Sneasel has been banned

[blarajan]

Hello. Apparently everyone in Little Cup hates Sneasel. I understand why. It's strong as hell, stab Knock Off is obnoxious, and it's basically impossible to check since it 2HKOes almost everything with the correct move. EVEN THOUGH I SPECIFICALLY DISALLOWED IT, some users (cough heysup) have been mentioning Sneasel is banned since the day the tier started (cough heysup). To be quite honest, I was considering Sneasel for the initial Little Cup banlist. However, I thought it had a chance to be balanced or at least reasonable, and as such left it off, only having Scyther since fuck Scyther. The reason I am posting this is I want the time we have with early XY Little Cup to be valuable. If we have another two months or so before tiering (I'm not going to allow Suspect testing until a while after Pokebank, so two months is a good guess), then I want the tier to develop in a way that makes that valuable.

Sneasel might be too obnoxious to allow it for that two months, as this is a valuable development period. I am posting this because I am on the fence as to whether I should quickban Sneasel. Keep in mind that this is the only time I am considering a quickban ever--every other ban from here on out would have a suspect process. To contribute to this thread, please post valid reasons as to why you believe Sneasel should be quickbanned or should stay until ~mid to late January, when the initial suspect testing will begin.

The biggest complaints of BW LC is that nothing was "broken" but it was not fun. Since my suspect process allows the ladderers to nominate suspect Pokemon (see this thread for an explanation of the suspect policy), not fun things could end up banned. As such, here are the three criteria that I consider most important for right now.

1) Is Sneasel broken?
2) Is Sneasel making Little Cup not fun?
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?

Obviously, if Number 1 is shown to be the case, then we will just ban it and get on with our lives. If it is not necessarily the case, but it causes enough of Number 2, we will probably quickban as well. Number 3 is irrelevant to Sneasel's place in the tier, but it is very important to me because I want Little Cup to expand and for the playerbase to grow. I won't make any tiering decisions based on 3, but it matters to me.

Post in this thread with as many (good) replays as you want, explanations of Sneasel as to whether it is broken or not, or your defense for it. Use Sneasel's stats and qualities as a basis for your arguments--I do not want to see posts that end at "Sneasel is strong, Knock Off is powerful, Sneasel has 23 speed." Those are lists, not arguments. Well made posts outlining your reasoning, well made responses to other people's posts, and just overall discussion in this thread is going to be very much taken into consideration when I decide the original Little Cup Council.

Discuss away. Sneasel's fate is in your hands.

 

[Ssin]

imo, sneasel is not broken, there are few checks, even less counters, if any, but not broken. what ruins it for me is that every team ussually a sneasel and at least one sneasel check, if not two, which makes it all a bit monotone and more of the same.

 

[Plastic Moose]

I'm not too sure about sneasel, but right now I think its not broken. even though it has zero counters, many of its checks are very viable in little cup (Snubbull, Timburr) and this makes it easier to check sneasel because you can cover many other threats at the same time

that being said, absolutely every team needs at least one sneasel check, otherwise they WILL fail

 

[Splashyship]

it is getting to the point where every team needs a set sneasel counter (there aren't that many good ones) and every team needs a sneasel of its own. It is borderline broken but it definitely takes away some of the fun of little cup. so in summation: borderline broken, way overused, please ban or at least ban knock off on it, if possible. - dcae's nephew splashy

 

[Phemeto]

I'm not too sure about sneasel, but right now I think its not broken. even though it has zero counters, many of its checks are very viable in little cup (Snubbull, Timburr) and this makes it easier to check sneasel because you can cover many other threats at the same time

that being said, absolutely every team needs at least one sneasel check, otherwise they WILL fail

That is exactly why sneasel should be banned. If everyone is forced to run a specific pokemon, or face losing because the opponent had it but not you, then it's broken.

With that, everyone usually runs the counters to sneasel checks on their team (Gligar for timburr mainly, and meditite) so we see the same teams time after time, its preventing diversity in the tier. That's the way I feel at least.

So:
1. Yeah it seems fairly broken
2. Yeah it's making the meta game stale and boring.
3. No actually, continuing to play LC regardless.

