On The Radar Vol. 2 [See Post #336]

[peng]

I think Arena Trap is pretty clearly the broken component here, rather than Dugtrio itself.

My main argument is that Arena Trap is not only uncompetitive on Dugtrio, but would also be busted on just about every fully-evolved and remotely viable Pokemon in the game. Just go through last gens PU list and ask yourself how you'd feel if they got Arena Trap as a Hidden Ability in the upcoming DLC (imagine that ability on SubSeed Abomasnow, LO Absol, CB Aggron, SubRoost Pressure Articuno, Shell Smash Carracosta, Rapid Spin Claydol, offensive Drampa, Curse Gastrodon and we're only at G!). If anything, we've been unbelievably lucky that so far the only fully-evolved Pokemon to get Arena Trap is only capable of spamming Earthquake, setting rocks, and Toxic-stalling, and even that unbelievably shitty mon is capable of degenerating the OU meta into this uncompetitive trapping mess.

I know thats all theorymon, but I think it gets the point across that Arena Trap on almost anything would be uncompetitive.

[edit - this is clearly a very different situation then to Galar-Darmanitan vs Gorilla Tactics - again, look through the last gen PU list and question if any of these quite poor Pokemon would suddenly be broken with a free Choice Band - the answer is that, whilst many would certainly rise in viability, I don't think any would be broken. This is why we banned Darm instead of the ability.]

Banning Arena Trap therefore does the following:

1. Preserves non-Arena Trap Dugtrio in lower tiers, admittedly at the sacrifice of Arena Trap Diglett and Trapinch.
2. Protects ourselves from any possible tiering blunder with a future HA Arena Trap release on e.g. Golurk. If a second decent Arena Trap user becomes available and takes OU by storm, as it almost certainly would, then we're left with either banning that too despite the ability clearly being the issue, or we then unban Dugtrio and finally ban the ability instead. Dugtrio wouldn't be able to go straight from Ubers to PU - it'd have to be put back in the OU list again (now Arena Trap-less) and gradually fall over the following months tier changes. It'd be a farce.

The only reason to ban Dugtrio over Arena Trap is to preserve Diglett and Trapinch. People very often cite the fact that Diglett and Trapinch aren't anywhere near as good and wouldn't be a threat, to which I raise 2 points. 1 - If you don't personally think they'd be good or want to use them, why do you even remotely care that they'd be lost as collateral damage and 2 - history has shown us that Diglett can and will be used on stall builds. These are not objectively bad mons, and just like Dugtrio there are circumstances where they can give stall near autowins, especially in a post-Dugtrio metagame where people stop trying to prep for Arena Trap.

 

[BlueLobster]

Glad to see something finally happening about this, arena trap is horrible for any meta and basically invalidates a bunch of mons bc they can be safely removed and are therefore unable to do their jobs in any dug matchup. However, I'm confused why people are saying dugtrio should be banned over arena trap, we literally had the same situation in gen 6, where dugtrio was voted no ban because the general consensus was arena trap should be banned instead (ultimately, arena was banned, but this only happened after the gen had ended when it could've been fixed back at this suspect). The reason for this is pretty clear imo, the ability to safely remove a mon is uncompetitive and requires no skill whatsoever. So, what's changed from then? In terms of arena trappers absolutely nothing, the only users then were the dugtrio line and trapinch which is also true now. In my opinion, following the existing precedent of banning an arguably uncompetitive ability is the only way to go about this.

Also, is there any reason for the "on the radar" stuff rather than just a suspect? The process either way is of a similar length if the council quickbans after the discussion and the result is the same either way so I don't understand need for the change in policy.

 

[Tzolkin]

I really think some people here are missing the whole picture here. It's not just arena trap that is so good, it is also on a pokemon that has everything that it needs to trap a large portion of the metagame. And because of that I believe that we should ban Dugtrio not Arena trap. I think dugtrio is OP because it can trap way too many mons; not just obvious ones like excadrill or toxtricity but also things like Clefable and generally a lot of weakend stuff, on top of that it is also much more flexible than prevos. Those two are much more specific and only really trap handful of mons. This is the big difference because dugtrio is useful in every game, because it can trap/revenge kill so many mons, while those two can trap like 10 pokemon and of your opp doesn't have them you are playing 5v6. Honestly I think they are healthy (similarly to magnezone) because they prevent the influx of some mons (ttar drill etc) and they actually give some sort of cost to playing them - it forces players to more creatively choose mons of they are afraid of trapping. All in all, tons of ppl are overrating prevos - they aren't dugtrio

 

[LRCN]

hi

quick ban for arena trap please. the arguments for the uncompetitive effects of dugtrio on ou have been covered but it is important to appreciate that in a no-duggy vacuum we will experience similar frustrations with trapinch and diglett, albeit not as profound.

