Arena Trap / Dugtrio

kumiko

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Okay, so I'm sorry in advance if that sounds rude, but the council has been showing either a clear lack of interest or competence lately.

Take the end of BW, Tornadus-T was broken as heck, the metagame was dominated by Rain in a way I've yet to experience again.
Obviously, what happened, is that a suspect with Tornadus-T and Keldeo took place. It was probably questionable to throw Keldeo into the mix, but most people did not really mind, and jumped on the occasion to give Tornadus-T the boot.

Where am I getting at ?
Few months later, after this suspect, the council decided to run another suspect, about Keldeo only. Why ? Because obviously the results of the previous suspect, as far as Keldeo was concerned, got probably skewed by the presence of the main offender at the time (Tornadus-T).
Still, the council wanted to get the job done, and done well, that's why they resuspected Keldeo, to close the Gen and move on to the next one on solid bases.
They did what anybody with half a brain would do, by isolating the things they wanted to examine.

Now, what I am wondering is :
How in the blue hell, did Sableye-M get away so freaking easily when all it ever went through was a suspect test shared by the most cancerous Pokémon I've ever seen in ORAS (Gothitelle) ?
We're talking about a Pokémon that is not only most likely broken thanks to its combination of Magic Bounce, typing, and solid bulk, but also at the epicenter of most of the cheaper strategies out there. But nah, for god knows which reason, it seems like it got thrown under the carpet right before a new generation comes out. Do you realise how tedious this will be to ever make a call in the future, once this generation won't be the main anymore ? Do you realise how much we're already screwed given that the next Official Tournaments won't even be using ORAS anymore ? The next to come being OST and SPL, which will be most surely featuring the new games.

You guys did poorly there, period. Why would you even hold back, personally I'm not even sure Sableye-M would be banned, but at least I'd like to see a suspect in order to freaking move on and let the policy follow its natural flow. I want the job to get done well, and you're really not helping so far I'd say.

I won't even talk about Dugtrio because honestly I doubt anybody will give a crap about this thing if we finally manage to balance Stall as a playstyle, and make it more fair (which the removal of Gothitelle helped already a ton, no doubt).
Just like no one gives a crap about it now that Sun is gone in BW, it's an interesting gimmick, that's all.

Anyway, how comes we're 2 games into a generation, and Baton Pass is still being so damn lame after going through what ? 2 or 3 suspects ?
How comes everybody half knowledgeable about this generation would agree that the sheer abundance of very solid threats is pressuring way too much the limited amount of team slots one could have, but we've almost not been suspecting anything to balance the metagame so far ? Instead, we're stuck on getting rid of the uncompetitive elements like Baton Pass or Shadow Tag CS trick garbage like we're 2 weeks into a new generation.

I mean, I wish we could have suspected.. I don't know Manaphy (you know, that thing that you can't virtually cover, that'd have been a start) for instance. I don't even know if I would want to have it banned, but hell I want for sure to see how it goes, I want to discuss the possiblity, I want the community to work towards a better metagame for the tournaments I play.
This generation just felt like a wasted potential, and there was no reason for it to happen because XY wasn't even bad at the end (just Greninja was dumb as crap, unless you want to accept having Clefable in every single team basically).

So I don't know if you guys are half dead half inactive, or if you're thinking "yup, perfecto, this is the dream generation", but either way, I'm starting to become disillusioned instead of cynical. It feels like you're trying to make the choices in everybody's place. Don't get it twisted, it's your role to choose the topic of the discussion, but you shouldn't be deciding the outcome on your own. You don't decide if Sableye-M gets banned or not, you decide if it gets suspected or not, and that's not nearly the same.

Now I don't know if you want to see the next thread being about a Chansey suspect, but I sure don't, so get this damn magic bouncing piece of crap suspected as soon as possible, in order to let everybody move on to a new generation that'll be hopefully better, and let us put behind what hopefully will become a half decent metagame after that suspect.

Cheers.
Yes, ideally testing two Pokemon at once is not optimal as the focus of our voters put their attention onto one of the Pokemon and have the other be ignored. While generally this is true, a lot of the time we test multiple Pokemon at once for the sake of saving time or for their extreme similarities. In this case, Sableye and Shadow Tag were components that made some Stall teams seem too strong or too good. Testing them together was seen as a non-issue and fact of the matter is the Council and the community saw them both as equal issues. Even if we wanted to test one at a time, how would we decide which should be the priority? These Pokemon were so closely intertwined alongside the fact both were seen as equal issues; what exactly should we have done? Arbitrarily tested one first when the other could have been the root of the issue or deem the other one not to even be Suspect worthy is the only option we had aside from testing them both at once. Even if we decided on which should be tested first, this specific situation isn't remotely like testing Keldeo and Tornadus-T or even the first test in XY; these Pokemon were almost entirely seen on the same team, both restricted your ability to break certain teams, and both were equally important of our attention at the time.

