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1v1's fifth suspect will be Snorlax! While Snorlax isn't necessarily as proven as prior suspects, its strengths cannot be understated; insane stats for both offense and defense, an excellent movepool with basically all the coverage in the world and more utilities than it could ever need, an extremely useful new addition to its toolset as of Gen 8 in the form of the highly tactical move Encore, and an ability that makes Custap Berry especially intolerable, all while only having one weakness to Fighting. Given the wide arrangement of tools at its disposal, Snorlax naturally became a menace to predict at preview, with its potential wins and losses varying not only by the set it uses but also the coverage moves on each set. Such versatility, alongside the plethora of matchups it wins simply through being Snorlax, has caused Snorlax's place in the metagame to be called into question. Is Snorlax simply too much to account for? That is what this suspect test seeks to answer!
For this suspect test, we will be using the regular 1v1 ladder, so you must create a new account that begins with 1SNO to qualify. Snorlax will be legal on the ladder. The Deadline for the Snorlax Suspect is Friday, March 5th, 11:59 EST (GMT -5) (edit: 5th, not 12th)
This suspect shall be reusing the sliding scale system from the Victini suspect, being:
GXE
Minimum Games
75
50
75.3
49
75.6
48
75.9
47
76.2
46
76.5
45
76.8
44
77.1
43
77.4
42
77.7
41
78
40
78.3
39
78.6
38
78.9
37
79.2
36
79.5
35
The way this works is that the minimum game requirement is reduced by 1 game for every 0.3 GXE you have above 75 GXE, down to a minimum of 35 games with a GXE of 79.5 or above, with the absolute minimum GXE requirement being 75%, with at least 50 games played.
You must use a fresh account registered after the posting of this thread for your reqs. This alt must begin with 1SNO, e.g. 1SNO Rosa
If you have achieved the voting requirements, CLICK HERE.
When posting in this thread, please keep in mind these rules:
1. No one liners or uninformed posts
2. No discussion on other potential suspects or the suspect process
3. Be respectful
Your post will be deleted and possibly infracted if you fail to follow them. Have fun!
Snorlax is a really strong mon on 1v1 due to it's high skill at not dying by OHKO to almost anything, making it capable of using Counter on a Myriad of Physical Attackers, killing then, and, if that's not enough, it can use Giga Impact to deal against mons that can try to bait it into getting locked at counter, making the User of Snorlax really good at predicting moves.
the only common deals someone could use to deal against snorlax are niche Fighting Types who could OHKO it, but even then, by using then you most likely are going to lost much of your versatility, so Snorlax happens to promote the use of less-common and less versatile mons, which, in my opinion hinders the versatility of the metagame by making you choose a specific set against snorlax.
Snorlax has the stats to be a truly centralizing mon, as GSC shows (where many mons rose as phasers with the sole propurse of dealing with curselax), so, it's safe to assure that, if snorlax continues to gain even more stage at gen8 1v1, it can become really dangerous to the metagame.
I've been playing and building this metagame ever since SS came out with great success, racking up to around 300 teams, and have been most frenetic ever since the release of DLC2 (with 100 teams built since then); with this in mind, I can very comfortably say that I have never been this frustrated while building SS 1v1, or 1v1 altogether. The metagame is composed of Pokemon that have to be countered in such niche and specific ways, rendering the building aspect of it extremely one-dimensional and limited. There are multiple culprits of this but none of them are even close to being ban-worthy, except one, the big and fat true almighty, Snorlax.
Unfortunately from what I've seen there hasn't been much interest in writing about the subject, as the matter was not brought to OTR nor heavily discussed in Metagame Discussion: most of the discussion happened on Discord, in servers not everyone has access in nor reads quite as often, thus I would appreciate more effort in the future from zoomers companions, so all the work doesn't have to always fall in me and zio's hands. Getting that out of the way Ban Snorlax.
Snorlax is a Tier 2 violationto the SS 1v1 metagame, due to its satiably high 160/65/110 bulk paired with its 110 Attack stat, with great defensive type on top of it, an absurdly large movepool with any and every coverage you can desire combined with insane support moves like Encore and Counter, the combination of Gluttony+Custap (rendered even more insane by Belly Drum) and the ability Thick Fat which helps for its Stall set.
Snorlax in itself can run one of the following 3 sets:
Belly Drum + Custap + Double-Edge
Encore + 2 Attacks
3 Attacks
Counter + w/e
Gastro Acid to get rid of Unaware mons
Choice Band (with copious amounts of coverage such as Gunk Shot, Ice Punch, Heavy Slam, Heat Crash, Darkest Lariat, Outrage and many more) and the extremely high damage Giga Impact STAB.
Stall (with Chople Berry + Counter + Amnesia + Rest + Rock Tomb for taunters or Charm for set up users)
The extremely niche Yawn + Chople + Endure + Flail for Fighting types such as Urshifu and Sawk
With the combination of the 4, it can literally beat every single mon ever. Even if you exclude the 4th set, Gastro Acid, and whatever other ridiculous coverage you might wanna exclude, Snorlax's check and counters become an extremely reduced and niche amount of mons of extremely doubtful quality and reliability, which might even need to resort to 50/50s.
