Announcement SM OU Suspect Process, Round 2 - Dirt

[hecatomb]

Zygarde is only OU because of Thousand Arrows. Tapu Koko is only OU because of Electric Surge. Being able to turn otherwise-mediocre Pokemon into OU threats is not, by itself, grounds for a band.



The reason is that a lot of the stallbreakers who can also beat Dugtrio are mediocre otherwise. Their usage would make the meta too matchup-based, as you'll steamroll through Duggy teams while losing to everything else. The winner and loser are decided in Team Preview, and that's no fun.



Another (much smaller, admittedly) problem with Diglett is that at least Dugtrio could live a few weak attacks from opposing stall teams. Chansey 2HKOs Diglett with Seismic Toss while Toxapex 1HKOs with Scald (assuming it gets the burn), but not Dugtrio.

If that was the case shadow tag would have never gotten banned. Doesnt change the fact playing vs dugtrio is still completely boring to play against, with its only way of winning is arena trap. Dugtrio still can counter char-x and heatran. Its just nothing but a gimmick pokemon that shouldnt be in OU.

 

[pika pal]

As someone who has been using Dugtrio quite regularly on 1500+ ladder the past few weeks I believe that neither he or arena trap are broken. If we look at all the threats in OU, focus sash Dugtrio doesn't beat too many pokemon in a 1v1 situation. Dugtrio doesn't even beat mega Metagross since earthquake isn't a OHKO and Metagross can just follow up with a bullet punch after a meteor mash. Another high profile threat in OU is scarf Lele, who also beats Dugtrio. Dugtrio can't effortlessly trap and kill walls as easily as magnet pull Magnezone either. Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Skarmory are trapped by Magnezone and are OHKOed by HP fire and thunderbolt respectively. If you do take Dugtrio out of OU there are a large number of pokemon that are already really big threats that will become too hard to handle such as specs Lele (or even scarf Lele who doesn't have to deal with losing ~70% of it's health to earthquake), Z-Fire blast Volcarona and the previously mentioned Magnezone. It is for these reasons that I will be voting No Ban if I gain reqs this suspect.

Dugtrio's not about removing Walls, he's about removing specific offensive threats/breakers like Heatran. It's most commonly employed for Stall teams who are designed to weather punishment and generally only need one thing removed by Duggy to ensure their win condition has a clear path. Also, Mega Metagross has been running Bullet Punch less often, partly because of Lele, and Dugtrio takes enough of a chunk to ruin it even if it's a trade. For that matter, Dugtrio has sets besides Focus Sash, even if that is his most used: Darkium Z, Choice Band, and Choice Scarf have all been mentioned at different points. He doesn't need to beat a lot of things 1v1, he just needs to beat a couple particular things 1v1, which he does very well thanks to his adequate stats and the obvious Arena Trap.

And as for your latter statement about "big threats that will become too hard to handle", that doesn't factor into this suspect. This suspect is about if Dugtrio is an uncompetitive element in the metagame in which it exists, not how powerful the things it checks will be if it's gone. Even assuming these mons did become over bearing, tiering policy does not advocate for uncompetitive to check uncompetitive.

 

[Morningstar]

Let me get this straight. There are 3 trapping abilities in the game: Arena Trap, Shadow tag and Magnet Pull. Of the three, Shadow Tag traps everything but Ghost-types and Magnet Pull only traps Steel-types. In the Middle is Arena Trap, which is Shadow Tag if Flying-types or Pokemon with levitate are also immune to it right?

In that scenario I can see an argument about the ability not being broken...but I don't think that holds any water since the only difference is that an ability and another type has freedom form that ability, but regardless this is discussion of Dugtrio, not the ability itself.

With that said, Arena Trap is only part of Dugtrio's problems. It attack has been boosted and its type is Ground. Which means STAB Earthquakes running off 100 base Attack. This means from a general type perspective, Fire-types get screwed over that much more (I would have a hard time not beveling that Stall wouldn't use Rocks), Electric-types and Steel-types meant for countering Fairies and Ice-types used for countering Dragons or more likely, setting up Aurora Veil would have a harder time doing their jobs, and unless you are a Flying or Ghost-type, you have no choice but to take down the moles, even if your pokemon were to faint in the process, which means that you either lose a pokemon or whatever your were trying to counter would just revenge kill you.

And a decent attack stat of 100 and STAB Earthquake means that there potential for Arena Trap Dugtrio in Offense as a Sweeper and possibly a more effective Stallbreaker (in terms of killing the pokemon at least) than the Stallbreakers, due to Earthquake's properties. It doesn't make contact, which means that Baneful Bunker would not poison Dugtrio, and it also means that Toxapex would have to use Toxic to poison the thing while risking taking damage.

252 Atk Choice Band Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Toxapex: 222-264 (73 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252 Atk Choice Band Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 271-319 (42.2 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 370-436 (51.8 - 61%) -- 95.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

With that said, it is pretty frail with 35/50/50 bulk and a Flying-type weakness. A Kartana with Arial Ace/Leaf Blade or Landorus could get rid of it.

252 Atk Kartana Leaf Blade vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Dugtrio: 650-768 (308 - 363.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Dugtrio: 334-394 (158.2 - 186.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

...But the problem is switching into these pokemon in the first place, U-Turn and Parting Shot would bypass the ability to switch them in (I assume Volt Tackle is out due to immunity), but not all pokemon can learn either move (in fact the only pokemon that can Use Parting Shot I can think of are Pangoro and Silvally) and those that can might have to deal with 4MSS. You could use a Shed Shell or Smoke Ball but that would mean one of your pokemon must sacrifice sweeping potential (Tapu Lele for example) to survive and might get knocked out by pokemon that they would had fainted at their full power. Air Balloon is worse becuase unlike the other two, it can be destroyed (and Dugtrio can learn Pursuit.)

Lastly the Flying-types that can avoid Arena Trap? They also have anadvange aganst Ground types, which means that could try to kill it...or they could get OHKO'd by the Rock-type coverage moves like Rock Tomb (a trapping move) or Stone Edge (which has a high crit rate)

If I were to consider getting the COIL rating, I'd err on the side of ban for Dugtrio (I assume the Alola forms wouldn't count as a separate pokemon for bans), but I think a look at the ability and its strictly better counterpart might be needed later on for consistency's sake. But most of this post is theorymonning, things might be different in practice.

 

[mulgokizary]

And as for your latter statement about "big threats that will become too hard to handle", that doesn't factor into this suspect. This suspect is about if Dugtrio is an uncompetitive element in the metagame in which it exists, not how powerful the things it checks will be if it's gone. Even assuming these mons did become over bearing, tiering policy does not advocate for uncompetitive to check uncompetitive.

Please don't bring up stupid buzzwords like this when we're talking about tiering... we're never going to be able to (or rather, we shouldn't) vote based on whether or not something is "uncompetitive" because the interpretation of the word that everyone has is way too vague. Does Dugtrio's presence in the tier "reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant"? Maybe some people would think so, but IMHO this probably isn't true. (There is a decent amount of player choice involved in whether or not something is going to die, and when they're going to die, AND in what context, to duggy; am I going to let dugtrio kill my Magma Tran or whatever other breaker I'm using to take down a threat like skarm/toxa/quag and possibly get rocks up? The choice is on the onus of the player. There are lots of Pokemon that don't have this choice, ie Hoopa Kartana MGyara and other things that are slower than Dugtrio and die to reversal, but in that situation it's unwise to be using them at that particular moment if Stealth Rock isn't up on the field.) You can make up hypothetical situations like these all day, but they aren't going to change anyone's ~subjective~ viewpoint about whether or not stopping your opponent from switching inhibits player choice to a degree large enough to be called uncompetitive.

The stupider assertion here is that we shouldn't be considering how Dugtrio restricts teambuilding in a healthy matter as part of the reason to cast our vote... If you're voting on whether or not to remove a Pokemon from the metagame, I'd at least like you to consider the viability of every archetype and how it's going to effect teambuilding and the metagame at large, not just whether or not a Pokemon is "uncompetitive". It's up to us to create an engaging and fair metagame for every type of player, not to wag our fingers because we disagree with what an ability does on principle alone.

Stall is in a bad position right now. If Dugtrio is a blanket check to things that run over stall in the meta, it isn't even a great one. With the advent of Z-Moves, Stealth Rock is easier to get up than ever. The best rocker is both not grounded and has great breaking ability, being able to beat Skarmory and Zapdos easily. The fastest electric in the tier that sets terrain can U-Turn out of Dugtrio unless they're running the suboptimal scarf set (which stall shouldn't be running, because Dugtrio really needs the free hit + reversal to keep pressure off of the rest of the team consistently. Rendering things like Hoopa, Kartana, MDos without Substitute useless when rocks are up is more important than trying to outspeed a Tapu Koko or break some stuff with band for no reason.) so it's easier than ever to get rocks up and spam VoltTurn to weaken everything while giving the stall player dangerous 50/50s to overcome on every turn. There's a hyper offensive spiker that Sableye can't take Hydro Pumps from. Anything with Beast Boost snowballs maniacally, Fightinium-Z Pheromosa in particular is the first special attacker that can consistently bring Chansey (and sometimes Toxapex!) down. If stall isn't running Quagsire, electric terrain lets M-Meta 6-0 even while running Bullet Punch. It just isn't even close to as overwhelming as it was last gen to face. Dugtrio holding together stall is like scotch tape holding together a school report. It's messy and commonly inhibited from doing its job correctly.

