Metagame np: SS Ubers Stage 6 - Tag, You're It

[Icemaster]

Hello everyone, the Ubers council has decided to suspect Shadow Tag!

Reasoning
Shadow Tag has been deemed the biggest issue in the metagame in the recent survey, with Gothitelle being the most potent abuser, able to trap and remove a substantial portion of defensive Pokemon including but not limited to Necrozma-DM, Eternatus lacking Dragon Tail, Defensive Zygarde, Defensive Groudon, Defensive Xerneas, Ho-Oh, Blissey, Ferrothorn, Tyranitar using Snarl/Foul Play as their Dark-type move and Tangrowth. These Pokemon feature on the majority of defensive cores in the Ubers tier enabling Gothitelle to trap and remove Pokemon from all but the most offensive teams. Since offensive threats such as Kyogre, Zacian-Hero, and Xerneas force reactive defensive switch-ins such as Eternatus, Necrozma-DM, and Ho-Oh which generally need to heal on the switch-in, Gothitelle can relatively freely come in and remove one of the aforementioned's defensive counterplay, usually winning the game as a result. Gothitelle simply needs to win a single 50/50 to trap its victims, while the opponent has to win multiple throughout the match to evade Gothitelle, favouring the Gothitelle user. This leads to Shadow Tag being a difficult to prevent and overwhelming force, both in play and in the teambuilder. Goth-proofing teams is difficult, with Shed Shell sometimes being used, but the ubiquity of Knock Off and the fact that running Shed Shell generally impairs the ability of defensive Pokemon (for example Eternatus relying on Black Sludge to take hits from Kyogre), this is generally ineffective. Different sets on common defensive Pokemon have been used too, to combat Gothitelle: eg Dragon Tail Eternatus or Zygarde and Swords Dance Defensive Necrozma but Choice Scarf Gothitelle variants can combat these and these sets often leave teams weaker to more of the overall metagame. Ideal counterplay to Shadow Tag doesn't exist, with bulkier teams simply hoping that they don't bring it, and resorting to the use of offensive teams to combat it, exacerbating matchup advantage to an uncompetitive degree.

While Gothitelle is the most potent abuser of Shadow Tag, other abusers such as Gothorita in particular have potential too. Shadow Tag as a whole exacerbates issues with match-up and heavily limits teambuilding. As a result, the SS Ubers Council largely believes Shadow Tag as a whole is the root of the problem, so we offer up the decision to the community, is Shadow Tag too much for the Ubers metagame? Let us know what you think!

Suspect Test Information:
The current Ubers ladder will be used for this suspect, you must create a new Showdown alt using the tag US9 (Name). This means I could use the name US9 Firemaster.
The alt doesn't have to match your Smogon account, but impersonation of users is forbidden, offensive alt names are also forbidden, and the account you create will be verified in the reqs thread, so do not cheat in the suspect test. It goes without saying, but do not ask for wins on a suspect ladder, if it happens your vote will be nullified and you will be punished. Votes will contribute to the Tiering Contributor Badge. Reach at least 80 GXE after 50 games to be eligible to vote, with less minimum games to play if you have a GXE higher than 80, scaling to a minimum of 30 games @ 84 GXE. The table below outlines this in full:

GXE Requirements vs Games Needed

GXE	minimum games played
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84+	30

The test will run until Saturday the 20th of March, 10pm GMT. A 66.6% Ban supermajority will be required to ban Shadow Tag. If you meet the requirements then post a screenshot in the voting requirements thread - but take note of the criteria outlined there when you do to be eligible!

Current Council

Icemaster
Manaphy
Minority
Skysolo
Terracotta
TonyFlygon
TrueNora
steelskitty
Fc

Council members will be posting their thoughts over the course of the test. Remember: suspect test threads are strictly moderated, so provide good quality posts that are on topic to the active test and engage with other users in a civil manner. Failure to do so will result in deletions and possibly infractions. One liners aren't good enough. Examining only Shadow Tag on Gothitelle and Gothorita is not on the table, posts arguing for it will be deleted.

 

[Aberforth]

Shadow Tag: Ban

Hopefully for real this time, not going to waste a huge amount of time writing a 2k word post so I'll try to summarise as succinctly as possible: I dislike how limiting Gothitelle is on the teambuilder in such a heavily restricted environment. It can pick and chose what it needs to beat for the rest of the team to succeed, and the list of targets it has is honestly quite ridiculous, especially given how restrictive some of the topmost threats are in their defensive counterplay. It should never be useless, as that implies the things it needs to beat simply arent brought to the matchup. Switching is too important of a mechanic to eliminate without tools like Pursuit available to try to counteract it. Voting ban when the option becomes available, and I'm certain I wont be swayed.

 

[ironwater]

Hi, I don't think I need a long post to explain why I feel that Shadow tag should be banned. The main issue with it is that it makes some top threats like Zacian-hero or Xerneas even more broken. Even if the only viable Shadow tag user is Gothitelle which at first glance seems pretty mediocre in Ubers, it is in fact a deadly strategy as Gothitelle can trap and kill most of the defensive mons in the tier thanks to its great support movepool.
Gothitelle as been played since the beginning of SS Ubers but its set has shifted from a Stored power sweeper to a pp stall variant with the arrival of a strong dark type, namely Yveltal. With the combinaison of Charm and Cosmic power and an access to Taunt, mons like defensive Necrozma Dusk Mane, Quagsire, Ho-Oh, Eternatus... can't even come to check your opponent biggest threats without taking the risk of being trapped and slowly die.
There's one counterplay to Shadow tag which is using Shed Shell on your defensive mons. But it means that most of the time you'll have an useless item and being forced to run things like Ndm with Shed Shell to deal with Gothitelle + Zacian is an issue in my opinion.

Thanks for reading and good luck for the suspect.

 

[Delta 2777]

Another tier where Wobbuffet will be unviable, great

 

[Garrett]

(Shoutouts meme creator and certified Ubers comedian Lasen)

Now hold on don't delete my post yet, I have a healthy discussion post right here:

Shadow Tag as a whole absolutely deserves this boot, 100% ban it so that teambuilding as a whole becomes more constructive rather than a game of whether to run Shed Shell or include particular moves (Dragon Tail, etc.) on mons to safeguard against trappers. This ban will make the meta more welcoming to balance builds which until now ran particular safeguards that otherwise have no general utility. It's my opinion that teams right now were forced to be very offensive because of Shadow Tag trappers (and clearly this is mostly Goth). We don't see as many 4 non-attacking move mons in Ubers when they're perfectly viable, and Goth facilitates a lot of pressure to not be entirely shut down by Taunt/Trick. Other Shadow Tag trappers like Wobb are less common but can easily exploit this with Encore + particular damaging reversing move or Custap Destiny Bond.

Scarf Goth solved the rest of Goth's issues that came with people running passive mons with a particular set to maximize odds against Taunt Goth. The extra move on Eternatus, the improved set diversity on Blissey, the lack of Shed Shell on Tangrowth/NDM/the many other things which can fall on this list, etc. all will be refreshing for the Ubers meta, which has in the past month taken a more degenerative (not a slur here, the actual meaning) turn in terms having a of competitive aspect... all thanks to Shadow Tag letting a strong Zacian/Xerneas/Ogre/whatever have an easier time shredding teams. I'll enjoy the freedom to switch again soon.

