Ladder STABmons (the old one)

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Lcass4919

The Xatu Warrior
Third Times a Lucky Rabbit's Foot Charm
Should Diggersby be banned?


Art by Nerina - Original Article
It requires no introduction.​
  • If you are in favor of banning a suspect, please provide examples of why they are unhealthy for the metagame with replays, calcs, anecdotes explaining their over-centralization, lack of true checks/counters, etc.​
  • If you are not in favor of a ban, please provide the examples of how they are reliably checked/countered by other Pokemon that can still function well in STABmons.​
  • Posts that fail to explain their reasoning will be moderated. Basically, don't just say "LOLOLOL heeeell naaaah!" or "OMFG yessss kill itttt!". Explain why.​
Discussions will last a week. GL/HF​
 
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Diggersby should've been banned ages ago. It places an insane deal of offensive pressure on offense, it's powerful enough to break through defense, and it's just powerful enough to have nearly no counters. Fake Out is a perfect chip damage for Extreme Speed, and completely limits nearly all of the metagame. Why do you think Gengar shot from Unranked to A-? To counter Diggersby. Your team must have a solid counter and two solid checks or else you're going to lose to Diggersby. There is no 100% way to beat it. Landorus-T? Ice Punch. Skarmory? Fire Punch. Gengar? Knock Off. Movepool changes in ORAS push it over the top, and its previous movepool as well. I fail to see how Diggersby is not broken. It's been suspected, what, three times now? Hoping this fourth (or third or whatever) is finally the time we see our little bunny friend go. To quote Eevee, "the metagame is so adjusted to it because we've let it slide so long," so please do not use the metagame has "adjusted" to it. Making the metagame revolve around it is not adjusting, it's just unhealthy.

I've seen the argument "but without it the metagame will then revolve around frail set up, we can't ban it!" and honestly, a.) that's not the case and b.) that's not a reason to ban it. I'll bring back the Aegislash in OU argument: banning it meant people thought Mega Gardevoir and Mega Heracross would be broken, and look at them now: not broken. We have all of Kangaskhan, Stoutland, Ursaring (heh), and so many other Normal-types. None are nowhere near Diggersby level, of course, but they will rise and we can predict that. Skarmory rose to prominence to counter Diggersby, another example of something that would fall and lead to more rises. Things just rise and fall, this is adjusting to the metagame, not centralizing it around a threat. My vote for Diggersby is for it to be banned about three or four times to make sure it never comes back!
 

Lcass4919

The Xatu Warrior
LOLOLOLOL OP NO QUESTION. IT KOED MY XATU REKT 2012.

seriously, nothing centralizes this meta quite like diggersby, it requires you to run at least 2 checks to, and heavily neuters offense to a massive extent. its basically the best wallbreaker in the teir, mixed with the best sweeper in the tier, it can either go full wallbreaker, full offensive, or even just combine the two and its just as effective. diggersbys counters are super common, to the point that if you dont have a lando, sable, or quagsire, it just sets up on you and you eventually lose. the fact that diggersby is the #1 used poke in stabmons only further shows just what its capable of. and even with these checks and counters, diggers has ways around it with the 1 moveslot it can easily forgo for it, ice punch, knock off, shell smash...head charge...spikes...explosion...lovely kiss...its just so versatile

i know i didn't post much on it. but lets face the facts here. what ELSE is there to say about bugs bunny other then "get him out of here"
 
OMFG yessss kill itttt

Seriously tho, at about new years and before I had a full on HO team in STABmons and found it to be quite decent against any team not running diggs(even teams running running FREEDOMberd) but it utterly died 100% of the time against diggersby. I tried to counteract this by running some bulkier mons in my team but it didn't work, and I was eventually forced to switch to balance with 2 diggs "counters"(landot and quag) and even then I lose about 70% of the time to diggs(I only ended up winning sometimes because I was laddering at the time(lol)) because without 3(!!!) "counters" a competent player will almost never lose if they're using diggs. This has honestly gotten to the point where I don't even have fun playing STABmons matches anymore since it boils down to "hope your opponent doesn't know how to play their diggersby well". If I was in the council I would definitely BAN due to forcing the same 3 mons on any non-diggs team
 

Kit Kasai

Love colored magic
I'd say the fact that it can easily power through some of the best physical walls of the tier, including Skarmory, Landorus, Hippowdown, Quagsire, Ferrothorn, etc gives it a very strong reason to ban.

