Double Team

There was a tiny discussion about this a while ago in the Question Box that never really amounted to anything and I'd really like this to get discussed properly because I think it's important. Currently, the ruling on Double Team states that double team clones have shadows, which makes the opponent pokemon easily distinguishable from its clones. This essentially makes double team useless, because this is what happens:

1. Trainer A commands Pikachu to use Double Team
2. Trainer B commands Pidgey to use Tackle on the clone that has a shadow
3. The battle is reffed, and Pidgey immediately finds the real pokemon among the fakes without really having to do anything.

I personally think this is ridiculous, for a number of reasons.

First of all, it doesn't really make any sense flavour-wise. If Double Team clones were so easy to tell apart from real pokemon, why would any pokemon learn Double Team as an evasion technique? Why would any trainer command their pokemon to do that?

Secondly, the anime shows double team clones having shadows: [one] [two] [three] [four] [five] [six]. Sometimes in the anime they don't have shadows, but then the 'real' pokemon also won't have a shadow, so I feel like this is more of a lack of attention to detail in these cases rather than a decision on how double team works. Bulbapedia doesn't have any discussion on how Double Team works within the anime. I could be wrong about how Double Team works in the anime because I don't really watch it; these results are from an incredibly scientific google image search of "pokemon anime double team".

Thirdly, Double Team is already pretty easy to counter. Rain Dance, Sandstorm and Hail will reveal clones by the respective weather 'passing through' them; moves specifically for removing evasion like Odour Sleuth, Foresight, and Miracle Eye; attacks that hit all targets such as Discharge; attacks with perfect accuracy such as Aerial Ace; other support moves like Snatch or Taunt; and possibly other creative ways like using Detect or Psychic to try and home in on the pokemon's energy or spreading around a Flamethrower or something. There are so many strategies already to avoid Double Team, and most pokemon will have at least one of these moves.

Lastly, it is incredibly game-breaking and nonstrategic for someone to counter anything by telling their pokemon to just hit the correct target. I don't think this is the case with any of the other moves in ASB - imagine if you could just avoid attraction by telling your pokemon "hey! don't be infatuated".
There's also the fact that this loophole is probably only known to people who actively checked the A&A guide in the last league, which will undoubtedly exclude some people. this seems kinda unfair to me!

anyway let's talk about this on your marks get set go

Oh, I thought the shadow thing had already been nixed. I don't think you'll get many people, if any, against making Double Team clones have shadows, anyway, so hopefully this is a thing that we can just, you know, go ahead with.

On a related note, I found this couple of posts not long ago in which Negrek says that you can't use mental intrusion Psychic or whatever to find the real Pokémon among Double Team clones. I was wondering if Negrek, or anyone, still stands by that, and if so, what's the justification?

oh, was it? I never actually saw any discussion about it after those two posts, so I assume everyone either ignored it or forgot about it. If it's totally been nixed already then that's cool but I didn't think it had, so: thread.

I agree entirely. I think Double Team has a lot of potential as a strategic asset, but still has enough ways to go around for even more strategy!

All in all, I think the way to go would be for referees to warn the player ordering to aim for the shadow, and allow a reorder.

#FreeDT2015

As I've said before: I think the idea of being able to distinguish Double Team clones from the real target by making the right observations is cool, but it should actually require something of you. Just saying "target the one with a shadow" means you completely negate Double Team without really doing anything interesting. You should be rewarded if you take advantage of arena effects or make creative use of your moves, but not for something as simple as this.

I'm not sure why I said they had no shadows in the past, but it seems completely stupid, yes.

On a related note, I found this couple of posts not long ago in which Negrek says that you can't use mental intrusion Psychic or whatever to find the real Pokémon among Double Team clones. I was wondering if Negrek, or anyone, still stands by that, and if so, what's the justification?

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I didn't interpret bulbasaur's question as "can I use psychic or a similar attack to find the real pokémon amidst double team clones," but rather "will an attack that relies on mental intrusion automatically hit the real target?" or "will a pokémon with aura powers be unaffected by double team?" I don't think that if you just gave the command "psychic" it should automatically hit the real pokémon.

Negrek said:

I'm not sure why I said they had no shadows in the past, but it seems completely stupid, yes.


I didn't interpret bulbasaur's question as "can I use psychic or a similar attack to find the real pokémon amidst double team clones," but rather "will an attack that relies on mental intrusion automatically hit the real target?" or "will a pokémon with aura powers be unaffected by double team?" I don't think that if you just gave the command "psychic" it should automatically hit the real pokémon.

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Oh, okay, cool. Glad that's cleared up.

Part of uv's confusion about whether or not this has actually been resolved is that I'm not sure (and I don't think anyone else is, either) how to actually go about... making this official. When this last came up I just sort of assumed everyone had an understanding that the ruling had been nixed, and I don't think I've seen any Double Team shadow shenanigans since then, so I'm not sure what else to do.

You probably want to put some sort of system in place that governs how changes in policy are enacted, as well as some way of officially recording them somewhere so people can catch up if they aren't involved in the discussion/aware of what was said. Because there are many of you in charge of this instead of one, keeping everyone on the same page (or up to date on whichever area(s) they care about) is probably going to be one of your primary issues going forward.

maybe it would be worth us doing a weekly post on the database front page of changed stuff like this?

While we're on the subject of making moves useless by commanding your Pokémon to just not be affected by them, is there any chance we could do something about the fact that you can thwart Hypnosis just by telling your Pokémon to close its eyes? I mean it's pretty hideously inaccurate to start with without being able to make it literally useless unless you command first and just forget your opponent has it or something.

Sangfroidish said:

While we're on the subject of making moves useless by commanding your Pokémon to just not be affected by them, is there any chance we could do something about the fact that you can thwart Hypnosis just by telling your Pokémon to close its eyes? I mean it's pretty hideously inaccurate to start with without being able to make it literally useless unless you command first and just forget your opponent has it or something.

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Well, normally you can't really. If you want to have your Pokémon close its eyes to block Hypnosis, you're also going to have to use a move that doesn't require sight. Your Pokémon will also somehow have to know when it can open its eyes again; if it's not commanded to keep its eyes shut for two straight actions (and thus use two moves that don't require sight), for example, it's possible it could try looking again too early and get caught in the Hypnosis anyway, or keep its eyes closed too long and miss out on its second action entirely. It does has its drawbacks, I think, as long as refs actually make that happen. That may be another matter.

Personally, if hypnosis hits, I ref it as psychically drawing the pokemon to open its eyes.