I understand your point about wanting to progress the metagame as fast as possible and doing tests late may cause issues, but Sableye was never thought of as a immediate concern by some of us. Sure, some of us may be pro-ban now or were during the Suspect, but no one pushed for a test to happen because they didn't feel it was a pressing concern. Obviously no one needs to break their back over wanting a Suspect in the Council, but not once do I recall anyone asking about testing Sableye again and the only times non-Council members brought it up to me were the ever-so-random comments on PS such as "TDK ban Sableye already" and "TDK ban Sableye pls" which I generally ignored after the same people already asked a few times. The last time one of us brought up testing Mega Sableye in the Council channel was in April where everyone unanimously agreed to doing nothing with Mega Sableye in the immediate future.

I know what's expected from a Tier Leader and I know how to keep track of my metagame and its community. I can't speak for everyone in the Council; there have been periods of inactivity. Around the time I took leadership the channel somewhat died for a period of time until I brought up SM tiering, which we discussed a fair amount. With that said, we have most definitely not been inactive in the slightest in the past few months. To say that we're lazy, incompetent, or just don't care is not only insulting but an absurd comment to make when you simply aren't in the Council channel. I did not believe Mega Sableye needed one myself and still don't, but am perfectly alright with it getting tested as I can see why it's an issue and why people believe it should be tested.

Also general thing: just because it's late in the generation does not mean something is immune to be tested; if it is test worthy, it will be tested. I would much rather finish up this generation with the best metagame possible, albeit quite late, than to have something that needs to be fixed down the road by a PR thread similar to Baton Pass in Old Gens and Sand Veil. If someone, whether an offhand comment from someone, from a Council member, or from myself, told you Sableye was not going to get tested they either; 1) assumed something they don't know, 2) were wrong, 3) weren't clear or said something to be left alone. If there is something you should be brought up, I don't care what people say; feel free to bring it up again. I don't mind taking PMs about potential Suspects if someone is unsure on if they should bother posting about it elsewhere. I would much rather have something the people think is potentially too strong be brought to my attention than for it to be ignored. This is not to say I need people doing my job for me; I am perfectly capable of keeping up with the metagame and knowing what I think of every Pokemon, but knowing the public opinion on certain Pokemon is always nice to know.

PDC already covered everything else I care to say.
 

Reymedy

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bump ?

i really dont doubt anymore that you're all incredible working forces given how convincing your excuse posts were, but getting up a suspect thread shouldnt take that long given that you're all absolutly not inactive in the slightest
right
 

Finchinator

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is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
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bump ?

i really dont doubt anymore that you're all incredible working forces given how convincing your excuse posts were, but getting up a suspect thread shouldnt take that long given that you're all absolutly not inactive in the slightest
right
Here.

With all due respect to you and others who voiced their opinion here, the council was very split in regards to deciding if a suspect was necessary and we discussed this at length. It is very true that we are all active, but that does not mean that things simply happen over night and we wanted to make sure the decision was made properly and done to the best of our combined abilities. While getting the suspect up in a bit more timely of a fashion might have been ideal, it is still up and the suspect will culminate prior to this generation's conclusion and the introduction of generation seven. Therefore, there are no problems, as far as I am concerned.

It would be greatly appreciated if you were less rude and sarcastic in the future on the forums; you and many others are very aware of the expected level of respect on the serious parts of the forum (such as this). The council will continue to work to efficiently make the OU metagame the best as possible going into generation seven. If you have beef to take out on people, there's a right place and time to do that (cwl)

This thread should probably be locked - the Mega Sableye suspect was basically requested through this thread at the end of the day and there is no foreseeable Dugtrio/Arena Trap suspect, as far as I am concerned.
 