 

[kingmidas]

I have to agree with plastic Moose completely on that. But also adding onto what the him and Ssin said, Sneasel is very difficult to handle without a dedicated check, so yes it does seem broken at first, and it will be considered broken for as long as it is around. This fortunately was the same case of murkrow, which people handled in BW2 with the same care as sneasel right now. But it also shows how we can check it, and on top of it the immense power it has causes you to go creative to surprise the opponent, so it does make LC fun.

 

[fatty]

and this is why i initially thought we should have a specific definition of "brokenness" for xy lc...

as of right now, for times sake, i will not be posting my opinion, but i will sometime soon. what i would like to do, though, in order to help put this thread on the right track, is to sort-of comment on the first two posts and provide some food for thought. first of all, the point of this thread is to have good, productive discussion on the topic of whether sneasel is broken or not, or deemed not healthy for a "utopian" metagame, or as close we can get to it, in an attempt to hopefully get us all on the same page. this is especially important because this is the first true metagame defining discussion we will be having for xy lc, so it would be very beneficial if it could help set a good precedent. this, however, cannot happen if it is filled with posts like the ones i am seeing thus far, and i mean this in the most polite way as possible. ssin, you posted saying right off the bat, "sneasel is not broken", but failed to give any reason whatsoever why you feel such a way, and even went as far as stating potential argument pieces for the other side such as "there are few checks, even less counters, if any". plastic moose, you at least took it one step further by mentioning the concept of it's checks being viable, but where do you go from there? yeah, sure, timburr might be viable, but that really doesn't say much in respect to whether or not sneasel itself is broken. again not to single anybody out, but i advise both of you, and the rest of the lc community, to think on a broader scale and not only use singular concepts, but combinations of them to formulate a valid argument. i don't want to see a shit ton of posts just stating "sneasel is a broken piece of shit, ban it" or "i love using sneasel, it's not broken!". use your experience with the lc metagame thus far and prior knowledge of other metagames to clearly depict what your idea of a broken pokemon is, it's effect on the metagame, and what it's problems may or may not be.

 

[Heysup]

I feel obligated to make a long post so...

1) Is Sneasel broken?

If I have learned anything from my billion years at smogon, there's going to be a discrepancy between people's definitions of broken. Whatever. Sneasel is not one of those Pokemon that "depends on the person" broken. In every aspect of every reasonable definition of the word, Sneasel fits it.

If you're concerned about its impact on the metagame: It has definitely surpassed even Gligar/Missy of earlier Gens of their 50%per game rate, Sneasel is on almost every team and I would be lying if I didn't think it was in 99/100 games within the people on the ladder. For those of you who would say "who cares if you see it, take advantage of it! It's not powerful enough to matter how often it's used", please read on.

If you're concerned about it's power and effectiveness: Lets compare Sneasel to the rest of the metagame. It's the fastest Pokemon in the metagame, which is the primary reason for its ridiculousness and makes its most impressive job that of a revenge killer Look at your awesome Sneasel proof team for a second and think honestly, how many of those Pokemon don't take enough from Sneasel to be revenge killed? Sneasel will even revenge kill most things from 100% HP, like Gligar, Missy, even frail Scarfers or Focus Sash users can get Fake Out + Ice Sharded.

And once Sneasel has revenged killed something, now what? There are a couple things to address here: a) using a less threatening Pokemon than Sneasel to force it out is not a valid argument for something checking or countering it. Sneasel has just killed something (since it 2hKOes the metagame, it's almost pointless to switch out unless you are attempting to outpredict) and now you send out your check to take a small recoverable chunk out of one of your Pokemon's HP? Again, Sneasel KOes something and then you don't even come close to KOing anything back and eventually this happens over and over again until you lose. Sounds like a bad deal.

Of course, Sneasel is not only a revenge killer, but it's a late-game cleaner too. If you don't have one of those few Pokemon that can survive a hit from Sneasel alive, you're probably done (besides your own Sneasel) because Sneasel is otherwise faster than everything. Besides a few Choice Scarfers who require full HP to not die from Ice Shard.