I still remember right before the post-Zacian-Crowned meta when people were team-theorizing whether to speed creep mons like NDM or Ho-Oh to maximize odds of surviving a particular Goth trap: such a dismal question to even ask in the first place. I'm glad a ban on this will end that for good.

 

[Manaphy]

Hey everyone, I think I already voiced my opinion well here but I’ll put it in this thread as well:

Click Me PLEASE

Hello everyone,

I have not been impressed with the general low level of discourse happening in this thread, so as a member of the SS Council I am going to make this post in an attempt to make things clearer for everyone.
Nearly all of the top SS players are unanimous in wanting to suspect Gothitelle before Calyrex-SR. This includes the entire QC, VR, and SS Councils as well as other top players including me, steelskitty, TrueNora, Icemaster, TonyFlygon, terra the creator, Skysolo, Staxi, FC, Pohjis, reje, and SiTuM, among others.
This is not to say that the Council is not interested in suspecting Calyrex-SR!! I cannot state this enough. Anyone who thinks our interest in dealing with Gothitelle first is an indication we don't care about Calyrex is mistaken. It just so happens that all of the top level Ubers players tend to agree that Goth is a more pressing issue.
With that being said, it's not as though we're 100% decided, but if we were to just make this decision based upon what the council and other top players want right now, it would certainly be Gothitelle first.

For a more casual player of Ubers, this is a mon that you would probably only encounter on the ladder a few times at most, so you may not understand what the big deal about Gothitelle is. Sure, it has a really strong ability in Shadow Tag, but can it really compete with the Ubers titans? Well, for one, it absolutely can, and it has the most metagame impact of any mon in the tier for building. I am going to separate my main points into bullet points because I know this will become tl;dr for most people:

1.) Gothitelle usage is less than its potential due to it being seen as a cheap / boring mon to use.
I feel like this is an obvious point but it's something that needs to be stated. Sure, you can point to Goth's low winrate in Most Wanted, but it's total amount of usage was very low and out of a low sample size to begin with. I can state that for me personally I avoided using Gothitelle during the whole tournament out of my personal distaste for the mon, and I know TonyFlygon and at least some other users chose to do the same thing. For top level players, many recognize the deadly potential of Gothitelle and see using it as cheap. For usage on the ladder, of course Gothitelle's best set is it's PP stalling set, meaning that for practical uses it's basically impossible to ladder with that Gothitelle over a period of many games and not get bored to death.

Since some people have been mentioning it: how old gens Ubers decided to not ban Gothitelle is not relevant at all to this discussion. In the first place, those votes were very controversial to begin with, but as I said before, it bears no relevance to this discussion. Let the SS Ubers playerbase decide what it wants to do with SS Ubers. If I wanted to, I could point out that trapping is essentially banned from every other tier, and there is nothing special that would separate Ubers in this regard, but again, it's just the best to let the SS playerbase decide for itself.

2.) All counterplay to Gothitelle has to be done in the builder, which makes the tier more match-up dependent.
This is the biggest problem with Gothitelle. There really is extremely little available counterplay to Gothitelle, and while you can try to be smart and say that it's your fault for letting Gothitelle get in in the first place, I really think this is a bad take. Do you know how many 50/50s over the course of a game you would have to win to never let Gothitelle come in on one of your mons vulnerable to it? The Gothitelle user has to make a right prediction once and they are rewarded with a destroyed defensive core. As others have said, it's simply not competitive.

This is extremely noticeable with the current state of the tier, where powerful offensive mons basically have to force in a reactive check to it, such as Zacian-H or Xerneas forcing in Necrozma or Ho-Oh, Kyogre forcing in Etern, Groudon forcing in Tangrowth, Zekrom forcing in Ferrothorn, etc etc. This is even more of a problem when you consider that Gothitelle traps literally all of those defensive mons I've stated above, and more. These defensive mons are also basically mandatory on any team that is not a straight up HO, meaning that Gothitelle has an extremely good matchup against the vast majority of the tier. Sure, you could try to Goth-proof your entire team, but even that is not a defense against Gothitelle considering the ease of which Knock Off can be spammed. Not to mention, you have now just made your team worse against literally every other team that doesn't run Goth. Because of this, a lot of players simply make no effort to prepare for Goth and just hope they don't run into it.
Many players also will try to take half-measures and put some moveset changes in hope of deterring Goth, for example Dragon Tail Eternatus, but even many of these measures can easily be dealt with with a different Gothitelle set. Choice Specs for instance is extremely unexplored, and can basically deal with any Eternatus in the tier easily, and also work as a back-up cleric with Heal Bell as well as being able to Trick. Did you think HO is immune to Goth's shenanigans? Goth has a Choice Scarf set which can completely disable any HO lead with trick. It makes teambuilding a complete chore for minimal results if you chose to pay attention to Gothitelle, and if you simply ignore it, well then, I hope you got lucky with what you picked in builder!

You can argue that there is a risk/reward assessment for nearly any aspect of a game, but the thing about Gothitelle is that, when you make games match-up dependent to this degree, and games are decided in the builder, playing the game itself inherently becomes uninteresting. When you are not deciding games by the plays you make, but entirely by what team you happened to choose, then you aren't playing a competitive game anymore, you are playing a game of rock paper scissors. Modern counterplay to Gothitelle essentially consists of hoping they don't have the Gothitelle that your team is vulnerable to.

3.) Gothitelle is effective. This also decreases variety in the tier.
I really don't like the argument that Gothitelle is not good at it's job. It's just simply false. For example,

If we look at replays, what about this one: [Gen 8] Ubers replay: faint vs. Lopunny kicks - Pokémon Showdown (pokemonshowdown.com)
We see Gothitelle trapping Dugtrio after it had already defeated Eternatus, and when it came time to defeat a 50% HP paralyzed defensive Necrozma-DM with a Charm set...it simply lost. It wasn't even a Goth-tailored set with SD or something, it was a standard Knock Off one.

I am really surprised you chose this replay to highlight, because this is really a flawed analysis. For one, Gothitelle in this game as already trapped one Pokemon and eliminated it, meaning it has already done it's job. That Dugtrio could have proceeded to cockblock his Zacian for the rest of the game. Two, in this replay faint Charms the Necrozma-DM when Goth is at 13% HP, when he could have gone for Rest again and fish for more parahax. Three, this Gothitelle is likely a high speed variant, which still traps NDM, just not while hard switching into Knock Off with Stealth Rock up. Fourth, even with Gothitelle not eliminating Nec here, it still lands a charm on it letting Zacian-C set-up when it wouldn't have normally been able to.

Goth's trapping capabilities also are being overblown here in my opinion: if you're phys def, you won't trap Eternatus if you come into Dynamax Cannon, even if it's defensive without Dragon Tail. If you're Sp. Def, you aren't trapping Necrozma-DM either with Knock Off avaliable, so you don't need to rely on SD for defensive variants directly either. Simply listing which Pokémon it traps without context also makes it seems far worse than it actually is - Rayquaza can also threaten basically every Pokémon on the tier, but you can't run a set with Dragon Ascent, V-Create, Earthquake, Draco Meteor, Extreme Speed, Swords Dance, Dragon Dance, Life Orb, Focus Sash, etc. all on the same set.

