Announcement SM OU Suspect Process, Round 2 - Dirt

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I personally as a volt-turn player has never had any probs with dugtrio. The only member of my team which finds it annoying is Magearna
Edit: I feel that duggy is more of a pain now than shadow tag goth was
 

p2

Banned deucer.
so i took some time to think about the suspect and if voting ban on duggy is really the way to go but i don't really think that's the case anymore

i still strongly think that mega sableye is the problematic component of these teams if anything, these teams provide absolutely perfect conditions for duggy to thrive with the strongest hazard control in the game and weaknesses to a few select threats (coincidentally, all weak to dugtrio).

duggy is absolutely not a problem on offense or even balance, it's not like stall where your counterplay is extremely suffocated once your breakers are removed by duggy. counterplay still remains in offense/balance matchups and i would only consider it broken if it removed all relevant forms of counterplay on those teams.

we've already banned a trapping ability due to sableye's presence in the tier, lets not ban another, and instead focus on the actual issue here.
 
it cant trap Skarmory, cause of whirlwind,

Sorry for the short post but by that logic Magnezone doesn't trap Skarmory just "cause of whirlwind". Obviously the Skarm player won't endlessly Spam Whirlwind because it could actually put him in bad situation (bring in a threat to Skarm forcing him to switch, draining all his momentum). And even then, Goth can find more ways trap Skarm, like double switching or coming in after something died.
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
But from my understanding the main focus was Dugtrio's support for stall teams and not mainly offense teams that resulted in it gaining a suspect test. Trapping on offense is not inherently bad (I mean look at DragMag in gen 5, it was annoying but not rlly broken) and I am seeing the same situation here. With the example of Volcorona, if you know your team is weak to it besides your Tran, then maybe making Tran holding a Shed Shell or Air Baloon would not be a bad idea lol. And I know people will suggest "well isn't that a form of centralization?", but really its just a simple ways of counterplay towards this strat. The player needs to adapt to these scenario's if they except to win high level games imo (especially when these cores are so common), and not "conforming" to these meta trends will of course make it seem that duggy is unhealthy.

Trapping for offense is not that bad as we had dealt with it before, and trapping on stall is more to deal with Mega Sab's support then Duggy itself as p2 had pointed out before. I don't see the issue here.
 
But from my understanding the main focus was Dugtrio's support for stall teams and not mainly offense teams that resulted in it gaining a suspect test. Trapping on offense is not inherently bad (I mean look at DragMag in gen 5, it was annoying but not rlly broken) and I am seeing the same situation here. With the example of Volcorona, if you know your team is weak to it besides your Tran, then maybe making Tran holding a Shed Shell or Air Baloon would not be a bad idea lol. And I know people will suggest "well isn't that a form of centralization?", but really its just a simple ways of counterplay towards this strat. The player needs to adapt to these scenario's if they except to win high level games imo (especially when these cores are so common), and not "conforming" to these meta trends will of course make it seem that duggy is unhealthy.

Trapping for offense is not that bad as we had dealt with it before, and trapping on stall is more to deal with Mega Sab's support then Duggy itself as p2 had pointed out before. I don't see the issue here.
But isn't it conforming to say "duggie's not bad as long as you have your breaker holding air balloon or shed shell"? Because of how common Duggie stall is, you kind of have to run those things. If you have to base an entire set around counterplaying just one Pokemon (I know Air Balloon has more uses than that, but honestly how often would it be run otherwise), that's centralising. I get making sure you have answers to certain threats or styles, but when you're giving an item or designing a set just for one Pokemon then that is a bit ridiculous.

In the interest of transparency, I'm on the fence about my Duggie feelings (I'll never get reqs anyway).
 
Also i'm glad people are realizing sableye- mega is what makes dugtrio "broken" keeping intact his sash and blocking taunt users that would otherwise have a good matchup against stall, as i already stated here. Stall is not broken, we just dont have enough tools because of mega sableye. Remember when stuff like taunt mew taunt mandibuzz or taunt gliscor was actually good versus stall?
I have to disagree here. You and many people seem to overestimate Mega Sableye in this metagame.
The double defog stall I have been using from the beginning of the SM metagame has clearly showed Mega Sableye is not mandatory on stall (https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebankou-515624213).

Skarmory + Zapdos covers more threats than Mega Sableye + Skarmory / Zapdos, and overall, is more solid and gives better hazard control (not going to argue there, but I could if people want me to).

The only difference is that you don't rely on hazard stacking with double defog (since you end up using Defog no matter the cost), while with Mega Sableye you can actually make use of EH.

I agree with Mega Sableye blocking taunt users such as Gliscor and Mew which would otherwise easily defeat stall, though. But it is not like people actually use them; the simple fact Mega Sableye exists prevents them from being viable.

Back on topic:

What makes Dugtrio usable is hazard control. Get any kind of EH up versus stall, keep the momentum and this should be an easy win.
Pokemons like Landorus-T with Rock move + SD + SR (which is now standard) completely destroy the so common Mega Sableye + Skarmory core:

Turn 1: Landorus-T uses SD, Skarmory switches in (let's say Skarmory is full life).
Turn 2: Landorus-T uses SR,

If Skarmory uses Defog, repeat turn 2 (SR has more PP than Defog).
If Mega Sableye switches in, you are going to kill something and are in a strong position.
If Skarmory uses Whirlwind, either you're lucky and can directly pressure Skarm, or just repeat the whole process.

