On The Radar Vol. 2 [See Post #336]

[DialgaTheTimeLord]

In my eyes, banning Arena Trap is the best solution. The input of the community and other council members will go a long way towards deciding a potential suspect, but my personal opinion is that we should handle this the same way we have in recent generations.

Dugtrio is eliminating Pokemon that are necessary forms of defensive counterplay against common Dugtrio teammates as per usual. This has been problematic in previous generations and it is no different here; we just are witnessing different targets and different beneficiaries of this entire dynamic this time around with Dugtrio running CB and trying to eliminate Fairy types as well as Toxapex, Tyranitar, Excadrill, etc. instead of Focus Sash and trying to get rid of Chansey or Heatran, which do not currently exist.

As for Arena Trap vs Dugtrio, we already handled a similar case in banning Shadow Tag instead of Gothitelle or the Gothitelle evolution line, so that's some precedent to begin with. Couple that with even more precedent from previous generations with Arena Trap specifically and I think that you can find plenty of justification to ban Arena Trap in order to handle the entire problem instead of leaving room for future troubles. With this said, I actually am not too fond of this being the only line of logic we subscribe to. Precedent is great as a piece of evidence, but it should never be the lone argument made. You need actual justification grounded in the current metagame. Moreover, I believe that Arena Trap eliminating the ability to switch out a number of prominent Pokemon proves to be very restricting and uncompetitive. This is shown specifically on Dugtrio, as I outline on the above paragraph. I am aware that this is the same line-of-logic used to justify the previous bans of it, which ties back into the precedent, but it is worth framing things in the context of our metagame instead of blindly applying precedent.

If I could, I'd just say insta-ban it right here and now, but since I assume that's not an option, basically everyone and their mother wants Arena Trap gone and are saying it should never have been unbanned to begin with. I'd say more about why but everyone's said a thousand times what's wrong with the ability, and literally nothing about what makes it broken at its core has changed since last gen. Heavy Duty Boots don't affect it. Galarian Weezing is literally one Pokemon, if it's even OU viable, and is ground-weak anyway. Even if the ability DID have counters, that doesn't remove how non-competitive it is because it forces a vacuum matchup. It's the same story we've had time and again and everyone knows how it's going down. If quick ban is really the fastest we can get rid of it, then by all means, please get this over with. Otherwise, even faster would be better.

 

[theotherguytm]

I dont think that precedent necessarily carries over. This meta is not the Gen 7 meta, at least in theory we cant say for sure that using diglett or trapinch allows teams to achieve similar results without a suspect.

Then prove that. Provide reasoning as to why that is the case rather than just stating it.

The ban Duggy arguments mostly are on bashing Diglet and Trapinch and saying how they would be not broken in OU, as they are terrible and wouldn't trap most relevant mons. (I'm guessing at that last part because none of them have actually said why they're bad without just saying they're bad.) As a parallel, may I link you to the CAP metagame VR?
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-cap-viability-rankings.3658514/
Yes, they are totally different formats (as shown by Duggy being S rank). But if you look down in the C Rank, you will see Diglet there. In CAP, Double Arena Trap teams are actually a viable thing. Diglet is more than capable of trapping OU-level threats with its 265 BST. If that isn't a statement of how stupid Arena Trap is, nothing is. And before someone tries to just dismiss this by saying "CAP=/=OU so therefore we learn nothing from this" and reacting to my comment with a "Ha-ha" without bothering to reply, note that it's not such an alien meta that common threats don't exist (Corv is still S, Clef, Aegi and Hydreigon are A+, etc). While, yes, this tells us nothing about how good Diglet would be in OU without Dugtrio, we can conclude it would be at the least viable. A 265 BST mon. Viable in OU. Ban this garbage.

Also, everyone who says Trapinch is unviable didn't see my above set. However hard you try and wish it didn't exist and call me names, I've proven Trapinch has a viable niche in OU. A viable niche trapping most teams' only check to a highly centralizing borderline broken threat. Trapping most teams' Stealth Rocker so you lose the hazard war. Please, stop pretending I didn't post it because I did.

From these two, we can conclude Arena Trap makes two LC Pokemon (with a combined BST equal to Arcanine's) OU viable, providing team support via an uncompetitive mechanic. Now, if you think otherwise, please actually bother to come up with counterarguments and contribute meaningfully to the discussion. That is all.

 

[LordHelix]

I don't know what you're talking about here - Dugtrio, Diglett and Trapinch are legimitately some of the worst Pokemon in the game without Arena Trap, its not like they have some perfect combination of traits to make Arena Trap look good.

They lack decent set-up (only Hone Claws and arguably Screech), they have zero bulk so have to run Sash if they want to be able to beat anything faster, but at the same time are so piss weak that they require Choice Band to 2HKO defensive mons. They have an awful offensive movepool consisting of Earthquake, Stone Edge, Reversal, and Sucker Punch which gives good neutral coverage but pretty crap super effective coverage, which is important on a Pokemon with such bad offenses. Support movepool is limited to Stealth Rock, Sub, Protect, Memento and that's it. Dugtrio's only redeeming factor is STAB EQ and speed, but bear in mind it doesn't even need that speed to trap their most common current targets (Clef and Sylv) - Dugtrio could be base 90 and still do the same thing right now.

This is why this argument makes no sense. People are saying that "its not that Arena Trap is broken, Dugtrio is just a good mon that abuses it and worse Pokemon can't use it as well, like Diglett and Trapinch". Dugtrio is awful. It is an excellent example of a Pokemon that has a busted ability and the absolute bare minimum other requirements to make it work - a 100bp STAB move and either good speed or good bulk. Thats all it has. It is one of the worst Pokemon in the game. Just because Diglett and Trapinch are marginally worse doesn't change that fact.

Without Arena Trap, Dugtrio is probably in the bottom 150 Pokemon in the game (out of >800), outranked by tons of unevolved Pokemon and not even able to make a dent in PU last gen. Diglett and Trapinch are probably somewhere in the bottom 50, but despite this become fully usable and viable on stall because of their ability. So I honestly don't understand how people can see that Dugtrio is broken, but argue that the thing that breaks it is the combination of speed and a stronger Earthquake rather than its ability.

If anything remotely good had Arena Trap we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Instead, we're sitting around questioning "how bad does a Pokemon have to be before we let it be used with Arena Trap".

