Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread!

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tcr

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I'm all for a thunder wave suspect! Being considered a joke tier by other tiers is one of my favorite pasttimes!

For what its worth I think that testing either diglett or Drifloon would be fine, although I'm against a drifloon test because its really dumb to actually do but if you guys want to whatever.

I DONT support any sort of ban on scald or thunder wave or anything like that and find it incredibly hilarious that it might be considered seriously (not quite sure if you were serious or not). Its just one of those "im salty i lost to x so lets just ban it" things.
 
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Vileman

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Of all those mons digglet is the most controversial one, i think. His ability to support sweepers like fletchling drifloon etc is pretty darn good, it can trap what your team needs him to without much trouble tbh, its also pretty darn fast so that helps and it has the movepool it needs to do his job. Arena trap is just too f*cking good lol
The rest of the suspects arent really that important, flon has been p hyped but ppl have just been sleeping on it all gen and now surprise surprise you build without taking it on consideration and it destroys teams! Who woulda thought that right lol

tl;dr fuk digglet else is fine
 
Even though I did be putting a different opinion if I talk about drifloon now, it's not broke on it's own. Diglett again is something people have been more edgy about thanks to having an even better teammate then before aswell as even in a prepaired metagame being effective. I compleatly agree with what Heysup/Levi suggested
Corporal Levi said:
Anyways, if we assume floondig is broken (which we shouldn't yet, but pretend for a second that you're convinced it is), I don't think we should rule out banning Drifloon as opposed to Diglett.
to wait a bit longer, I did also agree with it being suspected.
 

Merritt

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If we do end up doing a Diglett and Drifloon suspect test, or just a Drifloon test, can we have a ladder where Diglett is removed? This would give a good picture of what Drifloon itself looks like and how much it actually relies on Diglett to be a 'broken core' while just leaving the two in doesn't really give an idea of what Drifloon is capable of alone.

Why Diglett (especially in a Drifloon only suspect)? Because it's the 'enabling' member of the core. Diglett is not sweeping teams most of the time, it's Drifloon doing that. Like I said earlier, this allows us to get a better picture of whether or not Drifloon alone is too threatening for LC, and unlike a ladder without Drifloon, this doesn't just encourage voting for the "better meta", especially if it's purely a Drifloon suspect test.

As for the other two, not saying anything about twave, but scald not as bad in LC as it is in other tiers.
 
I would be willing to take another look at Diglett. I still don't think it's broken and with gen 7 around the corner I don't think it's necessarily with removing it and having a "new" metagame without Diglett. I also don't think there's been any "new" arguments to make besides the rise of Drifloon. That being said, I'd entertain the idea of revisiting it.
 

Celestavian

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I would be willing to take another look at Diglett. I still don't think it's broken and with gen 7 around the corner I don't think it's necessarily with removing it and having a "new" metagame without Diglett. I also don't think there's been any "new" arguments to make besides the rise of Drifloon. That being said, I'd entertain the idea of revisiting it.
Yeah guys seriously! Remember the last time we stopped suspect testing 8-9 months before a new generation came out? Man, that was a fantastic decision. That's totally not enough time to make it worth redoing all those pesky analyses for a metagame that will be filed away and never touched again, right?

Yes yes, I know you didn't outright object to a test, but there's still a bit of salt left for me to shake out from before the gen 6 release.

To make this a non-shitpost, I'll throw my support behind a Diglett suspect. I believe that it should have left the tier the first time, and will be happy there's another chance for Diglett to leave.
 
Yeah guys seriously! Remember the last time we stopped suspect testing 8-9 months before a new generation came out? Man, that was a fantastic decision. That's totally not enough time to make it worth redoing all those pesky analyses for a metagame that will be filed away and never touched again, right?

Yes yes, I know you didn't outright object to a test, but there's still a bit of salt left for me to shake out from before the gen 6 release.

To make this a non-shitpost, I'll throw my support behind a Diglett suspect. I believe that it should have left the tier the first time, and will be happy there's another chance for Diglett to leave.
No offense to the people who put in the hard work (which was me for a time as well) with BW, but that was a fucking mess of a tier. I don't think we can draw too many parrallels between Murkrow and Diglett (if that's what you were referring).

