Shadow Tag and its power in OU

[Professor Palutena]

[animate]wobbuffet[/animate][animate]gothitelle[/animate][animate]chandelure[/animate]

Outside of weather summoning abilities, Shadow Tag seems to be an ability that has quite the division in terms of whether or not its balanced in OU.

On one hand, Shadow Tag makes a Pokemon uncounterable. If you can't switch out, you can't counter that Pokemon. If a Pokemon can't be countered, it's pretty easy to say it's broken. In past Generations, Pokemon that can't be countered have been sent to Ubers usually without question.

On the other hand, both of our legal Shadow Tag users, Wobbuffet and Gothitelle, aren't even used enough to be in the OU tier. Not to mention both are weak to U-Turn and neither have a great defensive typing. OU also has Pokemon like Hydreigon who are uncounterable without fancy abilities like Shadow Tag.

So what's your opinion on Shadow Tag? Do you think it's okay to have in OU? Or do you want it out of OU without question? Also feel free to use this thread to discuss Arena Trap and Magnet Pull, as well as Chandelure, if you want to.

 

[King Arceus]

I really feel Shadow Tag is broken. I know we talked about this on chat yesterday and it brought up some good discussion. Shadow Tag takes away a major component of battling, switching. No ability can supress it and there are only very limited moves which can change the target's ability. Shadow Tag doesn't even need anything else in place to block the switching of Pokemon and there is no accuracy check. Moves like Magma Storm have to actually hit the opponent for them to be trapped.

In order for a Pokemon to be able to get away it either must hold Shed Shell or have Volt Switch / U-turn / Baton Pass. That places a large restriction just to be able to get away. It would make a Pokemon possibly hold an item just for that instead of being able to put it to better use such as Leftovers.

While you can argue that Wobbuffet and Chandelure are the only two viable Pokemon in OU with access to the abilities, both of them can cause the loss of a Pokemon without being able to do anything about it. Wobbuffet can use Encore then start using Tickle. Once its ready, it just switches out to a Pursuit user and OHKOs provided the opponent is not at full HP and has Sturdy or holds Focus Sash. Chandelure could easily hold scarf and char anything with Overheat and Shadow Ball coming off its huge Special Attack.

 

[doublenikesocks]

I really feel Shadow Tag is broken. I know we talked about this on chat yesterday and it brought up some good discussion. Shadow Tag takes away a major component of battling, switching. No ability can supress it and there are only very limited moves which can change the target's ability. Shadow Tag doesn't even need anything else in place to block the switching of Pokemon and there is no accuracy check. Moves like Magma Storm have to actually hit the opponent for them to be trapped.

In order for a Pokemon to be able to get away it either must hold Shed Shell or have Volt Switch / U-turn / Baton Pass. That places a large restriction just to be able to get away. It would make a Pokemon possibly hold an item just for that instead of being able to put it to better use such as Leftovers.

While you can argue that Wobbuffet and Chandelure are the only two viable Pokemon in OU with access to the abilities, both of them can cause the loss of a Pokemon without being able to do anything about it. Wobbuffet can use Encore then start using Tickle. Once its ready, it just switches out to a Pursuit user and OHKOs provided the opponent is not at full HP and has Sturdy or holds Focus Sash. Chandelure could easily hold scarf and char anything with Overheat and Shadow Ball coming off its huge Special Attack.

I have to agree with this. I really don't want Shadow Tag Chandelure to be released, it will make a lot of pokes in OU completely unviable. However, that's not to say that Shadow Tag is broken. Wobbufett and Gothielle are good examples of this. They are not broken, even with Shadow Tag.

What's left to see is if Chandelure is really broken. We don't have it yet, and theorymoning is known to be imprecise.