I am going to be arguing that Sneasel is banworthy due to two different facets of its presence in the current metagame, one focusing more on its impact in the teambuilder and the other in battle itself. The former would be a bit more of a broad, cause-and-effect oriented argument that Sneasel's current place in the tier holds back the viability of a number of other threats and largely contributes to a sub-optimal metagame state. The latter is far more straightforward and perhaps conventional of an approach, centering around the effect Sneasel's Pursuit has on gameplay when it is utilized.
To preface the former, I would like to site the Tiering Policy Framework that can be found
here.
Tiering Policy Framework said:
IV.) 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.
- These are elements that may not limit either team building or battling skill enough individually but combine to cause an effect that is undesirable for the metagame.
- This can also be a state of the metagame. If the metagame has too much diversity wherein team building ability is greatly hampered and battling skill is drastically reduced, we may seek to reduce the number of good-to-great threats. This can also work in reverse; if the metagame is too centralized around a particular set of Pokemon, none of which are broken on their own, we may seek to add Pokemon to increase diversity.
- This is the most controversial and subjective one and will therefore be used the most sparingly. The Tiering Councils will only use this amidst drastic community outcry and a conviction that the move will noticeably result in the better player winning over the lesser player.
- When trying to argue a particular element's suspect status, please avoid this category unless absolutely necessary. This is a last-ditch, subjective catch-all, and tiering arguments should focus on uncompetitive or broken first. We are coming to a point in the generations where the number of threats is close to overwhelming, so we may touch upon this more often, but please try to focus on uncompetitive and broken first.
If you are looking at Sneasel through the scope of raw checks and counters, I think it is safe to say that it is not one the most problematic, consistently hard to switch-in to things in the metagame, let alone broken. Sneasel has a passable number of switch-ins when you factor in how common Steelix and Colbur Slowbro are, especially with Incineroar, Hariyama, and a few others not being strangers to common structures in the current metagame. I do not think Sneasel is broken (or, for those who associate the word 'broken' with 'banworthy', I will hone in a bit more on this and say that I believe Sneasel has sufficient defensive counterplay in the current metagame).
For a lot of people, the argument tends to stop here, even for some people who think it is broken, especially those who try to spin the situation to say that because Slowbro has to run Colbur, Sneasel is broken (which is an atrocious argument on a number of levels, by the way). For those who actually expand beyond this one-dimensional argument and look at Sneasel's actual impact on teambuilding and gameplay as opposed to merely what can check or counter it, there is a large variance in what comes of it. I feel like a fair amount of people tend to tackle the other facets of potential banworthiness in a suboptimal fashion and I want to address this specifically now, especially when it comes to the topic of Sneasel being "unhealthy" or not.
While most arguments have two sides and a lot of aspects of any given Pokemon have an opportunity cost, making pretty much all of any suspect argument a two-way-street of sorts, I think that this does not necessarily extend out to the branch of "unhealthy" arguments in the way that many people seem to believe, especially throughout discussions I have first-hand been exposed to throughout the past few weeks. The entire basis of "unhealthy" arguments revolve around impact on the metagame and I think that we should only focus on direct, proven consequences of a Pokemon's impact on the metagame/battles played in it as opposed to prospective, theorized ones that have been frequented as reasoning thus far. Therefore, saying that Sneasel's prospective departure from the metagame will cause other Pokemon (i.e: AV Slowking, Vanilluxe, etc.) to emerge as problematic should not only be ignored in the context of a Sneasel suspect, but also refrained from being said at all as it is pure theorymon at this point in time. If we ban one thing and another thing becomes broken, our suspect process can handle banning the new broken threat in the near future -- everything is cause-and-effect related in suspects and this is a very basic, fundamental aspect of our tiering process. Regardless of this and moreover, suspects normally form around two different camps of thought and typically arguments pointing out pros and cons making up these two sides. There are often direct parallels and contradictions between the two arguments making up each camp's point-of-view, but not often is it that they directly counter each other in this fashion. When discussing if something is unhealthy or not, there should be a clear focus on countering any arguments for it being unhealthy if you are on the other side as opposed to resorting to future metagame theory that holds no weight. And to be honest, I do not see much of that throughout anti-ban posts (there has been some in the past few posts, I suppose, but still), but that does not mean it should be banned by any means if those who claim it is unhealthy do not have the actual justification to change the status quo themselves on the basis of Sneasel being unhealthy.