If Skarmory uses Counter:
Turn 3: Landorus-T uses SD (it is needed to SD again so Stone Edge does more than 50%). At this point you have won. If Skarmory uses Defog, keep using SR. If it's not, use Continental Crush. You just traded your Landorus-T versus Skarmory and the SR are on field. Skarmory being the only Defog user on the Mega Sableye team, victory is yours.

If Skarmory uses Toxic (and assuming Skarmory has both Toxic + Counter):
This situation is the only one where you have to actually predict something. You will only lose if your opponent wins - say - four 50/50 in a row.
Turn 3: Landorus-T uses SD. If Skarmory does not Defog, you have won. If Skarmory does Defog, it is now all about 50/50s: either Skarmory will use Defog or Counter next turn and you have to decide between Continental Crush and SR. You can try until Toxic kills you.

This strategy always works, and you don't need to predict anything except if it is Toxic + Counter Skarmory.
I do indeed use this Skarmory set, but let's be real I don't think this is standard as people use Spikes Skarmory on the Mega Sableye + Toxapex + Chansey + Clefable + Skarmory + Dugtrio stall.

So if you follow what I have just written, you always win with SD + SR Rockium Landorus-T versus this team. Yet people still manage to lose (!!)... I really think some people do not play versus stall the right way, and this needs to be taken into consideration.
When the #1 threat of the OU metagame (Landorus-T has a usage of 33%) can easily 6-0 the common stall team spammed by everyone, I don't think it is close from being broken !

And I did not even mention the other EH users that can beat stall:
Garchomp with LO / SD / Z Firium
Greninja with Spikes
Marowak-Alola
Shed Shell Heatran (even if that might be retarded)
Seismitoad
Clefable
Necrozma (for the lolz)
 

elodin

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Lmao people saying I cherry picked games... go to the SPL replays thread and you'll see I literally took every game from the last 2 weeks in which Dugtrio was part of. I'm sorry but I don't give enough of a fuck to waste my time cherry picking replays lol.

Not to mention my post was not only a reply to FlamingVictini's, but a reply to everyone that uses some shitty random examples as to "why Dugtrio is uncompetitive" instead of looking at the bigger picture. You guys have not answered a single point raised by my post, instead you tried to answer it by claiming "Dugtrio is uncompetitive because it trapped Volcarona in "X" match, so the Volcarona player had to play carefully around it". I mean... what the fuck?

If you guys actually wanted a healthy discussion around Dugtrio you could've just replied to my original post (the one that explains why Dugtrio isn't broken at all) by using some valid points to answer it. So far the points you guys made were:

"LOL you NO-BAN people only see DUGTRIO in STALL, it is useful in EVERY TEAM!!!" (I already explained this like a 1000 times)
"DUDE in THIS RANDOM MATCH Dugtrio was BROKEN because it trapped a HEATRAN and then a VOLCARONA swept!!!" (I already explained this like a 1000 times)
"HELLO? Dugtrio was BUFFED in SM and it traps SO MANY THINGS in the tier right now!" (I already explained this like a 1000 times)
"TRAPPING is just so UNCOMPETITIVE, look how I am forced to THINK before sending in something that is VULNERABLE to DUGTRIO!! It CHANGED my playstyle!!" (I already explained it like a 1000 times)

And the fact that now you guys wanna claim my examples / points are biased / invalid... there's a bit of contradiction there pal xd
 
Pokemons like Landorus-T with Rock move + SD + SR (which is now standard) completely destroy the so common Mega Sableye + Skarmory core (...)

So if you follow what I have just written, you always win with SD + SR Rockium Landorus-T versus this team. Yet people still manage to lose (!!)... I really think some people do not play versus stall the right way, and this needs to be taken into consideration.
When the #1 threat of the OU metagame (Landorus-T has a usage of 33%) can easily 6-0 the common stall team spammed by everyone, I don't think it is close from being broken !
...You do realize Unaware Quagsire's a thing, right?

252+ Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 156-184 (39.5 - 46.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 SpA Quagsire Scald vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 146-174 (45.7 - 54.5%) -- 48.8% chance to 2HKO


The only way Lando-T could conceivably beat a stall team with Quag is through Z-Fly, and even then, it needs to caught it by surprise (and also be an offensive lando in the first place). And that's assuming the player's willing to stay into a healthy Quag, unless you argue that's what U-turn is for, and for that it needs to either sacrifice SR or SD.

Other than that, Lando-T shouldn't have any problems watsoever with stall. Just remember to not slap it Rocky Helmet or Scarf, otherwise, you might wanna look for another stallbreaker inmune to Arena Trap.

