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Diglett can clean weakened teams that's a big difference between the two - gothita can trap a lot, but it can't clean anything because it can't switch moves - has anyone ever seen goth late game clean? lots have seen diglett late game clean though.
relevant pokemon goth can succesfully remove from turn 1 with only SR support set of psychic, thunderbolt, energy ball, hp fire
mienfoo
archen (but can get weakened a lot by evio cos it can only 2hkos)
ferroseed (but gets weakened a lot)
omanyte
shellder (68% chance to ohko after rocks)
tirtouga
croagunk
onix
doduo
taillow
and now diglett
pawniard kinda
lo abra
non endure mag
ponyta
chinchou
vulpix
larvesta
omanyte
onix
skrelp
croagunk
dwebble
stunky kinda
ignored a few irrelevant threats, that's kind of opinion, make of that what you will.
i just feel that goth needs a lot more knock off support, particularly for its main targets, fighting types -
another thing, fighting types aren't lured by any u-turn/volt switch users, so goth has a harder time getting in on what is usually wants to trap.
diglett can guarantee certain important kills and pairs better with voltturners such as mienfoo+fletchling+vullaby - you can't just take what they trap in a vacuum, diglett is easier to support by far
Some cents from me;
Diglett is not overpowered, as many pointed out here, cus, for me, mainly due to it having some diffs on forcing out mons after RKing. It's pretty easy to check, and cleaning is basically only an option with strong priority taken out and everything else pretty worned out with that average Atk stat. It requires some form of team support in VoltTurn, being almost impossible to bring in on anything but Electric-type attacks. But, really, bringing in Diglett on an Electric-type attack in this meta is pretty much a great play, due to its main users. I mean mag could either use Flash Cannon while being scarfed, or just Endure if Sturdy is broken (not like dig switch in on not broken SturdyBj Mag), Chinchou has an ok 30% chance on winning if Scalding Sash Dig, and could also be Scarfed. If you get these two guys locked in an Electric-type attack while switching in, gz, you have the upper hand; but, at least in here, this is the same outcome as any successful high risk / high reward play, even if Arena Trap can't be dealt with as long as you are being affected by it. Dig is definitely not op, though we could argue its uncompetitiveness.
On Goth, she has the easiest time switching in on walls, trapping them on a status move, recovery or w.e and proceed to KO them. It also has SE coverage which is great, but in the end, it is weaker than Dig not only due to STAB but for not being able to run LO effectively with average / less than average stats all around. It can't clean with that slow speed (assuming it tricked scarf already), no priority and usually being locked in a move. It truly shines on having lots of coverage options to RK lots of things though, nevertheless. It's even less powered than Diglett though.
It's funny how these guys bring lots of support to its team while requiring support or a sack to come in.
For reference, although we are a metagame totally aside of OU, we could make good use of this definition of uncompetitive.
Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hand's of player's decisions-- and do so to a degree that can be considered uncompetitive.
This can be luck-based, but doesn't have to be (see: 4th gen Wobb, who was effective enough then to remove the ability to "do anything about it" largely from the enemy player, and was banned for uncompetitive-ness); but most uncompetitive strategies that are banned usually have a high appeal to luck.
While there is always luck involved in Pokemon, the problem is the degree to which control is taken away from the player. Removal of autonomy is the key to an uncompetitive tiering decision or clause.
Note: the word "degree" as there are many game aspects that remove autonomy, but the problem is degree of removal (Moody / Double Team remove more autonomy than Quick Claw or fast U-Turn/Volt Switch).
Whether the "degree" of autonomy removal is uncompetitive is debatable, and is subjective (based off of player experience).
Note: Individual Pokemon can be banned for a combination of "overpowered" and "uncompetitive" characteristics-- see 4th Gen Deoxys-S and 4th Gen Shaymin-S bans
For the matter of fact, as long as Arena Trap and Shadow Tag is in play, it takes away autonomy from the opponent. Thing is, the two best users of the move have some flaws that may deteur us from LC community to immediately deem their trapping abilities as uncompetitive. I don't think trapping by itself n alone is uncompetitive, it truly deppends on the recipient. See Gen 4 Wobbufet. As such, we should consider several factors if we want to suspect Dig, Goth, or both:
Determine if they are an overwhelming presence in LC due to being teambuilder restrictors, especially Dig. Are they obligating a battler to use gimmicks to check them?
Determine if they are making LC any less fun to play.
Determine how uncompetitive trapping is, always taking into account what the recipients are up for.
Determine how unheathy they are to the metagame, if they are making variability less of a thing (although this alone isn't enough).
Overall, determine wether the combination of the Trappers defining presence in the metagame followed by possible uncompetiviness of trapping abilities makes them too much of a bad presence in the metagame.
