Living in the Mountains: A Snover discussion

Matthew

I love weather; Sun for days
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Little than a month ago, Snover was considered a good lead, but generally not used often due to hail removing a percent of your own pokemon's HP. However, during the Berry Juice quick test (for lack of better words), I decided to use Snover after hearing Heysup saying how broken Phanpy was. After battling Phanpy I decided that "Why would I set down Stealth Rock when I could KO Phanpy and possibly another pokemon" I thought about a lot of leads, well this could work, but leaves me open to pokemon XYZ. This search reminded me of hearing about SBC using Snover to a good extent so I decided why not give it a try. Now I could rave about how good it was, or you could ask anyone who had the chance to battle it; quite simply, Snover was destructive.

When Berry Juice was banned until a full test in ShoddyBattle2 could happen, I didn't want to give up on my Snover lead, and I hoped that it still would be as good as it was with Berry Juice. To my surprise it was even better. With Oran not healing as much as Berry Juice, Snover hit twice as hard and most pokemon could not keep up. I also found out that Snover turned out to be a wonderful counter to Gligar and Chinchou, who often use their STAB move first turn, or set up. Either way Ice Shard and Energy Ball respectively.

So besides countering two extremely important threats, Snover has no solid switch in besides Bronzor and Munchlax. Now you may think "What about Houndour, and Magby!" well quite simple with Stealth Rock, hail damage, and STAB Blizzard they're coming in missing at least 50% of their health. That's quite a bit, meaning that they will not be able to switch back in on Snover again. Munchlax and Bronzor are very big threats for Snover though, thankfully they both can be handled with pokemon such as Gligar and Magnemite.

The lead Snover set that has taken place over SubSeed is

Snover (M) @ Oran Berry
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 116 HP/180 Atk/180 SAtk
Rash nature (+SpA, -SDef)
- Protect
- Ice Shard
- Blizzard
- Energy Ball

This set allows Snover to survive a Meowth's U-Turn and hit the switch in with Blizzard. It also allows for you to scout choice users with Protect, and avoid Fake Out. Protect can also be used to deal damage to your opponent via hail, though 1 HP may not seem like a lot, it may be enough to put your opponent into Ice Shard KO range.

Snover (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 116 HP/180 SpAtk/196 Spe
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Blizzard
- Energy Ball
- Hidden Power Electric / Fire
- Water Pulse

With Snover being able to get a Speed of 14 with a boosting nature, Snover can now effectively outpace all the pokemon in Little Cup that are not running Choice Scarf. Snover now can run a Hidden Power effectively, either Electric or Fire is preferred as Mantyke is a pokemon who often tries to set up on Snover, however you will need damn good prediction to catch it on the switch in. Hidden Power Fire can be used to hit other Snover while also hitting Bronzor, who otherwise walls Snover. Water Pulse is mainly a filler option.

Substitute Swords Dance Snover is also a wonderful set that is used sometime, but is in the same boat as the old Sub Leech Seed set which isn't seen that often at all.

So discuss what you think of Snover here, post experiences comments, and original sets you may have.
 
Snover is a huge threat in today's metagame simply because Pokemon like Phanpy are such common leads, and switching into Snover is no easy task. If you predict incorrectly, or don't know the Snover set, you can have a tough time bouncing back up.

Also, Hail removes the need for Stealth Rock, so that's always a plus.

That being said, I do think Snover is a little overrated (not to the extent it's being overrated in in UU though, oh boy). Snover is really slow, and gives one of the most dangerous Pokemon in the metagame (Munchlax) a free switch. It's also easy to revenge kill because it isn't powerful "enough" with Ice Shard.
 

Matthew

I love weather; Sun for days
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Snover is a huge threat in today's metagame simply because Pokemon like Phanpy are such common leads, and switching into Snover is no easy task. If you predict incorrectly, or don't know the Snover set, you can have a tough time bouncing back up.

Also, Hail removes the need for Stealth Rock, so that's always a plus.

