"If Snorlax so good, why no two Snorlax?" The age old question that has been baffling philosophers. Well today, I answer you that question by presenting you a nice spicy concoction featuring Snorlax and Snorlax at home, as well as Snorlax's shadow. Quite the poetic trifecta, but I assure you the prose isn't merely for the flair, although flair it does provide. The mons on this team function together and tie everything back into a satisfying and hearty meal for a refined palate, one you can enjoy on the ladder without having to ask yourself "am I meming too close to the sun?"
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Team Summary:
The team excels in matchups where Gengar can pose as the sleep absorber after landing our own sleep, which can usually be achieved easily enough in games against lead Starmie when they switch into opposing Snorlax, which generally gives us a free switch into Gengar, where we follow up with a sleep. I love having unrevealed Gengar in the back compared to Gengar lead as you almost always get a guaranteed free switch and sleep, essentially robbing your opponent of 2 turns. The inverse seems to also be true, games against lead Jynx can be difficult to position around, as we either have to sac a mon we don't want to sac to sleep, like Clefable or Starmie, or we have to just concede the Gengar sleep turn 1 and rely off sings atrocious accuracy later on. Neither option is particularly good for us, but both lines I think are playable.
Replays:
(Watch a Gengar die to Counter) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-2121578199
(Gengar can block explosions too) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-2121273779
The team: https://pokepast.es/c3731c290d58c4b2
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Weebs Bane (Starmie)
- Thunder Wave
- Psychic
- Blizzard
- Recover
Before we get into the core of the team, I'll cover our lead Starmie. It's important to note, Starmie is not the teams sleep fodder, at least not most of the time. As mentioned, the team operates best when Gengar can absorb sleep as a sleeping Gengar is still immune to normal moves. A lot of teams use their Starmie as such, and for a lot of teams that works. But let me be clear, Starmie being awake is like the only thing keeping this team from getting annihilated by Rhydon and Reflect Snorlax. A full health, not statused Starmie gives us a "good enough" switch into EQ barring insane hax. It's also our best and only real way of punishing Reflect Snorlax on the turn it goes for rest, fairly reliably forcing it out by spamming Psychic. Stay woke lads. I played around a lot with the moveset, because I liked the idea of having surf to hit Jynx leads, but ultimately settled for Psychic+Blizzard. I won't deny that the team appreciated a Rhydon removal service with surf, but in most cases Blizzard can get the job done with the added benefit of two shotting Gengar for our normals and fishing for special drops versus Snorlax. Blizzard is also imperative for Eggy and can help fish for freezes as Chansey switches in. Starmie lets us purge special drops on our own Chansey by pivoting in and out of Psychic, which helps in the Chansey versus Alakazam matchup a lot.
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The Illusionist (Clefable)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Counter
- Sing
And here we have the first limb of our inexorable strategy: keep clicking body slam. Clefable essentially supplements the role Snorlax provides to the team. And one of those roles is to be a soft check or lure of sorts for opposing Snorlax. Body slam + Hyper beam can often let us deal with Chansey easily enough, and from my experience literally nobody expects the hyper beam so you're a bit less worried about going for it. This gives the team a lot more breaking power than you might expect at first glance. The immediate alternative to counter might at first seem to be an ice move for Rhydon and to at least slightly damage opposing Gengar, but in reality Counter is incredibly important in helping us not crumble versus opposing Snorlax. The reliance on being able to Counter the opposing Snorlax can be seen as incredibly gimmicky, as if they just reflect into you then you'll find yourself struggling to kill it, either resorting to double exploding on it or being forced to PP stall it out of Body Slams. But listen, when it works, it WORKS. The amount of times an opponent switches into Body slam, attacks into Counter, and then gets snipped by Hyper Beam is enough times to justify using this fun team. And that's not even to talk about the times we've countered into Tauros (less common as any chip damage on Tauros is a major concession, so players tend to not attack into Clefable unless it's lethal damage). And just to reiterate, just like Counter, Sing is another non-negotiable moveslot. I've talked with friends about the team and a few of them wanted to drop sing for rest or blizzard. As I mentioned at the beginning, sing is vital in giving the team more available options against opposing lead sleepers, without sing our chances of landing a sleep in the game drop, and when your opponent can land a sleep and you can't, you're playing a 5v6 which is essentially an unplayable position. Let Clefable fallow her passions of being a K-pop star, you'll thank me later.
