Lower Tiers RBY UU Potential Ban(s) Discussion [Dragonite Suspect Test]

[Tank Skunk]

I dont think Moltres is that bad, a mon can fail to see use while being technically viable so long as its outclassed, its like when tiers ban dugtrio and then have to go back and hit arena trap instead to get diglett too. Not a bulletproof argument for Dnite > Complex ban imo.

 

[Plague von Karma]

I dont think Moltres is that bad, a mon can fail to see use while being technically viable so long as its outclassed, its like when tiers ban dugtrio and then have to go back and hit arena trap instead to get diglett too. Not a bulletproof argument for Dnite > Complex ban imo.

It isn't a bulletproof argument, nor has it even been my point. My argument regarding Moltres has been that excluding it from the argument on the basis of it being unviable, which has been repeated by multiple people, only implies that Dragonite is the problem. If you're wanting to argue that Moltres contributes to the issue, that's great, as that's what's needed to establish the need for a complex ban. However, I disagree on the notion that Moltres contributes to the issue, as anyone who takes a remote look at the metagame can see how brutally unkind it is to AgiliSpin strategies.

In the case of Moltres, comparing it to Dragonite, as I have already gone over extensively, is just not possible. Moltres's progress is completely blocked by Tentacruel + any resist, and every single other Water-type takes nearly no damage. In fact, it's less than 3% most of the time, or nearly 0 with Omastar. It's super easy to PP stall by comparison by virtue of less PP, much worse consistency, far less damage, and Moltres just being a worse Pokemon. Moltres doesn't even fulfill the Dugtrio checking abilities of Dragonite. On the notion of it being "outclassed"...Moltres isn't outclassed by Dragonite at all, considering their roles are usually different...Moltres literally just sucks in the context of the metagame. Literally everything is against it. Everything. This only shows that, once again, Dragonite is the problem.

Considering this, I don't see how the BW Arena Trap ban comparison applies, as this was a case of a single ability being broken regardless of what uses it, as I've gone over before. The ban was non-standard, but not complex, which is an important distinction to make as well. In our case, AgiliWrap's power changes significantly, and only one has brought the strategy to its ridiculous level of power: Dragonite. For this comparison to work, you would need way more AgiliWrap users coming to the forefront of the metagame, which outright hasn't happened.

If you want me, personally, to be in favour of a complex ban, one (or ideally both) of these would need to be proven;

• There is genuine cause to "preserve" Dragonite due to severe ramifications on the metagame should it be banned. This would be the "Dragonite is healthy" argument, and if would have to be in relation to keeping dangerous Pokemon (read: Dugtrio, but you need more) in check. I have yet to see any replays or other evidence of Non-AgiliWrap Dragonite being used effectively and to good enough effect for me to believe it's worth preserving. However, I've arranged with Volk to have him provide this, as he's drafting out a response to the thread anyway.
• The AgiliWrap problem extends beyond Dragonite. So far, the only cause to believe this is the basis that AgiliWrap is inherently unhealthy, which nobody is disputing. However, the strategy outside of Dragonite has been continually demonstrated to be unviable, making it seem more like a "noob trap" than anything, akin to FEAR.

I have yet to see strong arguments for either of these points.

 

[Volk]

Hello again. Time to write a response again, yay... Just so everyone knows, I don't get much enjoyment from writing these. I'm going to try to keep this short, but who knows. I was originally going to dissect Plague von Karma's post line-by-line, but then I realized that would be awful to do. So instead I'll focus on like two parts and just stick to my own thought.

For starters, I will lay out the basis of my argument in the most simple of terms. I usually try to mess with the words to make it sound more sophisticated, but I'm not going to bother with that anymore. Also, I'm tired of writing Agility + Partial-Trapping, so I'm going to refer to it as APT from now on. Without further ado, my argument:

APT is dumb. APT does not add anything of competitive value to the tier. APT can be used for worse players to circumvent better players. APT is so uninvolved, it literally fits the definition of "uncompetitive" almost perfectly (see below, "unhealthy" is also provided). APT wastes so much time and is flat out miserable to deal with, even when it isn't deciding games. Something as stupid as APT should not be in our competitive game.

"Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction to an extreme degree, such that 'more skillful play' is almost always rendered irrelevant."
"Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit 'skillful play' to a large extent."