Moving forward, I personally believe that this is the case -- that Sneasel is an unhealthy presence in the SM NU metagame and it promotes/defines a suboptimal metagame state. There are a couple ways of approaching this and reaching this conclusion, one of which has some merit, but is admittedly a weaker point, and the other of which I believe proves my point fully and also perhaps investigates a controversial aspect of the game that is often overlooked or only seen as controversial in other forms (trapping). As for the former, it is saying that Sneasel's presence in the tier holds back the viability of Pokemon that are not currently prominent in the metagame (Jynx, Haunter, Froslass, etc. -- what they are does not matter, just using for example's sake). While this aligns with one of the merits that has been utilized as justification of other unhealthy Pokemon in the past, most notably Aegislash in OU the past two generations, that does not necessarily make it sufficient alone seeing as there is a flaw in this logic. That flaw being that you can make the case that these Pokemon may not be prominent regardless, which leads to this only being partially effective logic as you cannot truly place the burden of unhealthiness and limitation on Sneasel itself unless there has been a prior metagame lacking it where these Pokemon have shown more promise (there has not been a metagame like this during generation 7 and because we elected to keep Sneasel on the suspect ladder, which I personally opposed because we already suspected it and I knew this point would come up btw, there still has not been one and will not before the culmination of this suspect). Seeing as the "Sneasel limits the viability of other potentially healthy Pokemon" logic is met with the same curse of future metagame theory (aka theorymon) that we must avoid in these discussions, there must be some definitive burden of unhealthiness to actually push Sneasel over the line in order for it to actually fit the description of being unhealthy, in my eyes.
This leads me to my second point, one that is much better in this context and seemingly ignored throughout discussions -- that would have to be what the impact of Sneasel's Pursuit on gameplay and teambuilding patterns. This can not only be proven as limiting in nature, but also it can be proven borderline uncompetitive to have such a prominent Pokemon eliminate things from the game on such a consistent basis while still posing a clear threat, being 'speed control', and having the ability to cripple any opposing wall/defensive pivot not holding a Z-Crystal (ok, besides Silvally forms and Mega Audino) with Knock Off. Any of these characteristics alone, aside from Pursuit perhaps, does not add up to a ton, especially not in the context of a suspect, but if you put them all in conjunction with each other, then it is pretty clear that many Sneasel balanced teams simply provoke game sequences where the opposing team cannot make progress without it all being made-up afterwards due to the presence of Sneasel (with Pursuit) on some teams, thus also causing much more than a mere 'headache' in teambuilding trying to manage this before encountered in battle.
Honestly, this draws so many parallels to the other tiering decisions involving trappers lately. Personally, I feel like whenever a "trapper" hits a certain point of relevance in a tier and can effectively trap numerous other relevant things,especially those with defensive utility, it becomes inherently unhealthy no matter other things (yes, this is an assertion that can stretch to the bread-and-butter of DPP/BW OU with Tyranitar Pursuit being deemed as an element that undermines competitive practice, but that is water so deep under the bridge that our tiering systems will simply never let realistically surface and it is another discussion for another thread in another subforum on another day). Getting back on topic, Sneasel's Pursuit is nowhere near as practical and consistent with trapping as something like Dugtrio with Arena Trap in OU, but it makes up for that and more with other attributes, especially when you consider that trapping invalidates a competitive and fair aspect of counterplay that is used in every single game ever aside from fucking TMan vs Manipulative -- switching your Pokemon. If another Pursuit trapper rose to prominence through legitimate claims to viability and usefulness and has a role like that of Sneasel -- one of the best Pokemon in the tier without a doubt due to a number of reasons, I would also deem that as unhealthy. Hell, I'll go as far as saying if a Pokemon with an ability like Magnet Pull, which can only trap such a limited pool of Pokemon, rose to the top of a Steel-heavy metagame, in terms of viability and niche, then there would almost definitely be an underlying unhealthy nature to it, too. Yes, this is a tangent, but I hope that it proves a point as it is something nobody else has touched upon and I'm sure many have not yet considered this at all, so I would very much like to open some eyes! Going on, my point is that you cannot look at Sneasel in a vacuum, but you have to actually consider it in practice and this applies to any trapper in similar contexts. Seeing how prevalent Sneasel is in conjunction with what I described above about its impact that can be proven in the current metagame without any reasonable doubt or theory employed, I think that Sneasel is banworthy on the merit of being unhealthy in the SM NU metagame.