You are right, it is unfair if lump in together all of the Gothitelle sets into one. So, let's just go down the VR and see which mons just the PP stalling set can trap, shall we?

Necrozma-DM
Eternatus lacking Dragon Tail (even this isn't foolproof due to dtail doing no damage)
Some Defensive Zygardes
Defensive Xerneas
Defensive Groudon lacking Dragon Tail
Defensive Ho-Oh
Ferrothorn lacking Bullet Seed (lol)
Blissey
Tyranitar without a strong dark move
Buzzwole lacking Lunge
Tangrowth
Skarmory
Lugia
Defensive Caly-Ice
Porygon-2
Gastrodon
Tapu Bulu
Heatran
Amoonguss
Even some variants of Yveltal lacking U-Turn/Taunt

Yeah, this is basically almost every defensive mon in the tier bar Lunala. This is not even to mention the side use Gothitelle has versus offensive Pokemon, which should not be ignored. Your Band Zacian-Hero locked itself into Close Combat to try and break through NDM? Yep, Gothitelle just eats it now.
Now about my point of Gothitelle eliminating variety in the tier. You know stall builds? Yeah, literally all of them lose to Gothitelle, if the above wasn't proof enough by itself. Additionally, you are going to be much more likely to use the higher tier mons, like Nec and Ho-Oh, that at least somewhat have a chance of being able to beat a Gothitelle in favorable conditions, than something on the lower part of the viability rankings, like say, Amoonguss. In contrast, I can't think of any lower-tier Pokemon being used just because they have a better Gothitelle match-up.

4.) This is a subjective point, but I feel it's important to bring up anyway: Gothitelle is supremely boring to use, especially the PP stall set.
Again. this is subjective and not as important as the other points, but I feel that the vast majority of players would agree with this.

I could keep going, but I think this a good place to stop for now. By the way, my instinct is to ban Shadow Tag and not Gothitelle itself, but either way is fine I think and it's not something we need to worry about in particular too much in my opinion.

 

[shrang]

You all know what I'm going to say so whatever. I don't play Pokemon much any more but this tier has fundamentally changed from our purpose and it looks like it's to the community's blessing so I'm going to respect that I suppose.

Still though, this is what... the 4th time we've suspect tested this thing? How many times does it have to be before we've had enough? Any reasonable authority would have called a moratorium on this but hey, we keep doing the same thing again and again and think we'll get a different result. I just hope that for everyone's sake that we finally actually ban this so we can stop doing this once or twice a generation because I'm frankly sick of this. If we don't end up banning it, please make a moratorium on suspect testing Shadow Tag - I don't care if GF decides to release something dumb like STag Giratina-O or Mewtwo or Caly or whatever the most broken shit in the world, you've had your chance and squandered it - at least if we do this there will actually be stakes to this suspect test rather than another waste of time.

On the other hand, I'll have to put up some reasons I suppose, and given I don't play this tier any more I'm not going to try and argue in terms of technicalities and how it affects the tier because I'm not qualified to talk about those anyway. All I want to say is that all the arguments that are being leveled against Shadow Tag (eg 1) making the tier more matchup dependent, 2) "it takes away my counters which means I automatically lose", 3) decreasing variety) have all been made previously and have been debunked in all last 3 suspect tests. I think the main question to raise about all of these is what is different now and more importantly: why is this so much worse than last time and enough to (finally) ban it this time? I'm not going to argue the nuance of these but IMO that should be the line of discussion instead of rehashing the same arguments again and again. You might not remember that we did this the last 3 times, but I do!

Just in terms of the previous arguments:
1) Matchup dependency - personally I think this feature has always been overblown. Teambuilding has always been a big part of playing this game and reducing it to shit like "oh if I bring a Goth weak team I lose" and then equating that to a game of rock/paper/scissors is just so intellectually barren it's not funny
2) "It takes away my counters which means I automatically lose" - again I feel this is reductionist and the game really has a lot more nuance than this, but I'm not qualified to actually argue the nuance this gen but you get my drift
3) Reduced variety - *sigh* this is probably the shift in community attitude me being the purist absolutely hates this but if this is now a criteria for banning things so be it but you may as well play OU if this is a going to be an attraction of Ubers from now on

This is all coming from an Ubers purist perspective I suppose, but like I said if the community doesn't take this view I can't push it. When I started playing Ubers it was because we had an open tier where you could use the most broken Pokemon and no-one cared whether it was playable or not. The mentality was that if we had to use Primeape to check Darkrai or Parasect to check Kyogre then so be it. You may say "oh actually there are better ways to deal with things" the point was we were willing to use dogshit to check big threats and the fun came out of that despite the fact. No bans was the true aim, a (mostly) playable tier was 2nd. The idea of playing with no restrictions (outside of basic game clauses) was the main highlight - I don't know what it is these days but it doesn't seem to be that any more. Now the community seem to be concerned about playability and balance before what Ubers was supposed to be. KFC is selling beef now because more people like it I guess.

Couple of memes just to lighten the mood:

 

[alchemistender123]

I have one sentence to say " BAN SHADOW TAG"
Seeing many stall users in high ladder and about three members of their team is Shadow Tag and Cosmic Power is the next bad thing to go with shadow tag. So I want shadow tag to be banned

 

[Lacus Clyne]

You all know what I'm going to say so whatever. I don't play Pokemon much any more but this tier has fundamentally changed from our purpose and it looks like it's to the community's blessing so I'm going to respect that I suppose.

Still though, this is what... the 4th time we've suspect tested this thing? How many times does it have to be before we've had enough? Any reasonable authority would have called a moratorium on this but hey, we keep doing the same thing again and again and think we'll get a different result. I just hope that for everyone's sake that we finally actually ban this so we can stop doing this once or twice a generation because I'm frankly sick of this. If we don't end up banning it, please make a moratorium on suspect testing Shadow Tag - I don't care if GF decides to release something dumb like STag Giratina-O or Mewtwo or Caly or whatever the most broken shit in the world, you've had your chance and squandered it - at least if we do this there will actually be stakes to this suspect test rather than another waste of time.

On the other hand, I'll have to put up some reasons I suppose, and given I don't play this tier any more I'm not going to try and argue in terms of technicalities and how it affects the tier because I'm not qualified to talk about those anyway. All I want to say is that all the arguments that are being leveled against Shadow Tag (eg 1) making the tier more matchup dependent, 2) "it takes away my counters which means I automatically lose", 3) decreasing variety) have all been made previously and have been debunked in all last 3 suspect tests. I think the main question to raise about all of these is what is different now and more importantly: why is this so much worse than last time and enough to (finally) ban it this time? I'm not going to argue the nuance of these but IMO that should be the line of discussion instead of rehashing the same arguments again and again. You might not remember that we did this the last 3 times, but I do!

