Announcement Goons and Balloons Suspect (Gothita banned! Drifloon still banned!)

[macle]

With the input of the LC council and the community, Quote and I have decided to suspect Drifloon, Gothita, and Diglett. This is obviously an extremely important vote, and due to its importance only the LC council will vote. This decision has been made in order to only have voters concerned with preserving the integrity of the metagame instead of simply seeking a badge. We still want community input, and therefore the thread is open for everyone to post their thoughts and debate with the council in this thread. Who knows, if you post well you may even be invited to join the council.

As mentioned before, this suspect will cover a Drifloon retest and the potential bans of Gothita and Diglett. Just to make sure all posters are on the same page, here is the reasoning behind the choices.

Drifloon

:
Drifloon was placed on the ban list this generation more or less because it was banned last generation. Last generation, Drifloon was able to stall out opponent’s teams with its competition of Will-o-Wisp + Recycle + Berry Juice and win a significant portion of 1v1s. However with Sun and Moon a very important mechanic have been changed: burn damage is only half what it was this generation. Now many feel that Drifloon cannot stall out nearly as many Pokemon as it could before, and several new additions to the metagame should help keep Drifloon in check. This is why it has been suggested to retest Drifloon.

Gothita

:
Gothita has access to the world's most hated ability: Shadow Tag. With Shadow Tag, Gothita can trap anything not named Wynaut or Gothita, or possessing the Ghost-typing. Gothita has several sets are regarded as broken by some, with Eviolite variants making some defensive Pokemon liabilities, while the Choice Scarf set is able to pick off faster checks to a variety of sweepers. However, Gothita does give up free turns to some of the most threatening Pokemon around, namely Scraggy, Vullaby, and Pawniard which is viewed by some to be a more than fair trade off. Gothita was a force to be reckoned with last generation, and now, in Sun and Moon, the community has called for a Gothita suspect.

Diglett

:
Diglett was suspected last generation twice, and much to the many community member's disdain, it barely survived both tests. It should come as no surprise that Diglett is once again being suspected again. Diglett’s ability Arena Trap allows it to trap most Pokemon. With its amazing 20 speed, it outspeeds all unboosted non scarfed mons bar just Elekid and Voltorb. With its great Speed, Diglett has more flexibility than Gothita does, making it able to pick off frailer Pokemon thanks to being able to use Life Orb. Thanks to Memento, Diglett is hard to take advantage of too, which makes many claim it is broken.

 

[macle]

Drifloon will be freed when an admin does the request


The Immortal please unban drifloon

 

[Kingler]

I really don't like voting on all three of these suspects at the same time... I'm not gonna make any assumptions with regards to the intentions of the council because that feels unfair to do, but still, a suspect like trappers should definitely be its own suspect and be given the sufficient amount of time. feels like we're kinda being lazy with the suspect process when this is arguably one of the most important and controversial suspects this generation

 

[jake]

Could you guys explain why you want to test all three at the same time? I'm fairly new to LC but it seems to me that Drifloon & the two trappers are different enough that they should merit their own individual tests. If Drifloon is deemed broken with the support of trappers (I was under the impression that this was part of the reason it was so good last gen, but correct me if I'm wrong), then are you guys planning to re-re-test it if Diglett/Gothita get banned? Running all three at once just seems strange.

On bias in the OP: yea there's a bit of funky wording that implicates an inevitable outcome for Diglett at least, but I don't get the vibe that holding this to a council vote is meant to subvert prior ORAS votes on trappers. Trapping will always be controversial, I think.

 

[Gummy]

Banning both trappers would definitely make Salandit a little more viable, which I think is interesting. The only viable special fire type we have is Houndour. But moving onto the actual thread, I agree that a community suspect test would be the best for Diglett and Gothita. I'm guessing the council at this point is sick of all the Diglett-suspecting, but the amount of times it's been almost banned makes it MORE important to community-test it, imo.

As for Drifloon, I'm honestly indifferent. I think there are pros and cons to banning and unbanning it. While yes, it can't outlast some of its checks anymore, I doubt anyone wants to play the "who can wait 20 turns before someone just forfeits" game. Pawniard can now out-stall Drifloon, but the fact of the matter is is that Drifloon's purpose is to stall, and that's just boring and annoying for everyone involved. It's still just as irritating as it was before it was banned except now instead of situations being "hopeless" they're "technically not hopeless, but an absolute pain in the ass anyway". However, just because something is annoying isn't really reason to keep it banned. Spritzee in ORAS could be really annoying since it could practically never be OHKOed and had access to Wish and Protect. It's not ban-worthy though. My point: Drifloon's annoying but not broken enough to stay banned.

On another note, Gothita. I haven't been playing SM LC much so I'm not 100% knowledgeable but right now it's a little ridiculous. Gothita beats so many things and so little can switch into it. I think it'd be worthwhile to ban it. I honestly don't think Diglett NEEDS to be banned, but like Drifloon, I don't care either way. On one hand, r.i.p half my teams, and on the other, at least I don't have to deal with it anymore.

