I'll make my stand on this; I'm more opposed to banning Diglett atm but it can change by the end of the week. Hearing others say that Diglett was a problem enough to be banned honestly caught me off guard. I don't relate to most of these problems, and I never felt like I'd been there. But the more I think of Diglett's effect on the tier and teambuilding, the more issues I find when I'm thinking it, often reflecting on my time when building and thinking of interactions. It's just that I don't share the same opinions on either side, and I want to tackle both sides.
"The 20 Speed tie dilemma"
If this is the biggest reason why you want Diglett to get banned, you wouldn't get my vote. Yes, I am very aware of what happened at LCBC and to some degree at LPL as there were endgames that were dictated by that. But I went to rewatch the replays, and some of the teams were just questionably vulnerable to Diglett as some of them had a handful of being trapped by Diglett and the best counterplay for that was your own Diglett, and then Doduo or other levitate mons(which is not ideal way to approach against Diglett if that's your only option to play vs Diglett). I consider those types of teams unviable, aka bad builds, as these types of teams need a trapinch to function. Whenever this is a good or not, I'll answer this later on :). I'm also very biased as whenever you see my games(or Naere's), I've hardly, if not at all, been in the positions where the 20 speed tie has defined the game for me as there's a plethora of ways to avoid those endgames, especially when players has been trying to so hard to preserve Wailmer, Snubbull, Koffing, etc, mons that can be till the end that doesn't get owned by Diglett.
I'll accept that there are truly speed tiers that you can't do much about and it's determined by RNG. But it's only applied when you're bringing CB Max Atk Diglett/or Non-Bulky Diglett vs opposing Elekid, Voltorb, and CB Diglett/atk invested Diglett. When you're using Max Atk Diglett, you've already decided to accept the speed tie problem from the building, to maximize the damage output to get rid of weakened teams, and some degree want Staryu and Anorith gone(not always guaranteed mind you bc of bulky spreads or endure techs..). However, Diglett can still opt for being bulky while doing damage as I've continuously spammed SpDef CB as I want Elekid, Abra, Ponyta, and SpDef Diglett gone, guaranteed still be able to survive vs them. CB does still make enough damage even without the atk investment and the bulk can help you in other specific situations(like making Snubbull thief your CB, then you sub and ohko it while having the sub up) while on Voltorb it looks like a 50/50 bc of explosion on any Diglett set, but the Diglett having the option switching to Ghost types, or Lileep, Magnemite, and Fully Healthy Snubbull because Voltorb outside of Explosion doesn't OHKO them, making this 50/50 very dependend on the situation, which often isn't favoured to Voltorb. ADV LC is a tier where you can have fully healed up Pokemon from beginning till the end, instead of being "straightforwardly" like DPP where you don't necessarily need to be careful with your health. As for the Diglett part, that's honestly fair enough, but if you're forced to be in this position, then you must have messed up in the earlier game and I feel like if you're gonna bring Diglett, most(4) or if all others should take advantage of Diglett unless you've no choice. As again, I'm biased as fuck here as it's very rare for me to force my own Diglett vs opposing Diglett.
How I view Diglett vs 20 Electrics and opposing Diglett is very opposed to how others would think, it's not even that unhealthy as someone claims. Diglett usually wins against non-sub Elekid(bc of Focus Punch) or Ice Punch Elekid with Spikes, vs Spdef Diglett(no atk invested), if you're CB or atk invested and have 116HP evs, you're usually not losing to tie unless the opposing Diglett gets rock slide flinch or crit EQ. I've already explained Voltorb above, which can be applied here. Diglett should often be able to tank hits from Elekid, and at worst lose if the Elekid crits or gets a high roll with spikes dmg, but that's how it goes sometimes, shrug. Even if at the endgame, where the complaints are mostly pointing out, both teams can bring sudden techs to flip the turns completely(endure salac as the best example), not every endgame has Elekid with Spikes(you need Focus Punch atp lmao), so Diglett should be safe to take a kill vs Elekid.
The 20 Speed ties are a thing that will happen, but I feel like this point is very overblown unless teams have been resolved with endgames where the ties have appeared too often, which I don't see it here nowadays.
