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

I don't understand this argument that we shouldn't ban something, because it would change the meta significantly (eg. pokemon X is no longer viable, or pokemon Y is now viable).

Changing the meta shouldn't be considered at all, because if the pokemon in question is banworthy, then we've technically been playing a 'faulty' meta all this time anyway.
The unspoken words are "change the meta detrimentally". Which is in question.
 
mr e.

When I said snorlax is more effective than uber's it's more of a personal opinion and I wasn't trying to make a big point about it. His normal type, sweet movepool, and near uber stats have always made me think of snorlax as equal to mewtwo/mew, maybe better than lugia and ho-oh. Haha celery...really it's an uber?

Anyway, it's hard to tell what would change in the tiers if snorlax was banned. I was just saying it's possible that banning snorlax may make someone, such as alakazam, as you said, on every team the way snorlax is now. It's just speculation.

magic

Yes it sounds absurd that I think snorlax is uber and shouldn't be banned. It's even more absurd to want to ban him given that gsc's meta has been untouched for over a decade. There must be at least 4 more generations now to play in. Snorlax is gsc. If someone from 2004 came back today to enjoy nostalgia and have a gsc battle, do you think hearing "no snorlax" will resonate a positive note in them?

dre

Agree, but only to recent generations. Changing an old long-lasting meta, as faulty as it may be, is going to anger a lot of people who grew up playing that meta.

jorgen

Good point. The question is, will such a change really bring more newer gen players back to gsc than current gsc players leaving in disgust? It's difficult to tell. I'd think no, but I'd rather hear your reasons before I explain mine.

Would a 'no-snorlax' clause be a good compromise for both sides in this argument? If such a clause does create a more fun metagame, then people who support snorlax might move over on their own. Banning snorlax from here would be attainable.
 

Jorgen

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I think the entrance barrier to GSC would be lowered since Snorlax requires you to either be expert-level in dealing with it or to simply be bad at GSC. So in that sense I feel like it makes the game more accessible.

Whether or not it affects the player base significantly is not really my main concern though. If there's sufficiently-publicized tournaments for it, there will be players. It's more or less for game balance, which Snorlax royally screws with.
 
mr e.

When I said snorlax is more effective than uber's it's more of a personal opinion and I wasn't trying to make a big point about it. His normal type, sweet movepool, and near uber stats have always made me think of snorlax as equal to mewtwo/mew, maybe better than lugia and ho-oh. Haha celery...really it's an uber?

Anyway, it's hard to tell what would change in the tiers if snorlax was banned. I was just saying it's possible that banning snorlax may make someone, such as alakazam, as you said, on every team the way snorlax is now. It's just speculation.

magic

Yes it sounds absurd that I think snorlax is uber and shouldn't be banned. It's even more absurd to want to ban him given that gsc's meta has been untouched for over a decade. There must be at least 4 more generations now to play in. Snorlax is gsc. If someone from 2004 came back today to enjoy nostalgia and have a gsc battle, do you think hearing "no snorlax" will resonate a positive note in them?

dre

Agree, but only to recent generations. Changing an old long-lasting meta, as faulty as it may be, is going to anger a lot of people who grew up playing that meta.

jorgen

Good point. The question is, will such a change really bring more newer gen players back to gsc than current gsc players leaving in disgust? It's difficult to tell. I'd think no, but I'd rather hear your reasons before I explain mine.

Would a 'no-snorlax' clause be a good compromise for both sides in this argument? If such a clause does create a more fun metagame, then people who support snorlax might move over on their own. Banning snorlax from here would be attainable.
Your only argument is that GSC is too old to change. I won't really argue with you on that point because it's a pointless argument, but you might want to add a bit of meat to it.

That being said a Snorlax banned tourney seems like a logical step, to test it's effect on the metagame.
 
That being said a Snorlax banned tourney seems like a logical step, to test it's effect on the metagame.
One tournament doesn't establish a meta. You need at least two or three, to give people a chance to feel out what does and doesn't work. The GSC meta with Snorlax is so defined by Snorlax that removing Snorlax would necessitate fundamental rethinks rather than minor adjustments.
 