Also, why are we testing all 3 at the same time? Is it to get the meta ready for SPL? Because this seems a bit much. I'd think it'd be a better idea to suspect the trappers and wait til after SPL for Drifloon or vice versa, since unbanning a mon is a pretty big deal.

 

[Merritt]

Regardless of the reasoning behind it, all three of these mons are up for suspect, so might as well get down to discussing them.

A lot of discussion on Drifloon in terms of theorymonning has gone down in the metagame discussion thread, so for that I'm going to wait until I've had more of a chance to play around with it before saying whether or not the theorymonning was correct.

Gothita is different from Diglett in the trapper role and better in the current meta because it's able to switch in on the pokemon it traps with the CM set. While Diglett is more powerful due to Life Orb and harder to take advantage of, it's also a pokemon where either you outplay your opponent with a good prediction or they made a choice to allow Diglett to come in when they KOed your Snubbull with their Mareanie. Diglett, while not a "skillful" mon per se, promotes risk assessment and encourages good prediction skills from both players.

CM Gothita, on the other hand, switches in on the pokemon it wants to trap and then disposes of them, so while there certainly is still some element of counterplay there's still far less risk on the side of the Gothita user. Gothita's putting immense pressure on you when building, because you cannot make something an essential member of your team if Gothita traps it. Spritzee? Unless you're running Calm Mind yourself you'd better have a second fighting type counter. Foongus without clear smog is pure bait for Goth. Without Haze Mareanie will always lose to a Gothita that switches in, and even Haze is no guarantee. Defensive Staryu, and even LO Abra lacking Shadow Ball can be switched in on, trapped, and killed. This is why Gothita is such a threat, because unless you outpredict your opponent every single time you have one of these mons on the field, their Gothita can switch in and remove them as a factor.

While Diglett (as noted in the OP) is harder to take advantage of after getting the KO compared to Gothita, our Shadow Tagging friend is far more efficient at its ability to support the team and doing its job, and even after getting a kill is surprisingly bulky. While there are pokemon that take advantage of Gothita's presence on the field in a way that Diglett's answers really don't (except maybe Snivy), they mostly have counters which aren't hard to fit onto a team and appreciate Gothita's abilities themselves.

In short, Gothita's been ridiculous, both to play with and against. I'd fully support a ban of this pokemon, unless during the suspect period some well defined answers come up to its ability to trap and remove a rather large number of mons. Diglett meanwhile hasn't been wowing me even as much as it did in ORAS. It's still good, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't strike me as broken at all.

 

[Star]

Could you guys explain why you want to test all three at the same time? I'm fairly new to LC but it seems to me that Drifloon & the two trappers are different enough that they should merit their own individual tests. If Drifloon is deemed broken with the support of trappers (I was under the impression that this was part of the reason it was so good last gen, but correct me if I'm wrong), then are you guys planning to re-re-test it if Diglett/Gothita get banned? Running all three at once just seems strange.

On bias in the OP: yea there's a bit of funky wording that implicates an inevitable outcome for Diglett at least, but I don't get the vibe that holding this to a council vote is meant to subvert prior ORAS votes on trappers. Trapping will always be controversial, I think.

Well I wanted floon first personally but the reasoning behind this was that floon + diglett was viewed as broken last gen and when we had a floon alone suspect many of the arguments for ban were that digfloon is a borked core and so ppl banned floon. To avoid that this gen they're being suspected simultaneously. And goth obv fits with the trapping theme.

 

[Schmedly]

Well I wanted floon first personally but the reasoning behind this was that floon + diglett was viewed as broken last gen and when we had a floon alone suspect many of the arguments for ban were that digfloon is a borked core and so ppl banned floon. To avoid that this gen they're being suspected simultaneously. And goth obv fits with the trapping theme.

That does make sense. Even still, a council suspect isn't the best idea because people get the impression that the council just wants to quickly ban Dig + Goth instead of giving them a chance.

 

[Altariel von Sweep]

Well, my opinion through all the theorymon around Drifloon, even with the nerf of the burn, against it, it feels like it tests the other player's patience. But now looks like it's easier to beat it, if the Pokémon who faces has a great HP and a reliable recovery. It's still annoying, but not that annoying to the point of being broken.

About Diglett, it's true that the council can be sick after suspecting it a lot of times, but it makes more important to community-test. It's more flexible than Gothita at trapping, revenge kills Pokemon that killed a partner, gives Stealth Rock support and even Z-Memento support to ease a partner's sweep. But the principal function it does is to trap Pokemon that threaten to the team, and knock them out. With these functions, it becomes a versatile Pokemon, which it would be worthy ban imo.

About Gothita, it's overly ridiculous. I didn't use it too much, but it can beat a lot of things, and switches into a few things. Still, I don't consider it's too broken, but maybe that's because I don't use it.

