in which bans are disfavored in general. Yet, that does not mean there are no bans for Ubers, which currently has three clauses, the swagger, OHKO moves, and moody clauses. What those three clauses truly have in common is that they remove skill by being almost entirely RNG-based. Players have no control over whether a mon breaks through confusion, or Dewgong hits Sheer Cold three times in a row, or Moody grants evasion boosts in the first couple turns. These are called "coin flips." Another "pseudo" form of removing skill is the "win button," which is like using Mewtwo in OU. It's so powerful that it doesn't take much skill to use effectively, and has very little to no opportunity cost. Most importantly, however, skill is not actually made irrelevant in this case. If there is a large enough difference in skill of the players, Mewtwo in OU can in theory be played around.

Mega Gengar falls into the latter category, win button. A mega evolved Gengar in the opponent's team merely increases the risk of decision; players retain all control and no RNG is involved. Saying that shadow tag combined with MGar's support moves (esp. things like Taunt+D-Bond) lets it force a mon to die therefore making it too easy for the player to set up a sweep/win condition, is the same as saying MGar makes it too easy for a player to win. And like Mewtwo in OU, if the skill disparity is large enough, one can IN THEORY play or team build around it. Doing so may not be fun, or easy, but it is possible, and that itself distinguishes MGar from the three current clauses. As much as it sucks to switch in the Klefki you needed to prevent a Xerneas sweep the same turn MGar switches in, at it’s core all that means is that one player was outplayed, even if the turn is more devastating than getting outplayed in a different circumstance. It's no different from how sun teams back in BW2 would constantly be trying to get Dugtrio in on Heatran, or other teams might try to get Magnezone in on Ferrothorn. Players are still making decisions and therefore they and not the RNG are controlling the match. That means Mega Gengar can’t be banned under current Ubers precedent.

I also don’t support forging new ground here. If Ubers bans MGar for being too good, especially under the guise of it being “uncompetitive,” I would worry that Ubers will soon enough start adding more mons to the chopping block (Geomancy Xerneas, Kyogre, E-Killer...). The foot, as they say, will have entered the door. “Uncompetitive” will have completely lost meaning (more so than it already has), becoming nothing more than a buzzword people simply throw around to describe any pokemon they think is overpowered/broken, similar to the fate already befallen the term "50/50." With pokemon being banned simply because they make it too easy to win, Ubers could quickly end up becoming remarkably similar to OU, only with different pokemon.
 
A little late, but voting Do Not Ban

Since everyone and their mom seems to have their own version of what "uncompetitive" means, I'd just to clarify that my take on the term is something along the lines of "an aspect of gameplay that removes the importance of a player's actions in a manner that said player cannot duplicate." As such, I believe that there are 2 reasons as to why Gengarite is not uncompetitive. Firstly, Gengarite takes a turn to activate Shadow Tag, allowing players that face it to switch into whatever they deem an appropriate check. Secondly, the trapping abilities of Shadow Tag are not reliant on an RNG in the same way that, say, Swagger/Moody are, so the aforementioned player is able to use Mega Gengar's abilities just as easily as his/her opponent. While I will not deny that Mega Gengar's BST, Ability, and typing are a fearsome combination, they do not eliminate the importance of skill in the way that Swagplay and similar tactics do.
 