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The Shadow (Gengar)
- Hypnosis
- Night Shade
- Mega Drain
- Explosion
Clefable's shadow, both thematically and mechanically. Clefable spams Body Slam, and Gengar switches into them. But both mons serve as our best initial answers to Snorlax. And to be clear, if they can cover opposing Snorlax, then that means our own has more free rain. Getting essentially 2 free turns every game by switching into Body Slam and following it up with a Hypnosis adds so much utility to the team, and IMO offers so much more to the team than if we had it in the lead position (although I can see arguments for it). Another strong point for unrevealed Gengar, it's a lot easier to win the explosion mindgames when your opponent doesn't know they're playing the mind game in the first place. I've caught far more explosions with Gengar being unrevealed than with it as a lead. Gengar is who we want going to sleep in most games, but only after we've gotten our Hypnosis off. The standard set is thunderbolt, where most people drop night shade if they want to splash mega drain. But listen, Gengar is my favorite pokemon so I run him on like 99% of rby teams. And I've literally never been in a situation where being able to click Thunderbolt over Night Shade was the difference maker. And for all the times I've played, I can think of like MAYBE two times where Gengar has gotten thunderbolt value versus me, like I remember it critting my Starmie once. So this may or may not be a hot take but when I'm forced to drop a moveslot between Night Shade and Thunderbolt, I'll always keep Night Shade. It could leave me a bit weaker versus Cloyster matchups, but assuming we're positioning well enough with Starmie that shouldn't be a massive issue. The reason we're running Mega Drain over Thunderbolt in the first place is in response to our pretty sizable weakness to Rhydon, often times we simple can't afford to switch into it so the more mons who can attack directly into it the better, especially considering Clefable can't do anything but paralyze it.
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Eggs = Fertilized (Chansey)
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Soft-Boiled
- Thunder Wave
Bolt-beam Chansey helps patch up a lot for the team. If we avoid paralysis, it can be a budget safety check to reflect Snorlax, as we can theoretically pp stall body slam with enough pivoting and healing. And it's also our best answer into Starmie, as is the case for most teams. Anytime we play a Rhydon matchup, we're accepting the fact that we're going to lose half our health to get off an ice beam, as that chip damage is crucial to be able to pick it off later. And really, the trade is far more in our favor as it's really not unheard of for half health Chansey to find opportunities to heal, the only downside is most games the turn you have to ice beam the Rhydon is a turn you're going to have to risk a full para, but such is the nature of RBY. Most notably, it puts it in range of Mega Drain from Gengar or Blizzard from Tauros and Starmie.
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Gen 1 Moment (Snorlax)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Earthquake
- Self-Destruct
The Snorlax set we're going with is an all out offensive Lax. The team kind of relies off being an all out offensive build as otherwise we find ourselves lacking damage in most games, so as long as you play smart with self destruct you're practically guaranteed to punch a hole into your opponents team. Not having reflect+rest is one of the main reasons the team struggles versus reflect lax, and I can see myself being open to changing the set to a mirror, but the team is annoyed enough as is against Gengar with Clefable being completely walled so it was hard to not keep earthquake, and the sheer offense allowed between Body Slam + Hyper Beam + Self Destruct is extremely satisfying. All out attacking Lax really appreciated paralysis, and if fishing for freeze doesn't work versus mons like Alakazam with Chansey (which is pretty much any game Starmie goes down early since we won't be able to purge off the special drops) then paralyzing it and pivoting into Snorlax is a great way to gain momentum as we can easily threaten a kill with just a little bit of chip damage.
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Obligatory Bull (Tauros)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Blizzard
- Earthquake
The last mon is just your very standard Tauros set. Realistically we can't afford to drop anything for any fun tech like Thunderbolt for Cloyster as an example, as this is one of the cogs in the machine keeping Gengar and Rhydon from being too menacing to the team.
Threat list:
Most of these I've mentioned already, but let's get into them.
