Metagame np: Ubers Stage 1 - Into The Unknown

[Nayrz]

​

The most controversial topic that arose from Stage 0's discussion was Gothitelle and Gothorita, so Ubers will begin its official suspect testing with these two Pokemon. Their ability to take down cornerstones to bulkier teams such as support Arceus formes and impact the viability of many defensive Pokemon in the tier in a rather controversial way has them at the top of the list among the Ubers community for a suspect test. Let's get started.

Suspect Reasoning (warning: long and detailed - but I expect people to read this)

Let's go over Gothitelle and Gothorita's ability in the Ubers metagame. These are the best sets you will see when running into these Pokemon:

Gothitelle

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 244 HP / 108 Def / 156 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Confide
- Charm
- Taunt
- Rest

Gothorita

Gothorita @ Eviolite
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 136 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charm
- Confide
- Taunt
- Rest

Alternatively, 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD can offer more bulk than Gothitelle on the special side and trap Choice Scarf Xerneas much easier. There is wiggle room for bulk on both sets, but these are generally the optimal spreads.

The first thing you will notice is the lack of attacks. The purpose of these Pokemon is to trap and PP stall a Pokemon that cannot break through it in time. When all of the trapped Pokemon's attacking PP is gone, you can force them to either Struggle to death, or switch out and give another Pokemon a completely free turn. This can have multiple uses, from setting up boosting moves to removing entry hazards. The list of Pokemon that these two are able to trap include, but are not limited to:

Support Arceus formes (Water, Ground, Fairy, Dragon)
Defensive Ho-Oh lacking Whirlwind
Choice Scarf Xerneas
Choice Scarf Yveltal (locked into Foul Play or Oblivion Wing)
Defensive Zygarde-C lacking Dragon Tail
Defensive Necrozma-DM lacking SD or Solganium Z
Ferrothorn, Toxapex, Skarmory, and Celesteela that lack Shed Shell
Lugia lacking Dragon Tail
Chansey

The trap targets listed above can feature on a very large majority of bulky offense, balance, and stall teams alike. Only very offensive teams can see themselves as truly safe from the presence of Gothitelle and Gothorita in the tier by virtue of simply overpowering them - this is a common theme on the ladder, meaning that Gothitelle and Gothorita are less effective there. The lack of ideal counterplay to these Pokemon can take a large part of the game out of the hands of the player, making team matchup in the tier a far bigger concern than it should be. The team archetypes noted above have adapted in a sense, with support Arceus-Dark, Shed Shell, Dragon Tail, or simply not using these Pokemon at all feeling like a forced option to combat Gothitelle and Gothorita on the chance that they come across one in high level play. These are far from perfect solutions, however, as this leaves said teams open to other important threats in the tier. Gothitelle and Gothorita generally put a very difficult chokehold on team archetypes that could otherwise do well, making it difficult to assess the true power levels of other Pokemon in USM Ubers.

So where do Gothitelle and Gothorita line up with our tiering policy?

Broken

This isn't an argument - Gothitelle and Gothorita are not "broken" as per our definition. However, Ubers does follow OU's definition of "uncompetitive", and there is a section of their definition of "broken" that leaves some food for thought in the context of Ubers:

A snip from OU's section regarding the definition of "broken"

D.) Uncompetitive and Broken defined like this tend to be mutually exclusive in practice, but aren't necessarily entirely so.
1.) BP was deemed uncompetitive because of how drastically it removed battling skill's effects and brought the battle down to match up, but it could also be deemed broken because of the unique ways in which you had to deal with it.
2.) While this isn't always the case, an uncompetitive thing probably isn't broken, but a broken thing is more likely to be uncompetitive simply due to the unique counter / check component. For example, Mega Kangaskhan was deemed broken because it was simply too good relative to the rest of the metagame and caused the tier to centralize around it, but it could also be labeled as uncompetitive because of the severe team match up restriction it caused by punishing players if they did not pack one of the few gimmicky and obscure counters or checks for it.

Uncompetitive

This is one argument for our suspect test here. Ubers will use OU's definitions regarding the term "uncompetitive" in order to be seen as a tier aiming to be properly competitive. This means we look at the following definitions:

OU's definition of Uncompetitive, which Ubers also follows

Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant
A.) This can be match up related; think the determination that BP took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team match up issue, where even with the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
B.) This can be external factors; think endless battle clause, where the determining factor becomes internet connection over playing skill.
C.) This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, SwagPlay, Evasion, or Moody, all of which turn the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
D.) Note uncompetitive elements are almost always present in the battling skill aspect; they will, however, be present in the team building aspect should we allow them in the sense of having to rely on excessively specific counters (such as loading teams with Sturdy or Keen Eye Pokemon and the like).

Points A and D can be held to Gothitelle and Gothorita. The counterplay to them is best found outside of the battle - simply don't bring anything that they can trap, and the team will never have a problem with them. This adds to the team matchup issue that was pointed out before, and heavily limits the teambuilding aspect of Ubers. In battle, Gothitelle and Gothorita's counterplay is very limited. They will always have Shadow Tag, in contrast to Mega Gengar, which requires an evolution turn, making it very difficult to deal with them in battle if a user brings a Pokemon weak to their trapping abilities. Double switching and getting little out of their role on a team, completely avoiding, or accepting their fate is all they can do.

Unhealthy

This is a secondary argument that can apply to Gothitelle and Gothorita. We look to OU's definitions on this, but we do not have an exact stance on it. Our own tiering policy reviews how Ubers sees the arguments OU uses - I suggest having a read of this to understand what I'm getting at by this: the bottom line is when looking at OU's definitions, A can apply, B will never apply, and C can be used if absolutely necessary.

OU's definitions on "Unhealthy"

Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken, yet deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent
A.) These are elements that may not limit either team building or battling skill enough individually, but combine to cause an effect that is undesirable for the metagame.
B.) This can also be a state of the metagame. If the metagame has too much diversity wherein team building ability is greatly hampered and battling skill is drastically reduced, we may seek to reduce the number of good to great threats. This can also work in reverse; if the metagame is too centralized a particular set of Pokemon, none of which are broken on their own, we may seek to add Pokemon to increase diversity.
C.) This is the most controversial and subjective one, and will therefore be used the most sparingly. The OU Council will only use this amidst drastic community outcry and a conviction that the move will noticeably result in the better player winning over the lesser player.

