OU Snorlax ought to be nixed. No, I'm serious.

I suppose I should rephrase myself in what you quoted- you may not have the largest collective experience but I think from the fact you play GSC nearly exclusively and much more frequently than any of us here your experience and knowledge of the current GSC meta is probably more relevant. At least, thats the impression I get.
 

M Dragon

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I would say that Snorlax should not be banned from GSC OU. It is obv the best pokemon in GSC, and it defines the metagame, but this is not a bad thing.Snorlax has a lot of sets, and theres not any pokemon that can beat every lax set, but every set has its hard counters, except maybe LK versions. If theres anything about Lax that could make it "maybe" broke, it is LK (especially BD + LK versions).
I think Lax is fine in GSC OU even with LK though.


About a metagame without Snorlax. I have won a non Lax GSC tourney, and what I saw was that some teams (especially stall teams) tried to replace Snorlax with Blissey, so those teams were more solid, but they didnt have any solid offense, so those really really long stall vs stall GSC games were much more common (Blissey is much better at tanking hits, but its worthless offensively, and without Lax, stalls lost their main offense).
Another kind of team I used in some games was abusing Growth users + BP, since Bliss cannot pressure them (its just a set up fodder, unlike lax), and Raikou cannot take all those growth users alone.
Explosion teams were still very good, but they missed Snorlax a lot, same with teams based in things like Marowak (BDlax + SDwak based teams).
Mixed sweepers like Dnite or Nidoking were much better in a metagame with no Snorlax though, and some sweepers like BD charizard + paralysis support were also better though.

So basically: most stalls tried to replace Lax with Bliss, but Bliss is worthless offensively so stall vs stall games were really long, and Bliss is also a set up fodder vs a lot of things. Things like explosion teams (Lax was the best boom user) and teams based on threats like Marowak (BDLax + BDWak to break skarm) were generally worse, while mixed sweepers and some sweepers like BD zard were better in a non lax metagame.


After playing that metagame, I really prefer the lax metagame, although I might support a possible LK + Lax ban, which is what makes lax maybe "too" good, although as I said, I think its fine even with LK
 

Jorgen

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That sample size is kind of small, M Dragon. Your matches were against James G and Luck>Skill, the former of which plays with a notoriously old-school stall mentality, and the latter of which is merely okay at GSC. Granted, it's more experience than most have, so it's valuable nonetheless, but I don't know if your first-hand experience of no-Lax GSC, if it's based on that tournament, is sufficient to characterize what it would be like in the long run with quality players taking it seriously and not as a gimmick.

Fwiw, your analysis of what is likely to happen in no-lax GSC seems to be spot-on. If I were to add onto that, Raikou would probably become the new #1-used mon, as it walls both itself and Zapdos whereas Zapdos dishes out the Thunders but doesn't tank them. It's easier to use a Ground to force out Raikou than it is to try to directly threaten Snorlax, though, so I'd say that ultimately should speed up games, even if the lack of Lax means that less is dissuading Electrics from using Hidden Power (Electrics still can't hit all of Egg, Steelix, and Nidoking with one Hidden Power!).
 
I also played a few matches in that tournament and I got the feeling that the meta without Snorlax was significantly more stally than the standard. I settled to a double electric egg cloyster physicalattacker(eg Marowak/Nidoking) filler(eg Steelix/Gengar) team and, despite I remember running into similar mid-speed paced teams for the most part, all games but one iirc where triple-digit turn battles. It was ALOT more difficult to break defenses without Snorlax. Most Pokemon felt to be equally offensively-defensively balanced in some way and were as tough to take down as pure stall pokemon, and most (nearly all) kills happened to random explosions or luck. It kind of felt that everything you could attempt to speed up the game was high risk low reward too. The metagame somehow felt like it had completely lost its identity with the Snorlax loss and I personally didn't like the result as a whole. Snorlax makes offense less reliable, but also makes stalls a lot less solid.

I maybe shouldn't have taken conclusions from 4-5 random battles I hardly remember about, but still, what I do remember is that I didn't like what I played in that tournament as much as I like the standard GSC meta, though I'm partial to Snorlax-less tournaments once in a while because it leads to a more creative GSC in a sense and it was fun to teambuild with one more open slot. The meta felt more dynamic at first yet in the end it played slower, it's hard to explain; as I said, the lack of Snorlax kinda made the meta look blur and lost to me, but maybe that's because I'm too used to playing standard GSC and Snorlax shapes the meta so much that its removal completely alters the game.