Vote: NO BAN

Note, I may use the terms Gengarite and Mega-Gengar interchangeably. I would also like to apologize for typos.
I disagreed with a majority of the pro-ban arguments, and the burden of proving that mega-gengar was banworthy was on them. The argument that Mega-Gengar had a great combination of speed, power, and moves is something that I disliked. This argument purports that Mega-Gengar is broken, but the ubers tier is full of broken threats, so this seems invalid. I also disagree with the argument that Gengarite should be banned for forcing overly matchup based games. It is impossible to build a team that can directly counter every offensive threat, your best bet is to build a team that does well against the standard threats. Your team may have an exploitable weakness (offensive teams weak to trick room/sticky web, etc.), but matchup advantages have always existed and I do not think this criteria is sufficient for a ban. The argument about the 50/50s caused is also one I found lacking. As Minority Suspect, Shrang, and others noted, the ubers metagame is already full of 50/50s (Zekrom, for example), and guessing incorrectly could be just as devastating. For the argument about fairy/grass types becoming less viable and how teambuilding is limited, several users pointed out a counterargument that I found reasonable. The giratina formes have significantly decreased in usage both in tournaments and ladder use this generation, due to the omni-presence of the new xy legendaries. Does Yveltal/Xerneas reducing the viability of giratinas make them banworthy? This draws to a point on the anti-ban side that I support, that mega-gengar is beaten in the teambuilder. On the arceus grass analysis for example, one of the move slashes is stone edge. It has already been identified how a key threat, ho-oh, significantly threatens grassceus, and how stone edge has viability for specifically that reason. I do not see how running something like dark pulse on grassceus or a similar situation with a different mon (shed shell on blissey) is any different. Mega-Gengar is a threat that should be addressed, not ignored in hopes that it is banned. I disliked the argument about how Mega-Gengar can run moves to get around its usual pursuit trap counters. How is this any different than an e-killer running overheat to get around mega-scizor/ferro or groundceus/mmx running ice beam to smash gliscor/lando-t? Mega-gengar suffers from Bad 4MSS, it wants to focus blast/shadow ball/sludge wave/taunt/destiny bond/protect/sub/reflect type/wisp/icy wind, etc. Mega-Gengar cannot do everything, and it might easily be taken out by a pursuit trapper it was not prepared for. It may just happen that mega-gengar can beat your pursuit trapper, and I do agree with there is no way to 100% pursuit trap Mega-gengar, but I really disagree about how that is a banworthy statement when there are plenty of other cases about mons adapting their movesets to get around specific threats. Saying that something is uncounterable depending on its moveset seems like a flimsy argument, run something like av tomb or scarf-yveltal (semi-joking, but seriously wins unless Mega-Gengar d-bonds on the switch). One argument that I did not really see mentioned in the thread is how Gengarite is an opportunity cost as well, in terms of using your team's mega-evolution. There are a plethora of other users of mega-evolutions that can give your team enormous offensive presence, like the mewtwos, blaze, mega-luke, charizards, mega-mawile, etc. Opting to not use one of these in favor of Mega-Gengar is indeed an opportunity cost.On a similar vein, several arguments on the pro-ban side seemed flimsy. The turn to mega-evolve is not really that big of a deal, although is does make it more vulnerable to pursuit trapping as opposed to something like gothielle. It's fragility really doesn't matter, as there are smarter ways to bring it in to mega-evolve than on a resisted move. The argument that this is Ubers, we don't ban shit was flimsy. While I agree with the sentiment about it being a precedent, it really doesn't address any pro-ban arguments. The one argument on the pro-ban side I found interesting was about how Mega-Gengar removed choice and does not encourage high level prediction/double-switching. While I thought this argument had some solid basis, I still disagreed with it. Removing choice for 1-2 turns does not invalidate every other choice you've made in the game (from Shrang's argument). Shrang also gave some solid points about how it was kind of your choice to be helpless to Mega-Gengar by not recognizing it as a threat that has amplified the problem. As already noted, there are still options like shed shell (blissey), dark pulse grassceus, etc. that allow you to work around or address the problem. One argument on the discussion thread highlighted it as "addressing the threat instead of hoping it was banned". On that note, my final thought towards Mega-Gengar is that instead of banning it, perhaps it should be treated as a notable threat (just like how every team has an answer for Kyogre, e-killer, geoxern, etc.) and that the metagame should adapt instead of resisting change.
 