Point A is also an applicable argument - even if you do not see Gothitelle and Gothorita as strictly uncompetitive, it can still be argued that they have an undesirable effect on the metagame due to how they function in battle, and their effect on the teambuilder.

So with all that out of the way, let's go over the details of this suspect test itself. As an immediate note, these Pokemon will have separate votes. I touch on the reasoning in the follow up post below.

Want to qualify to vote on this topic? These will be the requirements for voting:

• A minimum of 40 games played on the suspect ladder, and
• A minimum GXE of 82.

The suspect ladder will be up for 3 weeks (Jun 17th - July 8th). This is long in comparison to typical Smogon suspect tests, but as we are dealing with Ubers I feel this is a justified choice. We aim to conclude the suspect test before Round 1 of the Ubers Grand Slam, and a 3 week test lines up perfectly.

Gothitelle and Gothorita will be legal on the ladder. The Immortal, please create a suspect ladder when you are available. Thanks in advance.

We will also be running a subforum tournament with Gothitelle banned (but not Gothorita) to shed more light on a metagame where only Gothitelle is banned. Expect fast deadlines. You can participate (or just monitor) the tournament here.

Those that wish to contribute to the discussion are heavily encouraged to read and understand the policy and reasoning behind this suspect test before making any detailed posts. A Q&A detailing common questions and statements will follow this post, which I also recommend you all read before jumping to conclusions.

This thread will be locked for the first two days of the suspect test to give people the ability to digest the situation, experience the suspect ladder, and come up with any posts to contribute to the discussion.

Let's continue to move forward. Keep it civil, and enjoy the test!

 

[Nayrz]

Because I anticipate a lot of questions regarding the nature of the test, I have a post of what I expect the popular questions or statements to be and hopefully clarify a lot of the decision making behind the test.

Why not Shadow Tag overall?

A suspect of Shadow Tag would imply that we consider Shadow Tag itself to be uncompetitive, and would also require the justification that all of Shadow Tag's users are uncompetitive in the Ubers metagame. While Mega Gengar could be seen as an issue by some, the likes of Wobbuffet and Wynaut are not. This leads to the idea that the Pokemon Shadow Tag is abused by should be looked at on their own. This is further supported by our ideology of aiming for minimal bans - banning all Shadow Tag users when only some can be deemed a problem acts against what we aim for.

Why suspect Gothitelle and Gothorita and not Shadow Tag on these Pokemon?

The typical tiering philosophy of Smogon always prefers to look at a Pokemon overall. Other options such as banning selected moves or their abilities is only seen as an option if it can be proven that the move or ability itself is fundamentally broken or uncompetitive - in other words, everything with access to it is regarded that way - like Moody for example. Shadow Tag is currently not seen as uncompetitive or unhealthy across Ubers entirely as I went over earlier. If these Pokemon are banned and other Shadow Tag users are deemed uncompetitive, we can suspect those as well at a later stage. For an example, Mega Rayquaza was banned as an overall Pokemon for being too strong, even if possibilities such as banning specific moves on it, or making it hold a useless item could have potentially made it balanced. "Nerfing Pokemon" is frowned upon. I am aware that Shadow Tag itself is banned in lower tiers, but I do not believe following that lines up with our policy as it covers Pokemon that we do not need to cover.

A ban on Gothitelle and Gothorita is also one that lacks the potential of collateral damage to the metagame. Any other bans risk destabilizing the tier to the point that other bans are likely to follow.

The Sleep Clause extension that banned Hypnosis on Mega Gengar doesn't add up then.

The target of that ban was the concept of "SleepTrap", essentially bypassing Sleep Clause by eliminating the core concept of playing around the Sleep status - switching out after absorbing sleep. Only Mega Gengar was capable of this at that time, but the clause targets the concept of "SleepTrap", and not Mega Gengar itself. Some view this as a convenient excuse, which is an opinion I'm aware of. I am open to revisiting this in the future for better consistency, as this decision was made prior to our new tiering policy and may go down differently in the present.

By suspect testing Gothitelle and Gothorita and not Shadow Tag on these Pokemon, Ubers can't claim to be truly aiming for minimal bans.

This is true. Ubers wouldn't follow "minimal bans" to the letter, however. Such a goal would involve nerfing individual aspects of Pokemon or problematic elements in a very specific way to ensure balance, which results in a rather large mess of nitpicking and doesn't really work with how Smogon's tiering operates.

Why is Gothorita included? It doesn't see any reasonable usage.

This is mainly because there is little reason to use Gothorita when Gothitelle is legal at the moment. However, their levels of bulk are extremely close, with Eviolite Gothorita actually having more bulk than Gothitelle but without Leftovers recovery. Here is a quick comparison:

0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Gothorita: 81-96 (25 - 29.6%)
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gothitelle: 102-121 (29.6 - 35.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

It can be argued that Gothorita's lack of Leftovers recovery could make it a bit easier to wear down in comparison to Gothitelle, but the whole scenario that these Pokemon thrive in is a very binary state. They either trap and PP stall the Pokemon, either until death or a free turn is available (critical hits and other RNG aside), or they don't. When their bulk levels are the same, this situation doesn't change. Leftovers is helpful, but not necessary for these Pokemon to do their job. The situation that these Pokemon thrive in (trapping and eliminating Pokemon with little skill expression) is the concept that this suspect aims to remove. Removing one and not the other will change very little in the grand scheme of things. Players that want to build bulkier teams in Ubers will just fear Gothorita instead... which is a very strange situation for the tier to be in.

However, we will allow people to vote on these Pokemon individually rather than as a package, as a forced vote is not ideal. We will also be running a subforum tournament with Gothorita legal and Gothitelle banned, to hopefully give users the chance to see Gothorita's ability.

You guys are aware you are potentially banning a middle evolution from Ubers, right?

Weird, huh? In the context of Ubers however, I believe this is the best way to act, and I went over all the reasonings above. I'm fully aware of how strange this may seem to an outside viewer, as they are not banned from OU or any other lower tier... directly. Shadow Tag itself is banned in all lower tiers, which covers the most viable sets of Gothitelle / Gothorita anyway. That means that the Pokemon we are dealing with are essentially banned to Ubers as it is. I've went over why Shadow Tag is not the ideal ban already, and neither is targeting just the abilities on these Pokemon, so that leaves us with just banning the Pokemon themselves.