That being said, if we're going to look at Diglett we should do it now. If it's getting banned, it should be banned right after SPL.
 

Holiday

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Hi I'm not relevant but I figured this is important enough to post about. Diglett's by far the most annoying thing in the tier (whether it's broken or not is a different story, but it for sure deserves another look) and the rise of drifloon and Diglett cores has been stupidly effective. Maybe we goofed as a tier last time, but I do think a Diglett suspect is in order.

Also, will we be voting on more than one thing (like past suspect tests) or will this be just Diglett? Not opposed to either, just wondering.
 
I'm also wondering if it'll be another "multiple choice" suspect again. Personally I wouldn't put Scald or T-wave on the ballot, but if it was either Diglett, Drifloon, or nothing then I think that would be acceptable. The Floondig core has left a really big impression on the metagame in such a short time, and I feel like if either of these mons are problem mons then another look at the two of them is necessary. Personally, in my experience, Diglett has been a much bigger problem because it has the ability to support so many sweepers by just trapping its checks and counters. Any predictability it has is tossed up into the air since SR and Sub sets have become so common, too. I'm definitely on board.
 
and this is why i voted to ban dig last time. While i do think its kinda late in the game to be banning dig now, with the pending new metagame, lets ban dig so when we put ORAS LC as an lcpl meta we don't have to regret not doing anything about it.
 
sun/moon arent coming for at least 9 months so idg the arguments that suspecting something bc gen 7 was.announced.

but yeah dig should have gone the first time
 

Corporal Levi

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Sun/Moon holds value here because a big reason a lot of people want to ban Diglett is that the metagame is apparently stale and/or repetitive, and getting rid of something as relevant and unique as Diglett would change this. If we're already guaranteed to have a significant metagame shift in the near future, then this line of thought completely loses its purpose. That leaves us with Diglett making the metagame unfun or Diglett being broken as reasons to get rid of Diglett, and considering how the ORAS meta is often considered the best LC has ever been, it's pretty safe to say that ending up where BW is now isn't really a concern. If we're considering whether to get rid of Diglett, it should purely be on the basis that it's broken or overcentralizing.

I also do not think we 'goofed' in the previous suspect test. There were respectable pro-ban arguments then that were enough to make the suspect controversial, of course, but if we do a retest it would be because of metagame shifts (floondig, vulladig) and more evidence (SPL) that strengthen these arguments, not because we simply messed up the first time.
 

tcr

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Sun/Moon holds value here because a big reason a lot of people want to ban Diglett is that the metagame is apparently stale and/or repetitive, and getting rid of something as relevant and unique as Diglett would change this. If we're already guaranteed to have a significant metagame shift in the near future, then this line of thought completely loses its purpose. That leaves us with Diglett making the metagame unfun or Diglett being broken as reasons to get rid of Diglett, and considering how the ORAS meta is often considered the best LC has ever been, it's pretty safe to say that ending up where BW is now isn't really a concern. If we're considering whether to get rid of Diglett, it should purely be on the basis that it's broken or overcentralizing.
lol what? I don't think there's any relevant player that wants to get rid of Diglett on the basis that the metagame is stale or repetitive. Look at SPL, so much random shit has been used effectively. This is probably the metagame with the most viable shit in it, it seems counterintuitive to call it repetitive. IDK about others but to me the very concept of Arena Trap and Shadow Tag is borked and should not be involved in a serious competitive environment. It limits one of two options that a player has in battle (either pick a move or switch) which is in itself inherently uncompetitive. Not only that it has zero counterplay aside from either 1.) running Shed Shell (which I've actually done because trapping is so fucking stupid), or 2.) straight up double switching and outplaying your opponent, which should definitely NOT be the safest option in an environment where risk v reward exists as a concept. You shouldn't have to just straight up coinflip on whether your opponent is going into Diglett or not, and best case scenario you regain a little momentum if they switch into something else. Yes, there a bit more nuances involved, and no, Wynaut / Magnet Pull Magnemite / Trapinch / Gothita aren't broken in the same way that Moody Smeargle isn't broken. But I highly doubt anyone thinks as I do and I'll get so much shit for even suggesting a trapping ban.

