Anything Goes Resources

[agunymonymous]

hey guys I'll try to contribute my opinions in this topic for a bit so I hope you don't mind.

this post will mostly be me just saying that I feel like mega mawile deserves to be put back to D rank, possibly even higher.

I find it slightly odd that mawile would be unranked and things such as amoonguss, heatran and deoxys-defense are, I am aware amoonguss does have a nice pivotting role in AG but I feel like it is way too passive to be considered more viable than mawile, heatran feels way too niche for me and to me it sounds very easy to deal with anyways, and deoxys...Like idk I'd argue it should be unranked but I am aware it does something.

Anyways I guess I'll try to set some pros and cons of mega mawile, obviously the biggest con is the fact that it takes a valuable mega slot, I'd say. Anyways when you hear me say mega mawile you're probably thinking sucker punch SD, which is what everyone on AG seems to run, but honestly I think that set is kind of mediocre and mostly outclassed. Anyways the reason I think mawile has a niche is that it can be somewhat unpredictable, and it has such a good defensive typing with decent bulk, allowing it to switch in to a fair amount of threats. Aside from that it isn't what you'd call a passive mon, not at all, it OHKOes most mons it attempts to check pretty much without boosts or attack investment. With these things said mawile would seem like an amazing mon, however it does face huge problems too! Most of the time if you run mawile you'll want to run stall, and mawile pretty much needs wish and status support to stay useful for an extended time...This is kind of bad cause that makes it struggle fitting in on many teams, and some wish+clerics don't synergize well with mawile either. Anyways, as I earlier said, I don't really like sucker SD mawile, so you might be wondering what I think mawile does well using...Well play rough and iron head are pretty important and should be used roughly all the time I'd think, and the tricky part is mostly figuring what the last two moves should be cause mawile has a lot of good moves it can use, but it can't run all those moves to do the job to be a dream pokemon. Anyways for the last two moves I suggest substitute and baton pass, this not only allows mawile to bait in common mawile switch-ins, it allows it to avoid status potentionally and give subs to your other mons against mons that don't threaten you. The main reason mawile is so "bad" is because primal groudon just switches in without taking any significant damage, but baton passing to something like arceus ground or primal kyogre will threaten it (especially since these mons aren't switched into very easily).

Anyways what does mawile really do on a stall team? What mons does it stop that are relevant in the meta? Well, it does deal with some mons that are tricky to stall, especially offensive yveltal, it doesn't straight up counter yveltal since yveltal can play around it. The best move yveltal has to hit mawile with is dark pulse doing 33.9 - 39.9% to a specially defensive mawile (which is what I'd run), this yveltal is running life orb. This is a pretty huge amount so mawile won't be able to sub on it without taking significant damage, and some of them even outspeed with taunt if they're wild enough. Also this doesn't help my case of saying mawile checks yveltal but yveltal can carry heat wave or focus blast, both of which will 1hko after stealth rock and dark pulse, thankfully I never see people carry those moves. Anyways assuming mawile switched in on offensive yveltal what does mawile do? Play rough does 131.3 - 154.8% to yveltal so that is a play if you predict them to stay in, if you feel like the opponent might switch out to something you don't have good switch-ins for, you could baton pass. If yveltal stays in and you baton pass you will usually live but you'll have taken a good chunk of damage, however you did get a safe switch to a pokemon that might threaten yveltal without damaging it. I should also mention that mawile fails to switch in on defensive yveltal but yveltal can't do much but burn-roost and defensive yveltal does not switch well into mawile, especially if it went for play rough in which case it should easily 2HKO after being burned second turn. Mawile can also switch in on geomancy xerneas, however without decent attack investment iron head will be a roll just being slightly in your favor, which surprised me a bit cause I've seen very few of them survive. If you switch in the turn xerneas uses geomancy you will take pretty high damage from the likely upcoming attack, however focus blast doing 78.5 - 92.4% makes you unlikely to be taken down in one hit after stealth rock, hidden power fire does 78.5 - 93% if you care.

Anyways maybe that text wasn't too convincing to make you guys put mega mawile at D or above, but the fact that it can be fairly unpredictable and can check some of the biggest offensive threats in the tier is good in my book, I mean, sableye kind of just dies to both of those no matter what.

Also worth mentioning that mawile can run foul play, fire fang, focus punch, rock slide and possibly even pain split. Focus punch does 36.1 - 42.5% with 16 attack investment to primal groudon assuming it doesn't have too much physical defense (max HP max defense it will do 31.9 - 37.6%), which is pretty alright damage since primal groudon loves to switch into mawile and getting damage on a defensive one is always beneficial...Unfortunately I find it to be tough to replace the moves I just put there being iron head/play rough/substitute/baton pass.

Sorry if I didn't really convince anyone or make a good point in this post, but I tried and it is my first time nominating for a viability ranking. If it was possible I would consider writing an analysis on mawile for AG but *shrug*. It doesn't really do much that it doesn't do in Ubers.

Edit: also I kind of don't agree with either landorus version being higher than gliscor, but I don't even know the reasoning so I won't go too deep into it.

also if it matters to anyone I think giratina-o is currently at a justified rank, I don't feel like making this post much longer to make arguements about it though.

 

[Adeleine]

The idea of using SubPass on a Pokemon as a sort of lure is interesting, but Mawile doesn't have the speed to use it effectively. A counter can easily outspeed and break the sub before Mawile Baton Passes. I mean, you've brought the counter's counter safely, but in a rather Byzantine way. Because it doesn't have any recovery besides Rest (which is rather bad on it) , it can't restore the lost HP from Substitutes. If +2 Focus Blast from Geoxern does 78.5% minimum as you say, using Substitue once puts you in KO range of your most important checking opportunity. And if that's the case, the set you put forth unfortunately needs impractical levels of support to function. Speaking of Xerneas, you have to either run adamant or put some EVs in Attack (I think like 125-150 depending on the Xern set) to get the Iron Head OHKO (which you need since you don't have Sucker Punch), which makes Mawile's role on a stall team harder to find.

I can't say I agree with much of your reasoning, but I could see Mawile Mega in D as a slow and usably powerful BP pivot that niche checks Pokemon like Xern, Darkrai, Bulky Yveltal, Clefable, and others some teams have trouble with, although since it takes the mega slot and is rather niche, I definitely would not expect it to be any higher. Other notable flaws are its utter detest to chip damage, weakness to the common Earthquake (and Vcreate / Fire Blast as well), and smaller role compared to other mega evolutions.

 

[agunymonymous]

I kind of stated everything you said in the post already, I guess bulky offense would be a better term than stall for mawile teams I have in mind however. Also mawile doesn't check bulky yveltal unless you outspeed or yveltal doesn't have will-o-wisp+roost (or if will-o-wisp misses).

The thing is that wish and cleric support is kind of essential for mawile assuming you're running a sub+baton pass set like I suggest, and finding clerics that aren't too passive can be difficult. Also iron head is a roll most of the time, but I've usually had it OHKO geomancy xern, but come to think of it I guess it might be because those xerns aren't running much HP for some reason. Also sub+baton pass is mostly just to lure switch-ins, I guess you could run sucker punch instead of sub especially since I'm not seeing stall mons as often anymore (ferrothorn, sableye, whatever), but honestly, what does sucker punch even hit? The only times I see sucker punch being useful is for chip damage which usually isn't significant, cases like geomancy xerneas just barely living iron heads, or if some weird mewtwo or deoxys uses a move without priority on you. I don't even see either of those with high usage.

But yeah since like pretty much everyone at high ladder use like three or more arceuses for unpredictability I guess mawile suffers in that case.

 

[Adeleine]

I kind of stated everything you said in the post already, I guess bulky offense would be a better term than stall for mawile teams I have in mind however. Also mawile doesn't check bulky yveltal unless you outspeed or yveltal doesn't have will-o-wisp+roost (or if will-o-wisp misses).

