Announcement Goons and Balloons Suspect (Gothita banned! Drifloon still banned!)

[Heysup]

I feel like I should address some posts. I was pretty critical of the way way handled the last suspects, but I think many of these posts are oozing with ignorance and are ironically contributing to the reasoning why it's not a public vote. I'll address floon some other time after exams.

Zebraiken: I think you have a point about the wording of the post. I think your question will be answered after I bitch out my friend Kingler12345. And to answer your followup, I think that any suspect should be retested even if it's not banned only if there is a significant metagame shift (a pokemon gets banned, new sets discovered/usable, incredibly drastic change in usage stats).

I really don't like voting on all three of these suspects at the same time... I'm not gonna make any assumptions with regards to the intentions of the council because that feels unfair to do, but still, a suspect like trappers should definitely be its own suspect and be given the sufficient amount of time. feels like we're kinda being lazy with the suspect process when this is arguably one of the most important and controversial suspects this generation

Before I start with the substance of the post, I want to address the bolded part. Conspiracy theorist council top secret agenda? I am baffled at the idea that we have an "agenda" or you're unsure of our "intentions". Like, how do we personally benefit from this? When I was a mod I would usually favour talking to the user over infracting anyone but posts like this would probably make me question that policy. Badged users should not be making baseless accusations like this. It takes away from your credibility.

Sorry if it sounds like I snapped, but that needed to be said.

Onto the actual substance of the post.

I debated this with Hawk for a while on discord and I think it can be summarized like this.

Firstly, we have been play testing with Diglett and Gothita for, what, a month and a half? People are acting like you can only start analyzing a Pokemon when a suspect test starts. That's a fucking idiotic sentiment. We have our opinions on Gothita and Diglett formed already. Drifloon being added into the mix will influence it one way or the other. If you're concerned about Drifloon's influence, then don't be. It's obvious enough for us to separate it from Drifloon. I honestly think this reason is what all of the criticism stems from.

Second, if we were influenced by Drifloon, so what? It was being dropped anyway. What's wrong with measuring trappers testing in a multitude of metagames? If it's consistently a problem, we have our culprit.

Third, even if you have a weird bias against that testing method, if we thought Diglett/Gothita were not broken before, and Drifloon comes down and all of the sudden they are broken, it's easy to isolate why they're broken because, again, we've been using them for a month and a half. At worst, we've been using them without Cutiefly for a few weeks but I don't think that influenced our experience either.

Fourth, some of us actually wanted the test together because we were unsure of Diglett in particular and we think Drifloon would make it more obvious if Diglett is the problem (yes, this is purely theoretical basis, but that's what it's the fourth point on my list). In my personal opinion, dropping Drifloon adds more clarity. It isn't muddling anything. I still have my knowledge of Diglett in a floon-less metagame.

Not going to comment on this test because it is stupid and for all people complain about ss praising rocks, that will be nothing compared to lc council doing what would look to the public as overturning 2 public tests that went againt their beliefs. Council testing trappers is a bad idea and council testing all 3 together is a worse idea.

but anyways: Question to people who think Gothita is broken (Merritt mostly so far but thread is very early): now, I have very minimal lc experience though I enjoy the tier. from what I remember last gen I was under the impression Diglett was by far closer to being broken than Gothita. What has changed to make Gothita ridiculous this gen?

Welcome to Smogon. Indeed, Diglett and Gothita were tested and not banned in the 6th Generation of Pokemon (I was among the people who voted not to ban, for the record). In the recent few months, there was a new generation released called Sun and Moon, making it now the 7th generation. It added various mechanics changes and new Pokemon. Much like how the mechanics transition from Generation 4 to 5 added Gligar to the banlist in exchange for Misdreavus because of the addition of many Dark-types and Flying-gem. Similar to how Drifloon's Recycle mechanics got it added to the banlist in generation 6 over generation 5. I don't believe you have a problem with those tests, do you?

In this generation, Dark-types got a huge buff by not being stopped by Cottonee if they have Speed boosting moves because they are immune to Prankster. Furthermore, Fletchling is nerfed immensely such that keeping hazards or weather up means it's not doing anything. Both of these conditions make it not only encouraged to run Fighting-types (not being countered by Fletchling) but almost required since Pawniard, Scraggy, and Carvahna are such powerhouses this generation. Gothita has without a doubt made the biggest influence in removing these Pokemon. Furthermore, it's ability to be customized has been much easier to be noticed this generation because of the bias towards physical defense (Mudbray) and Staryu has become the most impactful spinner because of it's ability to actually beat spin blockers with some prediction. Both of which give Gothita a huge advantage over Diglett, who cannot trap a weakened (and by definition, boosted) Mudbray or a reasonably healthy Staryu. Furthermore, Gothita can actually switch into these threats, unlike Diglett.

This has made Gothita more powerful than Diglett, but, there have been lots of new reasons why Diglett has to be looked at again. Firstly, Bird Spam is still here, so we like removing Rock-types. Second, Poison-types are everywhere. Gothita can't stop Pokemon like Pawniard already, but new influences like Grimer-A and the influx of the viability of Sun makes Vulpix more common. Furthermore, Fire-types are hard to stop for many offensive teams. Diglett will generally give you an easy kill, and play on. Plus, since gen 6, it's most reliable counter was banned this generation. All of these generational mechanics changes have justified the testing of the trapping Pokemon, for the first time this generation.

 

[macle]

The vote will start on the 31st so post if you want your opinion heard.

 

[Kingler]

re:process

Heysup sorry if the wording of my post seemed like I was implying there was some sort of conspiracy, I was implying the opposite (that part was in response to Berks's deleted post). What I meant to convey is that I disagreed with the choice of suspecting all three at once (something that council members that have posted in this thread disagreed with). Suspecting gothita along with FloonDig does kind of confuse the process since they are relatively separate in their effects on the metagame. We usually suspect one or two closely related Pokemon because suspecting multiple Pokemon at once mean that the less obviously "broken" Pokemon can fly under the radar; the keldeo + Tornadus-T suspect is an example of that (this is a council vote unlike that, but still). The process is important and discussing it in the open is probably the best way to resolve such matters.

btw, i don't mind council votes; i think they are probably better bc relatively on average the people voting have much more knowledge of the meta

On the suspects:

I think Gothita is not broken. The argument that most people use in favor of its banning is that although it can be counter-trapped, to get to that point it'll have done its job. I disagree with that. It finds it hard to trap mons that it previously did due to techs that these threats can use (Analytic pump staryu, Payback Foongus [which can still be trapped, but it's not an absolute free switch now], etc). And it is very easily counter-trappable; Grimer-A almost always carries pursuit and even a weakened variant can easily pick it off due to Goth's lack of options to hit it. Pursuit Pawniard is usable as always, LO diglett easily traps weakened/scarf goth, there are many options to use here. Goth is a nice customizable mon that can trap a nice selection of threats, but people underrate how necessary it is to get free switches since more of the shit it traps can KO it if it tries to hard switch in. This doesn't even mention how much of a setup bait it is for Dark-types (I guess you have tbolt for vullaby?), which are really good right now.