What Dugtrio does give stall is a fighting chance. It healthily restricts teambuilding and streamlines the metagame. It makes greedy items and trends inconsistent and thus unviable. This is all assuming rocks aren't up:

• Tapu Lele is forced to run Shed Shell or Dugtrio kills it, so it doesn't have the opportunity to run an item that lets it 6-0 stall like Lum Berry (can't be toxiced and stalled out) or Mind Plate which can secure OHKOs on stuff like Tangrowth at +2 and let Lele hit even harder in other matchups. So stall has a fighting chance, albeit a small one, against Tapu Lele.
• Teams can't use fast beast boost SDers like Z-Move Kartana as their sole way to beat stall. Rocks need to be up, they need to stay up with continuous applied pressure, and you need to find that window to SD. Similarly, they can't put their eggs into one basket with things like M-Gyara without giving up a moveslot for Substitute and leaving themselves free to be whirlwinded.
• M-Meta can't survive Dugtrio without giving up breaking coverage for Bullet Punch. Without having to make this concession it would be destroying bulky teams without breaking a sweat.
  
• Hoopa can't come in and click a banded/specs move for free every time. Even if rocks are up it can get revenged, and if rocks aren't up it won't be doing anything at all except for breaking Dugtrio's sash.

The list can go on and on. All of this and more is seeing usage on the suspect ladder right now. I guarantee that anyone who thinks that stall is "too good" with Dugtrio allowed doesn't prepare for it enough. The metagame is young, we're finding new ways to adapt every day. There are enough ways to make concessions for beating stall without sacrificing overall team viability (I listed a number of them in the VR thread, and keep finding new ones.)

The most ironic thing is that people like ABR who were preaching for a laissez-faire approach towards tiering during the Genesect test want Dugtrio to be banned. Once we ban stall's generic threat handler, there are going to be too many threats that are too much for bulky teams and we're going to sacrifice their place in our metagame in order to make bulky teams somewhat viable, just like we did last generation. We create our own monsters in a way. This is better than fiction. You guys take away Landorus, and then cry about Dugtrio. You guys take away Dugtrio, and then cry about Hoopa and Tapu Lele. The barking will never end.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Jojobobo]

To put forward what's going to be an extremely unpopular argument, I think people are over-stating the threat of Dugtrio and I do think people should be getting more creative to overcome it rather than calling for a ban. To give perspective, I'm an offence player who would actually benefit from Dugtrio being banned from the tier and removed from the stall equation. Even so I'm not keen to ban it.

This isn't to say most of what people have said about Dugtrio isn't true: it is a bit of a skill-less mon to use, it can do an excellent job of trapping key steel types, as well as checking and/or revenging certain threats with it's sash intact, even being capable of a nice clean with its speed tier. However even with the attack boost this gen the damage it offers isn't great as it doesn't make effective use of attack boosting items, and it is extremely frail so you can't easily manually switch it into anything. It also does have limited trapping power, being incapable of trapping Flying-types, levitate users, ghosts and anything that uses an Air Balloon (which isn't a bad option on many steel types it should supposedly be trapping). While it does have EdgeQuake to neutrally hit a lot of the tier, it's coverage beyond that is pretty sucky - relying on terrible moves like Reversal to flesh this coverage out. Lastly, there's a lot of common faster threats this gen who will KO it if its sash isn't intact (and some who can KO it regardless, like Ash-Greninja with Water Shuriken).

To go into a little more detail about Flying types immune to Arena Trap, I guess people may point to Stone Edge being a good way to deal with these mons. While this will do a lot of damage to them it's not enough to grab an OHKO without rocks. Arbitrarily I chose Tornadus-T, as it's pretty damn frail, as an example of this:

252 Atk Dugtrio Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Tornadus-Therian: 244-288 (81.6 - 96.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

With no HP investment and with a Defence reducing nature Dugtrio still can't do the job on a pretty fragile mon like Torn-T, which I think perfectly demonstrates it's poor offensive presence which limits it's capabilities. If we contrast it to Gothitelle, which had physical bulk and could trap and subsequently KO or annoy (Trick Scarf) an entire tier barring ghosts or Shed Shell users and could manually switch-in to a variety of things without dying, Dugtrio has no way near that level of utility trapping presence.

While Dugtrio undoubtedly provides a large amount of threat, the amount of limiting factors that are placed on Dugtrio (somewhat poor offensive presence, non-existent bulk making manually switching-in prediction reliant or meaning you have to use your sash to take the damage, a trapping ability and move pool that make it's trapping considerably more specific than Gothitelle with Shadow Tag, relying on the sash to deal with faster threats) are really why I don't think it's broken. While this is only considering Dugtrio by itself and not with a full teams worth of support, it's definitely worth establishing that Dugtrio has many fundamental flaws.

Now, ask not what Dugtrio can do to you, but what you can do to Dugtrio. People keep talking about Shed Shell like it's some last resort so many teams are having to take to deal with Dugtrio, when really there are plenty of options out there:

- Set up Rocks or other hazards to break the sash. Not entirely easy against stall and Mega Sableye, but you can always use a Fairy setter, a Skill Swap setter or a Mold Breaker setter.

- Use Tapu Bulu. Grassy Terrain weakens Dugtrio's primary means of damage (EQ), meaning that it can no longer effectively trap a lot of steel types, e.g. 252 Atk Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Metagross-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 98-116 (32.5 - 38.5%) -- 3.4% chance to 3HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery

- Use a Sub. Subbing means that even if Dugtrio is faster, you can still get him to the sash 1% with a strong move, then 2HKO if you're not weak to his coverage with retaining good HP with Leftovers (given the previously mentioned relative low damage of Dugtrio). Substitute additionally provides a good match-up against a lot of stall, and everything can learn it.

- Use a faster mon. Ash-Greninja OHKOes with Water Shuriken, and there's plenty other high viability threats that will either OHKO after Rocks or get him to the 1% needed to be picked off by another fast threat/a slower threat that can take the hit/priority. The definition of a "faster mon" can be broadened by use of a Scarf, Trick Room, Tailwind or Sticky Web to make lower speed threats "faster".

- Use a slower bulkier threat that has priority, e.g. SubCoil Zygarde, again not a bad mon vs stall.

- Use a slower threat with a multi-hitting move, e.g. Icicle Spear Mamoswine.

- Use Hail (likely for the purposes of Aurora Veil), to break its sash. Hail can't be defogged away, and stall teams lack opposing weather to deal with it.

- Use Air Balloon on your steel types, making opponents waste a turn to get you grounded.

- Use a bulky Flying-type that doesn't fear Stone Edge, e.g. Landorus, Gliscor or even things like defensive Zapdos.

- Use Reflect or Aurora Veil, reducing Dugtrio's ability to do the damage it needs to trap successfully.

- Or, if you insist, use Shed Shell or something like a berry to handle its SE coverage, e.g. a Flying-type with Charti berry.

EDIT: - For a lucky number 12, some ghosts provide reasonable pressure to Dugtrio and stall as he can't switch in and they can readily switch out. Alolan-Marowak and potentially something like a SubTaunt Gengar would do this well.

EDIT 2: - For conventional stall (Mega Sab/Chansey/Skarmory/Toxapex/Dugtrio/Clefable) Mega Gyarados with Dragon Dance/Taunt/Crunch/Iron Head does pretty well, provided you've done any weakening of their team at all and you time your Mega Evo on Clefable well enough (a 60 SpDef EVs avoids the 3HKO without Rocks on Clefable, and if you run Adamant you only need to get to the +2 in the first place to have a >80% chance of an OHKO, more than achievable with Taunt). The set some of the common Fairies (Bulu, Lele) as well as Mega Metagross when set-up, so I don't think it's dead weight or ridiculous, Iron Tail could also be used but the poor accuracy feels risky.

That's 11 12 13 strategies right there which counter-play Dugtrio to different extents, which is why I don't think Dugtrio places a huge constraint on team building. Many of these strategies have something to offer against a broad spectrum of team archetypes, so I think the argument that you have to either (A) over-prepare for and beat stall or (B) run a different team that has better counter-play to other styles but loses to stall, is a valid one. I think the greater issue is players don't want to use these strategies which leads to clamouring for a ban, but I think that's a terrible reason to ban something which as I mentioned does have a number of limiting factors around using it successfully in the first place.

If I get the reqs I'll be voting do not ban. In my opinion it's not good to always ban a strong threat rather than try to overcome it, which it's hard not to feel is a little bit the case here. As I initially mentioned, I am an offence player so if it is banned I will actually benefit - but for the laundry list of reasons I've mentioned I still don't think it should be. It does seem however that the climate already is pro-ban, so I doubt this post or my vote will make much of an impact.

 

[Destructive55AZ]

It feels wrong to ban Dugtrio, this should be an Arena Trap Suspect Test. However I'll argue to ban Dugtrio, why? Decent stats which don't look like much, but are worth more than imaginable in tandem with Arena Trap. Dugtrio is an extremely speedy pokemon who is able to fulfill a number of roles effectively. He gets many moves, such as reversal, memento, stealth rock and some more coverage. His ability is horrifically toxic. It encourages players to play overly cautious and completely disallows the use of many pokemon. A choice spec/scarf/band user locked into an electric attack? Dugtrio can switch in and setup whatever he runs, while they are forced to wait out the inevitable. Dugtrio was the recipient of a massive buff which now makes him a formidable revenge killer and extremely popular. Players are guaranteed to lose one or more pokemon if Dugtrio is correctly used. This is unfair. This is a pokemon who forces you to play their way. There is no being cautious with Dugtrio. Only playing around it so specifically that your entire strategy is crippled and some of your pokemon useless. Fact of the matter is that being trapped by arena trap leaves you beyond crippled and guarantees at least a revenge kill. The only pokemon immune to this are flying types and levitate users. That is a clear minority in OU. While Dugtrio skyrockets in usage and destroys entire teams what can you do? Vote BAN for Dugtrio.