The thing is that wish and cleric support is kind of essential for mawile assuming you're running a sub+baton pass set like I suggest, and finding clerics that aren't too passive can be difficult. Also iron head is a roll most of the time, but I've usually had it OHKO geomancy xern, but come to think of it I guess it might be because those xerns aren't running much HP for some reason. Also sub+baton pass is mostly just to lure switch-ins, I guess you could run sucker punch instead of sub especially since I'm not seeing stall mons as often anymore (ferrothorn, sableye, whatever), but honestly, what does sucker punch even hit? The only times I see sucker punch being useful is for chip damage which usually isn't significant, cases like geomancy xerneas just barely living iron heads, or if some weird mewtwo or deoxys uses a move without priority on you. I don't even see either of those with high usage.

But yeah since like pretty much everyone at high ladder use like three or more arceuses for unpredictability I guess mawile suffers in that case.

Yveltal doesn't learn Will o Wisp, so that's not quite an issue.
Wish and cleric is pretty essential, as you say, which is part of the problem. Not only does this mean it requires a lot of support, but it may be hard to justify not giving that support to a more popular option.
Sucker punch basically has two uses. Kill Xern after Iron Head, and to get chip damage before dying. I'd say the former is enough justification to always use it unless you pack enough attack investment to ensure the OHKO on 252/0 Xern, and even then it's a good backup option (though less required).
The problem with your Sub BP is that it prevents Mmawile from checking Xern, because using a Substitue leaves you in KO range. I mean, you can wish support, but that's always rather unreliable and may require you to use protect to be able to wish-sacrifice Pokemon to Xerneas (if that makes sense). And the real problem is, if you can't check GeoXern, it becomes very hard to justify using Mega Mawile.
Another thing with your BP set is that you have to predict a counter will switch in to use it, and if you predict a counter will switch in, why not just switch instead of going for Sub to maintain pressure and momentum even better?

 

[agunymonymous]

wow I can't believe I thought yveltal learnt will-o-wisp and it didn't, sorry.

Also I wouldn't use mawile to just set up subs on anything it can, I'm telling you to use mawile as a hard-hitting check to mons that might threaten you, using sub to pass it into a different mon was not the main intent of running sub at all, the main reason I proposed using it is to scout for what would switch in on you to give you a better idea of what to baton pass into.

Also it's not like you need to lead with mawile just to mega evolve it, if you switch it in on a xern as it used geomancy it should be capable of doing what you wanted it to do.

Basically don't use sub if you need mega mawile to check xern.

 

[hexandwhy]

That's not really a valid argument to say "This Pokemon beats Giratina, but Giratina has teammates it can switch to so its not that bad". That is the point of teambuilding, and a technically correct but here rather not useful argument that applies to every Pokemon. Saying Ho Oh handles Xerneas is an argument more towards the viability of Ho Oh, and less so towards the viability of Giratina.
And besides, if Giratina does have a fair reliance on Pokemon that aren't itself, that makes me feel like it belongs in mid B (where it is).
Because without sleep talk, you can make easy switches and set up on a sleeping Giratina, adding to its already big problems with being passive, and Rest Giratina without Sleep Talk is a huge momentum drain. Maybe without sleep talk is better, I don't know for certain, but that doesn't sound particularly appealing.

I believe Megazard said that a Pokemon's viability is measured by the Pokemon functioning at its best condition. In that way, Giratina has close to no viability in AG or Ubers. Pokemon that rely on Rest is usually terrible in 1v1. If it's just about how well Giratina does 1v1, it would probably be C- rank or below. However, it just pairs so well with other Pokemon that it can make up for its own mistakes. If Giratina is going down for relying too much on its team mates, Mega Diancie, Mega Gengar, Yveltal, and Lugia are going to drop quite a lot. And Gira-O isn't any better in 1v1 either. Nobody needs a Pokemon that can barely damage others with its STAB (Arceus is immune to one of them, and an even deadlier Xerneas can set up on Gira-O anytime it wants. Not to forget that a Darkrai could possibly sweep the team if it has rocks on, and double switches on the turn that Gira-O switches in. It's not even a hard read. If your opponent needs to Defog as soon as possible, or you switch in your SD Arceus, I'm pretty sure the opponent would switch into Gira-O right away.) Gira-O has bad synergy with team mates because:
1. It dies to SR, making switching a burden. This is a pretty bad trait for a Deffogger, especially for Stall or Balanced teams.
2. It's a sitting duck to Klefki, formerly S rank. It literally can only Shadow Dive (which has 8 pp) against the substitute. At least normal Giratina can Pressure stall it, use leftover recoveries, and recover its health against it.
3. It doesn't have Pressure. This means that a Pokemon with Fire typing to avoid Will-O-Wisp (#P-Don) could just set up Stealth Rocks for 32 turns, and pp stall Defog which has only 24 pp.
4. It doesn't have recovery. This makes it a poor check to anything, and makes it useful as only a Defogger with attacks that could potentially become set up bait.
5. Can't touch Ho-oh whatsoever. If you try to switch out, Ho-oh could T-Wave, attack, or do something to hurt your team.
And I think most hyper offensive teams would rather not have a defogger than to use Giratina-O. I haven't seen a successful team with it for ages.
It definitely does terrible in Stall or Balanced, and doesn't seem to do much than take up a slot for HO teams.

 

[Adeleine]

I believe Megazard said that a Pokemon's viability is measured by the Pokemon functioning at its best condition. In that way, Giratina has close to no viability in AG or Ubers. Pokemon that rely on Rest is usually terrible in 1v1. If it's just about how well Giratina does 1v1, it would probably be C- rank or below. However, it just pairs so well with other Pokemon that it can make up for its own mistakes. If Giratina is going down for relying too much on its team mates, Mega Diancie, Mega Gengar, Yveltal, and Lugia are going to drop quite a lot. And Gira-O isn't any better in 1v1 either. Nobody needs a Pokemon that can barely damage others with its STAB (Arceus is immune to one of them, and an even deadlier Xerneas can set up on Gira-O anytime it wants. Not to forget that a Darkrai could possibly sweep the team if it has rocks on, and double switches on the turn that Gira-O switches in. It's not even a hard read. If your opponent needs to Defog as soon as possible, or you switch in your SD Arceus, I'm pretty sure the opponent would switch into Gira-O right away.) Gira-O has bad synergy with team mates because:
1. It dies to SR, making switching a burden. This is a pretty bad trait for a Deffogger, especially for Stall or Balanced teams.
2. It's a sitting duck to Klefki, formerly S rank. It literally can only Shadow Dive (which has 8 pp) against the substitute. At least normal Giratina can Pressure stall it, use leftover recoveries, and recover its health against it.
3. It doesn't have Pressure. This means that a Pokemon with Fire typing to avoid Will-O-Wisp (#P-Don) could just set up Stealth Rocks for 32 turns, and pp stall Defog which has only 24 pp.
4. It doesn't have recovery. This makes it a poor check to anything, and makes it useful as only a Defogger with attacks that could potentially become set up bait.
5. Can't touch Ho-oh whatsoever. If you try to switch out, Ho-oh could T-Wave, attack, or do something to hurt your team.
And I think most hyper offensive teams would rather not have a defogger than to use Giratina-O. I haven't seen a successful team with it for ages.
It definitely does terrible in Stall or Balanced, and doesn't seem to do much than take up a slot for HO teams.

First off, I definitely don't disagree that Giratina O is kind of mediocre, so I'm not really going to contest any of your points there, except to remind you that GeoXern sets on you any time it wants as well unless you use the rare Roar (but Giratina O has Roar to, so...). EDIT: Actually, while I won't question that Giratina O isn't amazing, I will point out some questionable points you make.
1. +6 8 Atk Klefki Foul Play vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Giratina: 300-354 (59.6 - 70.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (and you do literally nothing to it)
2. 252+ Atk Griseous Orb Giratina-O Shadow Force vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 267-315 (64.3 - 75.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (not quite unable to touch Ho-Oh)
3. It shares Giratina's movepool, so points like "no recovery besides rest" "potential setup bait" apply equally to it as it does to Giratina. Also, it takes as much Rocks damage as you do.

Something to remember about Giratina is that it only has one general set, only fits on one playstyle, and that playstyle (stall) is heavily matchup-based and often completely loses at the start (as Hunter has said). The question here isn't whether Giratina is bad, or whether it is usable, the question is whether it belongs in B+ or higher. Pokemon like this belong in mid B tier. The Pokemon you listed either have mostly extremely rare attributes that make them special cases (Shadow Tag for Mgar, Magic Bounce for Mdiancie, its Speed for a defensive mon and Multiscale for Lugia), or have more than 1 usable set and much more versatility (Yveltal has a feared Rocky Helmet/Foul Play bulk set as well as its feared LO Mixed set).