BAN

Mega Gengar (and Shadow Tag, to a greater extent) is unhealthy and needs to be removed from the metagame. Mega Gengar creates an environment where player skill and choice are thrown to the wayward. First off, it greatly magnifies team matchup, something completely out of the player’s hands. Gengar puts an immense amount of pressure on the opposing team’s check to your sweeper. Now, it’s not uncommon for one Pokemon to pressure another, but in Mega Gengar’s case, it can’t be played around due to Shadow Tag, or rather it can be, but only through blind double switches and 50/50s, things that aren’t skill reliant. Mega Gengar makes the Ubers metagame much more matchup based when it’s a factor, something quite unhealthy for the game. One of the most “reliable” ways to get rid of Gengar is through a Pursuit trapper like Mega Scizor, yet this way has flaws. Pursuit is not an OHKO on Gengar forcing a 50/50 between Pursuit and Bullet Punch on the second turn, once again taking player skill out of the equation. Similarly, removal of choice is essentially a further extension of the removal of skill Gengar creates. Thanks to Shadow Tag, the counterplay dynamic present between basically any other Pokemon is almost nonexistent between Gengar and another Mon, meaning that players often cannot “play around” Gengar since their freedom to do so is removed. This ability to prevent switching cannot be overstated in terms of how Gengar can be defined as uncompetitive and is a major crux of my argument. In a metagame where switching is a big part of what we consider to be “skillful”, the removal to do so detracts from the integrity of the game. What differentiates M-Gengar and Shadow Tag users of the past is its combination of support and offensive prowess. Having both Taunt and Destiny Bond allows it to completely shut down certain team archetypes (limiting teambuilding greatly) and nearly guarantees that it will be able to remove a Pokemon for another sweeper. All in all, I believe that Mega Gengar needs to be banned due to it creating an uncompetitive environment in the Ubers tier through the removal of skill and choice, as well as placing a greater emphasis on team matchup.
 

Imma Fly

Who needs wings when you have Rokushiki?
Hope my vote is not too late:

Gengarite: Do Not Ban

Paragraph(s) (not sure if the paragraph should be posted here or the discussion thread, I'll just post a summary of my thoughts here and the main one in the discussion thread later):

Not going to deny, Mega-Gengar has a great ability, wide moveset, and is definitely one of the most useful megas/ubers to use. But honestly, can it really be claimed to be as "uncompetitive" as others would claim it to be?

Definitely not.

Mega-Gengar is not as uncompetitive as it is often made out to be. True, it prevents switching, and in turn creates coinflip scenarios. Well, so what? Lets face it, in almost every match, there are hidden coinflips everywhere. Be it trying to predict where the opposing Kyogre that just switched in on your Ho-Oh is going to Water Spout or predict your Palkia and Thunder, whether that Scarfed Zekrom is going to Bolt Strike your Kyogre or Volt Switch to try and gain momentum, or even whether the opposing Ho-Oh is going to Brave Bird or predict the Rockceus and Earthquake instead. Bottom line is, 50-50s are almost everywhere. It is the same when facing Mega-Gengar, whether would it predict a status/boosting move and Taunt, or if the opponent wants to predict an offensive move and go for Destiny Bond. True, you might not have the "option" to switch, but its still fundamentally the same. It is just that instead of "switching out to the right pokemon", you now have to "make the right move". It is as simple as that. Coinflips are everywhere, deal with it. It is not something like Baton Pass in OU, where you have to specially prepare something in your team to be able to handle it.

Another argument that is made is that Mega-Gengar can easily snipe off defensive Pokes to give other offensive team members (eg. Xerneas, Ekiller) the opportunity to sweep. Honestly, I don't really think that is much to argue about. It is just the exact same concept behind using nukers like Banded Ho-Oh or Specs Kyogre to wallbreak before the sweepers come in.

Yes, you could argue that by Mega-Gengar allows less skilled players to win more skilled counterparts, but is that really the case? Perhaps this quote, that "a weapon is only as good as its master. Or just as bad" can be taken into consideration. Mega-Gengar is good, but it is as good as how well you utilize it. If you know nuts on how the metagame works, you are not going to win even if your Mega-Gengar gives you an advantage. This itself be evidenced from the replays posted earlier in the discussion thread, player(s) that was put at a "disadvantage" by Mega-Gengar still won the match at the end. You don't win because you have a Mega-Gengar, you win because you know how to use it and take advantage of the support it provides properly.

Also, has anyone considered this alternate view of Mega-Gengar, other than "oh, it exists to wreck all of my defensive pokes so it is uncompetitive", that its presence in the Ubers metagame is to prevent stalling itself from becoming uncompetitive. Honestly, if you played even a decent amount of XY Ubers matches, you should at least have an inkling on how "easy" it is breaking hard stall cores such as Rock-ceus + Chansey without using Mega-Gengar at all. More often than not, you would need to pull off quite a number of double-switches in order to even have a wining chance, that is, unless you run something along the same lines yourself, or are one of those jokers that run Taunt on every other thing. And this time, unlike the one or two 50-50's that Mega Gengar forces, you are going to have a win a series of 50-50's in a row to even stand a winning chance. Now, that really becomes uncompetitive as the odds would then be obviously favoring one side way more than the other.

