10 Gaming Moves That Are Simply Humiliating
It's prod's law.
It takes a number of attributes to be a good winner. Grace, decorum, and humility are all basic requisites, but more important than any of those is the desire to actually be one. No matter what your mum tells you after another Pokémon Trading Card Game defeat, the 'taking part' really isn't what counts; it's all about the winning.
And when you win, naturally, you want to celebrate. You want to rub it in your beaten opponent's face, especially if they're an older sibling. Some people quite literally want to do that: ever heard of teabagging? If you haven't, it's not as pastoral or whimsically British as it sounds.
So when you jammily pip your mate to the post in another ridiculous round of Mario Kart, by all means take your shirt off, do a wee jump and make a victory lap around the garden. Joy doesn't come along too often in this life, and you have to grasp it when it does - even if it's a bit of a tw*tty thing to do.
There's being a good winner, then, and a bad winner. But there's also being an abysmal winner - that's when you get on your hands an knees to head a football into an empty net. Video game designers know this element of base awfulness runs through many a gamer - and they've duly gave us a multitude of options to not just beat our mates, but embarrass them.
Such as the prod. Call it the touch of evil.
10. Shedinja Danger (Pokémon)
With nearly 1000 extant species (and at least a dozen extinct ones, magically brought back to life through the marvel of modern pokéscience), there's a whole Squirtle squad of measly 'mon you can use to kick even the biggest of behemoths in the pokéballs. It's eminently possible - if extremely trying - to gather as many badges as a boy scout using nothing but a flailing Magikarp, for example.
However, there are fewer more humiliating ways to faint legendaries and elite trainers than with Shedinja, the only Pokémon in the history of the franchise to have base stats lower than its evolutionary predecessor. The peculiarly labelled 'Shed Pokémon' - which rather suggests it should have little grass-type Rotoms in it - has just one solitary hit point, but owing to its unique typing, can only be hurt by super effective attacks. This essentially makes Shedinja, nothing more than a husk, invincible.
For extra humiliation, it's possible to train a Shedinja, through breeding and TMs, with the ultimate FU combo of False Swipe and Final Gambit. The first reduces the opponent 'mon to a single HP; the second dishes damage equal to the user's own HP - one, in this case. This is the equivalent of killing someone with a feather duster.