+------+ | Landorus-Therian | +------+
| Rocky Helmet 46.912% |
| Choice Scarf 17.363% |
| Flyinium Z 12.250% |
| Rockium Z 9.588% |
| Leftovers 7.442% |
| Earth Plate 2.147% |
| Other 4.297% |
+---------------------------------------+
And I did not even mention the other EH users that can beat stall:
Garchomp with LO / SD / Z Firium
Greninja with Spikes
Marowak-Alola
Shed Shell Heatran (even if that might be retarded)
Seismitoad
Clefable
Necrozma (for the lolz)
1. Quagsire says hi. Also, the same argument I used for Lando can be applied here.
2. Throw Chansey and Seismic Toss the thing to death. In practice, most Greninjas have Gunk Shot as their only physical move and they heavily rely that it doesn't miss to get past the blob. And the less said about Ash-Greninja, the better.
3. Knock Off.
4. It dies against Quag once you've scouted it. You really shouldn't mention it if you want Duggy to stay. Just sayin'
5. Taunt it with Sable, then switch into Chansey. Poison it and then click Seismic Toss.
6. Depends of the Clefable. If it is Unaware you poison it. If it is Magic Guard then you just stall it. And if it lacks Flamethrower you throw Shed to drain the PPs.
7. Necro can beat stall? Since when? if so, I would like to know the set.
 
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hecatomb

Banned deucer.
Sorry for the short post but by that logic Magnezone doesn't trap Skarmory just "cause of whirlwind". Obviously the Skarm player won't endlessly Spam Whirlwind because it could actually put him in bad situation (bring in a threat to Skarm forcing him to switch, draining all his momentum). And even then, Goth can find more ways trap Skarm, like double switching or coming in after something died.
thats pretty flawed logic comparing magnetic pull to shadow tag, and comparing Skarm vs Magnezone, Skarm vs goth. For 1 thing Goth cant do crap for damage to Skarm unless it gets off calm mind, which it wont cause it will get whirlwind. Unlike Magnezone which will leave it at 1 hp sturdy, and even if it does whirlwind, who cares the next mon will kill it. Then again Dugtrio can hard counter a lot more than goth in this meta.
 
I have to disagree here. You and many people seem to overestimate Mega Sableye in this metagame.
The double defog stall I have been using from the beginning of the SM metagame has clearly showed Mega Sableye is not mandatory on stall (https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebankou-515624213).

Skarmory + Zapdos covers more threats than Mega Sableye + Skarmory / Zapdos, and overall, is more solid and gives better hazard control (not going to argue there, but I could if people want me to).

The only difference is that you don't rely on hazard stacking with double defog (since you end up using Defog no matter the cost), while with Mega Sableye you can actually make use of EH.

I agree with Mega Sableye blocking taunt users such as Gliscor and Mew which would otherwise easily defeat stall, though. But it is not like people actually use them; the simple fact Mega Sableye exists prevents them from being viable.

Back on topic:

What makes Dugtrio usable is hazard control. Get any kind of EH up versus stall, keep the momentum and this should be an easy win.
Pokemons like Landorus-T with Rock move + SD + SR (which is now standard) completely destroy the so common Mega Sableye + Skarmory core:

Turn 1: Landorus-T uses SD, Skarmory switches in (let's say Skarmory is full life).
Turn 2: Landorus-T uses SR,

If Skarmory uses Defog, repeat turn 2 (SR has more PP than Defog).
If Mega Sableye switches in, you are going to kill something and are in a strong position.
If Skarmory uses Whirlwind, either you're lucky and can directly pressure Skarm, or just repeat the whole process.

If Skarmory uses Counter:
Turn 3: Landorus-T uses SD (it is needed to SD again so Stone Edge does more than 50%). At this point you have won. If Skarmory uses Defog, keep using SR. If it's not, use Continental Crush. You just traded your Landorus-T versus Skarmory and the SR are on field. Skarmory being the only Defog user on the Mega Sableye team, victory is yours.

If Skarmory uses Toxic (and assuming Skarmory has both Toxic + Counter):
This situation is the only one where you have to actually predict something. You will only lose if your opponent wins - say - four 50/50 in a row.
Turn 3: Landorus-T uses SD. If Skarmory does not Defog, you have won. If Skarmory does Defog, it is now all about 50/50s: either Skarmory will use Defog or Counter next turn and you have to decide between Continental Crush and SR. You can try until Toxic kills you.

This strategy always works, and you don't need to predict anything except if it is Toxic + Counter Skarmory.
I do indeed use this Skarmory set, but let's be real I don't think this is standard as people use Spikes Skarmory on the Mega Sableye + Toxapex + Chansey + Clefable + Skarmory + Dugtrio stall.

So if you follow what I have just written, you always win with SD + SR Rockium Landorus-T versus this team. Yet people still manage to lose (!!)... I really think some people do not play versus stall the right way, and this needs to be taken into consideration.
When the #1 threat of the OU metagame (Landorus-T has a usage of 33%) can easily 6-0 the common stall team spammed by everyone, I don't think it is close from being broken !

And I did not even mention the other EH users that can beat stall:
Garchomp with LO / SD / Z Firium
Greninja with Spikes
Marowak-Alola
Shed Shell Heatran (even if that might be retarded)
Seismitoad
Clefable
Necrozma (for the lolz)
While I agree with the first half of the post regarding Msab and double defog, the second half needs to be taken with a rock of salt. If it was really so easy as slapping a rockium-z landot on a team to be able to handle stall 100% of the time, you think maybe everyone might do that? Especially considering half of teams have landot on them anyway?