Im not trying to open a can of worms but if youre really trying to argue that arena trap is broken because in THEORY its more broken if it had more distribution on fully evolved mons then i dont know what to tell you

Huge power and magnet pull (just realized this is relevant because meltan is available very soon, checkmate smogon) are absolutely disgusting abilities in theory as well but have very limited distribution. We were just lucky gamefreak never put this ability on a semi competent pokemon (besides mega mawile) so we can see how broken it really is


And id like to address the common "if you ban arena trap dugtrio falls to untiered and is BAD, this is proof that its ability is broken"

That happens to literally every pokemon that relies on its ability. Diggersby would be absolutely unviable garbage that wont hold up in pu if you were to ban its best ability. And Azumarill would be able to be a passive shitmon that has a one dimensional whirlpool set

Magnezone (lets not pretend we forgot whats a magnezone please) would barely hold up in any high tier without magnet pull, sure it has decent special attack but thats about it.

Clefairy and Fletchinder recieved usage in UU and RU respectively despite have horrendous stat distributions and relied on their ability to carry them. Proof being fletchinder falling to untiered after gale wings nerf

So im not really feeling those two arguments of "if u ban its best ability its BAD" and the "if it had better distribution itd be BROKEN" because the first is obvious for any pokemon that relies on its ability and the second is stepping into theorymon territory since then you can argue for other abilities being broken if put on any other competent mons

 

[Of Moose & Men]

The "if you remove the ability it's bad" "argument" is trying to say that Duggy is clearly not the issue, and is instead the ability. Diglett and Trapinch's mention is only to further explain why it's the ability rather than the Pokemon.

Most arguments from both sides are pretty bare bones (one side more than the other, but that's neither here nor there). At the end of the day, Arena Trap is inherently noncompetitive, full stop, period.

Arena Trap, along with Shadow Tag, are noncompetitive because they completely remove agency from the player on the receiving end in such an overwhelming fashion that it's baffling to me we're even having this discussion in the first place. When discussing whether we should ban a Pokemon we should be looking at it as a whole (see GDarm). With an ability, we should (in my opinion, I guess) be focusing solely on whether the ability is noncompetitive, broken, entirely luck based, or (in Power Constructs case last gen) gives access to a Broken/Noncompetitive form. I had this opinion with GDarm, and I'm maintaining it here.

Arena Trap as an ability regardless of what it is attached to is a noncompetitive mess. Therefore the ability, not the Pokemon, should be removed.

 

[BlueLobster]

Ok people are really missing the point as to why arena trap isn't really comparable to random good abilities like huge power. Arena trap literally prevents you using a mechanic while huge power just gives a boost in stats. There's a ton of situations where dugtrio literally renders good playing irrelevant by making it impossible. If you get a kill with any dug trapped mon, you lose your mon. If they get a slow uturn while you have a dug trapped mon in, you lose your mon. This has a huge effect on the meta, where you literally cannot rely on a dug trapped mon being a solid answer to anything because you'll lose dug + whatever mon its your check to. To add to that, we have shit like hydra where all its answers are dug trapped, so people have started running quick attack sylveon so they have a hydra answer that doesnt lose to dug. This demonstrates arena trap is inherently uncompetitive in a way that isn't shared by other good abilities, and should not be compared to them. Instead, compare it to shadow tag, which is nearly identical.

 

[The Funky Reason]

I've lurked for the past 5 years, but it's time to come out of my cave again. I've seen a lot of arguments anti-arena trap arguments that I believe are extremely bad and I'd like to explain why.

1. Arena trap makes even horrible pokemon good i.e. Duggy and we should expect to see trapinch and diglet do the same thing post-ban
This is a really poor understanding of what dugtrio does. Yeah, its stats are awful almost across the board, but it has a fantastic speed stat of 120 and a passable (especially this gen) attack stat of 100. The bulk really doesn't matter when you're always coming in off of a knock out, turning move, or double, and outspeed and OHKO in return with choice band because you hit 448 attack with a 100 power stab move. So yeah, duggy is really bad without arena trap but it is built to abuse this ability. Speed also means you will always go before recovery, so walls can't respond to him which really broadens what can be trapped. Duggy, especially with the lower power level and hospitable metagame almost always has like 3 things it can trap and kill every game.

The same just can't be said for trapinch or diglet. Trapinch has the same attack as duggy but has equally terrible bulk coupled by one of the worst speed stats in the game. It's bulk does matter because it never outspeeds, and its bulk is so bad it gets OHKO'd by nearly everything, necessitating eviolite which makes it hit way softer than banded duggy. The result of this bad bulk, speed and item requirement, is that trapinch is so much more specialized in what it does, and is way more comparable to magnezone (but worse, because zone is an actual pokemon without its ability). Diglet is also not even close to duggy because though it can run a band and is fast (though not nearly as fast), the banded hit is coming off of something like 55 attack so it needs to hit super-effectively to kill what it wants to kill at any reasonable percent (once again, much more specialized, not much more like magnezone or pursuit). Not being able to remove neutral targets like fairies really hurts these mons and makes them so uncomparable to dugtrio. Duggy is always banned because he punches so many holes in people's teams to enable so many sweeps, making the game feel out of your hands. In this meta in particular, he is the premier way to remove fairies and pex for hydreigon and other dangerous setup mons. Diglet and trapinch were banned in previous gens because their narrow trapping niches trapped everything stall needed in order to win i.e. heatran, band tar etc. and when these specific pokemon are down stall is nearly impossible to break. For those on the anti-arena trap side please tell me what play styles/teams are enabled by these mons, and how these teams are nearly impossible to beat with these mons removed.
2. Precedent
This gen is just so much different than previous ones that it isn't very fair to claim this. Note that this is the first time in like 5 years without chansey, mega-sableye, unaware clef, other stall staples, and very trappable glue mons or stall breakers like tran, mega-mawile, etc. The meta is wayyyy different so I don't think precedent is a particularly powerful argument as it might have been in gen 7.
3.What about DLCs
I'll break this into to parts because the first DLC point is absolutely horrendous but I think most people recognize that. "What if they give arena trap to another broken trapper?" is frankly a terrible argument. Like preemptively banning an ability because another good trapper with it might be added to the game is so silly it shouldn't be entertained. Like, we should have banned gorilla tactics in that case, because they could give us another broken mon with it.
The second argument, which is much better is "what happens when the mons mentioned above comeback?" And that is a good point, but I will just say that we should cross that bridge when we come to it because we still don't know which mons will make it back, and also moves have been removed, like hidden power, and a ton of moves have been added via TRs. I believe that preemptively banning something would be silly.
4. Trapping is inherently uncompetitive
I completely disagree and nearly everyone in the community also does too. We were okay with magnet pull and pursuit BECAUSE they are so much more limited in what they trap. We agreed that the smaller pool of mons and the content of that pool were what made those forms of trapping fair. Diglet and trapinch work extremely similarly this gen and once again are not real pokemon outside of trapping, which magnezone and tyranitar are.
5. Shadow tag was banned, not Gothitelle
Goth was really stupid and nobody will ever deny that, but not only is she good but her stage 2 is also really good, and so is wob, that literally leaves one mon, so banning tag is so much easier than banning 3 mons to leave baby goth. Baby goth also has NO niche at all. Arena trap has 3 users, one of which is comparable to goth and 2 of which just aren't, so banning just duggy is no more complex than banning arena trap and preserves 2 mons that aren't broken and have a reasonable niche.
6. Why preserve diglet and trapinch
I think this is also a really silly argument but people actually agree with this one. They aren't broken, so we shouldn't ban them. Blaziken is banned, not speed boost for this reason and others. He's banned and not speed boost because it would be banning a lot of mons that just aren't broken.
My arguments for why dugtrio specifically is broken also why diglet and trapinch are so much more limited.
1. Duggy traps a huge amount of pokemon. Diglet and trapinch trap a very narrow area of the meta and need the pokemon to be extremely hurt, or a super-effective hit. Diglet and trapinch don't trap clef, sylveon, ace, and have a way lower kill threshold than duggy does.
2. Diglet and trapinch are way more similar to magnet pull and pursuit, which were deemed competitive, than dugtrio. Again, their traping niche is really small, and unlike magnet pullers and pursuiters they aren't real pokemon outside of trapping.
3. Dugtrio has great stats that are built for abusing arena trap, diglet and trapinch just don't. Dugtrio has way higher speed and attack than either of the other options, and as a result traps so much more. Duggy doesn't have bad stats, his stats are exactly where the need to be, it's really like hating on conk for having low speed and special attack when its stats are exactly where they need to be for him to function the way he does.
4. Diglet and trapinch don't enable a superbroken playstyle to persist, like in past generations.

