Gothitelle / Shadow Tag Suspect Test

PDC

PDC

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since i feel that this is more urgent than anything else at the moment, i am going to make a thread about it to catch the attention of the entire PR community and not just my fellow council members.

first off, why would we be suspecting shadow tag? for the most part its users are apparently subpar and work infrequently. most of the shadow tag suspects (and the most common one gothitelle) can be pursuited, have average defenses, crippling weaknesses, and overall around monotonousness in their role.

this would all be true if it weren't for how gothitelle can be abused and used thanks to its ability.

after olt started i noticed a dramatic rise in people (started by ABR) using 'bof stall', a form of stall with a trickscarf gothitelle paired with it. so what does gothitelle do? exactly what the name implies, trick its scarf to a pokemon that can't kill it and proceed to PP stall it. if done right, you will kill / cripple a specific pokemon every single time. this can be done incredibly common pokemon like cm clefable and sdef heatran. once the scarf is tricked to them they are: 1. useless in the future due to them being locked in, losing their ability to stallbreak 2. typically pp stalled to death if caught on a double or a lead because of their inability to break gothitelle.

for example, on the teams I've been using with this gothitelle set, once a key enemy pokemon is trapped and tricked, more than likely the rest of my team will have a field day and face literally no way to lose unless i mess up or astronomical hax happens.

but gothitelle MUST just be a problem because of how terrible the ladder is right?

gothitelle stall has allowed people to qualify using it alone, such as mdragon (+ 5-10 other people). i managed to get to 1850+ on 3 alts using almost exclusively gothitelle stall (although i choked in the end lol love tilt). most of the reason i consisntely won was due to gothitelle's unique ability to trap and kill whatever i needed. keep in mind the ladder is more competitive due to olt being in session.

but it must just be a ladder problem right?

gothitelle actually is starting to leak into tournament play. we saw a bit of it in world cup with zamrock using it (very badly though, which is why he lost what should have been an easy game), but it has began to worsen. gothitelle's current stats in smogon tour are:

48 | Gothitelle | 33 | 2.96% | 69.70% |

yeah, gothitelle is starting to see tournament use. it actually has a rather high win ratio as well along with being a top 50 pokemon used. most of the wins that the teams which used gothitelle received are completely attributed to the utility gothitelle provides to them.

here is a quote by abr in a previous thread (state of ou) on his opinion on gothitelle and shadow tag in general showing another knowledgeable member on the subject their opinion.

As for Shadow Tag, I think that Gothitelle is the real culprit here but I wouldn't mind throwing all the STag users into the suspect because Wobb is also very overwhelming at times. With Gothitelle, I feel that many people don't understand its true potential as a threat to all playstyles, and its viability on all types of teams. Gothitelle is mostly seen on stall teams, and its not hard to see why. Primarily, Gothitelle serves as a means of beating threats to stall like Manaphy and Magma Storm Heatran that are otherwise difficult to handle. Gothitelle can also revenge kill Mega Heracross, paralyze Gardevoir, and trick other threats like SD Gliscor/NP Thundurus. This also lets stall teams beat opposing stall by tricking the hazard user/remover and/or the cleric. The list really goes on and on when it comes to Gothitelle's uses on stall. As for Gothitelle's uses on offensive teams, there are still plenty. On offense, Gothitelle primarily serves as the way to trap and kill opposing hazard setters/removers as well as walls to teammates. For example, Gothitelle can run HP Fire for Ferrothorn to support Gyarados, and can also trick the opposing lead chomp so defogging is very easy and the opponent can never keep rocks. An argument I really dislike about Gothitelle is that its easy to predict and pursuit trap it for example. Like Finchinator said, predictions go both ways so thats a moot point. The gamebreaking and uncompetitve nature of an ability such as Shadow Tag is too much for ORAS OU to handle in a healthy way.
Click to expand...

replays:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270474668 - i trap and pp stall / kill BOTH quagsire AND chansey
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270457032 - turn 1, gyarados is dead. gothitelle continues to be a complete pain the rest of the game. nearly killing clef and eventually pp stalling hippo to a low amount.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270449402 - i PP stall a talonflame.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270414185 - i trick pp stall a clefable (i still lost this game due to me screwing up)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270408765 - i trick and screw up a talonflame turn 1, limiting it's effectiveness and ability to break my team severely.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270326043 - i PP stall a clefable to death, what's new?

i could get MANY MANY (in the 100s) more from past olt cycles from other people, these are just some quick examples.

currently me, boudouche and AM are the council guys in favor of a ban (not to say the rest of them are opposed to it). the reason we have been given was that "chaos does not like non-pokemon bans this far into a generation", yet we just banned baton pass about a month ago.

i would like to see what the rest of the community thinks about this and if they too think that this is an issue worth addressing.

VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE VERSACE
 
As discussed in other threads: If it's not a huge burden, I and some other people would be really happy if you guys could suspect Gothitelle (and possibly other Shadow Tag users) instead of Shadow Tag directly.

edit: This would also solve your "chaos does not like non-pokemon bans this far into a generation" problem, which is really "a lot of people in PR, including me, don't like non-pokemon bans"

We banned BP because banning pokemon did not work (we investigated it). I don't really see a strong indication that banning Gothitelle won't solve your problem.
 
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I don't see how shadow tag is broken when every pokemon besides gothitelle that has access to shadow tag in OU is a complete waste of a slot. every replay you listed to show that shadow tag is broken had gothitelle, and not a single other pokemon with shadow tag is shown. suspecting shadow tag would be a complete waste of time.

ie suspect goth or dont bother <_<
 
I'd like to see if someone can get the same kinds of results with Gothorita which we can already get with Gothitelle. If not, I'd defenitely lean towards banning Gothitelle as opposed to Sadow Tag as a whole, unless someone can provide solid arguments for Wobuffet's uncompetetiveness.
 
I think PDC (and I) highlight all of the main reasons why Gothitelle is broken/uncompetitive, so if anyone has any counterarguments to suspecting Gothitelle alone I would love to hear them. It is especially important to notice Gothitelle's ability to beat all playstyles, including a variety of pokemon used on all sorts of teams. Let us also not forget the sheer urgency of this suspect test in regards to the ladder (has been for a while now), OLT, and recently Smogon Tour. It would be extremely nice if we could get this suspect done before it unnecessarily ruins any more future matches. That aside, I think what most of us really want is at least a Gothitelle suspect, as the rest of the shadow tag users are rather irrelevant.
 
"if done right" is the keyword and saying that there's absolutely no counterplay to stag (or goth in particular) is giving the ability (pokemon) an extremely facile and one-sided look. (Goth) isn't super threatening to teams that aren't exceedingly passive (extreme full stall that should normally be packing tar for it anyway), it kinda dies if you bring it in on the wrong turn, it's dead weight in quite a few matchups and you shouldn't really be leading with your breaker that beats your enemy's entire team anyway which is how a lot of people seem to get trapped in these replays that "prove that it's broken". Yea, you can't deny that it's a versatile tool that helps certain team types beat threats that normally walk all over them, but it isn't really uncompetitive or super broken.
 
Give back the mail!

Gothorita has a speed stat of 343 (including scarf). This correspond to base 107. It can't cover as many stallbreakers as Gothitelle (CM Latios is the first in my mind but there are probably more) but it still tricks Gliscor, Crawdaunt, Talonflame, Manaphy... Oddly enough, scarf SD Gliscor does not stallbreak that easily.
With a 252/42/216+ spread, it outspeeds base 100 and gives a big middle finger to Crawdaunt (+2 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Aqua Jet vs. 252 HP / 42 Def Gothorita: 273-322 (84.2 - 99.3%), so weaker priorities like +1 brave bird won't kill either).

So I'd be in favor of just banning Shadow Tag. Wobb would be collateral but we can easily argue that even if it is not broken, it is uncompetitive.


wish killer, it's not about Goth being threatening by itself. It is about pushing the rest over the bonds. Like I said earlier, scarf SD Gliscor does not stallbreak that easily. Same goes for scarf Crawdaunt or scarf CroCune. When you face gothitelle stall, you basically face a stall without your main stallbreaker. Depending on the case (Clef, Crocune), Goth does not even need to sacrifice herself, so it would be without your two main stallbreakers.
 
Vinc2612 said:
wish killer, it's not about Goth being threatening by itself. It is about pushing the rest over the bonds. Like I said earlier, scarf SD Gliscor does not stallbreak that easily. Same goes for scarf Crawdaunt or scarf CroCune. When you face gothitelle stall, you basically face a stall without your main stallbreaker. Depending on the case (Clef, Crocune), Goth does not even need to sacrifice herself, so it would be without your two main stallbreakers.
Click to expand...
I'm aware of what's being implied and I still think that this logic gives the situation an extremely facile and one-sided look. Playing against a goth doesn't automatically mean that your main two stallbreakers, or even your main stallbreaker, are automatically crippled, and implying that is, again, extremely facile and one-sided. The only way a breaker 100% gets crippled is if you sack something to bring Goth in which makes the situation more about the team matchup than stag itself.
 