As far as I've seen, either Diglett or Goth, and trapping in general, aren't the very best tactic that outclasses every other possible tactic in LC; they are pretty far from being the best tactic, you all know this. It doesn't overshadow any other possible option. Basically, the only Pokemon that has been the closest to be a surefire way to win every time, fully outclassing every other option of tactics, and Pokemon that do a similar role was Mega Rayquaza. Trapping and its wielders, as of now, is very far from being as defining and as good as Mega Rayquaza was in Ubers. It's just a pretty legit tactic, strong one, that brings a good amount of support while requiring support from other tactics to be well exploited, followed by maybe good thought in-game and experience.
kk. Yes, Gothita can trap more Pokemon, but the statement that she does it with far less support is just incorrect. The main reason that Diglett in my opinion is better than Gothita is because of how nicely it pairs with its teammates. The things that Diglett traps, things like electric or fire types, the types of things that those mons switch into can just pivot into Diglett relatively safely. Yes, it's been established that Goth can trap more Pokemon, but she does it at the expense of momentum and team synergy. Gothita pairs "nicely" with smashers, since it traps most of Omanyte's/Tirtouga's checks. But, it's a lot harder for Gothita to pivot into play seeing as its teammates have no way of supporting her with U-Turn or anything. Diglett requires less support in general but, however, GETS that support and more from its teammates, while Gothita requires more support in general but her teammates fail to give that to her.
Yes, Mienfoo is likely to U-turn more versus a Larvesta or Ponyta than a Fighting-type so I'd be inclined to agree it synergizes with Mienfoo better in that way. However I think the "general" support statement required is a bit misguided and I'll expand on that after Rowan's post because you both bring it up. From where I'm looking you have it backwards. Diglett needs that support (but can get it) but Gothita does not need that support (but would obviously benefit from it) and does not get it.
Diglett can clean weakened teams that's a big difference between the two - gothita can trap a lot, but it can't clean anything because it can't switch moves - has anyone ever seen goth late game clean? lots have seen diglett late game clean though.
I'm going to say it right now that yea, I've seen Goth clean and no I've almost never seen Diglett clean - especially not LO. (I've had last mon Diglett with Sash clean before but besides that???). A statement like this needs to be substantiated and I'm not particularly inclined to dig (lel) through a replays.
<snip>
ignored a few irrelevant threats, that's kind of opinion, make of that what you will.
i just feel that goth needs a lot more knock off support, particularly for its main targets, fighting types -
another thing, fighting types aren't lured by any u-turn/volt switch users, so goth has a harder time getting in on what is usually wants to trap.
diglett can guarantee certain important kills and pairs better with voltturners such as mienfoo+fletchling+vullaby - you can't just take what they trap in a vacuum, diglett is easier to support by far
I think first of all that Knock Off support versus Volt-Turn support is not really that crazy. Fighting-types counter Pawniard which basically spams Knock Off - they'll get Knocked Off. Knock off is everywhere and I think it's kind of naive to dismiss that as not only a realistic support option but an almost guaranteed one. Also disagree with Fighting-types not being lured by Magnemite and being general switch-ins to soak U-turns, but that's a bit less of a valuable point.
Second of all, and here's where I want to address mad0ka 's point as well, is that even if Diglett synergizes better with Volt-Turn (which I'd be inclined to agree with to a certain extent), Gothita does not NEED it. Diglett can't switch into Pony or Larvesta or Chinchou because they will OHKO it. Diglett is literally made out of paper. Gothita is not bulky but you only need to take one attack. Sure, it can't OHKO Staryu or Chinchou but it can 2HKO it with Energy Ball and survive a Scald or Volt Switch. Sure it can't OHKO Ferroseed but it can take a Bullet Seed / Iron Head. You can take a Scald from Skrelp, you can take a EQ/Acro from Archen, and you can even switch Gothita into Mach Punch or Drain Punch after a Knock Off - Diglett does not have that play with almost anything. The only thing Diglett can switch into is a Volt Switch for which it is not the only or even most common/viable detterant of.
I think good players with Gothita are much more terrifying than good players with Diglett and I think the argument you guys are making sounds like "Diglett is easier to use even though it has less reward". That does not translate to one being better than the other at least by an extent that makes one broken.
why not have a trapping suspect in general then? whenever i play i honestly fear diglett more than i'll fear gothita in reality but both could be found "uncompetitive" or w/e
I understand the desire to compare Diglett with Gothita in this sense because they both do similar things (remove particular targets) but the reason I think your last several posts have missed the point is, well, Diglett is MUCH better than Gothita. Much. Gothita may trap more targets due to its varied special movepool (I don't actually think this is true, but I don't feel like nitpicking through what's trash and what's not until I make a list with Diglett on top) and ability to cripple an opposing wall for the rest of the game with Trick. I'm not at all saying Gothita's a bad Pokemon, it definitely is more suited to trapping some specific targets (Fighting-types with less previous damage, Archen, Fletchling at +0, weakened Vullaby). But even with that, I think Diglett is waaay better, to the point where I have never once considered Gothita while teambuilding whereas I think about Diglett literally at every step.
So, we know what the two do the same, and we know what Gothita does better than Diglett. Let's discuss why Diglett is the much more defining metagame force, and is much more difficult to deal with:
1) It retains freedom in its item choice.
Since Gothita is slow, it is forced to use Choice Scarf in order to effectively take out the targets it needs to to succeed. That's not the case with Diglett. Sitting at the fastest unboosted Speed-tier in Little Cup, it does not have to use a Choice item to do its job. Instead, it gets to choose between Focus Sash and Life Orb, Focus Sash allowing it to very effectively support its team by putting up Stealth Rock nearly guaranteed and then taking out a target / using Memento, or Life Orb letting it nuke its targets.
2) It's so much stronger.
Since Gothita is forced to use Choice Scarf, it cannot take advantage of the power boost from Life Orb.