This looking at things in a vacuum doesn't work. Let's analyze:

"Turn 1: Landorus-T uses SD, Skarmory switches in (let's say Skarmory is full life)."

So you're holding rockium-z, and not earth plate. This means MSab can stay in and wisp you. Goodbye landot.

"If Mega Sableye switches in, you are going to kill something and are in a strong position"

If mega sableye switches in as you rock, that means they got rocks up against you. I wouldn't exactly call this a 'strong position.' Again, msab can proceed to WoW you.

"If Skarmory uses Whirlwind, either you're lucky and can directly pressure Skarm, or just repeat the whole process."

If skarmory uses whirlwind, your momentum is disrupted and stall is doing exactly what it's supposed to: disrupt your momentum until you die.

"At this point you have won. "
"So if you follow what I have just written, you always win with SD + SR Rockium Landorus-T versus this team. Yet people still manage to lose (!!).."

Your post really fails to take into account, well, anything and everything involved in an actual live battle against a human. And dugtrio doesn't need a sash in order to pick up crucial kills, it just needs a safe switchin, either via RK or a double. Getting rocks up against stall is NOT an auto-win by any stretch.

You write from a very 'better-than-thou' perspective, and it makes it harder to stomach things you say, regardless of their validity. In response to my post about stallbreaker tran losing to things on stall, you linked the smogdex pointing to the offensive tran set and said something about my lacking knowledge and refusing to discuss further. In this post you basically tell the entire community that you have the answers none of us could find in the past months. While we all tend to push our arguments a bit forcefully in suspects, there is a certain degree of respect and willingness to listen that you'll find in most all posts in this thread that you should try to live up to.

_____

damn this thread and this suspect are both so bad it actually tilted me to the point where i'm giving a fuck about this lol i really don't want this trash pokémon to be banned
i'm gonna make a really big post explaining some stuff in order:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

also like i said before, later on there is going to be a mega sableye suspect anyway because i'm sure people will continue to lose to stall. if you don't believe me, just take a look at some spl replays where people used dugtrio stall. you'll see that most people who lost used teams that couldn't break stall regardless of dugtrio.
this is post is actually so long i'm just gonna make a tl;dr here and if you feel compelled by my thought process you go ahead and read the book that is above you:

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

why is it that this happens so much in old generations and it is only now being considered this uncompetitive?

my best guess is that trapping has always been a strategy that comes with an unpredictable risk/reward."
I talked about this in earlier posts, but the reason why I think it's just now being considered so uncompetitive is that it works so well with current top-tier threats that typically only need 1 poke removed in order to run through the rest of the team. This issue hasn't been so exacerbated in the past because the quantity and power of threats in early gens was simply fewer and lower than it is now. I believe this issue to be entirely connected to power creep. Mons like Tapu Lele, Magearna, and Mega-Meta can wreck teams once that heatran/toxapex/chansey is removed. And it's not even the defending player's fault, because you can only account for so many things in the teambuilder with 6 slots. It's normal to only have 1 solid answer on your team to big threat XYZ, it's not bad teambuilding.

So the reason I think dugtrio is a problem now is that it makes the matchup issues we have even worse. The non-dugtrio player has to play really carefully, and sometimes make otherwise very bad plays because the threat of dugtrio coming in to remove that one mon is so great, bc you quite possibly just lose once they got rid of it. These issues will only continue to grow as inevitable power creep and newmons come in every couple years. We're all treading on new ground here, and this thing will come to a head at some point in the future where something drastic needs to be done (that is, assuming GF keeps going the way they're going), but to me it seems that getting rid of dugtrio would be the most efficient stop-gap to make our current meta more enjoyable and less matchup-dependant.

I will grant that this is not a perfect solution. Show me one, and I will gladly hop on board.

Regarding MSab, no doubt there is a connection between the two, in that duggy gets to keep its sash as long as msab is alive. But MSab isn't an issue, it's not particularly hard to kill and can be handled very easily by some mons, which also happen to be the same mons that dug traps and kills. People look at this as, 'dugtrio and stall were fine before msab, now post-msab it's broken.' But this is another case where correlation != causality. MSab joining the meta wasn't the only shift that occurred at the time, lots of things changed as it was a mid-generation shift. I won't pretend to be able to analyze everything that changed with the release of lopunite or metagrossite and how that changed viability of certain things, but it's worth considering that the post-msab meta was not shaped just by sablenite.