 

[Brambane]

Well I wanted floon first personally but the reasoning behind this was that floon + diglett was viewed as broken last gen and when we had a floon alone suspect many of the arguments for ban were that digfloon is a borked core and so ppl banned floon. To avoid that this gen they're being suspected simultaneously. And goth obv fits with the trapping theme.

They why did we choose to suspect them at the same time rather than doing trappers first? Trappers have always been a controversial issue. If trapper(s) are an issue without Drifloon and get banned, then we can test if Drifloon is broken without trappers present. If trappers are not banned, then we are testing Drifloon in the exact same meta we are right now.

 

[Josh]

Not going to comment on this test because it is stupid and for all people complain about ss praising rocks, that will be nothing compared to lc council doing what would look to the public as overturning 2 public tests that went againt their beliefs. Council testing trappers is a bad idea and council testing all 3 together is a worse idea.

but anyways: Question to people who think Gothita is broken (Merritt mostly so far but thread is very early): now, I have very minimal lc experience though I enjoy the tier. from what I remember last gen I was under the impression Diglett was by far closer to being broken than Gothita. What has changed to make Gothita ridiculous this gen?

 

[macle]

Why council vote?
I made this post asking what kinda of input does the community want in the process. No one posted they wanted a community vote. Most of the posts just wanted the community more involved in the discussion process hence why we have this thread. Also a blara system wouldn't work because we know what we want to suspect. In the future, we will probably move to a blara- like system with options with retests and other bans. If you wanna talk more about it, you can pm me but stop posting here because this is about the suspects now.

 

[tcr]

my thoughts

On trapping: For the entirety of Gen 6, I have felt that trapping was an extremely uncompetitive mechanic. I feel this way through the way I define what it means to be a Pokemon player going through a battle. In battles, at the most simple of levels a player has 1 of 2 seperate options. A player can either attack or they can switch out to a counter. That's really it, and is somewhat of what constitutes Pokemon being a children's game. Obviously it gets a little more complicated than that, as it involves a lot more psychology and reading into your opponent. Trapping gets rid of the switching aspect. This is powerful enough to where in a battle of two equally skilled players where one has a trapper and the other doesn't, the one with the trapper would usually win. The ability to take away an inherent option of the game for a player with no real drawbacks is too poweful in my eyes for this metagame. What trapping has done is turned teambuilding into a sort of "restrictive state." As Blarajan stated once, if you're weak to something like Pawniard on your team, you can just add a Pawniard counter. If you're weak to Diglett on your team, you have to start getting rid of certain Pokemon on your team to adjust to it. This sort of impact on teambuilding is incredibly unhealthy imo. On top of this, trapping is no longer as easy to get by with as it was in previous generations. The ease of volt switch, U-turn, Parting Shot, and Baton Pass make it incredibly easy to get Diglett into a match safely. Gothita is much the same way, only it has it even easier with its Calm Mind set. The Calm Mind set completely negates and makes liabilities of any form of slow paced Pokemon. For the large part, stall and bulky-ish offense are completely dead in Little Cup, and a large part of this has to do with the inability for teams to deal with Gothita. Sure you can just run Vullaby or a Pursuit Trapper, but that doesn't negate the fact that you often have to throw out a sacrificial lamb just to deal with it, which makes Gothita at worst put out a 1:1. I think that both Diglett and Gothita are simply too restrictive to have in Little Cup, and the metagame would be a whole lot healthier without either of them. Gothita has long evolved from just its Scarf set and is no longer mediocre, now it invalidates a large portion of the metagame through its Calm Mind set alone.

On Drifloon: I don't really believe that Drifloon is healthy. I feel that the burn nerf is completely overstated and is just a small portion of what Drifloon actually did. With Drifloon's ability to 1v1 still a lot of the metagame I feel that with the proper support it is just too strong to have in the tier. However, with Diglett gone I don't think I would mind Drifloon coming back, or at least given a chance. Diglett enables a lot of what made Drifloon powerful. One important aspect of Drifloon that a lot of people don't really mention is that a well played Drifloon is essentially immune to hazards. What I mean by this is that normally, if theres a problem bird Pokemon (such as old Fletchling), you could just set up Stealth Rock and keep Fletchling off the field. Eventually it would get worn down by Rocks and die. With Drifloon this is incredibly hard due to passive healing with Berry Juice. Oftentimes Stealth Rock simply enables Drifloon to safely get an unburden boost. The only real counterplay to that is to massively outthink your opponent for several turns in advance and just constantly double switch. I don't think that that sort of play is healthy in relation to counterplay. The other reason I am somewhat hesitant for Drifloon to return is the unpredictability of its moveset. Drifloon has the option to run a myriad of movesets, from standard 1v1er, to Calm Mind hex, to Hex 1v1er, Weakness Policy BP, Z-memento, Tailwind, etc. There's no way to tell what set is going to be what, and Drifloon will almost always have something to offer to a team to be relevant. I don't think that this unpredictability is healthy considering how strong Drifloon is with just two sets, as Drifloon can always adapt to each and every counter, and switching out generally won't do much if Drifloon is holding a Berry Juice.

