Man I was kind of enjoying the fact that I didn't have to respond to long-ass posts and therefore I could you know... revise for my exams.
I assumed replays would make things easier but I suppose not.
The issue here is you are stuck in a
circular logic in which you assume that the only way to arrive at a scenario in which you are trapped is by being outplayed, therefore you were outplayed. There's of course an asterix attached to note those exceptions that can be attributed to some activity of the game's RNG while completely failing to grasp the concept that luck isn't discouraged simply for the sake of being luck. It should be obvious that this is not the case, such as shown earlier in the nuances between choking as well as, obviously, what has concerned and justified existing clauses.
Actually, you're assuming that I started with only that assumption. Regardless, I don't want to start another semantics argument and neither do you. The difference here is that no-one's "assuming" that being trapped is being "outplayed" (again, not getting into the outplayed/choking semantics argument). That premise was not there as an assumption but it's there as a conclusion. It was part of a hypothesis, if you will. Also, what's wrong with assuming S-tag is not uncompetitive? You're the one who wants to ban the thing, so you're the one who has the burden to prove that it is uncompetitive. S-tag is
presumed "innocent until guilty", you could say.
Anyway, I don't know if you're deliberately ignoring anti-ban arguments or forgetting them. I couldn't for the life of me know why you still think that luck is targeted for the sake of being luck. Here, let me just reiterate one of my previous posts:
(If you want to read ANYTHING from this post, make it this next paragraph because it's the most important. I know you haven't got the courtesy to read my analogies, but make sure you read the following because it's the most high yield)
Anyway, I'm not here to overhype luck. I am here to give you an explanation on why luck has been a major factor (and usually deciding factor) in every ban we've had so far, and why, if you're going to even consider referring to past bans in Ubers, that you're going to have to come to terms of what made luck such an important factor in all the bans we've had. Like I said in my last post which you don't seem to have registered (of course I understand you don't even think what I have to say is worth reading any more), what makes Shadow Tag different from all the bans we've had so far is the fact that everything that Shadow Tag is based on are choices made by you and your opponent. Everything that Shadow Tag depends on are human decisions. You have intelligent, conscious choices that you make to either avoid/succumb to getting trapped by S-tag. If you lose to someone with Shadow Tag, it's not because it was something out of your control, but because you chose (whether you knew what was going to happen or not, whether you were forced to through your opponent's plays or not) to go in a sequence of events that led you to being beaten by Shadow Tag. If you want a quick summary of the last few lines, it comes down to "you were outplayed". For the most part apart from the intrinsic luck elements that we couldn't ban, if you outplayed your opponent (factoring in decisions regarding Shadow Tag), you won. The result depended on decisions made by both players. It's different from every other ban we've had (with the exception of Sleep Clause, which I've gone into in detail). For the other bans based on uncompetitiveness, be it Moody or Swagger or OHKO or Evasion in the past, you could outplay your opponent and still lose because the result depended on an external factor that is not in the control of either player. That external factor is conveniently what we refer to as luck. It has nothing to do with consistency/inconsistency. We didn't ban these things because it let you beat your opponent sometimes with luck and therefore something as consistent as S-tag deserves to banned. This is what is meant by the OU council's definition of "taking away control of the player", not whatever garbage to do with choice of switching, or what have you.
Now again, you and I both want to avoid another semantics argument about "outplay" and "choke" so I'm not going to label it as such, but clearly, it still remains that the game is in the hands of both players and therefore everything that happens is a result of decisions made by both you and the opponent. You might not have "choked" or been "outplayed", but it is certainly due to an accumulation of decisions that you lost and not due to Shadow Tag itself. Maybe you got outplayed, maybe you choked, maybe both.
The decisions made by you and your opponent decided the outcome of the match, not Shadow Tag.
There's just an excessively bureaucratic approach coming from the majority of the anti-ban arguments. Perhaps this can be attributed to the general inexperience and ignorance, in regards to the metagame in question, that is evident within said demographic. Perhaps the subtleties of the debated element is also at fault, as the impact it has is not nearly as in-your-face as most setup sweepers that are constantly alluded to in comparison. Regardless of what it may be, those presenting these types of arguments are apparently pushed into questioning Shadow Tag in regards to Ubers policy and even the policy itself rather than analyzing at face value what is actually taking place. This results in endless, circular arguments on semantics, subjective measuring, and appeals to tradition. There is certainly murkiness on the subject of policy, as is made evident by the numerous false dichotomies like "tier vs banlist" or "op vs uncompetitive" that run rampant. However, this is neither the time nor the place for such discussion and, frankly, those (or rather the one) who have (has) the authority to determine such policy have (has) not been participating in the many arguments concerning it.
Just a note in general: Actually, there is a very clear distinction between OP vs uncompetitive. It even says in the OU council definition. Regardless, it's not a false dichotomy because this tier has never regarded OP as a thing we need to ban. This is the reason why it has to be made crystal clear what is merely OP and what is uncompetitive. Regardless of how you feel about them, semantics are important because while words are only there to convey ideas and meaning, when you start distorting words you start distorting ideas and meaning. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. OP/unbalanced is a very different concept to what we call "uncompetitive" (whatever that means), and it should remain as such.
Anyway, I don't want to start an OP vs uncompetitive argument here, but the point is semantics is important in many cases, and it would be foolish to disregard arguments purely because they are on semantics, especially when the words are being used to justify bans. I mean come on, if you're going to use a word like uncompetitive to justify banning a Pokemon, you better make sure that the word is 1) properly defined and 2) used in a proper manner.
The fact of the matter is that Shadow Tag is very problematic. This is because by bringing it into a game, I am bringing with me the almost certain potential to rob my opponent of the possibility to act in contradiction. You can take your ruler made of Xerneas to measure the size and scope of that interdiction and compare it to other accepted elements but it doesn't erase the fact. Nothing else that isn't itself subject to a potential ban produces the same effect and is currently found present in the metagame. This isn't tolerable despite whatever contrived reasons one might conjure to excuse it. Even the best players are not psychics and, even those who might be, will sometimes find themselves trapped by the inevitable. There needs to be some way for the opposing player to fight against what is taking place, however small. Not simply be forced into a state of passivity and charged with cleaning up the mess afterwards or somehow preventing the monster from even beginning its motion.
First bolded part: Actually, that's what we're supposed to do. I know you and I both hate the OU council definition now, but (and I can't help but feel the irony that I'm the one telling you now) that until we get a better one that the majority agree on, let's just stick to this one (unless you want to go back to my definition that you hate even more?).
The definition clearly applies a meaning and a condition to the word uncompetitive. I know your view is that even if it takes away autonomy, no matter the degree, that it should be banned. I'm going to say I disagree with that notion but I'm not going to press the issue except to say that 1) this is actually not how we run competitive Pokemon in general because like Focus said before in his post, there are things that take away autonomy that we are perfectly fine with, and 2) it directly contradicts the definition itself (the one that you provided) because the definition clearly calls for the degree of autonomy loss to be scrutinised.
You deleted my post last time,
I'll just link this again:
As demonstrated by Evasion Clause testing, philosophy alone is not enough to ban an element from Ubers. There needs to be a practical application of this broken element that shows it does have an actual, realistic impact on the metagame.
Wait... you said that?
Second bolded part: Sure, I know all the teambuilding options (all the bs ones you hate like Shed Shell and Voltturn) are unreliable, but hey, aren't those "ways the opposing player can fight against what is taking place, however small"?