peng
hivemind leader
I think Arena Trap is pretty clearly the broken component here, rather than Dugtrio itself.
My main argument is that Arena Trap is not only uncompetitive on Dugtrio, but would also be busted on just about every fully-evolved and remotely viable Pokemon in the game. Just go through last gens PU list and ask yourself how you'd feel if they got Arena Trap as a Hidden Ability in the upcoming DLC (imagine that ability on SubSeed Abomasnow, LO Absol, CB Aggron, SubRoost Pressure Articuno, Shell Smash Carracosta, Rapid Spin Claydol, offensive Drampa, Curse Gastrodon and we're only at G!). If anything, we've been unbelievably lucky that so far the only fully-evolved Pokemon to get Arena Trap is only capable of spamming Earthquake, setting rocks, and Toxic-stalling, and even that unbelievably shitty mon is capable of degenerating the OU meta into this uncompetitive trapping mess.
I know thats all theorymon, but I think it gets the point across that Arena Trap on almost anything would be uncompetitive.
[edit - this is clearly a very different situation then to Galar-Darmanitan vs Gorilla Tactics - again, look through the last gen PU list and question if any of these quite poor Pokemon would suddenly be broken with a free Choice Band - the answer is that, whilst many would certainly rise in viability, I don't think any would be broken. This is why we banned Darm instead of the ability.]
Banning Arena Trap therefore does the following:
My main argument is that Arena Trap is not only uncompetitive on Dugtrio, but would also be busted on just about every fully-evolved and remotely viable Pokemon in the game. Just go through last gens PU list and ask yourself how you'd feel if they got Arena Trap as a Hidden Ability in the upcoming DLC (imagine that ability on SubSeed Abomasnow, LO Absol, CB Aggron, SubRoost Pressure Articuno, Shell Smash Carracosta, Rapid Spin Claydol, offensive Drampa, Curse Gastrodon and we're only at G!). If anything, we've been unbelievably lucky that so far the only fully-evolved Pokemon to get Arena Trap is only capable of spamming Earthquake, setting rocks, and Toxic-stalling, and even that unbelievably shitty mon is capable of degenerating the OU meta into this uncompetitive trapping mess.
I know thats all theorymon, but I think it gets the point across that Arena Trap on almost anything would be uncompetitive.
[edit - this is clearly a very different situation then to Galar-Darmanitan vs Gorilla Tactics - again, look through the last gen PU list and question if any of these quite poor Pokemon would suddenly be broken with a free Choice Band - the answer is that, whilst many would certainly rise in viability, I don't think any would be broken. This is why we banned Darm instead of the ability.]
Banning Arena Trap therefore does the following:
- Preserves non-Arena Trap Dugtrio in lower tiers, admittedly at the sacrifice of Arena Trap Diglett and Trapinch.
- Protects ourselves from any possible tiering blunder with a future HA Arena Trap release on e.g. Golurk. If a second decent Arena Trap user becomes available and takes OU by storm, as it almost certainly would, then we're left with either banning that too despite the ability clearly being the issue, or we then unban Dugtrio and finally ban the ability instead. Dugtrio wouldn't be able to go straight from Ubers to PU - it'd have to be put back in the OU list again (now Arena Trap-less) and gradually fall over the following months tier changes. It'd be a farce.
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