252+ SpA Gothita Psychic vs. 236 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Porygon: 7-10 (26.9 - 38.4%) -- 84.5% chance to 3HKO
(7, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10)
236 Atk Life Orb Diglett Earthquake vs. 236 HP / 36 Def Eviolite Porygon: 9-13 (34.6 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO
(9, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 13)
252+ SpA Gothita Psychic vs. 236 HP / 0 SpD Porygon: 12-15 (46.1 - 57.6%) -- 51.2% chance to 2HKO
(12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 15)
That's a very significant difference, and that difference in strength comes into play way more frequently than you might think. It allows Diglett to do crazy things, and is why it is so threatening...it is actually really strong, and the majority of really bulky Pokemon in Little Cup are more specially defensive anyways.
3) Diglett can trap the vast majority of its targets with just its STAB move.
This is one of the key reasons Diglett is so bloody powerful. Its coverage helps it stand up to Pokemon it can't trap with Earthquake doing the real damage, whereas Gothita's coverage is really the only reason it can trap. Earthquake is just a much better STAB option than Psychic, and lets Diglett trap, at some point, legitimately everything that isn't a Flying-type or a Grass-type without a Poison sub-typing. No one is saying that Diglett can do so right off the bat, however, it is not very difficult to reach a game state that allows these sorts of ridiculous things to happen.
Gothita does not have a monopoly on taking out Fighting-types. Honestly, the list of above calcs goes on and on, and I don't need to show you what happens to its intended targets, the Pokemon weak to Ground, do I?
4) Diglett puts way too much pressure on the other team.
Essentially, Diglett punishes the other player for actually playing the game. You had said in a previous post that like, if Mienfoo predicts Ponyta or Larvesta or whatever and U-Turns onto the switch into Diglett, it predicted correctly, and that the player with Ponyta or Larvesta or whatever should have double switched? I guess if you examine a single turn in a vacuum you may come to that conclusion, but that's incredibly shortsighted. You need to look at the whole game, and even before that while you were teambuilding. If the user of Ponyta, Larvesta, or whatever Diglett can trap needs to play perfectly every single turn by not allowing their Pokemon to get trapped by Diglett, then essentially using those Pokemon is deadweight on your team. If I can't check Mienfoo with Ponyta, why am I using Ponyta? It stops these Pokemon from doing their job as a single U-Turn or Volt Switch into Diglett (INCREDIBLY POPULAR MOVES) ends them and prevents them from checking the Pokemon they were supposed to check to begin with. This naturally transitions into...
5) Diglett puts way too much pressure on teambuilding.
It is not lazy teambuilding to have a difficult time dealing with Diglett. It is not something I need to "better prepare for." Unlike every other broken Pokemon, even if I was going to better prepare, IT DOESN'T MATTER. If you have two Ground-weak Pokemon on a team, you have two ripe sacrifices for Diglett's bloodlust. It doesn't matter if the rest of my team beats the shit out of Diglett, those two are going to get smacked. Even if arguably Swirlix, Yanma, and everything else you didn't want banned could be better accounted for in the teambuilder...Diglett can't. The past bans of Tangela, Gligar, Yanma, Murkrow, and Misdreavus have removed five top threats that Diglett could not trap, which is why its strain is only recently becoming apparent. Granted, it shares this problem with Gothita, that you can't really account for it in teambuilding, however...
6) You can set up all over Gothita. You cannot set up on Diglett.
This is the biggest reason why I have never ever had a single problem with Gothita in the entirety of my time playing. None of Gothita's moves are even close to threatening unless it hits you super effectively, which means it has to pick the perfect move for every situation, unlike Diglett's multipurpose Earthquake. After picking that move, assuming it gets the trap, it is locked into that move. That is a free Shell Smash, a free Swords Dance, a free layer of hazards, a free Dragon Dance, a free ANYTHING. That is your turn. Gothita might have taken out a Pokemon, but you now have the opportunity to take out several more having set up all over it. Diglett, however, is not locked into anything. It is free to switch moves. It has priority. It has memento. You cannot abuse Diglett the turn after it killed something, and that's what really makes it so devastating.
Diglett is a low opportunity cost Pokemon that can effectively trap a wide selection of Pokemon through relatively accessible game states, something Gothita cannot do. I have only chosen Gothita on a few niche teams as my trapper because it was better suited for my needs on those teams. 9 times out of 10 I will choose Diglett. Its combination of traits (item freedom, blistering Speed, powerful Attack with fantastic STAB, strong Priority, ability to customize its set for particular targets, such as Beat Up for Focus Sash Abra, Pursuit for Gastly, and Sludge Bomb for Cottonee, and access to Memento) are what make it a much better trapper especially in this metagame, but just in general, when compared to Gothita. The Diglett user is always in the driver's seat, and their opponent always needs to tread on insane eggshells so as to not just get destroyed.
This is why I feel the metagame would be much better without Diglett. I wouldn't mind a dual suspect for both Diglett and Gothita, but I think Diglett is way worse than Gothita.
I understand the desire to compare Diglett with Gothita in this sense because they both do similar things (remove particular targets) but the reason I think your last several posts have missed the point is, well, Diglett is MUCH better than Gothita. Much. Gothita may trap more targets due to its varied special movepool (I don't actually think this is true, but I don't feel like nitpicking through what's trash and what's not until I make a list with Diglett on top) and ability to cripple an opposing wall for the rest of the game with Trick. I'm not at all saying Gothita's a bad Pokemon, it definitely is more suited to trapping some specific targets (Fighting-types with less previous damage, Archen, Fletchling at +0, weakened Vullaby). But even with that, I think Diglett is waaay better, to the point where I have never once considered Gothita while teambuilding whereas I think about Diglett literally at every step.