Would a ban result affect lower tiers as well?

No. The actions of Ubers doesn't affect the usage based tiers - we operate on a seperate level to them, even if OU's bans come here. Think similarly to how LC or Doubles fits into Smogon tiering, but it isn't quite the same thing.

 

[Nayrz]

The thread is now open to discussion. The Ubers mods will be closely monitoring and moderating this thread so keep all the arguments civil in nature. Any posts displaying complete ignorance of the information given in the above two posts are subject to deletions or infractions, so if you plan to post on the suspect... please know what you are talking about. I want the discussion to focus on the suspect test itself.

 

[Storm Eagle]

Would a ban result affect lower tiers as well?

No. The actions of Ubers doesn't affect the usage based tiers - we operate on a seperate level to them, even if OU's bans come here. Think similarly to how LC or Doubles fits into Smogon tiering, but it isn't quite the same thing.

I want to know something. What's the difference between banning Gothorita and Gothitelle from Ubers and making them go to AG? Do you guys just decide whether something goes to AG? Or is it a scenario similar to Mega Garchomp in OU where Garchompite isn't used enough in OU to be considered OU by usage, while Garchomp is OU by usage (e.g. if the mon being suspected in Ubers isn't in Ubers, it gets banned from, Ubers, while if the mon being suspected in Ubers already is in Ubers, then it goes to AG)? I would really like it if you would clarify how banning to AG works as this may sway my opinions on banning ordeals in Ubers in the future.

Thanks for the consideration on this topic. The only reason I would even consider voting Do Not Ban if I got reqs was if this affected lower tiers. But considering that this isn't the case, I'll definitely aim to vote Ban now. There's no counterargument to voting Ban at this point so I expect this Suspect Test to end in an almost unanimous Ban vote. Gothitelle is definitely uncompetitive in the right circumstances so I take my previous word back in the other thread in that this is the best way to go about things.

 

[pooyou123456789q]

Since there nothing else in this thread so far, I guess I'll share my thoughts.

This suspect test is the first time I've tried to use goth on ladder, and its impressed me so far. Removing supportceus, Lugia, defensive Ho-Oh, etc. is really good for shit like mixed rp Groudon and Xerneas. It is deadweight against HO, but I found it was able to debuff offensive threats for other set-up sweepers, so it's not as passive as something like Blissey. The other five team members can be dedicated to beating HO anyways. The main problem I found with it was that covering all the offensive threats is hard when using something with 0 defensive utility(though running a suicide lead for no good reason doesn't help). Here's my team if anyone wants it. If anyone is willing to share their goth team I'dlove tosee it, cuz I feel mine is hot garbage.

 

[Katy]

Here are my thoughts on Gothitelle / Gothorita. I think they should get banned, cause of the following reasons:

Due to it's terrible offensive presence, it is forced to go for utility moves, means it has to go for Confide, Taunt, Rest and Charm.
Games getting unecessarily longer, 50+ Turns ain't an Exception in a lot of Games, so the Games are very slow paced.

Bulkier teams getting punished by her presence, since most of them have like Arceus Fairy to take on Marshadow and helpin' with the Defog Factor.
I feel with Goths in the team preview you are immediately forced to play in a whole 'nother way, so your supportive mon can't getting trapped
and slowly removed from the game.

The metagame tends to be more offensive as of seen lately, but the teambuilding process by itself still forces you to build in a way around them,
cause of the simple existence from Goths.

The lack of effective counterplay towards Goth is also a factor I wanna bring up, when it comes to bulky team archetypes.
Goth is able to remove at least 1 mon of the opposing team, if not more, hence getting the job done for the other mons on it's team.

I would vote BAN on Goths.

 

[shrang]

Seeing as I played a major role in the destruction of the previous Shadow Tag campaign (and MM2's TL career), I think I'll pretty much put my thoughts here. Seeing as the last test was almost 4 years ago and I've stopped caring about this game, I'm going to try and limit my time here as much as possible. The last suspect test gave me like 5 forms of cancer that I don't want to have to go through that again. I'll try to ladder and vote if I can, but otherwise I'll just say my peace here and gtfo. As an Ubers purist, I'm pretty much against every ban in this game and this doesn't change here. Anyway, let's just get into this:

By the way, most of the arguments for a Goth ban (from my interactions with most players) remain the same (matchup, free kill, yadda yadda). It's a real waste of time for me to engage in arguments with a huge amount of detail so I encourage everyone to go and read up on the common rebuttals to them (95% were made by me) in the old S-tag thread back from 2014: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ct-test-stuck-in-the-middle-with-you.3519501/ - yes I know it's TL;DR and will destroy your sanity but probably just to get a general picture and give you an idea of the shit that I don't have to go through again this time.

1) Precedent
So before we get into a fresh suspect test about this, we need to remember that we've not only had one, but two suspect test for this before. Sure, we're suspecting Goth solely now, but let's not get into any delusions that the Mgar and Shadow Tag suspect tests are irrelevant here. Shadow Tag as a whole is the elephant in the room and it's pretty much the reason that Goth is such a problem in the first place. So, now that's out of the way, with such a strong precedent that resulted in two no ban votes, you have to wonder why we're even bothering with this. Basically, the only real things that should even be bothered to suss out are what has changed and whether those changes are worth a ban or not. Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of changes since late XY in which the previous suspect tests were held, and the aim of this discussion should be to address these.

2) What has changed?
In terms of available tools to abuse with Gothitelle/Shadow Tag, not much, really. (EDIT: Okay you guys are taking way too much emphasis on this sentence itself and not on everything else - there is no other point to the previous sentence apart from to say that Goth itself has not gained any new moves or abilities - of course I'm aware of actual metagame shifts and stuff, the rest of the paragraph even goes into things that are actually different) Everything broken about Gothitelle existed back in 2014, and arguably the metagame in which that suspect test was held is arguably even more advantageous for Gothitelle. HO was a lot less viable in XY and stall was much easier to use. The only real change, I suppose, is the way we're using Gothitelle. Back in 2014, the main set was the CM/Rest set and now most people are using the PP stall and/or Flatter sets. These sets seem to be better since they can either completely drain out a Pokemon and leaving it as setup fodder for something else or set them up for Psych Up Mega Gengar to sweep. The first set really isn't that broken, IMO since they didn't do much more than what the previous Gothitelle set did (which is essentially remove a Pokemon from the game and the consensus was at the time) that this was not broken.

