On November 18th of 2022, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet was released worldwide. On November 18th of 2023, Smogon banned Sneasler from SV OU! This post will outline precisely why Sneasler has been banned, but for those curious about what happened in the year since release, WilhelmTheOkay wrote a series of posts in great detail going through the first year of our metagame here!
Sneasler was included in our most recent tiering survey, which is still open. Through the first two days, which typically represent over 95% of total responses, Sneasler had a qualified response average of 4.4 out of 5. To put this into context, here are the survey scores of some other Pokemon and a move when they got banned without a public suspect test:
In the case of Sneasler, it was always a strong Pokemon since its mid-generation release, but only recently found itself a focal point in tiering circles as people began using it in a fashion that was most conducive towards its effectiveness while the metagame failed to sufficiently react to it over some time. Suddenly teams with Rillaboom, which set Grassy Terrain, enabled Unburden + Swords Dance Sneasler to be unreasonable due to the combination of strength and speed it provided. The doubling of its speed coupled with the enhanced bulk from Grassy Terrain and +1 defense eliminated virtually all offensive counterplay to Sneasler outside of specific combinations of priority or sporadically seen options like Barraskewda under Rain, which is not close to enough. Defensive counterply did exist at least, but it was few and far between, frequently depending upon Sneasler being a specific variant or not being able to exhaust its Tera in a timely fashion. Options like Dondozo, Iron Defense + Brave Bird Corviknight, and Tera Ghost Iron Defense Garganacl have popped up recently to handle Sneasler and while a few others can potentially fit the bill as well, it is ultimately a Pokemon you have to go well out of your way to assure coverage of, which does not cater to a healthy or varied teambuilding picture for our metagame.
While Dire Claw is already arguably uncompetitive and worthy of greater discussion on Sneasler, this aspect of it was almost swept under the rug as people focused on how it could function as a sweeper, cleaning games out with ease as it swept many Pokemon within the tier under the rug itself. Swords Dance and fighting STAB like Close Combat were locks on these sets. From there, Tera Flying and Acrobatics or Tera Ghost and Shadow Claw were both frequented. Sometimes we saw Tera Flying opt to run both so Shadow Claw could still nab Gholdengo, too, but other times either variant could opt to run Poison STAB like Gunk Shot last, which provided premium damage output as it often OHKO'd common Zapdos variants at +2 while covering Tornadus-Therian, Clefable, and Moltres in certain cases. Ultimately, Sneasler was largely able to dictate its own counterplay and found very convenient metagame conditions allowing for it to set up without as much of an entry barrier as you would anticipate for something as fragile as Sneasler typically is.
Dire Claw still saw some usage on these sets and provided a lane to force status on would-be checks or counters, too. This dynamic was arguably not amplified to the full extent on Swords Dance sets and instead focused on more with the pivot variants, which are far less problematic and not necessarily why we deemed Sneasler broken. With this in mind, Dire Claw is still a move that had potentially...dire...ramifications on the OU metagame, stealing games from prepared players or opponents who seemed to have winning positions going into Sneasler interactions. The primary reason for the ban is the Swords Dance + Unburden sets, which were always good with Air Balloon and now stole the show on Grassy Terrain teams, but getting the Dire Clawer out of the tier is not a downside by any stretch of the imagination either. With all of these conditions and the abundance of community support from the aforementioned tiering survey kept in mind, the SV OU council elected to vote on Sneasler, with the three options being a quickban, suspect, or not acting. The results are as follows:
Sneasler
mind gaming's vote will be edited in tomorrow, but his timezone clashed with the start of the vote and we already reached a verdict prior to his vote.
With 8 votes in favor of a quickban, 1 vote in favor of a suspect, and 0 votes in favor of no action, Sneasler has been quickbanned from SV OU with an 88.889% supermajority from the tiering council! Tagging Kris and Marty to implement this as it is effective immediately in SV OU.
Thanks to everyone who participated in both discussions and our tiering survey; this is not the only Pokemon we are discussing and I will provide an update (if we are acting further or not) when one is available in th future, but I would expect us to employe a brief cool-down period after this quickban like we did with the last ban of Gliscor. We look forward to hearing from you and continuing to enact our tiering process as the generation continues!
