Snorlax

Normal · Thick Fat / Immunity · B tier · base 160/110/65/65/110/30 · the tier’s immovable special wall and, on your own side, a Self-Destruct utility breaker or a slow Curse wincon. The dual face is the whole story: Snorlax is one of the walls your aggressive offense is built to overwhelm, and it is also one of the best one-card answers you can carry to overwhelm theirs.

Format role

Snorlax is the fourth leg of the ADV defensive backbone — Skarmory, Blissey, a bulky Water, and Snorlax — and it is the leg that specifically shores up the special side without the passivity of Blissey. With 160 HP and 110 Special Defense it eats nearly every special attacker in the tier off uninvested bulk, and Thick Fat turns its two would-be weaknesses-of-coverage into resistances: Fire and Ice both drop to half damage, so Snorlax sponges Charizard Fire Blast, Suicune/Starmie Ice Beam, and even Zapdos Hidden Power Ice with contempt. Pure Normal typing means it has exactly one type weakness — Fighting hits it for 2× — and a clean immunity to Ghost, so Gengar’s Shadow Ball does literally nothing to it (Ghost → Normal = 0). That combination of enormous HP, real special bulk, Thick Fat, and a single exploitable weakness is why Snorlax is the special wall aggressive offense has to plan around, not click through.

But Snorlax is not a passive wall like Blissey. It hits back hard — base 110 Attack is no joke — and it carries Self-Destruct, which means even a “defensive” Snorlax is a live trade button that can take a chunk of your team with it. That is the dual face the rest of this dossier turns on: how you break the wall, and how you wield it — as a Self-Destruct breaker or a Curse wincon — because the same Pokemon does both jobs and an aggressive builder should understand both.

The site embeds a TypeProfile widget above this section showing the full Normal resist/weakness spread (one weakness: Fighting; one immunity-against: Ghost).

Sets

Snorlax runs two distinct offensive-relevant builds off the same chassis, and both run Leftovers — passive recovery is what lets it keep coming in to hold the special side. Thick Fat is the offense-relevant ability — Immunity (status-proof, and the more common ladder pick) trades the Fire/Ice resistances for poison immunity, but an aggressive builder keeps Thick Fat for the Fire/Ice sponging.

Offensive Curse — the slow wincon

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
Adamant Nature
EVs: 204 HP / 224 Atk / 60 Def / 8 SpD / 12 Spe
- Curse
- Double-Edge
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Punch

This is the offensive Curse build: heavy Attack investment (224) so the boosts snowball fast, with just enough HP/Def to survive setting up. Each Curse trades 1 Speed (irrelevant on a base-30 mon) for +1 Attack and +1 Defense, so Snorlax simultaneously becomes a harder physical wall and a snowballing attacker. Double-Edge is the hardest-hitting Normal STAB — the maximum-damage spam button once you’re boosted, at the cost of recoil. Shadow Ball (Ghost-type, and therefore physical in Gen 3 — it runs off the Attack stat, not SpA) hits the Ghosts and Psychics that wall the STAB: it lands 2× on Gengar and Starmie. Focus Punch is the Fighting coverage that smashes the Rocks and other Normals that resist Double-Edge — it hits Tyranitar for a brutal 4× (Rock/Dark, both weak to Fighting) and the opposing Snorlax for super-effective damage. (Note it does not gain on Skarmory: Steel/Flying nets Fighting to 1× because Flying’s resistance cancels the Steel weakness.) Past two or three Curses the only things that reliably stop it are a Fighting move, a phazer, or a fresh wall it can’t break through. This is a secondary wincon for bulkier offense: you don’t lead with it, you bring it once the opposing Skarmory/Fighting answer is gone and let it close.

Utility Lax — the Self-Destruct breaker

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
Adamant Nature
EVs: 92 HP / 116 Atk / 144 Def / 144 SpD / 12 Spe
- Self-Destruct
- Return
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Punch

This is Snorlax as defensive glue that detonates on demand. The spread splits bulk between Def and SpD (144/144) with a modest Attack chunk (116) so it can hold the special side, take physical hits, and still punch back. Return is the strongest non-recoil Normal STAB, off base 110 Attack a genuine neutral nuke that almost nothing switches into comfortably. Shadow Ball hits the Ghosts and Psychics that wall the STAB — 2× on Gengar and Starmie. Focus Punch is the Fighting coverage that nails the Rocks and Normals that resist Return, hitting Tyranitar for 4×. Self-Destruct is the trade and the whole point of the set: when Snorlax has done its job, it halves the target’s Defense and removes a full-health wall or a faster threat, opening the door for your cleaner. It appears on offense as a fifth/sixth slot that holds the special side and detonates on demand (see the DragMag sample in sample teams).

Breaking it — the aggressive plan

Snorlax is the special wall, so on aggressive offense you are usually on the breaking side of the matchup. It has three exploitable seams, and a good offense attacks all of them at once.

1. The Fighting weakness is the front door. Normal takes 2× from Fighting and nothing else, so a strong Fighting attacker is the cleanest break in the format. Heracross is the textbook answer — Choice Band Brick Break or Megahorn forces Snorlax out or trades into it, and Heracross threatens the rest of the SkarmBliss backbone too. Medicham’s Pure Power Brick Break is another sledgehammer. Even a coverage Focus Punch or Brick Break on Tyranitar, Salamence, or Metagross turns Snorlax from a wall into a liability.