Diglett I'm pretty ambiguous on, but in all honesty I'd ban it. It's hard to get a better sense of the meta since quite a few people are still using Cutiefly era teams, and I think with that ban we're shifting closer to ORAS and mons that were fixtures then will probably become more popular now. It's an excellent partner to birds, traps a bunch of weakened mons etc etc, gained a new victim in the form of Alolan Grimer (a really important target considering how much stuff likes it gone) and all that good stuff. It's hard to add anything to this because it's pretty similar to what it did in ORAS; I thought it was broken then, I think it's broken now and not that much has changed. I think it's a more "unfair" constricting element than Gothita honestly, you can trap more stuff on average since only Sash Diglett and the legendary Trapinch can countertrap you, and you trap a REALLY wide range of mons like in ORAS. It's far harder to take advantage of Diglett than of Gothita on the switch after you've gotten trapped, which I feel is a relevant point. Not saying that there aren't ways of doing so though, Snivy in particular takes advantage of Diglett fairly easily if it doesn't have sludge bomb.

Drifloon I'd like to face a biiit more before I have a final opinion on it, but so far I'm leaning towards unban. The burn nerf was absolutely huge and I find that this affects playing around Drifloon hugely. I will say that the current metagame is slightly underprepared for it, but with the amount of offense spam I guess it was to be expected. There are many good ways of shutting down Drifloon using stuff that's already popular in the metagame, it just needs to be recognized as a threat that needs to be prepared for. In terms of Drifloon sets that are good rn, I think that the Sub + Recycle + Wisp set with a filler still works the best.

And no one has done this yet but please can we not have those "inherently broken" arguments like we did in ORAS, I absolutely agree with fender and coco in the sentiment that that isn't a valid argument

 

[mad0ka]

I mostly agree with all of what Fiend said, but I wanted to respond to Kingler about Gothita.

Analytic only makes switching into Staryu harder for Gothita, CM sets still beat it as long as it gets in on a kill/pivot or one of two hydros miss. Analytic is a big boon for Staryu, but in the end it's still just as trappable, just not immediately. As for Foongus, Payback doesn't even do enough to Gothita unless its running a suboptimal spread, which if anything is a testament to how unhealthy Gothita is. I want to echo Nineage's post here: while Foongus may sometimes run HP Fighting or Fire to lure Pawniard and Ferroseed, this is not similar to running Payback to deal with Gothita. Take Ponyta in gen6 for example. Ponyta could pretty freely switch into non-scarf Mienfoo and fish for burns. To counteract this, some Mienfoo started running Stone Edge to hit Ponyta on the switchin. However, Mienfoo is not forced to run Stone Edge to deal with Ponyta, as Mienfoo could also be partnered with Chinchou to take on Ponyta. This cannot be done for the things that Gothita traps, as by nature of its ability, they cannot switch out. So, if Foongus wants to have any shot of not having an awful matchup versus Gothita teams, it is forced to run Payback or else be useless. This applies to other mons that Gothita traps too that may have random techs.

Being unable to switch out also applies to Diglett, but with Gothita, because it can switch in (for the most part) to what it wants to trap, there is an element of skill taken away. The game is then forced into series of 50/50s, guessing whether or not Gothita is coming in, that are heavily weighted in Gothita's favor because it can always switch out and try again later as long as the opponent doesn't have and switch in a Pursuit trapper. If they do have a Pursuit trapper, then it's literally a pure 50/50. If a 50/50 is your way of dealing with a mon, then that mon can't be too balanced.

As for revenging Goth after it's killed something, by then it's already done it's job. This is a very important point. It doesn't matter if Alola-Grimer, Pursuit Pawn (which is awful unless you're using scarf), or Diglett comes in, because if Gothita has successfully removed a Mareanie, Foongus, Timburr or what have you, then it's already paved the way for X sweeper to win later on. I'm not saying that after Gothita kills something you've already won, but you definitely come out on top. And because it's a 1-for-1 trade, it's essentially for free. Furthermore, using Alola-Grimer, Pursuit Pawn, or Diglett to revenge trap Gothita just gives back momentum to the Gothita user after it's KO'd, so you're even that much more on top.

Then, that brings us to the point of sending in something that capitalizes on Gothita. AKA, dark type set up sweepers, since nothing else wants to be coming in on a +6 psychic stab. That leaves Vullaby and Scraggy. Though, Vullaby can't safely set up versus Thunderbolt variants, so it's yet another guess as to whether or not it can actually set up. If the pool of mons that can take advantage of Gothita after it sets up were more diverse and numerous, it wouldn't be an issue, but you can literally cover both with the same check/counter, which means that as long as Gothita has one of these mons as a teammate, it's still pretty safe to use.

I've only focused on the Evio CM variants of Gothita up until now, because to me it's clearly what makes Gothita broken. However, its scarf set just adds to its unpredictability and the inherent guessing games that Gothita causes. While there may be some counterplay to Gothita, this does not limit the support that Gothita is able to provide, the teambuilding strain Gothita causes, the potential sweeping capability of Gothita, or the 50/50s and guessing games it brings about.

 

[Corporal Levi]

There are three main areas a Pokemon could be banned for: uncompetitiveness, brokenness, and unhealthiness.

Physical Drifloon sets are better than I expected because for the frail hyper offensive teams that rely on chip damage to deal with Rufflet or Doduo, a fast Acrobatics is actually fairly threatening despite being comparable to Spritzee's Moonblast in damage; it looks like they're generally moving back to the pre-Recycle sets we saw in early ORAS. Meanwhile, Special Drifloon seems similar to SturdyJuice Tirtouga or LO Torchic in that it's a reasonably threatening offensive Pokemon, but needs a ton of support to have a good shot at sweeping. With that being said, though both are decently strong sets from what I've seen, neither set feels any better than other top or even high tier offensive threats that are currently available; they're relatively easy to check and don't check very many things, mostly holding their own through utility as opposed to offensive presence. Arguments based on Drifloon being unfun are wrong because Drifloon is a party balloon and parties are fun.

To me, Drifloon simply doesn't seem great enough to be close to uncompetitive/broken/unhealthy. Keep in mind that CM floon sweeping through a team of Mienfoo/Slowpoke/Foongus/Larvesta/Drilbur/Snubbull is about as indicative of brokenness as Snivy sweeping through Chinchou/Pumpkaboo/Dwebble/Mudbray/Timburr/Spritzee - any sweeper can break through an unprepared team, and since Drifloon has only just been released for the suspect, I imagine there are still ladderers who haven't accounted for it in their teambuilding yet.


I think TheFenderStory's post covers really well why Diglett and Gothita are almost certainly NOT uncompetitive. In short, trapping is a 100% guaranteed effect that both sides can account for as opposed to luck-based, and considering how there are plenty of solid teams that don't contain trappers, the victory will usually go to the more competent player regardless of the use of trappers; Diglett and Gothita flat out do not meet the definition for uncompetitiveness.