The Flatter -> Psych Up Gengar combo is really scary I have to admit, and if anything this should be the thing should get Goth banned if we do end up banning. However, I'll mostly address the main issue later, but you can prepare for this. There is also the issue on whether the fact it is the problem of Goth that can set this up or the fact that Gengar is the only one that can really abuse it since no other Pokemon can receive the Flatter boosts is the really broken? It's a semantics issue, but just something to screw the pooch there.

There's the other issue on whether the PP stall set is really significantly (specifically game-breakingly better) than the old CM/Rest set. Sure, being able to effectively make a Pokemon useless and leaving it alive and making it setup fodder for something else is definitely better than straight up killing it, but on the flip side this Goth set is even more matchup reliant than the CM/Rest variant and less splashable since the CM/Rest set had a leftover move in which you can use on whatever you want so you can still use like Thunder Wave or Trick Room to fuck with offensive teams or Heal Bell for more general support. PP stall, on the other hand, is basically 5-6 vs teams that have makes any kind of effort to prepare for Goth.

3) Match-up issues and "preparing for Gothitelle"
This is probably the worst arguments of this whole thing and I'm kind of disappointed this is yet again, the main talking point about this suspect test. What annoys me most is when people making the arguments that you either have to prepare for Gothitelle or you're automatically losing, and if you do prepare for Goth then you automatically have an unfavourable matchup.

But no seriously, this is a terribly simplified and misguided view. This logic is mainly used for tour games where you have to "gamble" on whether your opponent is bringing Goth or not, but it really isn't that simple. Even if we assume that Goth wins 100% of games vs teams that don't prepare for it (which I'm not convinced it is), there are so many other possibilities in team variation that in the other situation (where you do prepare for Goth) that to say that you're guaranteed to have a poor match-up is just retarded. Let's just break this down into the following:

If you don't prepare for Goth
- If opponent brings Goth -> you lose (not entirely true but we're pretending that it is, only situation where it is likely true is when you run into Flatter Goth + Gar combo, but even then it's not always a 100% lose)
- If opponent doesn't bring Goth -> you could have either a favourable or not favourable matchup or neutral

If you prepare for Goth
- If opponent brings Goth -> you could have either a favourable or not favourable matchup or neutral, but probably you have a favourable matchup because they're essentially playing 5-6
- If your opponent doesn't bring Goth -> you could have either a favourable or not favourable matchup or neutral

We'll just look at the last of these scenarios, because some advocates for Goth ban argue that you'll always get an unfavourable matchup in this scenario. This is simply not true. They claim that you're bound to be weaker to something else (eg Ho-oh or Marshadow or whatever). However, who is to say that your opponent is bound to have that Pokemon you're weak to, and even if they do, does that automatically mean you lose the game? These black and white arguments are so childish they need to stop, IMO.

Another point I need to bring up is the fact that everyone is so angsty about not being able to cover every threat and if you pick to prepare for Goth you have to drop something else. I personally don't see why this is an issue, tbh. Pokemon has always been a game of probabilities. The onus is on you to make a team to decide which Pokemon you want to check and build your team accordingly. If you made a team that doesn't account for something specific that's your problem. We've never been able to cover every threat in this game so it's always been cover the threats that are most high yield. To be fair, this is more of a Smogon-wide trend, but people have been a lot more ban-happy and tend to want to ban something rather than deal with it. This might be fine in lower metagames, but in Ubers, despite the fact that we are now a "metagame", we should have some thicker skin when it comes to shit we don't like. It should be time that people accepted that they're not going to be able to cover every threat and therefore sacrifices in teambuilding have to be made. It's probably just me, but if Gothitelle is that big of a threat that you have to sacrifice your ability for something else, then so be it. I know people hate having to play vs poor match ups but to me anyway this is where the thrill of this game comes from, you shouldn't just give up once you get a shit match up and then blame something for forcing these things. Like I've made the example before in which Rafael Nadal's left-handed top spin is inherently advantageous against Federer but you don't see Federer getting pissed off and calling for all massive left handed top spinners to be banned.

Also, I've also seen shit like "I just click X when I play against Goth because I don't even bother building for it" - this is seriously the worst. If you make no effort to check a Pokemon, it is entirely your fault if you lose against it and therefore should have no right to call for its ban.

4) Potential ways to prepare for Gothitelle for common mons
While we have changed the way we use Gothitelle, we have new ways to deal with it too. I'll preface this by saying that these measures obvious sacrifice a bit of your ability to deal with other threats as optimally as you'd like, but they are by no means totally crippling. They can still their jobs most of the time, they're probably like 80-90% effective in dealing with other threats while making them much less weak to Gothitelle.

Supportceus - Z-physical move is nice way to hit Goth hard enough so that it can't get started in its ability to fuck you over. Mind you, this is not a guarantee for you to escape Goth entirely since they can still bait the move or even just Rest on your attack, but if you play your cards right you can poke a big enough hole in it to give yourself the opportunity to escape, and in a tournament setting one surprise attack is the all the difference you need most of the time. Like I said in the preface, this set is overall worse since you have to weaken Ice Beam and in general Judgement is more reliable, but operating at 80-90% effectiveness is still enough to check what they need to check. You can still win against PDon with standard EQ for example. You can also run Dark/Ghostceus if works for your team too. I guess the only common Supportceus unable to do this is Fairyceus, but Fairyceus is meh anyway especially with the introduction of Dusk Mane and if Goth is what seals its fate as a C or D rank mon then so be it.

On the topic of Supportceus, personally I think it's just a boring ass fucker and if Goth punishes you for using it then all the better for the metagame :D

Lugia - Double phaze. Again, Ice Beam is preferred but this would work just as well as Lugia needs to do anyway

Pex - You have Regenerator and Recover, so sacrificing Leftovers for Shed Shell isn't that big a deal

Ferro - Fuck Ferro who needs em

5) The actual issue
The actual issue is how much the playerbase is willing to take, really. If we look at what has changed between XY and now in terms of significant stuff that would warrant a ban, not that much stuff have really changed. Way back about 5 years ago we had much more of a spine and dgaf, and believe me we had stupid shit like U-turn Genesect and weather wars and all that stuff. I personally don't think that something that punishes you in the way Gothitelle does if you don't prepare for it should be banned from Ubers ever but hey times a changing I suppose.