"there's no actual reason to suspect dugtrio before a list of at least 10 pokémon in the tier right now other than the fact that facing stall with it is frustrating as hell, because dugtrio was never suspected before and it never would've been if not paired with such a strong defensive core such as this one in sm. it's pathetic how much threats like mega metagross, tapu lele, pheromosa and greninja limit your teambuilding (much more than dugtrio) and it's bizarre that people would rather have them allowed than dugtrio."
Sure, fair point that there are other things that also deserve our attention right now. But I don't think it's really so bad to test dug first. I mean, we've known what it does for generations, so we can form much more solid ideas of it than we can of other new pokes that we haven't even fully explored. I'm happy OU council decided to let tapu lele and pheromosa and the gang hang out for a while longer, because these are threats that we actually have not had time to fully adapt to or come to understand in a settled meta.
Also, dugtrio is largely unrelated to these threats. It doesn't reliably kill ninja or phero or mega-meta (although it does trap some of their checks/counters). So I don't fell like we need to wait on that part of the meta to settle while we look at dugtrio.

edit: for readability
 
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thats pretty flawed logic comparing magnetic pull to shadow tag, and comparing Skarm vs Magnezone, Skarm vs goth. For 1 thing Goth cant do crap for damage to Skarm unless it gets off calm mind, which it wont cause it will get whirlwind. Unlike Magnezone which will leave it at 1 hp sturdy, and even if it does whirlwind, who cares the next mon will kill it. Then again Dugtrio can hard counter a lot more than goth in this meta.
Even tho Goth can't do that much damage to Skarm (which isn't even entirely true, Goth Specs sets were a thing), Goth can still Trick her Scarf to Skar, making it pretty much useless for the rest of the Battle. Maybe it can't kill it, but saying it can't do anything thing to it it's pretty dumb.
 

3d

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World Defender
hello esteemed smogon community. i couldn't be bothered to read every single post on this thread so forgive me if what I already bring up has been mentioned before and kindly ignore this post if it has been debated already. also please dont hate me for my opinion i just wanna give my thoughts on the suspect, but feel free to call me dumb based on the points i make.

in the eyes of a stall player, dugtrio is used on teams to trap threats that completely 6-0 Stall, examples are heatran, kyurem-black, hoopa-u, tyranitar, and provide a soft check to trap alola marowak, and hit chansey for charizard-y teams. diglett also fills most of these roles but fails to check one important thing reliably, kyurem black. in this shortish post im just gonna argue why kyuremblack will be much much better and why we shouldnt ban duggy. im not gonna argue for the rest bcuz diglett actually beats those things (except scarftar but that doesnt really beat stall anyway) reliably.

*with my comment below about healthy metas i realized that people would complain that dugtrio with arena trap creates an unhealty meta. arena trap traps grounded pokes and is most often used to deal with stuff that breaks stall that stall doesnt really have answers for. sure you can say dugtrio forces 50/50s but in most cases thats all stall really has to deal with these things. also if you lose your main stallbreaker say its heatran that doesnt mean you now lose because since heatran will usually get a kill before being trapped (unless dugtrio doubles in which stall players dont tend to do unless they really need x mon for y mon on the opposing team) that can open up another mon to prove a threat. say heatran traps chansey and then dies to dugtrio, this can open up say psychic draco latios to put in work since nothing can reliably beat it at this point granted the team is something on the lines of sab/duggy/chansey/skarm/unaware clef or quag/ alo or amoonguss or whatever standard stall runs. the main point i was trying to make with this is that dugtrio isnt broken for arena trap because if the opponent doesn't play dumb they still have a good shot of winning because they open holes with the dedicated stall breaker.

i honestly think kyurem black will be a little too good vs stall if dug gets banned. kyreum black was often paired with another stall breaker because of its inability to actually beat stall thanks to dugtrio. now if dugtrio gets banned kyub will now 1. live reversal from diglett even after rocks if they get a max roll meaning it cant reliably switch in 2. outspeed adamant diglett (this is what my friend told me they would run) 3. speed tie with jolly diglett and 4. freely spam its attacks and forcing 50/50s vs stall without fear of dying if it loses a 50/50. both icium z and cb both have their own pros and cons vs stall but its fair to say that both can break stall very well. icium z isnt the preferred set vs stall since its pretty weak but still one shots chansey and other things opening up ways for other pokes just to win while cb just kills everything but having to predict to get a kill is its biggest con. however if dugtrio manages to stay in the tier, kyuremblack wont actually have this good of a mu vs stall since it cant freely spam its moves and the player has to make smarter decisions to actually put in work with kyub.

tldr
dugtrio isnt unhealthy because it forces stall not to play 50/50s every turn
dugtrio isnt broken because its beat by most common threats
dugtrio doesnt trap much on offense barring stall breakers
 
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hecatomb

Banned deucer.
Even tho Goth can't do that much damage to Skarm (which isn't even entirely true, Goth Specs sets were a thing), Goth can still Trick her Scarf to Skar, making it pretty much useless for the rest of the Battle. Maybe it can't kill it, but saying it can't do anything thing to it it's pretty dumb.
OK....? I put out rocks, you bring in Goth, you do trick I do whirlwind. And unless you have a fire type or elec type, im still going to whirlwind your team and chip you out the rest of the game. Goth is not a reliable counter to Skarm. As for dugtrio, I really doubt anyone would use it if they banned arena trap, since no one uses goth cause shadow tag is banned.
 
dugtrio also checked by a lot in meta. im not gonna go into too much detail but vs offense it doesnt really do much vs common threats such as pheromosa, tapu lele, greninja, mega scizor, landorus-t, zygarde, etc.. and it also usually fails to trap the most common electric type being tapu koko due to its access to u-turn and if dugtrios sash gets broken, it cant take a dazzling gleam. while you could say scarf does this role, scarf doesnt give dugtrio the ability to switch into hits from the things its supposed to trap and trap it, forcing the player to play more offensively, and since my main point was about stall, stall shouldn't have to be forced to play offensively.
First, how do you check or counter something if you can't switch to them? You know, because Dugtrio generally comes in on something it can trap and KO.