An argument could be made for Diglett being broken but I personally wouldn't buy it - though it's still a very threatening offensive Pokemon, its strengths come at a significant price. Some of the strongest sweepers, including Vullaby, Scraggy, Snivy, and now CM Drifloon, use Diglett as setup bait. Meanwhile, Diglett can guarantee the removal of certain Pokemon once it's in - which itself is a somewhat costly process due to how difficult it is to get into play - but removing a single check is rarely game-breaking in such an offensive metagame. In other words, the risk vs reward of using Diglett isn't exceptionally favourable. I know using the ORAS Diglett suspects as an example may not be the best since those were controversial to begin with, but I'd like to point out that arguments for Diglett being broken have probably gotten quite a bit weaker in the current metagame despite the removal of Trace Porygon + dual Diglett-weak teams, which were already relatively uncommon; without FletchDig, we're pretty much just left with ShellDig as the only top tier Diglett sweeping core, and many of the newly buffed sweepers both don't appreciate having Diglett on their team that much and don't mind opposing Diglett at all.

I don't think Gothita is outright broken, either. Scarf Gothita is ridiculously easy to take advantage of after a trap and needs a lot of support to actually KO its targets. CM Gothita is prone to being revenge-killed by some common threats, but more importantly, is often close to a dead weight against more offensive builds due to how reliant it is on setting up to do serious damage.


So I feel that the bulk of the argument for or against Diglett/Gothita being banned should be based around whether their effect on the metagame is unhealthy. Now, simply causing metagame shifts isn't indicative of unhealthiness; every top tier Pokemon does that, because if they don't, it basically means they aren't worth preparing for. We have to consider whether the Pokemon influences the metagame to an unreasonable extent, whether it's the sheer number of Pokemon that are affected or the degree to which a major group of Pokemon are affected. In this regard, I don't feel that Diglett is more influential than Vullaby, Mudbray, individual Fighting-types, possibly even Staryu. Being weak to Diglett obviously isn't a good thing, but Diglett's inability to switch in on its targets, coupled with the numerous Diglett-deterring options available, of which countertrapping is probably the least splashable and often not even the most effective, means that Diglett doesn't hinder Diglett-weak Pokemon more than, say, Timburr hinders Fighting-weak Pokemon. If a Pokemon has enough perks to be good in a metagame without Diglett, it'll still be worth using in a metagame with Diglett.

On the other hand, CM Gothita is different from everything else we have in LC because it can directly switch into a large portion of its victims; if a set is weak to CM Gothita, there isn't much you can do about it except change the set. I was pretty adamantly anti-Gothita ban at the start of the generation, but after discussing it with some people and seeing the adaptions the metagame has been forced to make, I'm a lot less sure. I don't think Gothita is unhealthy enough to shut down entire archetypes or anything of the sort, since almost all Gothita-weak Pokemon have some techs to get around Gothita or share a niche with Gothita-resistant Pokemon. However, due to the huge disadvantages that come with being weak to CM Gothita, i.e. no longer fulfilling a defensive niche, otherwise mediocre options like Skill Swap Spritzee and Payback Foongus become mandatory. Sets like non-Sucker Punch Croagunk see a much more drastic shift in viability from being vulnerable to CM Gothita than they would from being weak to Vullaby or Diglett.

Diglett and Gothita both shift the tier towards offense - Gothita moreso than Diglett due to having less counterplay - but I don't think this is more meaningful than less semistall and more hyper offense as long as the number of viable sets remains around the same. For example, although certain defensive cores suffer from Diglett's presence (Fire-Water-Grass cores where the Fire-type is the only Fighting check among them are the main ones), teams based around Zigzagoon, BD Magby, or CM Spritzee would be much more difficult to build without Diglett.


Right now I'm pretty confident that Drifloon and Diglett should be allowed in the tier, on the fence for Gothita but maybe leaning a bit towards ban.

 

[Vubon]

Diglett is essential to the meta, it was legit S rank material last gen but now due to the increase in usage of ground resists like Snivy thanks to Mudbray it looses out as the best offensive ground type mon. Trapping in general seemed pretty subpar to me last gen but it was essential for certain bulky mons such as resttalk skrelp and chinchou as those mons would require decent amount of effort to break past. Similarly this gen i think diglett needs to stay for the same reason and for the inclusion of mareanie, which would be a pain to get rid off without diglett or gothita since if your leaning towards abra to get rid off it, which likely will turn into being trapped by honedge,munchlax or pawniard, thus i smell a pretty OP core in mareanie + a pursuit trapper without diglett/gothita. If the LO set is considered the threat here then a handfull of stuffs diglet gets rid off such ponyta,chinchou,mag,salandit,pawniard etc already have ways to beat it. More over look at the number of Poison types that will wreak havoc without Diglett and Gothita.
Gothita despite being a potent trapper almost always gives u a free turn after it gets rid off something, dark types capitalise on the scarf set locked on scarf, ground types and grass resists do the same with a tbolt or e ball locked goth and free turn means a great deal if u ask me also there are a good amount pursuit trappers resisting both gothita's stab and coverage moves. The CM set has been increasing in terms of popularity and usage but a gothita with only a stab psychic doesnt seems 'very threatening' in a meta where faster physical attackers and powerful scarfers are frequent. I think Gothita should remain in the meta despite being a very potent threat.
However my thoughts on Drifloon comletely changed since its suspect as im confident that it cannot stay in the same meta along with the other two mons being suspected, these three mons together restrict teambuilding so greatly that it produces a meta thats stale, centralized and boring to play. Drifloon has two good sets that require completely different approaches to overcome in perspective of building. Now that Fletchy's nerfed Shellder no longer needs to run Ice Shard and can run Razor Shell which allows it a 50/50 chance to beat its checks such as Mag or Pawn, more over if pawniards burnt or if mag's bj is knocked courtesy to Drifloon then Shellders twice as OP after a smash thus making cores such as Shell/dig/floon and shell/floon literally broken. But tbh, Drifloons just fucking cancerous and unhealthy to play with and against. This mon needs to go, immediately. Theres no competitiveness or fun using a retarded playing strategy as it will result in two things: noob players and lack of interest towards the meta.
Final verdicts, Goth and Diglett to stay and Drifloon to be banned.

 

[Berks]

As a quick aside, would banning Diglett require that we ban the non-broken Alolan Diglett?

 

[trash]

alodig is broken here is a replay of it sweeping madoka http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebanklc-490673220
which is why i think if we do ban diglett we should also ban broken alodig.

 

[Fiend]

As a quick aside, would banning Diglett require that we ban the non-broken Alolan Diglett?

no, it would not or at least should not. they have different stats and abilities, plus typing. same case as lando in OU, only normal diglett would be banned.