Basically, if the community doesn't want to "deal with it" any more then I can't really say much more. I'd just be disappointed that our Ubers players have turned into snowflakes just like the rest of Smogon.

Peace the fuck out

 

[Nayrz]

Seeing as I played a major role in the destruction of the previous Shadow Tag campaign (and MM2's TL career), I think I'll pretty much put my thoughts here.

Seriously? Do you believe yourself to be some paragon of Ubers that strikes down the big bad choices we do as a community? This "ubers purist" mentality is outdated. Ubers has moved on from the days of ban discussions leading to infractions on the forums or bans from our live chat areas and people being afraid to ever voice their opinion, leading to a silenced community unless they join the circlejerk of old players that believed in a rigid banlist and nothing more. It felt like a resistance movement back when I joined this place. Our past two suspect tests were held with this mentality still very strong, and we have advanced a lot since then, as has the metagames we are dealing with. Get with the program. AG exists to serve this train of thought. We both know how close Ubers came to getting canned only a month ago and without any change, this decision will return and we will be on the receiving end of it. I'm not sure if you actually realize this but it sure doesn't look like it.

Basically, the only real things that should even be bothered to suss out are what has changed and whether those changes are worth a ban or not. Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of changes since late XY in which the previous suspect tests were held, and the aim of this discussion should be to address these.

I've already glossed over "what has changed" since XY Ubers - we are a tier (this is a pretty big difference!), we have a tiering policy, we are able to actually discuss actions to the tier without fear of getting infracted, muted, or banned. This suspect test isn't even held the same way as those XY tests. I think the cirumstances are so wildly different that the past two tests shouldn't even be thought of today, so I'm going to leave it at that.

As for the actual no ban arguments - I've went over these in the OP and justified it against our policy, something many people seem to agree with. I think instead of attacking each other's arguments I will simply see your view as an opposing opinion, which is perfectly fine. People are welcome to agree or disagree with it. As tier leader it isn't on me to force people to see my personal way of thinking - it's to allow people to make their own choices based on the evidence we are all giving. The results of the vote are what changes things at the end of the day.

I think I've addressed the theme of your post that I wanted to target. Calling those that agree Gothitelle and Gothorita deserve suspect attention "snowflakes" is hardly going to do you any favors, though.

stuff

The way a successful ban would likely be implemented is that Goths still show as PU in the teambuilder, but are illegal in the Ubers format. For it to show as AG in the teambuilder it would have to be banned to Ubers already, which Shadow Tag Goths are but not the entire mon, which does make it a bit annoying. Regardless, lower tiers are unaffected.

 

[shrang]

Just a note on this point re: the uncompetitive definition I noticed.

Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant
A.) This can be match up related; think the determination that BP took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team match up issue, where even with the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
B.) This can be external factors; think endless battle clause, where the determining factor becomes internet connection over playing skill.
C.) This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, SwagPlay, Evasion, or Moody, all of which turn the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
D.) Note uncompetitive elements are almost always present in the battling skill aspect; they will, however, be present in the team building aspect should we allow them in the sense of having to rely on excessively specific counters (such as loading teams with Sturdy or Keen Eye Pokemon and the like).

Points A and D can be held to Gothitelle and Gothorita. The counterplay to them is best found outside of the battle - simply don't bring anything that they can trap, and the team will never have a problem with them. This adds to the team matchup issue that was pointed out before, and heavily limits the teambuilding aspect of Ubers. In battle, Gothitelle and Gothorita's counterplay is very limited. They will always have Shadow Tag, in contrast to Mega Gengar, which requires an evolution turn, making it very difficult to deal with them in battle if a user brings a Pokemon weak to their trapping abilities. Double switching and getting little out of their role on a team, completely avoiding, or accepting their fate is all they can do.

This is probably my outdated mindset coming into play yet again, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that we're putting a lot of emphasis on "in-game" counterplay. Counterplay to Goth exists, and it exists mainly in the teambuilder. Why are we downplaying this aspect of the game? This came up 4 years ago too and I also felt it was really iffy. Teambuilding is just as important as battling, is it not? If not, why not? You can be the best player making the best predictions in the world, but if you brought an inappropriate team you can still easily lose, and that wouldn't be anyone's fault except your own. Gothitelle is like any other threat in that if you don't prepare for it, you're going to lose. It limits teambuilding in the way that it forces you to prepare for it. Every other Uber Pokemon does this.

Just because something has less "in-game" counterplay doesn't mean it's uncompetitive, in fact I think someone pulled out a stat in the Discord chat earlier that Gothitelle winning record is like 1-7 in recent tours or something because people are preparing for it. So, what's the issue? If you compare something like this to something that we've actually banned - you can prepare your team for Mega Ray until the cows come home yet it'll still be the factor that decides the outcome of game most of the time. I get that different things have different amount of preparation required and the unreasonable effort required to do it, but like I've outlined already, it doesn't take THAT much effort to prepare for Goth, you just need to do it. You have to sacrifice another aspect of your team, sure, but every other Pokemon does this already that it's basically "pick what you need to be strong against and what you don't have to put that much attention on". You guys could probably think of more creative ways to prepare than I can now anyway.

 

[byronthewellwell]

I find these sets problematic:

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

Gothita @ Eviolite
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Light Screen
- Rest
- Taunt
- Torment

Things that can be trapped by gothitelle and gothita:

• Support Arceus - excludes darkceus, z move, roar (0 spA judgment x2 + -1 0spA judgment does 85.5-101.8 so it is not 100% but Arceus needs a dumb high roll and to basically never click anything other than judgment)
• Lugia - (taunt into rest stops ww)
• Ferrothorn
• Chansey/blissey/toxapex/skarmory if no shed shell (stoss dies to torment)
• Choice yveltal locked into anything except a dark move (specs owing cant be switched into but revenges)
• Tyranitar
• Defensive Zygarde (without dtail)

Things that can be trapped by gothitelle but not gothita:

• Celesteela
• Defensive ho-oh
• Defensive dusk mane
• Lead eq excadrill (gothita traps non eq)

Things than can be trapped by gothita but not gothitelle:

• Choice scarf yveltal locked into foul play

All in all, the majority of things that gothitelle traps, gothita traps with a bit more care getting it in (if rocks are up you have to come in on a non-judgment move). However gothita fails to trap a few physical attackers, the most prominent being defensive ho-oh and defensive dusk-mane, whilst gothita is able to trap scarf foul play yveltal which allows gothita to function as a better partner to ultra or sd groundceus than gothitelle.