Poek

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Maybe arena trap was the issue all the way. What are the thoughts on Dugtrio currently in ORAS, now that the metagame has advanced quite a bit? More and more people are using cheesy strategies with Dugtrio like in SM, people have noticed its potential and thus taking advantage of its, what I think, uncompetitive nature. People just win by playing the matchup correctly, as it can be seen in the following WCoP replays;

- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-300048
- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-300000
- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-301153
- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-301088
- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-301941

As Arena Trap is currently being suspected in SM (again) I'd like to get some thoughts about it in ORAS since its getting more and more popular, although Dugtrio wasn't the only one that changed ORAS recently, vincune (subcm tect scald) has a lot to do with it as well even though i dont think suicune has any chance of getting banned but its surely cancerous to play against, specially if its paired up with Dugtrio.
 
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Thank you for reigniting discussion on this topic, Poek

The OU council has already been discussing the prospect of an ORAS Arena Trap vote, similar to those done in BW/DPP in the recent past. That being said, we would like to let the SM test settle before addressing Arena Trap in another tier. We are fully open to the idea of revisiting this issue in the near future, so in the meantime, feel free to discuss it in this thread as you please.
 

Poek

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msab is not broken in oras without dug, as dug was able to trap the majority of its checks and counters. most sr setters such as lando, heatran, garchomp and clef are capable of setting up sr with the appropiate sets. being annoying to face does not mean its broken, and if you can't break through it after the potential dug ban its your fault imo. these are things that have always been present in pokemon, you might not be able to break a team because you weren't prepared enough for fat, and that issue will still remain even if you keep sableye unbanned. sableye has always been a pokemon that is easily pressured if you play correctly, it might wall that defensive lando for a bit but if you predict correctly with u-turns or SDs SR will be up, its a matter of skill at that point and goes to show that sableye isn't uncompetitive at all. sab also deters people from using mega medicham so much and varies the meta a bit, with cool strategies such as sab + togekiss and sab + talon being available, the meta could develop much more nicely instead of everyone using the same medicham bulky offense with rotom-w + torn on every team since dug wouldnt exist and thus, less risk of using mega medicham since its not as easily trapped anymore (theres pursuit, but its not as reliable). in conclusion, annoying doesn't mean broken, lets not keep something banned for the sake of it lol
 
Please don't open up another discussion on Sableye :(. There is zero good reason to unban Sableye from a democratic perspective. While the first test was seemingly a cause for celebration from the anti ban side, with a 53.5% ban vote, it actually left the majority of voters unsatisfied.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ss-round-5-voting.3558425/page-8#post-6568060
The second time, it got an overwhelming supermajority of voters, with 65.7% of people voting to ban Sableye.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ss-round-7-voting.3586914/page-3#post-7088252

The unpopular fringe opinion was never to ban Sab, on the contrary, banning Sab was something the majority of people wanted to happen for a long time.

As to a discussion on how it affected the meta, I didn't really care if somebody brought a really stall weak team and lost to Sab stall. But Sableye turned a lot of pokemon, like Ferro, Skarm, into liabilities. No, these weren't pokemon that were putting in a massive amount of work in a stall matchup but they could at least help with the hazard game rather than make you scared to send them out in the first place. Sableye made a great deal more teams weak to stall, that otherwise wouldn't be, because the number of strategies involving hazards, taunt + wisp etc that Sableye could shut down because of its unique combination of typing and ability was insane. As for your points about Lando vs Sableye Poek, while in isolation they are technically correct, you can't just look at Sableye in a vacuum. It will have support like Skarmory to take u turns from lando t, and wish passing, which all make that chip damage much harder to get off. Good teams are always greater than the sum of their parts, and Sableye would frequently push the teams it was on from the realm of "effective and easy to use" over the edge into "too effective and too easy to use".

Yes Mega Medicham emerged as a major threat after Sableye's ban, but as a high level ORAS player I'm sure you know it's far from unbeatable and in fact Mew also benefitted hugely from the Sableye ban, which obviously beats Medi nicely. Unbanning Sab without a community vote would be a massive step back for the idea of suspecting in general, because it would prove that votes were effectively null and void if a select minority of the playerbase didn't agree with the outcome. Unbanning it with a community vote would be fine, except the criticism of the voter size being too small would be even more valid. Sableye received a majority vote both times, and should stay banned.

As for Dugtrio, this has been causing more problems in the tier than I first anticipated. It wasn't something that we got a chance to look at when ORAS was a current tier, so there is no voting history. Evidently trapping of any sizeable power is too strong for the newer gens, and really it looks like Arena Trap should go. While I was admittedly wrong in thinking Dugtrio was innocent, because after some metagame developments it has been shown to be problematic, that doesn't mean Sableye is innocent. Sableye was a ban in its own right, rather than a makeshift way of nerfing Dugtrio, and while the most popular Sab team had Dugtrio, there were many obnoxious Sab teams running about that didn't have it, because Sab didn't need Dug to be a problem.