Fake Out / Extreme Speed / Precipice Blades / [pick one of: Ice Punch, Wild Charge, Head Charge]. A physical attacker that can't be walled by physical walls is just outright ridiculous. Remember that it doesn't have to run fakespeed to function well, you can run a pure wall breaker set that sacrifices revenge killing for power. And it can even run setup at that.

Right now I'd say the most viable counter to Diggersby is defensive Aerodactyl (Mega), as it resists Diggersby's main STAB, is faster, has recovery, and has good utility otherwise. However, it gets KO'd by Extreme Speed + Ice Punch after Stealth Rocks on offensively oriented sets, and even fully defensive sets have a small chance of being KO'd.

This is coming from a stall viewpoint, but from an offensive viewpoint, Diggersby is even more difficult of a problem. Because Diggers' main set is priority, it is nearly impossible to revenge kill. Landorus and Aerodactyl are the most viable counters on offensive teams, and they get dealt with by Ice Punch.

TL;DR OMFG yessss kill itttt!
 
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Ban it.

Fakespeed was already abusive, but the limiting coverage it had kept it in check til oras. Ice punch and knock off are nails in the coffin. Alongside wild charge, head charge, pblades, and uturn, this thing is an obscene stress on teambuilding, and that's ignoring any boosting sets it could be running (both sd and shell smash are viable and nigh impossible to deal with, factoring the need to deal with the normal 4 attacks sets).

Get it gone.
 
I find it funny that Diggersby has been suspected post-ORAS already. What's the reason for the same suspect?

If I understand correctly a new suspect is proposed only when new moves or strategies are at play. When no changes have happened to Diggersby's movepool or ability since the last suspect, why a new suspect?

Post-ORAS Diggersby Suspect Decision

Thanks for contributing your thoughts and concerns, everyone. I can't say I'm thrilled with every post's content but I guess it should be expected with something as polarizing as the suspect at hand.

Without further rage ado, here it is:
No ban.

Diggersby is a major threat and should be prepared for (like Scizor, Thundurus, Keldeo, etc) and a good team will have answers for it. Luckily, some of its best checks are already good at checking other threats, meaning they're not deadweight if you're expecting Diggersby and it doesn't show up--they will still function well in the metagame and the cost to running them is minute.

These include Skarmory, who has options like King's Shield, Whirlwind, Metal Burst, Counter, Gyro Ball, plus Sturdy to beat it. Lando-T lowers its Attack off the bat, meaning even a x4 Ice Punch won't always OHKO, and you can switch out Lando with the knowledge of Diggersby's coverage to another teammate to absorb -1 attacks. Tangrowth not only carries SE STAB it also has Regenerator for lessening the damage it takes when facing Diggersby. Sableye can invert boosts before Diggersby can attack if it's running Belly Drum or Shell Smash, or it can burn or sleep it, and overall provides momentum and disrupts the opponents team. Quagsire might fear Precipice Blades, but its ability to burn or Toxic and then stall out with Protect+Recover on just about any other set makes it a superb option.

Those are only 5 examples. Others have already been mentioned. Plus there's Rocky Helmet, which you can slap on a lot of checks to chip away at Diggersby or your own FakeSpeed or Air Balloon to provide an immunity to Ground or Red Card to push out setup.

Finally, setup wasn't my main reason for suspecting Diggersby and here's why: every other Normal can do it and many do it better. My original concern was the new ORAS tutors, which do make it more unpredictable, but they also stretch its workload by prompting the player to try to beat all its checks and counters. Instead, like I've argued before, Diggersby's team should be doing that. Belly Drum is not a good option because it is vulnerable to enemy FakeSpeed, or if it runs Protect, it only has 2 moves left to attack and both STABs have immunities. Kangaskhan on the other hand can blast Sableye with Extreme Speed before a Topsy Turvy, the main answer to setup.

Tl;dr the pro-ban arguments failed to convince me that Diggersby are ruining the metagame. Yes, if it has the right coverage it can cripple or KO one of its checks, but so can something like Scizor, if it carries Superpower for Heatran, or Tyranitar, if it shoots off a Fire Blast on Scizor as it comes in. But then, assuming you have more team members left, you adjust your strategy based off that information. Diggersby is good--a staple, really--but not the harbinger of doom like some made it out to be. It needs to be prepared for, like other threats, but it doesn't require dedicated Diggersby-only checks to beat it. It just requires some flexibility that I think some players are unwilling to employ.
Eevee General Clarify please.
 