2. Trap it with Dugtrio. This is the single most reliable way an aggressive team removes a Snorlax. Arena Trap pins the grounded Snorlax in place, and repeated Earthquakes — boosted by the fact that Snorlax’s Defense is one of its weakest stats (base 65 — far below its enormous HP and Special Defense) — wear it down with no escape. Critically, Dugtrio is how you punish a Curse Snorlax: catch it after a boost or two, trap, and EQ it before it becomes uncontrollable. Dugtrio also cleans up a Snorlax that has already been chipped by your wallbreaker. Snorlax’s Self-Destruct is the one risk — but trading a Dugtrio for a boosted Snorlax is usually a win for you.

3. Overload the special side or wear it down. Snorlax has no recovery beyond Leftovers, so Spikes chip plus repeated forced switch-ins grind it out. MixMence is a strong overload tool — Snorlax can’t switch into Salamence’s Brick Break, and the special side still has to respect Fire Blast through Thick Fat over time. The general principle: Snorlax can wall a special attacker, but it cannot wall a special attacker and a Fighting move and Spikes chip on the same switch.

A word of caution that the immunities create: do not try to break Snorlax with Gengar. Shadow Ball is Ghost-type and Normal is immune to Ghost (Ghost → Normal = 0), so Gengar does nothing to it outside of Will-O-Wisp/Explosion. Likewise Ground attacks are fine but unboosted Earthquake won’t 2HKO a healthy specially-defensive Snorlax — you need the Fighting move or the trap.

Wielding it — Snorlax on your team

When Snorlax is on your aggressive offense, it plays two roles, and both are about pressure, not passivity.

As a Self-Destruct breaker: Return off base 110 is a genuine neutral nuke that almost nothing switches into comfortably, and the split-bulk spread means Snorlax holds the special side between attacks. Shadow Ball handles the Ghosts and Psychics that would otherwise wall the spam, Focus Punch punishes the Rocks and Normals that resist Return (it nails Tyranitar for 4×), and Self-Destruct is the finisher: it halves the target’s Defense before applying that base-110 Attack, which deletes nearly any wall in the tier and opens the cleanup. Mid-game, Utility Lax forces 50/50s where every option chips something and the detonation always looms.

As a Curse wincon: This is your secondary win condition — the back-up plan when your primary sweeper gets answered. Bring it once the opposing Fighting attacker and phazing Skarmory are removed or chipped, set up behind a forced switch, and let the +1/+1 snowball close. The detail that makes it offensive rather than stally: you are not trying to 6-0 with it from turn one, you are converting a midgame advantage into a clean finish, and Self-Destruct gives you an exit that takes a wall with it if you get phazed or walled.

Snorlax’s job on offense is glue plus secondary wincon: it holds the special side that your fast, frail attackers can’t, then either breaks a wall on the way out (Self-Destruct) or becomes the closer (Curse). It is the rare defensive piece that an aggressive team can run without slowing down, because every set ends in either a wall removed or a sweep.

Checks & counters

Hard answers (beat it 1-on-1):

• Dugtrio — Arena Trap pins it and Earthquake grinds its weak Defense; the premier remover for both a weakened wall-Snorlax and a boosted Curse-Snorlax. The one thing you fear is Self-Destruct, which is an acceptable trade.
• Skarmory — walls the Normal STAB (Steel/Flying takes Normal at 0.5×) and Roar phazes a Curse Snorlax out before it snowballs. Note that Focus Punch does not dent it — Steel/Flying nets Fighting to neutral 1× because Flying’s resistance cancels the Steel weakness — so Skarmory is a clean answer to even the Utility set’s coverage.
• Heracross / strong Fighting — Brick Break hits Normal for 2× (and a Banded Megahorn, though only neutral, still crashes through the special-tilt spread); the front-door break.

Soft checks / situational:

• Gengar — immune to the Normal STAB (Ghost → takes Normal at 0) and to Earthquake (Levitate), so it switches in for free; it can’t break Snorlax with its own Shadow Ball (Ghost → Normal = 0) but it spreads Will-O-Wisp to halve Snorlax’s physical output and threatens Explosion. A check by immunity, not by damage. Beware: Snorlax’s own Shadow Ball hits Gengar 2×, so don’t sit in on it.
• Focus Punch / Brick Break users generally — anything that clicks a Fighting move into Snorlax’s base-65 Defense punches a hole; this is also how the Snorlax mirror is decided.
• Burn — a Will-O-Wisp halves Snorlax’s Attack, neutering the Curse and Utility sets’ offense while it sits there.

How Snorlax fights back: a boosted Curse Snorlax flips a stall into a sweep, Self-Destruct converts a “check” into a one-for-one trade (and on the Curse set, a one-for-two), and Thick Fat means the Fire/Ice attackers people expect to pressure it bounce off. The way to beat it is the Fighting move or the trap — never the special attacker it was built to wall.

See also

• Walls you break: Skarmory, Blissey — the rest of the defensive backbone; cross-ref building aggressive offense on the dual-wallbreaker pattern.
• Its removers: Dugtrio, Heracross, Medicham, Salamence.
• Cross-refs: viability tiers, common cores, sample teams, mechanics & calc reference, mechanics fundamentals.