Here's the thing: APT reminds me a lot of Sand Veil in ADV. I urge you to read that thread if you haven't already, because a lot of the arguments there are what I am using now. Sand Veil APT have two major things in common. First, they warp what the meta values to an undesirable extent. Sand Veil has counter play. Once Sand Veil gets going, you technically have consistent means to beat it, such as with --% Accuracy moves or by changing the weather. The unfortunate thing is that these sorts of counter play are otherwise unviable. The only real counter play to APT is Toxic, which is not at all a desirable move for any other situation. Moreover, unlike Sand Veil, once APT starts, you essentially can't do anything. Unless I'm mistaken, the only thing you can do besides hope for a miss is use Quick Attack (of which I will not explain the unviability). Both strategies are incredibly uninvolved (with APT technically being uninvolved for BOTH players) and demand you to deliberately handicap yourself to beat consistently. Not to mention that when the strategies get going, the game fundamentally changes. Strategies that are valued go at the window and are replaced by otherwise seemingly nonsensical strategies (Toxic Kangaskhan, Rain Dance Salamence, etc.). This is why this:

You could argue that Serene Grace + AncientPower Togekiss is uncompetitive because it encourages spamming a move to boost all your stats and sweep. Would you ban it? No, because it doesn't win. I would sooner compare Moltres and Dragonair to this than the power of Dragonite.

is in no way a valid comparison. Counter play to this "strategy" is abundant and otherwise viable. Stuff like Speed Control, Prankster, Priority, Bulky Steel-Type Pokemon and more all easily work around this strategy, even if Togekiss gets really lucky. Additionally, this counter play is popular anyway. Most players have at least two of those options on every team in modern generations.

The second thing that these two things have in common is that they are just, well... kind of stupid. Like, does anyone like facing Sand Veil or APT? Heck, does anyone like using Sand Veil or APT? If you read through the Sand Veil Thread, the majority of the arguments kind of just boil down to "Sand Veil is unhealthy" or "Sand Veil is unfun." Basically, nobody likes it and everyone thought its absence would be a net positive for the tier, which it was. And this is fine, at least in my eyes. If something is bad, get rid of it.

So let me summarize this whole thing with a thought experiment. Humor me for a second and play along here. Clear you mind. Just think of RBY UU. Think about why you like it so much. Now mentally remove APT from the games. Isn't that nice? Isn't that a good feeling to never have to sit there for 32 turns, slowly losing Pokemon and giving up information? Isn't it relaxing to finally live comfortably knowing your Kangaskhan can run four actual moves? Doesn't it just feel better? I know for me it does. The ban is a universal positive and closes up any silly loopholes we'd otherwise have to worry about. As I often end these posts: ban APT. It's something we just shouldn't have to deal with, regardless of its viability. Thank you.

I'll probably expand on this post later or at least clean it up, so stay tuned for that. Cheers everyone. Glad we are at least somewhat moving forward here.

 

[Plague von Karma]

Hello again. Time to write a response again, yay... Just so everyone knows, I don't get much enjoyment from writing these. I'm going to try to keep this short, but who knows. I was originally going to dissect Plague von Karma's post line-by-line, but then I realized that would be awful to do. So instead I'll focus on like two parts and just stick to my own thought.

It's not awful to do, I'm after a civil policy debate. I'm fully open to changing my position but have not been given arguments or evidence that incline me to do so. I want the same thing as you: the best for the tier. I want the tier to have strong integrity, accessibility, and most of all, an interesting metagame that inclines people to try out RBY. If you believe my arguments are flawed then, by all means, dissect them. That's what the thread is for.

APT is dumb. APT does not add anything of competitive value to the tier. APT can be used for worse players to circumvent better players. APT is so uninvolved, it literally fits the definition of "uncompetitive" almost perfectly (see below, "unhealthy" is also provided). APT wastes so much time and is flat out miserable to deal with, even when it isn't deciding games. Something as stupid as APT should not be in our competitive game.

"Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction to an extreme degree, such that 'more skillful play' is almost always rendered irrelevant."
"Unhealthy - elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit 'skillful play' to a large extent."