 

[Jojobobo]

theorymonners plz stop posting tho, you're not funny and everybody sees right through your bs. i've read so many posts in here that just blatantly lack a grasp of the meta and just pull ridiculously dumb points out to try prove something

While I find the other points you made reasonable, I think this was a great way to lower the tone of the thread immediately and from a respectable SPL player I find that surprising (plus with likes from moderators no less). Seeing as you don't qualify who you're talking about (could be me, could be anyone) with the "lack a grasp of the meta" stuff you're using it as a blanket nay-say to any anti-ban arguments that have come before, while also implying that your knowledge is vastly superior and people who don't agree with you are idiots. Regardless of how you feel about the anti-ban arguments, how you've articulated yourself here is derogatory and extremely poor.

I would like to think I speak for everyone in saying can we at least try and set a better tone than posts like that accomplish and discuss this rationally. Hopefully other people can manage to address the other side of the debate with more respect than what was demonstrated above.

 

[Colonel M]

While I find the other points you made reasonable, I think this was a great way to lower the tone of the thread immediately and from a respectable SPL player I find that surprising (plus with likes from moderators no less). Seeing as you don't qualify who you're talking about (could be me, could be anyone) with the "lack a grasp of the meta" stuff you're using it as a blanket nay-say to any anti-ban arguments that have come before, while also implying that your knowledge is vastly superior and people who don't agree with you are idiots. Regardless of how you feel about the anti-ban arguments, how you've articulated yourself here is derogatory and extremely poor.

In spite of what could be seen as a rather poor tone, he's not necessarily wrong either. This happens many times in previous suspect threads where players who, honestly, are bad and will attempt to make flaky comments such as "Mega Gengar has counters", or "Mega Metagross back in Gen 6 is literally killing the meta." Or other rather poor statements.

I've been glancing at the thread, and there are still some anti-ban arguments that aren't necessarily bad arguments. papai noel's argument is not necessarily bad, and neither is mulgokizary's. I seriously question Tele's as an example, but I can at least respect he goes into a little detail on why he thinks the Dugtrio suspect is wrong.

I can even look at this thread's arguments for Dugtrio and call them poor. Below is a perfect example:

If that was the case shadow tag would have never gotten banned. Doesnt change the fact playing vs dugtrio is still completely boring to play against, with its only way of winning is arena trap. Dugtrio still can counter char-x and heatran. Its just nothing but a gimmick pokemon that shouldnt be in OU.

Even if playing against stall can be seen as "boring", that does not reserve the tier a right to simply ban things because it is stagnant nor un-entertaining. Smogon may not always seem like it, but tiering is a very serious and practiced thing since its inception in Generation 4. Sometimes you disagree with something, but the matter is that Smogon strives for competitive - not for pleasure. Pleasure is subjective in this case to the player. After all, some players like Eo Ut Mortus do enjoy playing stall.

Alas, let's look at such gems that have come about from the thread:

Dugtrio can't effortlessly trap and kill walls as easily as magnet pull Magnezone either.

That's blatantly false.

Dugtrio actually can trap two walls without too many issues that are common in a stall core - Toxapex and Chansey (Blissey). Clefable could even be argued as a third. Magnezone has only one Pokemon usually that it can trap and attempt to KO, and it has even heftier requirements than Dugtrio does against certain walls:

- Shed Shell needs removal from Skamrory.
- Magnezone needs to be brought in when Skarmory is not using Whirlwind.

Choice Band Dugtrio reliably 2HKOes Toxapex in spite of the burn while Sash Dugtrio takes on Chansey as if it were a joke most of the time. Some Dugtrio have even opted for Tectonic Rage just to hit the sweet spot of KO ranges. As a fun fact - Magnezone can actually lose to a lot of Pokemon it attempts to trap. Ferrothorn and Mega Scizor are two of the rarest guarantees.

If you do take Dugtrio out of OU there are a large number of pokemon that are already really big threats that will become too hard to handle such as specs Lele (or even scarf Lele who doesn't have to deal with losing ~70% of it's health to earthquake), Z-Fire blast Volcarona and the previously mentioned Magnezone. It is for these reasons that I will be voting No Ban if I gain reqs this suspect.

What exactly makes Magnezone overbearing in the meta? As a protip - In spite of Magnezone's rather modest usage it has been hit or miss throughout spl. Magnezone is a good Pokemon, but it is nothing that is close to broken in terms of being too overwhelming for teams to handle.

Dugtrio kills _______ lando comes in and gives a free dance or garchomp, gyrados, buzzwole, beast boost(or quiver dance) and etc. Dugtrio getting its kill can be costly if the other team can build around turning that into momentum.

Here's another argument where, ironically, I needed p2 to re-explain to me in normal terms just because how bad this post is in my opinion. Going back to the argument made earlier by one of the anti-ban Dugtrio movement Stall sometimes has to make a critical choice to safely get Dugtrio in. The thing stall will always evaluate prior to is its chances of winning in spite of losing a critical Pokemon. Sometimes this scenario doesn't even happen with Pyukumuku and Shedinja because you have Baton Pass to get Dugtrio in a lot safer! Many of those Pokemon you mentioned fail to break a combination of some of the regular stall components in the OU tier. Example of Buzzwole - Toxapex and Clefable as a combo can handle just about any Buzzwole set. Mega Sableye and Skarmory still can back up the team as well. Even though some of these momentum Pokemon, like Gyarados, can be frightening they also have to take rather large gambles at times to overcome some of the walls. Example - Supersonic Skystrike would be needed to bypass Toxapex effectively. A stall player could predict ahead of their opponent and re-direct it to Skarmory. There's also risks when something like Toxapex switches into Gyarados because of the risk of burn through Scald or Haze removing stat bonuses.

This is why I said in my post from before - it is true that some Pokemon with Z Moves, in theory, can overcome stall. In practice a stall player can adapt to these strategies and redirect the Z Moves elsewhere. Unlike very bulky teams stall can survive with a fallen member in their team if they need too, and in some cases usually do without many issues. It's true the metagame has developed and theorized better Pokemon that can overmuscle stall, but in the same ironic vein Dugtrio can be used on offensive teams to make the dents necessary for offensive teams to have an easier time to pressure and crush.

Let's go to your post for a minute to demonstrate examples of what could be seen as poor arguments with little-to-no justification:

- Set up Rocks or other hazards to break the sash. Not entirely easy against stall and Mega Sableye, but you can always use a Fairy setter, a Skill Swap setter or a Mold Breaker setter.

The only Stealth Rock Fairy-type that even comes close to my head is Clefable. The latter two have issues - mainly being the first one is strictly a suicide lead. The latter eats a lot of risk such as a Will-O-Wisp, etc.

- Use a slower bulkier threat that has priority, e.g. SubCoil Zygarde, again not a bad mon vs stall.

Zygarde without Toxic means it loses to stall the majority of the time. It needs Toxic to pressure Clefable and other threats.

I could go on since you mentioned incredibly niche and situational setups (Aurora Veil or Hail?), but the point is simple - even if you completely disagree with the tone that p2 made with his post, it does not dismiss that there is a lot of solid evidence supporting such a bold claim. Sorry to not delve further, but 10 hours of work with minimal sleep exhausts me. :[

 

[Morningstar]

I could go on since you mentioned incredibly niche and situational setups (Aurora Veil or Hail? Is Offense really that depserate to break a Focus Sash?), but the point is simple - even if you completely disagree with the tone that p2 made with his post, it does not dismiss that there is a lot of solid evidence supporting such a bold claim. Sorry to not delve further, but 10 hours of work with minimal sleep exhausts me. :[

As one of those theorymonners that p2 disbarged, this might sound a tad hypocritical, but maybe the problem is a low barrier to entry then? Maybe there needs to be a requirement in place before discussing on suspect threads? Something that requires at least a little experience with the meta on Showdown before posting on the suspect threads?

 

[Jojobobo]

In spite of what could be seen as a rather poor tone, he's not necessarily wrong either.

I don't there's any "could be seen as a rather poor tone" about it, it is a poor tone. I get that people like you and p2 get frustrated about people posting subjective nonsense arguments, which seem to fill out the rest of the content of your post, but you should be able to rise above it. You personally do a good job of rising above it, p2 clearly did not. Without going blow-by-blow with the other points of your post, I get that there's a lot of subjective nonsense anti-ban arguments from other people already and agree that such arguments aren't constructive. I guess hopefully people will think a little more before they speak and attempt to represent the most objective arguments possible, but we'll see.

Regarding my points that you countered...

- Set up Rocks or other hazards to break the sash. Not entirely easy against stall and Mega Sableye, but you can always use a Fairy setter, a Skill Swap setter or a Mold Breaker setter.

The only Stealth Rock Fairy-type that even comes close to my head is Clefable. The latter two have issues - mainly being the first one is strictly a suicide lead. The latter eats a lot of risk such as a Will-O-Wisp, etc.

In addition to Clefable, as I was talking about "other hazards" too, I was also referring to Klefki. Unless the stall opponent leads with his Dugtrio, Klefki should be able to get one layer of spikes down against stall. There are options here to break the sash is what I'm saying. I could have gone into this detail initially, but I thought the post was over long as it was - it wasn't me under-qualifying things to try and win arguments or be a dick.