On council vote>Public vote: Please, stop trying to say that "council is just shitting on whatever decision that was previously made last gen." A new generation calls for a new suspect test, most of the thinking and decisions in ORAS should just be left in ORAS, with our policy and thoughts forming from this generation's metagame. Considering no one responded to macle's posts outside of saying that public voting is largely stupid and offers no benefit (or they made an extremely complicated and ill-formed response) then of course macle would take what the community told him to do and make this suspect a council vote. No one is trying to trample on Gen 6's decision for trapping, its just logical to hold a council suspect considering thats what the community seemed to agree on (the absence of dissent is agreement), and that making sure the metagame is as stable as possible before SPL is a huge priority. Holding a long and drawn out suspect with laddering, a full on suspect discussion, etc etc is in no way quick, and that can only lead to us being in the middle of a suspect when SPL starts, possibly changing the metagame during SPL. No one wants that.

That does make sense. Even still, a council suspect isn't the best idea because people get the impression that the council just wants to quickly ban Dig + Goth instead of giving them a chance.

First off, do you all not get that this is a new generation? It is not uncommon to test things that were previously ok in a different generation, least of all especially controversial things. For those who don't know the council almost made a final decision last generation on trapping as it was such a controversial issue. The consensus at the time was to wait and just do it in the new generation.

And I would argue that holding a public vote is absolutely retarded as most players either don't actually play the metagame (see: several users in this thread), would just vote based off their friends, or would just make an uninformed decision because they believe in fallacious arguments. Every single user on the council has their head on straight and can make an informed opinion on trapping, and I would argue that its not as one sided as some people are making it out to be. Just from last generation there were various voices of dissent on trapping that probably would have led to a 6-7 ish vote had it happened, with no way of knowing what the verdict would have been.

 

[kanns]

Hello, I just wanted to say that the fact that a mon is "annoying" to play against, or stally, should not be taken into account when it comes to banning it or not. Sure Drifloon might be a staller but stall has always been a viable Pokemon strategy and should remain that way. The question should be is it broken or not, not "how many turns does it need to kill its opponent" or "how cancerous is it to play against". This argument is constantly brought up but really should not in my opinion.

For this reason, I tend to think a community vote is not the way to go. Hopefully, a council vote should be more objective.

 

[Conni]

I feel like Drifloon would be still really good as it still maintains it's cancerous Will-O-Wisp, Recycle, and Berry Juice, as it can still cripple many physical attackers, and it can stall Pokemon out, but now with burn nerfed, I think that the thing Drifloon is missing is more offensive capabilities to compensate for the lack of burn damage, this way Drifloon can either burn it and it switches out, or burn it and possibly defeat it with more offensive moves and maybe a new ev spread. My point is basically, Drifloon has the same role, but I doubt that it would stay the same exactly, because right now, it needs more offense to help it to do it's job. Also yay I love balloons.

 

[Coconut]

Firstly, I'd like to applaud the tier leaders for making this suspect as clear to the people as possible. Even if not everyone agrees with the decisions made to make it a council suspect, I think this is a good step in the form of publicity, and I wish it started like this. Now, I beg that as many people post their opinions on the suspect, not the way the suspect is being run. Community feedback is going to be essential for a majority of this suspect.

I made my thoughts on Drifloon in this post, but I am very excited to test it and see if my theory holds true. I will be very happy to admit that I was wrong and that Drifloon will be balanced in the current metagame. But right now I don't see that happening. Expect a follow-up post from me soon.

Regarding Diglett...

Often considered to be LC's mistake last gen, it being back on the chopping block in a similar meta is not surprising to anyone. I personally think that rushing to a Diglett ban (or any of the suspects) without asking a couple of questions would be a mistake. Yes, I'm going to be that poster that asks and answers the same questions, get over it. I'm also probably going to round it up with a closing question.

Is it broken? Objectively? No. This pokemon is not in a tier of it's own, no one considers it to be marginally better than anything in our current S-Rank, or even A+, as the gap is not very far from those tiers. Therefore, I don't believe it's fair to say, yes this pokemon should be seen as broken by everyone. That being said, is it subjectively broken? Well, that leads into what you see as broken, which leads into my next question. Does the suspect in question make the game uncompetitive or unfun? These are more subjective things that would make something broken, as they follow a different philosophy of tiering, which I'll get to at the end. I'm generally going to round up this question with a yes, Diglett makes the game noncompetitive and very lame. I'm not going to rehash the same paragraphs from what feels like forever ago, but I'll cut them down significantly. Diglett restricts teambuilding by significantly weakening the viability of certain pokemon. Diglett has the ability to revenge kill a lot of the pokemon in the metagame with it's incredible speed and priority in sucker punch. Yada yada bing bang no one is going to read it if I write a page and a half about Diglett. It makes the game less fun.

Regarding Gothita...