 

[Chloe]

I want to formerly nominate a Pokémon that I believe is ranked unfairly.

A- to B+
We've recently discussed the over-ranking of this Pokémon due to its high placement on the Ubers Viability Rankings, however, Groudon's usage isn't 100% in AG hence it isn't as important a Pokémon. Primal Groudon, whilst seeing ~41% usage, isn't as relevant in AG, and is also checked by the omnipresent Mega Rayquaza. That being said, Primal Groudon is still a major threat in Anything Goes, thus it remains an S rank threat. However, it is not a predominant threat and that's where Giratina-O's viability becomes questionable. While it can check non-Shadow Claw variants of ExtremeKiller, it suffers from being worn down to nil with no recovery. This forces it to run Rest, and invest a plethora of EVs into bulk which takes away from Giratina-O's ability to attack Groudon with high force. However, running Rest on this is usually frowned upon since Giratina suffers from immense four slot syndrome which doesn't allow it to function as well as it would like. Primal Groudon sets in Anything Goes also seem to run Dragon Claw fairly frequently, usually to deal major damage to Mega Rayquaza before Rayquaza overwhelms it with one of its many powerful attacking moves. The same thing happens with Giratina-O. Although Giratina-O can technically OHKO Mega Rayquaza, RayRay can run Draco Meteor or Outrage (I wouldn't recommend the latter) and pick up a guaranteed OHKO without the use of an item. This only further adds to Giratina's worries as it struggles throughout the metagame. It straight up loses against two other S ranks in Xerneas and Darkrai, both extremely common. Overall Giratina-O struggles within the AG metagame, and should therefore be lowered a rank or two at least.

Essentially, all I'm saying is it checks one S rank. It doesn't do this well, and the S rank it checks isn't as important as other threats. Skarmory, a B+ rank mon, can effectively "extremely-hard-check" Arceus which is arguably the most important threat to check, as well as the most populous. It also provides a switch-in to Mega Rayquaza's Dragon Ascent, and the checking of non-V-create/Overheat variants of Ray. Skarmory is much more relevant to the AG metagame than Giratina-Origin, however I'm only asking for it to be dropped to the same rank. I also wouldn't be opposed to dropping it to the same rank as its Alternate forme.

I think Water Arceus should rise as well, but I'll provide reasoning for that later.

 

[Mq]

Nominating Dragon ceus for B+/-A
This pokemon does the same role water ceus does, a deffoger, a good defense wall.But the typing make them go two ways.Dragon arceus has a better typing and walls the two S rank Mon Kyogre and Primal groudon and wear them down with toxic and recover.Dragon arc vs Mega rayquaza, it tanks the ascent and kills with a super effective dragon type judgment.Okay, it was its weakness to fairy types but every mon has some weakness.Finally i ask for its nomination to +B/-A(just a suggestion)

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Nominating Dragon ceus for B+/-A
This pokemon does the same role water ceus does, a deffoger, a good defense wall.But the typing make them go two ways.Dragon arceus has a better typing and walls the two S rank Mon Kyogre and Primal groudon and wear them down with toxic and recover.Dragon arc vs Mega rayquaza, it tanks the ascent and kills with a super effective dragon type judgment.Okay, it was its weakness to fairy types but every mon has some weakness.Finally i ask for its nomination to +B/-A(just a suggestion)

Just throwing it out there, Kyogre isn't s rank. That being said, it does have its benefits.
I'm going, for the sake of this argument, compare it to fairyceus and waterceus. The comparison isn't really apt, but they have enough similarities it seems useful.

fairyceus vs Dragonceus

Fairyceus:
Better typing
Can switch in on more or MRay's moves (not entirely because of VCreate, but either can win if they do so)
Better matchup vs xern (beats scarf, heavily injures geo)
Better matchup vs fairyceus (lol)
Better matchup vs Diancie (dragonceus can win with flash cannon, but that isn't something good or specific to it)
Better matchup Vs klefki.
Better vs Mewtwo
Better vs Yveltal
Slightly better vs darkrai

Dragonceus:
Isn't MGar bait
Better vs PDon
Better vs POgre
Better vs Steelceus
Better vs Ho-oh
Debatable better vs ghostceus

Overall worse off, but it retains the ability to check MRay while also beating the primals. Further, you cant trap it with your MGar to stop it from checking half your team.

waterceus vs Dragonceus

Waterceus-
Better vs Diancie
Better vs Xern (not helpfully so vs geo, yes vs scarf)
Better vs Fairyceus
Better vs Mewtwo
Better vs Klefki
Better vs steelceus
Better vs ho-oh
Betetr vs Groundceus

Dragonceus
Better vs MRay
Better vs PDon
Better vs POgre
Better vs Giratina-O

Seems worse, but the ones it does beat (except tina) are all high ranked and common, while the ones waterceus is helpfully better against are less common.

I'm not sure A- is the right place for it, but B+ seems reasonable.

 

[Adeleine]

I definitely support Giratina O falling, and would say to B neutral myself with, well, itself. A lot the important checks it has in Uber are either less relevant (like Blaziken/Kanga mega) or less secure (read: Dclaw Pdon) that leaves you wondering why you are actually using it. It's slow and lacking in effective and powerful STAB. It also has moveslot problems and lack of recovery besides rest (and pain split I guess). It faces huge competition from Ghost Arceus, who has many advantages over it.
Giratina O Advantages:
Dragon Tail (but Ghostceus does have Roar)
Dragon STAB
Shadow Sneak
Fire Resistance

Ghostceus Advantages:
Judgement
Faster
Recover/Refresh
Calm Mind/Swords Dance
No Fairy weakness
No Dragon Weakness
No Ice Weakness

Seems pretty strong in Ghost Arceus' favor here.

The problem I'm seeing with Dragon Arceus is how it distinguishes itself from either Fairy Arceus or Water Arceus. I'm looking through the Ubers analysis and all I can really find it can do that either of those cant better is "outspeed and nail Mray and not be Mgengar bait (although Draco meteor and dragon dance after some chip damage are problematic)" and "run a better physical set (albeit one reliant on Outrage for STAB)", and I don't think that's enough to move it up really.

 

[Adeleine]

I'll make a nom myself.
Mega Diancie A -> A-
I sincerely tried to use it and was seriously underwhelmed. It definitely has a niche (especially being one of the most secure stops to Darkrai there is), but its niches just felt... too niche. Its decidedly poor matchups against much of the S tier (SD Arceus, Scarf Xern, Geoxern, and Pdon all beat it handily, and even Jolly Mega Rayquaza outspeeds and OHKOs with EQ or Choice Band Waterfall) often make it a liability. Its rather unimpressive 50/110/110 bulk limits its defensive role (EDIT: it also has to run a nature that detracts from a defense unless it wants to detract from Diamond Storm), leaving it at risk for being 2HKOd by strong resisted attacks like Jolly Dragon Ascent from Rayquaza-Mega or Adamant Fire Punch from Pdon. Weakness to the ever common Earthquake and Precipice Blades don't help it there. Its rather barren offensive movepool (only Physical Rock and only Special Fairy) makes using it like bending a pretzel, especially since its complete need for points in speed hinders how generous it can be with EVs. Of course, it has the always painful opportunity cost that using a mega evolution has. Finally, the Pokemon you'd think it would check so well, Klefki, does massive damage with Flash Cannon and can very well OHKO without investment. It has roles, but not Mega Gengar viability.