 

[peng]

I really think some people here are missing the whole picture here. It's not just arena trap that is so good, it is also on a pokemon that has everything that it needs to trap a large portion of the metagame. And because of that I believe that we should ban Dugtrio not Arena trap. I think dugtrio is OP because it can trap way too many mons; not just obvious ones like excadrill or toxtricity but also things like Clefable and generally a lot of weakend stuff, on top of that it is also much more flexible than prevos. Those two are much more specific and only really trap handful of mons. This is the big difference because dugtrio is useful in every game, because it can trap/revenge kill so many mons, while those two can trap like 10 pokemon and of your opp doesn't have them you are playing 5v6. Honestly I think they are healthy (similarly to magnezone) because they prevent the influx of some mons (ttar drill etc) and they actually give some sort of cost to playing them - it forces players to more creatively choose mons of they are afraid of trapping. All in all, tons of ppl are overrating prevos - they aren't dugtrio

I don't know what you're talking about here - Dugtrio, Diglett and Trapinch are legimitately some of the worst Pokemon in the game without Arena Trap, its not like they have some perfect combination of traits to make Arena Trap look good.

They lack decent set-up (only Hone Claws and arguably Screech), they have zero bulk so have to run Sash if they want to be able to beat anything faster, but at the same time are so piss weak that they require Choice Band to 2HKO defensive mons. They have an awful offensive movepool consisting of Earthquake, Stone Edge, Reversal, and Sucker Punch which gives good neutral coverage but pretty crap super effective coverage, which is important on a Pokemon with such bad offenses. Support movepool is limited to Stealth Rock, Sub, Protect, Memento and that's it. Dugtrio's only redeeming factor is STAB EQ and speed, but bear in mind it doesn't even need that speed to trap their most common current targets (Clef and Sylv) - Dugtrio could be base 90 and still do the same thing right now.

This is why this argument makes no sense. People are saying that "its not that Arena Trap is broken, Dugtrio is just a good mon that abuses it and worse Pokemon can't use it as well, like Diglett and Trapinch". Dugtrio is awful. It is an excellent example of a Pokemon that has a busted ability and the absolute bare minimum other requirements to make it work - a 100bp STAB move and either good speed or good bulk. Thats all it has. It is one of the worst Pokemon in the game. Just because Diglett and Trapinch are marginally worse doesn't change that fact.

Without Arena Trap, Dugtrio is probably in the bottom 150 Pokemon in the game (out of >800), outranked by tons of unevolved Pokemon and not even able to make a dent in PU last gen. Diglett and Trapinch are probably somewhere in the bottom 50, but despite this become fully usable and viable on stall because of their ability. So I honestly don't understand how people can see that Dugtrio is broken, but argue that the thing that breaks it is the combination of speed and a stronger Earthquake rather than its ability.

If anything remotely good had Arena Trap we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Instead, we're sitting around questioning "how bad does a Pokemon have to be before we let it be used with Arena Trap".

 

[theotherguytm]