And "one of those few Pokemon that can survive a hit" is being used very loosely. How many hits can those Pokemon actually take? Just take a quick glance at the Victim of the Week thread and you'll see everything you need to know about how those Pokemon don't exactly work well even in the scenarios they are used solely for.

Please, don't base your opinion on Sneasel solely on people using it against you because you may not understand the full power if Sneasel until you yourself use Sneasel and see how little effort is required to charge through your opponent.


2) Is Sneasel making Little Cup not fun?

Even more subjective than the first question....it's not making it "not fun" per se, but it's making it worse. Who likes limitations? Not me or any other person who wants to be competitive, creative, and innovative.

3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?

I have posted some PS logs on IRC (well just one "serious one", maybe a couple "FUCK SNEASEL USER YOU SUCK I HATE LC ETC" logs). So yes, I think there is actual proof of this happening.

 

[atomicllamas]

Is sneasel likely broken, imo, it is, as it has great offensive typing (especially with the steel nerf), great speed, and really nice power. It honestly doesn't even have that bad of bulk by littlecup standards either, its just that most people would rather run LO than eviolite (and its typing is bad defensively). The main thing that I think pushes sneasel over the edge, however, is that STAB knock off is not only a terrific attack, but it also makes its own counters and checks easier to deal with, as many LC mons rely on their items more than in other tiers.

All that being said, I don't think that Sneasel is worthy of a quick ban, when the time comes for suspecting stuff, Sneasel should obviously be high on the list, but personally I think insta-banning things sets a bad precedent. As for the other questions, is Sneasel making LC less enjoyable, I'd say no, Sneasel isn't so OP that one must run it on every team, it is obviously a huge centralizing force, but I thought gen 5 LC was fun and look how centralized that was. Also "fun" should never be the reason for banning things, cause not everyone can be perfectly satisfied by the same meta. And as for your last question, I don't think that it is deterring people from playing LC (well I can't speak for others, lol) but I think people are just naturally less interested in LC than they are in OU for whatever reason (even though LC is a way better tier).

To summarize:

1) Most likely, but please don't quick ban, that sets a dumb precedent making people think they can whine enough to get stuff banned.

2) Not for me.

3) I doubt it.

 

[copycatcat]

1. Yes, it is broken. I have tested (and failed to utilize, although partly because of bad prediction on my part) to use Sky Uppercut on my Gligar for the sole purpose of stopping Sneasel switch-ins. 95% of the games I lose, my opponent has a Sneasel.
2. No, but it is reducing said "fun".
3. Probably not, but 0.1% of people may ragequit because of Sneasel.

 

[Heysup]

1) Most likely, but please don't quick ban, that sets a dumb precedent making people think they can whine enough to get stuff banned.

That's a bit of a slippery slope fallacy - something wouldn't get quick banned by this precedent unless it actually falls within the precedent set by Sneasel and Scyther. Keep in mind, Scyther was quickbanned and no one was actually saying "if Scyther was banned Sneasel can be too!!!". This Sneasel ban arose out of its own doing, not Scyther's precedent.

 

[Raseri]

woo, it's happening. Now personally, I believe Sneasel is extremely broken. it is so bad that it isn't even funny. But I'll take it point by point.

1) Is Sneasel broken?

Yes. Sneasel breaks the speed tiers, while maintaining a ridiculous level of power, and still having reasonable bulk. With the "victim of the week" thread going on right now. We spent a lot of time trying to find sneasel counters. And really, there aren't any. Timburr is the closest you can get. And even it can't switch in forever. Any other Sneasel check/counter can be defeated by a combination of Knock Off and Ice Punch. For a team to handle Sneasel, we're forced to use multiple checks. And these checks can not be used for anything except for Sneasel, as if they take even a small amount of previous damage, they end up losing to it. So having to keep some pretty shitty Pokemon like Growlithe at full health during a match just so I can maybe beat Sneasel is pretty bad.