As for the argument that Mega-Gengar makes the game "less fun", screw that. This is competitive play, if one's definition of "fun" is that he/she must be able to win 100% of the time without fail, then I'd suggest sticking to playing against the elite four on the 3DS. Don't worry, victory is assured.

In a nutshell, I see no reason why Mega-Gengar should be banned from the Ubers metagame, therefore, my vote is Gengarite: Do Not Ban
 
While i think that Gengar is a bit more manageable than other Shadow Tag users like Gothitelle in the fact that you have room for error before being trapped definitively by it i also think that its fantastic stats, typing that gives it some useful resitances/immunties, and access to Destiny Bond and Taunt that let it trap almost everything he wants given a free switch make it uncompetitive in the ubers environment. Its uncompetitiveness is also shown in two SPL matches in particular this and this win which we can also see the Gengar user tailoring its moveset (with the use of Hp fire) to trap specific Pokemon without even having to "trade" kills. Ban
 
MY VOTE: BAN GENGARITE
So here are my thoughts after playing through the Ubers suspect test. In my opinion, Mega Gengar should be banned. Basically because it causes a lot of coin flips, in a different way, unlike any other Pokemon. When Mega Gengar is looming around, you have to predict your opponent's every move - will Mega Gengar switch in right now or not? Because one mistake and you're done. While this can be said for other things too such as Extreme Killer Arceus and Geomancy Xerneas, these 2 Pokemon don't really force you to stay in, but Mega Gengar does. That's why Mega Gengar is broken in a different way. You basically CANNOT do anything. Let's say you're facing a +6 Arceus and you have a team full of 6 Rattata's. Even though you cannot survive any attack in reality, you can still say 'Well. maybe if I had a good defensive Pokemon, I might have won that match'. However, Mega Gengar leaves you with no choice. That's why in a way Mega Gengar feels like 'cheating' to win, because team match up and luck shouldn't alone decide a match, predictions/skills should decide the fate of the match. Mega Gengar just throws this aspect of the game out of the window.


Here's a simple example: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-159684455
On turns 14-15, I had to be certain that Mega Gengar is coming in, because if I wasn't going to able to to paralyse that Mega Gengar, I would have lost the match since M-Gengar outspeeds and would have Destiny Bond'ed my E-Killer. The 50/50s which Mega Gengar forces are different than usual situations. I don't really feel like want to ban Mega Gengar, but since Shadow Tag + Destiny Bond almost seems like it can said as an excuse that it feels like 'cheating' because your options are removed once Mega Gengar comes into play. Predictions are still the primary part of competitive battling, but since Ubers is already a OVER-HYPER-CENTRALISED tier, it would be more healthy if M-Gengar is removed.
 
NO BAN

I don't consider Mega Gengar an uncompetitive Pokemon, and as uncompetitiveness is the only reason to ban anything from Ubers, I think Gengarite should not be banned. Several arguments have been given during the suspect test to justify a Gengarite ban, but they have all been severely lacking. Firstly, there is the argument that Mega Gengar causes many 50-50s. This is undoubtedly true, but 50-50s are a huge part of Pokemon, occur in many situations even when Shadow Tag is not involved, and are in no way uncompetitive. Some might argue that the combination of Taunt and Destiny Bond gives rise to "pure 50-50s" where no risk/reward analysis is necessary. This is indeed the case, but such situations are no different than moves with imperfect accuracy, and hence not uncompetitive. A second argument is that the existence of Mega Gengar greatly amplifies team matchup, which would be uncompetitive because it gives weaker players a chance to beat stronger ones with a "lucky matchup". Team matchup is a real issue in gen 6 ubers and it would make some sense to ban the cause of it, but it is in no way clear that a Gengarite would some anything in this regard. The changes to Defog have completely changed the offense/balance vs. stall matchup, and all ways of battling stall are significantly matchup reliant in a metagame without hazards. Hence I think it is not justified to ban Gengarite for this reason. Finally, there have been arguments that switching is a crucial part of the game and Shadow Tag would be uncompetitive as it prevents switching. I disagree with this, as I think the current metagame is very competitive and interesting with many different viable strategies. There have also been many other metagames that were perfectly fine with Shadow Tag users, like gen 4 Ubers where Wobbuffet is a serious threat. Some people have tried to strengthen this argument by pointing out that all previous bans in Ubers have been game elements that cannot be countered by switching out to the appropriate Pokemon, but I fail to understand why this fact is any relevant. It is very logical that all bans in Ubers share this characteristic as otherwise we would start running the appropriate counters instead of going for a ban, and it does not help to show that any game element which cannot be beaten by switching to a counter is banworthy.
 
