I meant in a single switch-in. Machamp doesn't wall Lax, obviously.
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OU Snorlax ought to be nixed. No, I'm serious.
- Thread starter Jorgen
- Start date
I meant in a single switch-in. Machamp doesn't wall Lax, obviously.
A number of things in GSC can beat anything with the proper moveset, that's hardly Snorlax-specific. Let's not exaggerate Snorlax's power, it's merely very good.
GSC Snorlax? 2HKOed by Marowak with Spikes (OHKO at +2), likewise Machamp (OHKO with crit). Heracross hits for 40%. Takes plenty from Nidoking and can be slept, takes plenty from Tyranitar with potential lolflinchax. Needs Curses under its belt to take physical hits, it can't switch into them. At least it doesn't concern itself with paralysis very much? :P
Forces Thunder on ST Zapdos/Raikou sets but still gets hit hard enough that it can't walk all over them, Gengar is always a risk to switch into. Misdreavus beats it, Skarmory usually does (or at least forces a very wasteful moveslot), Leech Seed Eggy only has to watch out for Body Slam PAR. The existence of Roar/Whirlwind as competitive moves doesn't hurt (and niche Encore), Explosion is a lot more powerful. GSC Snorlax is a hell of a lot more beatable than RBY Mewtwo.
Thing with RBY Mewtwo is that pretty much nothing beats it period. Your only recourse against RBY Mewtwo is to PP stall it with Zam/Chansey, hope for 3-4 full paralysis turns in a row as you wail on it, or Explosion. And it doesn't give a fuck about feeble Normals. Unlike Zam, Mewtwo doesn't get mauled by Lapras' Body Slam or Zapdos Drill Peck; it's bulkier than Exeggutor. Tauros/Lax BS barely 4HKO and Mewtwo has Recover. Rhydon's the only physical attacker that doesn't rely on Hyper Beam to 3HKO... and gets OHKOed by a crit Psychic (sup 25% crit rate), Blizzard, or +2 whatever. Tauros also gets 2HKOed by that same Psychic, Snorlax 3HKOed and Lax doesn't even have a nice crit rate to maybe nab a surprise KO.
GSC Snorlax? 2HKOed by Marowak with Spikes (OHKO at +2), likewise Machamp (OHKO with crit). Heracross hits for 40%. Takes plenty from Nidoking and can be slept, takes plenty from Tyranitar with potential lolflinchax. Needs Curses under its belt to take physical hits, it can't switch into them. At least it doesn't concern itself with paralysis very much? :P
Forces Thunder on ST Zapdos/Raikou sets but still gets hit hard enough that it can't walk all over them, Gengar is always a risk to switch into. Misdreavus beats it, Skarmory usually does (or at least forces a very wasteful moveslot), Leech Seed Eggy only has to watch out for Body Slam PAR. The existence of Roar/Whirlwind as competitive moves doesn't hurt (and niche Encore), Explosion is a lot more powerful. GSC Snorlax is a hell of a lot more beatable than RBY Mewtwo.
You forgot freeze. Freeze is actually the reason Chansey's used against it - even Light Screen Chansey can't actually stall Mewtwo out if Mewtwo has Psychic.
Nidoking doesn't even usually get a 4HKO. Please explain how this is "plenty" against something which usually has Rest.
In practice, 26-30% is surprisingly a lot for something with really low speed to switch into. It's rarely outright beating Snorlax on its own (you need para/poison/sleep + spikes support or a crit to legitimately threaten a kill), but it's forcing it to Rest a lot sooner than it would like, and the thing is that because Nido threatens SE coverage on like 4 Pokemon at any given time, Snorlax is actually willing to switch into those hits. Nido's main threat is Sleep, though.
Mr.E- Mewtwo loses to paralysis plus wrap.
It also walled by eggy or bro depending on whether it runs tbolt or blizzard.