I'm not amazing at this game but chill around the 16 and 1700s so I really would like to hear from other people and there could be something I am missing, if diglet or trapinch do enable some broken playstyle I'd like to know, but I just don't see it right now. Thanks for listening to me (:

EDIT: fixed typos ):

 

[Deleted User 229847]

I mean who on their right minds is gonna argue that diglet and trapinch are overpowered? It clearly is not the case. Diglet and trapinch trap such a small handful of mons that they cannot be compared to dugtrio unless we are treating Arena Trap as an uncompetitive ability that has no place in a competitive game (which thus implies that any trapping ability is therefore uncompetitive, diglet and trapinch threaten a number of mons closer to magnezone rather than dugtrio, and no forcing a pokemon to carry shed shell (or worry seed, lol?) is not enough counterplay and only proves how much centralizing magnet pull is).

 

[EviGaro]

By the way, please don't bring Magnet Pull into the conversation because it's not part of the metagame and will only derail the thread.

While I get why it's considered a derail, it's actually kinda relevant if you guys are talking about precedent stating that trapping as a mechanic is clearly broken... When precedent itself states that no it's not always considered the case. If Magnet Pull has no bearing on the current metagame - and it does not - then fine, but the argument about the precedent either needs to be thought up a little better or just ignored in this decision.

And honestly this isn't my tiering call, but I do find the ban arena trap arguments strongly lacking. Yes, Arena Trap removes part of the overall tools, but a lot of things do that. Yes, it's part of what makes Dugtrio really dumb, but I think there's good posts pointing out that while it's the main factor Dugtrio is tailor-made to abuse it in this current meta. Saying Diglett or Trapinch would be able to do broken stuff for the tier is massive theorymonning and isn't supported by anything seen by anyone both on ladder and tour play, and it really just ignores what the problem is for the OU metagame in order to make a stance about something nobody can viably support. While it's not OU, there are tiers where Diglett and Trapinch are considered the best trapping options and have viable targets... yet they are barely used. Why? Cause they are terrible mons, and even if they do get a few targets you are sacrificing a lot of consistency or even just a full slot if the gambit doesn't pay off. Dugtrio is way, way better, and I seriously think people need to focus on why that is and if something needs to be done about that rather than losing their mind because someone found a way to use a fire flames Giga Drain Trapinch in OU.

 

[peng]

Ugh.

Huge Power comparisons are ridiculous, I've never once said Arena Trap is like Huge Power so stop talking like I did. Importantly, Huge Power does not provide team support and the Pokemon that has Huge Power is hugely important in how effective it is. You need to already be a physical attacker, you need to ideally be fast or have priority - its for this reason that you could give Huge Power to every Pokemon in the game one by one, and the vast majority would not be broken. Same for Speed Boost - the ability to automatically boost your speed each turn would not break the vast majority of Pokemon in the game. Arena Trap would.

Arena Trap is uncompetitive for team support reasons. It is almost irrelevant what Pokemon has Arena Trap as an ability - if a Pokemon can prevent grounded Pokemon from switching out, and has literally any way to cripple specific targets (be it status, Trick, Taunt, using them as set-up fodder like Gothitelle did, or aiming for KOs as with Dugtrio), it will be able to support a huge number of Pokemon with very little reasonable counterplay. The reason that I claim Arena Trap should be banned over Dugtrio is because this ability is inherently uncompetitive - it is enough to push a dogshit Pokemon that has 2 redeeming features like Dugtrio (its a ground-type with a good enough attack stat to 2HKO clef when banded... thats it), we have to question whether its really Dugtrio thats broken or the ability.

I firmly believe that if any of the 600 top mons out of the game (i.e. anything that doesn't fall in the bottom 25% of mons) had Arena Trap they would be busted - this is not true of any other ability in the game bar Wonder Guard, which has no current viable abusers. Dugtrio has proven all you need is a good enough attack to 2HKO Clefable when Choice Banded and you're broken. Do you realise how many Pokemon fill that criteria and more? Just about all offensive Pokemon you can think of. Add to that anything with Calm Mind, Curse users, Bulk Up, Cosmic Power, Trick etc which would all be busted with Arena Trap. Dugtrio sets the bar so low and still makes Arena Trap almost bar none the best ability in the game. Its not tailor-made to abuse it, it has the bare minimum traits needed to succeed. This is why Arena Trap is inherently broken - on the vast majority of Pokemon in the game it would be abused to hell and back in a way that Huge Power and Speed Boost would not.