Secondly, it doesn't need to beat all those common threats. The point is for it to catch common Stallbreakers or Wallbreakers that beat Stall easily but can be trapped and remove them so the rest of the team can deal with those common threats.
 

3d

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World Defender
First, how do you check or counter something if you can't switch to them? You know, because Dugtrio generally comes in on something it can trap and KO.

Secondly, it doesn't need to beat all those common threats. The point is for it to catch common Stallbreakers or Wallbreakers that beat Stall easily but can be trapped and remove them so the rest of the team can deal with those common threats.
i dont think you know what a check is.

a check is something that doesnt need to switch in but can pressure it offensively. one example that i can think off on the top of my head is nihilego and tapu lele. while nihilego cant switch into tapu lele it can easily outspeed scarf sets with its own scarf and ohko it with sludge wave. this is usually what is considered to be a check.

and yes, i know its to catch common stallbreakers and thats why i literally said it did in the first sentence of the first paragraph, but you're right it doesn't need to check common threats but those common threats can pressure it and since they're common dugtrio could get u-turned on say tapu koko breaking its sash giving kyub a free kill if duggy doesnt wanna risk switching in.
 
i dont think you know what a check is.

a check is something that doesnt need to switch in but can pressure it offensively. one example that i can think off on the top of my head is nihilego and tapu lele. while nihilego cant switch into tapu lele it can easily outspeed scarf sets with its own scarf and ohko it with sludge wave. this is usually what is considered to be a check.

and yes, i know its to catch common stallbreakers and thats why i literally said it did in the first sentence of the first paragraph, but you're right it doesn't need to check common threats but those common threats can pressure it and since they're common dugtrio could get u-turned on say tapu koko breaking its sash giving kyub a free kill if duggy doesnt wanna risk switching in.
The ability of things in the meta to check dugtrio isn't really relevant, as they only get to come in once dugtrio has done it's job and killed something. Not to mention that the Dugtrio user can switch out after they get their kill and potentially do it again later.
A smart dugtrio user shouldn't be trying to trap koko without a scarf, so that's not really relevant either as everyone knows koko outspeeds and has u-turn.
And it's matchup against ninja or pheromosa also isn't relevant, as no one will try to trap either of those things except ninja if your sash is intact.
 

3d

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World Defender
The ability of things in the meta to check dugtrio isn't really relevant, as they only get to come in once dugtrio has done it's job and killed something. Not to mention that the Dugtrio user can switch out after they get their kill and potentially do it again later.
A smart dugtrio user shouldn't be trying to trap koko without a scarf, so that's not really relevant either as everyone knows koko outspeeds and has u-turn.
And it's matchup against ninja or pheromosa also isn't relevant, as no one will try to trap either of those things except ninja if your sash is intact.
Ok your post makes sense, I agree that bringing up relevant ou threats were dumb ill delete it from my post i just wanted to bring up what it does on offense and why it doesnt do anything BUT trap stallbreakers, i think my point still stands but ill remove that part.
 

pizzq

Banned deucer.
hello esteemed smogon community. i couldn't be bothered to read every single post on this thread so forgive me if what I already bring up has been mentioned before and kindly ignore this post if it has been debated already. also please dont hate me for my opinion i just wanna give my thoughts on the suspect, but feel free to call me dumb based on the points i make.

in the eyes of a stall player, dugtrio is used on teams to trap threats that completely 6-0 Stall, examples are heatran, kyurem-black, hoopa-u, tyranitar, and provide a soft check to trap alola marowak, and hit chansey for charizard-y teams. diglett also fills most of these roles but fails to check one important thing reliably, kyurem black. in this shortish post im just gonna argue why kyuremblack will be much much better and why we shouldnt ban duggy. im not gonna argue for the rest bcuz diglett actually beats those things (except scarftar but that doesnt really beat stall anyway) reliably.

*with my comment below about healthy metas i realized that people would complain that dugtrio with arena trap creates an unhealty meta. arena trap traps grounded pokes and is most often used to deal with stuff that breaks stall that stall doesnt really have answers for. sure you can say dugtrio forces 50/50s but in most cases thats all stall really has to deal with these things. also if you lose your main stallbreaker say its heatran that doesnt mean you now lose because since heatran will usually get a kill before being trapped (unless dugtrio doubles in which stall players dont tend to do unless they really need x mon for y mon on the opposing team) that can open up another mon to prove a threat. say heatran traps chansey and then dies to dugtrio, this can open up say psychic draco latios to put in work since nothing can reliably beat it at this point granted the team is something on the lines of sab/duggy/chansey/skarm/unaware clef or quag/ alo or amoonguss or whatever standard stall runs. the main point i was trying to make with this is that dugtrio isnt broken for arena trap because if the opponent doesn't play dumb they still have a good shot of winning because they open holes with the dedicated stall breaker.