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Lcass4919

The Xatu Warrior
I find it funny that Diggersby has been suspected post-ORAS already. What's the reason for the same suspect?

If I understand correctly a new suspect is proposed only when new moves or strategies are at play. When no changes have happened to Diggersby's movepool or ability since the last suspect, why a new suspect?

Post-ORAS Diggersby Suspect Decision
new council, new opinions. plus iirc, a main reason diggs wasn't banned was because it was believed to be "the sole check to setup spam" which doesn't justify its stay in the long run. eevee general himself was the first to bring this suspect up, and due to being his meta, i think he is allowed to call for suspects hes already done. i mean, its his meta, he can do whatever he wants with it technically.
 
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If that case, fine. I just found it to be inconsistent since I've never seen the same suspect happen while no visible changes have occurred.

Diggersby has been discussed too many times and I feel it's redundant to delve into that again. So if it's possible, I'll suggest banning Diggersby temporarily right away and kind of have a 'No Diggersby' STABmons ladder.

By the way, great work on revamping the Frontier. Can't wait to beat all of you within an inch of your lives. :pimp:
 
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Just a note, for my frontier, stabmons lc, I am just going to ban normal types from receiving normal type moves, as there are at least 6 pokemon that become stupidly broken with them. Eevee General

I will post full reasoning later for my opinions on the diggersby suspect later when I have more time, but right now I am leaning towards ban. I think Dinalsha's idea of temporarily banning diggersby for a week or two to see what the meta looks like a good idea and could help us see what could be potentially broken without diggersby without having to theorymon *cough talonflame kyurem-b greninja landorus-i cough*
 

Lcass4919

The Xatu Warrior
Just a note, for my frontier, stabmons lc, I am just going to ban normal types from receiving normal type moves, as there are at least 6 pokemon that become stupidly broken with them. Eevee General

I will post full reasoning later for my opinions on the diggersby suspect later when I have more time, but right now I am leaning towards ban. I think Dinalsha's idea of temporarily banning diggersby for a week or two to see what the meta looks like a good idea and could help us see what could be potentially broken without diggersby without having to theorymon *cough talonflame kyurem-b greninja landorus-i cough*
you should prolly post this in the council pagoose lmao, but while were here, my teir bans stabbing normal moves(otherwise ALL normal types become op) and archeops ;~; 2 stronk
 
So how do we challenge the frontier? Just challenge the person if they're online?
Ask them first on Smogon. If they agree, battle right away. If not, set up a time and date.

And I strongly suggest not banning all Normal Type moves in STABmons LC. That will allow for so many 50-50s it's not even funny. Bug, in specific, becomes broken as hell.

Without FakeSpeed how do you plan on taking out a +3 Speed Boost Yanma?
 
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Ask them first on Smogon. If they agree, battle right away. If not, set up a time and date.

And I strongly suggest not banning all Normal Type moves in STABmons LC. That will allow for so many 50-50s it's not even funny. Bug, in specific, becomes broken as hell.

Without FakeSpeed how do you plan on taking out a +3 Speed Boost Yanma?
Yanma is banned in little cup. I get your point though. I have looked a little at some other setup sweepers, but nothing seems to be broken. There aren't many good steel or bug types and they tend to have bad coverage. The only one that could be broken is pawniard but fakespeed doesn't help against it very much.
 
Honestly, diggersby is a bit of a two edged sword; While as its an amazing check to setup spam, it can also reinforce it itself with its shell smash set, and due of its nasty coverage, even without setup spam, it can still cause a bit too much offensive pressure for the meta itself.
Sure, it is pretty much the best thing to counter things like belly speeders&shell smashers (the thing this meta was full of at the first steps), and its also great against many other setup threats, but as the meta has advanced a lot since the simple spammening of setup, and nowdays the bunny is just, hanging around to stricken the team building, I'd honestly say he needs to go.

However I do see that sableye usage is most likely gonna rise if not sky rocket once he goes, and generally I am tiny bit worried about some potential setup threats arising, so I'd honestly keep eye on setup in general (looking at you, espeon).
 
