I have been meaning to give my complete opinion on this suspect for a while now, and here they are. I’m sure most know my thoughts on Gothitelle and Shadow Tag in the metagame at this point, but I’ve been wanting to go into full detail in order to convince voters that Shadow Tag is an element that absolutely should go from Monotype. Let’s begin by looking at the two primary users of the ability, and what exactly makes them banworthy in Monotype. Please bear with me, as this will be a long post.——-The majority of people deem Gothitelle to be the best user of Shadow Tag. With lackluster stats and a typing that does not benefit Psychic, it’s pretty remarkable how Shadow Tag still manages to make this Pokemon so overwhelmingly broken and uncompetitively good in Monotype. The reason for this is very simple. Gothitelle can effectively choose which threats it wants to eliminate, and proceed to do it with certainty. Because of this, it can easily dismantle common defensive cores on types like Flying, Water, and Normal. Countering Gothitelle is impossible because of Shadow Tag's uncompetitive nature which forces the opponent to constantly double switch to prevent being trapped. The only real way to play around it is to simplyget trapped. To do this, the player has to ensure that they make the correct play each and every single time that the opponent brings out Gothitelle. In addition, the player cannot hope to get a kill with a trap-able threat, as Gothitelle will simply come in for free and revenge kill it 100% of the time. This is a very unrealistic win scenario if you are the player facing it. Gothitelle is extremely easy to use and extremely hard to play against, and this inhibits unskillful play and is an example of Gothitelle being an uncompetitive Pokemon in Monotype.I mentioned Flying, Water, and Normal in my previous paragraph, but Gothitelle is a good wincon in many more matchups. Gothitelle’s HP Ground can easily trap and eliminate Heatran on Steel and Fire, allowing Choice Scarf Victini to basically win the matchup against Steel in tandem with Gothitelle, which allows Victini to sweep through with Blue Flare. Against Ground, it can trap and eliminate Seismitoad and Gastrodon, as well as get a free nuke on Hippowdon thanks to Energy Ball. This can also allow a Pokemon like Mega Slowbro to basically win the game. Going back to Flying, Water, and Normal, Gothitelle traps several key Pokemon on these types such as Mantine, Toxapex, Staraptor, and Chansey. Gothitelle is a great asset against more offensive teams as well, as it can use it’s decent bulk to live any one hit from an offensive Pokemon and OHKO it back with its coverage. A premier example of this is Mega Diancie. Gothitelle can easily live a Moonblast/Diamond Storm from it and proceed to OHKO it with Energy Ball on the Choice Specs set. So to restate my previous points, Gothitelle forces the opponent to make the correct play every single turn, which is unrealistic and demands an unhealthy amount of prediction on its opponents. Trapping a Pokemon with certainty is never good nor healthy for the metagame, and it should be clear as to why that is. Switching out in order to beat the Pokemon in front of you is an integral part of competitive Pokemon, and an ability that completely negates that can only be described as uncompetitive.Wobbuffet gets a whopping 4 viable moves, them being Counter, Mirror Coat, Encore, and Destiny Bond. Its low defenses are patched up by its amazing 190 HP stat, and it has access to Shadow Tag. Shadow Tag Wobbuffet is a giant threat to a large amount of teams, essentially eliminating every choice-locked Pokemon as well as threats like Alolan Muk, which it can trap and eliminate securely. The Colbur Berry set allows it to trap and eliminate Hydreigon, Greninja, and many others. Access to Encore means it can stop setup very reliably. Although Wobbuffet does not have the same amount of versatility and power as Gothitelle, it still does exactly what makes Gothitelle uncompetitive, and it does it equally as well. While I believe Pokemon like Gothitelle and Wobbuffet are broken, they are not broken in the same sense as something like Magearna, for example. I think voters should keep this in mind as they cast their vote- that the ability should be banned because of its uncompetitive aspect of completely preventing any and all forms of counterplay. Going back to Wobbuffet though, one clear dinstinction is that Wob will always do something in nearly every matchup due to the presence of choiced Pokemon plus Wobbuffet’s ability to live most hits and OHKOing them reliably. It lives Return from Choice Band Diggersby, for example, and KOs it with Counter.While it may seem amusing that I am including a Pokemon like Gothorita here, it says a lot about how good Shadow Tag is. With absolutely garbage stats, there’d be no reason to use Gothorita on any team. In reality, Gothorita traps many of the same threats that Gothitelle does (Mantine, Skarmory, Heatran, etc) which is just a clear case of the ability being banworthy (not the Pokemon.) Is Gothorita a broken Pokemon? It’s not. However, when an otherwise completely useless Pokemon is actually useful just because of its ability, (it’s not right now because Gothitelle exists, but you get the point.) it says a lot about the ability. I know Smogon’s main usage tiers have nothing to with Monotype, but every Shadow Tag user is PU or lower right now, which paints a picture as to how bad these Pokemon are without Shadow Tag.Shadow Tag prohibits one of the core aspects of competitive Pokemon, which is switching. While the “why don’t we suspect test Arena Trap, it’s basically the same thing” argument will likely rise up, its not a good one. Gothitelle and Wobbuffet lopside many matchups in Psychic's favor thanks to their coverage or general usefulness in Wobbuffet’s case. Dugtrio generally traps threats that Ground already beats, with the exception of Pokemon like Tapu Bulu.It should be clear right now as to why Shadow Tag is a banworthy element in Monotype. All of these reasons are why I firmly believe Shadow Tag should be banned from Monotype.tl;dr