Mewtwo is only broken in RBY because people arbitrarily banned wrap. With wrap legal he's manageable because he never wants to take paralysis, which means he has to run from a lot of pokemon. The reason why he doesn't mind taking para in non-wrap is because it protects him from freezes. A long with sleep clause and stuff like that, the community made him OP with their arbitrary rules.
Jorgen- Lax is centralizing, but the game is still competitive with him. As a general rule, we should try to leave the game as unaltered as possible as long as it stays competitive. That's why I find things like freeze classes stupid, because the game is competitive without them.
It also walled by eggy or bro depending on whether it runs tbolt or blizzard.
Mewtwo is only broken in RBY because people arbitrarily banned wrap. With wrap legal he's manageable because he never wants to take paralysis, which means he has to run from a lot of pokemon. The reason why he doesn't mind taking para in non-wrap is because it protects him from freezes. A long with sleep clause and stuff like that, the community made him OP with their arbitrary rules.
Jorgen- Lax is centralizing, but the game is still competitive with him. As a general rule, we should try to leave the game as unaltered as possible as long as it stays competitive. That's why I find things like freeze classes stupid, because the game is competitive without them.
I think the main issue is that you have to overprepare for Snorlax and that switching into Snorlax is hard whereas staying in is often times extremely counterproductive because it nearly takes no damage from most specialmons and can set up. To add to the pain it learns lovely kiss. I don't think anyone is going to argue that if I lead with any Snorlax and you lead with something like Machamp that I will have the advantage, this is important because people have been comparing him to RBY Mewtwo who literally has no weak (psychic/blizzard/amnesia/recover isn't even stopped by Slowbro due to crit being calculated off speed). I can lead with Mewtwo and there literally isn't a single pokemon in the game who can get an advantage as a lead against Mewtwo (selfdestruct lax is annoying but that's hardly an advantage as you blow yourself up in the process resulting in a 1 for 1, it's only an advantage if you use the broken Mewtwo yourself hurrdurr), it is just that overwhelming.
Skarmory is destroyed by fire blast curselax whereas earthquake curselax destroys Tyranitar (and even Steelix after boosts). Misdreavus is a 3HKO off the top of my head but can't keep switching in to perish it and will get 2HKOd after one curse (not to mention that a drum on the switch insta-kills missy). Thinks like charm Umbreon also get smashed by belly drum and if all else fails there's still lovely kiss. What this means is that you need to pack at least 2 checks for Snorlax depending on its set and if you happen to encounter a set that uses lovely kiss instead of rest you may just find both of your checks to be useless.
Skarmory is destroyed by fire blast curselax whereas earthquake curselax destroys Tyranitar (and even Steelix after boosts). Misdreavus is a 3HKO off the top of my head but can't keep switching in to perish it and will get 2HKOd after one curse (not to mention that a drum on the switch insta-kills missy). Thinks like charm Umbreon also get smashed by belly drum and if all else fails there's still lovely kiss. What this means is that you need to pack at least 2 checks for Snorlax depending on its set and if you happen to encounter a set that uses lovely kiss instead of rest you may just find both of your checks to be useless.
Barrier. Recover.
You yourself said that Mewtwo's counters are all set-dependent - that one is, too.
(This is leaving aside the fact that no Wrapper can switch into +2 Mewtwo without Mewtwo threatening OHKO.)
Eggy's 3HKOed by 999 STAB Psychic, and special falls just make it worse.
The true thing that walls Mewtwo if it doesn't run Ice is another Mewtwo, because it'll lose the freeze war.
Preaching about how Wrap should be unbanned on a community board that doesn't ban Wrap is pretty dumb, and makes you look pretty dumb.
Actually, yes, it is stopped by Slowbro. You are forgetting that crits in RBY ignore all boosts - Mewtwo's critical STAB Psychic only does about 40%, not guaranteeing a 3HKO even with two crits (and you also have to not FP, since T-wave's the first thing Slowbro will be doing).