Honestly, diggersby is a bit of a two edged sword; While as its an amazing check to setup spam, it can also reinforce it itself with its shell smash set, and due of its nasty coverage, even without setup spam, it can still cause a bit too much offensive pressure for the meta itself.
Sure, it is pretty much the best thing to counter things like belly speeders&shell smashers (the thing this meta was full of at the first steps), and its also great against many other setup threats, but as the meta has advanced a lot since the simple spammening of setup, and nowdays the bunny is just, hanging around to stricken the team building, I'd honestly say he needs to go.

However I do see that sableye usage is most likely gonna rise if not sky rocket once he goes, and generally I am tiny bit worried about some potential setup threats arising, so I'd honestly keep eye on setup in general (looking at you, espeon).
Fake Speeding will not decline if Digger goes, but other Fake Speeders can be easily checked, meaning Setup spam backed by enough pivots and walls will be the new trend.

Stall also becomes easier, which is not necessarily good.
 

xJownage

Even pendulums swing both ways
Stall becomes much easier, and setup sweeping becomes ridiculous. "thats not an argument" whatever.

1. Why do this again? Lcass mentioned a new council and new opinions, but do those really matter when we already hashed this out months ago? I am not saying we can't ban it or do something, but taking the same action again is just stupid. We need to do something else.
2. Read the posts from before and argue those. I personally will not post again about why diggersby makes this meta as balanced as it can be without overhaul, and don't respond to this until you go back about 10 pages and read up.
3. Stall gains so much from a diggersby ban because setup sweeping with ways to beat fakespeeders becomes a big time thing. Without diggersby, there is a lack of reliable revenge killers in the tier; this is a big problem because it gives stall such a massive boon offense becomes difficult to run. Stall is the only playstyle that could still revenge setup sweepers such as kyube, since they revenge by virtue of walling.

I said "we need to do something else," and I think UU has the right idea: we need to make a suspect ladder. Two ladders would be great but we don't have the playerbase for that, so it wouldn't be ideal. I think we need to run a suspect ladder for diggersby with it banned for about a month and see how the metagame progresses. I would support this even though I am not in favor of banning diggersby because not only will it allow us to see the balance of the post diggs meta but it would also give us new teambuilding ways outside of the slightly stale meta as is. The important part of this ladder to me is how we can see whether or not other mons become broken. All kinds of setup mons in cores with mons that kill fakespeeders become viable, and many wreck offense while stall can deal with them. One thing we may notice is without the powerful presence of anti-setup in the tier, the normal type as a whole could become broken. I mean hell; sawsbuck becomes really damn good because it wrecks many stall teams without the proper wall.

At this point, we have already theorymonned and analyzed diggersby to death, the only way anything changes is if we test it. so LETS TEST IT.
 

EV

Banned deucer.
I find it funny that Diggersby has been suspected post-ORAS already. What's the reason for the same suspect?

If I understand correctly a new suspect is proposed only when new moves or strategies are at play. When no changes have happened to Diggersby's movepool or ability since the last suspect, why a new suspect?

Post-ORAS Diggersby Suspect Decision



Eevee General Clarify please.
new council, new opinions. plus iirc, a main reason diggs wasn't banned was because it was believed to be "the sole check to setup spam" which doesn't justify its stay in the long run. eevee general himself was the first to bring this suspect up, and due to being his meta, i think he is allowed to call for suspects hes already done. i mean, its his meta, he can do whatever he wants with it technically.
Lcass shouldn't have to speak for me so I'll answer this myself.

1) Metagames change over time. Trends develop, new threats rise and old standbys fall. One of Diggersby's best checks (Skarmory) is nowhere to be seen lately. Odd, considering it can deal with the current top dog (Lando-T).
2) Yeah it's my metagame but I have to clear it with the council first. I submitted the name, it was seconded. Ez.
3) Changes don't only need to occur regarding the suspect in question. The metagame is interconnected; you change one piece and it affects something else. Since the last Diggersby suspect we've banned a move and a Pokemon. Nothing exists in a vacuum in STABmons. See point 1.

Anyway, I'll give you a sneak peak of what I'll be discussing in the convo. We acted too quickly after ORAS. Some things were more obvious, like Lopunny and Metagross, but the boost to Ground coverage plus tutors needed to sink in more. New sets have popped up to or just gotten more popular. Choice Band makes certain checks irrelevant. Lovely Kiss debilitates one to where you can either break it down or just setup on it.