 

[TheHungrySage]

I'll make a nom myself.
Mega Diancie A -> A-
I sincerely tried to use it and was seriously underwhelmed. It definitely has a niche (especially being one of the most secure stops to Darkrai there is), but its niches just felt... too niche. Its decidedly poor matchups against much of the S tier (SD Arceus, Scarf Xern, Geoxern, and Pdon all beat it handily, and even Jolly Mega Rayquaza outspeeds and OHKOs with EQ or Choice Band Waterfall) often make it a liability. Its rather unimpressive 50/110/110 bulk limits its defensive role (EDIT: it also has to run a nature that detracts from a defense unless it wants to detract from Diamond Storm), leaving it at risk for being 2HKOd by strong resisted attacks like Jolly Dragon Ascent from Rayquaza-Mega or Adamant Fire Punch from Pdon. Weakness to the ever common Earthquake and Precipice Blades don't help it there. Its rather barren offensive movepool (only Physical Rock and only Special Fairy) makes using it like bending a pretzel, especially since its complete need for points in speed hinders how generous it can be with EVs. Of course, it has the always painful opportunity cost that using a mega evolution has. Finally, the Pokemon you'd think it would check so well, Klefki, does massive damage with Flash Cannon and can very well OHKO without investment. It has roles, but not Mega Gengar viability.

I 100% agree with moving Diancie-M from A- to A-
I agree really strongly with this nomination, I quite frankly never understood how Diancie-M got so high in the viability rankings. First, its meagre bulk doesn't allow it to lead effectively against some of the most common leads, being Pdon, Arc, Arc-Ground, etc. It often doesn't even require a super-effective attack to take it down. Magic Bounce combined with good, but not great, offensive stats is not enough to merit an A rank, and could be moved even lower in the viability rankings than A- imo.

 

[Daft Blaze]

I'll just state some points as to why Arceus-Dragon has moved up to Rank B+ TheTiksiBranch

FA --> Arceus-Fairy

1. It essentially does what Arceus-Fairy does. It walls all physical M-Ray sets (Draco on Specs is a huge issue). Good thing Physical sets are A LOT more common.
2. It can toxic stall Ho-oh to death, also Judgement does a fair amount of damage and it resists Sacred fire, i.e., if you're going for a burn it'll take reduced damage as compared to Arceus-Fairy.
3. It can 3HKO all P-Don variants with STAB Judgement (unlike FA), tanks PBlades easily and is able to handle Special variants of P-Don better than FA. While SD variants can be a problem but that's the same with FA. The only thing support P-Don can do to Bulky-Arc formes is go for a burn using Lava Plume, not the case with Arceus-Dragon

Edit : I'm not saying FA is able to check Ho-oh, I just gave a few examples to show that Arceus-Dragon is able to handle a greater no. of physically oriented mons.

Cons :

1. Can't really run a Special Offensive. The best set would be like : Judgement/ Flash Cannon/ Recover/ CM or Judgement/ Earth Power/ Recover/ CM
But, Flash Cannon still doesn't do much to fairies and you get completely walled by Steel types. EP hampers the ability to hit Fairies even more.
2. Because of these issues you're forced to run a Fairy check like Ho-oh or P-Don.
3. Bulky sets get completely walled by Klefki unless you're running Will-o-wisp. This somewhat forces you to run a solid check for Klef, this can either be P-Don (Check Klef + all other fairies, fears EP) or a magic bouncer like M-Diancie.
4. Lacks a good physical set too. At least it has one though

So, while Arceus-Dragon can't really run an offensive set, it does the task of walling physically oriented mons better with a bit of support, as compared to FA.


About M-Diancie :

M-Diancie got high on the viability ranking because of it ability to take down hoards of Klefkis (lacking Flash Cannon) rather easily with the help of EP. One can always scout for Flash Cannon using protect. And unlike M-Sab its an attack oriented Magic Bouncer and if used properly M-Diancie can break/ weaken stall teams.

IDK what you're talking about Moonblast/ Earth Power/ Diamond Storm is really good coverage and I don't see a reason for not running Timid nature on M-Diancie as Diamond Storm's only target is Ho-oh which it can OHKO without any investment.

M-Diancie does, however, lag against Arceus and needs support fromm something like bulky Yveltal, Skarmory or Bulkceus in order to perform its role as a lead effectively.

 

[Mq]

Mega Gengar for A/-S
Mega gengar is a awesome pokemon with a "rare" ability shadow tag.IT can be used both Stall and Ho(Trust me when i say this,tried two variations of sets and none let me down).Also being one of the best late game sweeper after rocks are up.If you play set up rocks,play wisely,and preserve Mega gengar, then it will not let you down on a sweep.It can also be used as a perish trapper to trouble stall.So I just want to say for me its Mid A and Mid S,so why not create a -S?

As if Zangooser does make a -S then which pokemon will be -S rank?
From my opinion-Primal Groudon and Mega gengar fits the rank perfectly for now, and guys i am new for nominating/discussing things so If everywhere i said something wrong just tag and correct me :D

Cons:Struggles to beat Priamall groudon,Darkrai behind substitue,yveltal,Mega ray.But you can beat them by sacrificing yourself with Destiny-Bond

Thats it!

 

[Transcendent God Champion]

I don't think Mega Gengar should go to S- Rank, simply because its inclusion in a team comes with the massive opportunity cost of Mega Rayquaza, Mega Diancie, and all other viable Mega Evolutions in this metagame.

If any Pokémon should be moved to S- Rank, it should be Ho-Oh in my opinion. It is a powerful physical attacker which happens to be immune to burn, with a pair of near-unresisted Same Type Attack Bonus moves in a metagame in which Arceus-Rock is hardly ever used at all. It comes in and wrecks havoc against almost every specially-offensive Arceus Forme, while physically-offensive variants have to be very careful due to Sacred Fire's incredibly high burn chance, and its incredibly high Special Defense stat just allows it to check so many threats. All of these strengths it possesses are simply compounded by its sheer healing abilities with Recover and Regenerator, as well as the fact that the Anything Goes metagame is simply extremely underprepared for this Pokémon from my experience (which I guess is understandable, given the very high number of threats in this metagame, combined with the fact that dedicated Ho-Oh checks can typically do very little outside of checking Ho-Oh).

I also find that Life Orb Substitute Ho-Oh is incredibly effective in this metagame when paired with Klefki (another amazing Pokémon in this metagame). Against a paralyzed Pokémon, Ho-Oh can simply spam Substitute and Recover repeatedly until a turn ends in which Ho-Oh is behind a Substitute, due to the opponent's Pokémon being fully paralyzed on that turn. After that, the opponent will usually lose two Pokémon, due to the fact that the vast majority of teams lack something that can really tank Life Orb Ho-Oh's attacks. I happen to hold a 45-1 win-loss record at the moment with a SwagPlay Klefki-centric team that also happens to include a Life Orb Substitute Ho-Oh, and this Pokémon is simply incredibly effective in that team for both its offensive and defensive utility.

 

[HunterStorm]

This is long, as will be evident once you see the size of it. But I think it is necessary, considering how Mgar is highly underrated, underused/ill-used and how it is considered to be inferior to a lot of mons. This is a terrible misconception developed because, tbf, there have been very few users who have effectively dominated the ladder with Mgar. Having played the meta for over a year, I can safely say that there hasn't been a single mon that has had a more significant impact in ensuring wins vs all playstyles than Mgar (bar Mray). The reason why Mgar is often rated below some of the S rank threats is because it doesn't possess the bulk or the setup sweeping abilities as them, which is a fair argument. But then again, with a ghost typing which makes it immune to e speed killing coupled with one of the best unboosted speed tiers in the metagame, Mgar often doesn't need this. It happens to be one of the most dreadfully powerful mons in the game when used with hazard stacking, preferably keys and Waterceus, and there is very little that can be done to counter it. Add to the fact that Mgar revenge kills e killers, Fairyceus, Ghostceus, Steelceus, Xerneas, sub-less Darkrai, Mdiancie, Gira-O and Rockceus after 2 spikes and rocks (these are just mons from S/A ranks). Let's have a look at the other high ranked mons
Mray - Killed after rocks and ascent drop/killed after coming into rocks twice.
M2/MMX - Speed ties, twaved by keys
Lugia - Trapped and damaged/taunted-killed

While it admittedly has an issue vs Y god, P don, Ho oh and P ogre, shadow tag ensures none of them can switch into it before Gar gets its kill. And luckily, two of these mons are prone to chip damage killing as they lack recovery. It should also be noted that Y god and ho oh, the only ones that have reliable recovery, are easily checked by keys and Waterceus, respectively. Waterceus also checks p don while soft checking p ogre. These three in itself ensure a brilliant matchup vs all of the S/A rank threats, Mgar being the chief destroyer. The basic idea is to bring all mons within Mgar killing range and carry roar/whirlwind/twave to avoid anything setting up and threatening Mgar. And quite often, even without excessive hazard support, Mgar manages to be a significantly good late game sweeper in most situations, especially if d dance Mray isn't allowed to get to Mgar.

