Goddess Briyella
Banned deucer.
As high as its Speed is (making opposing Scarf obsolete unless they hit 16 Speed) and as strong as its physical offense is combined with the STAB it gets from the newly buffed Knock Off, I would say Sneasel is absolutely broken. The only Pokemon to wall both of Sneasel's STABs are Carvanha (base 20 defenses) and Pawniard, but Sneasel has access to Brick Break. The vast majority of the tier stands no chance at all, as they cannot rely on their items, and Sneasel's STABs + Brick Break are borderline impossible to take from such a high Attack stat.1) Is Sneasel broken?
Since you absolutely MUST have like 2 or 3 checks to it on a team in order to have any chance of playing well in the tier, I would say yes. Since it largely contributes to there being only about 12 Pokemon being used in a tier of hundreds available, I would say yes. I like that Sneasel is giving rise to Fire types like Growlithe this generation, and as to be expected, when there is anything notably threatening in a tier, sets will be created to attempt to foil the threat, and this considerably affects teambuilding, which in turn can leave out a huge number of Pokemon in favor of the ones who have a chance against this one thing, which has happened in this case. I don't like to reference BW/BW2 Little Cup this way in XY Little Cup discussions, and I know this metagame is not developed yet, but having the metagame the way it is right now is reminiscent of the issue BW/BW2 LC had with only a handful of mons being considered viable, with the rest cast to the side, never seeing any usage. Whether something is fun or not is often noted as a matter of opinion, but I think most players agree that Sneasel objectively makes LC less enjoyable because of how strong it is and how forceful it is of what your team is allowed to carry if you want to have any kind of chance of winning at all. I honestly believe that people who say Sneasel isn't broken only say that because they have adapted to be able to deal with it, without realizing that they only ever run 6 out of 12 or 13 Pokemon on one team, and the variety that brings to LC is almost nothing compared to what it could be if teambuilding wasn't practically restricted like this.2) Is Sneasel making Little Cup not fun?
For the people who actually want to have fun and not use the same old mons in every team, I'd say they are pretty annoyed by the combination of 1 and 2. I've heard a lot of complaints, especially in the Little Cup room on PS, and they weren't baseless and without reason. It wasn't just "ugh fuck Sneasel". That said, I have never heard or seen anyone say they would refuse to play because of Sneasel, but I wouldn't put it past them. Fortunately, we do have a good bit of level-headed users who would rather work toward improvement than just say "Fuck it" and leave.3) Is a combination of 1 and 2 deterring individuals from playing Little Cup?
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