I can see the argument that it's uncompetitive and unhealthy, but at the same time, only one singular Pokemon has been making use of the strategy. Other Pokemon that make use of the strategy are straight-up incapable of actually winning the game without skillful play involved. Refer to the Pokemon I've been mentioning throughout the thread that were originally proposed to be ignored. I simply don't see why Dragonite being banned wouldn't solve the problem when worse players will eventually be faced with the reality that Dragonair and Moltres aren't viable in the tier. If they aren't viable, then the strategy is irrelevant. I also wouldn't say that skillful play is "almost always" rendered irrelevant when you're fully capable of PP stalling and outliving such an inconsistent strategy. Wrap sweeps are not the norm, because the odds required are extreme in nature. I am more inclined to argue that it would be your fault for losing to Dragonair and Moltres in the case Dragonite is banned, not the Pokemon's. If it's unviable, you shouldn't lose to it, no?

The only real counter play to APT is Toxic, which is not at all a desirable move for any other situation.

The rest of the paragraph I can agree with, but this is dishonest. Anti-Wrap cores in RBY UU are already abundant because of Tentacruel's existence; see the Omastar + Haunter core I've been mentioning throughout the thread, which is just one of many. The tier is naturally equipped to handle AgiliWrap on its own, and with Dragonite removed, this only improves, because the one AgiliWrapper that can fine-tune itself to muscle past the main cores stopping it from running rampant will be gone. Does this not mean that the cores we use just improve and make matters worse for the worse abusers that see no usage?

The rest of this is mostly anecdotes and argumentum ad personam that I'm more inclined to ignore, but I have issues with this.

The ban is a universal positive and closes up any silly loopholes we'd otherwise have to worry about.

The negative is the fact that it just doesn't fit the tiering policy. For a complex ban like this to make sense, other Pokemon would have to be established as problematic that aren't Dragonite. The most I have gotten is that AgiliWrap is inherently uncompetitive, and I would agree, but the sole abuser is still Dragonite, and there is no indication that any Pokemon would rise to replace it because there isn't one. It has been thoroughly established that every single other abuser sucks in the tier thanks to the presence of Tentacruel and the already-existing Anti-Wrap cores. It sounds more like the strategy would die on its own. I don't see why removing Dragonite would give rise to other abusers considering Moltres is invalidated by the currently existing metagame and Dragonair just sucks. Neither have remotely favourable mathematical odds to do anything, and they won't do anything because every top threat screws them over. As meloyy said: in high-level play, they see 0 usage.

--

My issue with the idea of an AgiliWrap ban is simply the logic: I'm after a sober assessment of the situation, not loaded language for a nuclear option. The common denominator is Dragonite, the only viable user of AgiliWrap is Dragonite, everything points back to it. The problem never extends outside of Dragonite itself, because the other users aren't viable. Does this not imply that a complex ban - which is never the norm, and should always be considered a last-resort - is unnecessary? I don't see how my argument that Dragonite makes the strategy broken isn't true when the other users aren't tearing the meta to shreds, despite everything else about them being ass.

I don't see why Dragonite should be "preserved" while cutting off Moltres (which, despite my belief it isn't, is defined as viable on the VR) among other things. I would argue that an AgiliWrap ban would be worse for preserving it, considering Dragonite itself is being changed beyond recognition strategy-wise. As Sevi 7 has stated, most, if not all Dragonites used, are using AgiliWrap. A complex ban on such would change it entirely...it's preventing a ban, but is it truly preserving Dragonite? If Dragonite is the sole proponent of AgiliWrap in the meta and is the only one using it in high-level play right now, then why is there such a dire need to preserve it? Can I please, please have this explained to me rather than it constantly be avoided and argued past? I have asked what kind of health is being discussed, how its matchups change, what it's capable of, and none of it has been answered anywhere and instead ignored. The most I have got back is "it checks Dugtrio". This is such a large part of the argument and there is nothing that has been said to back it.

 

[Volk]

Okay, let's address two things real quick:

First:

I don't see how my argument that Dragonite makes the strategy broken isn't true when the other users aren't tearing the meta to shreds, despite everything else about them being ass.