I also do not think we 'goofed' in the previous suspect test. There were respectable pro-ban arguments then that were enough to make the suspect controversial, of course, but if we do a retest it would be because of metagame shifts (floondig, vulladig) and more evidence (SPL) that strengthen these arguments, not because we simply messed up the first time.
It seems like you're just trying to turn a blind eye bro. You can go all the way back to the Misdreavus suspect and see a common link in every single suspect bar the stupid Baton Pass one. Fletchling was suspected alongside Misdreavus for its ability to absolutely hammer anything and everything bar Archen, with Diglett trapping and eliminating every single one of its grounded counters. This was an actual argument in the test, and the outcome was that Fletchling itself was considered not broken and stayed. Fast forward a bit to the actual Diglett suspect test, which was also deemed fine. Now, ironically, we're on our third iteration of a suspect test that somehow involves Diglett. Does that not worry you? like why the fuck are there 3 different iterations of suspect tests where Diglett features as a factor? Drifloon by itself is in no way broken. What was its tier prior to the hype around it? B? B-? Somehow it went completely unnoticed for months on end and all of a sudden its completely bonkers. I don't buy that at all. Diglett is the enabler, its the common link, it already has an ability that's pretty controversial in higher tiers (just look at the Shadow Tag suspect in Ubers circa 2014 / 2015, that was banned then was reversed, the earlier Gengarite suspect test in Ubers which was largely in part to its ability of Shadow Tag, Shadow Tag being banned from UU, or the Shadow Tag ban in OU). I realize that all of my examples are all Shadow Tag, but imo all trapping abilities fit under the same scope (the only one who i can't really see being borked is Magnet Pull, simply because of the entire limiting nature of it and the shitty mons that use it. Nosepass frankly is mediocre unless on a specific team, magnemite with magnet pull frankly blows dicks and can only do one thing compared to how Scarf Mag or whatnot can just shaft teams long dick style).

Anyway those are my remarks
 

Corporal Levi

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I remember mentions of the metagame being stale/repetitive as a result of Diglett in the LFC (or LC staff) Skype group and during discussions on PS - I don't know if it was with that exact wording and by whom it was said but I'm positive it has been brought up before. Regardless of who said it, if a suspect does happen, then there is a possibility that it won't be only the people you consider relevant who will be voting, so it's probably worth bringing up anyways.

I don't agree with the trapping mechanic being inherently broken because trapping isn't for free. In a perfect scenario you could say, oh look they have a Mienfoo and I have a Gothita so Mienfoo is useless, but in practice this is quite difficult to pull off because of how hard it is to safely get Gothita in. It's a little bit different in other tiers because there are otherwise viable Pokemon that trappers can directly switch into and can therefore actually render useless, but in LC, extremely passive Pokemon like Trubbish tend not to be very effective to begin with; potential trapping targets tend to be very threatening to trappers in their own right. A better comparison to LC trappers would be Dugtrio, which also struggles to get in against a lot of its targets. Trapping in LC does get rid of some of the opponent's options once it's in effect, but the high risk associated with it, not only from getting them into play, but from having adequate counterplay to whatever comes in after the revenge-kill, which is significant because Gothita/Diglett are not very good Pokemon on their own, means that it adds another layer of complexity where you have to decide whether trapping is worth it while your opponent has to decide how they can make a trapping attempt more detrimental to you. I don't think it's uncompetitive when it isn't luck based at all, being a guaranteed effect that both you and your opponent can account for, so it's not very comparable to Moody.

You're right in saying that this would be the third suspect test where Diglett is involved in some way, but I don't see how that's more than a piece of fun trivia when it was deemed all right the first two times. There may be a significant group of people who have considered Diglett to be too much since missy, but if the majority vote is for Diglett to remain unbanned every time, then it should remain unbanned. If Diglett is deemed banworthy this time, then it'll be because that group has grown.

Drifloon was mid A before floondig was brought into the limelight, so I wouldn't call it unnoticed. It was A- during the last suspect test.
 