Vote: Ban

My first point relates to shadow tag in general which I feel puts an insane amount of pressure on a team and results in what anyone with a brain would call uncompetitve. I know its a buzzword and gets thrown around a lot but it really is true. Maybe in other tiers showtag isn't as broken because of the way ubers team building is centralised around geoxern which obvious results in a fair amount of bulky mons being trapped and killed by gengar.

Mons like dugtrio are fine because they are incredibly frail and weak and only trap specific targets. Gengar has one of the highest speeds in the tier, is very poweful and most importantly has access to both taunt AND destiny bond. I think this combination is what makes the mon quite broken. The fact that it is immune to the most common priority in ubers aka extreme speed just adds to this. In other tiers having a trapper normally leaves you with a disadvantage against certain match ups but I feel there is no downside to using mega gengar.
 
Gengarite : Do not Ban
The reason that I believe that gengarite isn't uncompetitive is that it doesn't show the factors to be an uncompetitive element. While yes, gengarite does remove the power of choice, it only removes it for a very short amount of time (usually 1-3 turns) just like other elements such as the moves taunt and disable, which limits you to only be able to use certain moves temporarily. While none of these are as extreme as Shadow Tag/Gengarite, it shows that it isn't the only element that removes the power of choice. And in response to the 50/50 argument, Gengarite does cause 50/50's, but 50/50's will always be a part of the game and Gengarite's 50/50's aren't really different from other 50/50's.
 

Art Vandelay

Banned deucer.
Do not ban

Gengarite allows Gengar to mega evolve and acquire Shadow Tag along with a boost in Spe and SpAtk. The question that is asked is whether Gengarite should be banned or not. My answer is based on my knowledge on the Ubers ladder (playing since early pre-Farceus DPP) and the suspect test we all underwent.

First of all, Ubers is a tier on its own, despite what many people from sides tend to believe. It’s not a banlist, even if it was first conceived as one). Second of all, in this tier overcentralization means nothing. We have powerhouses like Kyogre, Arceus and now Xerneas. The metagame on DPP, then Platinum/HGSS was fine even with Kyogre being part of 45% of the teams. Same thing in Gen 5, where the inclusion of Ferrothorn made rain even more common with very repetitive Kyogre/Ferrothorn/spinblocker(/Tentacruel) cores.

My first argument against the ban is that the people complaining/asking for the ban has not build up a good case/argument. One argument/claim is that Shadow Tag in itself is broken. If that was true, how come no one asked for a suspect test in Gen 5 with Gothitelle and Wobbafett still available (and team preview being a thing)? How are they more broken in today’s meta? Has Extreme Killer being nerfed? Because, you know, you could double switch Wobbaffet or Gothithelle into Groudon back in Gen 5 too.

Another argument is that Mega Gengar “exacerbates matchup advantage” to the point of “making a playstyle unviable”. On matchup advantage: No competitive game ever created has had balanced characters/races/teams, etc. From fighting games to RPG to RTS all over the places there has always been good and bad matchups. Whoever had lots of bad matchups and very few good matchups is considered low tier. I think this is kosher. If you like a character/playstyle/etc that doesn’t fair well against what is most common/currently dominating then you have the choice to learn the matchup well OR change that character/playstyle. I sincerely do not understand the whole sentiment of “let’s keep it fair for everyone guys!” that has invaded smogon lately. You that are reading this for sure have played Gen 5 Ubers and the meta there was mostly HO, leaving stall a more challenging playstyle. That meant it had a bad matchup against most teams laddering. When did we ban pokemon based on what is beneficial for a particular playstyle? Isn’t that what metagame (or competition for that matters, given how misused is that word lately) stands for? Using the best thing available to win. That’s why we have usage percentages per month. We don’t label pokemon “good” or “bad” on this tier, it has to do more on what particular use it can perform on the current meta (think the boost of Smeargle after SmashPass teams became popular). Matchup advantages do exist. If for whatever reason you want to believe that Mega Gengar is making your bad matchup harder, then your current team is not ready for the current meta. Simple as that. Any Kyogre weak team in Gen 5 would have been raped on team preview as well. Didn’t and doesn’t make Kyogre ban worthy.