To give an example, take a look at this Replay: My Choice Band Regidrago is EVd to beat even the bulkiest of Custap Snorlax, any not running copious amounts of bulk will die to Band Outrage, and even if they don't, they will still die to Double-Edge recoil, while not being able to 2hko with anything else. Of course, Snorlax does not give a single shit, and wins by clicking Counter.
Other proof of concept: Replay 1 Replay 2 s/o Akumajou and FINAL THOUGHTS for testing Seeing Urshifu Single Strike have to 50/50 against a Non-Chople Snorlax is super sad (if it's AV/Scarf it straight up loses) is extremely sad, not a lot more to say.
Also
If your builder looks like this
You probably have to re evaluate why you don't have that much of an issue with Snorlax, and thus your stance on the subject.
That is all, I reckon everything that had to be said has been said and Snorlax's situation is very straightforward, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me on Discord at crucify#2907, my discord alt Tricking#1218 or on Tinder (only works if you are a woman).
I didn't go into too much detail on individual match-ups, if you want any of that information, it is already displayed in zio's post.
Snorlax is a Pokemon that has unfortunately been plagued by the omission of facts that stand in contrast to the suggestion of its prominence. Little to no consideration has been put forth to how opportunity cost impacts Snorlax and its prospective sets, plenty of speculation about how Snorlax can adapt to threats has been suggested while yet seemingly neglecting the fact that other Pokemon are also capable of adapting, outright disinformation has been spread with the suggestion that any set that isn't zoomers™ approved somehow isn't legitimate, and even voter intimidation with a notable pattern of anyone criticizing a potential Snorlax ban being met with the suggestion that they don't know 1v1. With that said, I do not plan on telling you what to vote; tiering is a process designed to be vague and subjective, and while I may personally feel that Snorlax isn't broken, different people are allowed to have different perspectives, especially on a Pokemon that almost certainly stands as a contender for the best in the metagame, at the moment. My sole intention with this post is to present the facts of the matter that have been omitted by those looking to change the status quo and hopefully allow the voters to come to their own conclusions on Snorlax without being force-fed what to think by a small pool of people.
Starting off, the matter of opportunity cost:
As a reminder, opportunity cost is the notion of when you're missing out on potentially beating something that you could have beaten with whatever you're using, but you no longer are able to, as a result of using something else. An example of what opportunity cost looks like would be your choice of coverage moves on Custap Snorlax, with something like Gastro Acid being essential for dealing with Unaware users, while Counter is necessary for having a chance at dealing with Urshifu and Rillaboom; you can't have both, thus the opportunity cost in this scenario is missing out on whatever the move you didn't choose could have done for you.
With this in mind, Snorlax is rife with opportunity costs at the builder level, with each setup of differing moves and items all offering their own set of costs and benefits. For something like Urshifu this isn't really too big of an issue, since all of its prominent sets revolve around the use of its excellent STAB moves, thus most potential opportunity cost between sets is minimal, such as the handful of special attackers you particularly need Assault Vest for, or the few Fighting coverage users you can beat with Chople, etc. Snorlax, however, becomes a lot trickier to make cover everything it needs to, with each set drastically changing the dynamic of how Snorlax operates. With this in mind, the cumulative gains of each potential Snorlax set may seem daunting to go up against, however, you must also bear in mind the other side of the matter, in that Snorlax also becomes difficult to use itself, thus resulting in many battles with Snorlax being a prominent threat boiling down to what the Snorlax's opponent thinks the Snorlax set may be, as well as what the Snorlax user thinks their opponent thinks the Snorlax set may be. Given this notion, an argument could be made for Snorlax being an uncompetitive presence in the metagame, though whether or not that much forced setguessing and opponent reading would be uncompetitive enough to warrant a ban is to be argued. The uncompetitive argument is also further emboldened by the issue of 50/50 scenarios from the Custap Snorlax set in particular, given multiple matchups where it can either win or lose depending upon what it chooses between Encore or another move; one such matchup being demonstrated in the above post.
Moving on, the matter of adaptation:
Adaptation is a two-way street, and while Snorlax is definitely one of the most adaptable Pokemon in the current metagame, this doesn't necessarily undermine the potential of adaptation for other Pokemon as well. If things like Gunk Shot and Gastro Acid on Snorlax can suddenly pop up and be accepted as if they were always used, why can't something like Taunt Urshifu be accepted as well? Or Knock Off / Bulk Up on Rillaboom? Or Necrozma existing at all? What the notion of adaptability ultimately boils down to is each individual person's building patterns while accounting for prominent aspects in their given metagame, especially in the context of preparing for a series against a particular opponent. With that in mind, we can actually observe Snorlax's efficacy, thanks to the usage stats being recorded for the ongoing Premier League! Since Week 3 has yet to be added, I went ahead and did the stats myself, to make absolutely sure:
With these stats and the previous two weeks in mind, you can't help but notice a glaring pattern in regards to Snorlax, being that teams with it lose a lot, almost disproportionately so, when you compare it to other mons in the top 10 of each week. Not only are teams with Snorlax losing more often than others, usage of Snorlax's supposed counters isn't really disproportionately higher than what they already are on ladder, besides Clefable, albeit that one being more of a recent development that gained traction. With this data in mind, it is pretty evident that teams using Snorlax are not disproportionately better than teams without it, which puts a considerable strain on the idea that Snorlax might be broken.