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and this is why i voted to ban dig last time. While i do think its kinda late in the game to be banning dig now, with the pending new metagame, lets ban dig so when we put ORAS LC as an lcpl meta we don't have to regret not doing anything about it.
I think this attitude is obnoxious, unhelpful, ignorant, and frankly, fucking ridiculous (not just you, and you may have meant nothing, so I mean no offense to you...). I'm with Levi here. There is no "goofing". This attitude is only possible if you completely misunderstand what the philosophy was for banning a Pokemon. We collectively decided that it was not broken. The arguments that it were failed miserably under any half-decent scrutiny and thus it was decided that we keep it in.

That decision was made with the acknowledgement, at least by myself and a few others, that should there be a significant policy change - ie. that it is OK to ban something because it's really annoying and restrictive in teambuilding, this would need to be revisited. That would be what's happening now. People are getting a little more frustrated because they are watching the top LCers build 9 or more "high-quality" teams and are seeing how big of an influence Diglett is.

Furthermore, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, not doing it because it's "too late" is not what I was going for. What I meant was "let's hurry up and start what is a very painstakingly long process" if we are going to actually take a look at it.

lol what? I don't think there's any relevant player that wants to get rid of Diglett on the basis that the metagame is stale or repetitive. Look at SPL, so much random shit has been used effectively. This is probably the metagame with the most viable shit in it, it seems counterintuitive to call it repetitive. IDK about others but to me the very concept of Arena Trap and Shadow Tag is borked and should not be involved in a serious competitive environment. It limits one of two options that a player has in battle (either pick a move or switch) which is in itself inherently uncompetitive. Not only that it has zero counterplay aside from either 1.) running Shed Shell (which I've actually done because trapping is so fucking stupid), or 2.) straight up double switching and outplaying your opponent, which should definitely NOT be the safest option in an environment where risk v reward exists as a concept. You shouldn't have to just straight up coinflip on whether your opponent is going into Diglett or not, and best case scenario you regain a little momentum if they switch into something else. Yes, there a bit more nuances involved, and no, Wynaut / Magnet Pull Magnemite / Trapinch / Gothita aren't broken in the same way that Moody Smeargle isn't broken. But I highly doubt anyone thinks as I do and I'll get so much shit for even suggesting a trapping ban.

It seems like you're just trying to turn a blind eye bro. You can go all the way back to the Misdreavus suspect and see a common link in every single suspect bar the stupid Baton Pass one. Fletchling was suspected alongside Misdreavus for its ability to absolutely hammer anything and everything bar Archen, with Diglett trapping and eliminating every single one of its grounded counters. This was an actual argument in the test, and the outcome was that Fletchling itself was considered not broken and stayed. Fast forward a bit to the actual Diglett suspect test, which was also deemed fine. Now, ironically, we're on our third iteration of a suspect test that somehow involves Diglett. Does that not worry you? like why the fuck are there 3 different iterations of suspect tests where Diglett features as a factor? Drifloon by itself is in no way broken. What was its tier prior to the hype around it? B? B-? Somehow it went completely unnoticed for months on end and all of a sudden its completely bonkers. I don't buy that at all. Diglett is the enabler, its the common link, it already has an ability that's pretty controversial in higher tiers (just look at the Shadow Tag suspect in Ubers circa 2014 / 2015, that was banned then was reversed, the earlier Gengarite suspect test in Ubers which was largely in part to its ability of Shadow Tag, Shadow Tag being banned from UU, or the Shadow Tag ban in OU). I realize that all of my examples are all Shadow Tag, but imo all trapping abilities fit under the same scope (the only one who i can't really see being borked is Magnet Pull, simply because of the entire limiting nature of it and the shitty mons that use it. Nosepass frankly is mediocre unless on a specific team, magnemite with magnet pull frankly blows dicks and can only do one thing compared to how Scarf Mag or whatnot can just shaft teams long dick style).

Anyway those are my remarks
For the record, Drifloon was not always used with Diglett and furthermore, it does not need to be used with Diglett to be effective. People didn't even think of that shit until it Drifloon was thrust into the spotlight. Fletchling also does not need Diglett to be effective, though I think the argument holds more weight in that context.

