Well I can't overpower that meme from FLCL.



As expected the Suspect ladder has started to still sprout another mole outside of Dugtrio to attempt to fill the niche that it had. It seems Diglett has had small success for some players - this is partly due to being a lighter inferior version of its evolved self. 95 base Speed isn't necessarily bad, but it suddenly puts Diglett in dangerous 50/50s with Tapu Lele while being forced to consider Adamant to secure KOes. There's also being slower than Pokemon such as Mega Metagross amongst other threats that Dugtrio was much faster than before (+0 Zard X, as an example). That's a huge problem for Diglett, but it does appear that some ladder players have gotten away with it.



The one thing that surprised me the most so far with the Suspect - the backlash. I think it's because people look at Dugtrio in a vacuum and assume that it's not a broken Pokemon due to its individual issues. It's frail and 100 base Attack isn't what it used to be. 120 base Speed is rather quick, but it's still slower than threats such as Greninja and Pheromosa. Allow this old timer to tell the story of Wobbuffet - one of the biggest mistakes to unban from the 4th Generation. Without going too much into detail of the story two Pokemon were released from Ubers into OU - one is well-known as Deoxys-S. Deoxys-S ran rampant with Spikes sets while having competent offensive / cleaner sets. The oddball, though, was Wobbuffet. Wobbuffet was a Pokemon that received very little use within the OU tier while it was allowed. Though some argue this may be due to a "hidden agreement", the fact of the matter was Wobbuffet ran rampant in the tier. Its support was unrivaled by any Pokemon since it trapped critical Pokemon such as Skarmory and used them as "Tickle-fodder" to have Choice Band Tyranitar clean up. Eventually, in spite of little usage, Wobbuffet was banned.



So people will ask, naturally, why I bring up Wobbuffet for Dugtrio. Wobbuffet as an individual Pokemon isn't necessarily the most broken Pokemon. After all - it is nothing more but a punching back in the current generation and the physical / special split has made using Counter / Mirror Coat a little more awkward (on top of the immunities). Ultimately, Wobbuffet created a major problem in the Support aspect - of course largely thanks to Shadow Tag. This is exactly where Dugtrio falls into line - individually it isn't a broken Pokemon, but what it provides to teams, specifically stall, is something that screams very susceptible to being uncompetitive, or broken, by the Support Clause.



I feel this is what a lot of newer players and those inexperienced have a hard time understanding. What makes Pokemon like Dugtrio very threatening is that it shuts out the majority of relevant stallbreakers - leaving teams with either very prediction-reliant Pokemon (Tapu Bulu, Kartana) or Pokemon that have almost 0 niche outside of stallbreaking (Togekiss, NP Shed Shell Hoopa-U). The rarest of exceptions that work so far is Modest Shed Shell Tapu Lele - a set that has worked out, but definitely inferior in a way outside of the stall environment since it enjoys having access to Z Moves or Twistedspoon to bolster through other threats. Furthermore, the relevance of Mega Sableye does mean that if Shed Shell is Knocked Off it leaves Tapu Lele trapped by Dugtrio.



It's true that stall has benefited a lot from ORAS with the introduction of Mega Sableye, a Pokemon that makes laying entry hazards difficult on top of having access to Defog users such as Skarmory and Zapdos. What's worse is the addition of Toxapex, a Pokemon that is quite passive but is an impenetrable fortress to some teams. Stall is very strong and it shows with some of the SPL replays that we've seen. Such examples are some of reyscarface's first two weeks of using stall against his opponents with the combination of Mega Sableye / Skarmory / Chansey / Toxapex / Clefable / Dugtrio - a very frightening core that is very difficult to dismantle without playing ahead of the opponent or packing the right teammates. Dugtrio has also helped gravitate the success for rather niche stall teams such as Shedinja Stall as well - a stall core that otherwise is very weak and flawed since Shedinja is still vulnerable to many things that are common in OU.



I feel, for once, compelled to participate in the Suspect Ladder. Previously when it came to suspect threads I felt that the community drove the right direction towards bans and do not bans. I stand that, for the most part, the OU community has done a good job of controlling most of the problematic children within OU since Smogon started this project in Gen 4. Still, the people who have this sudden urge to say that Dugtrio isn't broken by the virtue of:



- players too lazy to adapt

- players not having enough skill

- players not using the right breakers



etc are what are my motivations to go through this ladder and actually attempt to grab the requirements. Whether I officially do it or not for once I don't know, but I feel very compelled to do so for the sake of the end goal of finding a way to ban Arena Trap from the OU tier. Having witnessed some SPL matches made me realize how terrifying something like this is to face, and it still is a struggle sometimes when the stall player knows what they're doing against you.



tl;dr - provided that I go through with laddering, I will be seeking out to remove Dugtrio, or Arena Trap, from OU.