Announcement np: SM OU Suspect Process, Round 5 - I Can't Escape Myself (ARENA TRAP BANNED)

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This will be short, and potentially prone to be removed, but I would like to raise a point on language perhaps. Hopefully to set some better future precdents.

Robopoke (amongst others) I think has done this thread, but perhaps more broadly the discussion of trapping into the context it needs to be put into. Which is a player base general attitude wherein trapping is not inherently a problem, but is when a threshold is crossed. As one moderator in the OU chat on showdown put it, 'you have to read between the lines' to appreciate that people mean arena trap traps too much rather than that trapping is truly uncompetetive (In most cases, I am sure some may even take issue with spiderweb but assume them the minority). Regardless of how nuanced and pedantic arguments may seem, at some point there will be a formal outline of the reasoning behind the arena trap ban. At this point I would say for the sake of the future it is vital that words are chosen precisely. Is trapping at the percentage that dugtrio does an issue, or is any trapping of the sort that arena trap offers an issue? Gamefreak have already displayed there willingness to expand on both the quanitity of mons with a trapping element, and the methods of trapping (anchor shot and spirit shackle) so I think it more than appropritate that Robopokes words be heeded.

On another seperate issue; as an amateur to the suspect process as a voice rather than an observor I am always reticent to forward an opinion. Smogon often has esoteric terminology and threads often present an intimidating environment for one lacking (vast) competetive experience in the current metagame. Thus, treat this perhaps as a question rather than as a statement with the intent to enhance my understanding. In the showdown OU chat I entered a debate regarding an almost omnipresent statement in that lobby; 'Arena trap has no counterplay'. My position on this issue is that it is far more nuanced than such a simple statement suggests. I had read most posts in this thread, and noted there were inummerable example of counterplay on both the decision making level and the itemisation/move choices level. I made it explicitly clear that I did not think that most forms of counterplay were good or, perhaps to brave the greyest of all words, 'competetive' but I thought that there was reliable and ubtiquitous counterplay (at least on the individual mon level). Shed shell is a terrible item to run, and as counterplay represents a fairly poor indicator of balance to many including myself. However, shed shell can also be equipped to almost any mon without making it a completely redundant mon (meaning things like chansey and nothing less punished than it is by losing its item). This of course is only the most immeadiete form of counterplay to arena trap as many other posters have listed other methods (again, I don't wish to judge the quality of other methods just acknowledge their existence). To me this represented having nearly ubtiquitous counterplay, but counterplay with a huge, oppurtunity cost (comparable perhaps to things like colbur jellicent's use in UU the isolated case of running or not running x item on a mon). In otherwords the statement 'Arena trap has no counterplay' would be wrong and a more fitting statement would be 'Arena trap has no counterplay that is not an excessive and/or uncompetetive contortion of the teambuilding process'.

Given the above therefore, I am rather hoping for two things from this post. First, if someone thinks and is willing to tell me my argument/view of the operational definition of counterplay is either pedantic to an extreme or just bluntly incorrect I would love to hear it. Second, especially after reading robo's post, wondering if even though my definition is pedantic (and also perhaps not the best one), it would also be worth Smogon avoiding the wording 'no counterplay' because of what is missed in a very reductive comment and due to fears of what precedents imprecise language could lead to in future suspects.

(Final note because I don't wish for this to be read as part of my argument. In the OU lobby, I attempted to articulate why I thought using the statement 'Arena trap had no counterplay' or 'Arena trap is the definition of no counterplay' was reductive and incorrect and received a mute for it. I can see no foul language, nor did it seem like trolling from my perspective so the event has provoked me. Perhaps therefore I am posting out of chagrin, however, I do think that lobby discussions on showdown can have an effect on voting behaviour (if only through pressure effects of appearing to oppose a majority opinion, well known in psychology even on experts as those with req's parallel). For this reason, I would love if through this post the debate on that thread could be improved by people asking questions of the size of Arena traps effect and the investment required to counter it rather than just reductive one line arguments).

In the dugtrio suspect, attempts were made to analyse Dugtrio's effect size in high quality matches. I haven't seen this yet in this thread (perhaps because of time constraints) but if anyone is willing to do this data heavy work I think it would be an invaluable asset to this discussion. Pardon me if this is already avaliable elsewhere.

Hopefully I can get some clarity out of this post, to at the very least, improve how informed my position is.
As someone generally interested in meta development I think I can answer you a bit.

Before anything, while Smogon is about as serious a meta discussion forum as you can find on the Internet, it is still far from perfect. Unreasonable compaints that commonly occurs in stuffs like Reddit also happens here albeit at a less extend. And honestly, even the council members, who are by all mean some of the best players of the game, could, at least imo, still make mistakes, because lessons from other games showed even the best players don't have to be the best game designer(and in some cases they often aren't).

Luckily, trapping isn't one of those truly problematic topics.

Firstly, "uncounterable" is simply a false statement. It takes some seriously screwed up game designing for things to be uncounterable. Smogon actually recognizes that as well, as I have seen somewhere in this forum stating "uncounterable" does not really mean impossible to counter, it just means it requires a cost that is not reasonable.

Unfortunately, people commonly fails to think through the concept enough, and either does not make their meaning clear in their expression, or simply have them confused completely. If you want serious theorycrafting please just ignore the latter type, even though there are plenty of them, and they could actually reach the right conclusion from time to time.

Back to the topic, arena trap, or, just trapping in general.

It is common knowledge at this point that GameFreak does not cares about 6v6 single at all. Luckily, since trapping is also a thing in other game mode as well, it does receive some attention. Shed shell and U-turn is one thing, trap immunity of Ghost type is another, and there are also new trapping moves introduced this gen.

Problem is none of these measures are sufficient for trapping to be properly balanced in 6v6 singles just yet. In pokemon many single matchups are simply unwinnable, and it becomes worse that if you are able to knock-out your opponent pokemon before it moves, you effectively denied their move.

Countering trapping with ghost is impractical, so the effective ways to counter trapping are shed shell/voltturn/ability. Shed shell essentially removes you item, an insane opportunity cost in singles consider how many sets requires an item to function at all. voltturn has limited distribution and is not always consistent(and dugtrio happens to counter volt switch....) so it does not work either. For escaping abilities.....well let's just not talk about it at all.....

So yeah, trapping abilities are just one of those "polarizing aspect" of the game that could only be counter by niche stuffs. Whenever a polarizing aspect of the game does rise to the top of the meta and requires a counter measure, the counter measure simply is not there. It divides the meta into two parts with any level of relevancy, hence, "polarizing" the meta.

Shadow Tag mons all abused their ability really well, from M-Gengar killing everything to Golithea having Trick, so people eventually had enough and just ban.

Arena trap first escaped the ban because there are no good user to properly abuse the ability. IMO the difference between AT and ST actually isn't that signficant as grounded mon is still the absolute majority of the meta. (only 9/37 of mons from S to A- is not grounded)

Dugtrio has always been a thing but not really because it is still frail and weak, this seem to be quite far from true now that it got an attack buff and Z-move, and efforts on countering the mon becomes a necessity. May be in a Ghost-type dominant meta it is less problematic by the virtual of it having less power but the SM OU meta just isn't one.

This does leave us the question of banning Arena Trap vs banning Dugtrio. From the perspective of balancing the meta, the two options are indifferent because I don't think Diglet would ever make a splash in OU. If anything I generally prefers better meta diversity with more options to toy with, though I can't really say I would really miss it. Since we are a bit on the arena-trap-hate-train now I guess people would just remove it.

Oh if you are taking note, the history of banning traps actually has zero consistency aside from banning the Overpowers. This happens when you employ democracy in game design. It is easy to reach consensus on OP vs not-OP but anything more than that are basically a mess. Heck even the council members are constantly changing. Another note is that there are indeed some consensus that Dugtrio and Golithea without trapping is a piece of hot trash, which is why the ability is banned over the pokemon, though even this is not that firm a thing because the council decided to suspect test the mon rather than the ability last time........

Anyway since I have full authority on personal opinion I will just follow my own principle, and you should follow yours.

For other trapping. IMO Magnetic pull is kinda different from ST and AT, using more Ghost (or non-grounded pokemon) makes no sense as a counter measure, but using less Steels is mostly reasonable. It also helps that Magnezone is a niche pokemon to begin with so it never stirs up a discussion as Dugtrio does.

As for the trapping move, you got to switch at least once before you get trapped, good players are able to counter it by proper piloting so the issue is simply not there.
 
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First of all, how in any way can Magnezone/Magnet Pull be compared to Arena Trap besides trapping? Magnet Pull only traps Steel types while Arena Trap traps everything on the ground. On top of this, every Pokemon with Magnet Pull is utter trash besides the niche Magnezone and even more niche Magneton.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling about a post I can't quote because im on a mobile device and move on to my two cents. imo AT isnt the problem, its duggy. Diglett and Trapinch have nowhere near the profound effect duggy has (i think trapinch only traps tran and scarf hoopa, and diglett doesnt have a guaranteed chance to trap kyub). What's the point of basically removing any usefulness out of two incredibly bad mons in the first place just because one mon with the ability in question is broken. You can't say oh diglett/trapinch will do everything duggy could, because those two do not compare in any way to duggy other than the ability. i know diglett and trapinch stall have been successful in the past, however u would need to have a really well built stall team to beat everything diglett/trapinch cant beat (impossible by the way, too many powerhouses), and on top of this u would have to play much better than u would duggy stall as diglett/trapinch stall does not get the same results as duggy stall 9 times out of 10.
tl;dr, Do Not Ban Arena Trap, Ban Dugtrio.
 