If your main stallbreaker is Talonflame BU, Goth tanks two brave birds so it means that you automatically lose it.
If your main stallbreaker is Clefable, it means that you automatically lose it.
If your main stallbreaker is Manaphy, it means that you automatically lose it.
If your main stallbreaker is Taunt Gardevoir, it means that you automatically lose it (or "just" get it paralysed, which is close)

Which leaves... Band Tyranitar, Outrage MegaZard X and Knock Off users that can pressure Quagsire (read: Crawdaunt).


I'm obviously subjective and caricatural because I want it gone, but I hope you understand my point. Stall is matchup reliant and I am aware that Gothitelle is the only thing that makes it good. I am talking about wobb collateral but the whole playstyle is collateral. So I understand if someone wants to keep it around. I just disagree with this for the reasons I gave earlier.
 
Something always annoyed me with ORAS Stall, it's the fact that, unlike the other playstyles, it's really about ONE Pokémon.
What I mean is, when you try to build your team to beat offense, it's about your speed control, or priorities, or a solid defensive core etc.
When you build your team with balance in mind, it's about having being able to take a hit and retaliate for more damage, it's about a good offensive core, potentially set-up sweepers, superior hazard control etc.

When you build your team to deal with some Shedinja nonsense, or some Gothitelle Stall crap... It's about ONE Pokémon. You need to have that Shed Shell Manaphy, this Refresh Work Up Pidgeot-M, this Gardevoir-M Rest, this Bisharp SD GK, you name it.
It's dumb, and that's why it's overall bad for a metagame to have too many archetypes like that running around. I'm not against a Shedinja game from time to time, I mean, it's lame but I can take it because it has a fair amount of flaws after all. I'm not against some crappy Chansey game, or some Alomomola shit aswell. It happens.
But the team PDC is playing is just ughnn... Not a lot of things can beat it and as I said, for these teams, you NEED something to 6-0 it or it's game over from turn 1 most of the time.

The other thing that annoys me with Stall, is that a Stall VS Stall game is plain dead. I mean, yes, it's gonna be about who makes the best Gothitelle "plays", but in the end, it's pretty much a dead game in comparison to an Offense vs Offense game for instance. It shows how poor is the interaction.
Don't get me wrong, not trying to kill Stall or anything, but it is important to not make it too "easy" either. It's very dangerous to take away the traditionnal options other archetypes have at their disposal to beat Stall.

Hazards :
This is the main thing that ORAS took away from the other archetypes. With Sableye and Defog, you can WITHOUT BARELY ANY EFFORT make sure that SR are not gonna be present on your side of the field.
Usually, the Stall matchup in XY would leave hazard pressure on the shoulders of the Stall user. You could win this matchup with smart double switches and such. You lay down SR and then you switch between a physical sweeper and a special sweeper which forces the Stall user to switch around aswell. This is what I'm talking about.
You can see interactions here, it's not over from turn 1, and no one has a Pokémon 6-0ing the other team either.
Sableye-M makes it much harder to achieve consistently, as it lowers drastically the amount of SR setters able to create such a scenario.

Stallbreakers :
We got a lot of them that can beat Stall teams.
We got some of them that can beat Stall and still be somehow viable outside of this matchup.
We got very very few of them that can beat Stall, still be somehow viable outside of this matchup, and not be totally ruined by a Scarf Gothitelle using Trick or Thunder Wave.

This should sum-up why Stall is right now a major nuisance. There is no real way to fix the Hazards thing without banning Sableye-Mega, which I doubt would happen at this point. However the Gothitelle suspect is very focused on the issue we want to address, so to me it would make a lot of sense to suspect it (if not outright quick ban it to be honest, much like BP or SwagPlay, and unlike Landorus, we're talking about something marginal that people don't take too much into account when building because it's simply not worth taking into account, nothing will really come out of a suspect playtesting, we all know it).

Not against some talking and all, this is cute, but I think there has been a thread about Gothitelle already. What harm can it do to just go ahead and suspect it ? I mean, it's not like the OLT is already plagued by this team. It was already annoying last year when a good third of the players qualified using BP/SmashPass... let's be a bit faster this time around if you all don't mind.