The number of users of a broken strategy has no bearing on whether the Pokemon or the strategy ought to be banned. I have argued laboriously as to why I think APT is inherently uncompetitive, even on garbage Pokemon. Sand Veil in ADV had a mere two relevant users and Sand Rush in BW had just one. Precedent aside, this just shouldn't even matter. There is no non-arbitrary reason to say "if there is one user, ban the Pokemon, if there is more than one user, ban the strategy." That argument makes no sense. If a strategy is broken, uncompetitive, unhealthy, or whatever, why would you not ban the strategy? Especially when the strategy involves literally preventing any form of player interaction at all for upwards of 30 turns. This argument is just invalid. As a side note, I addressed this argument in my first post in this thread already.

Second:

As Sevi 7 has stated, most, if not all Dragonites used, are using AgiliWrap. A complex ban on such would change it entirely...it's preventing a ban, but is it truly preserving Dragonite? If Dragonite is the sole proponent of AgiliWrap in the meta and is the only one using it in high-level play right now, then why is there such a dire need to preserve it? Can I please, please have this explained to me rather than it constantly be avoided and argued past? I have asked what kind of health is being discussed, how its matchups change, what it's capable of, and none of it has been answered anywhere and instead ignored. The most I have got back is "it checks Dugtrio". This is such a large part of the argument and there is nothing that has been said to back it.

Please stop writing statements along this line in response to me. They just do not apply and in no way address my argument. I'm going to make this as clear as possible: I do not have a vested interest in keeping Dragonite around. "Preserving Dragonite" is not part of my argument. I want APT gone. That's it. I don't want APT in any form anywhere in UU because it is always uncompetitive. I am not making this argument to preserve Dragonite, I am doing it because I hate APT.

Moreover, what would showing Dragonite's viability without APT actually accomplish? Let's suppose we prove Dragonite is unviable without APT. Okay, well, then I guess that means Dragonite isn't "worth preserving" or something? Not really sure. On the flipside, what if Dragonite is viable without APT (which it definitely is)? Well, then I guess that Dragonite was "worth preserving?" Well, not really, because you could still argue that Dragonite is what makes APT good and ban Dragonite (or APT) anyway. And either way, we don't really end up banning APT, which I will remind you, is my main goal. Basically, there is no incentive for me to prove Dragonite's viability without APT because regardless of the evidence, it in no way advances, or even relates to, my argument.

Regardless, because you asked, here are some replays of Dragonite being very good without APT.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-1193341678 (Hypno-less too)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-1160727033 (literally only need to use Body Slam to be useful)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-1154342777 (Hyper Beam is grossly unexpected)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-1215385371-5l2o3hg1s1lcn1nqxy2fh76zp6gi1ufpw (Wrap, but no Agility)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-1226740804-ral736346l2yiode1amxdzmuugknri7pw (Agility, but no Wrap)
I apologize for them all being against Shellnuts, but he and I play against each other more often than, well, I think any pair of two players that play this tier. The replays also vary in quality; I couldn't be bothered to sit and re-watch all of them. Finding them was burdensome enough. For the sake of transparency, I will state that I would prefer to keep Dragonite in the tier than to remove it, but that isn't really a great argument, and hence not the one I am making.

While I'm here, I guess I will answer Sevi's question. Playing games without Dragonite serves virtually no purpose. The meta will be fine without Dragonite as there is enough in this tier that can do what Dragonite does already, albeit not as well. The results of this test won't really show anything, other than that RBY UU can survive without Dragonite, which does not bring us any closer to deciding what to ban. Remember, Dragonite's health in this tier is still not a part of my argument. I would then most likely fall into category 2.

Cheers people.

 

[Plague von Karma]

The number of users of a broken strategy has no bearing on whether the Pokemon or the strategy ought to be banned. I have argued laboriously as to why I think APT is inherently uncompetitive, even on garbage Pokemon. Sand Veil in ADV had a mere two relevant users and Sand Rush in BW had just one. Precedent aside, this just shouldn't even matter. There is no non-arbitrary reason to say "if there is one user, ban the Pokemon, if there is more than one user, ban the strategy." That argument makes no sense. If a strategy is broken, uncompetitive, unhealthy, or whatever, why would you not ban the strategy? Especially when the strategy involves literally preventing any form of player interaction at all for upwards of 30 turns. This argument is just invalid. As a side note, I addressed this argument in my first post in this thread already.

This has historically been a thing in tiering policy; the aim of suspect tests is to identify the central issue in a tier and remove it. The central issue, as has been thoroughly established, is Dragonite. I believe where we clash here is our ideals regarding how we identify problems in tiers: I'm conservative and try to ban the specific user before going for a complex ban, you immediately go for the throat, so to speak. I can understand that, and it's a fine viewpoint to have. I agree to disagree.