For anyone interested this links to one log of the final of that tournament I talked about between M Dragon and James G. I haven't read the log myslef to tell you if it was a well played or a boring game though.
 
I'm still in the belief that removing snorlax removes diversity. The check-all feature of lax on a team is what makes the viability of one-dimensional pokemon (i.e. charizard) in gsc possible. I simply can't fathom a [serious] laxless metagame team that's not either explosion or stall, albeit that's not very different from gsc as is. It's simply a case that snorlax is a key contributor to all fronts of gsc teams (explosion, stall, agi passing, even growth passing) and makes each of those things viable. Removing him would remove a lot of the stability and consistency of almost all "different" team genres, reducing is to the only two that could possibly sustain in such an environment: stall (which are consistent without snorlax, seeing that snorlax is usually the biggest threat anyway) and explosion (which require no stability). Maybe the odd agi passing.

At least if diversity is the argument here, I don't think it's valid.

And as far as it being overpowered, maybe. But we've played with it for well over a decade now and done just fine, so I'm with g80 on this one.

Also, I think the "if we ban lax, then we'll have to ban raikou/zapdos" sentiment is a bit of an exaggeration.
 
@jorgen

But, I mean, nobody outright stopped playing just because we lifted the Hidden Power Legends ban.
I did! hp zapdos and raikou if anything make gsc way more boring than snorlax ever has, and in fact increase the necessity of snorlax as if you needed a better excuse to use it. not to say hp legends should be banned again, just the game became much less interesting to play when ground types became significantly less reliable immediate and rather aggressive switchins to those two fatsos and etc., if you ask me.
 

Pocket

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jorgen said:
I dunno if Snorlax really does that much good for the metagame, but I know that it does centralize it a ton, to the point where it's super-hard to keep justifying its existence. Just as Snorlax is the most reliable offensive answer to Electrics and stuff, reliable checks to it are set-dependent and mostly aim to just stall it (I'd say Machamp, Rhydon, and Misdreavus are your best bets at counterplay that don't require blowing something up, but even then they can be worn down on the switch by DE/EQ).
This seems like your main argument for banning lax, but I do believe that it is possible to play aggressively against an opposing Snorlax. If you have Starmie and Spike on the field, you can double-switch to Rhydon, Marowak, Heracross, Machamp, Tyranitar, Exeggutor / Nidoking (if you haven't slept anything yet), since a Snorlax switch-in is telegraphed. Snorlax will now be forced out while taking Spikes damage, and you now hold the momentum.

Your argument is strong, though. Wearing down Snorlax is particularly hard, especially when paired with a Heal Bell user. However the deadliest Lax sets with Belly Drum are usually the riskiest, since they must end up below 50% to receive any sort of attacking boost. LK + BD Lax shares this shortcoming. There's the Curse+Drum set, which avoids this problem, but at an expense of coverage (thus requiring team support to eliminate Ghosts and certain phazers like Steelix, Tyranitar, Rhydon, and Skarmory).

As far as possibly testing GSC on Showdown!, we would have to implement one of those 2-step suspect process, where suspect testers play in both Snorlax and non-Snorlax meta for a period of time (ie ~2 weeks for each meta). This way we prevent having qualified players who have never played Snorlax meta voting on this issue.
 
Okay, suppose for a second that Snorlax is deemed to be "overcentralising" the meta. The answer isn't necessarily "ban Snorlax". The question that should really be asked is "which of the following is the LEAST overcentralised":

1) Current GSC OU meta, with 5 ubers.

2) GSC OU meta with Snorlax as the 6th uber.

3) GSC OU meta with less than 5 ubers. (Presumably unbanning Ho-Oh or Celebi.)

4) Some other GSC OU meta.


EDIT: I'd also like to stress the difference between "centralising" and "overcentralising". While almost every team in current GSC OU has Snorlax + 2 Snorlax answers, there's a lot more flexibility in those answers than, say, in RBY Ubers (in which almost every team carries Light Screen Chansey and the exact TobyBro set, just to stop Mewtwo from running rampant).
 