PS : Would suspect the Gothitelle evo family (the pre-evo can actually do a similar job, and it would be too bad to see that the same stall can work after a Gothitelle ban, it's not like banning the whole Gothi crew can hurt anyway), I dont see any reason to throw Wobbuffet into the mix actually.
 
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Zarel: I was afraid of a "don't know don't care" attitude towards Gothorita, before noticing that Goth stall is still around.

I didn't think about it but you are right, we can save wobb with a suspect on both Goth together.
 
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Now that it has been mentioned, a suspect of the entire goth family seems to be the optimal course of action. As Vinc2612 stated, Gothorita still does a lot of what Gothitelle does, and shares the same "uncompetitive" nature. This would allow us to get rid of all the undesirable aspects at once, thus not having to face Gothorita stall in the future, while also preserving arguably balanced mons like Wobb.
 
I'm not sure why we wouldn't suspect Shadow Tag? I mean lets be real here, Gothorita is clearly not a broken Pokemon in OU. Wobbuffet can trap a great deal of the offensive threats that Goth can between Encore/Counter/Mirror Coat (exceptions being like, SD Heracross) and can still deal with defensive stuff with Tickle/Pursuit support. The "uncompetitive" nature that ABR and Vinc talked about is the inability to switch out, not the overwhelming stats or movepool of Gothitelle.

I don't have Wobb replays but I remember facing somebody with a BP Lop/Wobb team that was near the top of the ladder, maybe someone else remembers who that was?
 
i do not agree with a suspect on gothitelle

as mentioned by a bunch of earlier posts, the pre evo of gothitelle whatever the fuck its called can just be used as a substitute and shares the same cancerous traits as gothitelle and still does the majority of what gothitelle intends to do anyways

however its not just the goth family, wobbuffet is pretty fucking ridiculous too and i'd like to see that thing gone as well.

fast wobb w/ tickle paired with a pursuit user is extremely unhealthy for the metagame and can dismantle whole defensive/stallish cores. and unlike other wallbreakers, there is no counterplay to wobb cuz you cant switch out, and you are left helpless as it outspeeds your walls and tickles them to -6 def while you're encored and then get killed by a pursuit user.

lets use the classic "bof" stall team as an example of this (lol why the fuck do we even call it "bof" stall when like 90% of bof members absolutely hate this team). chansey/skarm/quag/sableye/goth/then your choice of cress/amoong. fast wobbuffet that has tickle paired with a pursuit user destroys that team with no effort necessary. come in on chansey/skarm/quag/cress/amoong, outspeed them, encore them on a support or recover move, tickle them six times, then switch out to a cb ttar and get the easy kill with pursuit if they switch out, or if they stay in, 2hko them with pursuit anyways! only thing on this team that is free from this is sableye cuz ghosts cant get trapped, and goth, who ironically is another stag user but still gets pursuited anyways.

this is obviously a problem because killing these walls makes a whole bunch of threats able to steamroll this team. for ex, that team gets destroyed by zard-x after quag dies, or zard-y after chansey dies, or sd bisharp after skarm & quag die. its not just stall teams tho, balanced teams in general get destroyed by this tactic too. lets just use a classic example of a balanced team that has hippo/slowbro as their primary physical wall core. wobb outspeeds and traps both of them and tickles them 6 times, cb ttar comes in and gets the kill with pursuit. you can even trap clef this way as well and kill it too. its blatantly unhealthy and uncompetitive for the metagame because there is no room for counterplay available (unless you're a ghost or another stag user)

wobb doesnt just trap defensive pokes tho, it can also be used on offensive teams that have trouble with keldeo, excadrill, lopunny, metagross, latis, offensive starmie, and so much more

since ik its hard to believe wobb can destroy stall/balanced builds based on pure theorymon and no replays to back it up here are some replays:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270577029 wobb traps and kills a hippo and zard-x just sweeps
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270582509 wobb traps and kills ttar, heatran, & mega slowbro (wouldve trapped and killed keldeo & amoongus too but they forfeited before game was over)

so in summary:
dont suspect gothitelle because
1) its pre evo can just be used and garners similar results
2) wobbuffet is fucking ridiculous as well, it just hasnt seen much use yet for god knows what reason

SUSPECT SHADOW TAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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Why make a big suspect test of this thing when we can just quick ban it anyway? A ban would not change the metagame as much as other bans from very dominating 'mons did yet (e.g. Lando, Ninja or Aegis in XY) and can definetely not make it worse then it was before. Also I think we already know the outcome of a suspect yet: It definetely will get banned when it gets suspected. I think a suspect would just take a long time for 0. We can also not do a suspect during OLT so we'll have to wait for a lot of time until we can make a possible suspect.