Ice Beam/Psychic Amnesia Mewtwo is countered by Surf/Thunder Wave Slowbro - that's the entire reason the latter was invented, for crying out loud.
lolwut. Please play at least one actual game of RBY Ubers?
Mewtwo is forced out by any sleep lead it can't OHKO, because Mewtwo's far, far too valuable to take sleep with.
Now, can we please all stop making fools of ourselves by talking incoherently about RBY Mewtwo and get back on topic?
Crystal- Please tell me how Mewtwo is supposedly still broken in wrap RBY.
If it takes para, it struggles with wrappers and consequently hard-hitters like snorlax and rhydon.
If it doesn't take para, it has to run from a lot of pokemon.
Well that comment was with regards to non-wrap, which is how Ubers has traditionally been played.
I never said they were hard counters. You paralyse Mewtwo, and then he has trouble switching in later. You can simply switch your own Mewtwo and paralyse theirs.
Mewtwo is countered by good play. You don't need to have a solid one-pokemon counter for something to be broken competitively.
I read somewhere that he was walled by eggy, but I guess I was misinformed.
RBY wasn't originally played with wrap because the simulators had dodgy wrap mechanics. He was banned in a non-wrap climate.
If it takes para, it struggles with wrappers and consequently hard-hitters like snorlax and rhydon.
If it doesn't take para, it has to run from a lot of pokemon.
Well that comment was with regards to non-wrap, which is how Ubers has traditionally been played.
I never said they were hard counters. You paralyse Mewtwo, and then he has trouble switching in later. You can simply switch your own Mewtwo and paralyse theirs.
Mewtwo is countered by good play. You don't need to have a solid one-pokemon counter for something to be broken competitively.
I read somewhere that he was walled by eggy, but I guess I was misinformed.
RBY wasn't originally played with wrap because the simulators had dodgy wrap mechanics. He was banned in a non-wrap climate.
I see Lax as more comparable to DP Garchomp.
Garchomp was another mandatory pokemon whose presence essentially defined the meta due to his speed and ability to sweep with swords dance. Like Lax, Chomp also had defined counters who were necessary to consider during team building. The biggest differences between Lax-dominant meta and Chomp-dominant metas' reception by the community was possibly only the existence of sand hax that made Chomp more unbearable to fight, but that in turn led to the mindset shift that paved the way for a system that allowed Chomp and other dominant pokemon in future generations to be banned. Lax and its metagame escaped this scrutiny by virtue of the grandfather clause.
It is quite probable that the current community would ban Snorlax if we all played GSC today. The only reasons not to ban it are aesthetic, practical, non-competitive ones, although they outweigh the "rational" ones.
Garchomp was another mandatory pokemon whose presence essentially defined the meta due to his speed and ability to sweep with swords dance. Like Lax, Chomp also had defined counters who were necessary to consider during team building. The biggest differences between Lax-dominant meta and Chomp-dominant metas' reception by the community was possibly only the existence of sand hax that made Chomp more unbearable to fight, but that in turn led to the mindset shift that paved the way for a system that allowed Chomp and other dominant pokemon in future generations to be banned. Lax and its metagame escaped this scrutiny by virtue of the grandfather clause.
It is quite probable that the current community would ban Snorlax if we all played GSC today. The only reasons not to ban it are aesthetic, practical, non-competitive ones, although they outweigh the "rational" ones.
One thing that does need to be considered when applying newer-gen thinking to GSC is that there just aren't as many good Pokemon, so accounting for everything in team-building isn't as hard and reaching a "balanced" meta where nothing is a staple is nigh-impossible.
Why do you say that?