That being said, I do think Snover is a little overrated (not to the extent it's being overrated in in UU though, oh boy). Snover is really slow, and gives one of the most dangerous Pokemon in the metagame (Munchlax) a free switch. It's also easy to revenge kill because it isn't powerful "enough" with Ice Shard.
Lately though Munchlax hasn't been seen as much (or I haven't seen as much of it) and generally most people just try to set up their Mantyke on Snover rather than have a solid switch in.

That being said Snover's Ice Shard being "too weak" isn't that true, here are some calcs to prove it!

Snover's Ice Shard vs Naive Scarf Dour:
15 Atk vs 9 Def & 21 HP (40 Base Power): 3 - 5 (14.29% - 23.81%)

vs Max HP 40 Def Misdreavus
15 Atk vs 11 Def & 25 HP (40 Base Power): 7 - 9 (28.00% - 36.00%)

vs Max/Max Gligar (virtually unseen)
15 Atk vs 20 Def & 26 HP (40 Base Power): 16 - 24 (61.54% - 92.31%)

Normal Gligar!
15 Atk vs 17 Def & 23 HP (40 Base Power): 16 - 24 (69.57% - 104.35%)

Though they may not seem impressive, Snover on your team can be the answer between you getting swept by Gligar or simply revenging a Houndour that is low on HP. I will admit I often too find Ice Shard lacking, but the same can be applied to almost all priority in Little Cup (besides meowth of course)
 
Snover is incredibly gay. ><"

The safest measure I've had against it is using a wynaut starter, encore anything, then go to a scarfed dugtrio if it's anything but an attack.

Hail is annoying as fuck, so then I have to use some kind of weather changer. I personally go Rain Dance Mantyke, since with the extra power I can afford a Oran berry and use it as my Croagunk lure so that my Wish Bagon can set up. ^^'

Btw can we just post discussion topics whenever?

Edit: Think what you want, Heysup.... I've seen straaaaange things.....
 
Snover is incredibly gay. ><"
?
Sorry, but technically a male Snover can't breed with other male Snovers. This is incorrect.

I'll agree that Snover is horribly annoying sometimes though, especially when you use a SubLO Pokemon because damage adds up.
 
As few may recall, in my Hail team that I posted, I found Protect/Sub/Seed/Shard @ Lefties extremely annoying for opposing leads not named Houndour.

I love Snover apart from that, and Im starting to tinker with a Scarf Faking Snover, like with Wise Glass or sash to fool the opponent into fleeing from its blizzard to a water mon, only to get KOd by Energy Ball
 
At times it seems I'm the only one who likes to run max speed on Snover so I can have piece of mind that random Chinchou and other defensive pokemon don't outspeed me. (And of course Croagunk speed tie worst case scenario)
 
I just started playing LC about a week ago, but I've already found that Snover is definitely a force to be reckoned with. The Substitute sets particularly interest me (there is one especially good battler that uses a SubSnover and sparked my interest in it, but I'm not sure if it's frowned upon to reveal exactly who, so I won't), and I intend to include one on my next team.

Snover was considered a good lead, but generally not used often due to hail removing a percent of your own pokemon's HP
Excuse me for stating the obvious, but the opponent's pokemon are obviously taking this damage, too, which leads me to my next thought.

Something that I could be completely wrong about --but I'm at least curious about-- is using the hail damage to the user's benefit. Usually the 6% from hail is a defensive passive damage tactic, but couldn't it be used offensively to push more 2HKOs to OHKOs, and 3HKOs to 2HKOs in a fast-paced metagame where damage output is generally higher? Fast but frail threats are easier to revenge with priority attacks in these conditions, too.

Fake Out users would be good to use in this strategy, as would Protect users, probably. A powerful scarfer like Machop and his confusion-inducing Dynamic Punch could also work.

Thoughts? Is this idea too raw to work? Is it nothing new?

Again, I'm new to LC and only have true experience with the 6 pokemon I've used on my laddering team which doesn't include Snover.