Pls save us all a lot of time in a healthier meta and quick ban it straight away, thank you.
 
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ABR said:
Now that it has been mentioned, a suspect of the entire goth family seems to be the optimal course of action. As Vinc2612 stated, Gothorita still does a lot of what Gothitelle does, and shares the same "uncompetitive" nature. This would allow us to get rid of all the undesirable aspects at once, thus not having to face Gothorita stall in the future, while also preserving arguably balanced mons like Wobb.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure the "uncompetitive" nature of Goth fam comes straight from Shadow Tag, and Wobb/Wynaut can still do the job (in a less effective way but they do). The issue is Shadow Tag per se in its trapping nature which is what makes Goths uncompetitive, and could more likely make Wobb too. I know that I stated a possibility so I propose we could just make a suspect in which we can choose between:
a) Shadow Tag ban
b) Goths ban (no sense to ban just Gothitelle, Gothorita can surely make the same job); this option implies Wobb won't be banned
c) No ban at all
(we could add just Wobb ban but...seriously....)

Since Goth is clearly more broken than Wobbuffet we could allow this last one in the ladder while Gothis not, in order to see if Wobbuffet can be as much problematic as Gothis are.
 
I rather suspect shadow tag in all fairness (prefer quickban but you know, the community needs a say apparently >_>). PR people and all of that nonsense wont change the fact the abusers of ST are just bad for OU. So yeah thats my two cents in the short amount of time I have right now.
 
Definetly would love to see Shadow Tag being suspected/quickbanned. I wouldn't think this would be the case like 3 months ago, but that's because most people would tend to use goth the wrong way around, and don't abuse the mon's ability to the max. The fact that you can just come in on a clefable, trick it, pp stall, make it struggle and get your item back to do the same thing against another Pokémon just seems extremely dumb by itself, but it doesn't come close to ending there. With ABR's "innovation" in Thunder Wave Gothitelle seeing as stall doesn't really /need/ Calm Mind on goth, he can easily nerf any potential threat to the team, which ends up on a skilless autowin-match type of thing. Gothitelle forces your stallbreaker to be a Mega Pokémon most of the time, because otherwise it'll just get nerfed around and unable to do the breaking(example: life orb Hoopa-U).

Please ban it so people can stop spamming this for the easiest ladder points ever ;_;
 
I'm not active in OU but I personally oppose a ban on the grounds that we have banned a whole lot of stuff this generation and more bans make me antsy.

edit: I didn't want the baton pass ban either

edit 2: to be clear, I'm not completely shooting this down or anything, but I wish people would err on the side of not shaking things up this late in the generation...
 
Bans on the grounds of uncompetitiveness should not be subject to concerns about "shaking things up" late in a metagame. Nothing that's coming out in the new generation of games will change the fact that you can't switch your stallbreaker out of a Gothitelle. I'm not sure why it took until now for people to get on board with this test, but we should seriously just get it done.
 
whats wrong about shaking things up ''late'' (how is this even late idgi) in a generation? OU players wants the tier to be as competitive as possible. As you said, you are not active in OU anymore, so have some faith in the OU council..

I don't even understand how ''we banned a lot already'' is being brought up either
 
I never understood why Shadow Tag is banned in DPP, but no longer in BW and ORAS. Did team preview nerf it somehow, in a way that mons such as Gothitelle and Wobbuffet are now healthy for the OU metagame? Power creep is a poor excuse, because oh well, even Wynaut was banned in DPP, and nowadays not all teams are very offensive (and even if some are, the Shadow Tag users can still get their job done), so here we go again to talk about match up reliance and broken strategies. And also why is Shadow Tag banned in all lower tiers, but only OU wants to keep it?

Btw I remembered about this interesting quote from the DPP strategy dex in the Wobbuffet's "Checks and Counters" section:

By definition, a proper counter must be able to switch in against whatever it is they are trying to counter. As mentioned, Wobbuffet's ability prevents the opponent from switching if they lack the moves Baton Pass or U-turn or aren't holding a Shed Shell, which means it essentially has no real counters.
Click to expand...

yup this was written many years ago, but I think the same thinking still applies in the current generation, right?
 
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