Please stop writing statements along this line in response to me. They just do not apply and in no way address my argument. I'm going to make this as clear as possible: I do not have a vested interest in keeping Dragonite around. "Preserving Dragonite" is not part of my argument. I want APT gone. That's it. I don't want APT in any form anywhere in UU because it is always uncompetitive. I am not making this argument to preserve Dragonite, I am doing it because I hate APT.

I wasn't directly aiming this at you, I didn't organize the post well enough and that's on me. I was asking anyone reading to try and present this to me, as I'd continually asked people for it (meloyy, shellnuts, others) and never got a straight answer. I apologize for the misunderstanding there.

I should have used the -- divide thing I usually do...

Moreover, what would showing Dragonite's viability without APT actually accomplish? Let's suppose we prove Dragonite is unviable without APT. Okay, well, then I guess that means Dragonite isn't "worth preserving" or something? Not really sure. On the flipside, what if Dragonite is viable without APT (which it definitely is)? Well, then I guess that Dragonite was "worth preserving?" Well, not really, because you could still argue that Dragonite is what makes APT good and ban Dragonite (or APT) anyway. And either way, we don't really end up banning APT, which I will remind you, is my main goal. Basically, there is no incentive for me to prove Dragonite's viability without APT because regardless of the evidence, it in no way advances, or even relates to, my argument.

Showing Dragonite's viability without APT is critical to the argument as it demonstrates that there is much to gain from "preserving" it, thus increasing the urgency for a complex ban. I believe that with the replays you sent, you demonstrated that to me with the last two, I actually enjoyed watching them! To be clear though, Pokemon can suck without a strategy: BW took away Weather + Speed Boosting abilities and Sand Rush, allowing Excadrill to come back because of what it could offer for OU. We could easily apply this to Dragonite; in which, I wouldn't have issues with it. I believe that Dragonite's relevance outside of AgiliWrap is one of the core pieces of the argument.

So all in all, you've shown to me that Dragonite can function fine without AgiliWrap and serve as a genuinely good late-game threat. That's what I needed to know, as you've satisfied that part of the argument: Dragonite is a healthy UU presence and there is genuine cause to preserve it. And as Shellnuts has certainly been showing the past few days, Dragonair can potentially be problematic as well.

 

[Caetano93]

Although I'm not a RBY UU player (I just click in the tier 4fun some times during the year...) I wish to make some clarifications about the BW ban arguments used here to justify some points of this discussion.

First is the Arena Trap fiasco: BW council banned Dugtrio but then the sun players discovered that Diglet / Trapinch could do the same function (trap and KO Tyranitar and Heatran) with no trouble at all. Since the metagame was still uncompetitive, another suspect ban was necessary.
For this argument be used here, in RBY UU, we need to ask ourselfs; Can Dragonair and Dratini do the same thing as Dragonite?
If the answer is yes, even in a much smaller case, then recent generations can prove (with Diglet in BW / ORAS / SM / SS and Gothorita in ORAS) that players will keep the uncompetitive strategy.

The problem here is that this lead to a complex ban...

Well, again BW is used here to examplify it but the DragMag gen is the Smogon nightmare with so many complex bans, being this the reason the forum is so agressive against the complex ban ideas.
In BW we have Batom Pass restrictions (revised 3 times already), Drizzle + Swift Swim ban, Sand Stream + Sand Rush ban (revised to just Sand Rush ban), Drought + Chlorophyll ban.

However here, in this specific scenario, simply baning Dragonite doesn't solves the APT problem. I don't think there will be a lot of players crying about Dragonarir, Dratini, Rapidash and Ponyta losing their little viability. The only mon that receives a huge hit with this is Moltres but he is trash anyway and we can keep Dragonite in the tier. I can see yollo players trying to make Dragonair work here if we just ban Dragonite and this discussion will rise again...