Just in terms of the previous arguments:
1) Matchup dependency - personally I think this feature has always been overblown. Teambuilding has always been a big part of playing this game and reducing it to shit like "oh if I bring a Goth weak team I lose" and then equating that to a game of rock/paper/scissors is just so intellectually barren it's not funny
2) "It takes away my counters which means I automatically lose" - again I feel this is reductionist and the game really has a lot more nuance than this, but I'm not qualified to actually argue the nuance this gen but you get my drift
3) Reduced variety - *sigh* this is probably the shift in community attitude me being the purist absolutely hates this but if this is now a criteria for banning things so be it but you may as well play OU if this is a going to be an attraction of Ubers from now on

This is all coming from an Ubers purist perspective I suppose, but like I said if the community doesn't take this view I can't push it. When I started playing Ubers it was because we had an open tier where you could use the most broken Pokemon and no-one cared whether it was playable or not. The mentality was that if we had to use Primeape to check Darkrai or Parasect to check Kyogre then so be it. You may say "oh actually there are better ways to deal with things" the point was we were willing to use dogshit to check big threats and the fun came out of that despite the fact. No bans was the true aim, a (mostly) playable tier was 2nd. The idea of playing with no restrictions (outside of basic game clauses) was the main highlight - I don't know what it is these days but it doesn't seem to be that any more. Now the community seem to be concerned about playability and balance before what Ubers was supposed to be. KFC is selling beef now because more people like it I guess.

Couple of memes just to lighten the mood:

Every gen has a new mechanic, new mons and new items which automatically leds us to suspect testing every gen as this is the only way to find out if something is truly broken. We can‘t just base our information on past gens as every gen is different.

 

[Blanca Weiss]

The OP mentions Gothorita could potentially be a problem but I never saw anyone using it aside from myself on AG. It was ranked alongside Gothitelle in the USUM viability rankings but it doesn't even have an Uber set on SwSh dex. I do wonder however if someone with more ladder experience could actually use it better than I did.

Gothorita @ Eviolite
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charm
- Confide
- Rest
- Taunt

This is the set I used to troll low ladder with. Unlike Gothitelle, Gothorita doesn't get Cosmic Power in SwSh so it has to rely Confide like in USUM making it more vulnerable to Special attackers and sub in general. The pp stall set is the only one Gothorita can emulate as choice sets is outclassed by Gothitelle. I used the moveset from its USUM set with the EVs and nature provided by showdown. Works similarly as if it was USUM too.

 

[The Strap]

Council Member Straponsolo here to voice his reason on why Shadow Tag should be banned from Ubers.

Shadow Tag has been suspect tested from the last 3 generations and yet now we decided to see how Gen 8 differences from the other gens. However, After watching 3 major Ubers Tournaments with it in action, Shadow Tag is evidently very busted. It does what it always has done. It allows pokemon like Gothitelle to trap / cripple a huge array of pokemon with Trick. Another thing is that gen 8 has granted us more buffs to the already mentioned ability:
1) Pursuit no longer exists
2) There are no mega / z items to prevent Trick;
3) Gothitelle now has access to Cosmic Power and Stored Power.
These factors let it trap a wider range of pokemon that has already been mentioned by other council members like Icemaster and Manaphy, as Gothitelle can easily get its scarf back vs a pokemon that is either out of PP or in Stored Power range.

The reason why Shadow Tag is being suspected instead of just the Gothitelle evolutionary line, we are better off avoiding a similar strategy on Wobbuffet/Wynaut doing similar things. Additionally, the overall nature of Shadow Tag causing nearly every pokemon to be trapped puts it a stake further from other trapping abilities such as Magnet Pull and Arena Trap.

~ Strap out

 

[Lady Gaga]

hello. i do not believe that shadow tag should be banned.

i think that there are enough things in this game that deal with shadow tag that we don't need to ban it. stuff like: killing it outright, shed shell, ghost type, whirlwind-like moves, uturn-like moves, etc. some people think that having to resort to such sets would compromise on their teams, but teambuilding is all about compromising. you may think that stag proof sets are unviable, but if that set can beat something so broken/uncompetitive that it is worthy of suspecting, is that unviable set still unviable? i would say no. every team will always be weak to something. if you feel that stag causes too many compromises on defensive teams to defend properly, then perhaps your team was not good enough in the first place or perhaps playing defensively isn't the way to go.

#DontBanGoth #OccupyUbers #FreeZacianC #FreeEvasionPass

 

[ir0ny]

Short post. I cannot see a good argument for banning Shadow Tag at this time.

The pro ban argument is that Shadow Tag is inherently uncompetitive. While this is true and is the reason it is banned in OU.. I do not think this reason flies in Ubers. We really should be very careful with banning things in this tier unless we absolutely have to. I understand that some of the "counterplay" to Shadow Tag is removed (regarding Gothitelle) with some items gone such as mega stones and z crystals. But with the removal of mega stones, the main problematic abuser of Shadow Tag, Mega Gengar, is also gone. This leaves us with just Gothitelle and Wobuffet to worry about. Currently, I do not see Gothitelle/Wobuffet as opressive enough to warrant banning Shadow Tag.

Shed Shell is also viable on Pokémon such as Necrozma Dusk Mane without losing too much compared to leftovers/rocky helmet.

I will be voting No Ban.

 

[DJSafety]

hello. i do not believe that shadow tag should be banned.

i think that there are enough things in this game that deal with shadow tag that we don't need to ban it. stuff like: killing it outright, shed shell, ghost type, whirlwind-like moves, uturn-like moves, etc. some people think that having to resort to such sets would compromise on their teams, but teambuilding is all about compromising. you may think that stag proof sets are unviable, but if that set can beat something so broken/uncompetitive that it is worthy of suspecting, is that unviable set still unviable? i would say no. every team will always be weak to something. if you feel that stag causes too many compromises on defensive teams to defend properly, then perhaps your team was not good enough in the first place or perhaps playing defensively isn't the way to go.

#DontBanGoth #OccupyUbers #FreeZacianC #FreeEvasionPass

Ubers council after seeing this post

On a serious note, though, I do think I agree with Lady Gaga. To put it concisely, my view on gen 8 Ubers is that we've been dealt pretty much the worst hand possible. I don't think banning shadow tag is the way to go, nor do I think building fatter builds is the right move in this meta. Without going into much off topic detail, I think the goth problem is a symptom of other bans and I furthermore believe the largest abuser of gothitelle's talents is already out of the tier. You can really cut your losses and dance around Zacian Hero in a way you couldn't against Zacian-Crowned. I feel the same about Xerneas. In fact, most teams' defacto xerneas check isnt even really awfully prone to goth trapping. Ho-Oh can and often does force Gothitelle to rest so that it can safely phase it and stay in the game. That being said if I do actually motivate myself to get reqs, I'll be voting No Ban on Shadow Tag.

