Really liked this episode with more of a broad discussion in game-design, with how luck works, and the psychological part of Pokémon with how a professional's mentality works. Always like the episodes, but wouldn't mind more episodes like this one.
Aaron sort of touched on it at 20:20 and both Markus and Aaron had more during the luck segment, but I'd like to hear a future episode take on what's makes the difference between the 1st and 2nd place players at a tournament, 1st and 8th, 1st and 32nd, etc. Once you get to quarterfinals, is it luck driving differences in results? Team building? Piloting? Someone just had an off day? It seems like at top-level Pokemon, you can make every "right" choice and not have it work out, both because of luck and opponents make unusual choices.
@@Wormsworth42069 That's the part I'd like to get their perspective on. By the time you get into Day 2 of a Regional or a National, everyone there is a good player. Is it largely skill differences all the way to the top, or other stuff?
I'm glad these 2 and most people in the comments agree with me despite the differing comments on twitter. Urshifu = busted. Sneasler (but actually only really Dire Claw) = less busted but more frustrating to play against
Farigiraf twin beam slaughtered 98% of the sneasler I fought in the gc this weekend. The only one that beat me was Tera dark 💀. Was very happy to find a use for farigiraf signature move - FarigirafFan
Lol that's hilarious, didn't know they could both activate like that. But usually getting poisoned vs a Sneasler is almost a good thing because it blocks you from worse ailments going forward.
Urshifu is obviously more "broken" as a mon. Sneasler just has a really dumb move. You could easily fix Sneasler by changing dire claw to be 50% poison chance and give it a corrosive effect so it hits steel types/can poison steel and poison types. To fix Ursh you need to change how both its signature move AND its ability works. You can reduce the damage of the signature move to be 20 bp per hit (or 90 bp after 3 hits + 3 crits). That's about even with the Sneasler fix. But changing its ability to say, only do 25% thru protect? That's a massive change to the mon. Put succinctly, both mons have broken moves, but even if you removed those broken moves Ursh is still a menace, while Sneasler just becomes a generically good mon.
Yea well said. Sneasler close combat is still scary generally speaking. frail, a 4x weakness, poison touch really isnt detrimental only works when attacking. Dire claw is busted, urshifu wasn't a busted pokemon, it was 2 busted pokemon
Urshifu can literally hit through protect, always crit and with water, have no immunities outside of Gastrodon lmao Sneasler can get blocked by Goldengo (a common and good mon) by typing alone. But I DO admit, the RNG makes it less fun while Urshifu is far more consistent in what it does (it hits fast and hits hard and is DECENTLY bulky)
Forgive me if this is total ignorance, but screens seem good in Reg H so I’m wondering why we haven’t seen Screens + Misty Terrain Klefki as a counter pick for Sneazler.
I’ve been playing a lot of Sneasler lately and tbh, the unburden set is both better and less high variance than the poison touch set. Honestly the dire claw rarely comes up and it does a lot of work next to indeedee. It outspeeds most things in tailwind or weather and helping hand or scarf expanding force after a hit just picks up most things so the secondary effect doesn’t usually matter. That’s probably how it would still be useful in higher power level formats. I kinda wish it and to a lesser extent weavile kept inner focus, it would be better than poison touch. Some mad lad at Lillie ran a Hisuian Sneasler because it’s the fastest unflinchable coaching mon, totally wild. Also, man I miss taping fini. Hey, interesting question, can smeargle learn relic song? I need to check that. It’s never been legal but that does damage and has a sleep chance, but only 10%. And G-max befuddle had the same secondary effect as dire claw, but then you’d have to use a butterfree.
Ok, this is really dumb but kind of hilarious, The secondary effect of secret power in grassy terrain was a 30% sleep chance, and it was boosted by serene grace to 60%, and Togekiss and dunsparce both learned it, so theoretically you could have run one of them with tapu bulu. But dark void smeargle was legal at the time and secret power was removed from the game in gen 8. Probably for the best, that might have been really busted with rillaboom as a much better grass setting.