Reflect Snorlax can be very difficult to dismantle. Bringing in Starmie on a rest turn gives us a bunch of momentum, but without our own recovery on Snorlax or Clefable, we're really only going to be able to pull this off once a game. Which technically can be enough, but if Snorlax wakes up and gets another reflect off, then the team can easily crumble especially to bad Body Slam RNG. But between (unparalyzed) Starmie or Chansey, and between Clefable and Gengar, the team has options available to deal with it.
Rhydon will often force this team to switch into unresisted EQ, and essentially makes Clefable a liability in the early game. As mentioned, we're conceding the fact going in that we will either have to ice beam or mega drain into a full health Rhydon in any game it appears in, and then just accept the consequences. Rhydon also threatens the team severely in the sense that a well timed switch into explosion/self destruct will entirely neuter the main offensive engine of the team. Keeping Starmie healthy can be gamechanging, as without bad crit RNG you'll have at least one mon you can switch into EQ and then click recover on or threaten with Blizzard.
Jynx/Gengar put us on the backfoot immediately from turn 1. It can be worth it to Psychic into Gengar or Thunder Wave into Jynx turn 1, but with how important Starmie tends to be being a coward and retreating is fine. Staying in is high risk high reward, kind of. If you crit Gengar you've gained literally more power than any one man deserves on the very first turn of the battle, and between crit chance and Hypnosis accuracy the odds aren't bad. Same with Jynx having to hit a lovely kiss through a para, although I've found in general it's not worth it versus Jynx. If anything, if we're playing the odds for lovely kiss missing just switch into Gengar and dodge, that way at least you can follow up with a Hypnosis turn 2. This also covers for the common enough switch to Chansey hoping to absorb the thunder wave, and puts us in an incredible position turn 2. It's up to you if you want to risk your Starmie turn 1, or if you want to play it safe and sac Gengar to sleep and rely on Sing, but remember taking the passive option in this case is absolutely starting you off on the back foot and conceding a lot of momentum right off the very beginning of the game, and for a lot of people that's just not worth it.
I've put off mentioning Slowbro this entire post because I've literally barely ran into it. In theory, since Starmie and Gengar both don't have Thunderbolt it could get out of hand. But between Thunderbolt on Chansey and double boom realistically we've got answers into it.
Anyways, thanks for reading, as always I'm open to any suggestions <3 Have a great day yall.
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Team Summary:
The team excels in matchups where Gengar can pose as the sleep absorber after landing our own sleep, which can usually be achieved easily enough in games against lead Starmie when they switch into opposing Snorlax, which generally gives us a free switch into Gengar, where we follow up with a sleep. I love having unrevealed Gengar in the back compared to Gengar lead as you almost always get a guaranteed free switch and sleep, essentially robbing your opponent of 2 turns. The inverse seems to also be true, games against lead Jynx can be difficult to position around, as we either have to sac a mon we don't want to sac to sleep, like Clefable or Starmie, or we have to just concede the Gengar sleep turn 1 and rely off sings atrocious accuracy later on. Neither option is particularly good for us, but both lines I think are playable.
Replays:
(Watch a Gengar die to Counter) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-2121578199
(Gengar can block explosions too) https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-2121273779
The team: https://pokepast.es/c3731c290d58c4b2
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Weebs Bane (Starmie)
- Thunder Wave
- Psychic
- Blizzard
- Recover
Before we get into the core of the team, I'll cover our lead Starmie. It's important to note, Starmie is not the teams sleep fodder, at least not most of the time. As mentioned, the team operates best when Gengar can absorb sleep as a sleeping Gengar is still immune to normal moves. A lot of teams use their Starmie as such, and for a lot of teams that works. But let me be clear, Starmie being awake is like the only thing keeping this team from getting annihilated by Rhydon and Reflect Snorlax. A full health, not statused Starmie gives us a "good enough" switch into EQ barring insane hax. It's also our best and only real way of punishing Reflect Snorlax on the turn it goes for rest, fairly reliably forcing it out by spamming Psychic. Stay woke lads. I played around a lot with the moveset, because I liked the idea of having surf to hit Jynx leads, but ultimately settled for Psychic+Blizzard. I won't deny that the team appreciated a Rhydon removal service with surf, but in most cases Blizzard can get the job done with the added benefit of two shotting Gengar for our normals and fishing for special drops versus Snorlax. Blizzard is also imperative for Eggy and can help fish for freezes as Chansey switches in. Starmie lets us purge special drops on our own Chansey by pivoting in and out of Psychic, which helps in the Chansey versus Alakazam matchup a lot.
