Havsha

No, not at all???

I think Randoms is fun, but I am worried that its going to pull away too much from UU and NU matchmaking. Its probably best to rotate Randoms in and out of matchmaking if possible with something like LC. That way it can still feel somewhat fresh a while down the line, and still give people a reason to not give up on UU or NU. It would also give LC a chance in Matchmaking again without fully commiting it as an "official" tier. I dont know if this is possible, or if its more work than its worth, but thats my two cents at least.

The problem with dugtrio is literally that theres no counterplay to arena trap... but I guess thats different to you?

Lileep after getting 3 AP boosts

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UU: Tawla vs Havsha Friday 11pm GMT+1 Bring a date~

For Gothitelle it doesnt have access to shadow tag currently as its a hidden ability. But in general the devs have nerfed shadow tag by making it so that the pokemon is only trapped for like 3 turns before the ability wears off. Currenlty Dugtrio is NU because its atk was never buffed to base 100 in MMO, so not as many people see it as a viable option in the higher tiers. Whilst I agree that it is still problematic due to how it can support a team by targetting down specific pokemon (without room four counterplay) the TC have yet to make such a decision.

This game needs to actually develop new content, instead of just recycling old seasonal events, and not releasisng dungeons, before they hire a new developer Im afraid youre out of luck

Wallapro too good u.u

Playing in 10 minutes

TC please feel free to weigh in we'd love to hear yall input too, otherwise you're just gonna perpetuate the discontent the player base already has over how yall do things. Having TCs play MM and Tours is a great start, but transparency is just as important, because its feeling like we've been "discussing" into the void each month

Okay, but thats the entire point of a discussion thread, for people to discuss, and come to a new opinion I'll agree it seems to be a combination of Duggy and Arena Trap, but limiting it further to just never used seems wrong to me, all the factors ive listed in my post are applicable to every tier, be it vs things like exadrill or a magnet in uu, or whatever, the benefits duggy provides to defensive builds in taking out a breaker without anyroom for counter play is inherent throughout each metagame. The core issue is that arena trap robs one of a crucial game mechanic (switching) This remains true in every tier. And whilst pokemon like trapinch and diglett can do that too, they come with their own drawbacks that help keep it balanced. Meanwhile Duggy brings considerable less drawbacks. Honestly, Im still not convinced that its actually a combination of Duggy and AT and just not AT, but its not a hill im going to die on edit: whilst diglett and trapinch can trap, they cant punish, which is why they arent raising the same issues of concern

So, I agree, most fighting types cant switch into it (especially if you dont know if its modest, or defensive) however there are still plenty switch ins that can handle it, such as gigailth/snorlax/more. My main issue with this argument is that you say its a mixture of all the p2 sets that make it too much, and whist it is a very versatile pokemon, as I had suggested in my previous post, Ive found that the same answers can be used for each set, making it versatility less impactful. [so for example, snorlax or gigalith can come in on any p2 set, and pressure it out, punishing it for staying in/teleport or can benefit from the free turn by getting up rocks, or a curse.] Its drawbacks can be dealt with sure, they can also just as easily be reestablished. Am I missing a way in which p2 is restricting the meta, beyond making you run something with good spdef? Genuinely asking, like I suppose it does makes offensive switches much harder, but I dont feel like its forcing us to play defensive builds all together

Okay, even if we can all agree that its the combination of both dugtrio and arena trap that is problematic, then surely the solution is to remove arena trap from dugtrio like sword dance was removed from garchomp, instead of just leaving the status quo? (I guess the devs gave up on LC, but the fact that arena trap was broken in LC too, I believe is just further indication that its a problematic ability)