 

[FearNeverDies]

I cant say to much about the situition of the current meta (at least nothing new) but i just feel that you guys are missing the point of why we considerer shadow tag broken this gen and why we should ban it from the tier. First of all is clear that this gen have some demential problems when we talk about powerfull breakers/sweepers in the SS metagame, i dont need to mention the entirely list cause you probably get the picture. Is clear after 2 mayor changes in the tier balance(and in general passive playstyles) is the best option to deal with the mayority of the breakers in the tier. There is to much that i can say of that but when you are force to use this big and incredible passive walls to deal with the most part of the tier is cleary that you cant deal with shadow tag, The last gen you can deal with M gengar, runing stuff like gyroball ferrothorn o with early pressure against him to avoid the early trap. Also M gengar is not the bulkiest thing in the game and every chip damage that he takes matters for the rest of the game. And as all damage counts for it same can be said about status... especially paralisis and wisp. Now, is almost impossible to punish goth with any of this conditions as he can just health with rest, avoid phaze moves with taunt (and phaze moves... there arent the best in the tier atm even if you want to avoid goth) and procede to pp stall you for free, You cant think "Oh i have whirlwind with ho oh, but i just have 1 atack move so when she taunt i just forced to atack, just repet 2 or 3 times and im done for the rest of the game". You cant use shed shell cause dosnt cover any other option, at least lefies offers passive recovery and helmet a way to punish choice pokemon and if you are runnig 4 or 3 shed sheel in your teams... dosnt mean that something about the problem? Also yoy cant justifed yveltal as "a way to deal with she" cause cosmic power and charm are enough to avoid any damage from yveltal, and yeah you cant really to much against him but he cant really to much if you alredy boost your defenses... Goth is just to much for the tier (Now and forever for this gen at least) and i think is a ban worthy option.

Also talking about M gengar, this gen he have access to encore and nasty plot.... Just imagine that monster in this meta, really sounds like a AG mon.

 

[Fc]

To probably no one's surprise, I immediately laddered for reqs and will be voting ban on Shadow Tag. I believe that the OP does a fairly good job at explaining what exactly is wrong with Shadow Tag, but just to weigh in on the topic past my multiple other posts discussing the topic at decent length, I'll go through as best as possible to explain why it is banworthy as well as responding to a few posts above.

Gothitelle specifically is clearly the worst offender with the ability, and alone pushes it over the edge imo. It reduces the game to multiple pointless 50/50's when it shows up and normally I don't mind 50/50's since they're a natural part of the game, but they are of little to negative gain for the person having to make the doubles to avoid getting trapped. Players will stay in with something like Yveltal on Zacian just to not get trapped, and if they dodge the trap once then Gothitelle still has many opportunities since switching in for it doesn't really matter while the opponent has to constantly switch and in some cases you literally cannot keep a Necrozma-DM or Eternatus in to heal without losing the game because your wall to a breaker is gone, and also risk losing if you do stay in with something like Dragon Tail Eternatus because Gothitelle doesn't just have the pp stalling sets. Trick Scarf is pretty much just as deadly if not more in some cases, because you trade hard beating the wall every time for just crippling it for the rest of the game, forcing 50/50's even past the point of Gothitelle's death that again give little to negative gain for the opposition trying to avoid Gothitelle.

As mentioned in the OP, Shed Shell users also aren't safe as there are a few tournament examples where you simply cannot avoid a Knock Off safely because it wasn't a revealed move, and with many good Pokemon like Necrozma-DM, Tangrowth, Yveltal, and Ferrothorn commonly using the move it's hard to avoid naturally. In the game posted in the OP Pannuracotta brought Shed Shell + Dragon Dance Necrozma-DM which both in theory can try to Goth proof and it still got trapped after Goth had already trapped 2 other mons then pretty much swept the rest. I mentioned Trick beating out phazing reliably enough for the breakers to abuse it, but Gothitelle can sometimes just slowly pp stall things like Ho-oh that even phaze it since with average Taunt and Charm predictions it runs out of Sacred Fire's and only Brave Bird sets can last realistically long enough to pretty much always escape.

Shadow Tag almost completely removes reactive play from the game, forcing the person going against it to play proactively almost 100% of their turns for minimal gain as to not lose a mon for bringing one of their own in for more than 1 turn, since STag users can typically live enough hits from their normal targets to hard switch in. Switching is such a crucial part of Pokemon and when there are mons that can remove the ability to from almost everything barring ghosts while having great support movepools and bulk it's simply too much for any tier to handle. Dugtrio doesn't have this same issue as it is unable to trap anything Flying which its rock moves would actually appreciate while also lacking a support movepool meaning that typically it can't be as mu swinging as any STag user. I do think STag as a whole is the issue as well, because if you run the calcs Wobbufett is able to trap a ton of things still, even being able to take on things like Geomancy Xerneas on the offensive side and usually at least forcing a trade of mons that's favourable for the Wobb user on defensive and offensive threats, which is why STag as a whole is being tested. STag brings nothing beneficial to the tier and instead actively harms it based on the points above and ruins interactive experience for the playerbase which is why it isn't uncommon to agree to no Gothitelle in tour matches, simply to not have to deal with such a clearly unhealthy element of the game.

You all know what I'm going to say so whatever. I don't play Pokemon much any more but this tier has fundamentally changed from our purpose and it looks like it's to the community's blessing so I'm going to respect that I suppose.

Still though, this is what... the 4th time we've suspect tested this thing? How many times does it have to be before we've had enough? Any reasonable authority would have called a moratorium on this but hey, we keep doing the same thing again and again and think we'll get a different result. I just hope that for everyone's sake that we finally actually ban this so we can stop doing this once or twice a generation because I'm frankly sick of this. If we don't end up banning it, please make a moratorium on suspect testing Shadow Tag

I don't see any reason to not continue suspect testing it in generations to follow as our banlist is cleared every gen, and like Lacus said, one metagame has nothing to do with the rest. A do not ban vote in xy and sm should have no relevancy on this metagame, and I don't think it's wise to just leave something like this in the game forever regardless of the outcome of the test now.

On the other hand, I'll have to put up some reasons I suppose, and given I don't play this tier any more I'm not going to try and argue in terms of technicalities and how it affects the tier because I'm not qualified to talk about those anyway. All I want to say is that all the arguments that are being leveled against Shadow Tag (eg 1) making the tier more matchup dependent, 2) "it takes away my counters which means I automatically lose", 3) decreasing variety) have all been made previously and have been debunked in all last 3 suspect tests. I think the main question to raise about all of these is what is different now and more importantly: why is this so much worse than last time and enough to (finally) ban it this time? I'm not going to argue the nuance of these but IMO that should be the line of discussion instead of rehashing the same arguments again and again. You might not remember that we did this the last 3 times, but I do!

Now with the removal of Arceus, Primals, Megas, and Z-Moves Gothitelle is free to run trick sets that are highly effective, and also received buffs in the form of Cosmic Power and Stored Power. Wobbufett also doesn't have to fear Zmoves breaking Encore locks on things like NDM which it can trap better. Like mentioned above, the past tests should have no relevancy on this one imo.