Maybe Levi strawmanned a bit by saying stale or repetive, but I don't think he's too far off. Whether you agreed or not, Diglett was deemed not broken. Nothing has changed in that regard, and that's NOT what should be up for debate right now. Can we stop pretending that's why we want to ban Diglett? I know you used the "turning a blind eye bro" expression in your post already, but I think it's a bit ignorant of you (and other people who are suggesting this) to say that this was a mistake and it really is broken (I mean you said it yourself, it's been involved in some way or another so many times and STILL nothing was banned). That mindset didn't get us anywhere last time - the "Diglett is broken" arguments were effectively Traced and Ice Beamed by the collective Porygon of the voters. If you keep pushing that envelope, the same thing will happen. You won't wear this bulky af Recover Porygon down by spamming pussy ass Diglett Earthquakes over and over.

All Pokemon metaphors aside, the discussion should be about whether or not it's OK to ban something because it's really limiting and annoying. We decided last time that it wasn't, but that attitude could have changed unlike Diglett's effectiveness.

So I guess I'll ask the question: Do we all think it's OK to ban something for being this annoying or limiting? Or should we stick to the traditional "only ban what's broken" philosophy?
 
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Coconut

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So I don't want to exactly jump on the let's all hate on fender thing, but I've seen other people say that too. Not banning Diglett the first time was not a mistake, revisiting Diglett is not a mistake, and there is no way to tell if not banning Diglett will be a mistake for sure. So stop saying that Diglett should have been banned the first time, because we already deemed that Diglett is not broken by itself, but rather it could be restrictive on teambuilding or that it limits certain things from working successfully.
 

tcr

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in response to the "We have suspected it in some way before and collectively deemed it not broken" argument I don't believe that is a sufficient enough argument to prove that Diglett in itself is not broken. The fact that we have already tested it and are now calling for a retest should point to how flawed of a mon it is. There aren't calls that Fletchling is somehow broken and that we should retest it, because it isn't and I don't think anyone seriously believes that. There aren't calls that Baton Pass is broken because most people just lol at the very idea. But Diglett is now being scrutinized (or is a choice in what to scrutinize I guess is the better wording) for the second time. I think that should raise some alarms, especially so since the actual votes were fairly close. 37 Ban, 49 Do Not Ban, with 8 abstaining (43% of the people who participated in the suspect voted for Diglett being banned, that might be the closest ban / do not ban in history of XY / ORAS). That's a far cry closer of a vote than what was expected of Gothita, a measly 8% ban vote lol.

I don't personally think it was a mistake to not ban diglett. I don't really think it in itself is a broken mon, i just think that trapping abilities are dumb by nature. Regardless, its prefectly acceptable to revisit a past Pokemon that was banned / not banned. I guess in BW that Scraggy being suspected, deemed not broken, and now calls for Scraggy in BW LC are ignorant? Or Meditite in round 1 of BW LC voting being deemed not broken, then being revisited three times before finally being banned. Or Murkrow in BW LC who was visited countless times, or Drilbur, or Scraggy again, or Misdreavus, or even Eviolite. So many pokemon have gone through that banning and unbanning phase as the metagame adapts. Granted the BW LC system was kinda flawed in that it required a supermajority to ban something, but I think the point still stands that it isn't really ignorant to try to revisit suspect tests. Calling them "mistakes" is dumb since metagames adapt, but we should definitely be open to revisiting Diglett and not just shoving it off with "we already banned this why are we doing this again".
 
From what I feel like, it's way to late to ban anything now, unless y'all just want to do it for funsies in the hype for Gen 7 in the hopes of that it would actually work well. I'm not necessarily down on the idea of banning something so late, but creating a new meta at this time could possibly be deemed unnecessary by some.

It's nothing that wasn't said before, but Diglett's prominence lies in it's ability to remove checks/counters for powerful sweepers/cores. Diglett itself isn't all that strong, and the problem lies within the difficulty of preparing for cores + diglett. Restricting teambuilding is never something that people can just shrug off, being forced to run certain Pokemon or strategies to not have your whole team ruined my having a key member killed off, being able to do nothing about it. Based on this, the ban seems logical, and there's obviously a problem if it has to be tested more than once.