With all that said, this brings us back to the matter of adaptability. If a Pokemon as unpredictable and "broken" as Snorlax is losing so much despite its checks and counters not really being used disproportionately really indicative of a Pokemon that is supposedly too good? If a Pokemon that is winning only roughly 1/3 or 1/4 of the time is bannable, what does it take for it to not be bannable? 0% winrate? Does that sound reasonable to you?
In conclusion, with regards to Snorlax, I simply do not feel that it has what it takes to warrant a ban under the guise of Broken or Unhealthy. As described above, teams using Snorlax are simply not at an advantage against teams without Snorlax, so that throws Broken as a criteria out of the equation. Moving on, I do not believe Snorlax really has the dominant metagame prominence to warrant a ban under the guise of Unhealthy, either; it's not used anywhere near as much as any other Pokemon in 1v1's history that was looked into for being Unhealthy, nor is it used to anywhere near the same level of success, either. The only criteria I could maybe see a case for a Snorlax ban being made is under the guise of Uncompetitive, due to the inherent amount of setguessing, setguessing guessing, and 50/50s that the use of Snorlax creates, though this of course is up for debate, as there isn't really much of a point of reference to compare to for Uncompetitive bans, in addition to the fact that many people often disagree on what it inherently means for something to qualify as being "Uncompetitive". Given how Snorlax wasn't really thought of as a "problematic" presence by the greater community until roughly this month, I think it stands to reason that Snorlax's low winrate in PL thus far does not correlate to the metagame potentially already having been warped around it; this, alongside everything else, being to say that Snorlax does not meet the same "tier" of overcentralizing as STABLE would describe Snorlax as, nor does it come anywhere close to the level of the examples in his linked OTR post he provided to act as comparison.
Now, to avoid omitting facts myself, here's links to all the comparative data for other prominent Pokemon throughout 1v1's history:
As you can see throughout all of the recorded data here, Pokemon that have either been banned or suspected (BW Kyub/SM Dragonite/SS Mimikyu/Jirachi/Togekiss/etc, even other prominent Pokemon that didn't get the chance to be looked at like SM Charizard, DLC1 Porygon-Z, etc) have all thrived considerably, having much higher winrates and usage than Snorlax does nowadays.
Lastly, if there's any one thing that I would ask of the people voting on whether or not to ban Snorlax, it would be to critically analyze Snorlax and its impact upon the metagame for yourself, and reach your own conclusion about its place in 1v1. Just because some vocal people you happen to like may think a certain way doesn't mean that they should automatically think for you.
But since then, I tried for reqs... a lot. Snorlax ended up killing quite a few of my early runs, and so many high quality players trying for reqs really highlighted to me why Snorlax should go. There were so many players and so much Snorlax, and because of this it felt like Snorlax had infinite sets and playstyles. Sure, sometimes people used belly drum as I used Knock Off, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the run I ended up qualifying in was the run where I used Clefable and Pyukumuku for most of it.
In one of my 1v1pl games I encountered an Aegislash that I later learned was Mental Herb specifically for Snorlax. And while creative sets are usually a good thing, I interpret this as Snorlax making someone use a subpar set just to beat it. It doesn't beat much else without Air Balloon or Weakness Policy in my opinion.
Snorlax as a poke is greater than the sum of its parts. Its sets don't have enough overlap in checks and because of that I will vote ban.
I'm going to vote ban too. This shit is literally ruining the meta, by all the sets it can have. There is no counter, which beats 100% snorlax. Even band sawk can lose to chople yawn....
The only thing i could vote for no ban snorlax, is to ban the custap berry, cause it's the most broken set with snorlax, coupled with glutony. (band et chople are good but it's counterable by a lot of mons). But i know we can't ban custap cause it's not broken with others mons and can give interesting sets. That's why i vote ban.
And even if snorlax is not used, i see it in a lot of teams and its presence is a cancer to pick the right mon. (cause you always fear he will go snorlax so you must predict...)
For example, i've lost my 2 first pl matches in ss, and when i analyzed my losses, i asked me "in fact it's cause of snorlax that i lost, he is too impacting, by the sets it runs, and his presence in a team". And, that's why i ran sawk in most of my teams, to have the biggest counter of snorlax. The problem is that you just have to counter the few counters of snorlax, and you have an insane team. (scarf salamence for all fighting type like urshifus and sawk, + a fairy like clefable...)
And yeah, I understand now why I lost in PL ss , i'm tired of this meta of snorlax and urshifus everywhere.
How do you want to adapt if the mon is literally broken and has 0 pure counter. (yeah put max def max hp to counter xsc haxorus)
Please, allow the meta to be funnier and more diversified, so ban it.
The end date for the Snorlax Suspect was meant to be Friday, March 5th at 11:59 PM GMT -5, not March 12th. This follows the 2 week timeframe all other suspects have had previously.