i honestly think kyurem black will be a little too good vs stall if dug gets banned. kyreum black was often paired with another stall breaker because of its inability to actually beat stall thanks to dugtrio. now if dugtrio gets banned kyub will now 1. live reversal from diglett even after rocks if they get a max roll meaning it cant reliably switch in 2. outspeed adamant diglett (this is what my friend told me they would run) 3. speed tie with jolly diglett and 4. freely spam its attacks and forcing 50/50s vs stall without fear of dying if it loses a 50/50. both icium z and cb both have their own pros and cons vs stall but its fair to say that both can break stall very well. icium z isnt the preferred set vs stall since its pretty weak but still one shots chansey and other things opening up ways for other pokes just to win while cb just kills everything but having to predict to get a kill is its biggest con. however if dugtrio manages to stay in the tier, kyuremblack wont actually have this good of a mu vs stall since it cant freely spam its moves and the player has to make smarter decisions to actually put in work with kyub.

tldr
dugtrio isnt unhealthy because it forces stall not to play 50/50s every turn
dugtrio isnt broken because its beat by most common threats
dugtrio doesnt trap much on offense barring stall breakers
i agree with u that a bunch of stall breakers will be absurd with the absence of dugtrio however

1 mon countering most off the threats that check a playstyle isnt exactly healthy

it would be more healthy for said mon to be banned and appropriate action with other pokemon be taken after

diglett is a bad meme fyi (oh no)
 
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3d

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World Defender
i agree with u that a bunch of stall breakers will be absurd with the absence of dugtrio however

1 mon countering all the threats that check a playstyle isnt exactly healthy

it would be more healthy for said mon to be banned and appropriate action with other pokemon be taken after

diglett is a bad meme fyi (oh no)
1. it doesn't counter all threats to stall, especially togekiss which eats hits from it and can roost off damage. while it does counter most stall breakers its what stall needs or else those breakers will easily just win.

by "appropriate action" do you mean ban all the stallbreakers because they 6-0 stall with dugtrio gone. i dont think thats what people would want because THIS is what would create an unhealthy metagame. if we take "appropriate action" and ban all these things that would just make the metagame extremely "boring" because all the "fun stuff", not necessarily broken stuff but things that were banned because dugtrio was banned.
 
Ok i will respond to the original post.



I talked about this in earlier posts, but the reason why I think it's just now being considered so uncompetitive is that it works so well with current top-tier threats that typically only need 1 poke removed in order to run through the rest of the team. This issue hasn't been so exacerbated in the past because the quantity and power of threats in early gens was simply fewer and lower than it is now. I believe this issue to be entirely connected to power creep. Mons like Tapu Lele, Magearna, and Mega-Meta can wreck teams once that heatran/toxapex/chansey is removed. And it's not even the defending player's fault, because you can only account for so many things in the teambuilder with 6 slots. It's normal to only have 1 solid answer on your team to big threat XYZ, it's not bad teambuilding.
Okay, so your logic is "We should ban the Pokemon that supports the broken Pokemon." Don't act like Lele and Metagross aren't stupidly good and meta warping. You're correct that their dominance is aided by Dugtrio, but saying Dugtrio is the REAL PROBLEM is such a straw man argument.
 

AM

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Yo can you guys like stop trying to argue for other suspects and claim the supposed brokenness of other threats, ex. M-Metagross and Tapu Lele in your responses all the time? They're not even on the chopping block, some of these claimed ones shouldn't be to begin with, and you can literally read the OP and realize the emphasis is dugtrios impact in correlation to the stall archetype, the suspect of Dugtrio not "insert what mon you think is broken here", while its impact on other archetypes being a side note.
 
Yo can you guys like stop trying to argue for other suspects and claim the supposed brokenness of other threats, ex. M-Metagross and Tapu Lele in your responses all the time? They're not even on the chopping block, some of these claimed ones shouldn't be to begin with, and you can literally read the OP and realize the emphasis is dugtrios impact in correlation to the stall archetype, the suspect of Dugtrio not "insert what mon you think is broken here", while its impact on other archetypes being a side note.
I agree, the conversation should revolve around Dugtrio.

That said, if someone brings up an argument regarding Dugtrio's ability to support things on offensive teams, it's worth carrying those arguments to their ends (which may involve talking about the efficacy of another threat).
 

pizzq

Banned deucer.
1. it doesn't counter all threats to stall, especially togekiss which eats hits from it and can roost off damage. while it does counter most stall breakers its what stall needs or else those breakers will easily just win.

by "appropriate action" do you mean ban all the stallbreakers because they 6-0 stall with dugtrio gone. i dont think thats what people would want because THIS is what would create an unhealthy metagame. if we take "appropriate action" and ban all these things that would just make the metagame extremely "boring" because all the "fun stuff", not necessarily broken stuff but things that were banned because dugtrio was banned.
in essence dugtrio is just a mon that singlehandedly stops a plethora of pokemon from 6-0ing an entire playstyle

the fact that such a specialized mon (that does its job so ridiculously well, by encouraging random shit to run shed shell) is required to stop these things shows how overcentralizing it is

according to my pal google, centralizing: concentrate (control of an activity or organization) under a single authority.

can u tell me any viable alternatives to dugtrio other than (lol) diglett

it's simply not healthy to have such a defining force that invalidates so many pokemon in a metagame

if that means (lol) kyub is banworthy so be it

i can't stand behind keeping a CLEARLY overcentralizing mon in a tier

according to you (and ur intense skype ranting)

there was no reason for offense not to use mluc so we banned it

there was no reason for offense not to use megablaziken so we banned it

so dugtrio is all of a sudden different?