So, we know what the two do the same, and we know what Gothita does better than Diglett.
Let's discuss why Diglett is the much more defining metagame force, and is much more difficult to deal with:
I guess if I wasn't clear in my earlier posts I was merely pointing out that the outcry doesn't make sense for just one of them. We had a few complaints in the past about Gothita, then for Diglett and I feel like once this fad is over it'll come back to Gothita. Diglett may be better in some people's opinions for reasons OTHER than the one's being called out (which was basically just trapping, maybe cleaning, which both can do (and I think I've put a pretty convincing argument forward that Gothita actually does the former better)). My desired result was to bring Diglett down to Gothita's level if people are randomly fine with Gothita, but of course there is / was the possibility of brining Gothita up to Diglett's level. In any event, I agree we should move on unless we are talking about their shared misteps because frankly they both have similar ones.
Since Gothita is slow, it is forced to use Choice Scarf in order to effectively take out the targets it needs to to succeed. That's not the case with Diglett. Sitting at the fastest unboosted Speed-tier in Little Cup, it does not have to use a Choice item to do its job. Instead, it gets to choose between Focus Sash and Life Orb, Focus Sash allowing it to very effectively support its team by putting up Stealth Rock nearly guaranteed and then taking out a target / using Memento, or Life Orb letting it nuke its targets.
On paper this is a huge advantage but in practice I really don't think it works out this way. Diglett's Rock Slide is not strong, Beat Up can be even weaker, and Memento is can be useless against many common things that come in after a revenge kill (ie. Fletchling, Snivy, Cottonnee, Scarf-anything). It also can't have those other moves along with Substitute which makes it easy to stop with even non-Scarf Pawn (which you can't bypass with Memento).
That's a very significant difference, and that difference in strength comes into play way more frequently than you might think. It allows Diglett to do crazy things, and is why it is so threatening...it is actually really strong, and the majority of really bulky Pokemon in Little Cup are more specially defensive anyways.
3) Diglett can trap the vast majority of its targets with just its STAB move.
This is one of the key reasons Diglett is so bloody powerful. Its coverage helps it stand up to Pokemon it can't trap with Earthquake doing the real damage, whereas Gothita's coverage is really the only reason it can trap. Earthquake is just a much better STAB option than Psychic, and lets Diglett trap, at some point, legitimately everything that isn't a Flying-type or a Grass-type without a Poison sub-typing. No one is saying that Diglett can do so right off the bat, however, it is not very difficult to reach a game state that allows these sorts of ridiculous things to happen.
Gothita does not have a monopoly on taking out Fighting-types. Honestly, the list of above calcs goes on and on, and I don't need to show you what happens to its intended targets, the Pokemon weak to Ground, do I?
I was under the impression we weren't talking about Gothita anymore but I also think those calcs don't show what you wanted them to and I'll take this opportunity to explain at least indirectly why I think Gothita is better but MORE importantly why Diglett falls short. You said "stronger", which is of course true. While Earthquake is a better and stronger STAB, especially with Life Orb (even though 1 less Atk than SpA), Gothita doesn't rely almost solely on that move. It has a monstrous movepool that can be used to exploit more Pokemon. Diglett may have more damage output, but it's irrelevant on these targets. And what about when NOT comparing it to Gothita? If Diglett is truly suspect-worthy and Gothita is not, there has to be more to it than "Diglett has more base power and LO so it hurts most Pokemon more even though it can't actually KO them and they almost all OHKO back".
More indirect strengths of Gothita that point out Diglett's flaws include that it can't beat Porygon or Spritzee spamming Recover or Wish respectively or Foongus using Spore wheras Gothita can Trick and beat them with full HP and Eviolite (which still lets it beat Timburr, for example). And again I'll point out that almost all of these Pokemon KO Diglett straight up (I mean if Gothita is using a non-intrusive HP and has 36 Def EVs, it can take Timburr Mach Punch + Knock Off) - which is, again, meant to express that Diglett is a pussy not that Gothita is a tank.
And I actually think things are more biased to physical defense in LC whether its from EVs (Mienfoo) or from simply focusing on that with EVs (Spritzee).
4) Diglett puts way too much pressure on the other team.
Essentially, Diglett punishes the other player for actually playing the game. You had said in a previous post that like, if Mienfoo predicts Ponyta or Larvesta or whatever and U-Turns onto the switch into Diglett, it predicted correctly, and that the player with Ponyta or Larvesta or whatever should have double switched? I guess if you examine a single turn in a vacuum you may come to that conclusion, but that's incredibly shortsighted. You need to look at the whole game, and even before that while you were teambuilding. If the user of Ponyta, Larvesta, or whatever Diglett can trap needs to play perfectly every single turn by not allowing their Pokemon to get trapped by Diglett, then essentially using those Pokemon is deadweight on your team. If I can't check Mienfoo with Ponyta, why am I using Ponyta? It stops these Pokemon from doing their job as a single U-Turn or Volt Switch into Diglett (INCREDIBLY POPULAR MOVES) ends them and prevents them from checking the Pokemon they were supposed to check to begin with. This naturally transitions into...
5) Diglett puts way too much pressure on teambuilding.