Some misconceptions
- Mray beats Mgar.
Barely. The only set that can actually threaten a well made Mgar based team is d dance Lum Mray, considering its setup timing is impeccable and none of the roars/whirlwinds bring Mray in before it gets to Mgar, which would be almost never.

- Mgar's mega space could be better utilised
By what? While I agree Mray is a much more omnipresent and potent threat, these two mons work very differently and there is almost nothing that can replace Mgar's close to flawless ability of dealing with Arcsspam. Just for arguments sake, let's have a look at some other megas in the meta.

Mdiancie - frail as all hell and mediocre speed tier. Awful defensive typing to add to that. Weak to almost all Arceus forms except dark.
MMX - Brilliant attack and speed. Access to taunt. About it. Weak to Xerns, Mray, Fairyceus, Ghostceus and has mediocre coverage, otherwise.

Mray - Arguably the best Mon in the game, but works very differently. Won't fit many teams as well as Mgar.

Msab - Pretty good, limited to stall.

Mega Lucario - Stallbreaker, frail AF, mediocre speed stat. OHKO'd by unboosted Jolly e killer.

I refuse to buy this argument, tbh. It's a mega spot, it has to go somewhere. Considering how Mgar can fit into almost any playstyle AND break almost any playstyle better than any of the megas in the meta, this argument really does not make sense.

I haven't quite been told any other reason for Mgar to not be at least A+. Reply to this and I'll be happy to address any other issues this has.

To end this, I'd like to address exactly how huge it is for Mgar to be the way it is. Shadow tag helps Mgar gain some very crucial kills in a game, breaking balance of teams all on its own. It can remove valuable wincons that hold a team together (Clefable/Chansey/Lugia in stall, Mdiancie/Multiple Ceus forms in balance and almost single handedly wins vs Arcspam HO). Its brilliant speed tier and immunity to e speed killing gives it an unparalleled status as a late game sweeper. It has wonderful coverage in fmiss-shadow ball-sludge wave, and to top it all, most of the things that it doesn't check are all checked by 2-3 mons, leaving empty spaces for you to fill. It has a secondary set in perish trapping, which makes it suicide for anything to switch in vs it before it is mega evolved, and it almost guarantees a major kill or two if played right. Players like Flowre and Gunner have dominated the ladder with it - Flowre peaked with his Mgar teams for over 5 months. No one knew who Black Schatten was until he put on his M(g)a(r)sk (I am sorry). I, personally, have found hazard Mgar killing to be more reliable than Mray HO vs the current ladder. And well, I have written enough.

Mgar for A+/S-, depending on whether or not we have S-

 

[MZ]

Edited this to make the huge post more pretty and bearable
Well I've been uncharacteristically quiet so prepare for a long post

First of all, I was the only one who tested mawile so when I nommed it for unranked people were basically like "mmk". Basically it can hard wall darkrai with rest talk and slow pivot and check xern/defensive yveltal/mono judgement fairyceus and that's about it. It sounds nice, but it's incredibly niche to the degree where why can't you fit this on any other mon that isn't just beat by almost every arceus form, pdon, pogre, etc. If it didn't also come with the opportunity cost of being a mega then it'd probably be ok but there are some seriously good megas that you don't want to lose out on just for mawile. I don't like the subpass or slowpass argument either because, without rest talk, you don't take on fairyceus, darkrai, or xerneas nearly as well. I wouldn't mind looking back at Mawile later, but this is just still fairly poor and the arguments don't really convince me this needs re-ranking.

Gira-o can drop out of just general eh-ness I guess, the arguments against it/pro-giratina have been really mediocre but the general point is still alright and B+ is reasonable. On the other hand I think dropping Mega Diancie is kinda ridiculous. A combination of Adamant and V-Create are way more common now than Jolly+EQ together (or jolly waterfall CB), which has honestly been huge for giving it more breathing space. It's also incredibly understated how useful this is, somehow bouncing isn't too useful when people run magic coat on literally anything? It's not just a solid Darkrai switch, but also annoys the rising amount of lead deo-s, wallceus without attacks, etc. Offensively, it's only easy to switch into if you take into consideration that its best switchins take around 40% with rocks up. So not only is it a conveniently good check to major mons like ray/darkrai/hooh but unless you have a max spdef careful arceus it really puts pressure on what's coming in. And you have a built-in Klefki stopper. I don't see how this is overrated at all.

Dragonceus vs Waterceus is interesting, and frankly I think we could either leave as is or bump dragceus to B+, it's kinda close here. They compare to each other much better than Dragonceus to Fairyceus because Dragon is checking a whole set of different things and still has awesome neutral coverage while fairy loses out on Pdon and Hooh (not that either do much to hooh). Basically I see it coming down to stacking an extra fairy weakness vs having a superior matchup versus pretty much everything else, both require different team support just dragonceus's is a little more drastic because of xern/fairyceus/hooh generally being more of a pain than ray/don/the other stuff waterceus doesnt like depending on if it's ice beam or judgement.

And then Mega Gengar. First of all, S- is only necessary if we need a rank because there are mons clearly out of A+'s league but not as good as S. I don't think Gar/Ho-Oh are that distinguished at all, certainly good mons but not clearly better from from the rest of A+ to the degree that we need a whole new rank. But beyond that, while gar is definitely a good mon, some of these arguments in its favor are the same recycled bullshit that don't really mean much. For the record I think gar is fine where it's at, but whether I want it up or not is independent of these arguments being seriously weird.

This is long, as will be evident once you see the size of it. But I think it is necessary, considering how Mgar is highly underrated, underused/ill-used and how it is considered to be inferior to a lot of mons.

Being underrated does not mean it should go up. Maybe it was underrated because it's still not this amazing mon? It's ill-used? Ok, ignore that, talk about how it's used correctly because this really shouldn't have any impact on where it stands. I keep hearing this over and over, "people overlook it and misuse it" isn't an argument.

This is a terrible misconception developed because, tbf, there have been very few users who have effectively dominated the ladder with Mgar. Having played the meta for over a year, I can safely say that there hasn't been a single mon that has had a more significant impact in ensuring wins vs all playstyles than Mgar (bar Mray).

But this is huge! Mray and gar really shouldnt be straight up compared, but the fact is that ray possesses a much more potent matchup versus nearly everything and gar's ability to singlehandedly demolish stall isn't as amazing as it is in ubers because we have ray for that and more. Gar still does demolish stall and that's still useful, but it's not such an amazingly unique quality anymore.

The reason why Mgar is often rated below some of the S rank threats is because it doesn't possess the bulk or the setup sweeping abilities as them, which is a fair argument. But then again, with a ghost typing which makes it immune to e speed killing coupled with one of the best unboosted speed tiers in the metagame, Mgar often doesn't need this. It happens to be one of the most dreadfully powerful mons in the game when used with hazard stacking, preferably keys and Waterceus, and there is very little that can be done to counter it. Add to the fact that Mgar revenge kills e killers, Fairyceus, Ghostceus, Steelceus, Xerneas, sub-less Darkrai, Mdiancie, Gira-O and Rockceus after 2 spikes and rocks (these are just mons from S/A ranks).

Yes, but this is already going into some major team support to stack and keep hazards. Most of those mons put undeniable pressure on hazard stack with over half carrying defog commonly and one being a magic bouncer. I think gar goes better with trapping and removing the hazard removal rather than functioning as a late-game cleaner with the hazards if anything because there are plenty of late game cleaners but only one top tier trapper to remove removers. Also you cant trap ghostceus or gira-o, cant revenge gira with sneak that reliably, have a frankly dicey matchup versus any CM arceus even with ideal hazards because you have to be mega'd first and have laid hazards before this which is already giving your opponent a good bit of time to act, and if you have rocks and 2 spikes to chip mega diancie on a consistent, reliable basis, then nice to meet you jesus. All I'm saying is that this list is a little misleading. If anything, it shouldnt gloss over checking ekiller and mention ray/lugia/mmx in a lower footnote, those 4 things are really really nice. That's what gengar does, not "beat CM arc formes if you have 3 hazards" or something. Also I don't think being paralyzed by klefki is a fair pre-existing condition when talking about what gengar can trap considering it's pretty goddamn easy to kill anything paralyzed by klefki.