Even then, the fact that gothita is slightly less mindless than gothitelle may well be made up for if gothitelle and gothorita are banned. If stall starts using chansey and toxapex/skarmory stop running shed shell then gothita will likely make matchup even more disgusting than gothitelle ever did.

On top of this, if you really want to trap dusk mane or ho-oh, memento/intimidate/screens/wisp all allow gothita to trap them.

Feel free to let me know any viable stuff that I've missed in my lists.

Shoutout Thimo for theorymonning

Edit: added light screen torment set to beat scarf xern, stoss users, while missing out on ttar, coil zygarde

 

[power]

What has changed?
In terms of available tools to abuse with Gothitelle/Shadow Tag, not much, really.

 

[orch]

I'm supporting to ban goths because it's better than Mega Rayquaza and incredibly boring to play with and against. The real reason that we ban anything is because we subjectively dislike it (see swagger and baton pass), so let's not bother with essays.

 

[Ray713]

I'm supporting to ban goths because it's better than Mega Rayquaza and incredibly boring to play with and against. The real reason that we ban anything is because we subjectively dislike it (see swagger and baton pass), so let's not bother with essays.

You know when Goth (a mon you known to have a fetish for) gets banned, you can't use Goth anymore.

 

[orch]

You know when Goth (a mon you known to have a fetish for) gets banned, you can't use Goth anymore.

I don't have a fetish for it. It's legitimately that good. There's always new broken strat that will emerge when something is banned. The nice thing about ubers is that I get years to use that broken strat before anyone do anything about it.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Hello, I'm a guy who doesn't really care much for Ubers but likes to lurk on these suspect discussions for the fun of it. I don't post really, but I have decided to post this time just to point out this nonsense:

5) The actual issue
The actual issue is how much the playerbase is willing to take, really. If we look at what has changed between XY and now in terms of significant stuff that would warrant a ban, not that much stuff have really changed. Way back about 5 years ago we had much more of a spine and dgaf, and believe me we had stupid shit like U-turn Genesect and weather wars and all that stuff. I personally don't think that something that punishes you in the way Gothitelle does if you don't prepare for it should be banned from Ubers ever but hey times a changing I suppose.

Basically, if the community doesn't want to "deal with it" any more then I can't really say much more. I'd just be disappointed that our Ubers players have turned into snowflakes just like the rest of Smogon.

Peace the fuck out

Lovely argument we got here. Guess all the people who wrote paragraphs explaining in depth how Gothitelle limits teambuilding and allows powerful threats to be even more overwhelming are just stupid snowflakes. They don't have any valid points, right? They're just babies, of course!

I got nothing else to say about your argument since I'm too disconnected from Ubers to analyze it, but I gotta say that this whole paragraph makes you come off as extremely pompous, arrogant and elitist, all of which are stereotypes Smogon has been struggling with for nearly its entire existance. This in turn severely undermines your entire post: You can't convince people to join your side by alienating and insulting them.

 

[Nayrz]

Gothita

While I recognize that there are similarites between all 3 Goths I did not feel comfortable adding Gothita to the suspect test as it is considerably frailer in comparison to the latter 2 evolutions and has a few more losing matchups. Usage of Gothorita is already very low but can be justifiably added because the bulk levels are extremely close, but I don't have anything to point the finger at Gothita with. If Gothita really does prove to be an issue to the tier post ban of the other Goths then I am happy to address it then. Adding it mid suspect breaks a lot of unwritten rules to Smogon's suspect tests. Hope that clears things up. I'd like the thread to focus on the current test rather than what ifs, so let's keep things on track.

 

[MMII]

Didn’t plan on posting prior to laddering for reqs but a lot of my expectations and assumptions going into it turned out to be wrong/malformed.

For the sake of simplicity, when I say « goth » I mean both Gothorita and Gothitelle as they are pretty much interchangeable. I used Gothorita specifically for this test so that I could get some hands on experience. I found that I actually prefer it to Gothitelle as the extra raw bulk was definitely noticable. Gothitelle’s extra speed was probably the biggest trade off, not having Leftovers didn’t really matter outside Ferrothorn. (which Gothorita can still pp stall) As a general rule, I think Gothitelle is better suited to using Charm where it can abuse its speed and Leftovers in mus like Celesteela, Ferrothorn, and Tyranitar. Gothorita can more easily justify running Flatter or Trick Room variants where you mostly just want raw bulk for your traps.


Anyways, I tried a lot of different approaches to abusing Goth and structuring my teams with it. One of the thinngs that I found very early on was that trying to abuse specific Goth combos, like Flatter with Gengar or Goth with things like Zygarde or Marshadow, wasn’t really worth it. Admittedly, I could have defintely used more solid team structures for the combos. However, it didn’t seem worth pursuing as these sort of teams just felt extra swingy with regards to the matchups that they would function in. Goth already doesn’t add much in terms of switch-in flexibility for the team so compounding that issue with other mons, that also add little in that regard, made for very one-dimensional teams. Most of all, it was just unnecessary. Just the momentum and value swing, in a vacuum, that Goth gets off a single trap is already enough to basically win the game. Even more so when, in context of the team, that trap was often a very crucial member. On multiple occasions, I manged to steal games I had no business winning just because I landed that one trap that let me force a free turn and kill that I could never have gotten otherwise from that gamestate. In the end, using simple designs seemed to be the most consistent way to abuse Goth’s advantages. In addition, having Goth opens up the opportunity for minor combos within these basic structures. For example, you can opt for an additional coverage move on your SR setter instead of Toxic as Goth covers Defog Arceus already.