It is not lazy teambuilding to have a difficult time dealing with Diglett. It is not something I need to "better prepare for." Unlike every other broken Pokemon, even if I was going to better prepare, IT DOESN'T MATTER. If you have two Ground-weak Pokemon on a team, you have two ripe sacrifices for Diglett's bloodlust. It doesn't matter if the rest of my team beats the shit out of Diglett, those two are going to get smacked. Even if arguably Swirlix, Yanma, and everything else you didn't want banned could be better accounted for in the teambuilder...Diglett can't. The past bans of Tangela, Gligar, Yanma, Murkrow, and Misdreavus have removed five top threats that Diglett could not trap, which is why its strain is only recently becoming apparent. Granted, it shares this problem with Gothita, that you can't really account for it in teambuilding, however...
My point was that it goes both ways. I've been on both sides of Diglett and trust me it's not just "oh just spam U-turn you'll get to use Diglett in the long run" like you're presenting. If you need to check Mienfoo and your only option is Ponyta, then you better be damn confident that you don't fuck up with it. Same way if Pawniard is your only Fletchling counter you don't switch it into Overheat. Mienfoo against a Ponyta, it's not going to want to risk U-turn every time - and if it does it's basically a useless check to whatever it's checking unless you're using it to deal with a fucking Exeggcute. Ponyta is doing it's job deterring other moves in a similar way Diglett deters Ponyta. If you use Knock Off or Drain Punch, Ponyta is still there.
All in in all, Diglett is really difficult to get it in on something it can trap and it's even more difficult to keep momentum once you trap something without sacrificing Diglett (which I think is a really OK trade off, but it's not a broken or uncompetitive one). And it's basically the only way to get it in too, besides double-switching.
And I think you're more creative than to say "it doesn't matter" about preparing. You can scarf Larvesta, you can use Endure Salac things, Ground-resist berry, priority, etc. It's just this generation of players are too scared to play without fucking Eviolite so they turned off their ability to deal with Diglett. Shit, some of my teams are literally a bunch of levitators/flying mons because they work so well together and I didn't even think of Diglett.
For illustration, OP pointed out some replays of Diglett to us from LCPL:
OP said:
fatty v sam: Sam's team lacks proper ways of getting diglett into the battle and he gets punished hard for that. It doesn't come into the battle until it's the last Pokemon and all it does is kill a 50% Chinchou.
Cydrolic v radianthero156: At the cost of his full health cottonee and only because he got a lucky crit, Radian is able to kill a 50% knocked off Foongus and then Diglett gets trapped by trace porygon.
me v madoka: I used a sash diglett and it never came into battle.
tazzie v cydrolic: Tazzie has to make a risky double and win a 50/50 just to kill Pawniard. Diglett is then counter-trapped by trace porygon.
Just look at those games - it's pretty hard to use Diglett against a good player. It's a small-ish sample size, but they illustrate my point pretty well.
6) You can set up all over Gothita. You cannot set up on Diglett.
This is the biggest reason why I have never ever had a single problem with Gothita in the entirety of my time playing. None of Gothita's moves are even close to threatening unless it hits you super effectively, which means it has to pick the perfect move for every situation, unlike Diglett's multipurpose Earthquake. After picking that move, assuming it gets the trap, it is locked into that move. That is a free Shell Smash, a free Swords Dance, a free layer of hazards, a free Dragon Dance, a free ANYTHING. That is your turn. Gothita might have taken out a Pokemon, but you now have the opportunity to take out several more having set up all over it. Diglett, however, is not locked into anything. It is free to switch moves. It has priority. It has memento. You cannot abuse Diglett the turn after it killed something, and that's what really makes it so devastating.
I think this is the biggest misrepresentation of Diglett throughout the entire discussion in general (not just you in this post). Compared to Gothita, yes, Diglett is harder (for you, baby) to set up on because it has EQ + Sucker Punch, can use Rock Slide to stop Fletchling from Sword Dancing (but it actually doesn't, it's risky but it can Roost on Suckers/Rock Slides and potentially set up), etc. However, it is not hard to set up on. We need to carefully consider what words we're using. To put the statement accurately: Diglett is more difficult to setup on than Gothita, though Diglett is not generally difficult to set up on. Furthermore, I think the concept of setting up is a little old school for this current meta. LC has counters now. Pawniard is stopped cold by most Fighting-types even after a Swords Dance. There are too few "one-turn and gg" Pokemon this meta than there were in like Gen 4 with like DDtini or double dance Gligar/Krabby. Good luck switching into Snivy reliably, Mienfoo / Timburr reliably (I swear to god we didn't have like a 10 page debate on Mienfoo being able to run poison jab for no reason), or hell, even Archen reliably. There are even more prevelent threats now with like Corphish who can fuck many teams up or Scarf Cranidos that doesn't give a fuck about Diglett's Rock-resistance.
Think of the exchanges from the matches above - people suffered for having Diglett on their team instead of a 6th mon that can reliably come in and do something. It was step 1: sacrifice something to get Diglett in. Step 2: maybe revenge kill something that has more or less done it's job already. Step 3: Diglett either dies or the person with Diglett loses momentum.
Diglett is fine for the metagame and gives a unique support option for specific teams.
I'm no expert on LC, but discussing a Diglett ban seems ridicolous to me.