Royal Flush

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Meh I will just go and say that the kind of "for the sake of purism/nostalgia/don't change a dead meta" argument is biased as hell. We didn't have proper competitive knowledge back there, I mean, godammit, people considered Uber basically the guardians and solely because of higher BST (spoiler Ho-oh sucks)... this is not that awful banhappy mindset the BW community has, no pokemon ever had the sheer dominant power of Snorlax, regardless of gen or tier (let's not count RBY Mewtwo), it's not a joke or anything to debate his tier, even after 10 years.


That said, I don't exactly agree with banning Lax, but I'd at least consider banning Lovely Kiss on him. Moreover, testing a non-lax meta wouldn't hurt at all.
 

Mr.E

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Snorlax isn't the most dominant power, it's just the most dominant OU power that didn't get banned. Even that's arguable since I would just as well say DPP Tyranitar is even more ridiculous... or half the BW2 OU metagame. fuk dragon

i'd love to keep the awful gen 4/5 culture of banning everything strong out of the old gens.
This pretty much sums up my attitude on the whole thing. also fuck RBY chansey too and Snorlax was never uber in standard OU don't listen to Sapienta

Snorlax really toes the line. Calling it versatile is a stretch but there's little reason for someone to ever not use it, as it can play various roles in a team while having strong neutral matchups and good neutral offense. If Vaporeon had 30% PAR on its STAB attack, a special version of Belly Drum and access to Lovely Kiss, that's basically what Snorlax is.

Banworthy? Unlike say RBY Mewtwo, Snorlax can't switch into everything. Short of maybe ST Lax into Nidoking, it rarely wants to switch into physical attackers at all. If anything, the problem here is that the metagame is largely special-dominated in which case Snorlax solves as many problems as it causes. Snorlax can't 1v1 everything, as not only does it needs 5-6 moves to accomplish that hypothetical but it has trouble with Missy and (Leech Seed) Eggy regardless. Snorlax is easier to defend against than a number of its contemporaries, it's just never countered by the same thing everytime like Starmie beats Machamp or Raikou beats Zapdos. (Well... but Missy is a lot worse in general than Starmie/Raikou.) And Snorlax dittos usually end before a Struggle war.
 
I think RBY chansey is a poor comparison. As Magic said, the opponent's chansey can be used as an offensive pivot for your physical pokemon, who in general are harder to switch into that special pokemon in RBY.

Snorlax is much more comparable to RBY Mewtwo. With the right set it can beat any pokemon, meaning that its 'counters' are set dependent. I'm not too sure how much Mewtwo wants to switch into physical attacks, because paralysis can be fatal against something like a tauros or a snorlax.

I think something that hasn't been addressed here is how much of a responsibility do the players have to to make the meta 'better' or more 'fun'. The game is definitely still competitive with lax legal, so even if it more balanced or fun with him gone I'm not really sure that's the route we should be going down. That gets quite arbitrary, and honestly you could ban a lot of things to make the game more fun and balanced.

I think that the simplest and least arbitrary ban-philosophy is to try and keep as many default things legal as possible, and only ban something if it makes the game completely uncompetitive.
 

gumnas

formerly .Maguss.
Why would we ban Snorlax if most of us still want it on the metagame. Thats pretty much end the debate.
 
Why would we ban Snorlax if most of us still want it on the metagame. Thats pretty much end the debate.
Because any viewpoint needs more justification than "because I want it to be so", - its not a debate then, is it? Debates are decided by who has the most fully rationalised viewpoint (which is tested by letting a debate actually commence), not who has the largest following to begin with.

Also, no-ones banning anything. The discussion is whether Lax fulfills the criteria for banning or not.
 

gumnas

formerly .Maguss.
Because any viewpoint needs more justification than "because I want it to be so", - its not a debate then, is it? Debates are decided by who has the most fully rationalised viewpoint (which is tested by letting a debate actually commence), not who has the largest following to begin with.

Also, no-ones banning anything. The discussion is whether Lax fulfills the criteria for banning or not.
I know what you mean, but we all know the justifications to ban it or not. We know how good Snorlax is and how it affects the meta, but we STILL want it on the meta. The debate is useless. We already did it on the past. Lots of times.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
i think the point magus is trying to make is that if we're debating over whether or not to suspect this, yet the majority opinion lies with the side against banning snorlax, then the outcome is already virtually decided, and there is no need for a debate in the first place.

i agree with meteor64, though. majority does not necessarily imply rational or well-reasoned arguments.

all these posts seem to be making one thing very clear to me: snorlax is viewed as the best pokemon in gsc ou, even considered broken by most people's definitions. and yet, despite how op it looks on paper, most people are opposed to banning it simply because it's such an integral part of the metagame - and it's really not as hard to handle in an actual battle as it's made out to be.
 
