trillyntruly said: His argument at its core is that trapping means nothing if Duggy loses the matchup (if it's dependent on set, that's a whole other ballgame), so being reductive is sort of the point. Counting how many threats get trapped on either side is a meaningless statistic and a bad argument to make. Look at how many threats get trapped, and then look at the matchups themselves to see if trapping is actually beneficial for the trapper. Compare those numbers to get an accurate comparison of Goth vs Duggy (ferro is a decent example of a trapped Duggy mon that means nothing, while Goth could cripple it). Besides that, looking at the abilities themselves, if we're going to deem one or both uncompetitive, it is important to note the fundamental difference. Ghost mons, which are sparse in the meta, are the only mons escaping Tag while Trap has levitate users/flying types/ghost types and all the other methods of escaping Tag as well (voltturn, shed shell, with the addition of AB). Click to expand...

*Her argument, not his, but yeah, this is the point I was trying to get at. A trapper's functionality has gotta be looked at from a holistic perspective, because the details of the ability are only one factor in how a given trapper operates. Building on that, when we look at a given trapping ability, we need to be thinking about more than just "oh this thing can keep mons X, Y, and Z, from switching" - it's gotta be more along the lines of what sets threaten which Pokemon in the meta, what percentage of mons actually have something to fear from the trapper, pressure on teambuilding, inordinate pressure on a particular style of team (whether it's anti-stall or anti-hyperoffense or whatever else), and so on. And the central question has to be: "Are these trappers with ability X all at least comparable enough in effectiveness that there's a clear pattern across the board?" If the answer to that is no, then ban the mons that fuck things up too badly instead of banning the ability. I think the kind of bad precedent Hugin is talking about was already set last generation with the Shadow Tag ban, honestly - in my experience, Gothita was significantly less effective than Gothitelle at doing the same job to the point where it's like looking at the Diglett/Dugtrio comparison people were talking about earlier in this thread - they can't be said to be on the same level of danger for the meta, if we presume a danger even exists in the Dugtrio case. Banning Arena Trap as a whole would be the wrong way to go here, same as banning Shadow Tag was last generation (no one who knows what they're doing can tell me with a straight face that Wobbuffet was unhealthy for the meta, for example, so we're running into a case of needless collateral damage). I don't think Dugtrio is at all unhealthy for the meta either, incidentally, but I didn't have time to get reqs so that doesn't really mean anything