I do have some experience with ADV and a lot of the arguments you made about Diglett can be made about Gen 3 Magneton as well, and I don't think anyone isn't fine with Magneton in ADV OU. in particular I'd like to focus on blarajan's points 4 and 5, which are the strongest parallel between Diglett and Magneton. (in general this applies to a lot of trappers, Magneton is just the one I know the most about)
Point 4. Now okay, Gen 3 doesn't have U-Turns so your "click uturn and eventually get the correct trapping" doesn't apply to Gen 3, however since Team Preview doens't exist in ADV you could make a similar argument with "scout your enemy's mons, find his playing patterns and eventually reveal magneton for a free kill". Of course Diglett traps basicly everything and Magneton only traps steel types, but teams with Skarmory or Forretress are extremely common and both mons get one kill "for free" most games regardless. If anything the issue with this point is not Diglett as much as it is U-Turn, which is a "click here to get momentum" button and obviously works well with mons that abuse momentum such as trappers; if setup sweepers that won games after one turn of setup existed, you'd complain about those instead, being able to get free set up opportunities through u-turns.
Point 5. In Gen 3 it's extremely common to build around certain cores. You don't build around having things to break Skarmory and having things to break Blissey, you build around having things to break SkarmBliss. Same thing applies here. You can't build around doing well against just Digletts, you need to have ways to handle U-Turns to Digletts and/or diglett rkills. Of course it's harder in ORAS LC than in ADV OU due to the sheer amount of threats present, but the concept still applies. If a team has a Diglett-weak pokémon and has no way to play around Diglett, then that team is Diglett weak. An example of playing around Magneton in ADV is a somewhat common core (its mirror match in a SWC match was memorable) which includes Skarmory, Forretress and Dugtrio. You set spikes with your first Steel, if it gets trapped you revengekill it with Dugtrio, then complete the Spike stacking with your second steel. It is a good way to punish teams that rely exclusively on Magneton to prevent their field from getting Spikes stacked. You can do similar things around Diglett without limiting teambuilding in absurd ways.
once again, I'm no expert about how Diglett works in pratice, but it should be the same as all other trappers I have experience with.
I'm no expert on LC, but discussing a Diglett ban seems ridicolous to me.
I do have some experience with ADV and a lot of the arguments you made about Diglett can be made about Gen 3 Magneton as well, and I don't think anyone isn't fine with Magneton in ADV OU. in particular I'd like to focus on blarajan's points 4 and 5, which are the strongest parallel between Diglett and Magneton. (in general this applies to a lot of trappers, Magneton is just the one I know the most about)
Point 4. Now okay, Gen 3 doesn't have U-Turns so your "click uturn and eventually get the correct trapping" doesn't apply to Gen 3, however since Team Preview doens't exist in ADV you could make a similar argument with "scout your enemy's mons, find his playing patterns and eventually reveal magneton for a free kill". Of course Diglett traps basicly everything and Magneton only traps steel types, but teams with Skarmory or Forretress are extremely common and both mons get one kill "for free" most games regardless. If anything the issue with this point is not Diglett as much as it is U-Turn, which is a "click here to get momentum" button and obviously works well with mons that abuse momentum such as trappers; if setup sweepers that won games after one turn of setup existed, you'd complain about those instead, being able to get free set up opportunities through u-turns.
Point 5. In Gen 3 it's extremely common to build around certain cores. You don't build around having things to break Skarmory and having things to break Blissey, you build around having things to break SkarmBliss. Same thing applies here. You can't build around doing well against just Digletts, you need to have ways to handle U-Turns to Digletts and/or diglett rkills. Of course it's harder in ORAS LC than in ADV OU due to the sheer amount of threats present, but the concept still applies. If a team has a Diglett-weak pokémon and has no way to play around Diglett, then that team is Diglett weak. An example of playing around Magneton in ADV is a somewhat common core (its mirror match in a SWC match was memorable) which includes Skarmory, Forretress and Dugtrio. You set spikes with your first Steel, if it gets trapped you revengekill it with Dugtrio, then complete the Spike stacking with your second steel. It is a good way to punish teams that rely exclusively on Magneton to prevent their field from getting Spikes stacked. You can do similar things around Diglett without limiting teambuilding in absurd ways.
once again, I'm no expert about how Diglett works in pratice, but it should be the same as all other trappers I have experience with.
One of the bigger issues with Diglett currently, which is hard to see in ADV comparatively, is that ORAS has much better offensive cores using a trapper. This is even true back in BW where 2Mag4Drag was a fairly reliable strategy. Magnezone in OU is useful for paving the way for stuff like Mega Altaria to sweep later, while in ADV it was more a matter of using Magneton to get rid of this mon more than give a definite advantage to something else on your team (please correct me if I'm wrong on this).
In LC, to be more relevant to the discussion, Diglett makes some exceptional pairs. Diglett allows for stuff like Mienfoo to attack with relative safety if your opponent is running Ponyta or Larvesta as their fighter check, and in addition removes poison types which otherwise work well as fighter answers. Trubbish, which at one point was the hypest Mienfoo answer, is no longer as effective in large part due to how easily Diglett traps and kills it (another part is losing to the spinners while being a spike stacker). A much more well-known offensive core is FletchDig. Fletchling is entirely capable of sweeping teams, which is why every single serious team must have some sort of answer to it, usually in the form of a flying resist. The types that resist flying are Rock, Steel, and Electric. Guess what weakness they share? Fletchling can U-turn out of the incoming answer to go to Diglett who then removes it. This is at least a piece of why Archen pushed aside Chinchou as the most reliable Fletchling answer.