Urshifu is more objectively powerful, but everything good about it are known factors. Meanwhile Sneasler who should be objectively worse are subjectively more "broken" because the worst case scenario you could have when battling it is that much worse. It's 50% to land a status, and there are 3 to choose from. It's the salt factor, you might remember one misplay where you protect in front of Urshifu but you will remember every lucky dire claw proc your opponent hits on you just at the right time for them
What is more broken? Urshifu: -Hits through protect -Guaranteed crit -Ignores focus sash -Ignores stat drops Sneasler: -Has a 16.67% chance to put you to sleep I wonder... 😇
Completely ignoring the paralyze and the fact it can pick up KOs with poison that shouldn't, while also having god support moves ans being the 3rd fastest mon in the format lmao
hypnosis and sing are the most annoying ones imo at least spore is specific to a couple mons. Sneasler has crack head energy w or without dire claw Urshifu is bulky, guaranteed crit/ priority thru protect, all day they're both super wack
I'll preface I hate Sneasler more, but nobody should argue it's stronger than Urshifu(it really is just the the best fighting type in a format desperate for good fighting types) and I don't think Sneasler is going to see much more usage in future formats with higher power levels. Urshifu is a problem because it will become the best in the format whereas Sneasler is a problem because it's the best mon in the format. Sneasler will be an unhealthy addition to any format even if it isn't the best in the format due to how it allows one-sided RNG to singlehandedly win games. However, when it is the best and a majority of team structures require a high variance mon makes for an unhealthy format whereas Urshifu is really just very good. The only point I'm willing to concede is Sneasler does not restrict meta diversity as greatly, Surging Strikes specifically invalidates a ton of different mons on the virtue of being able to naturally OHKO through focus sashes. Personally, I like having a little more centralized meta, not to the degree of having a big 6, but enough that you can walk into a tournament be able to reasonably have solid matchup experience against a good amount of your rounds, whereas reg H feels like a guessing game and you could run into one of 10 hyper offense strats and autolose after a turn 1 50/50 whereas this did not feel like the case since the introduction of the paradox mons onwards.
It'll be interesting to see. It's good in this format because it's one of the fastest Pokemon, but that won't be the case in formats with a higher power level. Seed unburden helps but then you're open to tailwind on the other side and you have no focus sash to save you.
this podcast is delightful and you both gentlemen are a joy to watch and root for.
Really liked this episode with more of a broad discussion in game-design, with how luck works, and the psychological part of Pokémon with how a professional's mentality works.
Always like the episodes, but wouldn't mind more episodes like this one.
Aaron sort of touched on it at 20:20 and both Markus and Aaron had more during the luck segment, but I'd like to hear a future episode take on what's makes the difference between the 1st and 2nd place players at a tournament, 1st and 8th, 1st and 32nd, etc. Once you get to quarterfinals, is it luck driving differences in results? Team building? Piloting? Someone just had an off day? It seems like at top-level Pokemon, you can make every "right" choice and not have it work out, both because of luck and opponents make unusual choices.
Well obviously its a combination of all those things, the primary factor is being a good player
@@Wormsworth42069 That's the part I'd like to get their perspective on. By the time you get into Day 2 of a Regional or a National, everyone there is a good player. Is it largely skill differences all the way to the top, or other stuff?
I'm glad these 2 and most people in the comments agree with me despite the differing comments on twitter. Urshifu = busted. Sneasler (but actually only really Dire Claw) = less busted but more frustrating to play against
Clef/gholdago is still a good option also just running ghost Tera over steel
Sneasler is the combo of high asf speed and dire claw having insane rng, atleast you know what to expect with urshifu.
Always glad to hear pros also lament luck and losing games off crazy unlucky rolls.
Farigiraf twin beam slaughtered 98% of the sneasler I fought in the gc this weekend. The only one that beat me was Tera dark 💀. Was very happy to find a use for farigiraf signature move - FarigirafFan
Man the maturity to not blame but grow is so good man. Such a resounding live principle coming from a children game. Such a joy to listen to
Team urshifu ❤ Also, love these poses you guys do especially Markus' so funny especially given the debate question tied to this podcast
I so wish we had tapu fini in this game. We don’t have a misty surge Mon except weezing.
I wish we had the Tapus in SV
Recently dire Claw activated on me, but my mon had a Lum Berry. Then poison Touch activated 😂😂😂
😂😂😂 sorry but that was funny😅
Lol that's hilarious, didn't know they could both activate like that. But usually getting poisoned vs a Sneasler is almost a good thing because it blocks you from worse ailments going forward.
Urshifu is obviously more "broken" as a mon. Sneasler just has a really dumb move. You could easily fix Sneasler by changing dire claw to be 50% poison chance and give it a corrosive effect so it hits steel types/can poison steel and poison types. To fix Ursh you need to change how both its signature move AND its ability works. You can reduce the damage of the signature move to be 20 bp per hit (or 90 bp after 3 hits + 3 crits). That's about even with the Sneasler fix. But changing its ability to say, only do 25% thru protect? That's a massive change to the mon.
Put succinctly, both mons have broken moves, but even if you removed those broken moves Ursh is still a menace, while Sneasler just becomes a generically good mon.
Yea well said. Sneasler close combat is still scary generally speaking. frail, a 4x weakness, poison touch really isnt detrimental only works when attacking. Dire claw is busted, urshifu wasn't a busted pokemon, it was 2 busted pokemon
I don't think you need to fix both surging strikes and unseen fist, really just fix one or the other and it's fairly justified as a legendary mon.
Is prankster safeguard a possibility to counter direclaw????