Edit: Just found this old NU RMT from Heysup that was an "offensive hail team" utilizing powerful Scarf Blizzards. I don't see why the same couldn't be done in LC. The base power alone of Blizzard is overwhelming, especially if a pokemon like WoW Missy cripples Munchlax. Don't comment there, the thread is old.

I'd also like to mention that Snover is great for beating the ever dangerous Rain Dance teams.

PS I look forward to contributing to the LC subforum and analyses :)
 
Kir speaks the truth. Like i said earlier, my Team Frostbite utilised a SubSeed Snover lead to first drain some general health and set up the Hail. I also ran a Kabuto, which set up SR and gave me priority, a Duskull which was of a Protect / W-o-W variety, further adding to passive damage. Other defensive mons were Munchlax, who simply used Protect one turn and attacked the other with the item Leftovers and the remaining two mons were Scarf Mankey and DD ES Adamant Tini, which was meant to cleanup after everything was hit with the passive damage.

It worked best during the Juice period, when everything stayed in Hail for me much longer while the opponent would usually be KOd by priority moves + Hail before their Juice activated.

It's not as good with Oran, but with a bit of tuning up it could very well become successful again.
 
Not much can actually fire off STAB Blizzards in LC, only really Snover itself, and the abra level of defense Smoochum can get good ones. And maybe Snorunt.
 
Not much can actually fire off STAB Blizzards in LC, only really Snover itself, and the abra level of defense Smoochum can get good ones. And maybe Snorunt.
This is true. However, even unSTABed, Pokemon like LO Staryu and Agility or Scarf Porygon can make good use of Blizzard's power boost over Ice Beam. But this is getting a bit off topic.

Regarding Snover itself, how easy is it to pull off a Swords Dance? It is obviously much harder with SR up, but if one can manage to keep them away, setting up on water types shouldn't be difficult (unless it's something like HP Flying Mantyke, but most Mantyke I see have HP Electric instead). The grass STAB then finishes them off.

SD sets are also good for luring and OHKOing Munchlax with Woodhammer, which opens up a potential sweep for a lot of specially-based pokemon. If the Munchlax wants to run after seeing the SD, something is going to have to be able to take a +2 Wood Hammer, hail damage, and then an Ice Shard, which is obviously hard, in order to stop Snover.
 
So, after finally getting around to making a LC team to test this, I can say, that it works quite well. I have been using the following team:

Code:
Phanpy (M) @ Oran Berry
Ability: Pickup
EVs: 196 HP/196 Atk/116 Def
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Counter
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
---
Snover (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 200 HP/184 Atk/120 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Substitute
- Ice Shard
- Seed Bomb
---
Misdreavus (M) @ Oran Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 240 Spd/240 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Will-o-wisp
- Shadow Ball
- Shadow Sneak
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
---
Snorunt (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Ice Body
EVs: 116 HP/196 Spd/196 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Blizzard
- Shadow Ball
- Ice Beam
- Spikes
---
Munchlax (M) @ Oran Berry
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 236 HP/36 Def/236 SDef
Sassy nature (+SDef, -Spd)
- Blizzard
- Return
- Pursuit
- Earthquake
---
Staryu @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 236 Spd/200 SAtk
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Blizzard
- Hydro Pump
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ground]
---
Anyway, ScarfSnorunt is amazing, STAB Blizzards do tons of damage to everything. I know there are some flaws on the team obviously, Munchlax's SAtk is the same as it's Atk, so it isn't to bad at using Blizzard. Snover imo, isn't to great at SubSD, however, Staryu can act as an amazing Late Gamer with Life Orb.
 

Dubulous

I look just like Buddy Holly.
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
You're confusing Munchlax's SpA stat with it's SpD stat. Munchlax's attack is more than double that of it's special attack.
 
You're confusing Munchlax's SpA stat with it's SpD stat. Munchlax's attack is more than double that of it's special attack.
That I am, I always make these stupid mistakes >.>

Anyway, I forget what used to be in that spot....something that I though was worthless enough to be replaced.
 

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