Diglett is essential to the meta, it was legit S rank material last gen but now due to the increase in usage of ground resists like Snivy thanks to Mudbray it looses out as the best offensive ground type mon. Trapping in general seemed pretty subpar to me last gen but it was essential for certain bulky mons such as resttalk skrelp and chinchou as those mons would require decent amount of effort to break past. Similarly this gen i think diglett needs to stay for the same reason and for the inclusion of mareanie, which would be a pain to get rid off without diglett or gothita since if your leaning towards abra to get rid off it, which likely will turn into being trapped by honedge,munchlax or pawniard, thus i smell a pretty OP core in mareanie + a pursuit trapper without diglett/gothita. If the LO set is considered the threat here then a handfull of stuffs diglet gets rid off such ponyta,chinchou,mag,salandit,pawniard etc already have ways to beat it. More over look at the number of Poison types that will wreak havoc without Diglett and Gothita.
Gothita despite being a potent trapper almost always gives u a free turn after it gets rid off something, dark types capitalise on the scarf set locked on scarf, ground types and grass resists do the same with a tbolt or e ball locked goth and free turn means a great deal if u ask me also there are a good amount pursuit trappers resisting both gothita's stab and coverage moves. The CM set has been increasing in terms of popularity and usage but a gothita with only a stab psychic doesnt seems 'very threatening' in a meta where faster physical attackers and powerful scarfers are frequent. I think Gothita should remain in the meta despite being a very potent threat.
However my thoughts on Drifloon comletely changed since its suspect as im confident that it cannot stay in the same meta along with the other two mons being suspected, these three mons together restrict teambuilding so greatly that it produces a meta thats stale, centralized and boring to play. Drifloon has two good sets that require completely different approaches to overcome in perspective of building. Now that Fletchy's nerfed Shellder no longer needs to run Ice Shard and can run Razor Shell which allows it a 50/50 chance to beat its checks such as Mag or Pawn, more over if pawniards burnt or if mag's bj is knocked courtesy to Drifloon then Shellders twice as OP after a smash thus making cores such as Shell/dig/floon and shell/floon literally broken. But tbh, Drifloons just fucking cancerous and unhealthy to play with and against. This mon needs to go, immediately. Theres no competitiveness or fun using a retarded playing strategy as it will result in two things: noob players and lack of interest towards the meta.
Final verdicts, Goth and Diglett to stay and Drifloon to be banned.

Basically your logic boils down to: meta might have broken Pokemon if we ban these potentially broken Pokemon, therefore let's not! And that's not how things decisions are made. We do not keep broken Pokemon in the tier to check would be broken Pokemon. We'd just ban the broken Pokemon too. The goal is a healthier meta, sure. But if we keep broken Pokemon in the tier trying to achieve that goal, we fail. Fundamentally, we will never achieve a healthier meta if we don't ban the broken things in fear of other broken things. Banning the broken stuff is how you make a healthy meta. And banning what might be broken because you banned another broken Pokemon is how the goal is eventually achieved. Plus being an S rank Pokemon means little about necessity, since literally everything banned in LC has been S rank and no one thing Tangela or Gligar is a necessity. And Gligar allowed Meditite to be (more) busted, but we banned it anyway. This is Smogon Policy, and LC follows that as best we can, not when we feel like it.

 

[Coconut]

Basically your logic boils down to: meta might have broken Pokemon if we ban these potentially broken Pokemon, therefore let's not! And that's not how things decisions are made. We do not keep broken Pokemon in the tier to check would be broken Pokemon. We'd just ban the broken Pokemon too. The goal is a healthier meta, sure. But if we keep broken Pokemon in the tier trying to achieve that goal, we fail. Fundamentally, we will never achieve a healthier meta if we don't ban the broken things in fear of other broken things. Banning the broken stuff is how you make a healthy meta. And banning what might be broken because you banned another broken Pokemon is how the goal is eventually achieved. Plus being an S rank Pokemon means little about necessity, since literally everything banned in LC has been S rank and no one thing Tangela or Gligar is a necessity. And Gligar allowed Meditite to be (more) busted, but we banned it anyway. This is Smogon Policy, and LC follows that as best we can, not when we feel like it.

To sum this up, we don't want what is known as a slippery slope argument because that's a lot of theorymoning. Theorymoning is bad in concept because the meta could change in a very unpredictable manner.

 

[MemesWithDreams]

It would really help if you removed diglett and gothita from the lc meta game so we can see how team building reacts. The last suspect I was completely on bored to ban diglett until I played on the ladder without it. And I don't know if the new z moves and pokemon changed that or not. I mean that's what were supposed to be suspecting right?

 

[Vubon]

no, it would not or at least should not. they have different stats and abilities, plus typing. same case as lando in OU, only normal diglett would be banned.

Basically your logic boils down to: meta might have broken Pokemon if we ban these potentially broken Pokemon, therefore let's not! And that's not how things decisions are made. We do not keep broken Pokemon in the tier to check would be broken Pokemon. We'd just ban the broken Pokemon too. The goal is a healthier meta, sure. But if we keep broken Pokemon in the tier trying to achieve that goal, we fail. Fundamentally, we will never achieve a healthier meta if we don't ban the broken things in fear of other broken things. Banning the broken stuff is how you make a healthy meta. And banning what might be broken because you banned another broken Pokemon is how the goal is eventually achieved. Plus being an S rank Pokemon means little about necessity, since literally everything banned in LC has been S rank and no one thing Tangela or Gligar is a necessity. And Gligar allowed Meditite to be (more) busted, but we banned it anyway. This is Smogon Policy, and LC follows that as best we can, not when we feel like it.

Pretty sure Diglett survived the last suspect during Oras because we witnessed an unbalanced meta for a short period of time, if u ban diglett/gothita now you'd automatically create a mon thats technically overpowered/annoying just for the fact that the best way to deal with it is gone, i.e restalk chou, mareanie etc and not for the fact they are broken to begin with, these two trappers specially diglett needs to say.

 

[Coconut]

Pretty sure Diglett survived the last suspect during Oras because we witnessed an unbalanced meta for a short period of time, if u ban diglett/gothita now you'd automatically create a mon thats technically overpowered/annoying just for the fact that the best way to deal with it is gone, i.e restalk chou, mareanie etc and not for the fact they are broken to begin with, these two trappers specially diglett needs to say.

How can you call a meta unbalanced when it only had two weeks to develop? You're not creating mons that are technically overpowered or annoying, you're removing a check or counter from the mon with the ban. If this makes them too powerful for the LC metagame, we ban them too, because that's how tiering works.

You're just rehashing the same argument, but this time with less words.

 

[tcr]

Pretty sure Diglett survived the last suspect during Oras because we witnessed an unbalanced meta for a short period of time, if u ban diglett/gothita now you'd automatically create a mon thats technically overpowered/annoying just for the fact that the best way to deal with it is gone, i.e restalk chou, mareanie etc and not for the fact they are broken to begin with, these two trappers specially diglett needs to say.

You don't understand. Keeping a suspected Pokemon in the tier in order to "preserve the metagame" and make sure other Pokemon aren't broken is the weakest argument one can put forth for anti-ban and is completely contradictory to the suspecting process. If something is broken after something else leaves the tier then we suspect and ban the offending patron. That's how our suspect process works, that's how it has always worked.

On top of this I would hardly think either resttalk chinchou or mareanie would be broken. If anything teams would just be required to actually have some sort of wallbreaker on their team, or hazards would be become more important to the metagame. Simply promoting a bulky offense style is not even remotely a negative thing, and if you think that potentially moving the tier from a solely Hyper Offensive style of metagame is contrary to the health of the game then you are a one-dimensional player that needs to learn to adapt.

 

[Heysup]

I'm still not certain on my voting for Diglett or Drifloon. Gothita, I'm pretty convinced is broken.

