Let me preface this by saying that I don't think most if any abilities, items or anything normally in game should be considered for banning so quickly.
#0. Team Preview
#1. Dugtrio is far from the most oppressive thing in the SS OU Metagame.
(I don't know absolutely everything about the metagame as no one person could, but fast monsters with high attacking stats, super walls of HP and ability boosted bulk, Tricky mons with great typing, great movepools, seem to be faring well.)
#2. Banning this ability essentially bans a pokemon and an entire VALID way to play the game.
#3. There is so much counter-play it is not even funny.
(If you reply with how trying to check Arena Trap feels inherently like a problem, you're part of the problem)
#4. Team Preview
Definite no when it comes to banning this.
So... Why is it that in every past gen with Team Preview, Arena Trap is banned, but in older gens it's not? Hmm. I think there's an issue with your logic here. I'm not going to even bother to respond to your other points because you can argue the exact same points for not banning Zacian, and you don't provide any evidence for them.
There are much other ways to counter arena trap. I don't think using Shed Shell as an example, is being very considerate of the real issue of Arena Trap. Shell shell is literally a counter to an entire problem which is you can't switch out. That's it. The ability and item are super straight forward, but you don't always have to switch.
Sure, you can just let the mon Duggy/Trapinch/Diglet traps die. It's not like anyone using Arena Trap will be stupid enough to leave Duggy in unless it beats the mon in front of it. Or you can run mono-Ghost. That works I guess. But oh wait, once again you lose every game where you don't face a trapper. This is why it is uncompetitive, as to obtain the optimal win-loss rate, you have to auto-lose to trappers, because foreplay to trappers is so specific, it is useless in every other matchup.
There's plenty I don't know so if I'm saying something objectively wrong please just correct me and don't be a jerk about it, I am saying all of this in earnest.The thing is dugtrio doesn't beat every pokemon he can trap. Sure you can't really stop him once you enter a match, if you make one bad read he'll kill the pokemon he can safely trap. That doesn't even happen every time though, even if you have trappable mons on your team. And that doesn't make something inherently uncompetitive. You can easily play around dugtrio when you build your team.
Not every element of every match has to be open for counter-play mid-match, some of it is done in team builder. Some matches are unwinnable if you build your team a certain way. You have to find know the metagame well enough to choose what you will sacrifice synergy for to play around, and what you will accept as a probable loss.
If there was no team that is good against arena trap my opinion would be different but if you want to build around arena trap you easily can, and to varying degrees. You just have to decide how much you will sacrifice to play around it. In a ladder game like showdown, you're never going to win 100% of games, you have to find what gives you the best match-up spread.
And the best match-up spread is to not run counterplay to it, since Dugtrio only has about a 10% usage rate and the counterplay is useless in every other matchup. See the issue? Again, yes you can run mono-Ghost if you want, but hey, that's why Toxitricity's in UU despite being good at taking apart common OU cores.
I mean if you are that worried about arena trap where you never want to be in a situation where you can't switch, there are tools to use. Don't use mons dugtrio can beat+don't use mons dugtrio can trap+shed shell. It's not like there's nothing you can do, you are building your team and you know dugtrio exists.
Yes, Shed Shell exists. We know. Go watch some SPL replays and you'll see loads of them. But oh no, the Shed Shell on your Toxapex took a Knock Off from a random mon (and 50% of the mons in the game know that move). Now what? Do you bench the Pex for the rest of the game??? "Run Shed Shell" is what we've been doing for the last who knows how long. And we're fed up of it. We're fed up of lead Dugtrio on Hyper Offense instantly securing the prefect matchup for the Cloyster that's about to setup. We're fed up of Air Balloon Dugtrio, Giga Drain Trapinch, and all other kinds of random garbage that makes you say "whoops, I had no idea that could be trapped, guess I instantly lose lol". Because with trapping, there is ALWAYS a way if the trapper is determined enough.
Please don't use words like "inherently" or "fundamental", because as objective everyone tries to be with the way they want to play Pokemon, it becomes exclusively subjective. Dugtrio is the only FE pokemon with this ability and the creators of Pokemon did balance the monster enough to let there be counterplay. It's a ground type for Christ's sake. I just wish people would tackle the problem for what it really is... Dugtrio. Trapinch having Arena Trap and this post doesn't exist but when you give that ability to a speed demon people feel as though the game isn't treating them fairly at this point. Play around with Dugtrio in actual games and you will find out that you need to support him, give him a specific niche (he can't kill everything obviously). And you will find out that you still have to predict correctly. Maybe you will come around on this one and see that Dugtrio isn't the problem but Overcentralizing pokemon that take no risk and all reward (Lando-T) are the real toxic parts of the metagame. Not a niche groups of ground boys.
Gee, who's this Lando-T you're talking about? He doesn't exist lol. And Dugtrio is hardly niche, it is the 10th most used mon in SPL, used on 1/5 teams lol. It is a real issue. And again, the argument you're making is equally applicable to not banning Zacian. (Btw, most experienced players agree that Lando-T is part of the solution to a healthy metagame lol. RN Clefable is doing that, but it's doing it in a healthy way because it's not putting undue constraint on teambuilding any more than other top mons, and it is holding the metagame's defensive cores together by a thread. There is no magic fairy land where every mon is equally viable lol, that's the whole point of having tiers. There will always be a "best mon". And no, before you try and argue that, something does not have to be the "best mon" to be banworthy.)
He isn't describing centralization though. He is describing counter-play and clearly outlines it as such in the post.
Also, Dugtrio doesn't just come out of the fking blue he is either in on the first turn, and you can pick a pokemon that doesn't get rekt by dugtrio. And throughout the game just try to bait it out and then you're up 6-5 in pokemon.
Except the Dugtrio user... Can switch out? Lol? Also having to choose a lead that doesn't get Duggy trapped makes you predictable.
ou should really lay out the situation where duggy is so oppressive, after Tox kills a mon and you get countered? Doesn't that happen with every pokemon in the game when they get countered?
Again, you can switch out. And save your countered mon for later. With Duggy you can't. Hence this suspect. QED.