Shadow tag
shadow tag has, and always will be the problem. because of shadow tag, it seemingly makes sableye also seem unhealthy as a result. however, sableye is just enhancing the sheer uncompetitiveness of shadow tag even more, not the other way around. i have a firm belief that shadow tag, and not sableye, is the biggest factor in why numerous people like to call ORAS OU a "matchup-dependent metagame" and is the pinnacle of what we should strive to get rid of in a competitive game.
the inherent nature of shadow tag is uncompetitive because it eliminates the option of switching for every single pokemon besides ghosts and other shadow tag users, which thus causes matchup to be the biggest factor in the game, ignoring skill. the comparison to other abilities that prevent switching is totally absurd because other abilities only target a few, select targets. while yes, you could say that dugtrio, a pokemon who gets arena trap, has the potential to trap literally all grounded pokemon, you also have to question whether or not dugtrio can kill/cripple these trapped pokemon the same way shadow tag users can. dugtrio isn't going to be trapping rougly 95% of what it can trap because its movepool is limited, to the extent where it really only has the capability to trap things that are slower and weak to its main STAB attack, such as heatran. then when you look at magnet pull, you first have to realize it only traps one single type. then you have to look at the number of relevant steels that magnezone/magneton actually have the capability to significantly weaken/kill, which is even smaller. for instance, even while trapped, a magnezone isnt going to be doing much vs a sand rush excadrill or spdef heatran or a +2 bisharp. magnezone's trapping abilities basically just extend to whether or not the pokemon is a steel pokemon in which magnezone can 2HKO/OHKO before it gets KOed back.
compare this with the two premier shadow tag users, and the amount of pokemon that get trapped, it becomes clear that shadow tag is significantly more unhealthy than the previous abilities. first, with gothitelle, the fact that it has access to trick, means it can permanently cripple any non mega pokemon. if the trapped pokemon is a defensive pokemon, the combination of shadow tag and trick enables it to lock them in one move and PP stall them extremely easily, and once they run out of PP and right before they die to struggle recoil, you can use trick again, then kill them and do the same thing to another defensive pokemon. for offensive pokemon, they are still crippled which enables the rest of your team to deal with it much more easily. this is the issue with using stallbreakers vs gothitelle stall; the goth can just trap and trick your stallbreaker, which suddenly makes it not a stallbreaker anymore, and you have just lost the most essential pokemon on your team for that game. speaking of stall itself, stall can adapt and play around other stallbreakers. Vs goth, you literally can't play around it because you can't switch. the ease in which gothitelle can slowly pick apart your walls one by one makes the goth user have a blatantly unfair advantage vs the opposing stall team and is uncompetitive because there is no counterplay available. banning shadow tag wouldnt hurt stall, as i see a lot of users theorizing; it would actually help stall since now they don't have to be worried about their walls getting trapped and picked apart.
idk why some people think that its just gothitelle who is uncompetitive and completely ignore the trapping capabilities of wobbuffet which is just as ridiculous. against the vast majority of offensive mons who attack on primarily one side of the attacking spectrum (think mega metagross, thundurus, raikou, lopunny), wobbuffet can easily trap and kill them. the way gothitelle helps stall can be compared to how wobbuffet assists offense, in that both shadow tag users pick apart the few key elements that give their team trouble so that their team can have a field day for the rest of the battle. you'd think having a sand excadrill/lopunny/LO starmie would be enough to combat offense, but if wobb traps them, you have just lost the most essential pokemon on your team for that game. Vs defensive stall builds, the ease at which wobbuffet can trap and weaken your walls with tickle so a pursuit user can finish them off at -6 defense is absurd. encore + shadow tag is just an unfair combination just like how trick + shadow tag is. do you really think games like these are fair?
