Mr.E
unban me from Discord
zam is absolutely not top 4 in rby. probably #5 - still not close to top 4.
top 4 in rby is exactly what jorgen said (i disagree on internal ordering but eh) and it is literally indisputable.
Chansey is a little more tanky but Zam is plenty hardy enough. Even Jynx can barely 3HKO Zam with Blizzard, which is about the only special attack Zam gives even a remote shit about because it resists Psychic and nothing else is STAB (the odd Hydro Pump Starmie?). It also outspeeds everything, so even if it's low it gets a chance to Recover. The physical thresholds are a little more dire for Zam but when it comes to crunch time and Tauros can no longer avoid putting itself in harm's way, Zam still beats it straight-up half the time. Chansey just paralyzes it and gets fucked.Chansey can take STAB special attacks and non-STAB physical attacks; Zam can't. Also, both need to be paralysed to wall Ice-equipped opponents in the long run; Chansey is less easily exploited with double-switches than a paralysed Zam and gets more non-Recover moves off, as Zam needs to maintain 81%+ to avoid the guaranteed Tauros Hyper Beam OHKO while Chansey only needs 63%. As such Zam's rather unwieldy whereas Chansey has more room to manoeuvre.
Snorlax has far more offensive utility and even probably more defensive utility than Zam, thanks to hitting on the physical side and having Selfdestruct. And TankLax basically IS ReflectZam except it's better. No clue what you're on about here.
Zam is the best duelist in OU, it's the fastest [common] mon in OU, it's pretty much the only mon that can absorb sleep and have a decent shot at ever actually waking up. What's Chansey? An annoying blob that cockblocks Starmie. It paralyzes Zam oftentimes too but only because Zam can beat it 1v1 and Zam is less crippled by the status than Tauros and company (because Zam owns every special attacker and has Recover).
Snorlax is kinda way different but honestly I don't know why everyone but me loves the shit out of it in RBY. Maybe because you're all in love with Chansey too and Snorlax is the natural hard counter to her. Zam is absolutely, 100% better than Chansey though, it was Snorlax that had me add the "probably."