 

[Lusch]

So, I'm not going to repeat what others said and also not gonna dissect every argument for one side or the other. Just wanna say that I mostly agree with Plague von Karma on this. I also thought that I'd like to see this tested and played some sort of suspect tournament with potetial rulesets tested. But to be honest, seeing how inactive the current roa spotlight UU tour is, I have no reason to believe potential suspect tours would gain even 10 active players. It's just not enough to really see how the UU environment would look like.
We keep bringing u precedant from here and there and use it to justify the various actions we like. Honestly, the only fitting comparison to RBY UU tiering should be GSC lower tiers. Things have been done similar with those, and after all they reached something that we want as well with RBY lower tiers. There was one situation where a ban-decision was made in GSC lower tiers (as far as I know off the top of m head). It was NU-Feraligatr. It got banned from the tier because the players felt it was too strong and thought (from theory) that the metagame would be better off without it. Hence they simply banned the problematic Pokemon in Feraligatr. No suspect tour or whatever. I believe it was just a vote that Earthworm took into his hands and where players could vote for ban or no ban if they were interested. Which votes were taken into account should be decided by how active and/or accomplished those people were in the tier. Not eveyone should have a vote, but "handpicking" the voters in such a situation is frankly not a crime. We know who is part of the playerbase. And if someone has never played the tier (and cannot provide any good reason why he should be included) then he does not get a vote, simple as that.
We don't need to discuss compex bans here. Everyone who keeps telling this is a problem that goes beyond Dragonite (read: Dragonair) simply is wrong. I don't know what to tell you... if you have problems beating Dragonair in a meta where your teams should be equipped to handle Dragonite, then you are either running a bad team (blame the team, not Dragonair) or you still have to improve in the tier (hope I did not rub anyone the wrong way here; if so, sorry). IF (big if) Dragonite goes and Dragonair actually becomes a problem (it just won't) then we can act on it.

Anyway... I propose just to hold a vote on wether or not to ban Dragonite and then call it done after that, just like GSC did with Feraligatr. Not even a need to wait and see how the meta develops in case of a ban. It will be fine, just trust me on this, I know what I am talking about in RBY in general, but also in lower tiers (you can check the history of PP lower tiers if you want, I have a ton of experience).

 

[Plague von Karma]

Anyway... I propose just to hold a vote on wether or not to ban Dragonite and then call it done after that, just like GSC did with Feraligatr. Not even a need to wait and see how the meta develops in case of a ban. It will be fine, just trust me on this, I know what I am talking about in RBY in general, but also in lower tiers (you can check the history of PP lower tiers if you want, I have a ton of experience).

Will echo that Lusch did a lot in PP tiering. I want to add something onto this, though, as I was thinking about this earlier today.

Is there really an issue with just banning the common denominator (Dragonite) and seeing how the metagame develops afterwards? Why the rush for a full APT ban, it's not like old gen tiers are going anywhere or losing their dedicated players. Considering the fact that the viability of other APTers is of such contention, why not just...see what happens? If there's only theorymon and a few fringe games to go off of, it seems more fitting to do this in 2 stages and see the actual context. If it crops up again and becomes a problem - which I still highly doubt - then the conversation can happen again, it's not like this thread will fade from everyone's minds, we'll know what to do. You could call it a waste of time, but it's better than picking the last resort option first.

So essentially...Option 3, with a different approach.

 

[juoean]

this comment is prob too late to matter but j to bring up the effect on lower tiers (whether or not those tiers exist / have been developed yet). moltres might be banned from 3u (or whatever the lower tier would be called on smogon), but it might not since moltres is pretty bad in 2u, so the issue j comes up again there. and dragonair in 5u or whatever.

i suppose u could j address and ban each of them separately, but the question here as volk brings up is whether it is inherently uncompetitive. if it is, it doesnt make sense to solely address dnite in uu and then start over again with the next time it comes up in a lower tier.

imo i actually dont mind that much mons like persian having to run toxic, which has a bad movepool anyway, and dug can opt for either sand attack or toxic. kang has good phys bulk and if its reasonably healthy it is decently favorable 1v1 vs dnite just with bslam. however toxic is 85% accurate and having a game swing so heavily on a toxic miss, in combination with the rng of how many turns it takes after agility before wrap misses (with no other counterplay), might be considered overly uncompetitive.
ofc there is always rng and esp in rby with crits 255s etc but it is arguably much more so for dnite (both in terms of how much rng there is and the significant effect of misses either way). tho, there are other rng situations that are pretty game changing such as crit tbolts against boosted amnesia slowbro and (un)timely full paralysis on chansey. however with agiliwrap the potentially game changing rng is at play every turn, and there is basically no player skill outside of on the potential setup turn, that is never the case with either slowbro or chansey in ou.