First of all, how in any way can Magnezone/Magnet Pull be compared to Arena Trap besides trapping? Magnet Pull only traps Steel types while Arena Trap traps everything on the ground. On top of this, every Pokemon with Magnet Pull is utter trash besides the niche Magnezone and even more niche Magneton.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling about a post I can't quote because im on a mobile device and move on to my two cents. imo AT isnt the problem, its duggy. Diglett and Trapinch have nowhere near the profound effect duggy has (i think trapinch only traps tran and scarf hoopa, and diglett doesnt have a guaranteed chance to trap kyub). What's the point of basically removing any usefulness out of two incredibly bad mons in the first place just because one mon with the ability in question is broken. You can't say oh diglett/trapinch will do everything duggy could, because those two do not compare in any way to duggy other than the ability. i know diglett and trapinch stall have been successful in the past, however u would need to have a really well built stall team to beat everything diglett/trapinch cant beat (impossible by the way, too many powerhouses), and on top of this u would have to play much better than u would duggy stall as diglett/trapinch stall does not get the same results as duggy stall 9 times out of 10.
tl;dr, Do Not Ban Arena Trap, Ban Dugtrio.
Below this guy is replying to a post by me. I said I don't get why Dug is being banned, isn't it the same as banning Protean instead of Greninja?

Because Arena Trap is clearly the issue. Is Sand Force Dugtrio going to be as problematic as AT Duggy? Obviously not.

Your comparison between Ninja and Duggy avoids a key issue a lot of people tend to neglect. Protean was on Kecleon, and clearly, Kecleon was not broken. Arena Trap however, is on Diglett and Trapinch, and un-ironically, during the Dugtrio suspect; teams substituted Dugtrio for Diglett or Trapinch, and made it work. You know why? Because the ability was the issue, just like Shadow Tag was the issue.

Trapping is noncompetitive in nature, this may be biased because I've pushed for this suspect for 5 years now, but it is. Removing a key aspect of the game, and/or forcing players to run would be below par items to deal with a single 'mon is just plain silly.
Just because people 'made it work' doesn't mean it's as good to use Diglett. But it still shows that the ability is what makes the mon so strong. If you scroll through this thread you'll find this argument brought up and shut down multiple times.
 
Okay. I've been really, really busy lately, what with classes starting and whatnot. But if any of you have been following my posts on the Viability Rankings and Metagame Discussion threads the past few weeks and months you'll probably know my opinions about Arena Trap and Dugtrio's use of it I hate this mon. I figured this Suspect Test would happen sooner or later as soon as Dugtrio was confirmed to get its Attack boost this generation, and turns out I was right. Twice.

About a month ago I made a post discussing Dugtrio's potential viability as an S-rank threat in the tier. And while the council unanimously disagreed with me nominating it to S (I still disagree with that verdict, but that's water under the bridge), the points I brought up here are good enough to stand when it comes to this Suspect Test. Do note that this was written with Dugtrio in mind just as Arena Trap is being suspected with Dugtrio's influence on the OU metagame in mind:

My main gripe with Dugtrio's ranking currently is that it cannot really be compared to anything whatsoever. And while I understand that we shouldn't really discuss it much, I wholeheartedly disagree with a lack of discussion regarding what is easily the most controversial mon in today's OU.

One of the earlier posts stated that Dugtrio has a great influence on the metagame but that the likes of Tapu Bulu, Volcarona, and Zygarde do too. My main problem with this statement is that, unlike those three, Dugtrio has no competition for its role. Z-Move Garchomp is also an effective wallbreaker, although it lacks the sheer nuking ability Bulu has. Volcarona performs its special sweeping role a bit better than the likes of Autotomize Celesteela (although this thing's admittedly fallen from grace lately) or other special nukes incapable of boosting up like Volc can. Zygarde has its bulk and versatility going for it but the role of a Dragon Dancer still happens to be shared by Mega TTar, which is quite prominent in today's metagame, and Zard X, which is far less common but still has its niche. Nothing, however, can revenge kill a wide variety of threats to nearly the extent Dugtrio can while having the ability to remove any counterplay to it.

To quote the NU Viability Rankings this gen (before anyone says anything, I'm immediately assuming the same mindset goes into deciding this tier's rankings):

[You can check this part yourself, since this won't double-quote, but NU's policy is basically that an S-rank threat is determined based on its capabilities in various situations, and every point outlined here was on that post]

To go through each point, one by one:

Threat Level: Huge. Dugtrio is able to revenge kill a gigantic portion of the metagame with one of its many set/item options. Dugtrio has no counters by definition of a counter, as nothing bar anything with a Shed Shell, Levitate, or Flying/Ghost-types can switch out. Due to having such limited counterplay and having the ability to trap and revenge kill anything, even if the opponent makes numerous correct predictions and eliminates something by making such a good play, Dugtrio is easily one of the biggest threats in the OU tier.

Splashability: Very good. It is almost mandatory to run on typical Stall teams. Even more situational Stall teams, like some VinCune teams outside of Veil, strongly appreciate Dugtrio's ability to remove powerful and fast Electric-types, like Tapu Koko, that would severely hinder Suicune's ability to stall or sweep teams. In addition to being a Stall staple, it finds its home on more offensively-inclined teams. It forms a devastating offensive core alongside Zard-Y and Tyranitar because of its ability to seamlessly trap and eliminate the likes of Chansey and Toxapex. Said core is among the best and most consistent in the metagame. I would hardly say the likes of Landorus-T and Magearna are literally mandatory for a certain playstyle on top of being excellent for some others.

Consistency: It requires half a brain to use, but depending on the item you opt to run (Focus Sash, Choice Scarf, Groundium Z) you're only using Dugtrio to trap and eliminate specific threats. It will always be able to beat the likes of Heatran, regardless of its set. Assault Vest Magearna is always OHKOed by Tectonic Rage. Chansey always loses to a healthy variant of the same Groundium-Z set. Volcarona requires less than 20% prior damage to be consistently OHKOed by the Choice Scarf variant's Stone Edge, through its Charti Berry. Dugtrio exists to remove specific threats from OU but nothing in the metagame can perform that role quite as well.

Effect on the Metagame: Dugtrio's very existence threatens numerous OU-viable threats. Teambuilding with it in mind is very difficult because it has no real counterplay. When Dugtrio appears on the Team Preview the game becomes more a war of prediction and attrition because Dugtrio can punish a single bad play by trapping and removing a mon, potentially breaking a powerful core. In addition, Dugtrio's trapping abilities allow it to punish good plays, too. The threat of having your Heatran removed from the game even if you manage to get a really good prediction on your opponent and OHKO something, or even if you just get a crit you didn't account for that would've been awesome under any other circumstances, is ever-present. Unlike Magearna and Landorus-T, which are incredibly versatile, Dugtrio only has three-odd variations of its exact role but that role is extremely fearsome to the point where you have to play the game completely differently when there's a Dugtrio on your opponent's team.

Reliability: Again, Dugtrio exists to trap and eliminate specific threats. It's incredibly reliable in that it is the best at beating those threats more often than not. Dugtrio is, for the most part, only used to eliminate those threats, and then it can usually end its hot streak by crippling a wall with Toxic or sacrificing itself with Memento in order to let a setup sweeper come in and wreak havoc for the rest of the battle.

Passiveness (or lack thereof): While Dugtrio isn't really doing much to Landorus-T, Tapu Bulu, or Celesteela early in its life, Dugtrio is by no means passive. It can break past Chansey, OHKO Volcarona with Stone Edge through the Charti Berry after only a minor amount of prior damage, irreparably damage even AV variants of Magearna, and much, much more. Dugtrio is only quite passive against things it's not supposed to come in on anyway.

Outclassed?: As I mentioned earlier on, absolutely not. Nothing performs Dugtrio's role except for Diglett (don't use this) and Trapinch (don't use this). Both got their fair share of usage during the Dugtrio suspect. But as long as Dugtrio is used in OU, nothing comes even remotely close to performing its role in the tier. Dugtrio is incredibly unique, and cannot be outclassed in its current state.

Hazard Weakness: This is a bit more relevant to Focus Sash variants, admittedly. Other variants don't care much for any chip damage from hazards since Dugtrio is incredibly frail. If it means anything, it packs a Stealth Rock resistance.

Speed: Base 120 Speed is nothing to scoff at. For a Groundium-Z wallbreaker it's an incredible speed tier. Because its role is as influential as it is it can run a Choice Scarf to reliably outspeed the few OU-viable threats that can outspeed other variants. Tapu Koko and Mega Manectric can't beat it 1v1 all of a sudden. Greninja takes up to 79% before hazards and LO recoil. Tornadus-T takes colossal damage from Stone Edge after rocks (LO variants are almost always OHKOed). Mega Alakazam can get trapped by Pursuit or can die to Earthquake after just a tiny bit of chip damage (25% chance to be OHKOed from full after rocks).