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The Illusionist (Clefable)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Counter
- Sing
And here we have the first limb of our inexorable strategy: keep clicking body slam. Clefable essentially supplements the role Snorlax provides to the team. And one of those roles is to be a soft check or lure of sorts for opposing Snorlax. Body slam + Hyper beam can often let us deal with Chansey easily enough, and from my experience literally nobody expects the hyper beam so you're a bit less worried about going for it. This gives the team a lot more breaking power than you might expect at first glance. The immediate alternative to counter might at first seem to be an ice move for Rhydon and to at least slightly damage opposing Gengar, but in reality Counter is incredibly important in helping us not crumble versus opposing Snorlax. The reliance on being able to Counter the opposing Snorlax can be seen as incredibly gimmicky, as if they just reflect into you then you'll find yourself struggling to kill it, either resorting to double exploding on it or being forced to PP stall it out of Body Slams. But listen, when it works, it WORKS. The amount of times an opponent switches into Body slam, attacks into Counter, and then gets snipped by Hyper Beam is enough times to justify using this fun team. And that's not even to talk about the times we've countered into Tauros (less common as any chip damage on Tauros is a major concession, so players tend to not attack into Clefable unless it's lethal damage). And just to reiterate, just like Counter, Sing is another non-negotiable moveslot. I've talked with friends about the team and a few of them wanted to drop sing for rest or blizzard. As I mentioned at the beginning, sing is vital in giving the team more available options against opposing lead sleepers, without sing our chances of landing a sleep in the game drop, and when your opponent can land a sleep and you can't, you're playing a 5v6 which is essentially an unplayable position. Let Clefable fallow her passions of being a K-pop star, you'll thank me later.
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The Shadow (Gengar)
- Hypnosis
- Night Shade
- Mega Drain
- Explosion
Clefable's shadow, both thematically and mechanically. Clefable spams Body Slam, and Gengar switches into them. But both mons serve as our best initial answers to Snorlax. And to be clear, if they can cover opposing Snorlax, then that means our own has more free rain. Getting essentially 2 free turns every game by switching into Body Slam and following it up with a Hypnosis adds so much utility to the team, and IMO offers so much more to the team than if we had it in the lead position (although I can see arguments for it). Another strong point for unrevealed Gengar, it's a lot easier to win the explosion mindgames when your opponent doesn't know they're playing the mind game in the first place. I've caught far more explosions with Gengar being unrevealed than with it as a lead. Gengar is who we want going to sleep in most games, but only after we've gotten our Hypnosis off. The standard set is thunderbolt, where most people drop night shade if they want to splash mega drain. But listen, Gengar is my favorite pokemon so I run him on like 99% of rby teams. And I've literally never been in a situation where being able to click Thunderbolt over Night Shade was the difference maker. And for all the times I've played, I can think of like MAYBE two times where Gengar has gotten thunderbolt value versus me, like I remember it critting my Starmie once. So this may or may not be a hot take but when I'm forced to drop a moveslot between Night Shade and Thunderbolt, I'll always keep Night Shade. It could leave me a bit weaker versus Cloyster matchups, but assuming we're positioning well enough with Starmie that shouldn't be a massive issue. The reason we're running Mega Drain over Thunderbolt in the first place is in response to our pretty sizable weakness to Rhydon, often times we simple can't afford to switch into it so the more mons who can attack directly into it the better, especially considering Clefable can't do anything but paralyze it.