I'd like to get rid of the powerful trapping that is causing problems in ORAS, rather than just trade one thing ruining the tier for another. Sablenite should not ever be let back into ORAS OU again.

Just as an afterthought, because I know it isn't relevant to this thread, please can we just have a flat BP ban in ORAS OU too rather than the mess we have currently? BP isn't as good as it was in SM, but it is still an issue.
 
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Poek

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i know sableye isnt going to be a standalone pokemon, but even with skarmory how do u stop rocks from going up vs sd sr lando/u-turn gravity variants? its not like u cant punish defog either, bisharp is still a great pokémon (although not used very much these days, probably bc of dug) and serp is kind of threatening with a +1 evasion boost if we wanna count that. also there arent going to be teams that are too easy and too effective to use i can tell u this much, simply because there isnt going to be the typical strat of "i sac this useless mon to this so i trap with dug and win the game" u can kind of manage the game in your favor with some plays, and if you lose to it its bc u lose to fat in general, plain and simple. it deserves some discussion atleast, i know this for a fact since i've been playing the tier since its inception, and teams like the tele ones (sab+talon+toge+starmie+ferro+hippo) or variations of it (which were the only sab teams without trapping, we've always seen sab+goth sab+dug) weren't unbeatable or too easy to use at all, you had to make some plays, thats my opinion though.

I never said Mega Medicham was unbeatable, I just said mega sab would deter its usage and promoting diversity to the tier...
 

MrAldo

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I second that notion. I believe MSab was banned using the wrong focal point on the argument. Even a 80 base Atk Dugtrio with Arena Trap has proven to be really unhealthy and the main reason why some defensive archetypes to face. I suppose Dugtrio got discovered way later on ORAS, close to its end.

It is food for though but I believe MSab would be a welcome re-addition without Arena Trap on the equation. Mega Medicham is utterly ridiculous and mindless, and any good measure to deter it a bit would be phenomenal.

Ban Arena Trap from ORAS tho, that would be excellent cause removing Arena Trap would make it far more desirable to play.
 

FlamingVictini

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For what it's worth, I think sableye curbing the effectiveness of mons like medi, ferrothorn, and skarmory (and in an extended sense, suicune) could be healthy for the tier.

First though, I think dugtrio should be addressed (I'm not sure what the majority thinks, but personally I believe it should be banned). If that happens, it would be pretty cool if we could play in the oras meta with sableye just to test it out and experience what it is like, even if it's on an unofficial ladder like the "UU (no scald)" ladder that we had a while back. If people care enough that could help us form better informed opinions on Sab in case a vote did take place.
 
Putting out there right now that there's no reason to touch Dugtrio or Arena Trap in ADV, DPP, or BW.

Can't say I've really played much ORAS, but I'm pretty skeptical of an ability ban when the only notable thing with said ability is sitting in the B ranks of the current viability rankings and the ability itself was nerfed from previous gens. Perhaps gaining 20 more Attack in SM pushed Duggy over the edge (in which case, a Dugtrio ban makes more sense than an Arena Trap ban), but I'm not seeing how it's breaking games in ORAS...

Let's actually look at those WCoP replays linked:
- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-300048
Duggy A loses all but 1 HP to finish off a Weavile at 35%, then gets used as death fodder. Duggy B sets up SR, finishes off a burned & battered Zap, and gets some chip damage on M-Sciz.

- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-300000
Duggy essentially sacrifices itself to remove an Excadrill that it double-switched into (couldn't have safely come in on an attack), ends up just a 1-for-1 that required prediction to pull off.

- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-301153
In over 100 turns, Duggy only manages to switch in at the very end of the game to finish off a Clefable at 10% when up 5-1. How is this an example of anything?

- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-301088
Duggy A goes to Sash taking out a Weavile, then gets to KO a Mag after M-Sciz takes heavy damage getting it in safely. Duggy B repeatedly sets up SR against Defoggers that Defog next turn while it flees, goes to Sash to do 22% to M-Sciz, and then the user forfeits.

- http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen6ou-301941
Duggy goes to Sash finishing off an M-Swamp at 58%. It later revenge kills a Volcanion only after a full health Chansey sacrifices itself to get Volc into Duggy's range.