Also escaping a ban last gen, Gothita is different because of the development that it has overcame within the last suspect to this point. With the advent of the more creative sets, Gothita has become a more dominating force in the metagame, often running specific techs or specific coverage moves and varied sets to create more versatility and unpredictability in the mon.

Is it broken? Objectively? No. The pokemon is not in a tier of it's own, it isn't even S-Rank right now to my knowledge. I believe that in the most basic sense that this pokemon is not broken. Does the suspect in question make the game uncompetitive or unfun? Gothita has the ability to successfully trap a wider variety of pokemon than Diglett does. The main issue with this is that Gothita can only trap things of a specific kind. For example, the Rest Calm Mind set traps bulky special attackers, but misses out on a lot of other different things, because of it's lack of speed investment and coverage moves. On the other hand, the scarf set's speed helps it, but it can only trap one mon, and it's very, very frail. I think this one more comes down to your opinion on trapping. If you think ability trapping is broken, you'll probably think goth makes the game unfun. Personally, I don't, I think Gothita has significant enough counterplay to warrant staying in the metagame.

I'd like to reiterate that this is just my opinion, do not take anything I said as fact, regardless of how I worded it.

Personally, I'm excited for this suspects results, generally speaking this should be one of the most interesting things that will happen in LC in a while, as the results of the suspect (to me) are not clear-cut from the beginning. I think that the vote will go to what our banning philosophy will balance more toward in the future. If we ban things more objectively, we'll be steering toward more of a metagame based on competitive integrity. While if we ban things in a more subjective manner, we'll be looking for a more fun, refined and focused tier. While I haven't exactly been swayed by either banning philosophy as of yet, I think the latter would be better for LC to focus on this gen. I really hope that everyone takes into account these ideas moving forward, and doesn't vote on one mon with an objective perspective and another with a subjective perspective. Cheers to LC, hoping for a great suspect with some strong, yet civil discussion.

 

[Berks]

I would like to make it clear that I wasn't trying to bash on anybody involved with these decisions in earlier posts; while I would greatly appreciate more a more involved process, I am glad the tier leadership is working to make a healthy metagame.

 

[Nineage]

Some thoughts from my conversation with Corporal Levi

In my opinion, Gothita is the single biggest issue to deal with in our metagame right now. There is no other Pokemon in the metagame that can completely shut down otherwise viable opposing Pokemon simply by existing. If Calm Mind Gothita is on a team, Pokemon such as Spritzee, Foongus, and Mareanie literally do not factor into the battle. This isn't even inherently an issue with trapping. Although Diglett can trap and remove Ponyta from a battle, Ponyta can still perform its role, albeit to a much lesser degree, in spreading Wil-O-Wisp burns and scaring Physical attackers. The Pokemon CM Gothita checks, however, stand no chance whatsoever because Gothita can directly switch into them and remove them from the battle. This causes two possible metagame adaptations: first, these Pokemon can run sub-optimal moves in order to deal with Gothita, or second, they can be replaced by other Pokemon. Either way, the metagame is becoming centralized.

Normally, I hate arguments which revolve around centralization in suspect threads, since the metagame will always adapt around certain Pokemon which are a cut above the rest. However, Gothita centralizes the metagame around it to a degree which is unhealthy. If Pokemon run specific moves to deal with it, such as Payback Foongus and Skill Swap Spritzee, they are sacrificing a potentially useful moveslot to have a move to deal with one Pokemon (we can go in circles about how Skill Swap sort of helps vs Regenerator Pokemon, and Payback Foongus also deals with Gastly, but the fact of the matter is that were Gothita not in the metagame these moves would be replaced by moves that are effective in a wider variety of situations and against a wider variety of Pokemon). The only Pokemon I can think of that has forced prominent Pokemon to give up a moveslot only to deal with it was Gligar, and banning Gligar opened up that moveslot and significantly diversified the metgame in doing so. The other option, which is running Pokemon over these Pokemon, severely restricts teambuilding. Again, I understand that prominent Pokemon in metagames will always restrict teambuilding to a degree. The difference lies again in Gothita's ability to completely shut down the Pokemon it checks. If a Pokemon is weak to Pawniard, you may be more likely to run something else, but it doesn't completely keep you from using the Pokemon alongside good Pawniard checks. If you are using Snubbull over Spritzee because Spritzee is trapped by Calm Mind Gothita, you can't just run something that KOs CM Gothita alongside Spritzee because the nature of trapping renders Spritzee unable to come into the battle. The remaining option is to use Spritzee with a limiting move, which as discussed earlier, centralizes the metagame. I challenge anyone who disagrees with this to come up with a single Pokemon in the LC metagame (except maybe Diglett) which deters players from using a Pokemon in the way that Calm Mind Gothita does.

