Gengar second moves in Premier Cup?

Would Sludge Bomb or Shadow Punch be better? Or, is Shadow Punch even needed?

If I had an elite Charge TM I’d put Shadow Punch on my hundo Gengar the second CD was active. Then give it Sludge Bomb.

Shadow Punch seems to be the way forward for Gengar. Couple that with either Shadow Ball or Sludge Bomb.

Gengar is relatively frail and realistically needs a cheap charge move to do well as otherwise it may not have the staying power to pull off anything else. Though Shadow Punch has low base power, it’s still going to hit pretty hard coming off Gengar, and is largely unresisted.

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I agree with Shadow Punch/Sludge Bomb. You’ll want Sludge Bomb for Fairy coverage.

I think Claw + Punch / Ball is the best moveset available for Gengar in Ultra / Premier. You don’t need Sludge Bomb to defeat a fairy, you need to bait if you want to win, whether it’s Shadow Ball or Sludge Bomb. Also without Shadow Ball, you lose the 0v0 against Metagross, the one thing you’re supposed to defy as a Gengar.

Your Snorlax matchup improves though, but you’ll still lose this. Really hard too

So, what if I used Shadow Ball/Sludge Bomb instead? Or I need an elite charged TM now?

Don’t worry, it’s not an issue since I have multiple 100 IV Gengars that I can TM.

The only potential issue with the Shadow Ball/Sludge Bomb combo is you don’t have much of an ability to bait shields, which will be really important for it.

I’m in the same boat as @MartijnLW, and think Claw/Punch/Ball will be the most effective set.

On average Shadow Punch/Sludge Bomb does better than Shadow Punch/Shadow Ball based on And even with bait shields checked, against Togekiss (ML) it needs Sludge Bomb to win the 0v0 and 2v2 and it ends with more health in the 1v1 than if running Punch/Ball. You need Sludge Bomb to win the 1v2 and 0v1. When Gengar has shield advantage it doesn’t matter the moveset.

I’d take running Punch/Bomb to beat Togekiss and lose one scenario against Metagross than lose the majority of scenarios against Togekiss to win more against Metagross but that’s in a vacuum without consideration of the other Pokemon on my team.

Yeah but PvPoke is just statistics. If you want to beat or at least have better matchups against Swampert, Cresselia, Giratina and Registeel, Shadow Ball is absolutely mandatory in Ultra League.

In Premier Cup there’s Metagross, Magnezone, Swampert and Dragonite in which I’d say you pick the nuke to do as much damage as you live for. Because with Gengar, you know that won’t be too long. I don’t really care about what pvpoke says and all in 70% wins there and 75% wins there, if you really compete in PvP then I’d assume you anticipate on the meta and anti-meta rather than wins over a large list of picks including things a buckload of things like Alakazam, Audino and Sandslash, and their shadow forms

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Pvpoke is not statistics but simulation-based. That doesn’t mean you are wrong with the rest though ;)
In general I doubt that we see a Gengar in ML. Premier cup maybe, but even there Gengar won’t last long to become a widely distributed pick, so what. Personally, I would choose shadow ball though, but both are ok. It’s just - when you run into a Snorlax you’re gone anyway; but into steel you run much more frequently. So basically it is indeed sludge bomb or shadow punch. Don’t know, don’t care, both work, but Gengar stays glassy not classy.
Or? Maybe I change my mind… I just remembered shadow punch haunter in GL and it drove me nuts. But yes, punching ball it has to be.

Why use Gengar in Premier Cup? It will go down fast. At least it will go down with a huge grin.