Bulk: Dugtrio doesn't really have any bulk. It dies to almost any hit that doesn't do fixed damage like Chansey's Seismic Toss. Largely the reason why it doesn't really care about hazards too much. That being said, it more than makes up for its lack of bulk by being able to trap and OHKO numerous top-tier threats. If it's taking a hit it either did its job already or wasn't used correctly.

Matchups: Dugtrio picks its own matchups. Much like Shadow Tag during a much darker era, Dugtrio's Arena Trap means that it is, more often than not, dealing with the opponent on its terms. When it's in an unfavorable matchup it's more often than not paired with something that can switch in, or it simply uses Toxic or Memento and has lasting effects on the outcome of a match even after it's dead.

So given all this - assuming these are the qualities that determine a mon's viability in any tier (I can't see why those criteria wouldn't apply here, honestly) - why is discussion for Dugtrio's potential in S so discouraged? Unless I'm missing something it has many of the qualities to push it above and beyond the threats in A+.
Chances are you probably didn't read all that, and that's fine. But ultimately, Dugtrio's pros are overwhelmingly more numerous and relevant than its cons, and can be summed up as this: it has an amazing speed tier, its role in the OU tier cannot be compared to any other OU-viable threat, its ability allows it to pick and choose its own matchups unless your opponent opts to run niche options like Shed Shell and, more recently, Eject Button in order to get out of a messy situation caused by Dugtrio, and it singlehandedly impacts the viability of an enormous number of OU threats and deters usage of others.

It would be foolish to ignore Dugtrio's considerable impact on the OU tier as a whole. It has incredibly few actual flaws (its bulk is bad but does it matter when it's supposed to fight stuff it beats?) and its numerous strengths more than make up for those flaws. But, once again, this springs entirely from Dugtrio's ability. Although it would certainly be hot garbage in OU without Arena Trap, it (subjectively) makes OU feel like hot garbage with Arena Trap.

Lastly, and most importantly, the main arguments that saved Dugtrio from the previous suspect were that Mega Metagross, Pheromosa (I think this garbage was still a thing) and Baton Pass were more inherently broken at the time and that Dugtrio could only potentially become as broken as people were making it out to be. Fast-forward to today and Mega Metagross, Baton Pass, and Pheromosa have since been banned, and, lo and behold, Dugtrio got better. Much better. Its ability found itself able to trap many of the new Megas and rising threats and pairing alarmingly well with new cores and even alternate Stall variants. It moved from being nothing more than an incredibly annoying Stall staple to being among the best threats in the entire tier, polarizing enough that things like Toxapex found themselves forced to run Shed Shell more often to avoid being trapped and promptly eliminated by it.

TL;DR version: I agree, wholeheartedly, that, due to Dugtrio's negative impact on teambuilding and the viability of numerous potentially OU-viable mons and general uncompetitiveness (you have to play a game completely differently when Dugtrio shows up in the team preview because of its unique style of revenge killing), the ability that makes Dugtrio as inherently broken as it is should be banned without hesitation.
 
I don't have time at the moment to make a long detailed post about this (although I plan to later), but I really think there should be three choices to vote for in the suspect test: Ban Arena Trap, Ban Dugtrio, or Do Not Ban. And if Ban Arena Trap + Ban Dugtrio > 60% (or whatever the cutoff is, I forget) we follow through with the option that got a bigger percentage of the two.

I know at the moment the option of "Ban Dugtrio" doesn't exist, but I think it has gotten enough support and enough good arguements have been made for it in this thread to justify adding it as a third choice. I don't think there is any harm in adding this as a third choice for voters and doing so would only give our great community here at Smogon more say in the final decision of this suspect.

For those who think Arena Trap is the problem, just vote for banning Arena Trap instead of banning Dugtrio. Those who only want Dugtrio banned deserve a fair say too. Secondly, if Dugtrio is banned and Diglett/Trapinch turn into a problem, we can just do another suspect like we did for Baton Pass. I don't think saying "but a couple of people got reqs last time using Diglett" necessarily proves that Arena Trap is broken. I'm sure at least a couple of people got reqs last time using Ferrothorn too and no one is calling for banning it. And if you do think Arena Trap makes Diglett/Trapinch broken anyways then again, just vote for banning Arena Trap instead of voting for only banning Dugtrio. I don't understand why this isn't a voting option because having a third choice causes no harm and many people have proven in this thread that there are legitimate reasons for keeping Arena Trap and banning Dugtrio so they deserve the right to vote for that option too.


Conclusion / Tl;dr

This post is not an arguement for why Arena Trap should stay and why only Dugtrio should be banned. It's an arguement in favor of giving people who have good reasons for believing Dugtrio should be banned and not Arena Trap the right to vote for what they believe. Even if you are convinced that Arena Trap is the problem and not Dugtrio I don't see how you could be convinced that the people who disagree with you don't deserve the right to vote for their opinion. That's really all I have to say, thanks.
 

Leo

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I don't have time at the moment to make a long detailed post about this (although I plan to later), but I really think there should be three choices to vote for in the suspect test: Ban Arena Trap, Ban Dugtrio, or Do Not Ban. And if Ban Arena Trap + Ban Dugtrio > 60% (or whatever the cutoff is, I forget) we follow through with the option that got a bigger percentage of the two.

I know at the moment the option of "Ban Dugtrio" doesn't exist, but I think it has gotten enough support and enough good arguements have been made for it in this thread to justify adding it as a third choice. I don't think there is any harm in adding this as a third choice for voters and doing so would only give our great community here at Smogon more say in the final decision of this suspect.

For those who think Arena Trap is the problem, just vote for banning Arena Trap instead of banning Dugtrio. Those who only want Dugtrio banned deserve a fair say too. Secondly, if Dugtrio is banned and Diglett/Trapinch turn into a problem, we can just do another suspect like we did for Baton Pass. I don't think saying "but a couple of people got reqs last time using Diglett" necessarily proves that Arena Trap is broken. I'm sure at least a couple of people got reqs last time using Ferrothorn too and no one is calling for banning it. And if you do think Arena Trap makes Diglett/Trapinch broken anyways then again, just vote for banning Arena Trap instead of voting for only banning Dugtrio. I don't understand why this isn't a voting option because having a third choice causes no harm and many people have proven in this thread that there are legitimate reasons for keeping Arena Trap and banning Dugtrio so they deserve the right to vote for that option too.


Conclusion / Tl;dr

This post is not an arguement for why Arena Trap should stay and why only Dugtrio should be banned. It's an arguement in favor of giving people who have good reasons for believing Dugtrio should be banned and not Arena Trap the right to vote for what they believe. Even if you are convinced that Arena Trap is the problem and not Dugtrio I don't see how you could be convinced that the people who disagree with you don't deserve the right to vote for their opinion. That's really all I have to say, thanks.
I don't usually post in these threads but there's just so much I disagree with here that I guess I lose nothing by giving you my point of view on the matter. First of all, why add a third option? The council already decided to revisit this topic with a different approach due to some controversy around the last one and I just don't see any reason to go back to just a Dugtrio ban. You say that you think it has enough support and good arguments for it to warrant some sort of representation in the voting process but don't even quote examples, as far as I've seen there has not been a single good post on that matter thus far, at least in this thread and I don't think I'm missing anything considering the low amount of posts we've had in the last couple of days compared to previous suspects. Your argument of waiting to see if Diglett or Trapinch become an issue doesn't make much sense either, why would we waste even more time for yet another suspect test on this just because some people who may not even get reqs think Diglett is balanced? We've already had a Dugtrio less metagame for 2 weeks during the last suspect (granted it was in the metagross and Pheromosa meta) and we don't need to waste any more time with it. Diglett may not be broken with Arena Trap but the ability itself is still unhealthy for the metagame regardless of the user and I think a Arena Trap ban is the better choice at the moment.
 

G-Luke

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Sigh. Hi guys. I usually don't engage in OH, as I think it's to plain and centralizing of a tier to play. However, Dugtrio has caught my attention as of late, and to test all the humbug I went ahead and laddered abit with a standard Dug + Charizard + Tyranitar team. All I have gathered is this. Duggy is reaaaalllly uncompetitive. Dugtrio seriously punishes all types of plays, and forces all kinds of unpredictable and gnu garbage things to be common place just to accommodate the mole trio. Toxapex would REALLY like that Black Sludge to use, but because that makes Toxapex lose to Duggy almost everytime. I person I battled faced this dilemma. I built a team that had no real way to beat Toxapex, which is a solid Mega Charizard Y switchin. But now with a clever double switch, a normally great play is punished thanks to me brininging in Duggy, eliminating Toxapex and freeing memy Megazard to rampage. While that's one situation, many more of that exists. And the real reason why Arena Trap is uncompetitive and not broken comes to light. It's not because it forces shit items and garbage sets to rule the day. It's not because it forces otherwise great mind with great potential and positive attributes to never see the light of day. Those are all major arguments to pile up for an Arena Trap ban, but at the end of the day it's all one reason - it throws skillful play right out of the balk park. Someone has a Toxapex out walking my shit, and I bring in a great Toxapex check - Mind Plate Tapu Lele. Now I go for the skillful play and click Psyshock since nothing can risk switching in on his team. Psyshock does around 70 to 80 percent, and in a normal situation, the opposing player basically has lost craploads of momentum that could cost them the entire match. But nope, Eject Button activates, and a now Healthy Dugtrio comes in, basically letting me lose my Tapu Lele - while the only thing the opponent does is take damage and cheese his way out of a skillfully played and fairly won matchup. That Toxapex can live to probably switch in once more, serving as either death fodder or even healing right back up, all because of Arena Trap.