So, I guess its kinda bad faith of me wanting to try seperate arena trap from duggy in this discussion. (Although I strongly disagree with the notion that the problem might be dugtrio and not AT, I think its the otherway round, but that being said you can give a caterpie AT but at the end of the day its still a caterpie, an ability can still be problematic even if the pokemon with the ability cannot properly take advantage of it, same reason why shadow tag pre-nerf was so problematic.) So my claim is that AT is problematic and uncompetitive. So I'll try lay out my reasons so yall can critique/help me understand the alternative position. The reason I believe AT is abusable in spite of Dugtrios less than stellar atk is because it removes a core aspect of competitive play, namely switching, unlike magnet pull it isnt just a small subset of pokemon that has to worry about being trapped, its every pokemon. This means that theres little to no counter-playing AT in game. With moves like Teleport, Volt/turn and items like eject button its not dificult for one to get dugtrio into such an advantageous position where it can trap a pokemon. tl;dr: Switching is a core mechanic that is taken away from the game without the ability to counter-play, without running a shed shell on just about everything. Building and using pokemon that are vulnerble to AT is something that makes it problematic. In gen 7 an old Tapu Lele set was mind plate with CM, it was actually a great breaker, and most defensive teams would struggle versus it. Then, people would start bringing dugtrio, and in spite of the fact dugtrio could not reliably ohko it, because it was able to weaken lele to the point it could no longer be serve its roll. The same could be said about pokemon like Banded Hoopa-unbound who was severely limited by Duggy. This is just straight vs standard eq duggy with AT, but there are several other sets that can be run that would possible achieve this goal but easier. But, those are gen 7 examples, and not MMO, so let me see if I can provide some MMO examples. Magneton, with magnet pull (another trapping ability), a strong sp atk, decent speed tier, and a decent move pool, it is a real threat to many defensive teams. However, if magneton were to rise in usage to the same point lele had, defensive teams could simple throw in a dugtrio to their team, trapping it, and hard countering it, with little to no ways of counterplaying. Pokemon like houndoom, pikachu, raichu, etc all can be rendered pretty much worthless vs dugtrio. Meaning if any of these pokemon, or any pokemon like them, were to rise in usage/become a considerable pokemon to build around, defensive teams could simply say no<3, and stop them in their tracks with AT duggy. tl;dr: AT Duggy gives defensive teams the ability to simply not care about a lot breakers that would otherwise open up a more diverse meta. Defensive builds that have little to no counter play its not a healthy metagame. I don't think AT use is limited to just Defensive teams, since it can be utilised on HO with moves like memento, trapping bulkier mons/walls. (Although winning that 1v1 is obviously beneficial, its not necessary as you can often force the pokemon on a timer with toxic, lower its defences with screech so that it can be pursuit trapped, or Im sure a bunch of smarter ideas) This would open up for the HO threats such as bdrum linoone, to clean out next. tl;dr: AT duggy place both Defensive teams and HO teams in situations in which they are impossible or very difficult to counter-play. A metagame in which counterplay is impossible or very difficult is not a healthy meta game. So a lot of this is sounding like its possible dugtrio is the problem and not AT right? Afterall diglet and trapinch aren't going to be able to do these things. I dont think so, none of these uncompetive aspects can be achieved by a regular dugtrio without arena trap. But if arena trap was available on another viable pokemon such primeape or whatever, we would be running into the same problems. Just because of the limited nature of pokemon with the ability we are in the situation where we can take the arena trap out of the dugtrio but not the dugtrio out of the arena trap. tl;dr Its not dugtrio its arena trap. Right now the only reason I believe AT isnt being universally perceived as harmful to competitive play is because our community haven't learned how to correctly utilise it yet, we saw what happened when we learned how to use wobbufett correctly, its usage suddenly shot up, one particular team became super popular, and the TC had to do something about it. Right not I believe we are standing right before a situation where the same things happen with AT dugtrio. Because at the end of the day it wasnt wobbu that was the problem, it was shadow tag. At the end of the day its not dugtrio thats the problem, its Arena Trap Edit: Here's a source that probably explains things better than I could ever: https://www.smogon.com/articles/ou-suspect-arena-trap I know MMO and Smogon are very distinct metagames, however if the fundamental mechanic like Arena Trap and Shadow Tag is unhealthy in one it is more than likely that it will be fundamentally unhealthy in the other,

I would love to hear the TC members reason for why Arena Trap isn't problematic, so if thats already been stated somewhere can someone link it to me? edit: to clarify I mean the ability as a whole, not a discussion about dugtrio

IGN: Havsha Preferred Tiers: LC UU, LC NU, SS LC Competitive accolades (optional, although it certainly increases your chances of getting picked): Professional cheerleader Discord contact: havsha#8566 Preferred/Least Preferred Potential Manager: Whoever lets me bring weird teams to LCUU

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Havsha uwu

Havsha

UU2: Havsha vs Wallarro We're dancing Friday 6pm BST bring a date!

God bless the suns down in Africa

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Perhaps this is going to be a controversial take, but I don’t think Porygon2 is even the best at what it does, the only major benefit I see in running P2 over other UU mons is its versatility, but it has consistent weaknesses throughout each of its sets. Toxic (Puts it on a timer, self-explanatory), Trick (Without eviolite, it’s a lot less threatening defensively, and if it’s locked into a single move, even easier for mons to take advantage of it with set up), Strong STAB/Super Effective hits to keep it low (Watch 90% of my previous WC games, I take P2 down to 20-30% with a banded hit (and survive the +1 tri-attack), and then apply pressure to prevent recover, and applying pressure is fairly easy with how much pivoting is available in UU atm. Before people come after me, I know this isn’t a great solution, it often results in a trade). Tl;Dr P2 is good, but eh, I don’t think its necessarily better than the numerous other UU Pokemon we have. The best answers for one P2 Set tend to work for them all. (Toxic, Trick) Also ban arena trap . It's not a competitive ability, never has been really

UU (Picked by Africa): Havsha vs Cristi Sunday 2pm BST, bring some drinks and some snacks~