- Use a slower bulkier threat that has priority, e.g. SubCoil Zygarde, again not a bad mon vs stall.

Zygarde without Toxic means it loses to stall the majority of the time. It needs Toxic to pressure Clefable and other threats.

What I did qualify after my points was that they deal with Dugtrio to an extent. Likewise, Zygarde does weaken stall to an extent, depending on the particular team make-up. I don't think I really portrayed Zygarde as beating stall all the time, just that the common SubCoil set certainly has inherent utility against stall the other pokemon lack, particularly when paired with another mon that can weaken stall. Again, I didn't qualify all these points due to the length of the post.

I could go on since you mentioned incredibly niche and situational setups (Aurora Veil or Hail? Is Offense really that depserate to break a Focus Sash?), but the point is simple - even if you completely disagree with the tone that p2 made with his post, it does not dismiss that there is a lot of solid evidence supporting such a bold claim. Sorry to not delve further, but 10 hours of work with minimal sleep exhausts me. :[

Breaking sashes is a byproduct of an Aurora Veil team due to Hail, not a desperate play to eliminate a sash - you're making it sound much more forced than it actually is. I've been using Aurora Veil and have had success with it (I got to 1700 with it before the suspect including defeating stall teams, but now the suspect has arrived I can't ladder in regular OU for the time being, I think it would have got higher but that's obviously an unsupported claim :p), so that's why it came to mind - it just doesn't feel so situational and niche to me. I guess that's the point I was driving for, if people got creative and tried some of the conventional stuff I suggested (Subs) or more out-lying anti-meta strategies (something like Aurora Veil) Dugtrio might not seem like such a problem that people claim it to be.

In the Mega Evolutions thread, I posted me setting up on Dugtrio with Power-Up Punch Mega Metagross due to Aurora Veil (see here: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-529429809) so I have practical experience that these anti-meta strategies do work. It's low ladder, but the principle is there - I designed the team in tackle multiple threats including stall with Dugtrio and laddered to drawing top 200 with it before the suspect came into force. Bulu Grassy Terrain which I've as repeatedly mentioned, a much more common strategy, weakens Dugtrio similarly. With this, and all the other things combined, I do think there's options for Dugtrio which lessen it's impact on teams in the context of stall or otherwise.

If people want me to elaborate on more of these points, I can do - I was just trying to keep it short to avoid boring people to death. Hope you get some decent sleep Colonel M, and thanks for the measured response in spite of exhaustion!

 

[volx757]

Please don't bring up stupid buzzwords like this when we're talking about tiering... we're never going to be able to (or rather, we shouldn't) vote based on whether or not something is "uncompetitive" because the interpretation of the word that everyone has is way too vague. Does Dugtrio's presence in the tier "reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant"? Maybe some people would think so, but IMHO this probably isn't true.

The "stupid buzzword" you're talking about is the basis of much of our tiering. Why would we disregard it? The tiering policy thread was written up, all lengthy and detailed, specifically so that we have a rubric of sorts with which to judge whatever is being suspected.
Your 'maybe some ppl think so but I think this probably isn't true,' is far less intelligent than the 'buzzword.' If you think it's probably not true, tell us why instead of just talking about ways to attack stall.

(There is a decent amount of player choice involved in whether or not something is going to die, and when they're going to die, AND in what context, to duggy; am I going to let dugtrio kill my Magma Tran or whatever other breaker I'm using to take down a threat like skarm/toxa/quag and possibly get rocks up? The choice is on the onus of the player. There are lots of Pokemon that don't have this choice, ie Hoopa Kartana MGyara and other things that are slower than Dugtrio and die to reversal, but in that situation it's unwise to be using them at that particular moment if Stealth Rock isn't up on the field.)

You're not serious, are you? This was a main point in my first post in this thread, choosing whether or not to get a KO because when you do there's a RK coming that you can do nothing about, is NOT A CHOICE. You have to KO mons to win the game. This quoted argument here makes me... feel bad.

The most ironic thing is that people like ABR who were preaching for a laissez-faire approach towards tiering during the Genesect test want Dugtrio to be banned. Once we ban stall's generic threat handler, there are going to be too many threats that are too much for bulky teams and we're going to sacrifice their place in our metagame in order to make bulky teams somewhat viable, just like we did last generation. We create our own monsters in a way. This is better than fiction. You guys take away Landorus, and then cry about Dugtrio. You guys take away Dugtrio, and then cry about Hoopa and Tapu Lele. The barking will never end.

There's no connection between Landorus and Dugtrio. Dugtrio has been an issue that's been discussed for years, and at least for a year or two on Smogon's policy review thread.
Smogon bans things for a balanced meta. The 'barking' ends every generation. If you think this community is too ban-happy, feel free to join a different community. You're half way there with the 'you guys' instead of 'we.'


EDIT:

When you think about stall throughout the 6th generation, you definetely see it as an issue. And if you think about it more attentively, the first time stall became problematic coincides with the release of Sablenite.

Correlation (or coincidence) != Causality

This argument holds no water on it's own. Let's address the next part of the post.

That's when Gothitelle stall was created. After Gothitelle's ban people started to look for new ways to build stall. Gothitelle was initially replaced with a pursuiter like Weavile, then later the same year Dugtrio Stall became very popular and that's when people started to realize how good Dugtrio could perform. Now, imagine if we ban Dugtrio: I am very sure people would go back to use something like Tyranitar or Weavile; and while those 2 pokemons aren't as efficient as Dugtrio, they are still able to perform some of the things Dugtrio does, like trapping common threats like Hoopa, Lele and Metagross-Mega and killing them with Pursuit. As long as Sableye-mega stays in the tier, Stall will always be problematic to handle.

The trapping capabilities of ttar and weavile are nowhere near those of dugtrio, I fail to see the comparison. You state that MSab is the broken thing here, but don't give any evidence or argument to back it up. This is certainly not a given, and if you want people to consider your arguments seriously, you really need to try to prove them. I'm sure you know that the MSab ban in ORAS was controversial; I, for one, believe it was a mistake, and the continued viability of dugtrio + double defog in ORAS seems to support my belief.
Regardless, this is quite a different meta from ORAS. See my earlier post or others' posts about how the meta changes make dugtrio even more of a cancerous mole.

 

[elodin]

damn this thread and this suspect are both so bad it actually tilted me to the point where i'm giving a fuck about this lol i really don't want this trash pokémon to be banned

wall of salt

i'm gonna make a really big post explaining some stuff in order:

1) why trapping isn't broken or uncompetitive (it depends on a lot of stuff)
2) why this suspect is the most dumb thing i've ever witnessed in the history of smogon (and i was there when people were defending style in ost)

1)
one of the premier arguments in the ban of dugtrio is arena trap. it's weird that arena trap is so much better in sm than it used to be in other generations, because its effect and utility in the metagame have been pretty much the same since release. let's take a look at that.

(friendly reminder that until bw there's no team preview, which means you can't even play around trapping as proactively as you can in recent generations.)

it seems rather odd to me that for some reason trapping has been considered a competitive strategy for a very long time yet suddenly people started to think about it in a different way after xy. maybe trapping has been broken for all these years and people never stopped to think about it, but that seems a bit unlikely. i've lost several times to volcaronas after dugtrios trapped my heatran. i've also lost a lot to dragons after magnezones killed my skarmory. hell, i've even lost a lot to some special sweepers such as raikou after dugtrios trapped my blissey in adv! why is it that this happens so much in old generations and it is only now being considered this uncompetitive?

my best guess is that trapping has always been a strategy that comes with an unpredictable risk/reward. if you bring a team with dugtrio + volcarona and your opponent doesn't bring anything that dugtrio can trap, you're essentially stuck with 5 pokémon. that pretty much sums why dugtrio and magnezone aren't broken: they're extremely situational.

with that said, it pretty much convinces me already that trapping in itself isn't a problem; it's the extent of it. that's why some clauses in previous generations exist (like misdreavus with mean look + perish song + hypnosis) and some trapping abilities have been straight banned. what puts you in a risky position before every match when using magnezone or dugtrio only happens because they're both very limited pokémon. that is why a pokémon such as mega gengar is completely broken in every tier he's in: because he can have a huge impact in nearly every match due to the extent of his trapping and his overall strength in movepool, typing and stats without having any drawbacks. dugtrio can only trap a handful of pokémon and relies on focus sash to do so almost every time. it's also so weak it offers free set up opportunities for pokémon that are extremely common in the tier. if something like mega gengar was released in bw ou i guarantee you it'd be used in every single team, because it wouldn't have any cost to it and the reward would be almost always very positive.

if you think dugtrio itself is broken for doing almost exactly what it has done since release then i say go ahead and vote to ban him from ou. i think it's important to note that some players actually think dugtrio should be banned in adv for reasons that are similar to the ones being said about his place in sm (difference is it's the actual reason in adv, it's not in sm). it is a fact that dugtrio is more relevant in these tiers than it is in bw / dpp, but i still don't think that's enough to justify a ban.