Gothita:

In my opinion, this is the easy one. Basically, just restating what I said in my previous posts, the Dark-types in the tier are very powerful and Eviolite Gothita traps both priority Fighting-types while being able to switch in. It's also got the potential to trap any stallish Pokemon without some form of haze/phaze, and most notably, Pokemon like Staryu or Drilbur to stop spinning. It's even customize-able to the extent it can run HP fire and Trap Ferroseed, or even run HP Ground to trap many of the Diglett targets such as Magnemite. I've even been using Scarf Gothita with Sleep Talk, HP Fire, and Psychic so I can switch straight into Foongus. The amount of 50/50s, with basically 0 risk for your opponent, is ridiculous. Consider this situation, you have a Croagunk, they have a Carvahna and Goth. You are now in a ridiculous scenario. You either Vacuum Wave and hope they stay in or you double switch. If you double switch to a non-Pursuiter, you are now 50/50 to die most likely (carvanha will probably 2hko most Pokemon), then you also can't even double switch back since you're trapped. Even if you have hazards up and somehow get Gothita in range of an SBomb or Knock Off KO, eventually all they need to do is sacrifice something to your Croagunk that isn't Carvahna. Like being able to trap almost every special attacker is ridiculous in its own right, but this extra shit like Fighting-types is crazy. I swear if i see one more HP Poison Goth I'll kill a man.

Diglett:

Diglett does not have the same versatility that gothita has. It's movepool and power is much better, sure, but it's really lacking in the ability to switch in. Sucker Punch was also nerfed which helps a bit. However, I'm not sold, yet, on it staying. Volt/Turn has so many powerful options (volt switch is limited by Diglett in the first place, I should add), Diglett doesn't always need to switch in. It's hard to actually attribute this to Diglett but there's a reason that Diglett was put on the chopping block as opposed to Trapinch, and that's simply because it's particular stats are conducive to abuse its ability without needing to tank a hit. I was hoping Drifloon would make Diglett clear, but honestly, Drifloon and Diglett don't really influence eachother as much this time around.

Drifloon:

This is the real doozy. What it basically comes down to is Drifloon's ability to be a high tier check/counter/pivot/sweeper while also being able to be a top tier spin blocker and hazard abuser in its own right. I think there are definitely ways to shut drifloon down most of the time, but often, you find yourself in a predicament if you guess the set wrong. Magnemite can switch in only to be set up on by CM or knocked off. Chinchou is even easier. Pawniard/darks for the most part get burned or HP fighted by most sets, though sometimes they're needed to get past the occasional Hex/Tbolt sets. Vullaby, Carvahna, Scraggy, for example, generally have a group of counters that ALWAYS counter them. Spritzee and Snubbul, for example, counter Scarf and DD scraggy no matter the moveset. Timburr, Cottonee, and Croagunk will almost always counter Carvahna. Vullaby, though many of the NP Counters lose to phys and vice versa, there are still ways to get around both, such as Onix and Spritzee. The argument that Drifloon doesn't have the same immediate power is valid for Carvahna, but Carvanha can't switch into shit. The other two are pretty weak without their set up moves, I think a 80-130 BP Ghost move from ~14-16 SpA is pretty powerful, so is a 110 BP Acrobatics. While I'm not making the argument, necessarily, that Drifloon is better than these sweepers, I think the issue is that it does it WHILE fulfilling multiple other roles, most notably, spin blocking. This means that, barring defog or good prediction with Staryu, you're going to be stuck with hazards and a wincon that abuses them. Carvanha, Scraggy, Vullaby, and even smashers like Shellder, Omanyte, and Tirtouga can barely enter the game without losing their sweeping potential. Floon has access to 20 HP recovery and infinite ability to go +2 Speed repeatedly. Is this too much? I'm still not sure if this just makes it the best Pokemon in the metagame or legitimately broken. It's power level is nowhere near last generation, in that it can't just 6-0 teams as much because of its ability to stall out things that it doesn't kill, but that's not to say that it can't still do what it's best at. We have about 10 days to think about it still, so lets make them count and really figure out if this is something that should stay. I want to see replays people, convince me one way or the other. Lets go.

 

[Adri]

So first I'd like to say that even tough I haven't posted a lot in threads like this one I have played LC SM quite a lot since its release.

Gothita:
Probably the most banworthy mon here imo, I played it a bit and even tough it allows some mons (such as scraggy, pawniard and so on) to set-up, these mons aren't in all the teams and from the point where you don't have one of these mons you can already be sure that gothita will be able to kill one of your mons. That's as simple as that. Furthermore if your opponent is able to grab the momentum then you can assume that he will even be able to choose the mon he will knock-out. And since there are mons in LC which you only have one counter for, that becomes a big issue. So yeah imo gothita should be banned, because trapping is (in my opinion) quite unhealthy, and gothita is probably the best at trapping atm in LC.

Drifloon: Well... To be honest I'm not completely sure of what I think about this mon. I find it really annoying to face and he was a total cancer with diglett. Honestly the best imo would be to ban diglett and make a suspect ladder with drifloon allowed. It would allow to see wether or not this mon is still broken in SM.

Diglett: The thing that is pretty cool is that fletchling is pretty much useless in SM. So we won't have the stupid core with fletchling + diglett which really was annoying. But ofc if drifloon comes back and makes pretty much the same core with diglett as fletchling before it won't really be an improvement since ORAS.
And to be honest I dislike the idea of trapping in general, that's not my idea of what "strategy" means tbh.

In conclusion, I would say: ban gothita, and don't give us both diglett and drifloon since a core with both of them would be cancerous as the one with fletchling + diglett before.
Ban gothita and if possible make a suspect where diglett is banned and drifloon allowed. I think that might help to see each of them's influence on the meta.


PS: I'm gonna try to make some teams with these mons and bring some replays if I have time, maybe it could illustrate a bit more what I mean ^^
Oh, and soz for the many mistakes I must have done :/

 

[macle]

im not sure where i stand on floon current but im pro ban on diglett and goth because trapping is broken. Trapping has no counters because you can't switch out. Sure you can set up on the trapper after it kills a mon on your team but is that really different than any other pokemon? Nope, but that trapper got an autokill on something. Yeah you can say you can just play around the trappers so they can't trap but how is that logic different than any banned Pokemon? It's not.

also trapping is just stupid for team building. Heres a post by blara that sums up why its dumb with diglett and you can expand it to all trapping

The reason it's different is the way you handle Diglett in the teambuilder than other threats. If you have a Pawniard on your team, and go "oh shit, I'm weak to Fighting-type Pokemon. I'm going to add a fairy!" It's an additive process--because you are weak to something, you add a Pokemon or make an alteration to make you less weak to those threats.

If you are weak to Diglett, you cannot go "ok, I'll add a Grass-type Pokemon, that'll show Diglett!" If you are weak to Diglett, you patch your team in a subtractive way. You have to remove the Pokemon that Diglett is weak to in order to be less Diglett weak, or accept that you cannot fix the Diglett weakness.

This is an entirely different process, and the significance of it cannot be understated. I retain freedom in teambuilding by being able to add Pokemon to patch the problems with my team if I am weak to a particular threat. If I am weak to trappers, I have to remove the Pokemon that the trapper can get rid of, or accept that I am weak to that trapper, outside of small alterations such as using Choice Scarf Chinchou (causing it to be significantly less worse at checking Fletchling, Shellder, etc.), Flame Charge Ponyta (which requires using Flame Charge when you switch it in as opposed to Will-o-Wisp, Morning Sun, etc., making Ponyta significantly less effective in battle), and other similar situations. That is why, with regards to Diglett, if Diglett is worthless in a particular match-up, that means the Pokemon you need Diglett to trap were either removed in the teambuilding process due to the threat of Diglett in battle, or not there at all. If we assume Diglett's only job in battle is to remove particular threats, it is safe to assume its role is satisfied in battles those threats are not present. That's a different mechanism than when comparing it to "Pawniard against 6 Fighting-types."

