OU Are you ok with the fact that Snorlax is legal in GSC?

Are you fine with Snorlax being legal in current GSC?

  • Yes

    Votes: 41 67.2%
  • No

    Votes: 14 23.0%
  • Don't care, i'll play with either version of the game

    Votes: 6 9.8%

  • Total voters
    61

PK Gaming

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To my knowledge, Snorlax being legal in OU was established early on the game sort of revolved around it, almost as quickly as possible. To this day, GSC is practically centered around Snorlax.

So my question:
Are you (GSC players) ok with the idea of the GSC metagame revolving around Snorlax? Am I right in saying that Snorlax is the best Pokemon in GSC, rivaling even Ubers, because it's power in GSC is unprecedented. If GSC were to be released as a standalone game in this generation, i'm pretty sure i'd be banned by todays standards. It's mind boggling... was the competitive mindset really that different back then?

Just to be clear this isn't a loaded question. I'm not saying you should/should have banned Snorlax. Removing Snorlax at this point in time would be like removing a cancerous tumour that would instantly kill the patient, it's just not feasible. I'm not judging the community for not banning early on either, there must have been a good reason. I really just want to know what your thoughts are on Snorlax and its effects on GSC as a whole, so please don't bring up other Pokemon (EX: "nuh uh, Snorlax was good but pkmn like Raikou weren't behind".)
 

Umby

I'm gonna bury you in the ground~
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I don't think there's anything wrong if a metagame revolves around something specific, so long as there are numerous, viable ways of addressing the issue. That's generally the case with Snorlax, though it's been given a lot of time to be performed with and around, something that doesn't seem to happen with today's current gens/players. I'm still beside myself that Excadrill and Deoxys-S were banned within only three months of each other. =/
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
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To add onto your list Umby, I'm pretty surprised that Thundurus got banned in BW too.

Anyway this thread was never meant to be a "hoho you new gen players and your ban-happy triggers" fest, so I'll stop right now (especially since historically there have been much stupider bans in older gens - hp legend ban, anyone?)

So to get to the point, I'm totally okay with it, and in fact GSC with Snorlax is probably a better metagame than without it. Snorlax is what makes offense possible in GSC with both its incredible offensive and defensive potential. Curselax is the glue that makes offensive teams viable by keeping them from dying to random shit like Typhlosions, whereas Drumlax is the main offensive pressure that allows stalls to actually break through defenses instead of just sitting around trying to run the foe out of PP. Sans Snorlax, the GSC stallfest misconception becomes closer to reality. Defenses don't have to worry about a huge threat anymore and can tack on extra redundancy for mixed sweepers and the like, whereas offenses just aren't consistent enough because they don't have the main thing that lets them slow the game down when they need to - plus they have to deal with tougher, more redundant defenses to the threats that are left.

The thing that might make Snorlax unhealthy for the metagame is its ability to pull off surprise sets in addition to the dominating Curse and Drum sets. LK and SD sets can win games pretty easily on surprise alone, which can be pretty dumb, especially since you have pretty much no choice but to play against Lax as though it's running a standard set lest you get your shit rocked.
 
Seconding everything Jorgen said. Just because a Pokemon is dominant over the rest, doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad for the meta. And that's the case of GSC Snorlax.

Although lkdrumlax can be stupidly devastating sometimes...
 
Here you go: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76584

In short: snorlax helps GSC be less boring battle-wise, while killing off "some" creativity on the team building aspect. However, Snorlax is so stupidly flexible it's got the useable movesets of like 10 pokemon anyway. There's numerous ways to deal with any snorlax with any set at any given time. It was far and away the best pokemon, while not being "overpowered" per say. Everything that you need to inherently beat/stop snorlax is already available to you in the OU pool.

EDIT: Having said that, I think I'll play a meta with or without lax. Mostly a curiosity thing.
 
was the competitive mindset really that different back then?
Yes, it was. When I started reading this forum, the mindset was completely different to now. I'm pretty certain Snorlax would be banned by today's Smogon users, and I'm also pretty certain that, say, Swift Swim + Drizzle wouldn't have been banned by 2005's Smogon community. They would've either just left it and let it dominate, or straight-up banned Politoed.
 
Snorlax is an example of how a centralised metagame isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think the reason its managed to get away with not being banned is the fact that the GSC metagame is so comparatively small to later gens (and you could also apply this to Adv TTar I guess, although obviously its a much less extreme example). The consequences of a small metagame are that you expend less resources in teambuilding trying to counter other top threats, that you have more room available to have an answer to lax's many sets. Essentially, theres room for lax in the meta to be so ridiculously dominant because there isnt much else in there- if lax had that level of supremity in later gens it would be simply absurd- how do you prepare for 60ish viable pokes plus one poke that is simply much better than everything else? You only have 6 pokemon to do it with. Undoubtedly it would get banned, not because of the nature of the players, but the nature of the metagame its in.
 

Jorgen

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If something were that dominant, though, does it not cut down on the viability of everything else? I'd say a big part of what limits the viable pool of pokes in GSC is Snorlax itself - not as much can succeed with him non-passively special walling away, and of course his 1 million sets give you no excuse to not find some reason to use him over something else.

I don't think the smaller pool of pokes in GSC is what makes Lax's centralizing influence acceptable, because he ultimately is what limits that pool of viable pokes in the first place. What truly makes it acceptable is of course tradition, but I think it's also preferable to keep Lax regardless of tradition because of GSC's quirks - most notably its tendency towards super-stall without it.

Centralization does not necessarily lead to a bad metagame, but in itself it is a bad thing. It's kind of like how the US Supreme Court can allow for corporate mergers that make for conglomerates that push the HHI (or some other index) above threshold if an appreciable benefit to the industry results. Centralization is ideally avoided, but if the economy booms and technology is vastly improved as a result of the pooled resources, well, that could justify it.
 
snorlax is good for gsc, but it is sort of a headscratcher that some things that are banned in gsc do not seem nearly as good or as influential as snorlax.

also i think electrics are worse for gsc than snorlax. not that they should be banned or fucked with in any way, just they definitely contribute to a centralization that i would more readily refer to as bad or boring compared to what snorlax does to the game.
 

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