The difference this time is that the argument isn't coming from some random kid who knows nothing, so its at least worth considering that there may perhaps be a level of understanding to the issue that was previously missed. I understand it seems tedious and such, but its really worth getting done and clarifying in my opinion.
 

M Dragon

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The difference this time is that the argument isn't coming from some random kid who knows nothing, so its at least worth considering that there may perhaps be a level of understanding to the issue that was previously missed. I understand it seems tedious and such, but its really worth getting done and clarifying in my opinion.
Maybe, but most good GSC players think that GSC is better with Snorlax (even with LK), I dont really see a debate here, especially when everybody that played in that non lax gsc tourney agreed that GSC was much worse w/out lax.

Yes, lax dominates gsc, but gsc is much worse w/out it
 

Jorgen

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Yeah a legitimate suspect test doesn't seem viable at the moment unfortunately. Can't say I expected it to be received too well, but I really had to get my rant out there because I really think Snorlax is just coasting along in GSC OU because of tradition. I realized that any time I tried to justify its legality in OU based on competitive merits ("lax makes GSC better even if it is broken"), it felt more like rationalizing and less like convincing reasoning.
 

Jorgen

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I guess it's the fact that Snorlax is so blatantly strong and centralizing in GSC OU, which is an intrinsically negative quality in Pokemon that has to be justified. It can be justified, but centralization on its own isn't meritorious, it's the flagship criterion for justifiable ban. And ultimately, the reasons given for justifying Lax as an OU mon amount to theorymonning what would happen without Lax. This is especially weak by comparison because it's all hypothetical (outside of a couple of tiny no-lax tournaments that I think are poor measures of what a no-lax GSC metagame would look like in the long run).

Plus, in my case (ymmv), whenever I tried to use this theorymon-based reasoning, I just personally felt like I was using a foregone conclusion ("Snorlax has always been OU, so it obviously ought to be that way") and trying to come up with reasons for it, rather than having a conclusion arise from the reasoning.
 

ElectivireRocks

Banned deucer.
Snorlax is pretty much the "Stealth Rock of GSC".
It's broken, everyone builds their team with that issue in mind, yet its presence is (more or less) accepted by the community because they're used to it.
Considering Gen 2 OU should be implemented on PS soon, I think this is definitely something to be addressed.
 
With the right set it can beat any pokemon, meaning that its 'counters' are set dependent.
All Snorlax are countered by RestTalk Machamp with two significantly dicey exceptions:

1) Perfectly timed Counter of non-critical Cross Chop.
2) LK Drumlax hitting LK on the switch and not getting Cross Chopped by Sleep Talk.
 
All Snorlax are countered by RestTalk Machamp with two significantly dicey exceptions:

1) Perfectly timed Counter of non-critical Cross Chop.
2) LK Drumlax hitting LK on the switch and not getting Cross Chopped by Sleep Talk.
No. It's true that STMachamp gives Snorlax a hard time, but it certainly isn't the most reliable Pokemon. That's how you play it:

First force Machamp to use Rest or LK it, then generally use Double-Edge the next time it switches in, and switch back to something that scares him out. Repeat and as long as it doesn't pick Rest in either of the two turns, Machamp won't be able to switch into Snorlax's D-E a third time. If it picks Rest, just start over. Another option could be to use Curse as it switches in the second time and KO it with a +1 D-E; in that case, if Machamp picks Curse, switch out and repeat. As long as CC doesn't crit, you won't die. LK makes things even more imprevisible for Machamp. A ~27/73 chance of succeeding against Drumlax when you are asleep is nothing to write home about either.


P.S. I am not supporting the Snorlax ban with this post. Just in case someone takes wrong conclusions. I'm aware that Snorlax is overpowered, overcentalizing and over-everything, but a potential metagame split on PS! or wherever will most likely cause only harm to an already nearly unplayed GSC metagame.
 

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