Urshifu can literally hit through protect, always crit and with water, have no immunities outside of Gastrodon lmao
Sneasler can get blocked by Goldengo (a common and good mon) by typing alone. But I DO admit, the RNG makes it less fun while Urshifu is far more consistent in what it does (it hits fast and hits hard and is DECENTLY bulky)
Forgive me if this is total ignorance, but screens seem good in Reg H so I’m wondering why we haven’t seen Screens + Misty Terrain Klefki as a counter pick for Sneazler.
If I'm not mistaken Stefan Mott, aka Pengy, brought exactly that to Louisville Regionals and was featured on stream against Wolfe!
where can i watch wolfeys event?
I’ve been playing a lot of Sneasler lately and tbh, the unburden set is both better and less high variance than the poison touch set. Honestly the dire claw rarely comes up and it does a lot of work next to indeedee. It outspeeds most things in tailwind or weather and helping hand or scarf expanding force after a hit just picks up most things so the secondary effect doesn’t usually matter. That’s probably how it would still be useful in higher power level formats. I kinda wish it and to a lesser extent weavile kept inner focus, it would be better than poison touch. Some mad lad at Lillie ran a Hisuian Sneasler because it’s the fastest unflinchable coaching mon, totally wild.
Also, man I miss taping fini. Hey, interesting question, can smeargle learn relic song? I need to check that. It’s never been legal but that does damage and has a sleep chance, but only 10%. And G-max befuddle had the same secondary effect as dire claw, but then you’d have to use a butterfree.
Ok, this is really dumb but kind of hilarious, The secondary effect of secret power in grassy terrain was a 30% sleep chance, and it was boosted by serene grace to 60%, and Togekiss and dunsparce both learned it, so theoretically you could have run one of them with tapu bulu. But dark void smeargle was legal at the time and secret power was removed from the game in gen 8. Probably for the best, that might have been really busted with rillaboom as a much better grass setting.
@mark i loved you gengar tshirt of day one, can you link it or tell us which one it is? Big gengar fun here
Hey! Glad you liked it, it's from a Pokémon x Uniqlo collab. Hope you can still find one!
@@13Yoshi37 i'll give it a look. BTW great casting, i enjoyed you the most!!
Urshifu is more objectively powerful, but everything good about it are known factors. Meanwhile Sneasler who should be objectively worse are subjectively more "broken" because the worst case scenario you could have when battling it is that much worse. It's 50% to land a status, and there are 3 to choose from. It's the salt factor, you might remember one misplay where you protect in front of Urshifu but you will remember every lucky dire claw proc your opponent hits on you just at the right time for them
What is more broken?
Urshifu:
-Hits through protect
-Guaranteed crit
-Ignores focus sash
-Ignores stat drops
Sneasler:
-Has a 16.67% chance to put you to sleep
I wonder... 😇
Completely ignoring the paralyze and the fact it can pick up KOs with poison that shouldn't, while also having god support moves ans being the 3rd fastest mon in the format lmao
Special 1 turn only sleep for sneasler. Spore also becomes a 2 turn always, the inaccurate ones are the 3 turns ones.
hypnosis and sing are the most annoying ones imo at least spore is specific to a couple mons. Sneasler has crack head energy w or without dire claw
Urshifu is bulky, guaranteed crit/ priority thru protect, all day they're both super wack
Why aren't people just using safeguard LOL
🤷🏻♀opportunity cost maybe?
because before you click safeguard you already got put to sleep by dire claw lmao
I'll preface I hate Sneasler more, but nobody should argue it's stronger than Urshifu(it really is just the the best fighting type in a format desperate for good fighting types) and I don't think Sneasler is going to see much more usage in future formats with higher power levels. Urshifu is a problem because it will become the best in the format whereas Sneasler is a problem because it's the best mon in the format. Sneasler will be an unhealthy addition to any format even if it isn't the best in the format due to how it allows one-sided RNG to singlehandedly win games. However, when it is the best and a majority of team structures require a high variance mon makes for an unhealthy format whereas Urshifu is really just very good. The only point I'm willing to concede is Sneasler does not restrict meta diversity as greatly, Surging Strikes specifically invalidates a ton of different mons on the virtue of being able to naturally OHKO through focus sashes. Personally, I like having a little more centralized meta, not to the degree of having a big 6, but enough that you can walk into a tournament be able to reasonably have solid matchup experience against a good amount of your rounds, whereas reg H feels like a guessing game and you could run into one of 10 hyper offense strats and autolose after a turn 1 50/50 whereas this did not feel like the case since the introduction of the paradox mons onwards.
"It was legal since Reg D" only shows people can be blind for meta-only xD
But yeah, let's see if it's actually going to show up in future formats.
It'll be interesting to see. It's good in this format because it's one of the fastest Pokemon, but that won't be the case in formats with a higher power level. Seed unburden helps but then you're open to tailwind on the other side and you have no focus sash to save you.
hello there