The only problem that I have with banning Diglett is that it's personal flaws stop if from being effective in many situations. I seriously doubt it's consistency and ability to break past bulky pokemon or even entire bulky archetypes. It gives as much free space as it takes. It's just a question of whether the team building restriction is due to Diglett directly or just people not being able to willing to break past it. I'm happy for a suspect just to find out, but on banning it I'll have to wait and make up my mind later.

Also just a note, banning Diglett would bring back a lot of fire and steel types again, and would make Abra/Gastly even stronger. Not sure whether things will become more fast paced or slow down to deal with it.

For Drifloon; pretty sure this is just a case of people seeing how useful Drifloon is in situations and not being sure on how to deal with it. People have used Floon for a long time now and known it to be good, just not great. There are plenty of checks and counters for the recyclefloon set and while they can be countered by other sets, it's not enough to warrant the suspect.

Suspecting TWave/Scald is ridiculous imho. Speed control would be much more difficult and many things would lose their utility from scald. Little would benefit except super fast hard hitting physical sweepers, and just having them vs each other means the meta suffers.
 

Merritt

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in response to the "We have suspected it in some way before and collectively deemed it not broken" argument I don't believe that is a sufficient enough argument to prove that Diglett in itself is not broken. The fact that we have already tested it and are now calling for a retest should point to how flawed of a mon it is. There aren't calls that Fletchling is somehow broken and that we should retest it, because it isn't and I don't think anyone seriously believes that. There aren't calls that Baton Pass is broken because most people just lol at the very idea. But Diglett is now being scrutinized (or is a choice in what to scrutinize I guess is the better wording) for the second time. I think that should raise some alarms, especially so since the actual votes were fairly close. 37 Ban, 49 Do Not Ban, with 8 abstaining (43% of the people who participated in the suspect voted for Diglett being banned, that might be the closest ban / do not ban in history of XY / ORAS). That's a far cry closer of a vote than what was expected of Gothita, a measly 8% ban vote lol.

I don't personally think it was a mistake to not ban diglett. I don't really think it in itself is a broken mon, i just think that trapping abilities are dumb by nature. Regardless, its prefectly acceptable to revisit a past Pokemon that was banned / not banned. I guess in BW that Scraggy being suspected, deemed not broken, and now calls for Scraggy in BW LC are ignorant? Or Meditite in round 1 of BW LC voting being deemed not broken, then being revisited three times before finally being banned. Or Murkrow in BW LC who was visited countless times, or Drilbur, or Scraggy again, or Misdreavus, or even Eviolite. So many pokemon have gone through that banning and unbanning phase as the metagame adapts. Granted the BW LC system was kinda flawed in that it required a supermajority to ban something, but I think the point still stands that it isn't really ignorant to try to revisit suspect tests. Calling them "mistakes" is dumb since metagames adapt, but we should definitely be open to revisiting Diglett and not just shoving it off with "we already banned this why are we doing this again".
I agree with pretty much everything you're saying, and I don't think anybody is saying that just because Diglett was suspected means it shouldn't be suspected again. On the other hand, the fact that it was not banned (which a significant number of people are saying was not a mistake) means that new arguments for why Diglett should be banned this time around should be weighed more heavily, since the old arguments, while maybe still valid, were already successfully fought against. So what's really changed?

Well the big one really is WispRecycle Drifloon being "discovered" and popularized. Before that the meta was actually adapting quite well to Diglett, with flame charge being a not uncommon sight on Ponyta, scarf Chinchou rising yet again, and things like Skrelp being significantly less common. Then DigFloon comes along and everything apparently goes to shit. That's really it, the return of Vullaby happened before that and there wasn't really much noticeable grumbling about Diglett. That's a significant piece of why Drifloon should seriously be considered for a suspect, at least alongside Diglett, even though I personally don't like the thought of having both members of a core up for suspect.
 
