OU Suspect Coverage: Arena Trap

Trapping abilities have been a controversial aspect of the OU metagame dating back to the Shadow Tag suspect test in ORAS. The main user of Shadow Tag, Gothitelle, was able to utilize a Trick + Choice Scarf set to trap and eliminate a number of common stallbreakers thanks to its ability. As a result, it made stall teams very difficult to break, and Shadow Tag was near-unanimously banned from OU with an 89% supermajority. Fast forward to early SM, and we have another Pokémon that is able to play a similar role on bulky and offensive teams alike—Dugtrio. After receiving a boost to its base Attack stat in Pokémon Sun and Moon, Dugtrio quickly skyrocketed to being a staple on almost every stall team for its ability to trap and eliminate threatening Pokémon to stall such as Heatran, Hoopa-U, and Tapu Lele. Dugtrio itself was suspect tested back in February, but it narrowly managed to escape a ban with a number of anti-ban voters suggesting that there were more pressing issues in the metagame that needed to be dealt with first, like Pheromosa and Mega Metagross, or that Arena Trap as a whole was the real problem. After that, the metagame was given more time to develop properly, and Dugtrio started to become more and more common on balanced and offensive teams while still remaining a crucial Pokémon to stall. Thus, the OU council decided to suspect test Arena Trap (original announcement).

Ban Pls

Pro-ban voters mostly argued that Arena Trap was an uncompetitive and unhealthy part of the metagame. Arena Trap removes one of the core aspects of competitive Pokémon—the ability to switch—which makes playing and building around Pokémon that are vulnerable to an Arena Trap user far more difficult. An example of this could be seen in Mind Plate Tapu Lele, a Pokémon that bulky teams otherwise struggled to deal with, as it could easily boost up with Calm Mind versus more passive playstyles and tear apart defensive cores. However, Dugtrio's omnipresence on more defensive teams made Mind Plate Tapu Lele far less effective as a breaker, as it was trapped and 2HKOed by Dugtrio. To overcome this tough matchup, Tapu Lele was often forced to run Shed Shell, which is a suboptimal item against everything bar Arena Trap users. Another example is Hoopa-U, a Pokémon that was banned to Ubers last generation for the ridiculous wallbreaking power of its Choice sets. However, Hoopa-U became a fairly rare sight in early SM because Dugtrio limited it to one KO in the matchup versus the bulky teams it used to easily beat. Even Chansey began sometimes running Skill Swap to escape Dugtrio, which meant it lost out on running an otherwise more useful support move such as Heal Bell.

Furthermore, the use of a Pokémon with Arena Trap allows a number of teams to overcome otherwise tough matchups and become much harder to beat without a specific Pokémon. A common example could be seen in Dugtrio's role on stall; it eliminated threatening stallbreakers such as Kyurem-B, Tapu Lele, Heatran, and Tyranitar, and it could even eliminate Pokémon such as Mega Heracross and Tapu Bulu with obscure coverage moves like Aerial Ace and Sludge Wave, respectively. This allowed stall to focus more heavily on the Pokémon that Dugtrio didn't trap, and the end result was that these teams were significantly harder to break without the right stallbreaker. Another good example was Dugtrio's popularity on Mega Charizard Y balance teams, as it was able to trap and KO some of the best Mega Charizard Y stops in the game such as Toxapex, Chansey, and Heatran. In return, this allowed Mega Charizard Y to break almost any team when Dugtrio had removed its checks. Just like the aforementioned Tapu Lele, many of these Pokémon even elected to run Shed Shell most of the time solely for Arena Trap users, preventing them from running an otherwise more useful item.

Lastly, while most of the pro-ban arguments revolved around the most common user of Arena Trap, Dugtrio, many users also agreed that it was Arena Trap that was at the heart of the problem instead of Dugtrio. On the Dugtrio suspect test ladder back in February, a number of players successfully used Diglett and to a lesser extent Trapinch to fulfill nearly the same role as Dugtrio on teams, showing that the ability is clearly overpowered on any user.

Don't Ban

The main argument made by anti-ban voters was that Arena Trap had sufficient counterplay and that its users were unreliable at trapping the Pokémon they were supposed to. Dugtrio's horrible bulk meant that non-Focus Sash variants struggled to get onto the field without the use of slow VoltTurn users, sacrifices, or double switches. As a result, the non-Dugtrio user could play around Arena Trap with the use of conservative play and careful prediction. Furthermore, some players argued that the use of Shed Shell on a number of Pokémon vulnerable to Arena Trap was not unhealthy; rather, it was a natural metagame development. These users said that although Dugtrio decreased the usage of and even completely invalidates certain Pokémon, a number of other top OU threats have a similar effect on the metagame. For example, Pokémon such as Terrakion and Excadrill are significantly less common because they are easily kept in check defensively by Landorus-T, a Pokémon found on a high number of teams.

Another argument used by anti-ban voters was that Dugtrio's trapping capabilities were sometimes exaggerated in practice. While Dugtrio could trap most of the Pokémon that can threaten stall between its various coverage options and sets, it couldn't trap all of these Pokémon in one set. For example, it needed Substitute for Sucker Punch users such as Mega Mawile and Bisharp, Tectonic Rage for Toxapex and Chansey, Aerial Ace for Mega Heracross and the rare Buzzwole, and Choice Scarf for Tapu Koko. Thus, it always found itself unable to trap and eliminate at least one particular threat. Additionally, Dugtrio sometimes struggled to trap all of the Pokémon it needed to reliably; Mega Diancie could avoid being KOed by it if it had a Defense boost from Diamond Storm, Heatran could beat it if was behind a Substitute or Grassy Terrain was up, and Pokémon like Toxapex and Tapu Lele often ran Shed Shell to escape it. It's also notable that while Dugtrio was a crucial Pokémon in a number of matchups, it could also be completely useless in others, making certain games essentially a 5v6 and making Dugtrio a rather hit-or-miss Pokémon in this regard.

The Result

In the end, Arena Trap was banned from the OU tier with a 72.4% majority, and the results can be seen here. With Arena Trap gone, Pokémon that were previously held back by Dugtrio's prominence such as Heatran and Mega Diancie will likely become more consistent threats overall and pick up in usage. Additionally, playstyles that used to rely on Dugtrio to trap problematic Pokémon such as stall and Mega Charizard Y balance will likely have to adapt to the ban and change their overall structure. Arena Trap's ban has put an end to a rather controversial issue in the OU metagame, but will more potentially banworthy threats emerge out of its banning? We'll have to wait and see!

HTML by Lumari.

« Previous Article