They Just Banned Sneasler. But Why? 

Watch Gen 3 OU tournament sets for a good experience. www.youtube.com/@jimothygaming/videos

this adult woman. this entrepreneur. her nails are perfect. the OU council couldn't handle her bullying.

I don't blame Smogon, I blame Old Money for bribing the OU Council. He's truly good with his gold.

If they designed slaking in gen 9, they would give it pure power

Sneasler terrorizes OU for her fallen cousin, Weavile. But she may have gone too far with her revenge.

It's 2032. It has been 10 years since the release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. The SV format is only relevant among nostalgic players now. Gholdengo is still at the top of OU, which made people divided over how they should deal with it. Many nostalgic players said: "It can't be a SV format without Gholdengo. Nowadays all Pokemon has Magic Bound item which is more broken than Good as Gold anyways." while the other half still being malded over the fact that half of the Pokedex has been banned to UUBER, and Gholdengo is just playing with all the middle stage kindergarteners now.

Half the reason I'm here is to see how Jimothy moves the conversation back to gen 3.

Considering Urshifu completely invalidates all defensive counterplay in Doubles with the autocrit moves and Unseen Fist, not really sure they're focusing on balancing VGC either

OU council really is going for most bans record before they have to unban them all again when DLC2 drops

The Jimothy cool channel if it covered war footage: "This current engagement of troops is comparable to gen 3, where the interaction between Tyranitar and Skarm..."

conviinced the council is just in the pocket of big dengo and a single bisharp fan

imo the most disgusting aspect of Sneasler was that it was so fast, it needed only 52 speed EVs to outspeed the entire metagame after unburden so you could put the rest into bulk

Remember when a non legendary getting banned to Ubers was a massive deal?

NOO NOT MY EDGY CAT

Man, I hate to see it, but this might be where the breaking point of Pokemon as a competitive game shows it's cracks. We had this discussion in Gen 5 with all the new high stats (145 s.atk Chandelure!) and weather wars, but it's clear to see how hard it is to turn a game that is not designed as an e-sport into an e-sport.

This is why I’ve not really touched OU this gen, while UU and below hasn’t been untouched by power creep with how many strong Pokémon have been knocked down into lower tiers, they’re at least much more stable than OU itself.

Oh mega toxicroak is banned.

Absolutely right. People want to say that the problem isn't powercreep, and while its not entirely, as tera kinda turns things on its head too, the modern designs of pokemon are becoming way too minmaxed, way to good at what they do. This is insanity folks. I fear of how gamefreak plans to outclass these pokemon in the future.

Gen 9 is the first gen that I can confidently say it feels like Game Freak was minmaxing pokemon stats. The biggest point towards this: There's a single viable new Mixed Attacker this gen, Iron Valliant. That's it, that's the only real mixed attacker this gen. Most mons have, on average, a 30 point difference between their main attacking stat and the one they don't use. Mons are designed with one purpose in mind and and minmaxed to accomplish that.

Im no Pokemon Expert, but back when Sneaslers stats got leaked i knew it was gonna have an absurdly strong Unburden set combined with the extreme RNG of Dire Claw status procs. I like to jokingly say every Gen 9 Mon is broken and im so far still correct

Man, gen 9 ou blows. The power creep made it too difficult to ever properly balance for singles without getting rid of a ton of stuff. Glad theres always other tier to dip back into at least.

I almost never complain about these bans, but at this point it’s getting ridiculous. Gholden is by no means overpowered, but it’s so clear that it’s warping the meta in a very unhealthy way and I have no idea why they’re willing to ban everything except for it and Gambit. I might as well stop laddering until they get to the root of the problem.

“I talk alot about the gen 3 ou metagame” Just how we like it Jimothy. Gen 3 is insane.

Flutter Mane single handedly made Heavy Slam the #1 steel move in the meta. It is oppressive

If you look back at gen 1-6, GameFreak seemed to follow a rule regarding pokemon and their base stats: very few non-legendary pokemon had a base stat higher than 130 without a significant tradeoff. Metagross and Ttar for example have a higher Attack stat than 130, but both are decently slow. Ttar gets oblterated by fighting moves, Metagross gets walled by a lot of pokemon like Skarmory, Bronzong, and water types. Electrode, Ninjask, and Accelgor have base speeds above 130, neither are offensively threatening on their own. Look at any pokemon with a base stat higher than 130, and you'll find something about them that tones them down. It was gen 7 where they started deviating with pokemon like Blacephalon and Kartana who are fast, kill everything, but were appeared to be balanced by their low HP and defense. Then here in Gen 9 they just went crazy

I wonder how much Old Money lost betting that Kingambit would be banned before Sneasler.