I don't really feel like Diglett is broken, simply by its record in high level play, but I also don't tend towards using Diglett weak teams (fire/poison types as my fighter answer, a lot of steel and rock types). It might be interesting to have a Digless ladder however, and see how it goes.
There, fair argument was made because of how hard it is to handle FletchDig, something I didn't really think about while writing my previous post.
Magneton does open the way to many sweepers through removing Skarmory, though other answers to physical sweepers in the form of Swampert and some others are still used, so yes, it's not as drastic as ORAS, but it's still pretty big considering how many games revolve around who plays Spikes the best way possible.
If FletchDig is completely unstoppable/way too centralizing then I'd argue considering bans is fair (although the Fletchling suspect resulted in a no ban, diglett ban/complex bans can work), if it is centralizing but still has his handful of counters then there is no need to discuss ban, centralization is good to a certain point imo especially in ORAS where there are so many potential threats that are kept in check only by something that handles them being too popular. But I don't really know how much it centralizes so my contribution to this discussion stops here.
Personally, I used Magneton in advance WAY more than I used Diglett in LC for the sole reason that the metagame is insanely centralized around Steel-types and lacks any real physical resistance without Skarmory around. Seriously, 5 physical beasts + magneton was a realistic strategy. oras lc is a much different game - Diglett is more likely to trap and KO something because of U-turn and it's crazy speed, though the trap is likely going to matter far less. Magneton is also more versatile (checking non-fire punch gengar etc). I don't know how this turned into a Magneton in adv suspect thread but whatever lets leave the comparison alone - it's not hugely relevant.
Personally, I used Magneton in advance WAY more than I used Diglett in LC for the sole reason that the metagame is insanely centralized around Steel-types and lacks any real physical resistance without Skarmory around. Seriously, 5 physical beasts + magneton was a realistic strategy. oras lc is a much different game - Diglett is more likely to trap and KO something because of U-turn and it's crazy speed, though the trap is likely going to matter far less. Magneton is also more versatile (checking non-fire punch gengar etc). I don't know how this turned into a Magneton in adv suspect thread but whatever lets leave the comparison alone - it's not hugely relevant.
I'm not talking about how Magneton needs to be suspected lol, I even said no one has ever considered suspecting it because his effects on the game aren't unbalanced/overpowered/uncompetitive and used it to make a parallel with Diglett. I don't want my posts to be misunderstood, let's make this clear, I think both mons have no reason to be banned (unless that FletchDig is indeed unbalanced/overpowered/uncompetitive)
I'm not talking about how Magneton needs to be suspected lol, I even said no one has ever considered suspecting it because his effects on the game aren't unbalanced/overpowered/uncompetitive and used it to make a parallel with Diglett. I don't want my posts to be misunderstood, let's make this clear, I think both mons have no reason to be banned (unless that FletchDig is indeed unbalanced/overpowered/uncompetitive)
Comparing Magneton and Diglett is just plain silly; Mag works REALLY differently to diglett and comparing those two basically misses the point. Diglett is able to trap and KO a lot of slightly weakened stuff (altho some require broken move knock off for that) and most stuff weak to EQ; U-turn/volt switch make this pretty easy. While doubling to diglett does reward prediction in a sense, it could be argued that it's pretty different to doubling for [x mon that beats expected double and does work] to gain a small advantage. I don't really think trappers should be banned because they seem fine (if anything they're punishing formulaic building) but wanted to put that out there.
EDIT- A comparison with Gothita is much more justifiable as they are both fast (CS obv), remove key threats and have other utility (trick/memento). also they're in a similar meta so comparisons are bound to occur lol
Comparing Magneton and Diglett is just plain silly; Mag works REALLY differently to diglett and comparing those two basically misses the point. Diglett is able to trap and KO a lot of slightly weakened stuff (altho some require broken move knock off for that) and most stuff weak to EQ; U-turn/volt switch make this pretty easy. While doubling to diglett does reward prediction in a sense, it could be argued that it's pretty different to doubling for [x mon that beats expected double and does work] to gain a small advantage. I don't really think trappers should be banned because they seem fine (if anything they're punishing formulaic building) but wanted to put that out there.
if this deserves a ban like every trapper ever (including pursuit users) deserve a ban too lol
imo this discussion is kinda pointless, we all know what diglett does and most of us think it's not ban worthy, and we basicly answered most of blarajan's pro ban points.
we can switch the argument of the discussion at this point, unless more objections are raised.
(and for the record, I don't think the comparison with magneton is any more "plain silly" then the comparison with gothita)
I do not believe blarajan's or others' points have been adequately countered, nor do I believe most of us think that dig does not deserve at least a suspect. You are not the majority. Notice how the posts arguing for a suspect all have more likes. That would indicate the true majority, no?
e: was't calling your posts useless/annoying/w.e but just don't claim to be the majority when you're the minority and don't dismiss this discussion based off of that faulty premise
I think it's best if I just peace out and watch the discussion then since you all know more stuff then me about LC. Sorry if my posts were useless/annoying/wrong/other bad stuff.
I appreciate what you're saying and yes I wouldn't be opposed to a missy suspect (not sure that I want it back, just want to see how it'd fare) but I have to say that we do kind of take into account whether or not a metagame is better with/without a Pokemon.