Now that's out of the way, I've my fair share of glares on the Diglett impact on how teams are structured, and its tier itself. While you can argue there's a skill issue of building teams that aren't weak to Diglett teams or avoid Diglett shenanigans, I think this answer is not as black and white, and it comes down to subjective thoughts. For me, you've enough variety to build teams in this meta. However, you can easily boil the building style down to: Bring 4-5 mons(trapmon not included) that do not get OHKO'd by CB Diglett(if 4 then the 5th mon always needs to run with Sub into a move that OHKOs Diglett, and has somewhat tricky switch-in vs the cast) or Trapinch teams with mons that are weak to Diglett. There are many different archetypes/playstyles from these two building styles, but is this inherently a healthy thing? This is where your opinion comes down, and this determines if I want Diglett in the tier or not, which made me think through this as it gets very complex. It's basically if you enjoy this aspect or not, making this very subjective, even if you can have objective reasons/facts, it all comes down to your bias.
Now I can finally answer the question from the 2nd paragraph: At first glance, yes, but the more you dwell into it, you notice what these type of restrictions does as it makes sudden things very oppressive in a pleasant way, and it makes me slowly think of it as a negative way. Here are two examples I'll put out right now.
Wailmer's Water Spout being too overwhelming, and some of the reasons are because of Diglett's existence.
Water types are usually the best switch-ins to this set. Nonresistance often suffers from Icy Wind + Water Spout combo, Grass + Dragon gets completely owned by Ice Beam after Water Spout. But there are issues even with using other water types, and some of it comes from Diglett. Chinchou and Staryu are both solid switch-ins that don't care about Icy Wind -> HP Grass, and play around Water Spout if getting hit. So what's the problem then? Well, Chinchou is not a Pokémon I'd use without Trapinch as the good teams can't afford it, especially when Chinchou is easy to switch in and play around without the need of Diglet. Staryu dies to Max CB Diglett unless you afford bulk on defense, which gets difficult because you're vulnerable to Icy Wind + HP Grass rolls, and losing speed can backfire af.
So the best switch-in is your own Wailmer, because it doesn't get invalidated by trapping while being able to tank hits from opposing Wailmer. Sometimes there are two water types on a team, but it's getting rarer to see teams that bring a single water consist of Staryu or Chinchou + Diglett nowadays because that core is too vulnerable for the meta. This is often the reason why you see a Wailmer as the only water type in Diglett teams IMO.
A good amount of Pokémon that could be healthy checks/counters for the tier are gatekept by Diglett without Trapinch, and makes sudden things a bit absurd.
- Fire types and Magnemite being less common makes Chloro-mons feel ridiculous. Both of them don't tend to appear much at the endgame even if facing vs Diglett with Diglett. Exeggcute and Oddish also share different checks, you can see that Oddish covers Abra/Doduo while Exegg Covers Koffing/Gastly, making sun checking very scary. Sun isn't a problem, but you can see how Diglett's impact makes them much stronger.
- A lot of special attackers tend to be able to trade hits vs check each other, but are often a victim to Diglett's trapping, and therefore makes this dynamic less valuable. I loved that you use fast special attackers to trade each other, as you're still doing it with Electrics vs 18-19 mons, but I find it difficult to justify it when you're not using trapinch.
Alright examples done, and let's focus on the big one here. There is the fact that the team that gets digtrapped has to rely on Trapinch, and you're relying on Trapinch... Here's the thing, Trapinch is good af and has tons of benefits even when ignoring trapping meta. You're essentially using Trapinch to remove Diglett, and then the game becomes "what-if" Diglett didn't exist type of gameplay. So you can kinda theorize how a digless meta is from building the Trapinch meta. Here's the problem, Trapinch is not always safe from Diglett as crits exist. Usually, crits are crits, but the Trapinch teams are so reliant on removing Diglett that if Diglett crit Trapinch, the
game is over from that point. Diglett crits are one of the most unfair parts of the game, because they can happen at the most detrimental positions, and it's often game over from that point.
There are probably more you can point out, but I think I've said what I want. I'm happy to play the meta as how Diglett restricts/gatekeeps things, as it you can still express yourself in building, and there's still a good skill level between the best and weaker ones.
But I am completely fine with Diglett ban as I see the positives you can get out of it. Banning Diglett has some negatives, such as enabling fast special attackers, maybe Mons like Abra being too good for the tier. But I think the positives outweigh the negatives for sure. More Pokémon will be viable, which can lead to defensive cores depending on its typing than its base stat usually. Honestly, it's like 2 am and atp it's speculation for me as I am theorizing stuff, by using my games with Trapinch vs Diglett to create a visualization on how the meta would be.
I wish the voting didn't appear right before ADVPL. An individual tournament before ADVPL would have been perfect to experiment with the meta instead of doing it in the biggest and most important tournament for ADVLC , but it is what it is, I guess.