Swift Swim Magikarp can outspeed at least eight meta-relevant pokemon in rain, and can 17HKO everything in the tier. I think this is dire for SV OU until we can sort this out with a Magikarp suspect test.

How many bans are there now? I feel like UUbers should be an official tier if it isn't considering the amount of mons too op for OU but too weak for Ubers.

"That's basically Mega-Lopunny but it can hold an item and it has a TCG attack for a signature move" -Reverend

Sneasler has invaded my home. I heard the sounds of munching from my closet and opened it to find that the weasel had grown enormous. I tried to run, but I could not outpace the Unburdened Free Climber. "This is insane!" I cried, before being instantly killed by a Swords Dance boosted Dire Claw.

Crazy thing is Sneasler didn't even really need to be paired with Rillaboom. Air Balloon sets were quite common as well. You didn't even need any speed investment to outspeed Booster/Scarf Valiant. Switches in on Close Combat, Knock Off, Kowtow Cleave from Gambit, U-Turn, Ceaseless Edge from Hisuirrot, Ivy Cudgel from the Ogerpons, Wood Hammer and Glide from Rillaboom, it had some nice opportunities to switch in, pop its Balloon, and go crazy

I'm actually glad that tiering is still going on, gen 5 OU sucks because the council slowed down with tiering actions and left shit like keldeo, scald and latios run rampant

the year is 2088. ledyba is the only legal user of Mach punch left in the tier. Gimmieghoul was banned a month back for having stab astonish to threaten the 8 hit ko on gholdengo. Tera has been banned and unbanned 4 times. Every choice item is receiving a suspect test at the same time to determine what will be the last item left in the tier after the ban of iapapa berry after iapapa berry tera blast graveler terrorized the tier for 23 minutes. Kingambit has yet to be suspect tested.

Sneasler is pretty much roaring moon junior they just do things in different order Roaring moon got the attack when it switched in and then d danced and sneasler gets the speed and then it swords dances both then sweeped with tera flying acrobatics Also Roaring moon doesnt need someone else to enable it Roaring moon was a one man army

fun isn't something one considers with GameFreak's balancing but this...(competitive 1v1 being in SHAMBLES) does put a smile on my face

I feel that this is a reasonable ban, but the fact that they still haven't banned Goldengho or done something about Tera is still astonishing. Sneasler-H is still broken in Singles even if you know that it's running Tera Flying 100% of the time, so that is a problem.

I'm just as much on the ban gholdengo and gambit train as anyone but im actually rather pleased by this ban more so than gliscor, I've cried for at the very least a dire claw ban for ages now, a move that does damage having a chance to sleep your opponent is not ok it's incredibly stupid no one likes it, it would play no different if you forced it to have poison jab it doesn't NEED such an rng liability to force your opponent to deal with, it's honestly just inherently uncompetitive it's designed to just get you a free out of jail card against someone who intentionally prepared for sneasler just to lose anyways

Gholdengo and Kingambit have officially become Weave Nation™ Certified for dodging the ban hammer so many times thus far.

I remember when Hisuian forms came to SV. People called me a fool for thinking Sneasler would be banned, that it wasn't that good, that Ursaluna would be banned. On the one hand, vindication, on the other, free my girl.

Maybe it was designed for Legends Arceus battle system where speed is more complicated and translating it to normal Pokémon makes it broken

honestly I'm not shocked that Sneasler got banned, I'm more shocked that it remained unbanned this long with its hyper-optimized offensive stats and how busted Dire Claw is

I agree with your rant. It’s like Pokémon went from like Smash 64 where most characters were at the very least decent to Melee where you had broken characters and ok characters, and now it’s in it’s Brawl era but we actually ban problems like Meta Knight and Ice Climber and now we’re having to figure out if King Dedede and Olimar are ok

It’s pretty clear to me that they balance mons around use in doubles rather than singles these days. It makes sense given that VGC is the official format, but it’s a bit disappointing that they don’t seem to care about power levels for single battle formats anymore. Otherwise we would never see stuff like ceaseless edge, revival blessing or last respects, or broken stat and ability combos on “normal” mons like Sneasler, Palafin, Ursaluna, etc.