My entire point is that trapping grounded Pokemon is uncompetitive and as a result Arena Trap should be removed. On that principle, Diglett and Trapinch can at least partially perform the same role and remove targets threats, as seen with Diglett's prior usage in previous gens when we made this same mistake. Even if Diglett and Trapinch are less efficient at doing so, they can still in principle prevent ~70% of common OU Pokemon from switching out, which I believe to be uncompetitive even if it is harder for them to now beat those 70% 1v1. I think the range of Pokemon here is what's important - although Magnezone can beat steels very very convincingly, you know what Magnezone wants to trap and can prevent it. Even though Diglett and Trapinch are less effective, you importantly still can't really prep for them super reliably because they can pick off any grounded Pokemon without Shed Shell when weakened enough and can be engineered to do some really niche shit - Magnezone is far more limited in that regard.

Comments about DLC - this was more of a side benefit to banning Arena Trap but I still thinks its relevant. If you're admitting that Arena Trap would be broken on anything better than Dugtrio, then we can just future-proof ourselves by banning Arena Trap outright now. In the unlikely event that Arena Trap Golurk or some dumb shit end up being a thing, then we'd have to later ban Golurk outright, or undo the Dugtrio ban just because we got stupidly comfortable with the narrow list of Arena Trap users at the time and wanted to preserve some NFEs. At least for me, it is not worth preserving Arena Trap for the sole reason that "its not broken if you are literally one of the 50 worst Pokemon ever made" if it means that future tiering policy becomes infinitely easier if the ability becomes distributed to almost anything else. You comment that if we were keeping DLC in mind we should have banned Gorilla Tactics?? Completely backwards, its the opposite situation to Arena Trap - looking to the future is the exact reason we did not ban Gorilla Tactics. Most Pokemon with it wouldn't be broken, so you can future-proof yourself by banning Darmanitan instead and then any future GT mons are free to use.

 

[Deleted User 229847]

Diglet and Trapinch can't trap a lot of mons, that is only in theory, but only a small handful of OU who are essentially oneshotted or 2hko'd and cannot shot them back, which is arguably counterable with shed shell in the same fashion you'd put shed shell on skarmory or ferrothorn.

 

[The Funky Reason]

peng Again, as it has been pointed out quite a bit. You are not just prepping for something unlikely, you're prepping for something that has virtually no chance of ever happening. Like yeah, it could technically happen but the chances are so close to zero that it shouldn't be taken seriously as a reason to ban trap. As EviGaro pointed out there are more tiers than just OU, and these mons could be used down there is a real cost to eliminating these mons.
Also, saying "Trapinch and Diglet trap grounded mons" is WAYYYYY over selling them. Please list the mons they can trap- that list is EXTREMELY sparse. Like, they trap 70% of the meta but most of the time it feels like you're trapped with them, not the other way around. They in no way functionally trap 70% of the meta. It's like saying that magnezone traps tran, yeah he technically does but does 30% and gets OHKO'd in return so "trapping heatran" is not a perk of magnezone.
You have to be honest when you're discussing this, the way you talk about those two trappers is like we are talking about 2 other somewhat more limited duggies when they are WAY more limited duggies that only trap (generously) like 3 mons that don't even really pave the way for sweeps. Losing a toxicitry doesn't lose you a game, and if your team is THAT weak to him just use soundproof kommo-o which is a real mon outside of beating toxicitry.

 

[peng]

Except trapping and reliably beating 1v1 are different things. Diglett and Trapinch can trap exactly the same set of Pokemon as Dugtrio, but obviously need those Pokemon to be weaker before they can actually KO them. We're arguing the semantics of "just how weak does a Pokemon need to be before being able to prevent 70% of mons from switching is ok" which to me kind of proves a point.

Anyone who has actually used Dugtrio knows that its sole use isn't to tank a Clefable Moonblast and 2HKO with Earthquake. It also performs a host of other unplanned stuff, picking off weaked mons that you didn't specifically put it on the team for. Diglett and Trapinch need those Pokemon weakened more, or need to go by different routes like TSpikes + Sub/Protect in order to beat down things, but they still prevent 70% of the game from switching out in circumantially can take advantage of that, which I believe uncompetitive. To me this is functionally identical to banning Moody over Glalie - we had the foresight to understand that nobody wanted to have to deal with any potential bullshit from Snorunt even though its probably super super bad, same here with Diglett.

edit: and on the Magnezone comment - I'm sure theres a slew of tournament replays over the years where a Magnezone has trapped a weakened slow Heatran for a KO, or chipped it into range of something else with the opp hopless. I don't think Magnet Pull is broken but importantly these trapping mons don't need to win 1v1 every time to be effective lol

I think this has gone on as long as it should. I'm fairly confident we'll ban Arena Trap but if not, I'm looking forward all the Pikachu shocked faces when Diglett rocks up again.

 

[Deleted User 229847]

We're arguing the semantics of "just how weak does a Pokemon need to be before being able to prevent 70% of mons from switching is ok" which to me kind of proves a point.

No this is not semantics and it's quite disingenuous to say that dugtrio, trapinch and diglet trap 70% of the OU mons. There's a lot of difference if you have to chip down your trapped mon or you can just trap it whenever you want. Not only that, but you also have to either outspeed it (quite hard for 2 shitmons) and either 1shot or avoid being 1shotted back (again, quite hard for 2 shitmons). In no way are we arguing about semantics, we are evalutating how succesfully these mons can REALISTICALLY trap.

I have not seen any concrete examples except for the giga drain trapich set... which is ridicolous to say the least. You play with 5 mons most of the time. How is this even an argument to ban trapinch?

 

[peng]

It is semantics - we're all saying that Arena Trap is a ridiculous ability in this game but we disagree on the definition of "trapping" and one side is claiming that its all ok as long as your base attack is 55 because then you can't 2hko clefable anymore!

The Trapinch set is of course utterly ridiculous but seriously ask yourself, is stupid shit like that seriously something you want to be an option in this game? This is the exact point - all these trapping mons are stupid and quite niche but when tailored correctly they literally leave you hopeless to degenerate strategies, and more than anything else, team match-up.

That Trapinch is never going to catch on widely obviously but I firmly believe that it should not even be possible for a set like that, upon which a hard counter to one of the scariest wallbreakers in the game, can be caught on a U-turn and beaten by such a dumb strategy. Any other cheese like that you can play around i.e. you can scout for random grass moves on Seismitoad lures but if that Trapinch gets in vs Seismitoad and you don't have other Dracovish counterplay you literally lose the game. The ability to prevent 70% of Pokemon from switching out is uncompetitive and enables niche and near occasionally non-preventable bullshit like this.

Why exactly do you want to protect this stuff?