While it admittedly has an issue vs Y god, P don, Ho oh and P ogre, shadow tag ensures none of them can switch into it before Gar gets its kill. And luckily, two of these mons are prone to chip damage killing as they lack recovery. It should also be noted that Y god and ho oh, the only ones that have reliable recovery, are easily checked by keys and Waterceus, respectively. Waterceus also checks p don while soft checking p ogre. These three in itself ensure a brilliant matchup vs all of the S/A rank threats, Mgar being the chief destroyer. The basic idea is to bring all mons within Mgar killing range and carry roar/whirlwind/twave to avoid anything setting up and threatening Mgar. And quite often, even without excessive hazard support, Mgar manages to be a significantly good late game sweeper in most situations, especially if d dance Mray isn't allowed to get to Mgar.

I'm mostly quoting this paragraph since it's here but since it doesnt really have any arguments other than "hey look gengar pairs well with things" when literally everything appreciates trapper support in one way or another. Oh and Waterceus is not a Pogre check, it only soft checks sets lacking both rest and thunder and ?_? what kind of set is that

Some misconceptions
- Mray beats Mgar.
Barely. The only set that can actually threaten a well made Mgar based team is d dance Lum Mray, considering its setup timing is impeccable and none of the roars/whirlwinds bring Mray in before it gets to Mgar, which would be almost never.

Ray is a check to gar if it's at full health, I don't see how any set other than DD is somehow not really a check. CB Ray isn't an issue? What if it comes in on gar at full health, does it magically conjure up a safe switchin? It's an ok check which needs to be at full health, this isn't a gigantic thing against gar but trying to mitigate that is kinda dumb.

- Mgar's mega space could be better utilised

I don't know what this means lol. I think it's supposed to be mega opportunity cost, in which case I don't see how this is debatable that gar comes with that, every mega does even ray. Then there's some stuff about other megas which isn't really important or well thought out/written at all but I'm only interested in one part.

Mray - Arguably the best Mon in the game, but works very differently. Won't fit many teams as well as Mgar.

How? By your own arguments gar needs this solid support from a core of something like waterceus+keys. Gar in general requires more support, "more skill" even though that's bullshit and trappers inherently require less skill by definition, and has worse bulk/defensive utility (even though trapping utility is really cool and I'm not detracting from that). I heard ray vs gar reduced to two sentences where gar sounds better, and that's ridiculous.

I refuse to buy this argument, tbh. It's a mega spot, it has to go somewhere. Considering how Mgar can fit into almost any playstyle AND break almost any playstyle better than any of the megas in the meta, this argument really does not make sense.

No. Not at all. The argument is fine, it's perfectly reasonable to say "well if I use gar I cant have diancie too and that's annoying". It's not a massive thing against it and mega evolutions can absolutely be S rank in every tier, but it's pretty clear that they always come with this opportunity cost.
Mega Gengar does not fit onto any playstyle, stall and BO are pretty much never going to want to fit a mega gengar. I don't really see how this is a thing at all.
Mega Gengar does not break all playstyles. It's annoying for stall and balance but, while it's not dead weight vs offense at all don't get me wrong, it doesn't destroy it at all. To even think about weakening Arceus we have to be talking about dropping a moveslot for protect, which is huge, and after that trapping isn't a huge nightmare because, really, it's offense. One thing getting revenge killed isn't unique to gengar, the point is generally to focus on killing things rather than switching into things. Oh and destroying arceus spam what it cant even KO Ekiller after rocks so basically it's a fine trade mon but I don't see how it's just demolishing the playstyle.

I haven't quite been told any other reason for Mgar to not be at least A+. Reply to this and I'll be happy to address any other issues this has.

Opportunity cost (this argument will never go away :/), generally being more niche of a fit than things like ghostceus which you can just slap on teams, some weird 4mss making its moveset a bit dicey since foregoing protect got kinda hard. That's always staying with it on paper. But then, in practice, gengar is a mon you have to build around and work with team support rather than slap on teams. Right here is where it doesnt fit on every playstyle. Fairyceus fits on every playstyle, it's a very easy mon to fit on. Same with Primal Groudon and Ghostceus. Gengar needs focus and support, and I think A rank is reflective of how it can be incredibly threatening, and the paragraph that was below this that I didn't feel the need to quote is a great summary of what it does and what makes it a top level threat, but needs to be worked with and supported more than other mons and has a few annoying flaws in protect reliance, focus blast reliance (not anything huge at all but fuck this), and being kinda weak with low BP STABs that make it so reliant on chip damage in the first place.

 

[HunterStorm]

Being underrated does not mean it should go up. Maybe it was underrated because it's still not this amazing mon? It's ill-used? Ok, ignore that, talk about how it's used correctly because this really shouldn't have any impact on where it stands. I keep hearing this over and over, "people overlook it and misuse it" isn't an argument.

Of course it is an argument. Almost all Mgar sets in AG are terribly built (perish trap with disable, mono sludge sets etc) and that generally affects Mgar's impact on the ladder, because very few are actually utilizing its benefits. If we were to judge viability based on how the AG ladder uses a mon over how it should be used, this whole thread would look entirely different.

But this is huge! Mray and gar really shouldnt be straight up compared, but the fact is that ray possesses a much more potent matchup versus nearly everything and gar's ability to singlehandedly demolish stall isn't as amazing as it is in ubers because we have ray for that and more. Gar still does demolish stall and that's still useful, but it's not such an amazingly unique quality anymore.

This is where I disagree. The fact of the matter is that Mray can potentially be a terrific late game sweeper, stallbreaker and setup sweeper- but not with the same set. D dance Mray is honestly not that difficult for quality stall to handle and is often broken by SR damage on repeated switch ins. Band/mixed ray are amazing at breaking stall, but Mray having a mediocre speed tier, coupled with a rocks weakness as well as being locked into one move, all make Band/mixed generally inferior. Moreover, the lost setup sweeping ability of Mray is huge, and being locked into the wrong move vs stall would usually mean Band gets neutralised. Most importantly, while it is hard to switch into, Mray can be switched into. Mgar's trapping provides a guarantee of stall being broken, and there is little to nothing that can be done about it. Also, unlike Mray, Gar can still fulfill multiple roles with the same set, while admittedly not doing any of them as well as Mray (with the exception of late game sweeping), which is why Mray is probably superior to Gar, but that does not necessarily mean Gar isn't A+.

Yes, but this is already going into some major team support to stack and keep hazards. Most of those mons put undeniable pressure on hazard stack with over half carrying defog commonly and one being a magic bouncer. I think gar goes better with trapping and removing the hazard removal rather than functioning as a late-game cleaner with the hazards if anything because there are plenty of late game cleaners but only one top tier trapper to remove removers. Also you cant trap ghostceus or gira-o, cant revenge gira with sneak that reliably, have a frankly dicey matchup versus any CM arceus even with ideal hazards because you have to be mega'd first and have laid hazards before this which is already giving your opponent a good bit of time to act, and if you have rocks and 2 spikes to chip mega diancie on a consistent, reliable basis, then nice to meet you jesus. All I'm saying is that this list is a little misleading. If anything, it shouldnt gloss over checking ekiller and mention ray/lugia/mmx in a lower footnote, those 4 things are really really nice. That's what gengar does, not "beat CM arc formes if you have 3 hazards" or something. Also I don't think being paralyzed by klefki is a fair pre-existing condition when talking about what gengar can trap considering it's pretty goddamn easy to kill anything paralyzed by klefki.

By "major team support" , you mean 2 mons?
Out of all of these, Fairyceus and Gira-O are the only two known defoggers and Fairyceus rarely carries defog (and gira-o has 2% usage). And even if they do defog, they're still within range of being killed by Mgar. Based on how they're dealt with, the defoggers can just be killed and hazards can be set up again. So idk what you're trying to convey with the "half of them carry defog" statement. Mdiancie is honestly not that difficult to get chip damage on and has no recovery (Mgar guarantees a kill after two switch ins on rocks).
The fact that you mentioned Mgar's ability to trap and kill defoggers just reinforces my entire argument. This brings in tremendous synergy with hazard setters and makes the core all the more effective. Moreover, it can function as a trapper and defog-killer, switch out and come back in late game as a sweeper.
It isn't dicey vs CM ceus, either, as no judgment except Ghostceus is going to get a kill vs Mgar, so Mgar can just ditch protect and go for an offense move straight away vs all of the forms I mentioned except Ghostceus. What's important is that if Mgar has already been evolved, which isn't too unlikely or difficult to do, it just straight up wins and takes out Arcsspam (and there is nothing that can be done about it). This ability to deal with arcspam so well is almost exclusive to it, as most other mons can be revenge killed by e killers, which makes it one of the best late game sweepers in the meta.

I'm mostly quoting this paragraph since it's here but since it doesnt really have any arguments other than "hey look gengar pairs well with things" when literally everything appreciates trapper support in one way or another. Oh and Waterceus is not a Pogre check, it only soft checks sets lacking both rest and thunder and ?_? what kind of set is that

What exactly is the point of this? You're saying that trapping support is brilliant, and? I ask this because that is exactly what I was trying to say. It's a trait Mgar has, and it has to be mentioned if I'm asking for a mon to be jumped in the rankings.
And I specifically mentioned how Waterceus soft checks P ogre.
The whole point of this was to establish how this core can possibly be very solid. It does not mean Mgar can not function in any other team. Mgar can still be a very potent threat in any team it is a part of.

Ray is a check to gar if it's at full health, I don't see how any set other than DD is somehow not really a check. CB Ray isn't an issue? What if it comes in on gar at full health, does it magically conjure up a safe switchin? It's an ok check which needs to be at full health, this isn't a gigantic thing against gar but trying to mitigate that is kinda dumb.

> assuming no rocks were set up and no prior damage was done to Mray in any way.
Firstly, if you allow this sort of a situation to happen.... I mean, every mon is worthless that way. Fairyceus could come in on Mray, Banded Mray could come in on e killers and so on. Mray has been mentioned in many posts on this thread as to be a reliable way to kill Mgar, I was just stating that not to be true.
> assuming CB Mray comes in late game with all HP intact
Again, if you allow that to happen..
There does not even have to be a safe switchin for CB Mray. Any switch in, regardless of whether it lives or dies, will do. Mgar revenge kills Ray after ascent drop.

I don't know what this means lol. I think it's supposed to be mega opportunity cost, in which case I don't see how this is debatable that gar comes with that, every mega does even ray. Then there's some stuff about other megas which isn't really important or well thought out/written at all but I'm only interested in one part.

I love how you just decide stuff and try to utilize it to support your argument (the part saying my argument was not well thought out/written). I am going to assume it's your opinion, and not a very good one, but okay.
The point of that whole list was to justify how the lack of good and viable megas in the meta makes this opportunity cost not an issue big enough to not let Mgar rise to A+. No other mon in the game will do Mgar's job better than Mgar, period.

How? By your own arguments gar needs this solid support from a core of something like waterceus+keys. Gar in general requires more support, "more skill" even though that's bullshit and trappers inherently require less skill by definition, and has worse bulk/defensive utility (even though trapping utility is really cool and I'm not detracting from that). I heard ray vs gar reduced to two sentences where gar sounds better, and that's ridiculous.

I would like to see the part where I said Gar needs Waterceus + keys support. That whole paragraph was just a mention of how this core handles most things in the meta. I don't think anyone has used this other than me, and Mgar has still been functioning pretty well and has been a potent threat. Gar requires more support and lacks solid bulk, which it makes up for by trapping, e speed immunity and a far better speed tier coupled with a better typing. However, Mray is better than Mgar due to its ability to run multiple sets effectively and the fact that it guarantees kills without chip damage.
Also, I do not recall nomming Gar for S rank. A+ would still mean it is inferior to Mray, which is true. But it is not a hundred leagues behind it, which is what you're trying to make it look like.

No. Not at all. The argument is fine, it's perfectly reasonable to say "well if I use gar I cant have diancie too and that's annoying". It's not a massive thing against it and mega evolutions can absolutely be S rank in every tier, but it's pretty clear that they always come with this opportunity cost.

Lol when exactly did I go in denial mode about the mega slot issue? My whole point was that it should not come to be an issue when we are judging a mon's viability - which is sort of what you ended up saying yourself.

Mega Gengar does not fit onto any playstyle, stall and BO are pretty much never going to want to fit a mega gengar. I don't really see how this is a thing at all.
Mega Gengar does not break all playstyles. It's annoying for stall and balance but, while it's not dead weight vs offense at all don't get me wrong, it doesn't destroy it at all. To even think about weakening Arceus we have to be talking about dropping a moveslot for protect, which is huge, and after that trapping isn't a huge nightmare because, really, it's offense. One thing getting revenge killed isn't unique to gengar, the point is generally to focus on killing things rather than switching into things. Oh and destroying arceus spam what it cant even KO Ekiller after rocks so basically it's a fine trade mon but I don't see how it's just demolishing the playstyle.

Perish trap fits well with stall. While it isn't an ideal inclusion, stall would mean that the other five mons provide solid support and Mgar can choose mons to trap out of games. I do not find it incredibly difficult for BO to find a spot for Mgar, either. As far as offense goes, all you require is a bit of chip damage by bringing things within Mgar's range and Mgar will pull through 9/10 times. Considering how HO almost never carries defogging, rocks and two layers of spikes are really not that difficult to set up, which automatically brings everything within Mgar's range. Tbh, Mgar does better vs HO than any other playstyle if hazards are setup right (again, not incredibly difficult vs HO)

Opportunity cost (this argument will never go away :/), generally being more niche of a fit than things like ghostceus which you can just slap on teams, some weird 4mss making its moveset a bit dicey since foregoing protect got kinda hard. That's always staying with it on paper. But then, in practice, gengar is a mon you have to build around and work with team support rather than slap on teams. Right here is where it doesnt fit on every playstyle. Fairyceus fits on every playstyle, it's a very easy mon to fit on. Same with Primal Groudon and Ghostceus. Gengar needs focus and support, and I think A rank is reflective of how it can be incredibly threatening, and the paragraph that was below this that I didn't feel the need to quote is a great summary of what it does and what makes it a top level threat, but needs to be worked with and supported more than other mons and has a few annoying flaws in protect reliance, focus blast reliance (not anything huge at all but fuck this), and being kinda weak with low BP STABs that make it so reliant on chip damage in the first place.

Yes, but as easy as Fairyceus is to fit in teams, it does not threaten teams all on its own as well as Mgar. P don is S ranked, and should be more viable than Mgar, naturally. But again, anyone who has used P don would tell you that it lacks the same impact in AG as it does in Ubers (mostly due to lack of recovery, unable to cover all flaws with one set and generally being hard to keep alive or kill many mons with). Ghostceus, like Fairyceus, won't threaten teams on its own like Mgar. However, all three of these mons possess a solid bulk and can run multiple threats and check important mons in the meta, which justifies their higher ranking. Similarly, due to how well Mgar does its job and because of how that job is almost exclusive to it, it really needs to be A+, at least.
As far as the argument of it requiring loads of support goes, Ho oh requires more support than maybe any other mon in the meta and is A+. This, I assume, was done because of how well Ho-oh works with the right support, which should be a consideration while ranking Mgar, as well.

 

[MZ]

Of course it is an argument. Almost all Mgar sets in AG are terribly built (perish trap with disable, mono sludge sets etc) and that generally affects Mgar's impact on the ladder, because very few are actually utilizing its benefits. If we were to judge viability based on how the AG ladder uses a mon over how it should be used, this whole thread would look entirely different.