People will say that as its only a small pool of Pokemon handled by Gothita, the centralization and teambuilding restriction doesn't have a significant effect on the metagame, but the fact is that due to good stats, abilities, and defensive typings, nearly all of the Pokemon that Gothita shuts down tend to be Pokemon that effectively can condense roles, which means more roles have to be accounted for in more teamslots. Additionally, CM Gothita tends to trap the metagame's prominent defensive Pokemon, which is one of the factors that is skewing the metagame in a more offensive direction at the moment. The fact is, even if it is effective against a smaller pool of Pokemon than Diglett, the level of centralization that Gothita brings to the metagame is just too much.

The metagame will always adapt to certain Pokemon. Foongus can run Hidden Power Fighting to deal with Pawniard. The issue lies in the fact that there are other ways to deal with Pawniard (I can think of plenty of Pokemon that can switch in and deal with it, and at least 3 lures without even pausing while typing this sentence). The key Pokemon Gothita traps cannot rely on other teammates to deal with a Pokemon. They are forced into certain moveslots, into not being run, or into not doing anything in a battle, simply because of the existence of Gothita.

Tl;dr please ban Gothita

 

[TheFenderStory]

Firstly, I feel it was a solid plan to move forward with looking at all three of the major question mons we have all at once. Saves us from dragging things out and helps us get the LC metagame as ready as possible for SPL as we can.

In regard to Drifloon, I don't have a significant opinion although I do feel that it is worthy of a retest largely due to the burn nerf and recent metagame shifts. As for Dig, I largely felt that it only was a controversial suspect last gen due to the fact the community was essentially voting on whether or not they personally faired better in a meta with or without dig. I'm not convinced dig is inherently broken due to the loss of some of its major partners like Fletch and the supposedly weaker Drifloon, however its trapping ability may still lead some to consider it "uncompetitive", which is probably about the biggest suspect buzzword I can think of and what will be one of the major arguments involved in the suspect of trappers. I'd like to try and caste some clarity on what we mean by uncompetitive with regard to goth and dig. I'll reference this policy review post from Aldaron that provided us a definition

Uncompetitive - elements that 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

• This can be match up related; think the determination that BP took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team match up issue, where even with the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
• This can be external factors; think endless battle clause, where the determining factor becomes internet connection over playing skill.
• This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, SwagPlay, Evasion, or Moody, all of which turn the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
• Note uncompetitive elements are almost always present in the battling skill aspect; they will, however, be present in the team building aspect should we allow them in the sense of having to rely on excessively specific counters (such as loading teams with Sturdy or Keen Eye Pokemon and the like).

This definition argues that something is uncompetitive if a player making a skillful play is rendered irrelevant due to a game element. Obvious examples would be the meta game without a sleep clause or the use of evasion moves which lend themselves to either complete reliance on luck or strategies that take advantage of abusable mechanics to prevent players from responding in a skillful way. The question that remains is whether trapping falls into this category, and if it does not, is it "broken" enough to be banned for being broken. I'll echo Coconut in agreeing that I don't think either mon is inherently broken due to several factors which we have discussed time and time again. As to whether or not it is uncompetitive, I find that trapping can only loosely fit this definition.

Firstly, trapping is certainly not luck based and does not rely on any external factors so it is not uncompetitive in that sense. As for it being matchup related, some teams are certainly more susceptible to trappers, however i feel like matchup dependency is an inherent part of the game, as one team will almost always have some advantage against another going into a match regardless of how well built they are and how skilled a player is. Ultimately, playing against an opponent using a trapper does not render skillful play irrelevant, however it does make skillful play more difficult. A highly skilled player against and equally skilled player using a trapper is of course not certain to lose a match, but they do have a major threat to deal with in their opponents trapper and they have to adjust their play in such a way to account for it. Having to play differently to manage a threat your opponent has is not removing the competitive nature from the game, its simply a powerful threat in the metagame that has to be taken into consideration during a battle and in the teambuilding process like any other threat.

Just because i feel that trapping is not uncompetitive, does not mean I don't think you could till ban it on the premise of being too powerful of a threat for the metagame and being broken. I wrote this post in hope that we will think carefully about looking at the suspect solely from the perspective of uncompetitiveness.

 

[rhydonphilip]