Just in terms of the previous arguments:
1) Matchup dependency - personally I think this feature has always been overblown. Teambuilding has always been a big part of playing this game and reducing it to shit like "oh if I bring a Goth weak team I lose" and then equating that to a game of rock/paper/scissors is just so intellectually barren it's not funny
2) "It takes away my counters which means I automatically lose" - again I feel this is reductionist and the game really has a lot more nuance than this, but I'm not qualified to actually argue the nuance this gen but you get my drift
3) Reduced variety - *sigh* this is probably the shift in community attitude me being the purist absolutely hates this but if this is now a criteria for banning things so be it but you may as well play OU if this is a going to be an attraction of Ubers from now on

Yes teambuilding is important, but at what point do we want to say that a certain element is too much on building? Some mons simply just have to give up an item slot or crucial moveslots just to handle 1 Pokemon with mediocre usage, because if it does come then the game is instantly in a worse position for them. I've built multiple teams lacking Stealth Rock because I've had to throw on SD Knock Off Sunsteel NDM just to goth proof, and it's been just bad in most cases since it does almost nothing that a support move wouldn't. Currently things like Toxapex can't punish Zacian for clicking buttons with helmet due to Gothitelle, or can't remove the roll on Marshadow Poltergeist because it can't carry Black Sludge reliably. Similarly, Eternatus without Dragon Tail loses to any pp stall sets and Dragon Tail is still crippled by Trick, so sometimes sets just can't hit mons like Dracovish since they have Dragon Tail as the STAB in fear of 1 Pokemon due to its 1 ability.
Second point is similar since it highly revolves around building, but I agree with it. In this kind of meta with so many Pokemon having such high stats you need to have a reliable check to most of them, and you can't afford to double or triple up on checks to 1 mon in many cases. If my Xerneas check is Confide Blissey that also needs umbrella for Kyogre and that gets trapped into a Xerneas sweep, that isn't a fault on my end because there's simply not enough room to beat everything while avoiding being a trapping target.
Third point I agree with you on actually, I don't think a metagame needs variety to be healthy and STag isn't super restrictive on mons barring some defensive poisons since the mons it traps are so important that they still see high usage, but it's still bad in terms of sets and the worst part of the meta in game.

hello. i do not believe that shadow tag should be banned.

i think that there are enough things in this game that deal with shadow tag that we don't need to ban it. stuff like: killing it outright, shed shell, ghost type, whirlwind-like moves, uturn-like moves, etc. some people think that having to resort to such sets would compromise on their teams, but teambuilding is all about compromising. you may think that stag proof sets are unviable, but if that set can beat something so broken/uncompetitive that it is worthy of suspecting, is that unviable set still unviable? i would say no. every team will always be weak to something. if you feel that stag causes too many compromises on defensive teams to defend properly, then perhaps your team was not good enough in the first place or perhaps playing defensively isn't the way to go.

#DontBanGoth #OccupyUbers #FreeZacianC #FreeEvasionPass

The OP touches on this as did I in above points, but some mons simply can't goth proof reliably without fully compromising their sets against other things, and again like mentioned sometimes those things just aren't enough either due to Knock Off and Trick being incredible moves overall. Simply crippling the wall is sometimes a big enough job for Gothitelle that it can swing the whole game, and Wobbufett has Encore which can out prioritize phazing moves and force a lock into something unfavourable against something like Ho-oh which it can trade with. The things that have potential to not even kill it but just allow things to escape a trap aren't reliable, and saying just kill it outright is easy until you can't switch into a mon that actually kills it. There's no actual examples here to go off so I'll leave it at that, but these are all finnicky ways of stopping it and in practice a lot aren't consistent or even good choices for mons.

Short post. I cannot see a good argument for banning Shadow Tag at this time.

The pro ban argument is that Shadow Tag is inherently uncompetitive. While this is true and is the reason it is banned in OU.. I do not think this reason flies in Ubers. We really should be very careful with banning things in this tier unless we absolutely have to. I understand that some of the "counterplay" to Shadow Tag is removed (regarding Gothitelle) with some items gone such as mega stones and z crystals. But with the removal of mega stones, the main problematic abuser of Shadow Tag, Mega Gengar, is also gone. This leaves us with just Gothitelle and Wobuffet to worry about. Currently, I do not see Gothitelle/Wobuffet as opressive enough to warrant banning Shadow Tag.

Shed Shell is also viable on Pokémon such as Necrozma Dusk Mane without losing too much compared to leftovers/rocky helmet.

I will be voting No Ban.

I don't see why the reasonings that it's uncompetitive in OU don't apply to Ubers given the current metagame. Sure in faster paced metas with high power nukes like Zmoves being randomly on mons it can be somewhat dealt with, but it simply abuses the majority of the current defensive metagame. It does the same as its always done in any tier but better than ever, and while I don't think we should just be handing out bans as we please Shadow Tag is clearly an overwhelming force in the metagame overall considering what it is as an ability and how it warps in game play to an unreasonable extent. Also imo all the ability needs for abusers is Goth and Wobb, as the both do the jobs incredibly well as defensive trappers which typically are more consistent against balance based metas like this one than offensive trappers since they can just force mon trades on multiple team archetypes with so many strong breakers to abuse it.

On a serious note, though, I do think I agree with Lady Gaga. To put it concisely, my view on gen 8 Ubers is that we've been dealt pretty much the worst hand possible. I don't think banning shadow tag is the way to go, nor do I think building fatter builds is the right move in this meta. Without going into much off topic detail, I think the goth problem is a symptom of other bans and I furthermore believe the largest abuser of gothitelle's talents is already out of the tier. You can really cut your losses and dance around Zacian Hero in a way you couldn't against Zacian-Crowned. I feel the same about Xerneas. In fact, most teams' defacto xerneas check isnt even really awfully prone to goth trapping. Ho-Oh can and often does force Gothitelle to rest so that it can safely phase it and stay in the game. That being said if I do actually motivate myself to get reqs, I'll be voting No Ban on Shadow Tag.

The thing I don't like here is the part about not building fatter builds being the way to go, because when the topic of discussion of a test is pushing the whole tier away from one side of entire team archetypes it's not something worth keeping around. It's not like Gothitelle is useless against HO either since it can trap some leads and Trick scarf can prevent sweeps by itself, but just having bulky builds not work because one element is too much doesn't make for a healthy tier. Sure things like Zacian and Calyrex are super good breakers, but they at least (somewhat for Zacian) have mons that can switch in and threaten it out reliably enough to not just make bulky builds obsolete.
Even without Zacian-C as an abuser, Zacian itself is still insanely strong as a partner and the current Gothitelle sample team is pretty much the same as the old one, just with Zacian over Zacian-C and Tangrowth over Buzzwole to give more insurance against opposing Zacian because it's not as easy to play around and cut your losses with as you say. I also mentioned how Goth and Wobb can actually trap Ho-oh albeit slow for Gothitelle unless it just Tricks scarf and Ho-oh always dies to Thunder with rocks up making that point not true, but the other reliable switch ins like Dusk mane and Bliss are either running a set that makes it hard to deal with Xerneas like Teleport no Confide Blissey or are just trapped. There's other abusers too like Marshadow and Kyogre, and overall no matter how bad the generation may have given us things I think removing Gothitelle is a major improvement and the tier will actually be extremely good without it.

Well with all that said, I do encourage people to participate in this discussion and also would hope that this post shows off just how much Shadow Tag needs to be banned for the tier. Playing the meta will be a lot better overall, and that's why I have wanted it to be banned for quite a while this gen and will 100% be voting ban.