2)
we can now enter the topic that explains "well then if dugtrio isn't broken, why is it being suspected in the first place?". the reason behind this is something that i explained in my first post, but i will extend in this one: people don't like playing against stall and whatever they can do to weaken it will be done. it's ironic because dugtrio is actually pretty good into stall as it traps chansey and has a decent chance of trapping toxapex, but i guess it's much better in stall than against it in the current metagame as you pretty much don't lose anything by adding dugtrio into your stall team.

moving on, the reason behind this suspect is the fact that dugtrio coupled with stall actually makes a very strong core that turns pokémon into quite a matchup-reliant game. if you have a good matchup with stall you can win nearly every game unless you fuck up terribly, which means it doesn't take much skill to do.

does that mean dugtrio should be suspected? no. of course not. maybe it should be suspected later on, but it actually bothers me so much that in a metagame with so many broken things the second suspect is this. this proves why our suspect system is so flawed: we essentially ban strategies / pokémon we simply don't like facing, it doesn't really matter wether they're broken or not. there's no actual reason to suspect dugtrio before a list of at least 10 pokémon in the tier right now other than the fact that facing stall with it is frustrating as hell, because dugtrio was never suspected before and it never would've been if not paired with such a strong defensive core such as this one in sm. it's pathetic how much threats like mega metagross, tapu lele, pheromosa and greninja limit your teambuilding (much more than dugtrio) and it's bizarre that people would rather have them allowed than dugtrio.

it's really easy to create an argument that runs away from the actual reason why dugtrio is being banned. it's happening because of stall, and that is fucked up to say the least. banning something because we don't like facing it is pretty much recognizing we're not a competitive community, since we should ban pokémon based on their strength in the tier. it's really sad that we're gonna see a pokémon that has been really good and fun to watch for 4 generations be banned because of one playstyle, and it's even more sad to see that our tiering system is being organized like this.

also like i said before, later on there is going to be a mega sableye suspect anyway because i'm sure people will continue to lose to stall. if you don't believe me, just take a look at some spl replays where people used dugtrio stall. you'll see that most people who lost used teams that couldn't break stall regardless of dugtrio.

this is post is actually so long i'm just gonna make a tl;dr here and if you feel compelled by my thought process you go ahead and read the book that is above you:

- dugtrio does the same thing in previous gens but it traps more relevant stuff now (still less stuff than what it traps in adv though);
- dugtrio isn't broken in a tier where mega metagross, greninja, tapu lele, pheromosa and a lot of other things are;
- dugtrio is being banned because of stall;
- banning dugtrio proves our tiering system is silly;

 

[snaildelagate]

I don't understand people bringing up diglett and trapinch and therefore Arena Trap as whole as being even close or at all as broken as Dugtrio is currently. Dugtrio is broken is it able to trap a number of threats due to its speed if it only needs to trap one thing for stall to win against a team then it can switch-in to the desired breaker go down to its sash and then KO the mon. Neither diglett nor trapinch have this luxury at all Diglett due to its poor attack and mediocre speed making it unable to do anything besides revenge killing. Trapinch's non-existant speed means it always has to take 2 hits to switch-in which it can never do on any pokemon stall would actually want to trap and is thus only able to revenge kill. Dugtrio is broken since it can both revenge and switch-in on stall teams without a need to outplay and predict an opponent in order to eliminate threats due to its high speed which can protect a stall team much better than either diglett or trapinch could ever dream of doing. Being able to safely revenge kill threats is not even close to being uncompetitive, if you KO something with your scizor knowing your opponent has a Magnezone you can't say its uncompetitive when Magnezone comes in to guarantee a revenge. The control in revenge kill trappers situations is largely in the hands of the individual who scores the kill. It may be argued that Arena Trap itself is inherently uncompetitive but Diglett and Trapinch are more similar to Magnezone in their trapping ability than Dugtrio. While similar to Dugtrio in that Diglett and Trapinch are both dedicated trappers the list of threats but they cannot switch into threats like Duggy and are therefore simply crappy dedicated revenge killers. They cannot safely trap base The replays shown above with diglett like this one http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7oususpecttest-531418176 (taken from Kratosmana's post) Edit: Grabbed the wrong reply tbh Hoopa-U is still a lost cause with diglett lol. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7oususpecttest-531890653 this one is the one I thought I was linking in which diglett takes care of Tapu Fini and required prediction and smart play in order to have diglett secure a safe KO on Fini in this scenario Stall deserved the Win. I believe that diglett stall may lead to a more competitive metagame and will make stall less match-up based than previous iterations and more dependent of scouting an opponents switch-ins and patterns and finding an optimal time to bring diglett in to secure a victory.

TL;DR Ban Dugtrio. Don't Ban Arena Trap.

 

[Leo]

I don't understand people bringing up diglett and trapinch and therefore Arena Trap as whole as being even close or at all as broken as Dugtrio is currently. Dugtrio is broken is it able to trap a number of threats due to its speed if it only needs to trap one thing for stall to win against a team then it can switch-in to the desired breaker go down to its sash and then KO the mon. Neither diglett nor trapinch have this luxury at all Diglett due to its poor attack and mediocre speed making it unable to do anything besides revenge killing. Trapinch's non-existant speed means it always has to take 2 hits to switch-in which it can never do on any pokemon stall would actually want to trap and is thus only able to revenge kill. Dugtrio is broken since it can both revenge and switch-in on stall teams without a need to outplay and predict an opponent in order to eliminate threats due to its high speed which can protect a stall team much better than either diglett or trapinch could ever dream of doing. Being able to safely revenge kill threats is not even close to being uncompetitive, if you KO something with your scizor knowing your opponent has a Magnezone you can't say its uncompetitive when Magnezone comes in to guarantee a revenge. The control in revenge kill trappers situations is largely in the hands of the individual who scores the kill. It may be argued that Arena Trap itself is inherently uncompetitive but Diglett and Trapinch are more similar to Magnezone in their trapping ability than Dugtrio. While similar to Dugtrio in that Diglett and Trapinch are both dedicated trappers the list of threats but they cannot switch into threats like Duggy and are therefore simply crappy dedicated revenge killers. They cannot safely trap base The replays shown above with diglett like this one http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7oususpecttest-531418176 (taken from Kratosmana's post) Edit: Grabbed the wrong reply tbh Hoopa-U is still a lost cause with diglett lol. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7oususpecttest-531890653 this one is the one I thought I was linking in which diglett takes care of Tapu Fini and required prediction and smart play in order to have diglett secure a safe KO on Fini in this scenario Stall deserved the Win. I believe that diglett stall may lead to a more competitive metagame and will make stall less match-up based than previous iterations and more dependent of scouting an opponents switch-ins and patterns and finding an optimal time to bring diglett in to secure a victory.

TL;DR Ban Dugtrio. Don't Ban Arena Trap.

You say that Dugtrio is broken because it can both revenge kill and switch in while Diglett can't switch-in? Because that isn't true at all. Diglett can also come in on attacks that bring it down to its sash and trap threats to Stall just as Dugtrio. Dugtrio's slight superior "bulk" doesn't really matter because any attack will bring it down to its sash anyways. And then you link a replay where the Stall player "deserved the win" because he played his Diglett well aka abused its broken ability? He just sacked his Sableye and revenge killed with Dig, the same would've happened with a Dugtrio, I don't see your point. Was his opponent supposed to not kill Sableye fearing Dig. And it was Chanset who killed the Fini not Dig.

 

[Dakress]

I don't know about you guys, but I feel that banning Dugtrio instead of Area Trap feels like a temporary measure. I'm saying this because apparently (I wasn't around when this happened) Shadow Tag was, uncannily, in a similar situation as Duggy/Arena Trap is now.

"Gothstall" was a type of defensive team that had taken the ladder by storm and shown great effectiveness in the OU metagame(...).

The team in question has some variation but almost always followed a similar makeup of Mega Sableye / Gothitelle / Chansey / Skarmory / Quagsire / Amoonguss. Mega Sableye is the linchpin, as its control over the hazard game enables its teammates to stay healthy and prevents them from being worn down throughout the match. Gothitelle, on the other hand, shuts down some very threatening stallbreakers, such as Clefable and Manaphy, in addition to acting as a general nuisance through use of Trick and Thunder Wave.(...)

They both have the same role. Huh.

So let us start by looking at the arguments against Shadow Tag getting banned. One of the most prominent, is that Shadow Tag is arguably not banned on every Pokemon that receives it. Primarily, Gothitelle seems to be the only problem. Why ban an entire ability when it seems to have only one primary offender? Another argument is that Gothitelle was not really a problem in XY. If Gothitelle had not been a problem before ORAS introduced new Mega Evolutions, then why would it be the biggest problem now? The answer is most likely that Mega Sableye pushed the direction of stallbreakers in such a way that more "Gothitelle-weak" stallbreakers, such as Manaphy, started rising in usage(...).

The argument against banning Shadow Tag back then was pretty similar...

Additionally, Gothitelle is very limited in the teams it can be used on, and its usage almost exclusively comes on Mega Sableye stall teams. Gothitelle notably has a tendency to be matchup based and is dead weight in its fair share of matches(...).

There is of course an argument for Shadow Tag getting banned. Shadow Tag takes away a fundamental aspect of that game, that aspect being switching. Some people believe that taking away what is considered a fundamental aspect of the game should not be allowed in any form. These people also commonly called for a Shadow Tag suspect throughout XY and up to ORAS based on Shadow Tag's "uncompetitive" nature(...). In fact, Gothitelle can even stallbreak opposing defensive teams itself too, as most defensive Pokemon, such as Chansey and Skarmory, get crippled by TrickScarf. Gothitelle also can force teams to run odd items such as Shed Shell specifically to avoid getting trapped. However, such items are useless in virtually every other matchup.

