I think from the first moment we Marshadow vote came through almost everyone had the same question is the back of their head: how good Snorlax is going to be? In the first couple weeks, outside of test games, we didn't have any solid base to make up our minds of what the metagame will look like. I tried to avoid speculating, but like everyone else i had some ideas that i wanted to try out once tournaments started.Now that we're over a month in, with SPL being almost in the middle of regular season, and seasonals round 4 starting tomorrow we have seen/played a bunch of games and i noticed a lot of people have been talking about what has happened to Snorlax. With its main check being gone it has seen an immense rise in usage and with the only strong fighting type leaving the tier we were left with almost no way of directly damaging it. The increased viability on psychic type TR setters like Gothitelle and Mew also helped push it, as they provide Trick Room and Shadow Tag + Heal Pulse or Fake Out + Transform accordingly. It recently got bumped into tier 1 on the Viability Rankings and now when i prepare for tournament games i make sure all of my teams have multiple ways of soft checking it. After some consideration and talking to other people in doubles i decided to share my thoughts on why we should consider suspect testing and banning Snorlax.My first and probably biggest issue is that it lacks direct counterplay. There is very few viable pokemon (with a specific moveset) that are able to threaten it with serious damage. I won’t even suggest checking it, because there isn’t one single thing that fully does. In some aspects it reminds me of Kangaskhan, though in another instances they are dramatically different. Yet, they both lack strong checks among the better part of viable pokemon and with their counters being perfectly covered by their supporting pokemon. They both are able to win almost every 1v1 match up and to beat them you need multiple coverage options that are meant for just them (and still don’t ensure you’ll succeed in the match up). I think its very unhealthy for the metagame to have a pokemon that can get past almost anything, even if Snorlax is a little easier to cripple. Im not trying to draw a comparison in terms of how broken they are, but i think you can spot some patterns that we noticed last time we suspected Kangaskhan.As i have mentioned before the success of Snorlax isn’t just due to itself getting better - the rise in viability of Trick Room setters, mainly Mew and Gothitelle. Now, without Marshadow in the tier, they are able to set up almost every game and support it with their coverage respectively (Heal Pulse/Fake Out + Transform). Speedcontrol, that is now so much easier to accomplish, isn’t only relevant to how quickly Snorlax is going to run the opposing team, but also it lets it get around the its biggest counterplay in Knock Off. Now that you can get the Belly Drum up and consume your berry you are free to attack/recycle and the only way your opponent can get around it is trying to damage it and as i have mentioned (and you can tell by looking at the Viability Rankings) not much can get by it by using brute force. Now, im not claiming that the strategy is flawless, without good positioning you won’t be able to pull it off, but i think thats part of the reason its so good currently is that it can get around most of its supposed counters.One worth noting comparison i found is when you compare it to Tapu Fini against the Metagross/Victini/Landorus-T/Zapdos/KyuremB/Tapu Fini team i have been running. While it may seem specific, i encourage you to compare any viable pokemon with any solid doubles team and you will get similar results. In this match up the opposing Tapu Fini would be used to counter Victini and Landorus-T and check KyuremB depending on the position. It would be countered by Zapdos. Now look at Snorlax against that team: i run two checks to it in Knock Off Landorus-T and Haze Tapu Fini, still depending on conditions it would be able to set up against both (Landorus in TR, Fini as Trick Room is being set/when its not on the field). Versus the rest of the team it can set up against, in the best case scenario it would be Belly Drum and i can get 45% on it with Iron Head. I used that team for the example, because im the most familiar with it, so i know from experience as most of these scenarios go. Even if Zapdos is my supposed Tapu Fini counter at times i either wouldn’t be able to bring it in as my opponent would try to get in the position where he can disallow that or there have been games where i just had lost it. At times like these i was put at a disadvantage, but i often managed to find my way out as i could use most of my pokemon to damage it. For example i would try to trade my Landorus or KyuremB if i desperately needed to wear it down - just because i lost my dedicated counter it didn’t mean i lost the game. When you are playing against a Snorlax the reality is much different. If you aren’t able to have your right pokemon in at the right time it likely meant you are going to loose the match. I saw a couple time someone else use my team and get into a seemingly advantageous position, just to see them loose, because they lost their Knock Off user and weren’t able to overcome it. In my opinion this very much goes against the nature of doubles, it takes away a lot from the strategy aspect and forces players to play very linearly and simplifies the game. Now obviously i agree that loosing your direct counter to a certain pokemon is a theoretical disadvantage, but doubles is partly a game of trades and when loosing one pokemon means you almost automatically loose the game it just takes away from the competitive aspect.I hope i was able to showcase the main issues i have in Snorlax in the current metagame and i would really appreciate it if you could go through the arguments i mentioned, before you make up your minds. There’s plenty of replays in the SPL forums and in the recent seasonals rounds, so if you want to envision what i was talking about i encourage you look there.