 

[GeniusFromHoenn]

After seeing the replies here, I'm gonna say mine is short and sweet for most. I'm 100% voting for ban. Pokémon battling is about fun. Getting stalled by goth is frustrating and sad. But now it's even worse ( even though I wasn't present in last suspect tests)
As sir shrang said, why is it worse now?
Here's my reason---
It's due to banded Zac. Earlier in previous generations eliminating ndm meant xern can sweep. Now due to Zac, 2 Pokémon absolutely wreck opponents. It not existing in ubers would be less frustrating. Please do ban it this time. Thanks for reading!

 

[AM]

To keep things short and to speak as what appears to be the minority I'm voting do not ban, not because of some shrang type philosophy which is pretty outdated considering the current smogon climate, but because the STAG issue is very overblown. The stranglehold that Calyrex-S and Zacian put in the tier due to their absurd offensive prowess is what makes STAG much stronger than it really is, forcing teams to use defensive cores to keep the two former in check which in turn STAG preys on, or use offense which is actually fine since most forms of offense are viable and can do well.

Probably won't respond to this post much if at all but wanted to touch on some of Fc's replays above which are the only place you'll witness Gothitelle, its non existent on the suspect ladder borderline unviable there. Some of the showcasing is proving the points above forcing balance to use Defensive DuskMane to stop Zacian from steamrolling which Goth will pretty much trap, same thing with spdef Eternatus which personally to me is an unviable set to begin with because its Goth food and is weak as shit. It's probably indicators that the sets just aren't that great or matchup dependent and maybe should stop being spammed? The Cranium vs Steelskitty replay Cranium was so far behind anyways it was going to be hard for steelskitty to lose even after getting haxed. Steel just made a good play preventing the sweep I dont think theres anything wrong with that.

Wanted to put my thoughts out there because I know the do not ban camp probably going to be relatively small.

 

[Levant Mir Celestia]

hello. i do not believe that shadow tag should be banned.

i think that there are enough things in this game that deal with shadow tag that we don't need to ban it. stuff like: killing it outright, shed shell, ghost type, whirlwind-like moves, uturn-like moves, etc. some people think that having to resort to such sets would compromise on their teams, but teambuilding is all about compromising. you may think that stag proof sets are unviable, but if that set can beat something so broken/uncompetitive that it is worthy of suspecting, is that unviable set still unviable? i would say no. every team will always be weak to something. if you feel that stag causes too many compromises on defensive teams to defend properly, then perhaps your team was not good enough in the first place or perhaps playing defensively isn't the way to go.

#DontBanGoth #OccupyUbers #FreeZacianC #FreeEvasionPass

Shed Shell has a massive opportunity cost; ask yourself, would I rather be able to negate hazards, have passive recovery, or to be able to switch out against Gothitelle despite the fact that it may not even see play (and especially knowing that if it the opponent doesn't have it, I wasted an item slot)? I'd almost never see the latter to be worth picking over the former two. Also, Whirlwind has negative priority and is stopped dead in its tracks by Taunt, while Dragon Tail fails to force out the opponent if Sub is up (the fact that it doesn't have 100 accuracy doesn't help matters either). And this is ignoring that Gothitelle's presence forces guessing games that are always in its user's favour (you'd practically have to be clairvoyant to avoid having a trappable mon get trapped even once, whereas if your clairvoyance fails you even once, you're screwed).

Short post. I cannot see a good argument for banning Shadow Tag at this time.

The pro ban argument is that Shadow Tag is inherently uncompetitive. While this is true and is the reason it is banned in OU.. I do not think this reason flies in Ubers. We really should be very careful with banning things in this tier unless we absolutely have to. I understand that some of the "counterplay" to Shadow Tag is removed (regarding Gothitelle) with some items gone such as mega stones and z crystals. But with the removal of mega stones, the main problematic abuser of Shadow Tag, Mega Gengar, is also gone. This leaves us with just Gothitelle and Wobuffet to worry about. Currently, I do not see Gothitelle/Wobuffet as opressive enough to warrant banning Shadow Tag.

Shed Shell is also viable on Pokémon such as Necrozma Dusk Mane without losing too much compared to leftovers/rocky helmet.

I will be voting No Ban.

Again, Shed Shell has a massive opportunity cost, and is useless if there are no trappers on the opponent's side of the field. Compare to Boots or Leftovers, which always help in any matchup, and it's painfully obvious Shed Shell falls short. And even then, Knock Off is still a thing, as is Trick.

On a serious note, though, I do think I agree with Lady Gaga. To put it concisely, my view on gen 8 Ubers is that we've been dealt pretty much the worst hand possible. I don't think banning shadow tag is the way to go, nor do I think building fatter builds is the right move in this meta. Without going into much off topic detail, I think the goth problem is a symptom of other bans and I furthermore believe the largest abuser of gothitelle's talents is already out of the tier. You can really cut your losses and dance around Zacian Hero in a way you couldn't against Zacian-Crowned. I feel the same about Xerneas. In fact, most teams' defacto xerneas check isnt even really awfully prone to goth trapping. Ho-Oh can and often does force Gothitelle to rest so that it can safely phase it and stay in the game. That being said if I do actually motivate myself to get reqs, I'll be voting No Ban on Shadow Tag.

It isn't like Zacian-Crowned is the only abuser that benefits from Gothitelle's presence. Also, I get the feeling that Gothitelle can do the same thing with Ho-Oh that it did to Necrozma here (fun fact: the trapper Gothitelle build has just enough speed investment to outspeed Ho-Oh), especially as the recommended builds for Ho-Oh don't invest in speed.

 

[Lacus Clyne]

I just wanted to note that the current suspect ladder doesnt really reflect the metagame at all as there is almost no Gothitelle being used. From my experience people started using Gothitelle around 1600+ points but usually their laddering run already ends since they already achieved the requirement for the vote. So far there has only been mindless webs, HO and obviously some non-viable teams. Like I literally only faced Gothitelle once! Pretty sure other people had the same experience.

So yeah if you really wanna look at how Gothitelle affects the meta you should probably watch some tournament replays. Laddering (right now atleast) is not the way to get a glimpse at the meta.

 

[AM]

Also for the sake and reality of above post (and since I know people are lazy) here are the replays from last round of SSNL where Gothitelle was used since you pretty much wont see Goth on suspect ladder being used compared to tournament games. A reference point really, more can be found in the other rounds.

Replays in Hide

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1292140302-k223o1g6r0amk2wjxow7ix50mv1jkq0pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1294577936-75b6tp9wkmsrnrgyzinu2i7cyie7ukipw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1294572244-0fdz2fswpnn40ouq1cew737au2wr2xepw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1294805659-vc8zhxifrmvhwm5x8qbly05cynybdscpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1295215505-p2a6b70jsiei9hqv8fvv3qze7fth6ndpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-545160
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-545165
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1295725634-vd3hyj90vvifo81jeoitn4kf2g85cnnpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-545293
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1296581269-wzzh6qg831iqn8uekbcjkzcbtx4iff8pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ubers-1296583478-srvzvec7mw4rlff1kv0nl2ugnjmlez1pw

 

[Stallion]

I've sat somewhere in the top 5 on the Ubers ladder for months now, and have never really had a problem with STAG. In fact, I've almost never faced it, and the few times I've had, it's usually taken out one mon of mine at most and proceeded to be dead weight the rest of the game.