Sneasel makes Choice Scarf users redundant. Unless you're already really fast, you'll still end up slower than it. This in turn makes it harder to prepare for boosting threats without a Sneasel of your own. Sneasel makes Eviolite a poor item choice because of Knock Off and Ice Punch. Sneasel shifts the metagame to a much more offensive state than it would be otherwise, because checking Sneasel defensively is very hard. Checking SNeasel ofensively is the best way to defeat it.

So yeah. Sneasel is broken, and should probably have been included on the initial ban list. So add it please :)



2) Is Sneasel making Little Cup not fun?

subjective question. Any answers to this are going to be a single users opinion, even more so than the first question. If you ever ban anything based off of this ill slap you ;D
3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
probably a little bit. We all know it is going to be banned. Why make teams for LC when I am 99% sure Sneasel is going to be banned? (because it's fun, but some people think that)

 

[atomicllamas]

That's a bit of a slippery slope fallacy - something wouldn't get quick banned by this precedent unless it actually falls within the precedent set by Sneasel and Scyther. Keep in mind, Scyther was quickbanned and no one was actually saying "if Scyther was banned Sneasel can be too!!!". This Sneasel ban arose out of its own doing, not Scyther's precedent.

Fair enough, I really meant that stuff should actually be given a test before being banned, as unless something is really really obscenely broken (like many of the box cover legionaries are in OU, and scyther more than likely was in LC). It just seems wrong to me to ban something without giving it a fair shot, as mentioned previously that may have ended with Murkrow getting the kick in gen 5.

 

[Swan Songs]

1) Is Sneasel broken?
Yes, I think it is. The fact there's almost no checks to Sneasel (Timburr being one of the best is still koed pretty quickly and your opponent can just switch out)
Sneasel has no complete checks and obviously no counters and from what I've looked around on Google and such the definition of broken is lacking any checks/counters so yes, Sneasel is broken.

2) Is Sneasel making Little Cup not fun?
It does limit team building to some extent because you have to carry at least one check to Sneasel, but that can be said about all things (such as Gligar, Swirlix, etc.)
For someone that likes to use stall as a playstyle yes, it makes the metagame not fun because Sneasel ruins stall.
In my opinion, as said by Raseri, Sneasel shifts the metagame towards heavy offense because the only way to check it is to revenge kill it as nothing can take multiple hits.

3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
Personally, I don't think so. Every metagame has its top threats and whatnot that new players need to adjust to and Sneasel is no exception. I guess because Sneasel wrecks unprepared teams it could piss new people off, but eh, anyone can be swept by numerous threats.

 

[blarajan]

For the sake of answering a few things (I am trying to stay out of the discussion, just making clarification purposes)

1) fatty's post is spot on. I do not want small bullshit posts that don't tell me anything.
2) There is no precedent being set. This is a Sneasel exception. I even posted in the OP things are not going to be quickbanned besides maybe this thing.
3) I understand the subjectivity. Whether something is "broken" is subjective. Whether something is "more or less fun" is subjective. However, I'm not asking you to answer these questions based on a subjective fashion. I'm asking you to make arguments. You can definitely make arguments whether or not something is broken. You can likewise make arguments about fun based on Sneasel's effect on the tier. Think about what it does, and what you think the tier looks like due to Sneasel, and what it would like otherwise. I don't so much mean "fun" as I mean "boring" or "restrictive" or things along those lines. You can make arguments.
4) You can talk about both Pokebank and not Pokebank.

 

[ryan]

1) Is Sneasel broken?
I think so. I've made a couple of teams and played around with a couple of teams from the team thread, and I've yet to run into a Sneasel that didn't at least slap my team around a bit. At best, Sneasel has 6-0'd me, and at worst, it has at least taken out one or two members of my team. What makes Sneasel so bad to face to me is Knock Off, which went from a great way to soften up the opposing team in BW to a vicious way of softening the opposing team by getting rid of Eviolites and Berry Juices while also dealing nasty amounts of damage. Sneasel also happens to be the best user of the move; you pretty much can't switch your Sneasel check directly into it because if you do, it's not going to be able to switch in again. Best case scenario, you stay in against a Sneasel as it uses Knock Off and take it out. Worst case scenario, it's coming in on something it can revenge with Knock Off (which is a lot and happens to me so much because I try to keep my Sneasel checks healthy, meaning they rarely come in unless they need to), and regardless of whether you switch or not, you're immediately at the disadvantage. At any rate, I'm no veteran LC player, so maybe I just don't know the best ways of checking it. But I have played the meta, and I have yet to find a single "counter" to Sneasel that is also viable outside of countering Sneasel. I'm sure Timburr does a swell job of checking Sneasel, but if it switches into a Knock Off, there goes most of its bulk, and the next time it switches in, it's not going to enjoy an Ice Punch.

2) Is Sneasel making Little Cup not fun?
Absolutely, and basing a ban partially off of this isn't such a crazy thing. If Sneasel wasn't so broken, it wouldn't make the metagame so un-fun. The two qualities are intertwined more often than not, and this case is no exception. Sneasel makes LC such a pain in the ass right now because you have to do one or more of 1. play heavy offense, 2. rely on a Sneasel Speed tie to beat it, 3. use Pokemon that are not viable outside of checking Sneasel, 4. play incredibly warily around it, or 5. get lucky/play a bad player. I like playing heavy offense, but I also like (and generally prefer) using bulky offense or even stally teams. Sneasel makes these playstyles much less viable, and playing a tier that limits creativity in teambuilding is fucking boring.

3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
Uh, at the very least, it's deterring me lol. I said a few days back that I'm waiting until Sneasel is banned to start playing again. Hopefully that's sooner than later, but if not, whatever. I can't really comment on other people and their views on Sneasel because I don't care to talk about a metagame that's so boring to me.

Sorry if not all of these is coherent. I'm tired of writing about broken shit in LC and OU. vOv

 

[Antar]

The problem with banning Sneasel is that it would upset what I think is a truly awesome ecosystem that we've got going. Without Sneasel, Gligar, Missy, Tangela and Yanma roam around much more freely. Basically I think making the decision to ban Sneasel would lead to a chain reaction of bans, which is fine, but then we should acknowledge that "LC Ubers" is a viable and interesting Metagame.

To be clear, I do not think Sneasel is broken in today's meta--it's too hard to switch in and has plenty of checks and counters.

 

[Melon]

Let's be honest... Sneasel is a really good Pokemon. With the highest speed in the tier, extremely good attack, STAB Knock Off and priority in Ice Shard, Sneasel is insanely good. However, it's not broken. Sneasel has enough viable checks, counters, and thing that can revenge it. More importantly however, more thought really needs to be put into this ban, so a quickban is a bad idea in my opinion. This ban, if it happens, will most likely lead to other Pokemon getting very good, mabye even broken because they lost a popular Pokemon that can stop it, Lets say Sneasel gets banned, and Yanma rises in usage and maybe is broken. Now people want Yanma banned, so that's banned. Now something else lost a popular check, and now that's broken. More things would inevitably get banned if Sneasel gets banned without careful consideration for what will happen post ban.

 

[Heysup]

The problem with banning Sneasel is that it would upset what I think is a truly awesome ecosystem that we've got going. Without Sneasel, Gligar, Missy, Tangela and Yanma roam around much more freely. Basically I think making the decision to ban Sneasel would lead to a chain reaction of bans, which is fine, but then we should acknowledge that "LC Ubers" is a viable and interesting Metagame.

To be clear, I do not think Sneasel is broken in today's meta--it's too hard to switch in and has plenty of checks and counters.

I have a couple problems with this logic. My primary problem is that it suggests a Pokemon that could be considered broken would be kept in so that (inherently) less broken Pokemon are checked. This also uses the argument of Sneasels revenge killing prowess as a point against it, which doesn't makes sense.

Also the second paragraph confuses me. I'm not sure if you meant "not too hard to switch into"....that makes your first and third statements make more sense but it is obviously not true. EDIT: Oh, I see. I read it as being Sneasel is too difficult to switch into, not to switch in. My mistake.

 

[Antar]

Also the second paragraph confuses me. I'm not sure if you meant "not too hard to switch into"....that makes your first and third statements make more sense but it is obviously not true.