Reading over this thread has made me think that there is enough controversy over Snorlax to at least warrant an extended no-Lax tourney. The one that occurred before seems to have been implied as quite limited in duration, and this would explain why so many people just replaced Lax with Blissey - it was just a gut reaction, and something that they thought of first due to their similarities. It doesn't appear that enough time was given to innovate and really explore this - admittedly drastically - new metagame, much like Celebi's new potential was never fully realised until after its ban. It would at least be sensible to make such a tourney/ladder exist for a period of time, to allow people to experiment and possibly come up with a better/more fun alternative.
Hey, if it doesn't work out, everyone can still keep Lax, but if you never try the alternative, you'll never know if it's really good, yeah?
Hey, if it doesn't work out, everyone can still keep Lax, but if you never try the alternative, you'll never know if it's really good, yeah?
Because the game isn't fundamentally anti-competitive with him legal. It's just that with him banned the game becomes less centralised.
The problem I have with banning stuff in an already competitive meta is that where you draw the line is arbitrary.
We could ban many pokemon, or movesets, or pokemon combinations and make the game a lot more balanced and 'fun' than it already is.
I think what people need to remember is that we're not making a game, we're adapting a pre-existing one to a competitive environment. That makes a huge difference with regards to ban philosophy. If we were making a game, we should tweak it to make it as balanced and as fun as possible. But seeing as we're adapting a game, we should try to make it competitive whilst keeping the most default things unbanned as possible. I feel that banning lax violates this philosophy, and steps into the realm of arbitrary tweaking.
That's a very cogent way of putting it. For the most part I agree with what you said, Dre, but the thing is I think Snorlax is far enough past that line where a ban stops being purely arbitrary and starts being pretty sensible.
Also note that almost no single thing that has been banned made the game "fundamentally non-competitive" (whatever that's supposed to mean), save for Mewtwo in RBY (sorry for bringing him up again, but he is "the" Uber). So, at least in that sense, it's always been kind of arbitrary what gets the axe and what doesn't.
Not that I really mind that much in the end. I'll still play GSC with or without Lax, but I think it'd be more fun to play matches without the big fat crutch as well.
Also note that almost no single thing that has been banned made the game "fundamentally non-competitive" (whatever that's supposed to mean), save for Mewtwo in RBY (sorry for bringing him up again, but he is "the" Uber). So, at least in that sense, it's always been kind of arbitrary what gets the axe and what doesn't.
Not that I really mind that much in the end. I'll still play GSC with or without Lax, but I think it'd be more fun to play matches without the big fat crutch as well.
This mindset describes the Uber tier perfectly, particularly given that you clearly don't consider any Pokemon that has ever existed "deservedly bannable".
The question is not whether Snorlax should be banned from competitive play, but whether it should be banned from competitive OU play, a tier that already bans several other Pokemon. No-one is advocating that Snorlax be banned from Ubers - that would be silly.
Jorgen- Well that's why I think M2 should be in OU, or rather that Ubers be the standard tier.
Magic- I consider pokemon in later gens bannable in the sense that I think an Ubers tier is justified in gens where an entire team can consist of Ubers pokemon.
As for lax, OU is still competitive with him. So in terms of a ban, I think there are two questions. The first is whether he would get enough usage in Ubers to justify going up. The second is whether his removal from OU makes the meta significantly less centralised. In general, I think there has to be a pretty significant difference in centralisations to justify a ban.
Magic- I consider pokemon in later gens bannable in the sense that I think an Ubers tier is justified in gens where an entire team can consist of Ubers pokemon.
As for lax, OU is still competitive with him. So in terms of a ban, I think there are two questions. The first is whether he would get enough usage in Ubers to justify going up. The second is whether his removal from OU makes the meta significantly less centralised. In general, I think there has to be a pretty significant difference in centralisations to justify a ban.
Ubers has nothing to do with how well the subject in question will perform in the Ubers tier, though. Ubers is simply a banlist that also functions as a playable tier for those interested. I can guarantee that in every gen with a significant amount of ubers (3 and up?), not all of them are good in that tier. The only reason something is banned is if it is determined too centralizing for OU by popular vote.