This is what I ended up settling on. It took me a while to reach this specific design, but when I made a fresh alt to test it, I ended up with a lot more consistency than what I had come to expect from my prior attempts. (thus the 5MonTeam nick, lol) The idea behind it was pretty simple, I wanted to cut the already situational Charm for a move that could make Goth useful in the mus where it just has nothing to trap. Trick Room is a naturally powerful move against those sort of teams and it took advantage of Gothorita’s ability to absorb hits from even the likes of GeoXern after SR. TR also opened the possibility to abuse a minor combo by opting for the TR variant of Dusk-Mane. Gothorita could give it both a free turn to SD and TR already in effect if it got a solid trap, or just serve as pinch setup/momentum switch. The rest of the team was pretty straightforward with this in mind.

Overall, I feel like Goth is poorly suited for the ~ladder metagame~. When every game is a best of one with an unknown opponent in a setting that has Goth specifically in the spotlight, Goth ends up being a blind gamble. PP stalling over the course of 40+ games isn’t exactly ideal, either.

There were a lot of very clear attempts to Goth-proof the teams that my opponent’s used. They ranged from no-Arceus builds to Psych Up Poisonceus. Ironically enough, while these strategies were effective in turning my Gothorita into sac fodder/TR bot, they ended up lacking the defensive backbone that I was counting on my Goth to remove and/or had a very exploitable Pokemon without me having to PP stall it. I think the biggest surprise I got from my experience was that consistent Goth teams do exist in USM Ubers as the threat of Goth is just as, if not more, powerful than Goth itself.

As far as to whether or not Goth deserves a ban, I think that, as cheesey as it sounds, it mostly just depends on what you value most. If you prioritize player consistency and more distinct skill gaps, then you would want to vote ban as Goth is a very clear affront to these things. If you think minimalism is more important, then you would want to vote no ban as Goth is currently an uncommon at best threat with very poor results as of late.

As far as my personal opinion goes, I’m going to vote ban. Even if I don’t have much ambitions for myself, I think that Ubers being an even more appealing tournament metagame is in the best interests of the community. I believe that being featured in prominent tournaments like SPL or Grand Slam will help attract new players and encourage growth and ambition from the playerbase as a whole. That said, I don’t think a no ban would be catastrophic or anything close. USM Ubers is already a very solid metagame and I expect that the instances of Goth devaluing games will continue to be rare occurances as the best players will continue to play to their advantages: their better skill and more comprehensive understanding of the metagame. (besides, nobody enjoys actually using Goth lol)

I just wanna close this post with a fun little anecdote from my time spent laddering. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-766633262

Yes, that was 133 turns just to get a stubborn Smeargle and its webs off my screen. Yes, I did that more than once this suspect. (Yes, that is a suboptimal Smeargle set and realistically this sort of thing should never happen)

 

[RonaldMcdonald]

I wanted to offer my perspective as a new player to Ubers who achieved REQS today. I played 40 games on the ladder in total and finished 33-7. I have the requirements to vote based on my game total and GXE. I also played about 40 games on two other accounts. Not once did I encounter Gothorita or Gothitelle. I would really like to vote and I feel like I earned the right to by laddering but at the same time don't feel at all qualified. Based on usage stats last month Gothitelle was used around 1.5% on the non-suspect ladder and I wouldn't be surprised if it's even lower on the suspect ladder based on personal experience. If one is a tour player like Orch who uses Goth consistently or is a player has faced Goth in tournament where it is much more popular then they will have a much more informed opinion. However, I ultimately fear that we will have many people like me who have never faced Goth or people who are simply spamming Smeargle HO to get REQS and literally have no idea the impact Goth has on Ubers. I don't know how to remedy this problem without simply having an ubers council vote or to require a certain amount of tournament experience because right now I have nothing to go off on besides replays and the opinions of others.

 

[Kill The Messenger]

banning goth will allow for support arc to be run more freely (mainly arc ground) as well as spikers like skarm and ferro. the meta will turn more fat as a result like early poke bank ubers instead of the offensive meta there is rn. as for if goth is ban worthy or not its hard to say, because thts pretty subjective. however, if we do choose to ban this pkmn then we will be having a very fat meta ahead of us which is a lot more boring than the offensive one we have rn. i think goth is an issue in theory since its ability to trap but then it is pretty useless in other matchups vs offensive based teams. i would argue that xern is more restricting in regards to team building than goth is and no ones complaining abt that, the issue with goth is that its boring to play against + restricting in the team builder.

i heed u all to realize the implications of the tier if you do choose to ban goth cus its not fun to play against atm... stall v stall is even worse which is why im leaning no ban if i decide to go for reqs (i wont).

 

[Ayu]

I think holding a suspect ladder isn't the best decision for a mon like Gothitelle. I get the Ubers council isn't big but reading most anti-ban posts make me believe this wasn't the right path to take. A lot of people who make reqs base their opinion around a meta where they just spam HO on the ladder in order to get reqs exclusively and won't see the truth behind why Goth is suspected in the first place, because Goth vs HO means that the Goth will be nothing but sac fodder. Others say that banning Goth will make the meta less enjoyable because fat will take over. People who make this assumption not only they aren't objective at all, but they also think watching 50 turns of Goth sitting there is fun for the spectators. I don't think people will stop using fat teams because Goth exists, people who use fat teams will still use them and they pray for no Goth and that's it. This is why Goth isn't healthy for the metagame, there is no way to stop what its suposed to do, this mon will remove atleast 2 mons if not more when you're using a fat team and the only way around it is to hope for crits. Why should people be punished for running fat teams when there are enough breakers in ubers as it is? Do people gotta have this cheap way to deal around it? come on. It singlehandedly beats stall teams and the only counterplay to it that I can think of is pursuit and not only that can be fitted on stall these days but I shouldn't have to go out of my way to beat one mon whose only niche is sit forever against stall while you can't do anything and make myself weak to the most prominent threats in the metagame in the process.

I am aware that my post is a bit contradictory to the Ubers policy, but its the truth and I stand by it. The problem with goth is even if its usage isn't that high it makes a great impact in the metagame as it makes even more matchup problems than the tier already has and also doesn't provide anything good to the tier. Please ban Goth and if you don't ban it atleast I ask all of the top players to show new ways of how to build balanced and stall builds that don't lose to this demon and they're able to cover the most prominent threats in the tier.

 

[Vhayle]

dropping my 2 cents

While I recognize that there are similarites between all 3 Goths I did not feel comfortable adding Gothita to the suspect test as it is considerably frailer in comparison to the latter 2 evolutions and has a few more losing matchups.