Diglett:
I have already read some people refer to it as the mistake of last gen, and while that makes me optimistic, a certain other sentence is still bothering.
For last gen we chose the ''Offense rather than defense to dominant the metagame''. This did be more of a personal preference as this was used to counter argument the ''unhealthy'' part about Diglett and flower it to the form of ''it's healthy to the offensive metagame''. Even though, people have argued that not being true.
In this gen however, I have seen little action of it doing insane amouts of work just yet. This might be because of an uprise in Sash Digletts and ''losing'' one of it's favorit partners Fletchling but I doubt that is for good reasons. I have yet to see a single reason besides Mudbray and a rise in Mudbray counters as to why this mon can't do the same as it could last gen.
Because of this gens strong addition of Jump Kick Doduo, Brave Bird Rufflet and Vullaby's more effective tools see multiple new options for it to work with.
I don't think there is much else that changed from last gen. I haven't even spoken of the fact Trace Porygon is banned, what, also is a thing to keep in mind. Z-Moves are also somewhat nice as they allow Diglett to use Z-Memento (memento + heals 100% to whatever you go into) and use Z-Sucker Punch to blast to any Pumpkaboo/Frillish and more notable mons alike. Downside obviously being the lack of LO damage.
While the rise of the sash set is apparent, I wouldn't doubt a return of the LO set as many of the reasons to even use Sash Diglett: Cutiefly/Conversion-Porygon have been bannished to LC Ubers.
Now to finally answeres something that i honestly found mindblowing to even hear people say this: ''Without Diglett, we wouldn't have a way of beating Ponyta/Rest-TalkChinchou.''
This isn't even an argument, at best an oversimplification of something that is faulty as well. Mostly looking at how easy it is to substitude Diglett by anything obviously broken as shown by the mocking joke that Mega Ray can be used to ballence anything out as it beats other ''broken'' stuff(or in this instance healthy mons.). Even in last gens situation I could name you numerless ways of bypassing what Ponyta/Chinchou can do to the point they have to adapt to different sets. In this gen however, take a simply look at Scarfed Mudbray and repeat the issue to me. Outside that one Scarfed Drillburr, Munchlax opposing Chinchou and even Lileep can function to fix both these at once. Induvidually they see notably more answeres. I found it dissapointing some people there reasoning to not ban Diglett was based on this ludacris idea.
While I don't mind the randomized votes of people that just go for the TC badge, infact those can be counter fit in both directions as they are easier to follow a certain trend or more easly influenced by a personal stance on Trappers in general or preference to offense. But when it's even active community members not realising the mistake in this, I question the point in arguing to begin with.

Gothita:
Gothita... While last gen it had a rough start getting to utilize it's Stallbreaker set during most of Gen 6. But near the middle and especially near the end of gen 6 you could clearly see what a nuisance and aggressively pressuring set it truely is. If you like me enjoy slower and bulkier set up builds you must have run into this thing at one point and seen how it could break holes in your team if not carefully played around. If you like faster teams, you must have atleast noticed Scarfed Gothita to pick off some mons on your team on a revenge kill. Because of the general usefullness of Dark types it shouldn't pose any imediate threat to your team but once the battle goes on the mon will be able to pick off multiple things. Unlike LO diglett however, it needs a slight bit more then just Knock Off + U-Turn/V-switch support. With some new changes(Dark type Encore/Stun Spore immunity) and a trow back to 2 specific old cores it becomes very apparent how amazing Goth actually is if we just take a look at Scraggy/Mienfoo + Gothita. These 2 cores pair respectively with Stallbreaker Goth to deal with slow fairy types like Spritzee/Snubull and irritating utility mons like Foongus. Mienfoo who can without much risk utilize a combination of Knock + U-turn to hinder and lure in switchins for Gothita to trap. Scarfed Goth does a bit less work with this core but sees more opportunities on it's own as it can come in on a large range of things if simply paired with strong attackers/lures that cut chunks into the opposing pokemon. This is also not a trait that can be subtituded by say Sash/LO Abra as Sash Abra very much relies on maintaining 100% for sash to work or needs a free turn to utilize instant offense with LO. Offense much like Ballence is hindered deeply by Goth in being picked appart of there main attacker or risks too much trying to lure in the opposing wincon.

You are essentially always disadvantaged when looking at a Gothita in the team preview as you have yet to figure out if it will be Scarfed or Stallbreaker. As you have so many simalar functioning ways to utilize both Stallbreaker Goth and Scarfed Goth it can be hard to see by teampreview. Now someother teams however, can be very easy to notice what set it will be as for any mon a team is build around or build a core with.
For those that like talking about T-wave, Taunt or a Bulky attacking Goth like T-tbolt, I did like to compair it to StallBreaker goth as they handle compairably just having a couple more ways of beating standert answeres to Stallbreaker goth like any Dark type or Set up mons or more of such form.


Drifloon:
While allot of people say Rest-Talk Mudbray would render standert Drifloon useless, I have yet to repeat myself on lastgens suspect.
Drifloon has a platoon of sets that each fill up what ever weakness the other has. I will redirect my previous opinion and this time focus more on the CM-set as that one is the most adaptive in being able to utilize Baton Pass(everyone seems to forget it even has that), Hex + T-spikes/Any status Spam, a support set and the weird WP set that people seemingly no one even knows exists and puts in work suprising work specifically to the standert Recycle set.
I do however agree that most Drifloon can do can simply be negated by having even common utility mons like Chinchou and Pory.. oh wait, that's gone.
Vullaby got a buff though! Usefull to note but a discussion on it's own but it dampers down Drifloon's overall usefullness.
The main issue people can see with Drifloon is the following: There is bar to nothing to not use this mon on any team. While even I want to counter argument myself with that by saying the it's the same for Mienfoo however that's the nature of U-turn and how little there is in LC to punish this form of momentum gain.
If a mon is able to invoke a ballence metagame: Ponyta, Rest-talk Chinchou, etc then the mon can be refered to as centralizing, however.... Inf-Turn is a nice example of what I mean with that and even though some people absolutely hated that metagame, it was perfectly ballenced on it's own. Many teams could counteract each-other while still having a decent/great pressence against most other playstyles unlike for instance Stall that has very little advantages.