 

[Mame YO]

I honestly think Diglett and Trapinch are mostly irrelevant to the conversation anyway from an OU perspective but that doesn’t change that the ability AT itself is highly uncompetitive and broken in the OU metagame. Dugtrio without AT is... a sand team mon? Maybe it has some other niche? Leaving that possibility open in a post-dexit world, even if it is unlikely to be used often - it still preserves some level of diversity in the meta that we sorely need and that we wouldn’t have if we banned dugtrio instead of AT.

 

[ShadowMarioGalaxy64]

Is this just a bad rerun of Groundhog Day? I feel like we’re running laps around the same exact points now. Didn’t the last time we banned Arena Trap (targeting Dugtrio, instead), Diglett and Trapinch rose from the ashes and proved that the ability was the problem? Sure it was a previous generation, but it isn’t Farfetch’d to see it replicated again, even with some of the prime targets not available currently like Heatran or Chansey.

I know it would go against everything y’all hold dear, but I do believe we should hold a true Suspect Test again. Firstly, the community is split (yet again, Vicious Cycle of Smogon), so this would be the perfect middle ground solution. Second, the Suspect Test would involve a ladder where Dugtrio itself was not allowed, but Arena Trap is, giving a perfect test environment to see whether or not Dugtrio or Arena Trap is the biggest issue; if people want to bring up the Pre-Evolutions, we might as well see how they fulfill the trapper role in practice, not theory since that’s a major argument being thrown around now. I don’t expect this idea to be adopted, but as far as I can see, due to the stubbornness of this community and this one ability, it might be the only way to truly prove which side is correct once and for all.

Also, anybody comparing Huge/Pure Power to Shadow Tag and Arena Trap are out of their minds; the former two simply increase stats to better play the role of Physical Attacker, while the latter pair completely removes a key mechanic in battling. The comparison is, to say the least, ludicrous.

 

[LordHelix]

Just wanted to remind everyone that banning arena trap will yet again remove the option of using Diglett and Trapinch in lower tiers. Afaik RU and UU has access to those mons and i havent seen anyone complaining about them, because they trap very few threats similarly to magnezone

Even with trapinch trapping 3 of the top tier pokemon in the RU metagame (gigalith Gigalith, Salazzle, Shiftry) and being regularly discussed in chatrooms it still sits at an embarrassing 2.21 usage in RU

If lower tiers is irrelevant to OU feel free to remove the post i guess. But its still a point to be made as a response to the "why should we conserve diglett and trapinch anyways? Just ban them all" argument

It depends on how smogon does its tiering then i guess. In a vaccuum arena trap is incredibly broken yes, but in praticality theyre not breaking more than one pokemon like shadow tag and moody

Also responding to the post above me: nobody is saying huge power is as broken they both have similar parallels. Both are extremely good abilities that are limited to mostly bad pokemon and makes these pokemon seem so much better than they actually are

I wont post again because all the anti-ban arguments have been said, ive seen a bunch of good ban arguments too so ill just stop its not a back and forth. Have a good day all

 

[Deleted User 229847]

Using updated usage statistics and starting from the 59th (Quagsire), Trap arena traps 48 out of 59 pokemons, which is roughly 64% of the OU metagame.

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| 3 | Clefable
| 4 | Seismitoad
| 5 | Excadrill
| 7 | Ferrothorn
| 9 | Cinderace
| 11 | Kommo-o
| 12 | Toxapex
| 13 | Dracovish
| 15 | Conkeldurr
| 17 | Sylveon
| 18 | Bisharp
| 19 | Hatterene
| 20 | Grimmsnarl
| 21 | Cloyster
| 22 | Mew
| 24 | Toxtricity
| 25 | Tyranitar
| 27 | Obstagoon
| 30 | Ditto
| 31 | Crawdaunt
| 36 | Hippowdon
| 37 | Dracozolt
| 39 | Gastrodon
| 40 | Mamoswine
| 41 | Sirfetch'd
| 42 | Rhyperior
| 43 | Snorlax
| 44 | Lucario
| 46 | Shuckle
| 48 | Barraskewda
| 49 | Centiskorch
| 50 | Reuniclus
| 51 | Diggersby
| 52 | Vaporeon
| 55 | Ribombee
| 56 | Heliolisk
| 57 | Haxorus
| 59 | Quagsire

Out of those, i'd say semi-realistic dugtrio targets are the following 24 (40%), some are clearly better than others:

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| 3 | Clefable
| 4 | Seismitoad
| 5 | Excadrill
| 7 | Ferrothorn
| 9 | Cinderace
| 11 | Kommo-o
| 12 | Toxapex
| 17 | Sylveon
| 18 | Bisharp
| 19 | Hatterene
| 20 | Grimmsnarl
| 24 | Toxtricity
| 25 | Tyranitar
| 27 | Obstagoon
| 37 | Dracozolt
| 39 | Gastrodon
| 42 | Rhyperior
| 43 | Snorlax
| 44 | Lucario
| 49 | Centiskorch
| 50 | Reuniclus
| 52 | Vaporeon
| 56 | Heliolisk
| 57 | Haxorus

Now, out of those 24, who are diglett and trapich gonna trap?

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252+ Atk Choice Band Diglett Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Clefable: 204-240 (51.7 - 60.9%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Trapinch Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Clefable: 291-343 (73.8 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 36 HP / 0 SpD Diglett: 184-217 (108.2 - 127.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Trapinch: 184-217 (79.6 - 93.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (trapinch gets outsped so doesn't matter how much evs you use to tank a hit)

252+ Atk Choice Band Diglett Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 168-200 (55.2 - 65.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Toxapex Scald vs. 36 HP / 0 SpD Diglett: 194-230 (114.1 - 135.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Trapinch Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 240-284 (78.9 - 93.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Toxapex Scald vs. 0 HP / 48 SpD Trapinch: 180-212 (77.9 - 91.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (specific ev spread to tank hit + burn from toxapex while also outspeeding)

252+ Atk Choice Band Diglett Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 222-262 (56.3 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Diglett: 237-280 (147.2 - 173.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Trapinch Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 318-375 (80.7 - 95.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 48 SpD Trapinch: 216-255 (93.5 - 110.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Pixilate Sylveon Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Trapinch: 69-82 (29.8 - 35.4%) -- 25.2% chance to 3HKO

These are usually the most important targets, you can run the calcs on the others but tl;dr is trapinch does the same damage but is required to run cband and cannot outspeed (it outspeeds toxapex with a decent evs spread, but toxapex is one of the few mons that doesn't lose much if anything at all with shed shell) while diglett is trash and probably traps Toxtricity.