While I don't have enough interest in OU to dedicate laddering for a suspect ladder, having that level of uncompetitiveness in a tier is far from ok and I hope this post encourages others to BAN ARENA TRAP
 
reqs OU dugtrio 1.PNG
reqs OU dugtrio 2.PNG


Well, How I can begin this post ?

3 months ago, I played a Stall team with Dugtrio. We can see in this match ( http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-580560614 ) that Dugtrio is a very good trapper. Tapu Lele 2HKO my whole team, so I trap him with Dugtrio.
It's not the only time where Dugtrio save me against a threat of my team.

My Dugtrio was very effective. But others Dugtrio were effective too against my team.
And when I saw that the Basic Core Char-Y/Dugtrio destroy my team without any skills, I said that I need to change my team. During the teambuilding, I wanted to build a HardStall that wasn't afraid of Dugtrio. I know Shed Shell Toxapex or Shed Shell Blissey but I don't wanna play this mons because Toxapex is a magnet to KO and because Blissey is bad pokemon.
When I search a counter to Dugtrio, I found only one, Dugtrio.

And I realize that Dugtrio is BROKEN.


Let's make usage of Dugtrio in 7G:
If we take a manichean point of view (Stall/Offense):

* If we play Dugtrio with a Stall team and we confront an other Stall team:
First of all, the others mons in the team are defensive, so they don't use Z move, so it's not restrictive to use a Z move with Dugtrio.

Moreover, with Dugtrio, we can easily trap in the other team Toxapex or/and Chansey with an appropriate support of the team like Eject Button Toxapex. After that, the victory is almost guaranteed.

* If we play Dugtrio with a Stall team and we confront an offensive team:
During the teampreview, we check the major threat of the team, and we trap it.

* If we play Dugtrio with Offense team and we confront a Stall team:
During the teampreview, we check the major defensive threat of the team, and we trap it.

If Dugtrio succeed to trap Chansey for example, a lot of offensive pokemon can break a Stall( M-Char-Y for example). And the cost of using a Z move ( so others pokemon can't use a Z move) is more than compensated.

* If we play Dugtrio with Offense team against an other Offense team:
Dugtrio will always kill an other pokemon but the sacrifice of Z move isn't so compensated I agree.

Dugtrio isn't versatile but he make his job too efficiently.

A fight sum up a thousand words: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-619761163

Obviously, I'm voting BAN
 

Attachments

Yes Gary, I did read the OP.

If this is such a well thought out suspect test and Arena Trap is such a problem, why was Dugtrio suspect tested the first time round and not Arena Trap?

Can you actually answer that without discrediting the suspect council? This is a poorly disguised anti-stall vendetta, that's chosen to suspect test Dugtrio AGAIN while ignoring months and months of other complaints like Lele, Landorus and Greninja which fall on deaf ears.

I don't use Dugtrio so I can't give you specific information that might make this a more compelling argument. But if someone beats me with Dugtrio, good for them. There are many ways to counter Sash Pokémon, so perhaps the meta can just adapt to it instead of complaining about what is essentially a very predictable one trick pony (mole).
 
Yes Gary, I did read the OP.

If this is such a well thought out suspect test and Arena Trap is such a problem, why was Dugtrio suspect tested the first time round and not Arena Trap?

Can you actually answer that without discrediting the suspect council? This is a poorly disguised anti-stall vendetta, that's chosen to suspect test Dugtrio AGAIN while ignoring months and months of other complaints like Lele, Landorus and Greninja which fall on deaf ears.

I don't use Dugtrio so I can't give you specific information that might make this a more compelling argument. But if someone beats me with Dugtrio, good for them. There are many ways to counter Sash Pokémon, so perhaps the meta can just adapt to it instead of complaining about what is essentially a very predictable one trick pony (mole).
Before I go on, I do not think you are trying to derail the thread or anything.

At the time, it seemed like Dugtrio was the problem. However, the council was wrong about that. That doesn't mean the council is horrible etc. All it means is that the council misjudged at the time. I think the council is doing Arena Trap instead of retesting Dugtrio because during the Dugtrio suspect, many people laddered up with stall teams but replaced Dugtrio with Diglett or Trapinch. It would take a lot longer just to suspect all three, and Diglett and Trapinch have absolutely no other niche in OU. If Dugtrio was banned, then Trapinch and/or Dugtrio would go to OU in a flash, and then by your logic we would have to send things that are currently in LC up to Ubers. That's why Arena Trap is being tested rather than Dugtrio.
 
Yes Gary, I did read the OP.

If this is such a well thought out suspect test and Arena Trap is such a problem, why was Dugtrio suspect tested the first time round and not Arena Trap?

Can you actually answer that without discrediting the suspect council? This is a poorly disguised anti-stall vendetta, that's chosen to suspect test Dugtrio AGAIN while ignoring months and months of other complaints like Lele, Landorus and Greninja which fall on deaf ears.

I don't use Dugtrio so I can't give you specific information that might make this a more compelling argument. But if someone beats me with Dugtrio, good for them. There are many ways to counter Sash Pokémon, so perhaps the meta can just adapt to it instead of complaining about what is essentially a very predictable one trick pony (mole).
"I don't use Dugtrio so I can't give you specific information that might make this a more compelling argument."

If you never used a Dugtrio and can't give conclusive information for your argument, then why are you here? What are you aiming to accomplish with this? Clearly you are incapable of providing anything of substance to the conversation at hand. So why bother showing up?

I'm amazed that someone could actually say something like "I have no clue what I'm talking about" when they're the ones bashing on the council.

And what makes you so certain that this is a "poorly disguised anti-stall vendetta?" It's not as if Dugtrio is exclusive to the Stall. One of the reasons for its suspect is the exact opposite – that Dugtrio can appear so often in other non-Sableye Stall teams, such as with that wretched Zard-Y team. It's hardly an "anti-stall vendetta."

I didn't think a human could actually be this stupid, you must be trolling.
 
Before I go on, I do not think you are trying to derail the thread or anything.

At the time, it seemed like Dugtrio was the problem. However, the council was wrong about that. That doesn't mean the council is horrible etc. All it means is that the council misjudged at the time. I think the council is doing Arena Trap instead of retesting Dugtrio because during the Dugtrio suspect, many people laddered up with stall teams but replaced Dugtrio with Diglett or Trapinch. It would take a lot longer just to suspect all three, and Diglett and Trapinch have absolutely no other niche in OU. If Dugtrio was banned, then Trapinch and/or Dugtrio would go to OU in a flash, and then by your logic we would have to send things that are currently in LC up to Ubers. That's why Arena Trap is being tested rather than Dugtrio.
Would it really be that bad seeing Diglett and Trapinch in the OU meta? As a small niche? Does it all have to be big bad Dragons, Steels and Fairies? What's next? Ban FEAR Aron as well?

If the council were wrong then they need to be scrutinized accordingly. I don't believe there's enough transparency or accountability with their decisions. Just saying.

I get banning Marshadow because it has no true answer to it. But you could literally build a team that is completely unaffected by Arena Trap. How is it banworthy?
 
Yes Gary, I did read the OP.

If this is such a well thought out suspect test and Arena Trap is such a problem, why was Dugtrio suspect tested the first time round and not Arena Trap?

Can you actually answer that without discrediting the suspect council? This is a poorly disguised anti-stall vendetta, that's chosen to suspect test Dugtrio AGAIN while ignoring months and months of other complaints like Lele, Landorus and Greninja which fall on deaf ears.

I don't use Dugtrio so I can't give you specific information that might make this a more compelling argument. But if someone beats me with Dugtrio, good for them. There are many ways to counter Sash Pokémon, so perhaps the meta can just adapt to it instead of complaining about what is essentially a very predictable one trick pony (mole).
Okay there's a lot to unpack here.

1) Calls for Lando suspects are kind of ridiculous. It's a mon with great role compression, that is very beatable and doesn't warp the meta around it like Aegislash, M-Meta, or Phero did. If you're not prepping for what Lando can do, then mons who do the exact same things will beat you all the same. Because for every set/role Lando has, there are other mons doing the same or similar things. Regardless, other suspects are irrelevant to the suspect at-hand. This has been made clear countless times.

2) Arena Trap's power isn't limited to Stall. All playstyles use Dugtrio, and use it equally well. Every playstyle appreciates trapping and wiping out an opposing win-con or something that blocks your win-con. This isn't an anti-Stall suspect.

3) Dugtrio being a one-trick pony doesn't mean it isn't still hurting the competitive nature of the meta. It does that one trick extremely well. Ultimately what Dugtrio/Arena Trap does is invalidate good plays with little skill involved. You made a good play and knocked out an opposing mon? Well hope your mon isn't too important to your team, because it's gone now. All your opponent has to do is not slip out of consciousness and accidentally click the wrong buttons. I'm oversimplifying things I know, but there are plenty of in-depth posts about this throughout if you want to read them.

4) The meta has been trying to adapt to it from Day 1. That adaptation boils down to restricting teambuilding to suboptimal Shed Shell sets. It's been what, close to a year now? It's pretty clear where the meta stands with Arena Trap in it, and it is a less healthy meta than it would be otherwise. Again, I'm oversimplifying simply because there are more in-depth posts already made here.

EDIT:
Would it really be that bad seeing Diglett and Trapinch in the OU meta? As a small niche? Does it all have to be big bad Dragons, Steels and Fairies? What's next? Ban FEAR Aron as well?

If the council were wrong then they need to be scrutinized accordingly. I don't believe there's enough transparency or accountability with their decisions. Just saying.

I get banning Marshadow because it has no true answer to it. But you could literally build a team that is completely unaffected by Arena Trap. How is it banworthy?
Another post suggesting building an Arena Trap-immune team means Dugtrio isn't ban-worthy? I'm amazed people who post this don't see the irony in that. That's the definition of centralizing and restricting teambuilding.
 
Would it really be that bad seeing Diglett and Trapinch in the OU meta? As a small niche? Does it all have to be big bad Dragons, Steels and Fairies? What's next? Ban FEAR Aron as well?

If the council were wrong then they need to be scrutinized accordingly. I don't believe there's enough transparency or accountability with their decisions. Just saying.

I get banning Marshadow because it has no true answer to it. But you could literally build a team that is completely unaffected by Arena Trap. How is it banworthy?
Do you even know what you're talking about?

Why do you care if Diglett/Trapinch gets a role in OU meta? Is it really more important to do that than to balance the meta? I believe it's far more important to balance the meta the way the players want than to ensure some PU mons get a role in OU.

And I'm getting the impression you are displeased with the OU council. Well, if you're really that displeased with what they do, then you can go somewhere else. I'm sure there are plenty of other communities who would be happy to have you. After all, this is not a democracy, but a bureaucracy. You're lucky you can even get a chance to vote – be grateful for that.

You mention making a team that is completely unaffected by Arena Trap. Not only is this obscenely difficult to do, but it also goes to show the centralization that Dugtrio forces: it limits teambuilding to have a lot of Arena Trap-free mons. And so, in your suggestion, you actually gave us the reason why Dugtrio is so bad for the meta. Thanks a bunch.

You disappoint me. I can't believe someone would actually be ignorant enough to say things like this. You have got to be trolling.
 

Gary

Can be abrasive at times (no joke)
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I don't use Dugtrio so I can't give you specific information that might make this a more compelling argument.
Then why do you actually expect people to take you seriously?

You have done this shit almost every suspect. You try pointing out flaws in the suspect system/council decisions without really coming up with any good argument to defend your statement. If you actually followed the meta recently, you would understand exactly why Arena Trap is being suspected again, and if you truly read the OP, you wouldn't be asking this question. Let me break it down for you in simpler terms if it's too complicated:

1. Dugtrio was suspected during a time where there were more pressing issues in the meta such as Mega Metagross and stall wasn't nearly as dominant as now
2. People were having mild sucess with Diglett stall during Dugtrio suspect to still counteract common forms of counterplay to stall such as Heatran, Hoopa-U, and CB Tyranitar
3. Stall has been extremely dominate and over centralizing in ever major tour since the failed Dugtrio suspect, and has been widely considered to be the most current suspect contender at this time (Landorus-T and Greninja suspects aren't really brought up anymore so idk where you're coming from).
4. Arena Trap was suspected over Dugtrio because Arena Trap on its own is inherently uncompetitive and not Dugtrio itself. It allows playstyles such as stall and Zard-Y balance to have very negligible reliable counterplay without having to run sub optimal items on Pokemon such as Tapu Lele, Toxpaex, or Skill Swap Chansey. Diglett can still accomplish similar things to a lesser extent.
5. Arena Trap is uncompetitive because it entirely removes a key competitive aspect from the game which is the ability to switch (the same reason Shadow Tag was banned). This is deemed uncompetitive because it prevents a player from being able to provide any sort of reliable counterplay, because how can someone counter something that prevents you from switching out to your counterplay?

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, and haven't been following the tour scene, or any relevant competitive scene for quite some time. You choose to sit back and wait for a suspect without contributing to any other threads in the meantime, so you can spew your asinine arguments that hold no merit or provide any actual evidence other than theorymon. I highly encourage you take a step back and actually read the posts in this thread for the OP multiple times because clearly, you're not understanding anything people are telling you.

The argument ends here bro. I highly suggest you stop, or PM a council member.
 
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Okay there's a lot to unpack here.
3) Dugtrio being a one-trick pony doesn't mean it isn't still hurting the competitive nature of the meta. It does that one trick extremely well. Ultimately what Dugtrio/Arena Trap does is invalidate good plays with little skill involved. You made a good play and knocked out an opposing mon? Well hope your mon isn't too important to your team, because it's gone now. All your opponent has to do is not slip out of consciousness and accidentally click the wrong buttons. I'm oversimplifying things I know, but there are plenty of in-depth posts about this throughout if you want to read them.
You make some good points in your post overall such as this not being a stall suspect because dugtrio is effective with many play styles but I think you are getting a bit carried away with number 3 here. We need to stop acting like dugtrio is instant death or a guaranteed revenge kill on whatever pokemon your opponent just used to knock out another. It is extremely frail and only has base 100 attack (that is 299 with a jolly nature and maximum investment). This means that the majority of the meta can live an earthquake fairly easily. Sash helps as dugtrio is pretty fast and will typically let it get off two attacks but it is often made useless by all entry hazards, so get your rocks up early. Without sash it dies if it can't OHKO its opponent and without groundium Z it actually loses to toxapex if pex gets the burn from scald as jolly max attack dugtrio only does 50-59.2 percent. Sure duggy can have success as a revenge killer, but it is so frail that it needs to save itself for whatever mon is most important to trap. I understand why lots of people want a ban but please stop acting as if you are guaranteed to lose a pokemon every time you kill one of dugtrio's teammates. And as far as suboptimal sets, nobody is forcing you to use Heatran or Toxapex or the maybe one or two others you feel might need a shedshell. If you don't like it just use something else, they may be better with leftovers than pex is without them. The fact that a pokemon makes a couple of otherwise top threats run items they don't like should have no impact on a suspect. Whether or not toxapex is good (it is still extremely good anyway) is completely irrelevant.
 
You make some good points in your post overall such as this not being a stall suspect because dugtrio is effective with many play styles but I think you are getting a bit carried away with number 3 here. We need to stop acting like dugtrio is instant death or a guaranteed revenge kill on whatever pokemon your opponent just used to knock out another. It is extremely frail and only has base 100 attack (that is 299 with a jolly nature and maximum investment). This means that the majority of the meta can live an earthquake fairly easily. Sash helps as dugtrio is pretty fast and will typically let it get off two attacks but it is often made useless by all entry hazards, so get your rocks up early. Without sash it dies if it can't OHKO its opponent and without groundium Z it actually loses to toxapex if pex gets the burn from scald as jolly max attack dugtrio only does 50-59.2 percent. Sure duggy can have success as a revenge killer, but it is so frail that it needs to save itself for whatever mon is most important to trap. I understand why lots of people want a ban but please stop acting as if you are guaranteed to lose a pokemon every time you kill one of dugtrio's teammates. And as far as suboptimal sets, nobody is forcing you to use Heatran or Toxapex or the maybe one or two others you feel might need a shedshell. If you don't like it just use something else, they may be better with leftovers than pex is without them. The fact that a pokemon makes a couple of otherwise top threats run items they don't like should have no impact on a suspect. Whether or not toxapex is good (it is still extremely good anyway) is completely irrelevant.
If I'm understanding this correctly, what you're trying to tell me is that Dugtrio is okay for the meta because "If you don't [wanna have your mon get toasted then] just use something else." Another one of your reasons is that "[you're not] guaranteed to lose a pokemon every time you kill one of dugtrio's teammates."

I disagree with the "use something else" philosophy because the philosophy doesn't work here. Name me a replacement to Heatran, Diancie, Tapu Lele, or any Dugtrio victim that isn't affected by Arena Trap, much less do that and remain viable in OU. If you can name replacements, I will genuinely be impressed.

I also disagree with the "Dugtrio doesn't do its job 100% of the time" philosophy because I believe that, while this statement is true, the statement "Dugtrio does its job 90% of the time" is also true. And the only time it ever does happen is if Tapu Lele successfully hides a Scarf or something like that. If Dugtrio failed at its job so many times, then we wouldn't be seeing such high usage, would we? The answer is self-evident.

Your arguments sound plausible in theory(mons), but in practice it doesn't work out. A simple look at the teambuilder or Pokédex should tell you why.

P.S. It was somewhat difficult trying to understand what you were trying to communicate in your post, seeing as you spent a lot of it on discussing the mon's stats or damage output as opposed to metagame influence. I would encourage people to go down the latter route.
 
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Disclaimer: I don't play a lot of OU. Barely any. So feel free to take the following opinion with a grain of salt. (The same salt you feel after Duggy OHKO's your Heatran.)

Dugtrio is an infuriating mon to play against. Mostly because, as everyone's already said, it either:

A)Forces you to make a team that only is specifically good against it and pretty much nothing else. (Not a "pack a simple coverage Ice Beam for Landorus!", since Ice Beam is decent just about everywhere, no it's running really niche sets or using up item slots that could have been better utilized if a certain mountain-making molehill wasn't trolling everybody)

B) It forces you to keep certain 'mons that could easily be out slaughtering whatever is out there in your lineup because 1shot Groundium-Z that you can't escape. (They've got a pesky Celesteela? Want to take it down down with Heatran? Well, too bad, because Super-Duggy is there to terrify the crap out your Heatran, and so Celesteela just sits there wrecking shit, 'cause the second you put out your Heatran... Super-Duggy shows up to kill Heatran, and then Celesteela comes back in and wrecks more shit.

C) The Focus Sash set is arguably even worse, since Duggy's speed allows it to 2HKO anything with Sturdy or a Focus Sash, and if rocks are up, well even worse.

D) According to Smogon's rulebook, it removes player choice, and really should qualify for the textbook definition of uncompetitive.

E)You have to prepare your team completely for it and jumps through hoops, which screws you over when your opponent isn't running Duggy.

Notes
-Magnet Pull and Arena Trap are not the same thing. Not only is MP much more more niche (Seriously, how many Magnet Pull users have you seen?), but it affect a much more smaller group of 'mons. (Steel-Types versus non Ghost grounded mons. The numerical difference is staggering.)
-"HURRDURR. You can play around it!" No. No you can't. Once Duggy's Got your 'mon trapped, that's it. Only Shell Bell will get you out, and it's probably the only reason you'd run it. (Back to the Pinsir EQ versus CC argument.) To win most other matchups, you'd need anything else, but Duggy is so widespread that you practically need it to survive.
-Diglett/Trapinch. They have the ability, sure, but they're not nearly as powerful of a threat as the Dugmeister over here.

TL;DR
Duggy and Arena Trap suck due to being overcentralizing and choice-removing OHKO monsters, and I'd vote BAN if I had the reqs.
 
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Ok guys, first of all, please lets all be civil, it was made very clear and I believe carried out very effectively until this point that this thread should be as least toxic as possible. Lets try and keep it like this. Moving on into actual debate now.
You make some good points in your post overall such as this not being a stall suspect because dugtrio is effective with many play styles but I think you are getting a bit carried away with number 3 here. We need to stop acting like dugtrio is instant death or a guaranteed revenge kill on whatever pokemon your opponent just used to knock out another. It is extremely frail and only has base 100 attack (that is 299 with a jolly nature and maximum investment). This means that the majority of the meta can live an earthquake fairly easily. Sash helps as dugtrio is pretty fast and will typically let it get off two attacks but it is often made useless by all entry hazards, so get your rocks up early. Without sash it dies if it can't OHKO its opponent and without groundium Z it actually loses to toxapex if pex gets the burn from scald as jolly max attack dugtrio only does 50-59.2 percent. Sure duggy can have success as a revenge killer, but it is so frail that it needs to save itself for whatever mon is most important to trap. I understand why lots of people want a ban but please stop acting as if you are guaranteed to lose a pokemon every time you kill one of dugtrio's teammates. And as far as suboptimal sets, nobody is forcing you to use Heatran or Toxapex or the maybe one or two others you feel might need a shedshell. If you don't like it just use something else, they may be better with leftovers than pex is without them. The fact that a pokemon makes a couple of otherwise top threats run items they don't like should have no impact on a suspect. Whether or not toxapex is good (it is still extremely good anyway) is completely irrelevant.
So there are a few things in this argument that I would like to address. The first thing is when you say "stop acting like dugtrio is instant death or a guaranteed revenge kill on whatever pokemon your opponent just used to knock out another". My thing with this statement is that duggy isnt supposed to revenge all of meta. It wouldnt be here if it could. Its meant to come in on specific mons and pick up KO's. Its meant to be a mon used with precision to eliminate opposing mons that could otherwise possibly sweep or heavily damage your team. By bringing up everything, you try and draw away attention from duggy's main draw. His ability to come in and consistently eliminate specific threats that need to go. You may however bring up the argument "what sets duggy apart from another wallbreaker, or a counter, or a check?" and this is where we delve into trap. With wallbreakers, counters, and checks, you have one major option that you dont have with dugtrio. The ability to switch. Pokemon is in essence a mind game and what trap does is effectively kill that mind game. Now as I say this I do realize that magnezone exists. But that also brings us to my next point, the scope of duggy's trapability. In comparison to magnezone and magnet pull in general, duggy and arena trap has a much much much wider pool of mons which it has the ability to trap. Coupled with magnezones poor speed tiering and special attacking nature, the two mons fit significantly different niches on a given team. And the mindgame involved with mag is significantly lower than duggys. Also stating that entry hazards completely void dugtrio is just plain not true. Yes, it does void sash, but that is only ONE of duggys sets meaning that the mon itself is not exculsively limited to that one set. Lastly, I would also like to address your comment about many mons not being ohkod by dug. The point of dug is to not necessarily always ohko one certain mon. Dug has the ability that it can naturally expand outside this so called niche of his. Dug can broadly trap and kill any weakened grounded mon. Whether it be garchomp, gallade, medicham, volcarona, etc. if it has some prior damage, duggy can effectively come in and eliminate it. These all in conjunction are what we believe push duggy and trap in general over the edge and what merits as ground for its ban. Of course I have also literally refurgitated this info for you. It has been stated and regurgitated many times before in this thread. If you want a better explanation go read some of the other posts. You may like them better than this one as they elaborate more and some provide specific examples.
 
Ok guys, first of all, please lets all be civil, it was made very clear and I believe carried out very effectively until this point that this thread should be as least toxic as possible. Lets try and keep it like this. Moving on into actual debate now.


So there are a few things in this argument that I would like to address. The first thing is when you say "stop acting like dugtrio is instant death or a guaranteed revenge kill on whatever pokemon your opponent just used to knock out another". My thing with this statement is that duggy isnt supposed to revenge all of meta. It wouldnt be here if it could. Its meant to come in on specific mons and pick up KO's. Its meant to be a mon used with precision to eliminate opposing mons that could otherwise possibly sweep or heavily damage your team. By bringing up everything, you try and draw away attention from duggy's main draw. His ability to come in and consistently eliminate specific threats that need to go. You may however bring up the argument "what sets duggy apart from another wallbreaker, or a counter, or a check?" and this is where we delve into trap. With wallbreakers, counters, and checks, you have one major option that you dont have with dugtrio. The ability to switch. Pokemon is in essence a mind game and what trap does is effectively kill that mind game. Now as I say this I do realize that magnezone exists. But that also brings us to my next point, the scope of duggy's trapability. In comparison to magnezone and magnet pull in general, duggy and arena trap has a much much much wider pool of mons which it has the ability to trap. Coupled with magnezones poor speed tiering and special attacking nature, the two mons fit significantly different niches on a given team. And the mindgame involved with mag is significantly lower than duggys. Also stating that entry hazards completely void dugtrio is just plain not true. Yes, it does void sash, but that is only ONE of duggys sets meaning that the mon itself is not exculsively limited to that one set. Lastly, I would also like to address your comment about many mons not being ohkod by dug. The point of dug is to not necessarily always ohko one certain mon. Dug has the ability that it can naturally expand outside this so called niche of his. Dug can broadly trap and kill any weakened grounded mon. Whether it be garchomp, gallade, medicham, volcarona, etc. if it has some prior damage, duggy can effectively come in and eliminate it. These all in conjunction are what we believe push duggy and trap in general over the edge and what merits as ground for its ban. Of course I have also literally refurgitated this info for you. It has been stated and regurgitated many times before in this thread. If you want a better explanation go read some of the other posts. You may like them better than this one as they elaborate more and some provide specific examples.
You basically agreed with most everything I said but did so in an argumentative tone. The whole point of my post was to refute someone else's statement where they said that dugtrio comes in and gets a kill every time one of its teammates dies. It does not, it is typically good for one kill a game vs a specific pokemon. It is not some inescapable revenge killer that grabs a kill everytime something on its team dies. I made the point about hazards voiding sash to give more evidence as to why it is not a great blanket revenge killer as its attack and defenses are too low for it to revenge kill a large portion of the meta without sash. Losing sash dugtrio hurts its ability to trap and kill random stuff, it doesn't void dugtrio or interfere all that much with its ability to do what it is actually supposed to do. The whole point of my post was that they were vastly overrating dugtrio's ability as a general revenge killer and that they didn't really seem to understand what dugtrio does.
 
You basically agreed with most everything I said but did so in an argumentative tone. The whole point of my post was to refute someone else's statement where they said that dugtrio comes in and gets a kill every time one of its teammates dies. It does not, it is typically good for one kill a game vs a specific pokemon. It is not some inescapable revenge killer that grabs a kill everytime something on its team dies. I made the point about hazards voiding sash to give more evidence as to why it is not a great blanket revenge killer as its attack and defenses are too low for it to revenge kill a large portion of the meta without sash. Losing sash dugtrio hurts its ability to trap and kill random stuff, it doesn't void dugtrio or interfere all that much with its ability to do what it is actually supposed to do. The whole point of my post was that they were vastly overrating dugtrio's ability as a general revenge killer and that they didn't really seem to understand what dugtrio does.
yeah agreement was pretty much what I was going for, on some of your points but you are missing out on one of my larger statements. Basically what I wanted to highlight IS dugtrio's ability as a blanket revenge killer. With very few exceptions, dugtrio can come inside and revenge much if not every grounded mon with some prior damage. This could in turn result in you losing a mon (If it is grounded) everytime you kill a mon. Again there are more arguments detailing further how well duggy can perform its job. Please refer to those posts in the thread for a better developed and presented argument than mine. I do not want posts like mine now, which are only quick offshoots to detract to some of the more well formed arguments that have come before me.
 
Before I go on, I do not think you are trying to derail the thread or anything.

At the time, it seemed like Dugtrio was the problem. However, the council was wrong about that. That doesn't mean the council is horrible etc. All it means is that the council misjudged at the time. I think the council is doing Arena Trap instead of retesting Dugtrio because during the Dugtrio suspect, many people laddered up with stall teams but replaced Dugtrio with Diglett or Trapinch. It would take a lot longer just to suspect all three, and Diglett and Trapinch have absolutely no other niche in OU. If Dugtrio was banned, then Trapinch and/or Dugtrio would go to OU in a flash, and then by your logic we would have to send things that are currently in LC up to Ubers. That's why Arena Trap is being tested rather than Dugtrio.
This. Many people have referenced others climbing up decently high on the ladder and even getting reqs with Diglett teams, but why is this such damning evidence of Arena Trap being broken and not Dugtrio?

I imagine most of you would answer that Diglett is an otherwise terrible pokemon with atrocious stats compared to other OU mons and that the only thing that would make such a terrible mon viable (lets assume Diglett would be viable in a Dugtrio-less meta for the sake of this discussion) is Arena Trap, thus Arena Trap, the ability, must be the problem.

My issue with this is that plenty of OU mons need their abilities to be viable, not just Diglett. Greninja would be nothing in OU without Protean or Battle Bond, same with Dragonite and Multiscale, Kingdra and Swift Swim, Pelipper and Drizzle,
Mega Mawile and Huge Power, Mimikyu and Disguise, the list goes on and on. We even saw what happened to Talonflame this gen with the nerf to Gale Wings. One of the most viable mons in ORAS barely receives any use now because of the nerf to its ability.

"Okay fine, MilkyWay", most of you would say. "I get the point you're trying to make but unlike all of your examples Arena Trap is a much better, broken ability that needs to go."

I agree, this is a fair point. But continue hearing me out. In ORAS we banned Greninja, not Protean. Why? Sure, it's a great ability allowing Greninja to get STAB on all of its coverage moves. No matter what Greninja's opponent switched in, they could almost never be sure they were safe because you never knew which coverage moves Greninja was carrying. Protean played a big role in making Greninja as effective and as broken as it was. So why didn't we just ban Protean? The thing is, Greninja also had a decent enough movepool and stats to go along with Protean. Without it's blistering base 122 speed, usable special attack, and access to moves such as Gunk Shot, Low Kick, Spikes, Ice Beam, Extracenssory, Hidden Power, U-turn, etc. etc. it wouldn't have been broken even with Protean. Greninja needed its movepool, stats, and ability all combined to be broken. Protean wasn't the problem. Greninjas was the problem. Thus Greninja was banned.

I realize at this point I still probably don't have most of you convinced. You think that the difference between Arena Trap, and other great abilities, such as Protean, is that Arena Trap is uncompetitive. Let me explain why that's wrong.

Something that is "uncompetitive" is something that takes the skill out of the game and turns it into luck. Things such as Swagger, OHKO moves, moves that raise evasion, the abiltiy Moody, and so on are uncompetitive because they rely on luck and not skill. That is why we banned them. Other things such as Sheer Force on Landorus-I and Protean on ORAS Greninja are overpowered, so we ban them to.

The examples of uncompetitiveness typically posted in this thread go something like "I use CB Tyranitar to beat stall but then Dugtrio traps it." Well why are you using something specifically to beat stall (CB Tyranitar) when it will always lose and get trapped by one of the best pokemon commonly found on stall?!? That's just poor strategy and team building, not uncompetitiveness. CB Tyranitar is a great pokemon that has its uses, but beating stall is not one of them in the Dugtrio meta. Or "I did something good by killing a pokemon with my Toxapex, but then his Dugtrio came in and trapped it and I have no switch ins to his Zard Y." Again, that's just poor strategy, you saw in team preview he has Dugtrio so why would you kill something with you Toxapex and let him switch in Duggy for free and kill you? That's the same thing as throwing out a Draco Meteor with Latios to kill something and getting upset when his Magearna comes in to set up on you. It's not uncompetitive, it's poor strategy. Now I realize both of these are examples of Dugtrio potentially being broken. My point is that it's not broken because of being uncompetitive.

I'm going to quote G-Luke here because his post was very well articulated and is one of the best examples for how Dugtrio can actually be uncompetitive.

And the real reason why Arena Trap is uncompetitive and not broken comes to light. It's not because it forces shit items and garbage sets to rule the day. It's not because it forces otherwise great mind with great potential and positive attributes to never see the light of day. Those are all major arguments to pile up for an Arena Trap ban, but at the end of the day it's all one reason - it throws skillful play right out of the balk park. Someone has a Toxapex out walking my shit, and I bring in a great Toxapex check - Mind Plate Tapu Lele. Now I go for the skillful play and click Psyshock since nothing can risk switching in on his team. Psyshock does around 70 to 80 percent, and in a normal situation, the opposing player basically has lost craploads of momentum that could cost them the entire match. But nope, Eject Button activates, and a now Healthy Dugtrio comes in, basically letting me lose my Tapu Lele - while the only thing the opponent does is take damage and cheese his way out of a skillfully played and fairly won matchup. That Toxapex can live to probably switch in once more, serving as either death fodder or even healing right back up, all because of Arena Trap.
Now, I agree with almost everything G-Luke has to say. The Dugtrio user certainly did cheese his way out of a skillfully played and fairly won matchup. This is a great example of uncompetitiveness. But let's return to the point I made about ORAS Protean Greninja earlier. Recall, Protean helped to enable a pokemon with decent stats and a good movepool to become broken in the sense that it was too unpredictable and overpowered. Protean did not make Greninja broken. The combination of Protean, stats, and movepool made Greninja broken. The same logic applies to Dugtrio. Arena Trap, along with Dugtrio's good speed, attack, and moves, make it broken, overpowered, and sometimes uncompetitive. Do not underestimate Dugtrio's typing either. STAB Earthquake is super effective against a whopping five types (fire, poison, electric, rock, and steel, all of which are rather common in OU; also no other offensive type is super effective against five other types) and has a rather high base power. This is crucial in allowing Dugtrio to win many 1 v 1s.

Let's return to G-Luke's example, but imagine instead of Dugtrio with Arena Trap it's Luvdisc with Arena Trap. The same scenario would insue but when the eject button allows Luvdisc to come in for free against Tapu Lele, it obviously would not be able to win the 1 v 1. Now, I know using Luvdisc in an example seems kinda silly, but what I'm getting at: Winning the 1 v 1 in this instance is what makes the Arena Trap user uncompetitive and broken. Dugtrio can often win the 1 v 1 thanks to its good stats, movepool, and typing. Therefore, Dugtrio makes Arena Trap uncompetitive and not the other way around. On Luvdisc, Arena Trap is not uncompetitive because Luvdisc is too crappy to make good use of it. The point is, Arena Trap is not inherently uncompetitive, it's the pokemon that make it broken and uncompetitive. Not the other way around.

Luvdisc is a very shitty pokemon so of course Arena Trap isn't broken on it. With that being said, Dugtrio is also not OU material by any means without it's ability, yet Arena Trap is broken on it. So where do we draw the line of whether Arena Trap is broken on a given pokemon or not? I don't know. I don't know if Arena Trap is broken on Trapinch or Diglett. And neither does anyone else. So why do people want to ban Arena Trap on Trapinch and Diglett? Why can't we just ban Dugtrio and then decide if Arena Trap is broken on the other pokemon?

Now at this point you might be thinking "you're sort of technically right MilkyWay, but why go to all of this trouble to save two random LC pokemon, Trapinch and Diglett?" And that's because I think Trapinch and Diglett could actually be viable but not broken in the OU meta. But I don't know for sure because like most of you I have never played nor faced these pokemon. Also, like some of you have said, some people have actually laddered decently high with them. And just because people can ladder high with these pokemon doesn't mean they are necessarily broken, just like people getting reqs with Ferrothorn doesn't make it broken. Finally, just because an ability is so good it can make pokemon with low base stats viable doesn't mean it is necessarily broken, for example Wonder Guard and Shedinja.

Anyways, please don't insist that there is no point in going to all this trouble to save Trapinch and Diglett because

A) They are useless LC pokemon
-They aren't necessarily useless because a couple players have laddered high with them

B) They will be broken due to Arena Trap anyways
-Like I proved above, Arena Trap isn't inherently uncompetitive or broken. It's the pokemon that have the ability that are uncompetitive and broken. You don't know if Diglett/Trapinch will be broken because you likely haven't expereinced battling them and neither have I

Ban Dugtrio but not Arena Trap

Tl;dr There isn't really a tl;dr because you really have to read my whole post to understand my arguement
 
This. Many people have referenced others climbing up decently high on the ladder and even getting reqs with Diglett teams, but why is this such damning evidence of Arena Trap being broken and not Dugtrio?

I imagine most of you would answer that Diglett is an otherwise terrible pokemon with atrocious stats compared to other OU mons and that the only thing that would make such a terrible mon viable (lets assume Diglett would be viable in a Dugtrio-less meta for the sake of this discussion) is Arena Trap, thus Arena Trap, the ability, must be the problem.

My issue with this is that plenty of OU mons need their abilities to be viable, not just Diglett. Greninja would be nothing in OU without Protean or Battle Bond, same with Dragonite and Multiscale, Kingdra and Swift Swim, Pelipper and Drizzle,
Mega Mawile and Huge Power, Mimikyu and Disguise, the list goes on and on. We even saw what happened to Talonflame this gen with the nerf to Gale Wings. One of the most viable mons in ORAS barely receives any use now because of the nerf to its ability.

"Okay fine, MilkyWay", most of you would say. "I get the point you're trying to make but unlike all of your examples Arena Trap is a much better, broken ability that needs to go."

I agree, this is a fair point. But continue hearing me out. In ORAS we banned Greninja, not Protean. Why? Sure, it's a great ability allowing Greninja to get STAB on all of its coverage moves. No matter what Greninja's opponent switched in, they could almost never be sure they were safe because you never knew which coverage moves Greninja was carrying. Protean played a big role in making Greninja as effective and as broken as it was. So why didn't we just ban Protean? The thing is, Greninja also had a decent enough movepool and stats to go along with Protean. Without it's blistering base 122 speed, usable special attack, and access to moves such as Gunk Shot, Low Kick, Spikes, Ice Beam, Extracenssory, Hidden Power, U-turn, etc. etc. it wouldn't have been broken even with Protean. Greninja needed its movepool, stats, and ability all combined to be broken. Protean wasn't the problem. Greninjas was the problem. Thus Greninja was banned.

I realize at this point I still probably don't have most of you convinced. You think that the difference between Arena Trap, and other great abilities, such as Protean, is that Arena Trap is uncompetitive. Let me explain why that's wrong.

Something that is "uncompetitive" is something that takes the skill out of the game and turns it into luck. Things such as Swagger, OHKO moves, moves that raise evasion, the abiltiy Moody, and so on are uncompetitive because they rely on luck and not skill. That is why we banned them. Other things such as Sheer Force on Landorus-I and Protean on ORAS Greninja are overpowered, so we ban them to.

The examples of uncompetitiveness typically posted in this thread go something like "I use CB Tyranitar to beat stall but then Dugtrio traps it." Well why are you using something specifically to beat stall (CB Tyranitar) when it will always lose and get trapped by one of the best pokemon commonly found on stall?!? That's just poor strategy and team building, not uncompetitiveness. CB Tyranitar is a great pokemon that has its uses, but beating stall is not one of them in the Dugtrio meta. Or "I did something good by killing a pokemon with my Toxapex, but then his Dugtrio came in and trapped it and I have no switch ins to his Zard Y." Again, that's just poor strategy, you saw in team preview he has Dugtrio so why would you kill something with you Toxapex and let him switch in Duggy for free and kill you? That's the same thing as throwing out a Draco Meteor with Latios to kill something and getting upset when his Magearna comes in to set up on you. It's not uncompetitive, it's poor strategy. Now I realize both of these are examples of Dugtrio potentially being broken. My point is that it's not broken because of being uncompetitive.

I'm going to quote G-Luke here because his post was very well articulated and is one of the best examples for how Dugtrio can actually be uncompetitive.



Now, I agree with almost everything G-Luke has to say. The Dugtrio user certainly did cheese his way out of a skillfully played and fairly won matchup. This is a great example of uncompetitiveness. But let's return to the point I made about ORAS Protean Greninja earlier. Recall, Protean helped to enable a pokemon with decent stats and a good movepool to become broken in the sense that it was too unpredictable and overpowered. Protean did not make Greninja broken. The combination of Protean, stats, and movepool made Greninja broken. The same logic applies to Dugtrio. Arena Trap, along with Dugtrio's good speed, attack, and moves, make it broken, overpowered, and sometimes uncompetitive. Do not underestimate Dugtrio's typing either. STAB Earthquake is super effective against a whopping five types (fire, poison, electric, rock, and steel, all of which are rather common in OU; also no other offensive type is super effective against five other types) and has a rather high base power. This is crucial in allowing Dugtrio to win many 1 v 1s.

Let's return to G-Luke's example, but imagine instead of Dugtrio with Arena Trap it's Luvdisc with Arena Trap. The same scenario would insue but when the eject button allows Luvdisc to come in for free against Tapu Lele, it obviously would not be able to win the 1 v 1. Now, I know using Luvdisc in an example seems kinda silly, but what I'm getting at: Winning the 1 v 1 in this instance is what makes the Arena Trap user uncompetitive and broken. Dugtrio can often win the 1 v 1 thanks to its good stats, movepool, and typing. Therefore, Dugtrio makes Arena Trap uncompetitive and not the other way around. On Luvdisc, Arena Trap is not uncompetitive because Luvdisc is too crappy to make good use of it. The point is, Arena Trap is not inherently uncompetitive, it's the pokemon that make it broken and uncompetitive. Not the other way around.

Luvdisc is a very shitty pokemon so of course Arena Trap isn't broken on it. With that being said, Dugtrio is also not OU material by any means without it's ability, yet Arena Trap is broken on it. So where do we draw the line of whether Arena Trap is broken on a given pokemon or not? I don't know. I don't know if Arena Trap is broken on Trapinch or Diglett. And neither does anyone else. So why do people want to ban Arena Trap on Trapinch and Diglett? Why can't we just ban Dugtrio and then decide if Arena Trap is broken on the other pokemon?

Now at this point you might be thinking "you're sort of technically right MilkyWay, but why go to all of this trouble to save two random LC pokemon, Trapinch and Diglett?" And that's because I think Trapinch and Diglett could actually be viable but not broken in the OU meta. But I don't know for sure because like most of you I have never played nor faced these pokemon. Also, like some of you have said, some people have actually laddered decently high with them. And just because people can ladder high with these pokemon doesn't mean they are necessarily broken, just like people getting reqs with Ferrothorn doesn't make it broken. Finally, just because an ability is so good it can make pokemon with low base stats viable doesn't mean it is necessarily broken, for example Wonder Guard and Shedinja.

Anyways, please don't insist that there is no point in going to all this trouble to save Trapinch and Diglett because

A) They are useless LC pokemon
-They aren't necessarily useless because a couple players have laddered high with them

B) They will be broken due to Arena Trap anyways
-Like I proved above, Arena Trap isn't inherently uncompetitive or broken. It's the pokemon that have the ability that are uncompetitive and broken. You don't know if Diglett/Trapinch will be broken because you likely haven't expereinced battling them and neither have I

Ban Dugtrio but not Arena Trap

Tl;dr There isn't really a tl;dr because you really have to read my whole post to understand my arguement
Your later statement directly contradicts your earlier ones.
Greninja would be nothing in OU without Protean or Battle Bond
and
Protean wasn't the problem. Greninjas was the problem.
But that can be overlooked I suppose to look at the overall message you were trying to prove. What I mainly wanted to hit on is your statement we have never experienced whether or not diglett/trapinch will be broken without arena trap. Because we have. Oh we have. Even looking earlier at your argument you mention multiple times of the prominence that diglett found itself being used during the suspect test. And it succeeded at its role of replacing dugtrio. Albeit a little more lacking, it nonetheless still found success. But its the fact that you acknowledged these statements that lead to my confusion. "Why can't we just ban Dugtrio and then decide if Arena Trap is broken on the other pokemon?" This is your exact quote. And you gave the answer to this quote in the exact same post. It has been tested and it has found success. Which is why we as the pro-ban side of the argument, would like to see trap banned, not only dugtrio.
 
Why does it matter so much to ban Dugtrio in place of Arena Trap?

I mean, seriously. Whether to ban the mon or the ability, it shouldn't matter. Smogon tends to be a little inconsistent with banning mons (like the Greninja-in-lieu-of-Protean and the Shadow Tag-in-lieu-of-Gothitelle), but no consistency is required. As long as the meta becomes better at the end, who cares whether the mon or the ability should be banned.

And on a final note, we aren't supposed to be discussing potential suspects in this thread. IIRC this is for Arena Trap discussion ONLY.
 
In my humble opinion, upon a lot of thought, I have run the tests, and I have crunched the numbers. What I found might surprise you. After analyzing the data and considering the possibilities, the conclusion that I indeed have come up with is that its bad, and we should ban Arena Trap.
 
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