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

[magic9mushroom]

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.

No? DrumFireLax. You switch Skarmory into Fire Blast, you switch Miltank into Drum. Now Skarmory's lost over half its health and you're looking at having to sacrifice something to avoid a clean sweep (if you even can).

Or CurseDrumLax. You see Curse, try to stall it with Miltank, and then after it reaches +4 or +5 Defense it Drums. Now you have to sacrifice something.

And Curse/Roar is hardly "minor", it's half a Pokemon's set.

 

[Jorgen]

Those are all oddball Lax sets though, and they're oddballs for a reason: they tend to fall kinda flat if you have a bad team matchup or don't happen to catch your opponent off guard. My biggest issue has always been that even if you know what is coming and prepare heavily for its standard sets, that standard Snorlax can still dominate you.

Also I don't like Growltank so much. It struggles to switch into Double-Edges and does nothing but stall; it tends to die to an inevitable crit from my experience. Curse + Roar, on the other hand, is a good set for most of those "hard" Pokemon to be running anyway, regardless of Snorlax being around (although Rhydon would certainly like to add Zap Cannon/HP Bug to its repertoire more frequently).

 

[Mekkah]

Yeah, Drumming Snorlaxes are kind of the exception, but Drum Snorlax loses out on all those defensive characteristics that make Snorlax so great, so it's a huge tradeoff to make. There is such a huge risk involved with selecting Belly Drum (losing half your health as your opponent switches in Machamp or Marowak, or something your coverage doesn't quite cover) that I do not mind if the player using it is rewarded if they predict properly. This isn't broken. This is perfectly healthy.

 

[M Dragon]

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.

lol no
Curse + roar sets are not just to beat CurseLax, they are also used to beat Skarmory and phazers in general.
Growl/Charm are not just because Curselax, they help you beating nearly any curser, or even some mixed attackers.

Miltank is used because is a great mixed sweeper counter, and can also beat most cursers with Growl, and that includes Lax.
Blissey is less used than Miltank because it is usually a set up bait for a lot of things. The only real reasons to use it are LS and Heal Bell (easy Heal Bell vs special attackers, like electrics). Blissey does not overlap with Lax, they have completely different roles.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Yes, the thing is things like the blatant curse roar rock/steel type would still be used, but it probably wouldn't be mandatory. Nobody can deny snorlax rules the meta, dominates teambuilding, etc. Many top pokes are so great simply because they have the feature of being good in what they do while doing good against snorlax. Of course things like Miltank would be used in a lax free gsc meta, but they won't be used as much/the way they are used as they are in a lax meta. Of course curse roar steelix would have a place in lax free gsc, but it wouldn't be pretty much a choice between which of the normal resists with roar you pick.
I'm not saying mons like Skarm/lix would be shit in a lax free meta, because they obviously wouldn't be, but the fact that those 2 or a fitting replace are pretty much mandatory on a serious gsc team right now mainly for the reason to not get completely fucked by curselax (not only, mainly) is proof enough how this thing dominates the meta. I 100% agree with what m dragon and mekkah said, those mons beat quite alot of the gsc meta, but they are as important as they are right now because of lax. Lax is the number 1 curser, and also the number 1 reason why growl/charm sets are good in gsc. But that doesn't mean they are useless against other things.
But as i already said, i don't know if a no lax gsc meta is necessarily better, it's just that lax completely dominates it right now. It is what you would call "broken" by todays standards, that doesn't mean that banning it would be a good idea though.

 

[Mr.E]

Snorlax is broken by today's standards but Zapdos/Raikou probably would be banned shortly thereafter, to say nothing of anything else. Current policies encouraging a crybaby-fest where average Joes get everything banned they dislike is why I quit modern OU mid-Gen 4.

Snorlax alone doesn't dictate the metagame all that much I think, really just driving Blissey usage down (trivial damage makes it too easy to come in and Rest) and maybe Skarmory usage up (it still answers Heracross and kinda Marowak). Perish Trapping is still good regardless and, coincidentally, requires the same sort of answers as Curselax. Curse/Roar is first and foremost an anti-pseudohazing tactic, since in GSC a force-switch move that goes first fails. Umbreon would still use Charm to beat Curse in general, which is a very good boosting move. (SD distribution is ass and there's no special equivalent to either SD or Curse.) The fact they're all good against Curselax, even Snorlax in general, is bonus.

You'd see some metagame shifts to Snorlax being banned, it's only natural, but nothing "new" per se: Porygon2 replaces Snorlax as the de facto Curse user to beat and Blissey usage goes through the roof, both directly due to the ban and indirectly due to Zapdos/Raikou running the show (it lacks offensive presence to directly punish their switch-out but sets up things that can and walls them all day). Snorlax isn't the sole reason stuff like Ampharos and Ninetales go unused. It's not stifling the metagame, banning Snorlax alone won't change much so we might as well stand by the more pure metagame (fewer rules outside the game). Something has to be the best.