From a practical point of view, I played my matches to get the reqs and I’d say 80% of the teams had M-Gengar on them. I purposely ran a balanced team (who is supposed to be “weak” against HO teams with Mega Gengar) with an Arceus form as a defogger and both Ho-Oh and Yveltal (which means had I lost my defogger/Kyogre check I was pretty much screwed against any offensive team) and found that Mega Gengar posed no more threat than say a good set up pokemon. As such, it didn’t create an “autowin situation” as many people are again trying to make us believe. I can account Mega Gengar of successfully trapping and creating a good opportunity for my opponent on one occasion. ONE. The move choices of Mega Gengar are very dependant on the set each player runs and it is sometimes a gamble (50/50 mindgames). Now I hope I don’t have to make an argument on how 50/50 choices alone are not something bannable as this type of situation arises at least one on any match at any level.

So in conclusion, Mega Gengar does not create an “unhealthy metagame”, does not “make stall unviable” (that’s more a meta shift if anything) and does not create an “autowin situation”.
 
From my point of view, MegaGengar is not uncompetitive. Megagengar is awesome in his rol, removing the foe's defoguer, or killing pokemons that are taunt-bite, opening big holes in the opponent´s team. But he needs one turn to evolve, which is a huge dissadvantage, and also scarf pokemons can destroy him. Sometimes megagengar forces 50/50s situations, but it is part of the game, this is not a new factor that 6º gen has bring us. Using a mon with shadow tag is a fair strategy , just like putting choice specs or band to powerful pokes and then clean up with set up mons.

Not ban
 

Theorymon

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Vote: Do not ban Gengarite

I am philosophically opposed to a Gengarite ban (and a Shadow Tag ban for that matter), as I feel Ubers should be kept as close to being a banlist as possible. Ubers is sorta in the strange position of being both a "banlist" and a "tier" in some aspects, especially when we did those "bring down" suspect tests last gen. However, .It's actually the banlist nature that actually attracted me to Ubers in the first place 5 years ago.

Now, I do realize that Ubers was never actually been a "perfect banlist", since we have stuff like sleep clause, OHKO clause, species clause, etc. When it comes to having an "imperfect banlist", I feel like the things that I'm fine with being removed are things that are very reliant on coin flips, such as Moody, Evasion, OHKO, etc. I consider these acceptable losses because in the "ideal game", these strategies should normally fail anyways (Moody and OHKO are actually more debatable here, but I don't have time to get too into detail there, hell I'm still sorta conflicted on them..) Because of that, I am normally against any other kind of ban, especially ones that are "to make the metagame better", since I feel like that sorta misses the point of Ubers.

I'm sure this would be pointed out, but technically, because I prefer Ubers to be an "imperfect banlist" before a "tier", I am actually technically NOT opposed to sleep clause and species clause being destroyed, as they don't fit with the whole "coin flip" thing like evasion does. However, the main reason I actually don't go arguing for us to unban those is more of a "status quo" thing, and plus I know that my opinions on those two are very unpopular :P.

All of this being said, I'm not downplaying how dangerous Mega Gengar is. I think Mega Gengar is the best damn Mega Evolution in Ubers, and is also one of the most dangerous Pokémon in a 6vs6 singles metagame. It's ability to trap and snipe targets, and leave gaping holes in the opponent's team is incredible, and should never be underestimated. And to make things even more evil, there isn't really much you can do to stop Mega Gengar's plan without crippling yourelf with Shed Shell, or drastically altering your team. Gengar also gets an insane movepool for a Shadow Tagger, with moves like Taunt and Destiny Bond, and it has the right stats to abuse them too! To be honest, I'm actually really shocked Gamefreak went as far as they did with Mega Gengar! That being said, I just don't think breaking the game this hard (even if switching is a pretty fundamental part of Pokémon) actually deserves a ban, even if it does lower the "quality of Ubers".
 
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