The very first battle I ever had in Gen 9, I saw Gholdengo block Defog and knew it would get banned At this rate, I guess not

thanks for taking it back to 3gen for the comparison. both pokemon and moves have gotten so powerful in recent years it feels like "autopilot sets" are the prevalent methods of play. moves like knock off, u-turn, aurora veil, moonblast etc. are often so good they are the move you should be clicking. also, flutter mans invalidates just about every ghost and fairy in existence. rip misdreavous

“If it’s fully evolved and you know what you’re doing it can work” -gen 3 competitive

Ur analisis truly get me into pvp evolution along years and helps me to understand more details about it, i been watching recently and must say good content tysm

Remember when they said they removed the national dex for game balance lmao

I do think that if gen 10 continues this trend of powercreep, it might be time to ask the question "is this just the new OU power level" what percentage of a new dex needs to be banned to maintain typical OU power level and is it worth it to keep banning so many pokemon to maintain that

And the dominoes fall, now all the Pokemon Gliscor checked are going to get banned and the mons they checked will also get banned. I understand power creep made this generation difficult to balance but banning everything so we get gen 8 V2 isn't the answer

Common meta threats should, in my opinion, be able to get countered by strategy and planning. A flying intimidate pokemon, of which there are many inthe SV dex as of now, should be able to deal with sneasler by using the newly added item Covert cloak, which bypasses the secondary effects of moves. This effectively makes them immune to the insane secondary effects of Dire Claw, turning that into a base 80 poison move with no extra hazards, and because of their flying type, they would resist sneaslers other stab option of fighting. A flying intimidate pokemon would also match up well against Rillaboom, which was the pokemon that empowered Sneasler even more due to grassy terrain. A flying intimidate mon like salamance or landorus therian could find usage because of this, except they dont because of another reason. Hazards. The covert cloak item slot is very valuable to these pokemon, who get damage due to stealth rocks every time they switch in, which is even more painful for them if they want to be a defensive set. Besides, Salamances flying moves or Landorus Therians earthquakes would prove very futile against the common tera type of flying run on sneasler, who could tera and boost up with a swords dance. Other sneasler counters face the same issue. Due to hazards being a big issue of the metagame, Slowking-Galar sets usually carry heavy duty boots. One stray amongst these devensive checks comes to mind, and that is Gholdengo, who can run even oran berry to counter a non shadow claw sneasler. Another counter mentioned in the video was Garganacl, which needs to use up its tera into ghost to be effectively countering sneasler. My opinion on the mon is this. Sneasler would have more effective counters if a metagame excisted that allowed for more varied teambuilding. But due to gholdengo, hazards are a big issue. You need to either run heavy duty boots to not be affected by them, or have a defogger and rapid spinner on your team. Why both? Because otherwise you one hazard remover gets deleted by gholdengo, which either thunderbolts your corviknight or tera flyings and OHKO's non assault vest great tusk. The problem in this meta is gholdengo because of tera. If not for tera, gholdengo would be more managable and great tusk would be way more of a consistant switch in against it. And, If not for tera, Sneasler teams would find two of their mons to be countered by the intimidate flying pokemon with covert cloaks. And, if not for tera in my opinion, Gliscor wouldnt have been banned because tera water on it wouldnt exist. All in all, a lesson can be learned of banned pokemon number i dont know anymore. I think that it was a problem and threat in the meta, but without tera, common pokemon like lando-t, slowking-g and gholdengo would be more suited to wall it, whilst not being too overpowered. tera is the real issue here. without tera, kingambit and gholdengo wouldnt be such an issue. remember that please :( (anyways that was my rant. i dont comment a lot but i'd like to do so more often. if you have any ideas on this, please share them! i'd love to discuss situation sneasler more) (oh, and amazing video as always jimothy. love your analysis on pokemon)

As always your videos are super informative and concise and to the point.