Any metagame with a certain main playstyle has Pro's and cons, some more favorable for new players. Main difference to minimize randomizations and safer playing(For instace Bulky Offense) and others take advantage of the general nature of the game and rely more on thoughtfull plays(Offense). I love this argument as it's a snarky copy of how we argued to ''handle'' Diglett, as obviously, we didn't.

I am sorry this post was long and too much with the word ''I'' but I hope this was a good description of Lastgen vs this gen and how these mons resolve/would resolve in the metagame.

 

[Jardem]

Drifloon continue being very broken

 

[Coconut]

Drifloon continue being very broken

Why? Doing what?

 

[Jardem]

Why? Doing what?

Doing the same that in ORAS,the nerf in burn mattered but not as much as to be unbanned I think

 

[sam-testings]

There are several people in this thread saying how cm floon is good, and as someone who used a lot of cm floon I can tell you using it requires a lot of things going for you. You have to get a pretty good matchup or else you will pretty much never get the chance to set up, you need to sometimes get lucky rolls in order to live hits from things such as mag and Chou, you no longer have burn stall etc etc. Basically cm floon isn't that good, and if trappers are banned it's going to be even worse. Cm floon never was a top tier threat and is decently easily stopped. I really would not consider it a valid argument over why it should stay banned.

I'm on phone rn so when I get home I'll type up my many thoughts on trappers

 

[Fiend]

Drifloon seems so, so... whelming. Calm Mind needs a good amount of support and is so poor at busting through teams alone that its autowin potential isn't worth it (and by extension, not broken). It is better than before I believe, but that's only saying so much. Acro Wisp is also not as bad as predicted, but it is merely average, which again makes Drifloon seem completely fair, even on hazard stack teams which were stupid last generation. More playing around with CM sub STAB Recycle and CM 3 Attack and other permutations of Drifloon need to be done as well, but the only time Drifloon feels overwhelming is when I have 0 priority alive and they successfully Knock Off spam my offense team, or I get t waved on a key counter and get haxed. Even FloonDig feels subpar to me, as Diglett overall is worse this generation (FletchDig was the crux of it being great, imo, and VullaDig is so underwhelming compared to other Vullaby cores) and you cannot simply have 3 Diglett supported wincons anymore and have enough utility to not auto lose. It's not the brainless Pokemon it sometimes was before, and it is by every measure less potent than it was in ORAS.

Currently I feel that Drifloon is completely fair, if a bit annoying since it overshadows Treecko so thoroughly. The metagame trends SUMO has brought are such that Drifloon is more negatively affected than benefiting of.

As for the trappers there is an undeniable almost strangulating effect they have on the metagame, and its effects are clearly seen in the metagame. Opportunity cost, benifit of using, ease of use, etc, all need to be considered with trappers and is almost nothing more than a rock-paper-scissors game played verbally at this point. But I've hardly ever seen the point of whether we, the players, SHOULD have to put up with the constrictions trappers have on team building aptly addressed. And that is the question which needs to be answered, and I am no longer so sure that we, the players, should be required to handle the arguably toxic effects of trappers in the metagame, specifically Gothita.

Gothita puts such an absurd amount of pressure on balance teams I'm hesitant to call it fair but I'm just as hesitant to call it broken. Scarf Gothita is not broken, and I feel that this as objective as an opinion can be. CM Rest sets just switch into what it wants to counter and removes it, leaving only the frankly stupid argument of "double switches counter trapping" as defense against Gothita. I say this due to the fact that T Bolt as the 4th move, with enough boosts, prevents any Dark-type from eating Gothita alive, which would make the argument about this specific set far more even. One of the best ways to counter CM Gothita is to not run Pokemon weak to it, or better yet just use offense since Gothita cannot do much against it in general (largely due to a lack of mons to trap), which brings us back to whether or not we, the players, SHOULD have to put up with the constrictions trappers have on team building?

I feel that Gothita frames building in such a way that it is unfair, while Diglett has proven to be overall less constricting and something not only can we deal with in a healthy metagame but I argue we should have to. FletchDig is functionally dead, VullaDig isn't as threatening as FletchDig was, ShellDig is not needed but an overall good choice still and most importantly not unfair [FletchDig nerf weakens this too], and zigdig is a whole mess that no one seems to care about anyway. I'd almost go so far to suggest Diglett hate is just feelings from ORAS carried over, but that's a little insulting and there is some fair but entirely disagreeable grievances to be had with Diglett.

tl;dr: floon seems fine--use it more, gothita is strangulating, diglett is great but fair.