Now, the above applies to all trappers. The argument to ban Diglett as opposed to Gothita etc. is that 1) the subtractive manner you employ (removing a Pokemon / not using a Pokemon) to avoid a trapper weakness as opposed to the additive manner you employ (adding a Pokemon / making an alteration) to avoid a weakness is unhealthy; and 2) the teambuilding implications for that difference are substantially more significant for Diglett than it is for other trappers (Shadow Tag Gothita, Shadow Tag Wynaut, Arena Trap Trapinch, Magnet Pull Magnemite, and Magnet Pull Nosepass, along with arguably Pursuit users) making Diglett, and Diglett alone, broken.

That is my stance on it. I think the way Diglett requires you to adapt makes it way too effective at what it does, and that its effect on the metagame is unhealthy if not broken. It prevents your ability to compound resistances (such as using Skrelp if you are weak to Fire- and Fighting-type Pokemon or using Ponyta if you are weak to Fighting-type Pokemon and Pawniard), or requires you to use those Pokemon less effectively, such as how I described earlier. It requires the decision to either 1) use something else or 2) accept the weakness and the defensive liability your team has in Diglett games. I think the ability that Diglett has to trap a Pokemon is underrated. If your priority is to remove a particular threat, you WILL get Diglett in, even if you have to sack something to do so. If that is the goal, you will accomplish it. I think the way Diglett traps is significantly worse than any other trapper, with Gothita being the only other possible Pokemon to compare it to. I do not think Gothita is broken, but if the only way to ban Diglett is to accept that Gothita is also broken, then I would advocate for banning both.

TL;DR: fixing a Diglett weakness requires you to remove the Pokemon Diglett trap, reduce the defensive effectiveness and overall viability of the Pokemon Diglett traps to create counterplay, or accept the Diglett weakness and the defensive liability your team has against teams with Diglett. Fixing any other kind of weakness allows you to add another Pokemon or make constructive changes to avoid that weakness, which is an entirely different mechanism. This distinction is significant and makes Diglett broken.

this is what i think but im sure most of you already know that i hate trapping.

 

[Schmedly]

My imput on this whole debacle...

Gothita

I really like to use Gothita (see: my recent RMT). It's versatile, can actually switch into most attacks, and traps...

1. Fighting types minus Scraggy
2. Poison types minus Stunky and A-Grimer (including some that would be viable w/o trappers, like Salandit)
3. Spritzee if you have CM, forcing Spritzee to run Skill Swap to escape
4. Ferroseed if you have HP Fire
5. Anything that can't eat a Psychic

The capabilities mention above forced the metagame to change and adopt stuff like Skill Swap Spritzee and Analytic Staryu. But that's not all! Because of the fact that Gothita can carry two viable sets in Calm Mind and Scarf, you either need a counter for both or have a shaky counter that might stop both of them. This is all familiar, because Swirlix was almost the same: two great sets (CM and Belly Drum) that forced the opponent to guess. If we banned Swirlix, then Gothita should be banned as well; not because a precedent was set, but because the scenarios are eerily similar.

TL;DR: Gothita has two viable sets and a wide movepool, which relies too much on guesswork to warrant its survival in the meta.

Diglett

Diglett is different because while Gothita is bulky enough to switch into attacks and has a wide movepool thanks to various HPs, Diglett needs stuff like SlowFoo to survive an attack. And while it traps...

1. Pawniard
2. Ponyta
3. Chinchou and Non-Sturdy/Endure Magnemite
4. Poison types
5. Rock types that hinder BirbSpam

...it has the bulk of a wet newspaper, which means it either needs a slow pivoting teammate or a Focus Sash, which is both succeptible to hazards and sacrifices the power of Life Orb. So yes, it should stay, but it might need to be suspect in the future if we allow the mon below back.

TL;DR: Diglett is too frail to warrant a ban, but it might need to be suspected again if Drifloon comes back.

Drifloon

If Drifloon finds a Knock Offer in its way, it can either burn it or destroy it with Acrobatics. It also outspeeds Gastly after Unburden. So what can stop its rampage if it's freed? Not Skill Link mons like Shellder because of Will-o-Wisp. Carvanha could, but only if it gets enough Speed Boosts and doesn't have to fret about Substitute. Magnemite is bulky enough to tank an Acrobatics, as is A-Geodude, but they're slow and are trapped by Diglett. I'll freely admit that I came to Smogon a month too late to test out Drifloon, but my consensus is that if Drifloon is freed, Diglett must go, and visa-versa, as Floon is only checked by things weak to Diglett.

TL;DR: Read the last sentence

 

[Heysup]

im not sure where i stand on floon current but im pro ban on diglett and goth because trapping is broken. Trapping has no counters because you can't switch out. Sure you can set up on the trapper after it kills a mon on your team but is that really different than any other pokemon? Nope, but that trapper got an autokill on something. Yeah you can say you can just play around the trappers so they can't trap but how is that logic different than any banned Pokemon? It's not.

also trapping is just stupid for team building. Heres a post by blara that sums up why its dumb with diglett and you can expand it to all trapping




this is what i think but im sure most of you already know that i hate trapping.

I do get your point with team building restrictions, but I do not see how you can argue, based on arguments based solely on situations from the ORAS metagame, that you can apply it to a) this generation, or b) all trapping without filling in the gaps.

Diglett, if you thought it was broken last gen, obviously similar arguments apply if it stayed the same. But there are drastic changes. For one, it's harder to trap lots of the newer threats, such as NP Vullaby (with its new and improved weak armor, it's far more popular), Snivy (Cuz Mudbray exists), and Mudbray (Band new). The "guaranteed" a kill argument regarding trappers has been appropriately debunked a few times in regards to its impact on an actual battle. All Diglett can do is revenge kill, it cannot switch into nearly anything reliably. If something revenge kills, and something else that can come out that is, in general, harder to stop than it is, the weight of the revenge killing argument is severely lowered. This is where the argument lies for me and I'll probably base my vote on this. I'm not sure if Diglett's too strong of a sweeper outside of its revenge killing to amount to being more threatening than Pokemon who come out. In truth, not much can actually set up on it. But things that do, like Vullaby, Drifloon, Snivy, (even Ferroseed), Mudbray, Scraggy, Ziggy etc. are all pretty nuts and hard to stop after one turn and are more threatening than Diglett after that one turn.

I do think that Slowfoo + Diglett is a powerhouse without a doubt. I'm just not sure if Diglett's support for Mienfoo is enough to drive it over the edge. What I mean is, slowfoo is not sweeping anything, it's just annoying to face when you use balance or bulky offense.

My imput on this whole debacle...