Okay so I don't really wanna reply to the multiple points made in this thread but
  • Trapping is not inherently broken it's just another part of the game lol, the "no counterplay" argument takes this way too literally...
  • Diglett is one of the best and most successful trappers with the ability to trap a wide variety of shit; you have to double up on your checks and make sure you're not dig weak and it'll still annoy you.
  • I think diglett is wayy too much of a team building constraint espespecially considering how many threats this meta has.
This was probably badly wwritten but basically throwing my support behind a diglett test. A ton of good players (most of the SPL players, I believe) think it's broken and deserves a second look. Also can we please not suspect drifloon lol, I don't get how it suddenly got "incredible" and S rank worthy (I used floondig like week 2 I think?). Like yes, it has a lot of support options and stuff but people have been realizing how good it is only lately and diglett is far dumber to deal with (some people have been exploring additional options with it so it's not like there only 2 sets). Diglett is an important suspect and we don't need to tack anything on because nothing else is broken ATM.
 
The floon rise is definitely the most significant shift in the meta since the previous Diglett suspect last september (although there's definitely been a rise in the usage of Shellder and Vullaby as well). I don't think it's a coincidence that all these mons are, at least in my opinion, toeing the line of "too good" when paired with Diglett. Despite there technically being no changes to the meta since then, it's being disingenuous to say that the current meta is the same one we had 6 months ago.

The aforementioned cores (particularly sheldig) are the reason why i think Diglett and not Drifloon should be suspected. Admittedly, these cores did exist six months ago while floondig didn't really exist. However, they weren't nearly as prolific--people still considered fletchdig, which is probably the weakest of the talked-about dig cores, the premier core of which Diglett was a member.

I think these player-generated metagame shifts are the reason why a Diglett suspect is warranted. I know several prominent players and community members (including SPL players) have come to this conclusion as well.
 

sam-testings

What a beautiful face, I have found in this place
Let us look at why we ban things. If we look at past suspect threads, the reason is because "They inhibit teambuilding, the meta focuses heavily around it, it is unfun to play against/with, and it does not take skill." These are what we should be looking at when we decide if we want to suspect something.

Diglett:

Diglett is a very controversial mon that has been the subject of much conversation. Now I actually used Diglett a lot when I just started LC which was before it gained its current popularity (think back to when we nearly tested baton pass). It could get rid of one mon super easily and then memento out to let some random mon to set up, and that made up 50% of my teams. While I don't do that as much today, you can see how this affects teambuilding in general. Every team needs to build thinking about diglett and nearly every team can just slap a diglett on there. In my opinion, Diglett greatly inhibits teambuilding in general and can create situations that lead to very little skill being needed to set up and sweep teams. I definitely think that at the very least we should suspect Diglett as it is an oppressive mon that inhibits creativity.


Drifloon:

Now I actually have not encountered this that much while laddering so lucky me! From what I have seen, Drifloon is not as good with Diglett not around as Scarf Chou/mag/pawn all beat it handily. If we are suspecting Diglett don't bother with Drifloon.

Scald/T Wave/Confuse Ray

First off who the hell runs confuse ray on anything its literally so RNG reliant like why .-. All right onto Scald. Scald is a move that lets go of a little power for a 30% chance to burn. Does it inhibit team building? Not really. Everyone is aware of it but its not to the point where everyone is running dry skin gunk or water absorb cacnea. Does the meta focus heavily on it? Sure, if you can run scald over surf/hydro pump you are heavily recommended to. Is it unfun? Sometimes. It does get annoying sometimes but overall its something most players just accept. Does it take skill to use? Not really lol. Scald is not broken and you cannot really justify a suspect. Same for T wave, its annoying as hell but it is not broken to the point we need a suspect test.


TL;DR Suspect dig everything else is fine.


Edit: I see a couple of people talking about wether or not Diglett is broken. Diglett in my opinion is not broken per say, but can make other mons broken. As I stated above running memento makes some mons that are not so good really really good and its really easy to do. Lets say for example scraggy. Scraggy is not really that good until it dragon dances. Diglett gives it that opportunity and lets it sweep entire teams due to the support it brings. Basically, Diglett itself is not broken but it lets other mons be due to the support it brings.
 
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