No, I said that right. I mean, Sneasel is frail enough that you--for the most part--don't want to switch it in unless it's a free switch. Ice/Dark has a shitton of weaknesses.

I actually take issue with something you said in a post that "50%" of teams had Sneasel on them. The last usage stats I (or anyone else) saw had that number FAR lower (around 30% IIRC), and I'm willing to crunch numbers for a partial month, but even if you meticulously counted every opponent's team, that still wouldn't be a scientific sampling based on how PS does its matching.

 

[Swan Songs]

The problem with banning Sneasel is that it would upset what I think is a truly awesome ecosystem that we've got going. Without Sneasel, Gligar, Missy, Tangela and Yanma roam around much more freely. Basically I think making the decision to ban Sneasel would lead to a chain reaction of bans, which is fine, but then we should acknowledge that "LC Ubers" is a viable and interesting Metagame.

This is something I completely forgot to address in my post. Sneasel is THE check to a number of threats that used to be considered overpowered.
Gligar? Sneasel's ice punch/ice shard.
Yanma? Sneasel's ice shard.
Missy? Knock off.
Krow? Ice punch/ice shard/brick break
Tangela? Ice punch to knock off a nice ~60% or knock off to allow for an easy revenge kill.

Without Sneasel a lot of these pokemon would run wild a lot more so than they do now.

This puts us in a tricky spot because if Sneasel gets banned the pokes that are so easily checked/countered by him (looking at you Gligar) will become much harder to deal with.

 

[ryan]

I'm wondering what these "plenty of checks and counters" exactly are. A couple of people have cited that as evidence not to ban Sneasel, but I'm not seeing any examples, and I don't know of any counters or many checks.

I'd also venture to say that there are many more checks and counters to the list of Pokemon that Sneasel can check than there are for Sneasel itself, and even if there weren't, if broken things check broken things, a decision needs to be made at some point as to whether all of those broken things should be kept in the tier because they check each other or if they should all get the boot because they have too high of a power level. Regardless, I don't think a broken thing keeping other broken things in check is a good enough argument to keep it around, and even if it was, there is no evidence of how LC would be without Sneasel around; it's an argument based primarily on theorymon.

 

[Heysup]

I actually take issue with something you said in a post that "50%" of teams had Sneasel on them. The last usage stats I (or anyone else) saw had that number FAR lower (around 30% IIRC), and I'm willing to crunch numbers for a partial month, but even if you meticulously counted every opponent's team, that still wouldn't be a scientific sampling based on how PS does its matching.

Is that Pokebank or nonPokebank and per game or per team? I haven't been in a game without a Sneasel (obviously, since i use it) but almost all of them are with 2 Sneasels. I'd be interested to see either way, though it's a little off topic.

 

[Antar]

Treecko, Heysup I'll have data for you in a few hours (like, tomorrow morning).

Edit: or now. I guess my scripts are pretty fast when they're not processing OU.

I'm keeping the stats to myself for now, but I'll share relevant details. Note that I'm only looking at Pokebank--to talk about anything else with regards to long-term plans is just absurd.

Sneasel is on 34% of teams, followed by Gligar at 30% and Swirlix at 24%. That's nowhere near as bad as Mienfoo at its peak (wasn't it around 45%?). For 1850 stats, the top three are still the same, and the numbers are 44%-41%-32%.

And if it's counters you want, here's what I've got for you:

+----------------------------------------+ 
 | Checks and Counters                    | 
 | Timburr 73.088 (87.21±3.53)            |
 |	 (26.5% KOed / 60.7% switched out)| 
 | Croagunk 58.059 (75.32±4.32)           |
 |	 (21.3% KOed / 54.0% switched out)| 
 | Swirlix 54.243 (67.17±3.23)            |
 |	 (42.7% KOed / 24.5% switched out)| 
 | Meditite 51.494 (63.98±3.12)           |
 |	 (25.8% KOed / 38.2% switched out)| 
 +----------------------------------------+

 

[blarajan]

Aren't those all 2HKOed?