In all of these replays, it's backed by two bulky Defoggers with Roost just stand a chance of getting more than 1 KO. That's a lot of teamslots / moveslots to dedicate to something that's not consistently accomplishing much in high levels of play. Going by these replays, it's honestly not even that impressive, let alone banworthy.
 
We apologize for the wait, but it was due to the fact that we just expected more discussion in this thread. Even considering this, however, we feel there's been enough discussion between council, PMs to us, various public discords, and the thread combined.

Now, it is time to decide the fate of Arena Trap in ORAS OU.

Even though old gens are usually not tiered once they become an old gen, exceptions have been made in the past, and we believe another exception should be made here. After the Mega Sableye test, which was shortly before SM's release, the community eventually realized that there was another aspect of ORAS that needed to be looked at. Since then, ORAS OU has been played extensively in SPL, World Cup, and Smogon Tour. Within that sample of games, many people, with the council included, find Arena Trap to be a potentially negative influence on the tier, to the point of warranting old gen tiering.

That being said, Arena Trap has been identified as a potentially banworthy ability in the ORAS OU metagame due to the effects trapping has on gameplay. Switching is one of the most fundamental components of competitive Pokemon, so it is only to be expected that an ability which removes the ability to switch from so many individual pokemon is seen as controversial. Dugtrio is the lone abuser of Arena Trap in the tier and the ability it has to eliminate opposing threats in order to minimize the challenges posed to teams, specifically those that are stallish in nature, can be considered too much for the metagame to handle.

In order to fully examine Arena Trap's place in the current metagame, we must look into the practical utility it provides the various teams Dugtrio is used on. Many believe that Arena Trap itself possesses one of the greatest aids to stall teams: the ability to trap would-be stallbreakers and threats to common defensive cores. For example, stall teams can get rid of problematic Pokemon such as Heatran and Tyranitar, making teams incapable of defeating the remaining members of teams Dugtrio finds itself on. Moreover, gauging if the trapping has a competitive place in the ORAS OU metagame should be one of the determining factors behind votes. As for why Arena Trap and not Dugtrio itself, the reasoning is the same as the SM OU Arena Trap test and this will also grant consistency in the tiering policy if the result of the test happens to be in favor of a ban.


The options:
  • Arena Trap: Ban
  • Arena Trap: Do Not Ban
We established a similar criteria to previous past gen votes to determine voters:
  • The player has reached the top 8 of OST 12;
  • The player has reached the top 8 of OLT 2 / 3;
  • The player was one of the people who collected the most amount of ORAS Points in Smogon Tour 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 (Top 3 amount);
  • The player played ORAS in the 7th or 8th SPL, and has at least played 6 ORAS Games in it (50%+ winrate);
  • The player played ORAS in the 11th or 12th WCoP, and has at least played 3 ORAS Games in it (50%+ winrate).
Here is the voter list:

How will the vote work? We will be using simple supermajority voting, akin to our current gen suspect tests. A supermajority of 60% or more will be required to ban Arena Trap.

Please vote in the following manner:
Sample Vote said:
Arena Trap: Ban
OR
Sample Vote said:
Arena Trap: Do Not Ban
You have to PM your vote to Finchinator. You may NOT edit your vote once it is sent. To make sure this won't happen, Finchinator will immediatly reply to the PM you sent with your own vote.

The deadline to vote is 11:59 PM EDT, Wednesday the 18th, October.
For the record, this vote won't count toward the Tiering Contributor Badge.
 
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Not all the users who earned voting requirements have voted, but the deadline has passed.

Eligible voters: 64
Votes: 40

Arena Trap
Ban: 37
Do Not Ban: 3
Ban % = 92.5%

60% pro-ban majority is required for a ban. Thus, Arena Trap is now banned from ORAS OU.
Ban: ABR, John, Eternal Spirit, Kushalos, BKC, Poek, Obliviate, xray, Empo, Chill Shadow, Alexander., Lycans, Sabella, -Snow, lighthouses, Leftiez, njnp, SoulWind, BlackOblivion, Mounts, Alkov, FlamingVictini, rozes, urban, PDC, TDK, blunder, Weegah, Tricking, Znain, Snowy, Laz, KratosMana, Axel, Always!, Hiye, Guilas D

Do Not Ban: Genesis7, JohnYiu, Ciele
 
So, what's the plan with Dugtrio now? Are we dropping it to a lower tier since it's pretty pointless in OU, or just leaving it there so as to not shake up anything else? I'm mostly curious since it's going to need an analysis revamp either way, but what tier it's in will obviously affect how that's handled...
 

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