With Flutter Mane in doubles the last tournament the Latin American International 5 of the 8 in top cut had Flutter Mane. There has 1 Band, 2 Specs, 2 Booster's. All ran Dazzling Gleam, Moonblast and Shadow Ball. For the 4th move slot there were 3 protects, 1 perish song and 1 thunderbolt. There is also a known set which has Imprison and Trick Room. The counter play is more due to dynamic speed and the very low physical defence. It is very, very strong and every team has to think about how to deal with it but all the Meta Pokemon have those considerations around them, whether it be Poison, Steel or Fire types/tera's or just straight up other strong neutral physical attackers who can just about live a hit and then KO right back. Fake Out support also allows this preventing attack as Flutter Manes don't run Covet Cloak

“I had no problems at all dealing with sneasler really”-me, an avid dondozo enjoyer🗿

in vgc, almost every flutter mane runs shadow ball, moonblast, dazzling gleam, and protect because those 4 moves alone can do basically anything. the only variation you’ll see is choice specs sets swapping protect for TRICK ROOM. this is a mon that get’s icy wind, too, but you’ll never see that. it’s essentially cannibalized the role of special attacker - looking at the top 12 usage stats, there’s 3 other special attackers, one of which is tornadus, and the other 2 are chi-yu and heatran, all of which are some of flutter mane’s most common partners.

You hit the nail on the head. Gamefreak threw any semblance of good game design out the window this generation. They need to consider serious nerfs

Dire Claw should be 65 base power MAX. Then you could choose between hax and consistency with Poison Jab. I would have that changed in a patch i don’t know what they were thinking

It’s 2025, Ledian just got banned from OU because it’s access to knock off made it unhealthy against ariodos, the only other opponent

Very good rant about Pokemon design imo. With mons like Flutter Mane, the stat distributions (among other things) are just fantastic in a way that's actually kind of crude.

This was on of your best videos, Jim! Absolutely hit the nail on the head with your analysis on the nature of gen 9's insane power creep

i think that pokemon like Sneasler is living proof that Game Freak is making pkemon like this with expecific formats in mind, look at Palafin for example, his abillity is only a donwside in VGC and 3v3 singles, and a complete none factor in 6v6 singles. they only care about the formats they promote.

The council are top players, so they probably have a different view… from a mid ladder player like myself… i hope we can have separate ladder where Gholdengo is banned… until that happens, i’m really not playing gen 9… gen 5 has a lot of broken pokemon but it’s so fun to play… this meta is not

In this video Jimothy lost his Cool

The Salamence explanation was awesome for two reasons: it explained the case well it brought Gen 3 OU into this Scarlet Violet video

They have just banned Sneasler from gen 9 OU.

Am I allowed to believe both: a) Game Freak have gone too far with the power creep this generation AND b) the OU council are being too ban happy AND banning things in a weird/wrong order? ... because I do believe those things. And they both make me sad.

A really old Gen 3 set for Scizor was to use Swords Dance and Agility. It wasn't even OU. Now we have a double booster that works so well and has better coverage. What a way the game has come

I'll say the same I said when you also criticised Ursaluna Blood Moon's design: pokémon are not designed with Smogon metagames in mind, but VGC. Right now, Sneasler is not even top 30 in usage for VGC Switch ranked battles according to Pikalytics. Anyway, I didn't want to comment only to say this this time around. I also wanted to add that I think your videos are quite entertaining in any case :)

This is insane. But what is “this”? The ban, or the council?

the four heavenly kings of gholdengo,kingambit,great tusk and iron valiant remain intact once again

Funny, I was having a similar thought to many modern mons becoming one-dimensional in min-maxed stats, and low moveset variety as well. It’s a big part of why Gen 9 OU has been one of the first OU gens I haven’t had a whole lot of fun playing.

Honestly i feel like with Gen 9 OU's problem finding a healthy balance, id really like to see a format with Tera banned and the OUBL legal

6:25 - 6:45: Yes Jim let the hate flow through you!!

Flutter Mane is everywhere in VGC and does exactly one thing: Tera Fairys and clicks Moonblast. I hardly call that the genius vision of designing a 2v2 metagame

not to keep spamming this comment section but maybe could you make a video going over the pokémon that have been banned currently and discuss possible interactions within that group itself? kinda like a grouped summary and pointing out which pokémon you think we’re headed in the right direction design wise but just missed the mark in balance, and which are designs that are going to continue to create issues.