Ok, was going to keep this a secret for longer, but I think I'll drop this bombshell:
Trapinch @ Eviolite
Quiet Nature
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 8 Def / 252 SpA / 248 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
- First Impression
- Earthquake
- Giga Drain
- Superpower
0 SpA Seismitoad Scald vs. 0 HP / 248 SpD Eviolite Trapinch: 128-152 (55.4 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Seismitoad Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 8 Def Eviolite Trapinch: 127-150 (54.9 - 64.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Trapinch Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Seismitoad: 240-284 (57.9 - 68.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (51.9 - 61.4% recovered)
Yep. It traps and deals with Toad. While healing off most of the damage it takes. And Gastrodon and Quagsire. So the only Dracovish check that doesn't get nailed by this or Vish's coverage is Vapourion. While this isn't great at trapping Duggy's usual targets, on a Vish team you don't really care about trapping anything else. While yes, this needs a free switch-in, that's not hard. Either double out of Vish since Vish pretty much forces in Toad, or use something like this:
Rotom-Heat @ Eject Pack
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Overheat
- Volt Switch
Since Toad likes to check Rotom-H, Overheat on the switch traps Toad very nicely. Just watch out for Defog.
Anyway, Trapinch set details:
Quiet Nature with 252 SpA EVs maximise Giga Drain damage to Gastrodon, who has a tiny chance to beat this 1v1.
0 Spe IVs make Trapinch as slow as possible for Trick Room, the only possible time its speed could be relevant.
248 SpD EVs take Trapinch's SpD to the highest Evolite number possible to minimise damage from Scalds, again in particular Gastrodon's.
The last 8 EVs boost Trapinch's Defense slightly. No HP investment maximises healing from Giga Drain and Wish passing.
First Impression is a good priority move that can do about 50% to Hydreigon uninvested. It can be used to kill various weakened mons or just to supply chip damage if Trapinch needs to be sacced.
Earthquake is a reliable STAB that traps certain weakened threats or mons locked into Volt Switch and weakens mons that attempt to set up on Trapinch.
Giga Drain is key to the set's success, 2HKOing Water/Ground mons while keeping Trapinch healthy, something Dugtrio cannot do.
Superpower lets Trapinch beat Dragon Dance Tyranitar on a double switch. Useless otherwise, but there's not a lot else with these EVs. You could run Rock Slide, but there's nothing it actually traps and beats besides Centiskorch, which it doesn't even do 100% against a full health one.
Anyway, while this set is just a gimmick, it's a gimmick that Vish teams have been screaming for ever since Toad became prominent.

TL;DR: Ban Dugtrio so I can keep abusing Vish Ban Arena Trap without a shadow of a doubt. Trapinch has the same base Atk as Dugtrio, slightly more physical bulk than Dugtrio even without Evolite, and a slew of coverage options that Dugtrio doesn't get. And if you really want to trap Clef:
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 248 SpD Eviolite Trapinch: 82-97 (35.4 - 41.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Trapinch Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clefable: 193-228 (48.9 - 57.8%) -- 56.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And Clef usually runs less bulk than that and can chipped pretty easily.

 

[Tzolkin]

I don't know what you're talking about here - Dugtrio, Diglett and Trapinch are legimitately some of the worst Pokemon in the game without Arena Trap, its not like they have some perfect combination of traits to make Arena Trap look good.

They lack decent set-up (only Hone Claws and arguably Screech), they have zero bulk so have to run Sash if they want to be able to beat anything faster, but at the same time are so piss weak that they require Choice Band to 2HKO defensive mons. They have an awful offensive movepool consisting of Earthquake, Stone Edge, Reversal, and Sucker Punch which gives good neutral coverage but pretty crap super effective coverage, which is important on a Pokemon with such bad offenses. Support movepool is limited to Stealth Rock, Sub, Protect, Memento and that's it. Dugtrio's only redeeming factor is STAB EQ and speed, but bear in mind it doesn't even need that speed to trap their most common current targets (Clef and Sylv) - Dugtrio could be base 90 and still do the same thing right now.

This is why this argument makes no sense. People are saying that "its not that Arena Trap is broken, Dugtrio is just a good mon that abuses it and worse Pokemon can't use it as well, like Diglett and Trapinch". Dugtrio is awful. It is an excellent example of a Pokemon that has a busted ability and the absolute bare minimum other requirements to make it work - a 100bp STAB move and either good speed or good bulk. Thats all it has. It is one of the worst Pokemon in the game. Just because Diglett and Trapinch are marginally worse doesn't change that fact.

Without Arena Trap, Dugtrio is probably in the bottom 150 Pokemon in the game (out of >800), outranked by tons of unevolved Pokemon and not even able to make a dent in PU last gen. Diglett and Trapinch are probably somewhere in the bottom 50, but despite this become fully usable and viable on stall because of their ability. So I honestly don't understand how people can see that Dugtrio is broken, but argue that the thing that breaks it is the combination of speed and a stronger Earthquake rather than its ability.

If anything remotely good had Arena Trap we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Instead, we're sitting around questioning "how bad does a Pokemon have to be before we let it be used with Arena Trap".

You misunderstood me. I only said that dugtrio is much better than those two with its decent attack, screech and speed. Diglett hits like a wet noodle while trapinch is super slow. Yes they are example of bad mons being viable because of their abilities, nonetheless dugtrio is much much better than those two and traps 5x more pokemon while being a good revenge killer as well. It should be banned. But those two, while usable, trap much more specific things and are more similar to magnezone in trapping regard.

 

[Delta 2777]

If you lose to a Diglett or Trapinch team you probably deserved it.

These mons are not broken with Arena Trap. Never have been and never will be. And the guy who said 0 Atk Giga Drain Trapinch is broken is an absolute clown.

Ban Dugtrio, save Arena Trap, unban Wobbuffet. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

EDIT: Also

By the way, please don't bring Magnet Pull into the conversation because it's not part of the metagame and will only derail the thread.

This is a very manipulative and regressive thing to say. We've seen Magnezone and Magnet Pull in the metagame for generations and we know it would function exactly the same as it always has. The comparisons between the two abilities are valid.

 

[peng]

If you lose to a Diglett or Trapinch team you probably deserved it.

These mons are not broken with Arena Trap. Never have been and never will be. And the guy who said 0 Atk Giga Drain Trapinch is broken is an absolute clown.

Ban Dugtrio, save Arena Trap, unban Wobbuffet. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Right and what do we do exactly if something else gets arena trap with DLC? I think we can all agree that the vast majority of decent mons would be broken with Arena Trap, so if this did happen in the future then we’d have a headache with either banning the Pokemon or banning the ability. How many Pokemon have to be proven broken with Arena Trap until we consider banning it itself?

You may be right about Diglett / Trapinch, I still think they are dumb mons with a potential for uncompetitive strategies as we’ve previously seen, but I just don’t understand why anyone would be so adamant to preserve them. We’ve pinpointed that a Pokemon would have to be unbelievably bad not to be broken with Shadow Tag / Arena Trap, is it really worth banning Dugtrio now to preserve the NFEs if it would then mean, down the line, undoing that decision if Arena Trap becomes a more widespread ability?

Tl;dr - this “ban the mon not the blatantly overpowering ability” is a short-sighted approach that is based on an assumption that these abilities will always have narrow distribution. If something else gets AT in future then we’d be left looking like idiots scrambling to tier this stuff just to preserve two NFEs that nobody feels particularly strongly about

 

[Delta 2777]

Right and what do we do exactly if something else gets arena trap with DLC? I think we can all agree that the vast majority of decent mons would be broken with Arena Trap, so if this did happen in the future then we’d have a headache with either banning the Pokemon or banning the ability. How many Pokemon have to be proven broken with Arena Trap until we consider banning it itself?

You may be right about Diglett / Trapinch, I still think they are dumb mons with a potential for uncompetitive strategies as we’ve previously seen, but I just don’t understand why anyone would be so adamant to preserve them. We’ve pinpointed that a Pokemon would have to be unbelievably bad not to be broken with Shadow Tag / Arena Trap, is it really worth banning Dugtrio now to preserve the NFEs if it would then mean, down the line, undoing that decision if Arena Trap becomes a more widespread ability?

You could make the same argument about Wonder Guard, Huge Power, and a host of other fantastic abilities with low distribution.

When Blaziken got Speed Boost, we didn't ban Speed Boost, we banned Blaziken.

As far as why anyone would care if Diglett and Trapinch would be banned or not, it's the principal: they're not broken (with Arena Trap), so they should not be banned.

 

[theotherguytm]

If you lose to a Diglett or Trapinch team you probably deserved it.

These mons are not broken with Arena Trap. Never have been and never will be. And the guy who said 0 Atk Giga Drain Trapinch is broken is an absolute clown.

Ban Dugtrio, save Arena Trap, unban Wobbuffet. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

It literally has to trap one mon to be decent on a Vish team. Either its not needed and Vish can just go ham or it is and does the job. I don't see the issue. And it's not exactly dead weight when stuff gets chipped down to EQ range a bunch and First Impression revenge kills weakened stuff. Trapinch is not broken no. Trapinch+Vish, now that's pretty OP. You can't look at trappers in a vacumn and say "They're bad because they have low stats/are NFE" you have to look at what they can trap, and what appreciates that being trapped. Toad is the only thing stopping Vish from taking a dump on the meta. Toad gets trapped, that's an issue.

Oh and physical (read:non-specialised) Trapinch traps basically all of Duggy's targets with chip that's provided by a Dragapult's U-turn once or twice.

So all you've contributed to this discussion is to make two sweeping statements that belittle people without actually providing productive discussion or even attempting to make counterpoints. And a request to overturn a decision made 3 months ago that doesn't actually relate to the current discussion. Thank you for your attempt to casually dismiss my hard work and research I put into that with a personal attack because you think your opinion is somehow more valid than mine and you don't have to justify it.

Everyone who liked that post, shame on you. Like posts that generate positive discussion, not posts whose main point is name-calling, regardless of if you agree with them or not.

 

[Yung Dramps]

People talking right now about whether it's worth preserving Diglett and Trapinch, but that's not even the point.

Really stop for 5 seconds and think about the utter absurdity of this situation. We're debating whether Diglett and Trapinch are fine in OU with AT. DIGLETT. AND. TRAPINCH. The former is a Little Cup pokemon with atrocious stats across the board including the lowest HP stat of any Pokemon other than Shedinja, and the latter's best stat is a "just good" Attack stat of 100 with everything else being equally piss-poor. We are debating if these hunks of garbage are not broken in OU because of one singular ability they have.

There is simply no ability in this game that gives any Pokemon this much mileage, not even Wonder Guard and Huge/Pure Power compare. But if we're willing to avoid the root of the issue and try a futile exercise in preserving an ability which has enabled trash Pokemon to run our metas into the ground for 4 generations straight, then I see 0 reason to not re-open the discussion on allowing Zen Mode Darmanitan-Galar, because after all it's most likely not broken on its own, and if we don't ban Diglett and Trapinch due to not being broken on their own even with AT (which I doubt is even true) that tells me we've given up any other policy other than preserving Pokemon that aren't broken.

Darmanitan-Galar was banned because Gorilla Tactics wasn't the root of the problem, but rather that Darm had the perfect set of tools to abuse the ability. Arena Trap in this case is the root of the problem because it allows Pokemon with 0 other redeeming qualities to do stupid garbage and break the game.

 

[peng]

You could make the same argument about Wonder Guard, Huge Power, and a host of other fantastic abilities with low distribution.

When Blaziken got Speed Boost, we didn't ban Speed Boost, we banned Blaziken.

As far as why anyone would care if Diglett and Trapinch would be banned or not, it's the principal: they're not broken (with Arena Trap), so they should not be banned.

The first difference being that none of the Wonder Guard, Huge Power etc have ever been shown to be broken on anything so far, and so we've never had the "ability vs pokemon ban" discussion. If Dugtrio wasn't broken, I wouldn't be arguing an Arena Trap ban, clearly.

The other major difference is that there are clearly some abilities that simply buff the one Pokemon that uses it (e.g. Speed Boost on Blaziken), and others that provide a level of team support to the extent that, within reason (i.e. at least halfway decent statspread and movepool), the Pokemon that has that ability is almost irrelevant. In the case of Speed Boost, a Pokemon needs other features in order to be broken with that ability, to the extent that several legit pretty good Pokemon aren't broken with it (e.g. Yanmega, Sharpedo). Probably only ~5% Pokemon in the game would be broken if they were released tomorrow with Speed Boost.

Alternatively, there are abilities that provide team support, and if we decide as a tiering philosophy that this kind of support is broken/uncompetitive, and that the same support could be provided by just about any Pokemon that would be released with that ability, then we should be able to seperate it from the Pokemon that get it. This includes abilities like STag and Arena Trap, under the idea that the ability to pinpoint and selectively remove individual threats at will is uncompetitive. Other stuff that falls under this would be weather abilities, terrain abilities, Perish Body - obviously none of this stuff is on the radar at all but theoretically, if we one day decided that the team support provided by instant weather or any other team support ability was uncompetitive, and that just about any Pokemon with the ability could fulfill that role, then we should be able to selectively remove it rather than the Pokemon its attached to. I'm making the argument that 60-80% of the Pokemon in the game would be ridiculously uncompetitive with Arena Trap, and that to simply ban Dugtrio just because we're lucky that nothing else good has it (yet) is short-sighted.

Out of interest, if weather was banned in BW years back, would you have preferred the abilties or the individual setters were banned? I think this situation is far more comparable than Blaziken vs Speed Boost.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

tl;dr We have multi-generational consensus about Arena Trap being uncompetitive, including this generation now.

I have still not seen a good reason for Arena Trap to be saved for OU so far with inferior Mons while the Ban-Side provided plethora of arguments for its ban:

- precedent in the past (Arena Trap got banned how often since Team Preview so far? Exactly)
- precedent in the now (It is banned in National Dex, how is this not noteworthy again?)