(yes i realize dugtrio-less stall is completely viable however according to YOU dugtrio is mandatory)

to wrap things up i couldnt care less if duggy was banned or not bc according to YOU (and ur intense skype ranting) this is just an argument of broken versus broken

and if something so obscure yet effective and arguably broken itself is the ONLY WAY to check said mons (kyub, hoopa, ttar etc).

is it healthy for such mons to be kept around in the first place???????

thats why i mentioned "appropriate action" im not saying to ban everything bc i personally do not have experience on a dugtrio-less ladder but apparently stall is still relevant


broken vs broken is not healthy.




exposed:
 
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While trapping isn't "inherently broken", this isn't like Gothitelle, which is more than enough evidence for me that Dugtrio isn't really "countered" per se, because you can't shut it down with Skarmory and use it as setup fodder to have a chance against its claim to brokenness. It's easy for stall to handle, especially with Gliscor. Stall breakers are limited to Flying types and Levitators. It's been two months, the meta has given enough time to allow for countering Fairies and Ice-types used for countering Dragons. It's wrong to be saying that Dugtrio is something for all playstyles because it's nearly impossible to shut it out. For it to be considered a solution to the metagame's problems, Dugtrio needs to have more weight on their backs in the metagame. It's almost impossible to lose with it.

The main anti-ban arguments from other people would apply to an unban from the likes of Gothitelle. who shut down and set up on the entire metagame. Dugtrio has sets besides Focus Sash, and if Dugtrio skyrockets in usage and destroys entire teams, that isn't good for the future of the tier it resides in.

You could also argue that Dugtrio really bad at staying healthy - I cannot stress this enough. Given this sheer number, consciously preventing Dugtrio from keeping its sash up is the only real counter. Band is unviable and stall shouldn't be running it, because it just removes threats that will become too hard to prepare for in order to elevate your chances of winning. I personally do a good job of rising above it, but Dugtrio clearly problematic as seen with its high win rate. Magnezone is not problematic, suspect is about if Dugtrio can beat enough threats one on one. And if you have the momentum, Dugtrio can come in and kill Heatran and Volcanion through a hard switch. You'd think that stallbreakers would get better at their breaking job, with Z Moves giving them access to Defog users such as Skarmory and Zapdos. What's worse is the addition of a insane amount of limiting factors that are placed on stallbreakers, which makes it difficult for them to not get trapped, but some Dugtrios can run pursuit stall against Quagsire. Electric Terrain lets Mega Metagross 6-0 even though it's running Bullet Punch less often, partly because you have a separate answer to Tapu Koko. Dugtrio t can win games and do so in a very consistent and with an Adamant nature Dugtrio still can back up the team. It makes trouble for offensive breakers and players are now considering stall a skilless strategy.

I can even just use a Darkium Z and get to +6. Dugtrio is easily the most mindless Pokemon in the meta.

And a decent stall breaker vs stall, or offence, Dugtrio removes the already limited player options in an unskillful way. If you have a seemingly unlimited number of threats we could suspect, Dugtrio's targets also become seemingly unlimited. If you don't use Shed Shell or some specific Pokemon, Dugtrio can always eliminate top tier threats with its sash intact, even being cautious. It completely disallows the use of certain teams. The Dugtrio opponent must take large gambles, which in the long run will only result in failure. Offense has benefited a lot from ORAS in the interest of a healthy metagame, this should at least work in practice, whether from hesitation from the counter player to come up with contingencies for the metagame at large to avert Dugtrio's trapping abilities, or because we have the momentum back, or to counter set-up momentum from your opponent.

I still have a bit of time to get reqs, and I will be voting to ban Dugtrio.
 
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Lady Alex

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current top-tier threats that typically only need 1 poke removed in order to run through the rest of the team. This issue hasn't been so exacerbated in the past because the quantity and power of threats in early gens was simply fewer and lower than it is now
ding ding ding. This is the problem that needs to be addressed in the meta, and this suspect test definitely doesn't do that. Just finished getting reqs. Voting no ban for sure. I could have supported a Dugtrio suspect test if it happened much later, but, if Dugtrio even is a problem (which I don't believe it is), it's obscured by how ridiculous the status quo of the current meta is. I see people throw around the matchup issue, but whenever there's a metagame where the acceptable power level is so high, it will never be alleviated. Last gen, this problem was brought up because in team building, you're often strapped for slots to the point that teambuilding is more about picking what you will ~probably~ lose to and what you can reasonably manage. It'll never get better unless we approach the suspect process differently in the future lol
 
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