Wobbuffet is another notable user of Shadow Tag in OU, although its effectiveness is more limited. It is more or less a glue used by offensive teams to trap and eliminate certain threats such as Mega Lopunny. While Wobbuffet has played almost no role in Shadow Tag reaching the level of concern a suspect usually draws, it is still important to note that Shadow Tag has uses in OU outside of the typical Gothitelle set.

...

So why the special treatment on Duggy? Is it because it didn't hit hard before? Or we should wait until GF makes a poke with Arena Trap+Swicheroo/Trick to ban the ability?
Also, why stall has to curse every trapper it touches???

 

[WebBowser]

re: "why are we suspecting Dugtrio now as opposed to before"

So trapping has always been an interesting ability.

It's interesting because every trapper is capable of doing exactly 1 thing in the entire game:

removes exactly 1 opposing threat (revenge killing usually)

give your team exactly 1 free turn (encore wobb, memento duggy)

In a vacuum, neither of these things are particularly broken. Trappers generally need to cripple/sac themselves to accomplish either of these roles and with the exception of mega-gengar (who is perma-forever banned) they tend to be rather weak pokemon. However, when paired with a mon who only needs a single free turn or has a limited number of checks, it can win games and do so in a very consistent manner. So the power of Dugtrio (or really, the power of any trapper) has less to do with the trapper in question and more to do with the power level of the tier it resides in (which is why up until the release of Mega Gengar, trappers like Goth and Wobb have consistently ranked higher in Ubers then in OU, because every viable threat only had a couple of checks in the entire tier). As OU receives more powerful threats, the reward for removing a single threat or giving yourself a free turn goes up, making trappers who were previously manageable substantially less so. This logic applies to any playstyle with a win condition, whether said win con is "use DD and clean" or "swap between my two regen mons until my opponent dies to rocks". The fact that duggy has found it's home in stall has more to do with the fact that most players only carry one mon that can threaten stall cores and use the remaining slots for stuff like team support (hazards, phasing, hazard removal, etc), checking offensive threats and running offensive threats of their own.

 

[Why internet why?]

"The reason is that a lot of the stall breakers who can also beat Dugtrio are mediocre otherwise. Their usage would make the meta too matchup-based, as you'll steamroll through Duggy teams while losing to everything else. The winner and loser are decided in Team Preview, and that's no fun."

Of all the mons I listed only trick latios and togekiss are mediocre, even these offer utitility by merely being on the team, Latios revenge kills and offers a load of resistances to a team, Togekiss checks some pheromosa, most garchomp, acts as a cleric, and overall destroys most slower teams late game. The rest of them Are far from mediocre they are used a load for reasons other than stallbreaking. And another thing your heavily exaggerating the team match up, with that logic pheromosa is an auto loss against teams with marowak. Unless I'm mistaken the point of team building is too have a consistent win rate against most play styles if changing one slot to have a much higher win rate against stall leaves you too weak too other play styles then the rest of your team needs to change to better deal with those play styles

 

[Aberforth]

I dont really care about this suspect, but I feel Dugtrio being suspected before things like Tapu Lele/Gren/Meta/ZLando is a bit of an odd choice. Not to say that because these things are broken that Dugtrio cannot be broken, but I feel the extremely limiting factor these pokemon have might be a factor in shaping the metagame into one where Dugtrio is much better than it would be if those threats were removed. The sheer power of those threats limits teambuilding in such a way and degree that the meta happens to be very favourable to Duggy, and without that pressure from those threats, I dont think Dugtrio would be broken due to additional room in the teambuilder level. As such, I don't think that voting to ban Dugtrio now is the best choice, and we can always resuspect it after those threats have been suspected if it continues to be broken.

Not like it means much as I'm almost certainly not getting reqs, this ladder is cancerous as fuck, with every second team being bullshit baton pass that needs to just fucking go.

 

[FlamingVictini]

I can't be bothered to read every post thus far or write something lengthy myself, or even bother writing a full argument for why dug should be banned. I have seen some decent arguments for and against the ban, but one thing I've noticed is that a lot of people are only thinking about dugtrio with regards to stall and coming to conclusions based on that. Dugtrio can very easily be utilized on any type of team and immediately restrict the opponent straight from team preview, even if it is never sent out in the entire game. Just an example, in my SPL game vs ABR, dugtrio never got sent out, but it still helped me in the game because he had to be careful about leaving in his rain sweepers as rain ended (and if I was good and running jolly, I would be able to outrun his swift swim sweepers even while rain was up), since I could pick them off with some prior damage. Did I ever intend for dugtrio to function like that? Not actively, I just wanted a fast revenge killer that didn't give my opponent room to play around. If someone used volcarona against me with that team, all I had to do was not give it two turns to quiver dance, and dugtrio could come in right after and cleanly remove it from the game. If I used scarf garchomp instead, the volcarona would be able to still switch out and kill something the next time it came back in, and going hard garchomp would risk hp ice and me just losing the next time volcarona had an opportunity to set up. With other mons I can easily cover a variety of opposing mons, but with dugtrio I can ensure that my opponent's target mons will have no counterplay, or that they will have to play differently to avoid getting trapped. And its not even that duggy has just one viable set, it can easily be catered to defeat a myriad of other mons. Dugtrio removes counterplay with its ability, and that's why it is uncompetitive. This isn't a matter of removing the inconvenience dug brings when trying to break stall, its that near-universal trapping doesn't require any skill to utilize effectively and is uncompetitive. Needless to say, Ban Dug.

 

[baddummy]

Back in ORAS, I wrote this, which at the time, I thought was a very convincing argument for Dugtrio being fine, and Sableye being broken:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/arena-trap-dugtrio.3582873/#post-7000913

The truth is that I was half-wrong. I still believe Sableye was definitely a huge problem for the tier back then: It meant stall would always be very matchup based, as it pretty much necessitated a stallbreaker that could completely blow apart the opposing team. That's changed now in SM. There are more hazard setters that Sableye can't shut down well, such as Spikes Gren, and SD Lando being way better thanks to z moves. Furthermore, there are a lot more breakers which don't eat up a mega slot that are very effective, and very splashable. Sableye is fine in SM but for ORAS to stay at least a passable tier it's very important it stays banned.

The thing I was wrong about was that because Dugtrio was fine in ADV, I said it would be fine in later gens too. Some people put forward the idea that trapping is "inherently broken". This isn't something I agree with, but what I now believe to be true is this:

While trapping isn't inherently broken, the metagame has shifted over a number of generations. The new metagame exploits trapping way better than the old one does. This is because of the fact that now teams can be built where they make particular members of your team very important, in the sense that whether you win or lose the game hinges almost solely on how well you use that 1 pokemon.​

There's been a continual powercreep in pokemon, both offensive and defensive, and so the way stall works has changed a lot since Arena trap was first introduced in gen 3. Stuff is bulkier, everything that isn't the trapper on a stall team has very reliable recovery. Furthermore, with regenerator and unaware, stall builds have a lot more passive recovery, and damage mitigation than they ever used to. This is fine, because we have the tools to deal with them. The power of offensive breakers has also increased way beyond what it used to be. However, the result is that the idea of just applying general offensive pressure doesn't really work now. Instead of pressure being general, it has to be specific. You have to be able to actually point at a pokemon and say "This is my breaker", rather than just have a general gameplan.

This is exactly what makes trapping so powerful now. Before, you would beat stall by applying continual general offensive pressure. Now, you beat stall by applying big pressure with specifically 1 or 2 breakers. Playing against stall is now very much a match where you're forced to put all your eggs into one basket. Therefore, something which can remove your wincon with the certainty that good trapping can is absolutely devastating.

The reason why I am pro-ban for dugtrio is because by using it to its full potential, you can build a team that requires the opponent use certain breakers in order to win, and through powerful trapping, eliminate a very large portion of those breakers.

Finally, I think in general, we need to be much tougher on matchup based styles in newer generations. With matchup issues being a greater problem anyway, it's much easier for obnoxious builds to slip through the cracks and exploit that aspect of the meta. Just look at how baton pass teams cause problems every suspect ladder now. I don't think defence in general is obnoxious at all, in fact bulky balance is generally very skill based. However I definitely think that the current Sab/Skarm/Chans/Toxa/Clef/Dug team falls into the category of obnoxious and taking skill out of the meta. Mostly what I think is really banworthy is the stuff that takes skill out of the game. Not too long ago I wouldn't have put Dugtrio in this category but by looking at the meta now, it's pretty clear to me that it does, and Dugtrio is a problem.

Also, there's no larger community hatred specifically for stall, this gets brought up on every occasion there's a suspect relating to stall. I'm aware I'm personally biased towards more offensive styles, but look at things on the larger scale. There's been literally only 3 suspects relating to stall since XY was released in October 2013: Shadow tag and Sab in ORAS, now Dug in SM. There's absolutely nothing wrong with suspecting something for the merits it has on a defensive team. When offence uses Genesect to maintain momentum really easily and potentially punch huge holes in the opposing team with the number of lures it has, you ban it. When stall uses dugtrio to stop counterplay and secure a large number of wins on matchup, you should ban that too.

 

[Scribble]

After debating this for a long time and after playing a few games on the suspect ladder, I have finally made my initial stance on this. Assuming my opinion doesn't change, I will be voting do not ban Dugtrio.

