Type: Fighting/Poison
Base Stats: 80 HP / 130 Atk / 60 Def / 40 SpA / 80 SpD / 120 Spe
Abilities: Pressure / Unburden / Poison Touch (H)
Notable Moves:
- Dire Claw
- Close Combat
- Gunk Shot
- Swords Dance
- Bulk Up
- Acrobatics
- U-Turn
- Toxic Spikes
- Substitute
- X-Scissor
- Switcheroo
- Tera Blast
- Fire Punch
- Trailblaze
- Low Kick
- Taunt
- Night Slash
- Rock Slide
New Move:
Dire Claw - The user lashes out at the target with ruinous claws, aiming to land a critical hit. This may [50% chance] also leave the target poisoned, paralyzed, or asleep.
Pros:
- Dire Claw fucks. With a 50% chance to inflict one of Poison, Paralysis, or Sleep on hit, this incredible move lets Sneasler pose a massive threat even to Poison-type resists, especially due to how debilitating Sleep is as a status effect.
- Sneasler has incredible 130/120 offenses, an excellent offensive typing, and extremely strong STAB moves in Close Combat and Gunk Shot or Dire Claw. These STABs have excellent synergy with one-another, with Close Combat demolishing most of the Steel-types that are immune to its Poison-type attacks and its Poison-type attacks crushing Fairy-types looking to resist Close Combat.
- Sneasler is the fastest Unburden user, allowing it to outpace the entire metagame once its item is consumed. This can even include extremely fast threats like +1 Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant and Swift Swim Floatzel.
- Sneasler has access to Acrobatics, which has excellent synergy with Unburden and gives Sneasler a way to muscle past many more threats, especially alongside Tera Flying.
- Sneasler also has access to the rare combination of U-Turn and Poison Touch, making its U-Turns incredibly dangerous against everything except Poison and Steel-types.
- Sneasler has a solid offensive movepool consisting of options like Fire Punch and Night Slash, which patches up inconsistencies within its STABs' joint coverage.
- Sneasler also has access to boosting options in Swords Dance, Bulk Up, and Agility, giving it wallbreaking and lategame sweeping potential.
- Sneasler's defenses are quite mediocre and its Defense in particular is abysmal, making it very prone to being revenge killed by strong priority like Dragonite's Extreme Speed and Baxcalibur's Ice Shard.
- Sneasler has to rely on its weaker coverage options to deal with threats like Gholdengo, which is completely immune to its otherwise-solid STABs.
- Sneasler is, as a baseline, outpaced by threats like Tornadus-T, Greninja, Meowscarada, and Dragapult. It can outpace them with extreme ease once Unburden activates, though.
Sneasler has a lot of options to abuse Terastallization.
- Tera Flying on an Unburden+Acrobatics set allows Sneasler to basically function as a setup sweeper similar to Booster Energy Roaring Moon, whilst turning its Ground weakness into an immunity.
- Tera Ground allows Sneasler to muscle past Gholdengo and Toxapex with Tera Blast.
- Tera Poison and Tera Fighting can power up its STAB moves while removing its Fairy neutrality and Ground weaknesses, respectively.
- Tera Normal alongside Quick Attack could be a thing, I guess?
- Tera Water and Tera Fire can flip the script on a Volcarona thinking it can get away with a free Fire move.
- Honestly, try them all. There's gotta be some merit to many different ones. Like Volcarona, Sneasler is one good Tera type+Tera Blast away from 6-0ing a team in a new and inventive way.