Anyway, in terms of the domino effect, that will come later too. But I'll say this now: it wasn't revenging setup like Aegislash, Sub Kyurem (or Kyurem in general with that bulk), Mega Sableye, Belly Drum Kanga, and others already, so the "setup will go unchecked" slogan is only half true. And the flipside of that, which says other FakeSpeeders aren't strong enough, is essentially unfounded. How do we know for sure? Ursaring gets worn down with status, k, so don't give it an orb. Oh but it takes residual damage from Iron Barbs! But so did Diggersby, and at least the bear can threaten with Close Combat against Ferrothorn without losing out against other threats unlike Diggersby's Fire Punch being pretty useless otherwise.

Anyway anyway anyway, that's all for now. Time to eat breakfast.

Edit since xJownage posted as I did. RE: we did this 3 months ago.
Um, do you think the meta is the same as it was at the end of December? When Mega Aero was still a sleeper threat and Lando hadn't gone offensive yet? When Mega Sableye was nowhere and Skarmory flying high? That's a bad argument, so stop it.
 
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Since I already covered all the reasons I think Diggersby was (and remains) broken and nobody wants to read all that re-hashed, I will say only two things.

When the previous Diggserby Suspect occurred, I made a new team for STABmons, having not really played in weeks, excited at the thought that Diggersby was going to be banned.

When it concluded, I stopped playing STABmons.
 
I still stand by my suggestion. Rehashing the Diggersby argument is pointless. So just go for a No Diggersby ladder / Temporary ban.
 

EV

Banned deucer.
I still stand by my suggestion. Rehashing the Diggersby argument is pointless. So just go for a No Diggersby ladder / Temporary ban.
We can't host a Diggersby-less ladder. Weren't not a standard tier for one and we don't have the playerbase. We can host Diggersby-less tours, however, which the council has discussed already.

In fact I'll just organize one right now. Tonight at 9 PM EDT (UTC/GMT -4) which is 6 PM my time (Seattle) I will host a Diggersby-less STABmons tour. No need to sign up, just show up. We'll host more throughout the suspect process.
 

xJownage

Even pendulums swing both ways
finally, my yanmega has a chance to shine ;~;
^ exactly


Okay since everybody decided to interrupt me when I tried to explain in the OM chat, I will just post here. Do not expect me to be nice im pissed off.

I mentioned stall becoming very powerful in the post diggersby meta. Here is why. The post diggersby meta will be filled to the brim with odd setup sweepers not checked by diggersby, as things like SS pyroar (okay probably not SS pyroar) will become staple as high powered sweepers. Offensive teams have to check these types of sweepers, the unorthodox ones, which they used to blanket cover with diggersby. Checking these without diggersby is much more difficult as the other fakespeeders are significantly less powerful (ursaring gets worn down, is made of wet paper, and dies to anything if it doesn't go for extremespeed), and lack secondary stab to hit switch-ins (braviary has dragon ascent but it aint hitting ferro anytime soon). Therefore, building offense becomes very difficult since there are no longer easy blanket checks for sweepers. This means that stall sees a rise. Why? The best way to counter setup sweepers when you don't have reliable methods to blanket check them all offensively is by using unaware. Quagsire and Clefable could wall a significant portion of these sweepers pretty easily, and the bulky mons found on these teams could make stall significantly better. This is just the beginning however. When it becomes harder to check setup sweepers, offensive restriction goes up, and this means less diversity in offense. That makes it that much easier for stall to beat. We can't run around packing shit like thundurus on our teams without consequences; and these mean direct problems for handling stall offensively. The weird setup sweepers will still exist however, so don't they break stall? Don't forget, its easier to beat those with stall teams, because unaware walls a good portion of them. Gothitelle? Shed Shell. not reliable, sure, but it works.

This is all theory and has nothing to do with what will actually happen, but is a very possible scenario and is complete logic (that is undeniable at this point). So don't go discounting these people saying setup sweepers and stall destroy the meta, because its easily possible.

tl;dr offensive restriction goes up, stallbreakers become harder to fit onto teams, stall gets better.

Okay...i don't want to say this but are we clear? Do you get what I am saying? If you don't, fucking read the wall, and if you still don't, feel free to pm me. but don't bring this up in the OM chat please, I think I might throw my desk if I have to deal with 50 people trying to interrupt me "You are contradicting yourself, but I don't understand. I still know what I am talking about though." "lol diggers restricts offense, and i'm not going to hear otherwise" while all I want to do is explain myself.
 
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