My favorite ban-argument (or rather, demonstration of the power of the ability by itself ) so far however is from peng, demonstrating how the ability is so good that without it, the mon would be basically untiered/completely nonviable. Case in point: Alola Dugtrio is basically PU/untiered in the past gen, despite having a superior typing. But because the abilities are inferior, it is basically worthless.

Sidenote, not relevant for OU but might be interesting as an anectode:
Also, I had success with Trapinch in the lower tiers so far due it dealing with offensive, grounded Dark and Psychic types (First impression) and Sash+Quake instead of Eviolite with Team Support to get rid of pretty much any Ground-Weak Mon. Of course lower tiers operate in a different manner, but considering that someone here had success with Giga Drain Trapinch in OU speaks volume about the absurd power-level of this ability.

 

[theotherguytm]

My favorite ban-argument (or rather, demonstration of the power of the ability by itself ) so far however is from peng, demonstrating how the ability is so good that without it, the mon would be basically untiered/completely nonviable. Case in point: Alola Dugtrio is basically PU/untiered in the past gen, despite having a superior typing. But because the abilities are inferior, it is basically worthless.

Also once Arena Trap got banned, Dugtrio literally dropped to untiered. A OU staple that was suspected to go to Ubers, untiered because of its ability getting banned. There are no other cases I can think of where this has happened besides, you guessed it, Shadow Tag.

 

[Tzolkin]

I think you are overcomplicating things. We have 3 pokemon with this ability, out of which two are not broken and one is broken. This clearly means that arena trap isn't broken on everything, but that dugtrio is a superb abuser of the ability.

All other pro Arena Trap ban arguments were so incredibly irrelevant so far. It doesn't matter how many mons would it make broken (wonder guard would also do that for instance) because it is available only to 3 and it doesn't matter if we get another arena trap mon because we are talking about the metagame right now. The fact that arena trap was already banned in natdex is irrelevant because we do not have all the mons they have (similar situation: Sm RU allows drought, UU doesn't because they have mega houndoom).

 

[KztxL7]

Why the everloving hell are we trying to save Diglett and Trapinch. They shouldn't see the light of day in OU.

I admit I'm still salty over how this ability got Mega Sableye banned at the end of Gen 6 but for goodness sake it removes a fundamental aspect of the 6v6 metagame (switiching) and can screw you from the team preview screen. That it's trapping ability is very broad (not flying, levitating or ghost) in comparison to the incredible limitation of a move slot (Mean Look, etc) or a single typing with Pokemon that could easily fight back (Magnet Pull in previous gens) just adds even more fuel to the get this crap out of here.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I think you are overcomplicating things. We have 3 pokemon with this ability, out of which two are not broken and one is broken. This clearly means that arena trap isn't broken on everything, but that dugtrio is a superb abuser of the ability.

No.

Back in Gen 7, Dugtrio was suspect tested pretty early on. Part of the reason it was not banned was because people just switched to using Diglett or Trapinch and achieved similar results. It was clear that Arena Trap was the problem.

The reason you don't see Diglett or Trapinch isn't because they can't abuse Arena Trap to hell and back, but because Dugtrio abuses it more due to being less statistically awful.

 

[peng]

I think you are overcomplicating things. We have 3 pokemon with this ability, out of which two are not broken and one is broken. This clearly means that arena trap isn't broken on everything, but that dugtrio is a superb abuser of the ability.

All other pro Arena Trap ban arguments were so incredibly irrelevant so far. It doesn't matter how many mons would it make broken (wonder guard would also do that for instance) because it is available only to 3 and it doesn't matter if we get another arena trap mon because we are talking about the metagame right now. The fact that arena trap was already banned in natdex is irrelevant because we do not have all the mons they have (similar situation: Sm RU allows drought, UU doesn't because they have mega houndoom).

Whats your opinion on Moody? Only one user was consistently able to pull off the abuse of that ability - Glalie - yet rather than banning the Pokemon we banned the abilitity. This prevents you from using Moody Snorunt and Moody Remoraid, because we decided that the principle of randomly boosting stats itself is uncompetitive even if a couple of NFE Pokemon can’t use it to its maximal effectiveness.