another thing to maybe consider with the 'complex ban' is that it might reveal information about dnite in weird ways, if agility sets without wrap were ever used. as soon as u reveal wrap, opponent knows u dont have agility and maybe in certain situations u might not want to give that information, where otherwise wrap would be the optimal move to click. this sort of information game is typically created by a complex ban like the agiliwrap proposal.

im inclined to agree that dnite would have minimal viability in uu without agiliwrap, most of its other sets rn still play off of the threat that it might be agiliwrap and without that i dont think it has enough over gyarados. however, i agree with volk that dnite's "viability in general" /outside of agiliwrap is basically irrelevant to this discussion.
the only way i can see justifying banning dnite rather than agiliwrap, is if people view that dnite is not broken solely bc of agiliwrap but in combination with its stats movepool etc. which doesnt necessarily mean that other sets are viable but it does mean that you are banning dnite on the basis that it is too strong, rather than being uncompetitive

 

[Sevi 7]

I just want to breathe a little more life into this. I really believe the Agility Wrap is unhealthy as a mechanic. Even if Nite is banned, DNair still manages to be viable, solely because of that combination. Dratini probably isn't much of a problem, due to it's low stats. However, that shouldn't matter, because if we're really arguing that the reason AgiliWrap isn't a problem is because a literal LC mon doesn't abuse it well, solely because of it's low stats, then I'm going to call that argument super weak.

I really hope that the council can help make some kind of decision on this. We're pretty much in the dark on what's going on and I really hope that we can get some acknowledgment that there is talk about what's going on. Or if there isn't a talk, can we at least be told that, and hopefully that can change in the near future. I feel like this is a pretty imporant thing for the health of the tier.

 

[Chicknemacnchez]

I just want to breathe a little more life into this. I really believe the Agility Wrap is unhealthy as a mechanic. Even if Nite is banned, DNair still manages to be viable, solely because of that combination. Dratini probably isn't much of a problem, due to it's low stats. However, that shouldn't matter, because if we're really arguing that the reason AgiliWrap isn't a problem is because a literal LC mon doesn't abuse it well, solely because of it's low stats, then I'm going to call that argument super weak.

I really hope that the council can help make some kind of decision on this. We're pretty much in the dark on what's going on and I really hope that we can get some acknowledgment that there is talk about what's going on. Or if there isn't a talk, can we at least be told that, and hopefully that can change in the near future. I feel like this is a pretty imporant thing for the health of the tier.

Totally agree, it steals games away and is not fun to play against. Wrap itself I don't see as a problem without agility. Pokemon like Dugtrio and Persian are so good because they outspeed Tentacruel. A lot of outplaying wrap is wasting it's pp and scouting a pivot by switching. That means a miss does not matter and can just start the cycle all over again if it doesn't miss again. I think the combination needs to be banned as it creates much less chaotic meta shifts than wrap as a whole. Dragonite could be a genuinely cool pokemon without it and be a psuedo Gyarados.

I don't support a ban on everything else though and I'll start with Wrap. Wrap is a component of the tier defining part of the meta with Tentacruel being the only user left. But banning wrap suddenly makes Tentacruel this average pokemon outclassed by Vaporoen in almost everyway. This makes Hypno and Kadabra MORE dominant since they aren't pressured by Tentacruel so much. This just turns the meta on its head and suddenly Dugtrio becomes worse etc.

Dragonite should not be banned. I touched on this with the first paragraph, but Dragonite has potential outside of Wrap. It is a mixed wallbreaker like Gyarados by being stronger and having better bulk, but Gyarados is faster. Gyarados is still viable while Dragonite becomes a whole new pokemon not reliant on AgiliWrap cheese.

Tentacruel shouldn't be banned for the same reasons of paragraph 2. Banning wrap is almost nuking Tentacruel's viability.

 

[pac]

Words

I think you miss that Tentacruel would still be very good in UU without Wrap. No longer S tier sure, but its speed tier and the strength of its attacks cannot be underestimated. It hits really fucking hard. Also, a No Wrap meta means that Pokemon like Dugtrio are much harder to use as a Tentacruel check (and they suffer in general).