From every single suspect we've had so far (yeah I know there's discussion on changing it shut up):
1) Is X broken?
2) Is X making Little Cup not fun?
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
If 1 is satisfied, then 2 and 3 don't matter. If 1 is not satisfied, then the latter qualities in tandem might be worth banning it.
You can make a case as far back as Gligar that we don't just ban broken things. Gligar was not necessarily broken at the point in time we suspected it, really good yes but not really and truly broken. At the least no more so than Misdreavus. However Gligar certainly made Little Cup a lot less fun, and you can certainly say it deterred individuals from playing LC considering what it did to LC in SPL. Centralization was just the icing on the cake.
Let's do a quick run through of these with Missy.
1) Misdreavus may or may not be broken. At the absolute least it's a top tier threat, and vastly shapes the metagame around it. It may not be classically broken, but it's also hard to really discuss this accurately with Misdreavus gone.
2) With Misdreavus gone a lot more sets and mons became viable. This cannot be argued with, just look at the difference in the viability rankings after Misdreavus left. The meta might be as fun with Missy back now, but I'm inclined to doubt it.
3) I don't think many people were deterred from LC by Misdreavus, although making many mons less viable and increasing the speed ties around the 19 speed tier doesn't exactly encourage newcomers. Again, this is harder to discuss without Misdreavus in the meta.
Sure, suspect Missy, I'm all for a ladder with Missy unbanned so we can be sure it needs to stay gone. It'd also make the trappers not as good, if that's any kind of motivation.
Lol what? I was an advocate for keeping gligar and even I could tell it was broken. It simply did too much in one slot, requiring dedicated things like slowpoke (which could lose to +2 koff with prior damage) simply to check it. It could be one of 20 different sets, from SD BJ, itemless, subsd, agility, sd bp, evio pivot, defog, sr lead, 4 attack,,,
Missy on the other hand had 2 sets that were the most common at any given time, and one of them wasn't even common: NP Misdreavus and SpecsMissy. You could argue that LO Missy was also a thing, but I would say it wasn't nearly as common as the standard 240 / 240 Eviolite Missy. It had guaranteed counters and checks, in Porygon and Vullaby, prominent checks in things like Stunky or Scarf Pawniard, a much harder time at setting up than Gligar (Knock off was still p common and it crippled Missy some) and the abuse of priority in the metagame made it easier to check even if it had set up (things like Croagunk, Fletchling, Diglett, Cottonee with Encore Taunt or Stun Spore). Please don't compare the two at all lol..
Simply because a lot more sets sprung up after Misdreavus left does not mean that the meta became any more "fun." This point is entirely subjective, and thus can be used to suit anyone's argument on either side. For example I despise the ORAS tier because there are a shitton of irrelevant threats that can randomly sweep your team if you don't prepare for it, with literally every mon from C and up being somewhat relevant and threatening. Its a lot harder to teambuild for than it is for other metagames, and even if you do make something innovative you can still lose to one of the dozens of metagame threats.
You can say the same thing about the 19 Speed tier discouraging newcomers as you can about most any speed tier. For example the 17 Speed tier is littered with threats, Itemless Archen, BJ Archen, TauntFoo, Drilbur, Snivy, etc etc. Speed ties have always existed in LC and will always exist as long as the levels are played at 5 simply due to how stats work.
fuck it lets get this missy discussion going. Retest Yanma and Tangela while we're at it. Also ban Pawniard and Berry Juice,,,
17 speed tier is a lot less significant than the 19 though. Outside of the occasional showdown, if you lose a speed tie in the 17s, you don't lose the game. Against the 19s...you basically lost the game. If you are losing games because of 17 speed ties, you probably played poorly and forced yourself into that position. They really aren't comparable. Ps none of the banned things are coming back so shush.
I honestly wouldn't care if missy was brought back (would be cool for sure, something to shake up the meta ~_~); it seems more troublesome than BW but i honestly didnt notice TOO much of a different while it was here. It has its checks such as porygon, stunky, etc. I guess ORAS is sorta a different meta in that it's really versatile with a shitton of threats and such, and missy really doesn't fit into the meta and would probably be broken by that standard, but i would like missy ya :>
Bringing back gligar is fucking lmao since anyone who played then knew how ridiculous that thing is. Tangela was cool as fuck but broken, yanma was broken. I honestly wouldn't mind if Swirlix came back cus i liked cotton candy and ppl over broken ified it D:
17 speed tier is a lot less significant than the 19 though. Outside of the occasional showdown, if you lose a speed tie in the 17s, you don't lose the game. Against the 19s...you basically lost the game. If you are losing games because of 17 speed ties, you probably played poorly and forced yourself into that position. They really aren't comparable. Ps none of the banned things are coming back so shush.
Drilbur vs Chinchou / Mienfoo vs Archen / EQ archen vs chinchou / Archen vs Snivy ARE very significant speed ties. Compared to the 19 speed tier (which only contained sashbra, ponyta, misdreavus, and staryu), they're still very dangerous. The era in which 19 speed ties were game-breaking due to Murkrow, Gligar, and Missy being all here at the same time are over.
Speed ties aren't a valid argument for banning either, imo. Yes, they make Little Cup more "luck-based", but it's not something we can really fix in a clean way like banning enough pokemon so the speed tier doesn't even exist anymore.