The same thing happened to 7G OU, during Dugtrio suspect. Of course Dugtrio was a problem, but people used Digglet instead for almost same result. Here, it's a 3-Pokémon family, so it's a bit different, but it does not change the fact that even if it has some less favorable matchups, you will still see Gothitas trapping Chansey, Blissey, Shuckle and Smeargle during 100 turns (or scarf yveltal locked into foul play to quote an other post ; i don't have calcs tho) ; This is why i don't understand why Gothita isn't part of this suspect. If you want to get rid of this problem entirely ( PP stalling to death w/ Shadow Tag ), why you do not want to ban the whole evolution line? It does not seem like a problematic thing to ban gothita

Oh, and remind you: don't insult other people

Basically, if the community doesn't want to "deal with it" any more then I can't really say much more. I'd just be disappointed that our Ubers players have turned into snowflakes just like the rest of Smogon.

it will not help Ubers

 

[The Vision]

just wanted to point out in theory people could run multi stag teams with like a memento dugtrio or encore wobb so u can trap a support arc or something with gothita and then maybe do some psych up shit with gar. seems niche i know but just wanted to bring up a potential use of gothita since it seemed ignored in the suspect as a non-problem. if u are against the other 2 goths then i would assume this one should naturally go as well

e: the main idea behind gothita being left ignored is it doesnt have as much consistency but since it has strong cheese ability, people can find ways to create consistency. who knew an eevee for example would have forced a baton pass ban in ubers, its not exactly like low stats=ineffective at cheesing. the premise of goth ban is actually based around goth's kit as a whole and the way it functions in a game, not pure stats, and gothita has the ability to function the same (just requiring more support to do so). you can make the argument that it is "not as broken" because of the specific support to make it function, but goth in recent times only picked up because it has specific team support options like marshadow available for anti offense in this meta. so we know that
1) gothitelle itself is getting looked at because of its movepool + stag (kit in general)
2) gothita may require different support to pull off the same thing as gothitelle, but functions in the same exact way as gothitelle and gothorita

forced into running team support doesn't actually make something not broken. in these cases where it isnt a pure power issue, you have to look at the premise of how the mon functions and if the way it functions in games is unhealthy. gothita requires more support since u may have to drop stats before trapping, but its kit functions the same as the other goths. so in theory gothita should be included in the ban

in simple terms think of it this way

gothita CAN function in the same cheesy way as the other goths, assuming specific team support. with this premise, the argument against gothita would be "well it requires a bunch of support to actually work so its balanced".
but this argument is very bad as it is akin to something like "well mray on its own isnt good, it requires team partners and support to actually break a structured team". it just actually doesn't address the broken elements of the kit itself

 

[The Gunner]

just wanted to point out in theory people could run multi stag teams with like a memento dugtrio or encore wobb so u can trap a support arc or something with gothita and then maybe do some psych up shit with gar. seems niche i know but just wanted to bring up a potential use of gothita since it seemed ignored in the suspect as a non-problem. if u are against the other 2 goths then i would assume this one should naturally go as well

e: the main idea behind gothita being left ignored is it doesnt have as much consistency but since it has strong cheese ability, people can find ways to create consistency. who knew an eevee for example would have forced a baton pass ban in ubers, its not exactly like low stats=ineffective at cheesing. the premise of goth ban is actually based around goth's kit as a whole and the way it functions in a game, not pure stats, and gothita has the ability to function the same (just requiring more support to do so). you can make the argument that it is "not as broken" because of the specific support to make it function, but goth in recent times only picked up because it has specific team support options like marshadow available for anti offense in this meta. so we know that
1) gothitelle itself is getting looked at because of its movepool + stag (kit in general)
2) gothita may require different support to pull off the same thing as gothitelle, but functions in the same exact way as gothitelle and gothorita

forced into running team support doesn't actually make something not broken. in these cases where it isnt a pure power issue, you have to look at the premise of how the mon functions and if the way it functions in games is unhealthy. gothita requires more support since u may have to drop stats before trapping, but its kit functions the same as the other goths. so in theory gothita should be included in the ban

in simple terms think of it this way

gothita CAN function in the same cheesy way as the other goths, assuming specific team support. with this premise, the argument against gothita would be "well it requires a bunch of support to actually work so its balanced".
but this argument is very bad as it is akin to something like "well mray on its own isnt good, it requires team partners and support to actually break a structured team". it just actually doesn't address the broken elements of the kit itself

Imagine having to run multiple stag Pokemon (that do nothing against 80% of the tier) while throwing away the idea of team-building solely to eliminate support Arceus..
I'm starting to believe we must suspect support Arceus instead of Gothitelle, seems like a broken m00n

 

[orch]

again, it's a matter of crowd mentality liking something. it's clear that playerbase prefer a supportceus meta over trapping metagame, even though defog supportceus is a really good pkmn.

 

[The Vision]

Imagine having to run multiple stag Pokemon (that do nothing against 80% of the tier) while throwing away the idea of team-building solely to eliminate support Arceus..
I'm starting to believe we must suspect support Arceus instead of Gothitelle, seems like a broken m00n

supportceus is extremely popular and especially will be in a no goth meta. that was the most obvious example of a pretty widespread target that gothita abusers could exploit, especially since it requires very little to actually set up a trap on it. lets take a look at the calc.

0 SpA Pixie Plate Arceus-Fairy Judgment vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Gothita: 94-112 (31.9 - 38%) -- 96% chance to 3HKO

this would basically be 100% trap for gothita if you ran multi stag. not 100% sure since i havent run tests but it appears you could 1v1 support arc if you don't switch into an attack?

it also does trap things like lugia 100% and other passive stall mons that would see increased usage with gothitelle being banned.

the premise of my argument was that gothita IS abusable because it has the same elements that makes gothitelle broken built into its kit, with lower bulk. twisting things and criticizing an example that i used to get this point across, ignores the premise of the actual argument.

e: eject button + gothita would do the same as gothitelle in terms of taking on support arcs. switching gothita in as the opponent uses sr with support arc would mean you get trapped. a big concern for the other 2 goths going is that it traps support arc which is seen on many playstyles of usm, being that cm arc is not popular and neither is SD with marshadow around. it also cucks stall because you can trap lugia, so banning the other 2 goths does not take away the fact that people can abuse gothita for very specific trap targets. its not just multi-stag, thats just another example that gothita functions too similarly to the other goths to not ban.