Mr.E

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If it needs to be banned, it needs to be banned. Now, I don't think it needs to be banned but it's not staying unbanned simply because hurr durr the metagame is too old to change. :[

it ain't gonna make any more or fewer people play anyway
 

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the time to ban snorlax was before zapdos/raikou were allowed to get hp
 
I agree. We should suspect Snorlax because there are very few scenarios in which a team can't afford to run Snorlax. It fits on 99% of all teams.
 

Bedschibaer

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apart from the fact that gen 2 has ended over 10 years now and it might be a bit late for a suspect test, i would appreciate a suspect test for Snorlax, assuming the Gsc community is big enough to actually have a decent suspect ladder, etc. No other metagame is centralized towards one pokemon as much as Gen 2 OU, and none is dominated that much by it. Snorlax is overpowered in Gen 2, it's just the way it is, and it is one of the most versatile pokemon making it hard to build a team that checks all variants of snorlax (without knowing which one you are facing in a specific battle the first place) and still following your own strategy, covering other threats, etc.
I mean i don't think i have to elaborate why and how overpowered and centralizing Snorlax is, everyone who has played a couple of GSC matches knows it and has experienced it. It would be interesting to know how a meta without snorlax would be like, if snorlax is really the only thing that "allows offensive play" in gsc. And i would like to know how and even if a suspect test on this would happen.
 

Jorgen

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Well there's never going to be a suspect test or anything, but I WILL be hosting a non-Lax GSC tournament in the tournaments subforum in the near future for anyone who wants to play competitively in a format without Lax.
 

Pocket

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although a suspect test may not be feasible, maybe a council of experienced GSC players can host a discussion and come to a decision? Jorgen, Mr.E, Borat

If Snorlax ends up getting banned, I'd hate to imagine how much of a bitch it would become to deal with Raikou / Zapdos.
 
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From my somewhat outdated experience with GSC Snorlax, it is nowhere broken enough to ban. It does have the capability to run over its counters, but only if you don't know what set it is running, which becomes more and more clear to you as the match goes on. The only Snorlax that threatens to shut you down if you make one wrong switch is the Belly Drum one. Every other set should be walled by something on your team and a few safe switches might be all you need to scout it. It is by no means easy to kill, but that goes for a lot of GSC mons.

It's definitely strong, but it's no easy task to just set up a sweep from the getgo other than with the Belly Drum sets (which are obviously more risky and only get one shot). This is not a Deoxys-S that just comes in and gets two hits in on you before you have your proper counter ready. It is much, much, much slower at sweeping you, and because of that you have ample time to prepare for it and scout its set.

I have some degree of nostalgic attachment to this metagame too. I would be fine with banning something if it was obviously super duper broken, but Snorlax is not like that. It's just good.
 

Bedschibaer

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Well, the thing Snorlax doesn't run over a typical gsc team is because everyone has at least 2 dedicated checks for snorlax imo. You can't only rely on skarm to handle it because Fire Blast Lax exists, you can't only rely on Miltank to handle it because Drumlax exists, not to mention that Lovely Kiss basically shuts down every switch-in anyways.
Every other set should be walled by something on your team
That sentence alone is proof of how Snorlax limits teambuilding and basically the whole OU tier. Lax has incredible versability and if you aren't prepared for the most common sets you will just get ran over, and that is what happens in most GSC matches anyways.

Also you can't compare Lax to Deoxys in any way imo, simply because the metagames we are talking about are completely different. Adv-xy are alot faster generally and the banning "mentalities" on the newer gens are too. Apart from that Deoxys is a fast sweeper and also a hazard setter while snorlax is a sweeper, a wall, a sleeper, a sleep absorber, etc. Snorlax fulfills so many roles on a gsc team it's ridiculous. Not trying to argue Deoxys isn't broken, it's just broken in a completely different way.

tl;dr: snorlax might have it's checks and "counters", but the extreme versability of it forces you to be overprepared for it and limits the whole metagame, not to mention that being overprepared might not even be enough sometimes.
 

Jorgen

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Oh hey thread revival. Might as well give my updated thoughts on the issue.