Out walks a mean girl, bully, pop star, a cheerleader with a side ponytail and a fresh fuckin mani

Perhaps it's time for UU to simply become the standard metagame

Gen 9 power creep is absolutely ludicrous

A video where you rank every gens ou metagame worst to best in your opinion would be cool. We all know what’s going #1 but Id like to hear what other metagames you think are good and where youd rank gen 9 in relation

"Y'all, she *laughed*"

Just ban Ghold, I'm convinced the council wants to ban everything but Montgomery Moneybags and his good friend The Last Samurai (2003). I even saw a satire post where every pokemon was in Ubers but Ghold 'n Gambit, even Weedle and Magikarp.

Truly a Dire threat to competitive now gone

_It was interesting to learn what the hisuian signature moves do. And that they're all rom-hack moves, apparently._ - Some Guy

I think in a vacuum something as luck reliant as Dire Claw can work fine as a desperation option, but it should not be a primary STAB option for a Pokemon this strong. I kinda wish Sneasel-Hisui got it, because it would be fun to see how a Pokemon with a much lower power level could make use of such a strong move.

Jim actually saying truth here. I might be a pokemon boomer for hating on gen 9, but gen 9 has so many click something with no downside its broken. Culprit being GM but behind them I feel like the PK company corperate side influecing them

Doesnt Gliscor counter Sneasler pretty wel? And is also immune to status?

UU is becoming the new OU and OU is becoming Ubers Jr.

very valid rant tho. i’m interested if you think there is a way for game freak to continue upping the anti without it becoming thoughtless and destructive. like i agree however i don’t think game freak is going to change so i wonder what the common ground may be

I Understand your argument completely, but i would have to actually disagree with the flutter mane argument about doubles. in fairness to it, Flutter mane has pretty good set variety in doubles beyond the booster energy/choice specs sets. one of the best sets this year was perish song, bulky flutter with bold nature is also a thing you have to respect. Sometimes flutter is also just used for speed control with Icy wind and booster energy speed. Substitute sets and general supporter sets are also pretty good. Flutter Mane is a strong presence in vgc, but it's a multi dimensional one thats actually not that annoying to go up against and doesnt really hurt the game that much in reality In singles, yeah it's completely stupid and i agree with you on that, but a better example of a pokemon that is completely ridiculous in doubles (besides incineroar who isnt in the game yet) would probably be Urshifu, largely due to Unseen Fist and protect being such a huge part of doubles I just thought i'd jump in on that point. Besides that, great video as always and im looking forward to purchase a mug when it's available in canada and when i can afford it lmao

Tera type reveals needs to happen. Too many threats are pushed over the top by the uncertainty and power of tera. Knowing tera types beforehand would allow you to play around these threats better as you know what to expect.

i honestly might try Hawlucha + Rillaboom in SV OU, cos the flying typing actually is kinda useful against ground type mons

Yeah, the amount of stuff being given to some abilities and attacks is quite absurd. Now you have attacks that have chances to do multiple stuff as the best option, whereas before, something like Tri-Attack was very niche.

The amount of banned OU Pokémon in Gen 9 singles is insane now. It feels like every other week a Pokémon gets banned

but why 🤔

Sneasler has invaded my home I heard the sound of munching from my closet and opened it to find that sneasler had grow enormous. I tried to run, but i could not outspace the unburden boosted bipedal weasel. "This is insane" i cried before being instantly killed by a swords dance boosted tera flying acrobatic

“Game Freak has this perfect vision for the metagame” Game Freak doesn’t even have the perfect vision for releasing a single game

I blame Game Freak for the power creep

arceus forbid women do ANYTHING

Jimothy is so correct here, I think a clear example of the absurd level of power that could easily have been designed better is Last Respects and Rage Fist. This moves wpuld have been perfectly fine if they went up by 20 power instead of 50. It would make it so you can accidentally U-Turn into Annhilape a few times before you completely lose the game. And Houndstone after losing its entire team would end up with a 150 base power move, which while still quite strong is definitely a lot more manageable, and which would make sacking your team for a Houndstone sweep actually be a risky strategy.

Gholdengo fully walling Sneasler like: