Venomoth is one of those weird Pokemon for me. It's pretty ridiculous on paper, but in practice it's a little bit less...magical is the word I guess. By all means though it's still a pretty ridiculous Pokemon for the RU tier as I've played. As long as Sleep Powder doesn't miss, it has a free turn to Quiver and already be at a hard to stop +1 in Sp.Att/Sp.Def/Speed. Offensively, there are Pokemon that I say hold Venomoth at bay, with the tier full of Pokemon like Delphox, Mega-Steelix, Houndoom, Sigilyph, Fletchinder is pretty cool, as well as a multitude of optional Choice Scarf users too that don't have much problems getting a OHKO on Venomoth, or having to have SR on the field to do so, if they aren't that strong. Defensively however, I dare say there's a little pool of switch in potential that gives Venomoth way too much leverage to do its job in the tier. Amoonguss does a fair job since immune to sleep powder, but sub sets can take advantage of it fairly easily to set up. Golbat can do a decent job too as long as it's not the target of sleep powder, it'll force it out as long as you remember your Brave Bird. Escavalier and Mega-Steelix can do a decent job, though they can easily be worn down due to their lack of recovery options. Luckily, most often times, just getting it out once is good enough if you can take back the momentum and keep it on.
Against good offensive teams that know how to keep momentum, I find Venomoth has some struggles, but with it's pretty great speed tier (90 is fairly great in this tier) managing a sleep and then quivering up usually leads to easy wins if it happens because most offensive types are frail, and post 1 Quiver, the offensive Pokemon capable of handling it shrinks by a large margin. With the pretty cool Poison/Bug typing, it has a lot of ease coming in to set up on the various bulky defensive types that becomes easy fodder for it. It's usually set dependent on what you cover for these sometimes, but Veno doesn't have too much of a hard time fighting Balanced or Defensive teams because it can use many common types to set up on. Though as a negative, there's several common offensive Pokemon types it can't use to set up on, that are all over the tier, including stuff with that carry auxiliary moves that are super effective against Bug types. Really I find that a lot of handling in Venomoth play comes from you almost needing to have something out at all times that can handle it in certain cases when it comes to the point it could come in and set up after a death, so you really can't give it that ability to do so. Realistically I think it's something that can be handled, but all it needs is one set up shot, and it can inflict devastating damage to teams with relative ease as a match has progressed, easily picking off some of the more weakened things, and some of the better checks being kept in fairly good health over the course of a match can be tough if it's required to be used. All in all, I'm supportive in seeing it gone.
As for the drops of Smeargle and Goth, don't have much to say about goth, especially with a mon like Houndoom and Skuntank seen fairly frequently at least for me, but it'll probably be a decent-ish....??? Pokemon. Smeargle is going to be interesting. Hazard stacking and awesome support moves? Spore, Webs, SR, lack of amazingly good hazard removers in this tier? Highly useful. Not to mention all the fun and weird gimmick sets I expect to see because of it's wide movepool.