The burden of the proof is on the pro ban anyway, but stats are quite telling, diglett and trapinch can realistically trap a small handful of pokemons

 

[BlueLobster]

No this is not semantics and it's quite disingenuous to say that dugtrio, trapinch and diglet trap 70% of the OU mons. There's a lot of difference if you have to chip down your trapped mon or you can just trap it whenever you want. Not only that, but you also have to either outspeed it (quite hard for 2 shitmons) and either 1shot or avoid being 1shotted back (again, quite hard for 2 shitmons). In no way are we arguing about semantics, we are evalutating how succesfully these mons can REALISTICALLY trap.

I have not seen any concrete examples except for the giga drain trapich set... which is ridicolous to say the least. You play with 5 mons most of the time. How is this even an argument to ban trapinch?

Just gonna point out diglett outspeeds everything OU that dug does thats trappable except cinderace and mew, so outspeeding something isn't hard for it at all. As for what it traps (assuming sash in tact):

252 Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 176-210 (51.6 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (traps bandtar)
252 Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 288-342 (79.5 - 94.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Diglett Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 68-80 (18.7 - 22%) -- possible 5HKO (traps excadrill with decent rolls or 3% chip - even +1 speed or rush exca)
252 Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Toxtricity: 508-604 (174.5 - 207.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO (literally doesn't even need sash unless its +2 speed, meaning it can safely switch in)
252 Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 192-228 (70.8 - 84.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (needs chip but this helps)

Yes its a shitmon that can't even effectively remove pex, however it poses a legitimate threat to sand teams, being able to remove either their setter or sweeper, and any team built around toxtricity. It can also pick off damaged shit in general (252 Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dracovish: 96-114 (29.9 - 35.5%) -- 23% chance to 3HKO while this looks shit, it means band vish at 60% is removed provided sash is in tact, which is likely removing the vish team's ability to break effectively). I'm not sure why you'd want to preserve a garbage mon to be a dugtrio-lite that can remove certain mons which can result in matchup wins for some random spamming diglett when the fact it can do this demonstrates the ability is problematic. Arena trap fits the criteria of uncompetitive and trying to preserve it because diglett and trapinch are bad mons that belong in LC is absurd. We aren't trying to prove diglett and trapinch are broken, nor do they have to be for arena trap to be problematic.

Edit @ below: I'm not sure you know what uncompetitive means. The fact that if I load up some sand BO, a perfectly valid playstyle, on ladder and encounter a random diglett squad, they're able to remove one of the core mons from my team with little to no skill and be at a huge advantage from that. I frankly couldn't care less if diglett is used at all if we ban dug, I think it's completely inconsequential to the point which is arena trap is uncompetitive and therefore meets the ban criteria. If you think more evidence is needed, I direct you to the tiering policy, specifically:

"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 matchup related"

Arena trap clearly fits this category, even in the case of diglett.

 

[The Funky Reason]

Mame YO you are forgetting about other tiers, and also saying it's okay to ban things that aren't broken. Trapping as a whole has been agreed to not be uncompetitive inherently, we never banned pursuit or magnet pull because of what they trap and how much they trap. Trapinch and diglet are prime examples of extremely limited trapping, they have narrow trapping ranges and have you essentially playing with 5 mons.

ShadowMarioGalaxy64 Please tell me what key targets diglet and dugtrio trap that would be unhealthy for THIS meta. They were banned last gen because they beat almost all of the good stall breakers which made stall as a playstyle nearly impossible to respond to.

peng It's not just that they go from 2HKOing things to not, but that their kill ranges are WAY lower, they also out-speed so much less. Again, there is a lot of precedent for trapping as a whole, it's been in each generation, albeit very limited in what it can do. That is the case here.
Also, are we pretending this giga drain trapinch is actually good? it only beats toad and toad is a vish check that is easily worn down with some spikes and chip throughout the match. Gastro and vaporeon actually beat trapinch so it is even more limited than people are saying. This is also to say that if you go with this set specifically to beat toad, you lose the ability to trap on so many other pokemon.

BlueLobster "it poses a threat to sand teams, and teams built around toxicitry" Is that the meta braking niche y'all are talking about? Like, is that really uncompetitive? There are so many more consistent checks to all of these things. Look how small that list is. If you are that desperate to beat banded vish use a water immunity, getting 60% on a mon and playing 5 mons instead of 6 isn't a good trade imo. Also usign sash means you die to everything after hazards and hit like a wet paper bag without band. That is hardly an example of an uncompetive pokemon.

The anti-arena trap needs more evidence than just "it's uncompetitive" again, it was banned last gen because arena trap just broke stall as a whole, and that just isn't the case anymore.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Lemme put it this way: If we decide we want to attempt to preserve Arena Trap then we have reached the conclusion the ability itself is not the problem, in which case we need to also begin to re-evaluate the flat ban on Shadow Tag because that's basically the same ability bar immunity changes that are largely insignificant. If AT isn't banned it means we have decided it isn't inherently broken, in which case keeping Shadow Tag blanket-banned is a farce when arguments could exist for Gothita or even Wynaut being manageable. People who wanna keep Arena Trap around, what are your thoughts on allowing Shadow Tag in restricted forms such as banning every user but Gothita for instance?

 

[theotherguytm]

I've lurked for the past 5 years, but it's time to come out of my cave again. I've seen a lot of arguments anti-arena trap arguments that I believe are extremely bad and I'd like to explain why.

1. Arena trap makes even horrible pokemon good i.e. Duggy and we should expect to see trapinch and diglet do the same thing post-ban
This is a really poor understanding of what dugtrio does. Yeah, its stats are awful almost across the board, but it has a fantastic speed stat of 120 and a passable (especially this gen) attack stat of 100. The bulk really doesn't matter when you're always coming in off of a knock out, turning move, or double, and outspeed and OHKO in return with choice band because you hit 448 attack with a 100 power stab move. So yeah, duggy is really bad without arena trap but it is built to abuse this ability. Speed also means you will always go before recovery, so walls can't respond to him which really broadens what can be trapped. Duggy, especially with the lower power level and hospitable metagame almost always has like 3 things it can trap and kill every game.

