An explanation, because this really is epic:
All moves in Pokemon have a “base power” that’s plugged into the formula for how much damage they do. Explosion has the highest base power of all moves, at a solid 250. For the record, 70 is “decent”, 90 is “really good” and 120-150 is considered so strong that it needs multiple major drawbacks to be balanced. At the point in time at which this incident took place, Explosion also halved the Defence stat of the opponent being hit by it for that attack only, doubling its effective power to 500.
The flipside of this is that Explosion, whether it hits or misses, immediately knocks out the user. So usually, it’s a last-resort, ace-in-the-hole kind of trick.
The strategy used by crunchymaggot’s friend was to take five Qwilfish - usually an overlooked Pokemon - and max out their Attack and Speed stats, so that they hit hard and fast. He then gave them Choice Scarves, which lock the Pokemon holding it into using only one move, but boosts the power of that move in turn.
So basically, he had five fish-bombs. There is not a whole lot that can take a Choice-boosted Explosion and live, even from a Qwilfish. And since those are fast Qwilfish, the odds of you taking the fish out before it kills you? Not high. I estimate that this strategy, barring shenannigans from the foe, will take out 2-5 Pokemon by the time the last Qwilfish is out. It can be pretty easily stopped, but if you don’t see it coming, it’s pretty good.
Now onto the Snorlax. Snorlax has a shit-ton of HP and Defence, so it’s good at stalling the opponent and whittling them down. Rest is a move that puts the user to sleep, but fully heals them. (Sleep wears off after a few turns.) Yawn puts the opponent to sleep one turn after it’s used. Giga Impact is an attacking move with a base power of 150, but you need to “recharge” for the turn after it’s used and can’t do anything. But that’s okay, because this is a Snorlax, and Snorlax is a bulky asshole.
…Oh yeah, and it also has Explosion. Now, see, Snorlax has a trick with Explosion that Qwilfish doesn’t. Both Pokemon and moves have types, and if the move and the Pokemon using it have the same type, the move gets an extra multiplier on how much damage it does. (It’s called Same Type Attack Bonus, or STAB.) This is a modifier of x1.5.
So a Snorlax using Explosion is using a move with a base power of 750.
Oh, and Explosion damages the opponent before fainting the user, so if Snorlax goes kaboom on the opponent’s last Pokemon, crunchymaggot’s friend wins the fight.
TL;DR: Fish bombs, followed by a bear which will blow you up if it thinks it’s about to lose the fight.
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