The main pro-ban argument seems to be that Dugtrio on stall is unhealthy because it just removes your stallbreaker and then you fall over to the rest of the team. So rather than just complain every time your Hoopa-Unbound and Heatran get revenge killed by Duggy, how about use a stall breaker that isn't weak to Duggy? Stall falls over to Alola Marowak, and it can't be trapped by Duggy, and it's not like Alowak is some incredibly niche mon, it's solid on its own. SubCoilToxic Zygarde is another option, and is a reliable win con vs pretty much any team. Double Dance Lando-T is awkward for stall to handle, and hell even Gliscor is an option. Stall breakers are not limited to Hoopa and Heatran. Sash Dugtrio even matches up vs stall well on its own, as it can trap Chansey and sometimes Toxapex too. There are plenty of other options. The stall meta just isn't in favor of Hoopa and Heatran. The meta hasn't been given enough time to adapt to this yet. If Dugtrio ends up being a problem afterwards we can suspect it again, but this suspect happened way too earlier in my opinion.

I disagree with the notion that Dugtrio takes skill out of the game. I would actually argue it adds skill to it. The Dugtrio user can't bring in Dugtrio recklessly, they have to be careful with it since if you poke Dugtrio it will die (That's another thing, Dugtrio provides absolutely 0 defensive capabilities to the team aside from an electric immunity, but the notable electrics in the tier are either faster than it and can pivot out or are part Flying type). If there are hazards on their side of the field, they are also limited on how they can bring it in if Dugtrio is sashed and it really needs its sash. So in order to safely get Dugtrio in, they need to double with it, pivot into it, come in on an Electric move, or revenge kill something. On the flipside, the opponent has to be careful with how they play their mons. Mega Metagross can't be played so recklessly anymore once they see a Dugtrio on the opponent's team. They have to seriously consider their best move, and that best move might not end up being killing a mon. It has been argued that if something discourages you from killing a mon, which is the goal of the game, then it is uncompetitive. But who said you had to kill it with that mon that gets trapped by Duggy anyway? You're not trapped yet. You can still switch. And if you have no other counters, then why wouldn't you kill the mon? If it's that threatening to the rest of your team, then the trade would be more often than not worth it.

Moving on to what Dugtrio actually does once it gets in vs a target. Dugtrio can take it out, but then their opponent can simply bring in something that uses Duggy as set up fodder, like Zygarde, Lando-T, etc. After Duggy zaps the momentum from your opponent, your opponent zaps the momentum from you in return. This isn't like Gothitelle who could Trick you a Choice Scarf and get to +6 easily, all Dugtrio can do is kill something. (Its 100 base attack isn't even that amazing. It's not bad, the +20 boost definitely had it, but in general it's not super overwhelming).

TL;DR: Do not ban Dugtrio, it isn't this unstoppable force with no counterplay. Give the meta more time to adapt to Dugtrio and if it's still problematic, suspect it again later.

 

[pika pal]

After debating this for a long time and after playing a few games on the suspect ladder, I have finally made my initial stance on this. Assuming my opinion doesn't change, I will be voting do not ban Dugtrio.

The main pro-ban argument seems to be that Dugtrio on stall is unhealthy because it just removes your stallbreaker and then you fall over to the rest of the team. So rather than just complain every time your Hoopa-Unbound and Heatran get revenge killed by Duggy, how about use a stall breaker that isn't weak to Duggy? Stall falls over to Alola Marowak, and it can't be trapped by Duggy, and it's not like Alowak is some incredibly niche mon, it's solid on its own. SubCoilToxic Zygarde is another option, and is a reliable win con vs pretty much any team. Double Dance Lando-T is awkward for stall to handle, and hell even Gliscor is an option. Stall breakers are not limited to Hoopa and Heatran. Sash Dugtrio even matches up vs stall well on its own, as it can trap Chansey and sometimes Toxapex too. There are plenty of other options. The stall meta just isn't in favor of Hoopa and Heatran. The meta hasn't been given enough time to adapt to this yet. If Dugtrio ends up being a problem afterwards we can suspect it again, but this suspect happened way too earlier in my opinion.

I disagree with the notion that Dugtrio takes skill out of the game. I would actually argue it adds skill to it. The Dugtrio user can't bring in Dugtrio recklessly, they have to be careful with it since if you poke Dugtrio it will die (That's another thing, Dugtrio provides absolutely 0 defensive capabilities to the team aside from an electric immunity, but the notable electrics in the tier are either faster than it and can pivot out or are part Flying type). If there are hazards on their side of the field, they are also limited on how they can bring it in if Dugtrio is sashed and it really needs its sash. So in order to safely get Dugtrio in, they need to double with it, pivot into it, come in on an Electric move, or revenge kill something. On the flipside, the opponent has to be careful with how they play their mons. Mega Metagross can't be played so recklessly anymore once they see a Dugtrio on the opponent's team. They have to seriously consider their best move, and that best move might not end up being killing a mon. It has been argued that if something discourages you from killing a mon, which is the goal of the game, then it is uncompetitive. But who said you had to kill it with that mon that gets trapped by Duggy anyway? You're not trapped yet. You can still switch. And if you have no other counters, then why wouldn't you kill the mon? If it's that threatening to the rest of your team, then the trade would be more often than not worth it.

Moving on to what Dugtrio actually does once it gets in vs a target. Dugtrio can take it out, but then their opponent can simply bring in something that uses Duggy as set up fodder, like Zygarde, Lando-T, etc. After Duggy zaps the momentum from your opponent, your opponent zaps the momentum from you in return. This isn't like Gothitelle who could Trick you a Choice Scarf and get to +6 easily, all Dugtrio can do is kill something. (Its 100 base attack isn't even that amazing. It's not bad, the +20 boost definitely had it, but in general it's not super overwhelming).

TL;DR: Do not ban Dugtrio, it isn't this unstoppable force with no counterplay. Give the meta more time to adapt to Dugtrio and if it's still problematic, suspect it again later.

What does Stallbreaker Alola-Wak run exactly? I can't see it managing something Stall's not prepared for without SD, which I don't think it has any business running on TR or as an offensive tank as it's best suited for. SubCoilToxic Zygarde is indeed a good Stallbreaker, but that comes at a cost to its match up with offense where it wants to consider Extremespeed.

And I think that when looking at Dugtrio as an "anti-Stallbreaker" mon, Stallbreaker is usually referring to a mon that the team has trouble with for offensive purposes, not just for being built as a Stallbreaker in general. Dugtrio's limited entry options aren't a hinderance to its job, because it actively discourages the use of the mon it traps by virtue of forcing a trade if they make it to the field at the same time. Say the only mon on the opposing team that can break my core is Tapu Lele, and I have the means to pivot around/sponge everything else until hazards and such take their toll. No matter how weak my core is to Lele, the opponent has to minimize their use of it because if Lele KO's something, I bring Dugtrio in on the revenge, KO it, and even if I lose Dugtrio, the best avenue to breaking my team down is now gone. A lot of the mons Dugtrio deals with are offensive in nature, so they don't manage to do their job by prepping the opponents' mons to be dealt with by something else like a cleaner. Stall teams are about bunkering down until they set the win condition up, offense more often aims to smack the opponent and create that opportunity. Things like Tapu Lele, Magnezone, and Hoopa aren't meant to leave things on the verge to avert Dugtrio's revenge kill chances, their job is done by breaking the mon completely. It's mentioned that you can switch if you haven't gotten the kill yet, but that's exactly what Dugtrio's trying to make you do: avert ideal play with your breakers because Dugtrio ensures they can't finish the job if they try to get into it. You suggest killing with something else on the team, but the reason Dugtrio works is because often times the thing he's aiming at is the only way to kill problem mons on Duggy's team due to the amount of variety the game has grown to have and the increasing amount of work each team slot has to put in (and by extension the increasing amount of cost to losing it). It's why Suicide leads have been falling out of style over time, even offensive teams need more than the strong start for the slot to pull its weight in the metagame.

Dugtrio also has countermeasures to momentum sapping as well. Odds are if Dugtrio is meant to deal with something, it's already the biggest problem for the team. Dugtrio's shortcomings are known to its user, so odds are if they make the trade, the outcome favors them heavily, even accounting for the subsequent revenge turn. Even then, Dugtrio has options like Toxic and Memento coupled with a competent speed stat to either swing momentum back or to ruin set up momentum if it's already finished its main job.

Dugtrio does not allow switching, one of the most fundamental elements of play in a singles metagame, which inherently takes an element of skill out of the game when trying to account for Dugtrio. It'd be like playing a Mario Kart round where for one lap you can't drift. It's a fundamental mechanic the game is designed around that you're simply not allowed to use. You mention the prospect of using Stallbreakers that Dugtrio doesn't trap, but that's the thing: Dugtrio is such an easy answer to the Stallbreakers he does beat that there's significantly less pressure on the team to deal with the things he doesn't beat using the remaining team slots.

Generic stall right now seems to be: Sab/Skarm/Chans/Toxa/Clef/Dug. This structure has caught on because it just seems to deliver the most consistent results. The other 5 mons cover everything Dugtrio doesn't sufficiently to stall the match out, with things like Sableye's Hazard control keeping Sash intact, Clefable accounting for a lot of the set up sweepers that you suggested to exploit the post Duggy kill turn, etc. Stall team structures don't need Dugtrio to put itself in a position to win the game outright like Gothitelle could with its TrickScarf +6 shenanigans, but more often than not only need Dugtrio to eliminate one or at most two mons and then they're prepared to wait out everything else.

 

[hecatomb]

In spite of what could be seen as a rather poor tone, he's not necessarily wrong either. This happens many times in previous suspect threads where players who, honestly, are bad and will attempt to make flaky comments such as "Mega Gengar has counters", or "Mega Metagross back in Gen 6 is literally killing the meta." Or other rather poor statements.