The same just can't be said for trapinch or diglet. Trapinch has the same attack as duggy but has equally terrible bulk coupled by one of the worst speed stats in the game. It's bulk does matter because it never outspeeds, and its bulk is so bad it gets OHKO'd by nearly everything, necessitating eviolite which makes it hit way softer than banded duggy. The result of this bad bulk, speed and item requirement, is that trapinch is so much more specialized in what it does, and is way more comparable to magnezone (but worse, because zone is an actual pokemon without its ability). Diglet is also not even close to duggy because though it can run a band and is fast (though not nearly as fast), the banded hit is coming off of something like 55 attack so it needs to hit super-effectively to kill what it wants to kill at any reasonable percent (once again, much more specialized, not much more like magnezone or pursuit). Not being able to remove neutral targets like fairies really hurts these mons and makes them so uncomparable to dugtrio. Duggy is always banned because he punches so many holes in people's teams to enable so many sweeps, making the game feel out of your hands. In this meta in particular, he is the premier way to remove fairies and pex for hydreigon and other dangerous setup mons. Diglet and trapinch were banned in previous gens because their narrow trapping niches trapped everything stall needed in order to win i.e. heatran, band tar etc. and when these specific pokemon are down stall is nearly impossible to break. For those on the anti-arena trap side please tell me what play styles/teams are enabled by these mons, and how these teams are nearly impossible to beat with these mons removed.
2. Precedent
This gen is just so much different than previous ones that it isn't very fair to claim this. Note that this is the first time in like 5 years without chansey, mega-sableye, unaware clef, other stall staples, and very trappable glue mons or stall breakers like tran, mega-mawile, etc. The meta is wayyyy different so I don't think precedent is a particularly powerful argument as it might have been in gen 7.
3.What about DLCs
I'll break this into to parts because the first DLC point is absolutely horrendous but I think most people recognize that. "What if they give arena trap to another broken trapper?" is frankly a terrible argument. Like preemptively banning an ability because another good trapper with it might be added to the game is so silly it shouldn't be entertained. Like, we should have banned gorilla tactics in that case, because they could give us another broken mon with it.
The second argument, which is much better is "what happens when the mons mentioned above comeback?" And that is a good point, but I will just say that we should cross that bridge when we come to it because we still don't know which mons will make it back, and also moves have been removed, like hidden power, and a ton of moves have been added via TRs. I believe that preemptively banning something would be silly.
4. Trapping is inherently uncompetitive
I completely disagree and nearly everyone in the community also does too. We were okay with magnet pull and pursuit BECAUSE they are so much more limited in what they trap. We agreed that the smaller pool of mons and the content of that pool were what made those forms of trapping fair. Diglet and trapinch work extremely similarly this gen and once again are not real pokemon outside of trapping, which magnezone and tyranitar are.
5. Shadow tag was banned, not Gothitelle
Goth was really stupid and nobody will ever deny that, but not only is she good but her stage 2 is also really good, and so is wob, that literally leaves one mon, so banning tag is so much easier than banning 3 mons to leave baby goth. Baby goth also has NO niche at all. Arena trap has 3 users, one of which is comparable to goth and 2 of which just aren't, so banning just duggy is no more complex than banning arena trap and preserves 2 mons that aren't broken and have a reasonable niche.
6. Why preserve diglet and trapinch
I think this is also a really silly argument but people actually agree with this one. They aren't broken, so we shouldn't ban them. Blaziken is banned, not speed boost for this reason and others. He's banned and not speed boost because it would be banning a lot of mons that just aren't broken.
My arguments for why dugtrio specifically is broken also why diglet and trapinch are so much more limited.
1. Duggy traps a huge amount of pokemon. Diglet and trapinch trap a very narrow area of the meta and need the pokemon to be extremely hurt, or a super-effective hit. Diglet and trapinch don't trap clef, sylveon, ace, and have a way lower kill threshold than duggy does.
2. Diglet and trapinch are way more similar to magnet pull and pursuit, which were deemed competitive, than dugtrio. Again, their traping niche is really small, and unlike magnet pullers and pursuiters they aren't real pokemon outside of trapping.
3. Dugtrio has great stats that are built for abusing arena trap, diglet and trapinch just don't. Dugtrio has way higher speed and attack than either of the other options, and as a result traps so much more. Duggy doesn't have bad stats, his stats are exactly where the need to be, it's really like hating on conk for having low speed and special attack when its stats are exactly where they need to be for him to function the way he does.
4. Diglet and trapinch don't enable a superbroken playstyle to persist, like in past generations.

I'm not amazing at this game but chill around the 16 and 1700s so I really would like to hear from other people and there could be something I am missing, if diglet or trapinch do enable some broken playstyle I'd like to know, but I just don't see it right now. Thanks for listening to me (:

EDIT: fixed typos ):