Drifloon

If Drifloon finds a Knock Offer in its way, it can either burn it or destroy it with Acrobatics. It also outspeeds Gastly after Unburden. So what can stop its rampage if it's freed? Not Skill Link mons like Shellder because of Will-o-Wisp. Carvanha could, but only if it gets enough Speed Boosts and doesn't have to fret about Substitute. Magnemite is bulky enough to tank an Acrobatics, as is A-Geodude, but they're slow and are trapped by Diglett. I'll freely admit that I came to Smogon a month too late to test out Drifloon, but my consensus is that if Drifloon is freed, Diglett must go, and visa-versa, as Floon is only checked by things weak to Diglett.

TL;DR: Read the last sentence

I think there's a lot of myths behind your beliefs regarding both Floon and Dig. Firstly, Floon is actually checked by far more than Diglett-weak Pokemon in this metagame. Will-O-Wisp nerf stops it from stalling mons like Staryu or Spritzee. It also loses to Shellder 1v1 as far as I know (try smashing twice if you're against a acro-wisper). Magnemite takes acrobatics very well. It's usually given a choice Scarf to alleviate it's weakness to diglett, plus, Volt Switch would let it switch out anyway. Diglett can't really switch into Magnemite.

 

[Adri]

Here I have a replay... That's not really the best example of an "unbalanced" match, but I think it shows quite well how both diglett and drifloon can be annoying.
Btw, in this replay you will see that well... Drifloon is still perfectly able to stall-out its opponents, and I have to say that's fairly annoying (tbh I don't really know why my opponent forfeited cause well... he was still perfectly able to win the game, but anyway that's not the point here)

Here it is: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebanklc-505182500

So my conclusion is -Drifloon is still really annoying and can still stall a lot of mons that should theoretically win against him.
Diglett is still really strong and effective (as you can see in the replay, I actually had the choice between trapping grimer or mareanie, wich really is a great thing. The other thing to note is that with a match-up less unfavorable, snivy would have been really annoying if diglett had removed grimer...)

Oh and just to answer to what as been said before... The real point with diglett is that it can make usual plays far more dangerous than they should be. You can't really switch-in with chinchou or magnemite (etc) as long as there's diglett on your opponent's part. As you can see in the replay above, diglett won't obviously make a 6-0 alone. And that's even quite difficult and risky to switch-in with it (apart from slow U-turn/volt switch). But if your opponent makes the play at the good moment then the game can be over just because of that. In my opinion, that is the real problem with diglett (and the "good" trappers in general). The idea that a perfectly safe play in any other match can cost you the game if your opponent just makes the play and sends diglett (or gothita) out. That makes the game far more complicated for you and -in my opinion- that kind of thing is unhealthy for the meta.

 

[Heysup]

Here I have a replay... That's not really the best example of an "unbalanced" match, but I think it shows quite well how both diglett and drifloon can be annoying.
Btw, in this replay you will see that well... Drifloon is still perfectly able to stall-out its opponents, and I have to say that's fairly annoying (tbh I don't really know why my opponent forfeited cause well... he was still perfectly able to win the game, but anyway that's not the point here)

Here it is: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebanklc-505182500

So my conclusion is -Drifloon is still really annoying and can still stall a lot of mons that should theoretically win against him.
Diglett is still really strong and effective (as you can see in the replay, I actually had the choice between trapping grimer or mareanie, wich really is a great thing. The other thing to note is that with a match-up less unfavorable, snivy would have been really annoying if diglett had removed grimer...)

Oh and just to answer to what as been said before... The real point with diglett is that it can make usual plays far more dangerous than they should be. You can't really switch-in with chinchou or magnemite (etc) as long as there's diglett on your opponent's part. As you can see in the replay above, diglett won't obviously make a 6-0 alone. And that's even quite difficult and risky to switch-in with it (apart from slow U-turn/volt switch). But if your opponent makes the play at the good moment then the game can be over just because of that. In my opinion, that is the real problem with diglett (and the "good" trappers in general). The idea that a perfectly safe play in any other match can cost you the game if your opponent just makes the play and sends diglett (or gothita) out. That makes the game far more complicated for you and -in my opinion- that kind of thing is unhealthy for the meta.

Diglett got a kill which was only 70% likely and died. Drifloon basically did nothing until the Grimer-A decided it was going to take a Wisp for no reason. It's possible of that player was NP Vullaby, it could just set up +2 right there and win with some good sleep rolls, so maybe they were just saccing grimer. Mudbray just walled it and stalled it all game long.

I think that replay is better used as evidence for the opposite conclusion. I guess it does show that floon is annoying, but it doesn't do anything.

 

[Adri]

Well drifloon was actually able to PP-stall mudbray. Mudbray hadn't a lot of rock slides left, and actually less than I had recycles. To be honest I tried to send snivy to pass through grimer and co (I could deal a lot of damage to grimer with 2 leaf storms but well... that didn't really happen as I expected :/)
For vullaby... Yes, that's true, and that's the reason why I said that I didn't really understand why my opponent left.

For diglett, well, that's not completely true. It actually didn't really die just after removing mareanie and could still have for instance set-up the rocks which isn't actually that bad. The other notable thing is that I actually had the choice for the mon to trap. And Even though I actually killed only one of them, that still was a great thing.

But I have to admit that wasn't maybe the best replay to show drifloon and diglett's power... But I made several other matches and some of them might be a bit more representative...

So here are two of them, just ask if you want more examples.

Drifloon can still stall a lot of mons as I said: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebanklc-505827621 (Ofc it wouldn't have stalled the onix... But apart from setting up the rocks, what can exactly a burned onix do ? Btw, just look at what he could still do at this moment of the game: It would have won the 1v1 against staryu and timburr ofc, and I could even have sacked it to burn the magnemite and so break the sturdy).

And about diglett now... Well, look at this replay. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebanklc-505824587
As you can see, diglett will simply remove chinchou (the main drifloon counter in my opponent's team since it was risky for archen to switch-in on drifloon due to WoW) and set-up the rocks against a sun team (which isn't always that simple, but really useful since well... At this moment there only were archen, ponyta and a diglett that could have been sash even though it turned to be LO).

 

[mad0ka]

I already voiced my opinion about Gothita so I figure I should talk about Diglett and Drifloon now.

For each of the trapper suspects, I had always supported a Diglett ban in ORAS. It had a huge strain on teambuilding, and had insanely threatening cores it formed, such as shelldig, foodig, fletchdig, vuldig, etc. So many of the mons it formed cores with had pivoting that allowed Diglett to come safely into play and trap whatever it wanted. For the cores that didn't (shelldig), the lack of pivoting was made up for in terms of sheer sweeping potential.

However, with the advent of gen7, there have been several key factors and changes that make Diglett, in my eyes, not deserving of a ban. Many of the previously questionably broken cores that Diglett formed no longer need Diglett's support to function, or are outright bad. Fletchling was rendered near-unusable thanks to the Gale Wings nerf. Furthermore, Shellder no longer needs to run ice shard to beat Fletchling thanks to the nerf, so it can run Razor Shell or Hydro Pump to beat the steel types that Shellder previously required Diglett to get around. Chinchou is considerably less common because it loses to basically all of the relevant birds now, so running Diglett alongside Shellder for the sole purpose of trapping the rare Chinchou is a waste of a teamslot. Vullaby, with the Weak Armor buff, no longer needs Diglett's support to clear teams. Whereas before Vullaby greatly appreciated Ponyta and Pawniard being trapped by Diglett, Vullaby can now even choose set up on these two mons with its Nasty Plot set. Pawniard is also setup bait for its Z-Mirror Move set as well. Birds in general now all have some way of getting around traditional bird checks, so Diglett is rather useless paired with Doduo and Rufflet as well.