I've been glancing at the thread, and there are still some anti-ban arguments that aren't necessarily bad arguments. papai noel's argument is not necessarily bad, and neither is mulgokizary's. I seriously question Tele's as an example, but I can at least respect he goes into a little detail on why he thinks the Dugtrio suspect is wrong.

I can even look at this thread's arguments for Dugtrio and call them poor. Below is a perfect example:

Even if playing against stall can be seen as "boring", that does not reserve the tier a right to simply ban things because it is stagnant nor un-entertaining. Smogon may not always seem like it, but tiering is a very serious and practiced thing since its inception in Generation 4. Sometimes you disagree with something, but the matter is that Smogon strives for competitive - not for pleasure. Pleasure is subjective in this case to the player. After all, some players like Eo Ut Mortus do enjoy playing stall.

Alas, let's look at such gems that have come about from the thread:

That's blatantly false.

Dugtrio actually can trap two walls without too many issues that are common in a stall core - Toxapex and Chansey (Blissey). Clefable could even be argued as a third. Magnezone has only one Pokemon usually that it can trap and attempt to KO, and it has even heftier requirements than Dugtrio does against certain walls:

- Shed Shell needs removal from Skamrory.
- Magnezone needs to be brought in when Skarmory is not using Whirlwind.

Choice Band Dugtrio reliably 2HKOes Toxapex in spite of the burn while Sash Dugtrio takes on Chansey as if it were a joke most of the time. Some Dugtrio have even opted for Tectonic Rage just to hit the sweet spot of KO ranges. As a fun fact - Magnezone can actually lose to a lot of Pokemon it attempts to trap. Ferrothorn and Mega Scizor are two of the rarest guarantees.

What exactly makes Magnezone overbearing in the meta? As a protip - In spite of Magnezone's rather modest usage it has been hit or miss throughout spl. Magnezone is a good Pokemon, but it is nothing that is close to broken in terms of being too overwhelming for teams to handle.

Here's another argument where, ironically, I needed p2 to re-explain to me in normal terms just because how bad this post is in my opinion. Going back to the argument made earlier by one of the anti-ban Dugtrio movement Stall sometimes has to make a critical choice to safely get Dugtrio in. The thing stall will always evaluate prior to is its chances of winning in spite of losing a critical Pokemon. Sometimes this scenario doesn't even happen with Pyukumuku and Shedinja because you have Baton Pass to get Dugtrio in a lot safer! Many of those Pokemon you mentioned fail to break a combination of some of the regular stall components in the OU tier. Example of Buzzwole - Toxapex and Clefable as a combo can handle just about any Buzzwole set. Mega Sableye and Skarmory still can back up the team as well. Even though some of these momentum Pokemon, like Gyarados, can be frightening they also have to take rather large gambles at times to overcome some of the walls. Example - Supersonic Skystrike would be needed to bypass Toxapex effectively. A stall player could predict ahead of their opponent and re-direct it to Skarmory. There's also risks when something like Toxapex switches into Gyarados because of the risk of burn through Scald or Haze removing stat bonuses.

This is why I said in my post from before - it is true that some Pokemon with Z Moves, in theory, can overcome stall. In practice a stall player can adapt to these strategies and redirect the Z Moves elsewhere. Unlike very bulky teams stall can survive with a fallen member in their team if they need too, and in some cases usually do without many issues. It's true the metagame has developed and theorized better Pokemon that can overmuscle stall, but in the same ironic vein Dugtrio can be used on offensive teams to make the dents necessary for offensive teams to have an easier time to pressure and crush.

Let's go to your post for a minute to demonstrate examples of what could be seen as poor arguments with little-to-no justification:

The only Stealth Rock Fairy-type that even comes close to my head is Clefable. The latter two have issues - mainly being the first one is strictly a suicide lead. The latter eats a lot of risk such as a Will-O-Wisp, etc.

Zygarde without Toxic means it loses to stall the majority of the time. It needs Toxic to pressure Clefable and other threats.

I could go on since you mentioned incredibly niche and situational setups (Aurora Veil or Hail?), but the point is simple - even if you completely disagree with the tone that p2 made with his post, it does not dismiss that there is a lot of solid evidence supporting such a bold claim. Sorry to not delve further, but 10 hours of work with minimal sleep exhausts me. :[

wasnt the whole reason of shadow tag being banned was because it was unhealthy and just boring? Yet arena trap is allowed. It just seems like double standard to me. Like every time you use char-x or heatran, its like hey I got to play vs stall its not bad. Yet 1 pokemon can just counter your fire types, and not even a good pokemon like greninja or landorus t, which even then you can switch out from them. Not to mention shadow tag was banned when you still could get out of it from volt-switch, baton pass, or u-turn.

 

[vso]

The way that I would like to start off is that dugtrio is not only run on stall. The primary reason to ban dugtrio is because of stall and offense combo. On the other hand, we have other choices to nerf stall like banning sableye-mega. If we ban dugtrio, weavile just springs up, and does the role nearly as well as dugtrio does it.Weavile traps hoopa-unbound, tornadus therian, latios, tapu lele. and can remove weakened Heatran, Thundurus, Thundurus-Therian etc. However, a dugtrio on an offensive build is also uncompetitive. You can use less predictions rather than more predictions to destroy a chansey for a potential volcarona clean. You do not need to get the chansey into entry hazards a lot of times, even if you manage to set them up. Tapu lele can simply abuse the potential of dugtrio to trap chansey, and severlely weaken both metagross and magearna, into range of tapu lele. With this said, I am undecided on this suspect test.

 

[Jojobobo]

I find the skill based argument to be a little annoying. Yes, Dugtrio doesn't require much skill to use, but neither does a lot of things in the tier (e.g. Pheromosa, who seems down on the list on priorities that people want a suspect for before things like Greninja and Mega Metagross), and I was under the impression that this place was supposed to cater for players of all skill-levels. Additionally, isn't the burden on the better player to come up with contingencies for the easy-to-use highly threatening set? As someone who ran offence before the suspect test I tried to come up with sets that counter it, I didn't just sit around hoping for a suspect test - and as people have repeatedly mentioned Dugtrio isn't some un-counterable beast that there's literally nothing you can do to stop.

People say that Dugtrio greatly restricts the switching you can make, why? I mean sure, it can revenge certain threats extremely well, but it's a tricky play to accurately predict when an opponent is going to switch in something that it can trap with perfect accuracy all the time, and if the Dugtrio player miss predicts just once then you have the momentum not them. With it's frailty, this kind of risky switching isn't a cost free play by any means, it's not like Gothitelle who did have some bulk to make extremely lazy plays with.

And if you do switch-in something it can trap, and it traps it, so what? You have a whole team, and you can easily engineer your team to exploit that obvious Dugtrio trapping with something that can set-up on Dugtrio (e.g. Stallbreakers like the SubCM Keldeo I mention below and SubCoilToxic Zygarde, or if the opposing Dugtrio is on an offence team something like Mega Gyarados does well).

What does Stallbreaker Alola-Wak run exactly? I can't see it managing something Stall's not prepared for without SD, which I don't think it has any business running on TR or as an offensive tank as it's best suited for. SubCoilToxic Zygarde is indeed a good Stallbreaker, but that comes at a cost to its match up with offense where it wants to consider Extremespeed.

And I think that when looking at Dugtrio as an "anti-Stallbreaker" mon, Stallbreaker is usually referring to a mon that the team has trouble with for offensive purposes, not just for being built as a Stallbreaker in general.

With A-Marowak you can run Thick Club with 212 Spe EVs, 252+ Atk, 40 HP and 4 Def. This means you outspeed anything trying to speed creep on stall (8 Spe Skarmory) apart from Dugtrio, while still retaining the crazy power of Adamant. You can use Lightning Rod with Fire Punch/Earthquake or Bonemerang/Shadow Club/SD or Rock Head with Flare Blitz as people don't tend to fall for the Lightning Rod Volt-Switch trapping anyway.

In terms of play I think it's pretty easy to take out several stallmons with this set, as it's not hard to lure out Skarmory with a physical type it can easily wall and with Dugtrio you can just switch out. I don't really see this a worthless dead-weight set either, it has pretty much zero switch-ins, and the ones it does have take good damage on the switch with Rock Head/Flare Blitz (e.g. Lando-T) leaving them in range of more offensive mons in addition to hard-countering some sets like Pheromosa.

I find the assumption that people shouldn't be running Stallbreakers that actually break stall with Dugtrio (SubCM Keldeo - I invest in HP and it works just fine as it still maintains good speed and few things like taking a Modest Scald from behind a Sub, SubCoilToxic Zygarde, SD Wallbreaker Alolan-Marowak, Taunt/Crunch/Iron Head/Dragon Dance Mega Gyarados to an extent - I updated my original post with a set for the latter) and Dugtrio should be just be banned instead to be a little strange. Surely if a Stallbreaker doesn't break conventional stall, it's not a good Stallbreaker? It seems like the wrong view to be saying something could break stall if not for Dugtrio, because if that's what stall is running then they are by definition not a good Stallbreaker.

Honestly I think Dugtrio really should have had a Victim of the Week spot before this suspect took place, as it seems like awareness of counter strategies is pretty poor. I'd say before anything else gets suspected, someone should revive Victim of the Week and things like Mega Metagross, Ash-Greninja, Lele and Pheromosa should all get a week's run in the thread.