Wow. An actual post with reasoning. I salute you sir. This is what I wanted to see. Thank you for taking the time to generate discussion.
Ok, let's begin.
1. While Dugtrio does have great stats to allow it to use its ability, Trapinch's bulk is not so horrendous that it can't take a hit (it has more physical bulk than Duggy before Evolite) and when you factor in the fact you have 256 EVs to invest in bulk, thanks to your speed being so worthless, Trapinch lives some surprising hits with correct investment.
0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 248 SpD Eviolite Trapinch: 82-97 (35.4 - 41.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Trapinch Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Clefable: 193-228 (48.9 - 57.8%) -- 56.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
So with minor chip (provided by Dragapult's U-turn) and the correct investment, Trapinch beats SpeDef Clef (unless you're going to try and WishProtect stall it, which is pretty obvious and can be mostly played around by using a move other than EQ on the Protect). There are many other examples of this, but it all boils down to: "What does my team want dead?" For more on this, see below.
Diglet has going for it a 95 base speed, which is much higher than it sounds in the current meta. You mention Cinderace (or I think you did when you said ace?), well with with a Choice Scarf equipped, Diglet outruns the entire meta which lets it do things like this:
252+ Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Cinderace: 266-314 (88.3 - 104.3%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
So again, minor chip and Diglet successfully traps. This also makes Diglet an excellent revenge killer of all kinds of dangerous threats, as the target is likely chipped and easy prey, while being unable to escape. Then there's Focus Sash Reversal:
252+ Atk Diglett Reversal (200 BP) vs. 224 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 516-608 (129.9 - 153.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Diglett Reversal (200 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 560-660 (206.6 - 243.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO (so long as you beat Sucker Punch, and Diglet does get Rocks to possibly do that with)
Then, there's Choice Band.
252+ Atk Choice Band Diglett Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dracozolt: 342-404 (106.5 - 125.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Yes, this isn't a very long list agreed. But I'll get more into why this is an issue later.
2. Kinda agree, but Arena Trap is currently arguably more broken than it was in Gen 7. Rather than just dealing with threats to stall teams, Duggy's cropping up on every team style from HO to balance to deal with whatever the team needs him to. Duggy is so centralizing ATM that the whole VR A- up bar Clef and Pex is "are you not trapped by Duggy?". So Arena Trap is arguably even more distorting than before.
3. What about them indeed, TBH.
4. Now this is the clincher I think everyone's ignoring. No matter how much teambuilding and planning you throw at it, Magnet Pull will never be able to under any circumstances trap non-Steels. So when you see a Magnet Pull mon in Team Preview, you know exactly what it can and can't do, and are able to play around that. Whereas with Arena Trap mons, what they can and can't do is customiseable. Depending on what you need to be trapped for your given team, you can customise them for your needs. While you can have a guess at what an Arena Trap mon will do in Team Preview, you can never be fully sure what it's set up to trap (case in point: the people who actively switched their Toads into Trapinch against me after a First Impression kill expecting to ez outspeed and OHKO the Trapinch, only to lose their Toad). Also, Magnet Pull lacks the flexibility of being able to trap almost anything weakened on the fly, which is the cherry on top for Arena Trap.
While it would be easy to dismiss Pursuit by saying "but it's cut so it doesn't matter", I'll attempt to tackle this too. Pursuit is only a "soft trap" as the opponent is still free to switch if they survive the Pursuit, which means scenarios where the trapper takes multiple turns to kill/abuses the trapped mon don't take place. Also, the opponent is free to stay in, whereupon you are using a 40 BP Dark move. And if it doesn't kill unboosted and/or they are faster than you, that creates an awkward 50/50 not present with abilities. It is also predictable and not in any way customisable beyond making it do as much damage as possible.
5. From a tiering perspective, it is actually preferable to ban all the Shadow Tag mons individually (nowhere in tiering does it say we have to minimise bans), but banning the Ability is preferred because of its uncompetitive nature and how it performs basically the same on all of them. See also Moody getting banned over Glalie despite Octillery being pretty trash with it. Arena Trap is uncompetitive due it taking away a player's ability to switch, fundamentally preventing them responding to actions. It does this on all its users (note that even if you switch in and switch out your opponent cannot switch in response so you limit their actions just by existing). The lack of predictability in what you trap (See above) also leads to matchup fishing and having to second-guess when the trapper is coming in and what they are doing. For this reason, Arena Trap as an ability is fundamentally uncompetitive.
6. TBH this is a weak argument strictly speaking, but realistically it's true. We are spending time discussing two LC mons and their place in OU. It's a bit silly.
And since you asked what broken playstyle this enables, there's this mon called Dracovish which is only balanced by the fact every other team has a Water Absorber on it, and can easily make up for a mon deficit in the absence of one (though I've found in practice Pinch ends up contributing anyway in some way, even as sac fodder for a free Vish switch-in helps). And yeah, I run mine with Rain (Pinch can also trap most weather setters), so good luck without a Water Absorber.
I fully agree that my Pinch set is dumb and shouldn't exist. But Vish just happens to be the perfect storm in this case. TBH, Vish's probably banworthy anyway by itself, but being able to remove people's answer to it (and their Stealth Rocker to boot) is just stupid. Peng said it best:

That Trapinch is never going to catch on widely obviously but I firmly believe that it should not even be possible for a set like that, upon which a hard counter to one of the best Pokemon in the game, can be caught on a U-turn and beaten by such a dumb strategy. Any other cheese like that you can play around - if that Trapinch gets in vs Seismitoad and you don't have other Dracovish counterplay you literally lose the game. The ability to prevent 70% of Pokemon from switching out is uncompetitive and enables niche and near occasionally non-preventable bullshit like this

Finally, side note, even stacking Water Absorb mons doesn't prevent it as Pinch is healed by killing them thanks to Giga Drain.
Edit:Forgot something else. Arguably the reason Trapinch sees no play in lower tiers is because said lower tiers have no mons like Vish where they can carry an entire team once a singular answer is removed. That and the team has to be built towards executing the trap to a degree (See Eject Pack Rotom-H that baits in the Toad etc.), and hence requires the reward to be massive/the matchup against teams without these answers to be playable 5v6, which Vish provides, or comes closest to providing.

 

[Gnignegno22]

People saying Diglet has no use in Ou are not taking in account the focus sash set. Sash+ reversal can currently trap tyranitar, toxtricity, obstagon, bisharp, centiskorch and it has a good chance against excadrill.

Stall players used it at some point in previous generations.

Edit: theotherguytm explains it better in his previous post

 

[zbr]

guys I know yall are very excited and arguing a lot about arena trap and how shit the babies are.. but never ever ever forget this replay and this team of staggers. I know it may seem irrelevant cause stag is banned, but im just trying to say where there's a will, there will be a damned way that arena trap gets abused.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-39893 <- this is literally on the front page of the replays

p.s. also this team features fucking gothita and wynaut so take that all of you who underestimate the trapping babies!
p.p.s this was a round 3 game from the first ever oras ou smogon tour in march 2015 and those of you who lived through that era knows how cancer that shit was

 

[Lameflame]

I don't know whether this thread has functionally replaced suspect threads or not at this point, or what level of disagreement we need for a suspect vs a quickban (or whatever other factors are involved in making that decision now), but whatever the process ends up looking like, I would advocate for Dugtrio to be banned.

Trappers are meant to fill supporting roles on teams for their offensive teammates, they generally don't outright beat teams themselves. As it relates to this pre-DLC restricted meta, certain omnipresent offensive pokemon have all of like 1-3 defensive checks as it is. I honestly think Dug is relatively worse now compared to itself in any previous generation given how many top tier pokemon don't care about it whatsoever. However, it still does what it does well enough to warp the metagame around those handful of offensive pokemon that are literally uncheckable defensively once their 1-3 answers are trapped and removed. The tier wouldn't totally suffer if Dug stayed by any means, but my general sense up to this point is that it is not helping the tier develop in a healthy way.

Additionally, "trapping is inherently uncompetitive because it invalidates a core game mechanic" is extremely flawed logic. It is literally a non-sequitur. There is no precedent that affirms this statement as objectively true, as a grounds for any pokemon or ability ban, or as a representation of community consensus at any point in time. I have nothing against anyone who personally holds this view but it is not a fact, it is not precedent, and personally I don't think it is very compelling.

Also, Diglett and Trapinch fucking suck bad, and I will believe otherwise only when (and if ever) I see replays of higher level gameplay in this current metagame where they are successfully invalidating counterplay and/or putting in work. I fully agree with this post, because Gothita and Wynaut suck worse, and I have never personally agreed with blanket ability bans which create unnecessary collateral damage for the sake of Tiering Consistency™.