Sneasler was included in our most recent tiering survey, which is still open. Through the first two days, which typically represent over 95% of total responses, Sneasler had a qualified response average of 4.4 out of 5. To put this into context, here are the survey scores of some other Pokemon and a move when they got banned without a public suspect test:
- Espathra, 4.25 out of 5
- Shed Tail, 4.3 out of 5
- Chien Pao, 4.63 out of 5
- Zamazenta-Crowned, 4.4 out of 5
- Baxcalibur, 4.64 out of 5
- Ogerpon-Hearthflame, 4.1 out of 5
In the case of Sneasler, it was always a strong Pokemon since its mid-generation release, but only recently found itself a focal point in tiering circles as people began using it in a fashion that was most conducive towards its effectiveness while the metagame failed to sufficiently react to it over some time. Suddenly teams with Rillaboom, which set Grassy Terrain, enabled Unburden + Swords Dance Sneasler to be unreasonable due to the combination of strength and speed it provided. The doubling of its speed coupled with the enhanced bulk from Grassy Terrain and +1 defense eliminated virtually all offensive counterplay to Sneasler outside of specific combinations of priority or sporadically seen options like Barraskewda under Rain, which is not close to enough. Defensive counterply did exist at least, but it was few and far between, frequently depending upon Sneasler being a specific variant or not being able to exhaust its Tera in a timely fashion. Options like Dondozo, Iron Defense + Brave Bird Corviknight, and Tera Ghost Iron Defense Garganacl have popped up recently to handle Sneasler and while a few others can potentially fit the bill as well, it is ultimately a Pokemon you have to go well out of your way to assure coverage of, which does not cater to a healthy or varied teambuilding picture for our metagame.
While Dire Claw is already arguably uncompetitive and worthy of greater discussion on Sneasler, this aspect of it was almost swept under the rug as people focused on how it could function as a sweeper, cleaning games out with ease as it swept many Pokemon within the tier under the rug itself. Swords Dance and fighting STAB like Close Combat were locks on these sets. From there, Tera Flying and Acrobatics or Tera Ghost and Shadow Claw were both frequented. Sometimes we saw Tera Flying opt to run both so Shadow Claw could still nab Gholdengo, too, but other times either variant could opt to run Poison STAB like Gunk Shot last, which provided premium damage output as it often OHKO'd common Zapdos variants at +2 while covering Tornadus-Therian, Clefable, and Moltres in certain cases. Ultimately, Sneasler was largely able to dictate its own counterplay and found very convenient metagame conditions allowing for it to set up without as much of an entry barrier as you would anticipate for something as fragile as Sneasler typically is.
Dire Claw still saw some usage on these sets and provided a lane to force status on would-be checks or counters, too. This dynamic was arguably not amplified to the full extent on Swords Dance sets and instead focused on more with the pivot variants, which are far less problematic and not necessarily why we deemed Sneasler broken. With this in mind, Dire Claw is still a move that had potentially...dire...ramifications on the OU metagame, stealing games from prepared players or opponents who seemed to have winning positions going into Sneasler interactions. The primary reason for the ban is the Swords Dance + Unburden sets, which were always good with Air Balloon and now stole the show on Grassy Terrain teams, but getting the Dire Clawer out of the tier is not a downside by any stretch of the imagination either. With all of these conditions and the abundance of community support from the aforementioned tiering survey kept in mind, the SV OU council elected to vote on Sneasler, with the three options being a quickban, suspect, or not acting. The results are as follows:
Sneasler | Finchinator | Ruft | ausma | ima | Lily | mind gaming | NJNP | Star | TPP | xavgb |
| Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Suspect | Ban | Ban | Ban |
With 8 votes in favor of a quickban, 1 vote in favor of a suspect, and 0 votes in favor of no action, Sneasler has been quickbanned from SV OU with an 88.889% supermajority from the tiering council! Tagging Kris and Marty to implement this as it is effective immediately in SV OU.
Thanks to everyone who participated in both discussions and our tiering survey; this is not the only Pokemon we are discussing and I will provide an update (if we are acting further or not) when one is available in th future, but I would expect us to employe a brief cool-down period after this quickban like we did with the last ban of Gliscor. We look forward to hearing from you and continuing to enact our tiering process as the generation continues!