Same goes for Dugtrio vs arena trap

 

[Dreadfury]

Not as comprehensive of a post as my typical stuff, so apologies in advance:

Arena Trap is inherently broken in any generation featuring Team Preview. It was broken in Gens 5 and 6, and it was broken enough in Gen 7 to warrant it being suspected twice and eventually banned and said ban had enough of an impact that it directly affected people's views on Dugtrio in those other two metagames. While Dugtrio is the most problematic user by far, the fact that Trapinch and Diglett are receiving genuine consideration in the event that Dugtrio is banned should be testament enough to this ability's inherent uncompetitiveness.

Dugtrio receives an astronomical amount of use in tournaments and does very well, and a lot of that trickles down to the Showdown ladder as well; Dugtrio's Choice Band set absolutely shithouses an enormous amount of things in this tier and there is literally nothing anyone can do to effectively "deal with" it by definition of a counter. Dugtrio can trap and beat many Clefable sets 1v1 and Clefable is one of the most important mons in the tier. Dugtrio singlehandedly forces two degenerate Toxapex adaptations: Eject Button if it's partnered with Dugtrio and Shed Shell if it doesn't want to get trapped by Dugtrio. Sylveon is running Quick Attack specifically to check Dugtrio. Stuff like Cinderace has extremely questionable viability largely because they just invite Dugtrio in for a free kill.

I implore anyone who wants to defend Dugtrio, or Arena Trap as a whole, to just think very carefully about the implications of seeing a Dugtrio on your opponent's team preview. Because if you're worth your salt I can assure you that you are forced to play the game completely differently to avoid giving Dugtrio a free kill if it comes in on the right mon.

 

[theotherguytm]

Whats your opinion on Moody? Only one user was consistently able to pull off the abuse of that ability - Glalie - yet rather than banning the Pokemon we banned the abilitity. This prevents you from using Moody Snorunt and Moody Remoraid, because we decided that the principle of randomly boosting stats itself is uncompetitive even if not every Pokemon can use it to its maximal effectiveness.

Same goes for Dugtrio vs arena trap

Actually, Octillery was also able to pull off some stupid stunts with parahax of all things. But yeah, I don't see anything stopping people running over teams with Moody Snorunt though sheer luck. Same here. The literal only reason people aren't using Diglet and Trapinch is because of Dugtrio being wholly superior to Diglet, and almost entirely superior to Trapinch.

 

[Mame YO]

Yes they are example of bad mons being viable because of their abilities

Bad mons being propped up by an OP ability is evidence that the ability should be banned rather than the mon (in this case obviously it’s AT vs dugtrio, Diglett, Trapinch). I think we’ve been through this enough to know how a suspect will end. I support a quick ban on arena trap.

 

[Zneon]

I'm sorry but the argument "only 1 Pokemon user of arena trap is broken" is extremely flawed logic.

We have 1 great abuser of the ability, but just because we have 1 user of it that is used mostly, that makes it less broken or unhealthy? That doesn't make any sense. Gothitelle has been the most used user of Shadow Tag because it was the most broken user of it, but since it was the most used user, did that make Shadow Tag less broken?

No. It didn't, because the ability in itself is broken and uncompetitive, regardless on who you put it on, which is the same for Arena Trap. It doesn't matter that Dugtrio is the only good user of it because it doesn't change the fact that Arena Trap is inherently a problem and if you put it on any Pokemon it would be a problem too.

Furthermore I forgot to say in my original post, but quickban it, there's no point in wasting time on a suspect if we know how it'll end.

 

[Zentrius]

can we please stop using diglet and trapinch simply existing as an excuse to ban dugtrio instead of arena trap? i dont need to explain why arena trap is pactically just as broken (if not more) than shadow tag all things considered. this should be enough of a reason as to why ban it instead of dugtrio. i certainly dont want to risk losing time by banning dugtrio and then people abusing diglett as an arena trap abuser.

 

[galarian darmanitan]

No.

Back in Gen 7, Dugtrio was suspect tested pretty early on. Part of the reason it was not banned was because people just switched to using Diglett or Trapinch and achieved similar results. It was clear that Arena Trap was the problem.

The reason you don't see Diglett or Trapinch isn't because they can't abuse Arena Trap to hell and back, but because Dugtrio abuses it more due to being less statistically awful.

I dont think that precedent necessarily carries over. This meta is not the Gen 7 meta, at least in theory we cant say for sure that using diglett or trapinch allows teams to achieve similar results without a suspect.