By today's standards Lax is clearly overcentralizing, therefore borked. By yesterday's, though, he can be played around, doesn't violate some sort of honor code, and isn't a super cheesy box legend or anything, therefore not borked. The issue here is rooted in this old v. new dichotomy: I have trouble reconciling that Snorlax is so centralizing yet still legal, but another viewpoint says he's obviously super good but doesn't make the game legitimately unplayable, so just leave well enough alone.

To resolve this dichotomy in thinking about rule changes for older gens, we must look to some other criterion: that of prudence. Because GSC is an older gen with perhaps too few battles to ensure a good objective decision, prudence suggests the latter (inaction) is the most appropriate course to take. So this applies not only to Lax remaining legal, it also applies to:
  • The Celebi ban, which was more contentious at the time, but it's a conventional sort of ban on a Mew-esque legend that has been in the books for quite a while.
  • HP legends being legal, which were unbanned in the first place by overstepping the prudence bound, but considering it was both a strange rule (i.e., not banning a mon, but banning a move on a mon) and not fully embraced in GSC's heyday, it really wasn't so big a deal.
  • NYPC mons being legal, which may seem like a totally arbitrary ban of perfectly good moves if you didn't play when they were still being released, but you might actually care about if you did play at that time.
You know what, seriously, 100%, no joke should be banned ASAP, though? Spore-Spider Web-Baton Pass Smeargle. Sleep Trap in general is pretty dishonorable but I'd say it's contentious to ban that outright because most pure Sleep Trappers are countered hard by common sleep talkers. The main problem is that Jynx/Misdreavus/Gengar could use either Sleep Trap or Perish Trap, and because Sleep Talkers and Phazers are more or less mutually exclusive, you might incur a few BS surprise kills here and there. However, it's actually fairly easy to counter them once you know their set, and it's pretty risky to use the non-standard sets (sleep trap for the ghosts, perish trap for Jynx) because they tend to be pretty weak if you don't blindside your opponent, so it's hard to make a super strong case for banning Sleep Trap.

However, with Smeargle, even if you see it coming, the only way to ensure that you avoid insta-losing a Pokemon is using two of 3 fast Encore users: Alakazam, Raichu, and Jumpluff. All of them are gimmicks at best, and you need 2 of them because Spider Web out-PPs Encore 2-to-1, and no other Encore users outspeed Smeargle. You could also try to Sleep it, but the accuracy is iffy and if you sleep the wrong thing, there goes your Smeargle counter. The only problem is that Smeargle is super-weak, but considering that it's faster than like half of GSC I would imagine that despite the nonexistent bulk, anyone with half-decent prediction skills would get plenty of opportunities to abuse that Smeargle set. I mean, Marowak is frail but still good, Smeargle is basically taking it one step further and instantly KOing things without needing any prior positioning. Plus, come on, it's totally not honorable at all, and it fits the type of rule that would have been made back in the day, as dishonorable strategies had much more ban-weight in older days than just really strong mons.
 
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Bedschibaer With "should be walled" I meant that teams will generally already carry something on their team to take care of Snorlax not just because Snorlax exists, but also because they are good Pokemon in general. Tyranitar, Gengar, Skarmory, Miltank, Rhydon, Machamp, etc. are all good Pokemon by their own merit. Sure, their sets might need some tweaking to allow them to handle (more) Snorlax sets...but as far as I'm concerned that's part of the game, and the sets aren't bad enough to qualify the argument "these Pokemon need to run very specific and otherwise useless sets just to stand a chance".

Also I think Smogon Tours or at least the Kabuto Cup banned Sleep/Trap/Song before, so it's not entirely without prescedence.
 

Jorgen

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Well it ain't sleep/trap/song that's the problem, that's already understood to be banned. It's Smeargle Sleep Trapping then Baton Passing to a counter or even Curselax for the 6-0 or something that's technically still allowed in Smogon GSC, as it does not combine Sleep Trap with Perish Song.
 