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-270582509 keep in mind that i could've trapped and killed his keldeo and amoongus too but the player forfeited out of sheer frustration
Sableye
i dont think sableye is broken, uncompetitive, or even unhealthy enough to the point where it warrants a ban. some people think that the classic skarm/chansey/sableye/quagsire/amoongus/goth stall is unhealthy and can win the vast majority of games because of Sab, but its not Sab that causes this, its Goth, which i already explained above why i think that should go. you can literally replace the mega sableye with another mega of your choice and still obtain the same or similar results. for example, before ORAS started and mega sableye even existed, fingerscrossed made that SAME EXACT team replacing sableye with zard-x, and got 40-0.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/aids-cos-you-all-got-it-aka-goth-zard-semi-stall-40-0.3504424/
similarly, tewmew used that SAME EXACT team as well, replacing sab with zard-y, and was consistently always #1 or #2 on ladder, alternating spots with denissss, for more than 3 months on his dauuuude sandstorm alt! shadow tag has not been a "new" issue with the introduction of sableye, it always has been a problem, and this just proves sableye isnt the one causing this team to be seemingly broken
numerous proban people believe that sableye should be banned because of its so called restriction on teambuilding. "it beats fat spikestacking teams, therefore we should ban it". you have to realize, literally most of the top threats in ORAS atm are restricting teambuilding in some way. otherwise, there would be no incentive to use them in the first place. take hoopa-u for example. it restricts teambuilding because you have to come up with innovative ways to deal with it using your stall/balanced team or you just lose. manaphy too; every balanced player has to make sure they have some way to handle manaphy and not get 6-0ed. look at the way lopunny restricts teambuilding by basically forcing you to have a garchomp/landorus-t/klefki to stomach its attacks, or how sand excadrill restricts teambuilding by forcing your offense team to carry a prio user like breloom/azu or something like landorus-t. latias/latios restrict teambuilding by forcing you to have a dragon resist on every single one of your teams, keld forces every team to have a switch in for it specifically. its all the same concept. just because sableye restricts teambuilding doesn't mean it should go, unless someone can convince me that it does so in such a way that completely surpasses everything else i just mentioned.
a handful of other people also believe that sableye should go due to its overcentralization and how it forces the metagame to be based solely around it. some people are ridiculous enough to compare its centralization to that of a previously banned pokemon, aegislash! this is not an accurate comparison at all. During the two weeks Aegi was allowed in ORAS, it shaped OU drastically by promoting offense
so well that it made offense the most popular playstyle by far when previously it was balance, and whats even more noticeable, was that the pokemon comprising these offense teams were mainly all pokemon which could beat aegi, since no one wanted to give it a free switch in. as a result, the aegi suspect test ladder was spammed with landorus/ttar/exca/lopunny/keld teams. lets also not forget back in XY when aegi was allowed it prevented countless pokemon that lost to it from seeing much usage which caused them to plummel to BL or lower tiers, such as celebi, starmie, mega heracross, etc. Now compare this with our current situation, Sableye. Sableye doesn't cause a playstyle shift in that the most preferred playstyle by far is stall or fat spikestacking balance. in fact, i'd say that ORAS atm is pretty balanced playstyle wise since all playstyles are viable and see use. now lets look at the things Sableye "beats" and correlate it to its overcentralization. Sableye hard counters and prevents many defensive pokemon from fulfilling their roles, such as Hippo, Ferro, Klefki, Garchomp, Landorus-t, defensive starmie, skarmory, etc. Yet these things are all quite common and popular and see consistent usage so i fail to see how sableye causes this so called overcentralization.
now, probably the biggest argument calling for Sab's ban is that it brings an unfair advantage regarding entry hazards to the Sab user. i still don't see how this makes it banworthy. Ignoring the fact there are indeed a handful of options for entry hazard users beating Sab including dazzlinggleam/playrough klefki, earth plate lando-t, sd lum chomp, dazzling gleam azelf, even
if Sab prevented the placement of all hazards, how does this make it bannable? there are a myraid of other factors in the game. if your opponent spends a turn setting up hazards, thats a free turn for you to attack/set up or whatever. also, assuming the opposing team has a SR weak mon like talonflame or zard-x, or multiple mons heavily weak to spikes such as metagross or keldeo, they more than likely will have some sort of hazard removal available. assuming shadow tag gets banned, there are other ways to beat stall other than setting up SR and spikes and doing 30 double switches in a row to eventually weaken their walls (which isnt a very efficient option btw). There are stall breakers and methods of being able to pressure the opponent with agressive play (like saccing your +2 bisharp to weaken a hippo so your zard-x can sweep). If i'm the sab user, im using sab specifically for its unique benefits to the team, and one of these benefits is more safety against hazards, just like how you're using zard-y for its unique benefit to crush balanced teams with minimal effort or whatever. imo, people are so used to bringing fat mons that can set up hazards reliably, then just formulaic switching to whatever counter they have to the opposing pokemon and always making safe plays that they refuse to adapt, and just want to ban the pokemon that prevents them from doing this even though its not broken or uncompetitive in the slightest, instead of constructing ways to work around this threat.
shit, i should've posted this sooner than the day the voting thread went up but ive just been mad busy with finals and everything that i just now got to this. anyways, if you want to conserve our tiering policy, please dont vote to ban sab. its not broken/uncompetitive/or even unhealthy enough to warrant a ban and banning it just because its sometimes frustrating to play against, or you "hate gay stall", is not the way to go.