While foodig is still a scary core, this is basically the only relevant Diglett core now. Having Diglett does hamper Ponyta and Mareanie's ability to check Mienfoo, Diglett does not impede Ponyta's ability to check Pawniard, Spritzee, and physical attackers in general, or Mareanie's ability to check Timburr, Spritzee, Scraggy, Ponyta, and sun. The threat of Diglett just means if you're running Mareanie or Ponyta to check Mienfoo, you run a secondary Mienfoo check on your team that isn't weak to Diglett. They can still be trapped by Diglett on a kill or through a double switch, but in the case of the former, that just means you play to avoid killing things, and in the case of the latter, that's just rewarding good play. Overall, Diglett's cores this generation are limited and not nearly as threatening as they were last gen.

As for Drifloon, I was (obviously) very strongly pro-unban before the suspect thread started, but right now I'm rather conflicted. Drifloon was banned in gen6 for its acro/sub/wisp/recycle set outlasting basically the entire meta. The Will-o-Wisp damage nerf made Drifloon lose a lot of stalling potential, so Drifloon is no longer broken in this regard. I've already elaborated on this in my posts from the metagame discussion thread, so I won't delve much more into depth about that. What's different now is the vast amount of viable and customize-able sets that Drifloon can effectively run. Its classic acro/sub/wisp/recycle set is still very threatening, despite the loss of passive damage and the addition of Mudbray, who counters this set. Drifloon can also run Hex over Acrobatics on this same set, which almost completely changes its checks and counters. Whereas Vullaby and Scraggy beat Hex sets, they lose to Acrobatics sets, and whereas Chinchou, Magnemite, Ponyta, and Mudbray beat Acrobatics sets, they lose to Hex sets. There is some overlap in checks between the two sets, such as Spritzee, who is able to potentially outstall Drifloon, and Amaura and Taillow, who are able to threaten Drifloon behind its sub. However, Spritzee loses as soon as it gets knocked off, which is very likely to happen throughout the course of the game, and Amaura and Taillow are subpar mons outside of checking Drifloon. What's more is that Drifloon has various other moves in its arsenal, such as Calm Mind, Baton Pass, Defog, and Memento, which just add to Drifloon's unpredictability. They may not be common, but if not taken into account, they can be very troublesome.

With all of Drifloon's different, viable sets, it also puts a big strain on teambuilding. You are required to run checks to each potential set, and while this is not inherently a bad thing, these checks don't really overlap so you're often times running two (or more) separate mons just to beat Drifloon on every team. In my opinion, this strain is way worse than the strain that Diglett causes, which is the main reason that it's being suspected. Overall, I'm probably leaning more towards a Drifloon ban because of the unpredictability of it and the strain on teambuilding it causes, but I'm not completely sold one way or the other right now.

 

[Heysup]

Well drifloon was actually able to PP-stall mudbray. Mudbray hadn't a lot of rock slides left, and actually less than I had recycles. To be honest I tried to send snivy to pass through grimer and co (I could deal a lot of damage to grimer with 2 leaf storms but well... that didn't really happen as I expected :/)
For vullaby... Yes, that's true, and that's the reason why I said that I didn't really understand why my opponent left.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Rest (16*3 turns) + Rock Slide (16) + Sleep Talk (16) + Earthquake (16) = 96, will outstall Acrobatics (24)+ WoW (24) + Recycle (16) + Substitute (16) = 80. It can even just use the Sleep Talk turns without worrying about it. I think any time a Restalk Bray switches out of AcroWisp floon, it's just simply impatience.

For diglett, well, that's not completely true. It actually didn't really die just after removing mareanie and could still have for instance set-up the rocks which isn't actually that bad. The other notable thing is that I actually had the choice for the mon to trap. And Even though I actually killed only one of them, that still was a great thing.

But I have to admit that wasn't maybe the best replay to show drifloon and diglett's power... But I made several other matches and some of them might be a bit more representative...

And about diglett now... Well, look at this replay. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebanklc-505824587
As you can see, diglett will simply remove chinchou (the main drifloon counter in my opponent's team since it was risky for archen to switch-in on drifloon due to WoW) and set-up the rocks against a sun team (which isn't always that simple, but really useful since well... At this moment there only were archen, ponyta and a diglett that could have been scarfed even though it turned to be LO).

I do think Sash Diglett has some power, but I don't even think it's the best example. You're risking a lot sending it in against those Pokemon. In the original game, you needed to survive a Scald burn chance, and still it did not do much after. I would say it barely did anything noteworthy after trapping.

In the second replay, I think it's a better showcasing of Diglett's power, sure, but I mostly just think you got your opinion with the Sash. I found it a bit ridiculous that he sent out Bellsprout and Chinchou to deal with Rufflet instead of the obvious Archen which not only set up Rocks but was not even needed for any legitimate other purpose in the game.

Drifloon can still stall a lot of mons as I said: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7pokebanklc-505827621 (Ofc it wouldn't have stalled the onix... But apart from setting up the rocks, what can exactly a burned onix do ? Btw, just look at what he could still do at this moment of the game: It would have won the 1v1 against staryu and timburr ofc, and I could even have sacked it to burn the magnemite and so break the sturdy).

I know it's unfair to scrutinize every replay by saying your opponent was ass. But I mean...................................................................................it's hard for me to take them seriously at this point. You're outplaying them, they should in fact lose these games regardless of whether or not floon is great.

Not only did this guy set up Bulbasaur (which lacked Sleep Powder, I'm guessing) at a point in the game where it was much too early, he also switched his Staryu out of Drifloon (which wins 1v1, especially with a SpD drop (which is why you switched out I'm assuming)), and didn't bother Taunting with onix to stop recycle/sub spam.

This is not to say that I think Floon is necessarily not broken, but I'm not sure if it's stalling capabilities are why. I think it's unpredictability an versatility as a late game cleaner make it harder to deal with than it's stall set w/ Dig.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Rest (16*3 turns) + Rock Slide (16) + Sleep Talk (16) + Earthquake (16) = 96, will outstall Acrobatics (24)+ WoW (24) + Recycle (16) + Substitute (16) = 80. It can even just use the Sleep Talk turns without worrying about it. I think any time a Restalk Bray switches out of AcroWisp floon, it's just simply impatience.

Of note: not exactly. If Mudbray is at full HP, rest will fail, meaning that ninja predictions from the Drifloon player with Sub and Recylce could theoretically win out. If Mudbray doesn't click sleep talk and saves rests, it's good, but it's not quite as easy as suggested (unless of course you have something that doesn't mind a burn after Mudbray goes down and wants to set up on the now worthless drifloon, in which case yes it is.)
Either way, the Mudbray should always/almost always win, but it'll become setup bait at the end and thus potentially still help the drifloon user--swapping 1 mon of yours for one of theirs and a free setup isn't bad by any means, after all, but isn't neccesarily broken.