Pocket

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The topic should mine as well be re-titled to "GSC Suscpects," since the discussion moved entirely from Snorlax x_X

I am perfectly fine with suspecting Sleep Trap instead of Sleep Perish Trap. Not sure if it should be banned, since these strategies are largely inconsistent gimmicks imo, but I would leave that to the GSC council to decide ;)
 

Bedschibaer

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Sleep trapping per se isn't really a problem. Like Jorgen said, you get some bullshit kills with it from time to time, but with sleep trap pass smeargle you kinda bypass the sleep perish trap ban by just slapping the sets on 2 mons and combining them with baton pass. If you have a sleeping pokemon in against Misdreavous and you are already trapped there is literally nothing you can do unless hoping that you wake up first turn. The thing with Mean Look pass Umbreon for example is that you can always switch in a phazer and phaze out whatever the mean look gets passed to, you can't do that when you are asleep, and the passed mean look doesn't have to necessarily go to a Perish Song user.

Bedschibaer With "should be walled" I meant that teams will generally already carry something on their team to take care of Snorlax not just because Snorlax exists, but also because they are good Pokemon in general. Tyranitar, Gengar, Skarmory, Miltank, Rhydon, Machamp, etc. are all good Pokemon by their own merit. Sure, their sets might need some tweaking to allow them to handle (more) Snorlax sets...but as far as I'm concerned that's part of the game, and the sets aren't bad enough to qualify the argument "these Pokemon need to run very specific and otherwise useless sets just to stand a chance".
Yea i get your point and have to agree that most OU pokes would still be OU if Snorlax wasn't there. Maybe things like Growl Miltank not, because its main focus is to stall out lax, but yea. I also didn't necessarily mean that certain pokes are only OU because of lax, but more how the dominance of lax influences teambuilding. How many serious GSC teams have a normal resist with Roar/Whirlwind? 90% or more? And the main reason things like that are team staples is simply that you don't instantly get fucked over by lax, because you will face it in every match. Not trying to say pokes like Skarmory are garbage otherwise, because they aren't, but lax simply forces monotonous teambuilding. Also there are a ton of mons that do not see any play in OU simply because they are either completely outclassed by lax in what they do or they have no way to even remotely beat lax and can't prevent it from switching in and doing massive damage or setting up every time.
The thing is every meta is centralized, GSC is just the most centralized one. Straight banning lax might probably not even solve that problem since the meta will just be centralized towards other things then (most obviously the electrics). Also i don't know if banning lax would even make the meta necessarily better, i'm just saying it's broken as hell.
 
There is no denying that GSC is a Snorlax metagame, but it seems to me that there are so many good tools to deal with Snorlax that saying "it's too good, ban please" makes no sense to me. Snorlax itself is a very diverse Pokemon that can do a lot of different things for your team, so I'm not buying the implied notion that Snorlax turns GSC into more of a monotonous game than it already is.

And as Bedschibaer mentioned, banning Snorlax would not necessarily make the game any better. Suspect testing with this level of activity is a joke, and anyone "qualifying" could vote either way, and make a coherent story out of their reasoning one way or the other. Just let the game be what it is: an ancient artifact.
 

Mr.E

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Well it ain't sleep/trap/song that's the problem, that's already understood to be banned. It's Smeargle Sleep Trapping then Baton Passing to a counter or even Curselax for the 6-0 or something that's technically still allowed in Smogon GSC, as it does not combine Sleep Trap with Perish Song.
Are you saying I should run this in SPL this week?
 

Jorgen

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You certainly could. But do you really want to be that guy? You might also need to show your hand and demand NBS because most PO servers auto-ban Sleep Trap (even Jynx) from your team, even if you're not going to play rated games on the ladder.
 

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Mean Look + Sand Attack / Confuse Ray is in a similar scenario. They are definitely gay strats, but I dont think we should ban them.
 
With "should be walled" I meant that teams will generally already carry something on their team to take care of Snorlax not just because Snorlax exists, but also because they are good Pokemon in general. Tyranitar, Gengar, Skarmory, Miltank, Rhydon, Machamp, etc. are all good Pokemon by their own merit.
Curse/Roar sets and Growl exist pretty much solely because you can't fight CurseLax head-on. Miltank is so common because Blissey overlaps with Snorlax.
 
magic9mushroom As I said, those are pretty slight modifications of a Pokemon's set just to deal with a major metagame threat. I don't see that as a sign that something is broken. In fact, I see it as proof that there's ways to deal with Snorlax. And again, unless you play carelessly, you are not suddenly going to lose one or two Pokemon to Snorlax just because you made the wrong initial switch because things just don't die that quickly.
 

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