While the ability *might* be broken, I find it perplexing that it's getting looked at before Calyrex-S and Zacian. I find those two put waaaaay more pressure on teambuilding for me than Goth does.

"Since offensive threats such as Kyogre, Zacian-Hero, and Xerneas force reactive defensive switch-ins such as Eternatus, Necrozma-DM, and Ho-Oh which generally need to heal on the switch-in, Gothitelle can relatively freely come in and remove one of the aforementioned's defensive counterplay, usually winning the game as a result."

If most teams are one Pokemon away from being 6-0ed by *insert threat here*, then that says more about the threats themselves than it does about Goth, does it not?

 

[Levant Mir Celestia]

If most teams are one Pokemon away from being 6-0ed by *insert threat here*, then that says more about the threats themselves than it does about Goth, does it not?

Perhaps, but it can also be said that Gothitelle enables those threats. I would imagine the likes of Shadow Calyrex and Zacian would be much easier to answer without Gothitelle waiting in the back to remove their checks from play.

 

[Manaphy]

Wanted to reply here to AM's post (and by extension Stallion’s post) because I don’t think it's logically sound. I really want to make the points clear because the average person playing on the ladder will never really see the problems with Gothitelle, even though it's capability and downstream effects on teambuilding are massive.

The stranglehold that Calyrex-S and Zacian put in the tier due to their absurd offensive prowess is what makes STAG much stronger than it really is, forcing teams to use defensive cores to keep the two former in check which in turn STAG preys on

Just to start off with, it’s odd that you mention Caly at all because Yveltal isn’t trapped by Gothitelle typically.

Secondly, it’s true that Zacian forces defensive NDM on teams which is Goth food, but you have to ask yourself here what is really the broken aspect of this combination? At least versus a Zacian you are still able to make plays over time, while Gothitelle has to get a correct read once and it can end the game. This is of course not to mention all the other offensive mons Gothitelle works well with, which is almost all of them. Just because Zacian is the most obvious partner doesn't mean it's just that combination that is broken.

I typically see the "Goth is only broken because of Zacian" argument when it's a player who puts a lot of stock into what they see personally; of course you'll by far see Goth paired with Zacian the most when most people just copy the sample teams and Zacian is the most obvious offensive threat to pair with it, and this is not even to mention how Gothitelle usage is hugely suppressed by people thinking the mon is lame.

I would expect this argument to apply to you in particular because you mentioned Gothitelle's lack of usage on the ladder like it's a relevant point. This is a mon which is commonly known for being cheap and whose best set is a PP staller, so of course there is no way that it would be ever common on ladder. With that in mind it's simply not relevant to the huge metagame impact Goth has and can have.

Some of the showcasing is proving the points above forcing balance to use Defensive DuskMane to stop Zacian from steamrolling which Goth will pretty much trap, same thing with spdef Eternatus which personally to me is an unviable set to begin with because its Goth food and is weak as shit.

Another part of the huge problem with Gothitelle is just that by its mere existence it forces the most defining set changes of nearly every defensive mon in the tier. Gothitelle doesn't even need to be in the game to have a big change on a match by, for example, forcing Eternatus to run Dragon Tail so it's not complete bait to Goth. This in turn loses Etern the ability to be a lot less passive in general by having Toxic Spikes or Toxic on its set. Nec is also of course affected by this, having to be forced to run Shed Shell and thus being way worse to literally every non-Goth team or just lose outright to Goth. There is no winning choice here; you can make the risk-reward argument for any choice ever but the pro-ban argument is that Gothitelle makes that risk-reward decision for teambuilding much more luck-based than it has to be.

By the way, Etern is one of two mons in the entire game with reliable recovery that are able to switch into Specs Ogre (the other being Umbrella Bliss), and as such one of those two is basically mandatory on any non-HO team. Is this once again a problem with the offensive mon, and we should look into banning Kyogre? This logic would literally never end because you can do it with any strong enough offensive threat.

It's probably indicators that the sets just aren't that great or matchup dependent and maybe should stop being spammed?

It's not that Etern or Nec sets aren not that great or matchup dependent, it's that they are a fundamental part of defensive cores at the moment, and you calling them not that great is a symptom of Gothitelle making their sets way worse than they have to be in the first place.

Theoretically, banning Zacian wouldn't even help anything as Defensive NDM would still be a key mon to deal with Xerneas, Caly-Ice, Eternatus, Zekrom, Darmanitan, etc etc, not to mention it's support functions with spreading status and rocks and having reliable recovery for a steel-type. If we banned all of the top offensive threats, then other defensive mons would pop up which in turn also lose to Goth or become actively worse against everything else trying to manage Gothitelle risk.

By the way, I am not even against a suspect of Zacian, but using it as an argument against Goth is just bad.

forcing teams to use defensive cores to keep the two former in check which in turn STAG preys on, or use offense which is actually fine since most forms of offense are viable and can do well.

This is a really bad ideology to have imo. Of course offense is the least hurt by having Gothitelle, but that is actually a huge point for banning Gothitelle. Stall is quite literally unviable right now as they all either autolose to Goth or become too weak to effectively wall with all the goth-proofing (which itself can be done in with Knock Off), and balance teams in general become way more match-up prone. I feel like people also need to realize that offense in previous ubers tiers didn't just consist of pure HO, and there existed bulky offenses and other such styles that still had some defensive backbone to fall back upon, but such style of teams have fallen out of favor due in big part to Gothitelle making those defensive backbones fundamentally worse in every way. People actually like running playstyles besides webs and screens!



The vast majority of complaints I hear about Ubers currently is that it's stale and boring, so this point needs to be made clear for people who don't see the harm of having Gothitelle around. Gothitelle is a huge deterrent for people being creative in the tier, and it limits the viable playstyles drastically. And in turn, what do we get for it being legal? A mon which the vast, vast majority of players despise and is near universally regarded as cheap and boring.

 

[AM]

Manaphy, the point about Goth's low ladder usage is to highlight you're not going to see it on ladder in comparison to the tour games so I assume unintentionally we're on the same page here? The ladder meta isn't reflective of the whole metagame, its webs, anti-webs/offense, bad teams but that's not going to be obvious when even one of the req IDs posted said "didn't see any goth" as such the replays posted for last round with them. Also based on some of the SSNL statistics most recently Goth isn't even being shown to be over centralizing or over powering it doesnt have some crazy usage and its win rate is about on par with most relevant stuff even in some cases lower. There was two games in the replays post where Goth did its job and the others either it was dead weight or didnt matter in the grand picture.

Re: Stale and Boring meta argument. I think I've honestly seen this for the past 3 generations and it's a very subjective argument, I've enjoyed the last two generations of Ubers and I actually would enjoy this one too minus Calyrex/Zacian. If this a reason people want it gone thats fine, you'll get reqs anyways to choose, but Ubers is already a pretty restricting tier as is due to higher power of threats. The amount of creativity your provided is already somewhat limited with or without Goth/STAG in the tier, even then people bring stuff like Zarude and Tang is getting more usage to counteract things like Zygarde so it's only a half truth in regards to creativity.