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Eggs = Fertilized (Chansey)
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Soft-Boiled
- Thunder Wave
Bolt-beam Chansey helps patch up a lot for the team. If we avoid paralysis, it can be a budget safety check to reflect Snorlax, as we can theoretically pp stall body slam with enough pivoting and healing. And it's also our best answer into Starmie, as is the case for most teams. Anytime we play a Rhydon matchup, we're accepting the fact that we're going to lose half our health to get off an ice beam, as that chip damage is crucial to be able to pick it off later. And really, the trade is far more in our favor as it's really not unheard of for half health Chansey to find opportunities to heal, the only downside is most games the turn you have to ice beam the Rhydon is a turn you're going to have to risk a full para, but such is the nature of RBY. Most notably, it puts it in range of Mega Drain from Gengar or Blizzard from Tauros and Starmie.
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Gen 1 Moment (Snorlax)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Earthquake
- Self-Destruct
The Snorlax set we're going with is an all out offensive Lax. The team kind of relies off being an all out offensive build as otherwise we find ourselves lacking damage in most games, so as long as you play smart with self destruct you're practically guaranteed to punch a hole into your opponents team. Not having reflect+rest is one of the main reasons the team struggles versus reflect lax, and I can see myself being open to changing the set to a mirror, but the team is annoyed enough as is against Gengar with Clefable being completely walled so it was hard to not keep earthquake, and the sheer offense allowed between Body Slam + Hyper Beam + Self Destruct is extremely satisfying. All out attacking Lax really appreciated paralysis, and if fishing for freeze doesn't work versus mons like Alakazam with Chansey (which is pretty much any game Starmie goes down early since we won't be able to purge off the special drops) then paralyzing it and pivoting into Snorlax is a great way to gain momentum as we can easily threaten a kill with just a little bit of chip damage.
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Obligatory Bull (Tauros)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Blizzard
- Earthquake
The last mon is just your very standard Tauros set. Realistically we can't afford to drop anything for any fun tech like Thunderbolt for Cloyster as an example, as this is one of the cogs in the machine keeping Gengar and Rhydon from being too menacing to the team.
Threat list:
Most of these I've mentioned already, but let's get into them.
Reflect Snorlax can be very difficult to dismantle. Bringing in Starmie on a rest turn gives us a bunch of momentum, but without our own recovery on Snorlax or Clefable, we're really only going to be able to pull this off once a game. Which technically can be enough, but if Snorlax wakes up and gets another reflect off, then the team can easily crumble especially to bad Body Slam RNG. But between (unparalyzed) Starmie or Chansey, and between Clefable and Gengar, the team has options available to deal with it.
Rhydon will often force this team to switch into unresisted EQ, and essentially makes Clefable a liability in the early game. As mentioned, we're conceding the fact going in that we will either have to ice beam or mega drain into a full health Rhydon in any game it appears in, and then just accept the consequences. Rhydon also threatens the team severely in the sense that a well timed switch into explosion/self destruct will entirely neuter the main offensive engine of the team. Keeping Starmie healthy can be gamechanging, as without bad crit RNG you'll have at least one mon you can switch into EQ and then click recover on or threaten with Blizzard.
Jynx/Gengar put us on the backfoot immediately from turn 1. It can be worth it to Psychic into Gengar or Thunder Wave into Jynx turn 1, but with how important Starmie tends to be being a coward and retreating is fine. Staying in is high risk high reward, kind of. If you crit Gengar you've gained literally more power than any one man deserves on the very first turn of the battle, and between crit chance and Hypnosis accuracy the odds aren't bad. Same with Jynx having to hit a lovely kiss through a para, although I've found in general it's not worth it versus Jynx. If anything, if we're playing the odds for lovely kiss missing just switch into Gengar and dodge, that way at least you can follow up with a Hypnosis turn 2. This also covers for the common enough switch to Chansey hoping to absorb the thunder wave, and puts us in an incredible position turn 2. It's up to you if you want to risk your Starmie turn 1, or if you want to play it safe and sac Gengar to sleep and rely on Sing, but remember taking the passive option in this case is absolutely starting you off on the back foot and conceding a lot of momentum right off the very beginning of the game, and for a lot of people that's just not worth it.
I've put off mentioning Slowbro this entire post because I've literally barely ran into it. In theory, since Starmie and Gengar both don't have Thunderbolt it could get out of hand. But between Thunderbolt on Chansey and double boom realistically we've got answers into it.
Anyways, thanks for reading, as always I'm open to any suggestions <3 Have a great day yall.