"Clawing Moon" (SD+Acrobatics)
Sneasler @ White Herb / Psychic Seed / Focus Sash
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Flying / Ground
Adamant Nature
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spe
- Acrobatics / Tera Blast
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Dire Claw / Gunk Shot / Tera Blast
This is probably Sneasler's deadliest set, and for good reason. Sneasler has numerous means of activating Unburden, based on its item of choice: White Herb immediately activates when it uses Close Combat, any Terrain Seed (Psychic Seed in this example, since PsySpam is the current best Terrain archetype) pairs well with one of Indeedee, Pincurchin, or Rillaboom, and Focus Sash can be run on specific Hyper Offense teams to guarantee a turn of setup at the cost of some serious reliability issues. Tera Flying Acrobatics eliminates Great Tusk and is a generally reliably option against the likes of Landorus-T, Close Combat is an obligatory STAB move and can activate White Herb, Swords Dance allows Sneasler to set up and sweep, and one of Dire Claw, Gunk Shot, or Tera Blast with a Ground Tera Type can round out its coverage. Tera Ground alongside Tera Blast lets it beat both Gholdengo and Toxapex, which would otherwise present a major problem for Sneasler. 216 Speed outruns even the fastest Adamant Floatzel sets, ensuring that Sneasler will nearly always be the absolute fastest threat on either side of the field.
Choice Band
Sneasler @ Choice Band
Ability: Poison Touch
Tera Type: Fighting / Fire / Ground / Ghost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Dire Claw / Gunk Shot
- U-turn
- Fire Punch / Tera Blast / Shadow Claw
Choice Band Sneasler is a powerful wallbreaker that can force relatively easy progress even against threats that may switch in against it thanks to the threat of Poison Touch+U-Turn, essentially giving its entire moveset a chance to Poison whatever it makes contact with. Close Combat is an obligatory STAB move, and Dire Claw and Gunk Shot are both powerful Poison-type STAB options; Dire Claw punishes resists with the threat of Sleep or Paralysis, but Gunk Shot is the much stronger alternative. U-Turn is the centerpiece of Poison Touch Sneasler, as it becomes a terrifying offensive pivot that can easily escape harm. Its resistance to Stealth Rock and the ability to absorb Toxic Spikes lets it perform extremely well even in the face of most entry hazards, which makes its U-Turn extremely safe and spammable early in the game. Fire Punch and Shadow Claw both hit Gholdengo, which otherwise walls this set; Tera Blast alongside Tera Ground requires Sneasler to burn its team's Tera but can hit Toxapex and Gholdengo simultaneously.
Choice Scarf
Sneasler @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Poison Touch
Tera Type: Fighting / Poison / Ice
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Dire Claw / Gunk Shot
- U-turn
- Fire Punch / Rock Slide / Tera Blast
Choice Scarf Sneasler utilizes its excellent Speed tier and solid typing and coverage to function as a strong revenge killer and lategame cleaner, and like the aforementioned Choice Band set is hard to switch in against thanks to Poison Touch+U-Turn and the potential for Dire Claw. 120 Speed is quite solid, outpacing Roaring Moon. Close Combat and one of Dire Claw or Gunk Shot form its STABs and U-Turn is as mandatory on this set as it is on the Choice Band set. Fire Punch can deal with a weakened Gholdengo. Rock Slide can let Sneasler revenge kill a +1 Volcarona. Tera Blast alongside Tera Ice rounds out its coverage by eliminating Ground-types like Great Tusk, Landorus-Therian, +1 Garchomp, etc.; that being said, none of these do a particularly good job switching in against Poison Touch U-Turn.
Overall Impressions:
The HOME Metagame will experience a large influx of new Fighting-types, with both Zamazenta formes, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Hisuian Lilligant, Hisuian Decidueye, Galarian Zapdos, and Sneasler itself being introduced into a metagame already completely dominated by threats like Great Tusk and Iron Valiant; however, few if any of these threats directly compete against one-another, as each of them has a long list of traits that lets it stand out from all the rest. Sneasler distinguishes itself from other Fighting-types thanks to its massive Speed alongside its high Attack, Unburden and Poison Touch, a unique typing as far as OU goes, and colorful coverage options. Sneasler is poised to be a massive threat in the HOME SV OU metagame and will fit on many an offensive team, though counterplay such as Toxapex (now possibly featuring Scald again) and Gholdengo exists and can force Sneasler to forego more applicable options to tech into beating them. It also isn't bulky and fears strong priority, but once it gets going, it goes hard.
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