The fact that people use gar incorrectly shouldn't matter. We're talking about it being used correctly, who cares about all the ways to misuse it? I'm just saying that "people use xyz shitty sets on the ladder" isn't a point in favor of gengar at all. I also 100% disagree that disable is necessary, you can have a perfectly fine set of perish/protect/sub/taunt, disable is by no means a required option.

This is where I disagree. The fact of the matter is that Mray can potentially be a terrific late game sweeper, stallbreaker and setup sweeper- but not with the same set. D dance Mray is honestly not that difficult for quality stall to handle and is often broken by SR damage on repeated switch ins. Band/mixed ray are amazing at breaking stall, but Mray having a mediocre speed tier, coupled with a rocks weakness as well as being locked into one move, all make Band/mixed generally inferior. Moreover, the lost setup sweeping ability of Mray is huge, and being locked into the wrong move vs stall would usually mean Band gets neutralised. Most importantly, while it is hard to switch into, Mray can be switched into. Mgar's trapping provides a guarantee of stall being broken, and there is little to nothing that can be done about it. Also, unlike Mray, Gar can still fulfill multiple roles with the same set, while admittedly not doing any of them as well as Mray (with the exception of late game sweeping), which is why Mray is probably superior to Gar, but that does not necessarily mean Gar isn't A+.

"Fulfilling multiple roles with the same set" either doesnt mean anything or you're referring to being able to trap and clean slower teams, in which case saying ray can both sweep with DD and break things with a very strong ascent makes just as much sense. Anyway, I wholly disagree with DD not putting pressure on stall. It can literally 2hko everything except giratina, so once that's forced to rest it's just a matter of getting clefable in to heal bell before ray gets out. It doesn't just win but if you think that it's just not a threat to stall then I'm totally lost. And Ray's speed tier shouldn't be relevant at all when talking about stall since you're still gonna be faster than everything.

By "major team support" , you mean 2 mons?

I mean automatically going to spike-stack and starting with a 3 mon core weak to enough things that your last 3 members have to fit some very clear roles in where there's not much room for variation if you just start with gengar/keys/waterceus.

Out of all of these, Fairyceus and Gira-O are the only two known defoggers and Fairyceus rarely carries defog (and gira-o has 2% usage). So idk what you're trying to convey with the "half of them carry defog" statement. Mdiancie is honestly not that difficult to get chip damage on and has no recovery (Mgar guarantees a kill after two switch ins on rocks).

Well, except ghostceus and rockceus which can absolutely carry defog. But you're right, that's exactly half not over half. Gira's usage is wholly irrelevant here since you brought it up as something gengar handles, you can't just use it as an argument then be like "but it has 2% usage so you can talk about it".

The fact that you mentioned Mgar's ability to trap and kill defoggers just reinforces my entire argument. This brings in tremendous synergy with hazard setters and makes the core all the more effective. Moreover, it can function as a trapper and defog-killer, switch out and come back in late game as a sweeper.

Well, it is a separate argument, but I'll answer why it's not really amazing vs defog arceus formes when responding to the below portion.

It isn't dicey vs CM ceus, either, as no judgment except Ghostceus is going to get a kill vs Mgar, so Mgar can just ditch protect and go for an offense move straight away vs all of the forms I mentioned except Ghostceus.

Except they literally just CM on gengar as it megas and then win? In what way is, say, gengar beating steelceus or rockceus or whatever the mon is in a 1v1 where steelceus calm minds as gengar megas and clicks whatever it wants. The best case scenario is you perish, protect, then disable and they don't have the sense to say, click earth power on the gengar that's no longer levitating. Yes, no judgement will OHKO gengar other than ghost (or dark/psychic but who cares) but that doesn't mean gengar is just winning magically. As far as dropping protect on the set, while you can I'm just arguing that it's shitty and you shouldn't unless you want to sacrifice the ability to actually do something vs Ekillers. It just doesn't have the safest time mega evolving and without protect they can just claw you before the judgement.

What's important is that if Mgar has already been evolved, which isn't too unlikely or difficult to do,

Except it has to be mega'd first versus the team of things that kill it and outspeed it pre-mega.

it just straight up wins and takes out Arcsspam (and there is nothing that can be done about it). This ability to deal with arcspam so well is almost exclusive to it, as most other mons can be revenge killed by e killers, which makes it one of the best late game sweepers in the meta.

If gengar cant KO arceus after rocks and is itself OHKOd then in what scenario is there literally nothing arcspam can do? I'm genuinely curious how this works.
edit: also dodging focus blast is a legit strategy that works 100% of the time 30% of the time

What exactly is the point of this? You're saying that trapping support is brilliant, and? I ask this because that is exactly what I was trying to say. It's a trait Mgar has, and it has to be mentioned if I'm asking for a mon to be jumped in the rankings.

I was merely saying that waterceus/klefki/gengar isn't this incredible core that boosts gengar's power levels to over 9000. It's just two things that can go with it. Same response for the bottom of the paragraph.

And I specifically mentioned how Waterceus soft checks P ogre.

And I specifically mentioned it doesn't unless the set is really fucking weird.

> assuming no rocks were set up and no prior damage was done to Mray in any way.

Nope, I'm assuming rocks are up and this is a full health ray coming out for the first time. This is a soft check, unlike waterceus vs Pogre

Firstly, if you allow this sort of a situation to happen.... I mean, every mon is worthless that way. Fairyceus could come in on Mray, Banded Mray could come in on e killers and so on. Mray has been mentioned in many posts on this thread as to be a reliable way to kill Mgar, I was just stating that not to be true.

I don't recall seeing anything like that but then just ignore the stupid people and don't just swing back too far the other way?

> assuming CB Mray comes in late game with all HP intact
Again, if you allow that to happen..
There does not even have to be a safe switchin for CB Mray. Any switch in, regardless of whether it lives or dies, will do. Mgar revenge kills Ray after ascent drop.

Unless you click waterfall or somth. Anyway the point is that's a kill, ray is a soft check, and I don't see any disagreement here so I guess cool.

I love how you just decide stuff and try to utilize it to support your argument (the part saying my argument was not well thought out/written). I am going to assume it's your opinion, and not a very good one, but okay.

I meant the part where you felt the need to list the megas and these random flaws that somehow mean gengar doesnt compete for a mega slot when, regardless of how good you think they are, it does because of the simple fact that you can't mega evolve both. Here, lemme do one for gar to show you what I mean about these blurbs not really meaning anything if they just list a quick flaw
MGengar- Has a hard time mega evolving and doesn't hit very hard
See? It doesn't really mean anything.

The point of that whole list was to justify how the lack of good and viable megas in the meta makes this opportunity cost not an issue big enough to not let Mgar rise to A+. No other mon in the game will do Mgar's job better than Mgar, period.

Nothing is doing gar's job, yes. But there are enough good and viable megas that the fact that you can't use them is important. There's no way to just brush off the fact that using gar automatically removes your options for a decent magic bouncer or you cant use Mray or whatever. And I don't think there's a lack of other viable megas to give it competition when we have 5 of them from S to B-. In fact, if you don't count gengar, that's 1/7 of the mons in that area, almost 1 member of a team and even better if you don't count more niche things that you obviously cant just slap on a team like smeargle and scolipede. (Also maybe we should drop genesect I mean seriously B rank c'mon when do I use this lol)

I would like to see the part where I said Gar needs Waterceus + keys support. That whole paragraph was just a mention of how this core handles most things in the meta. I don't think anyone has used this other than me, and Mgar has still been functioning pretty well and has been a potent threat. Gar requires more support and lacks solid bulk, which it makes up for by trapping, e speed immunity and a far better speed tier coupled with a better typing. However, Mray is better than Mgar due to its ability to run multiple sets effectively and the fact that it guarantees kills without chip damage.
Also, I do not recall nomming Gar for S rank. A+ would still mean it is inferior to Mray, which is true. But it is not a hundred leagues behind it, which is what you're trying to make it look like.

Needs part is fair enough, although you were making it sound ridiculously good. But more importantly, how the hell is A rank seen as leagues below Megaray? A is a high, important rank. I wouldn't call Yveltal leagues behind anything.

Lol when exactly did I go in denial mode about the mega slot issue? My whole point was that it should not come to be an issue when we are judging a mon's viability - which is sort of what you ended up saying yourself.

I'm /fairly/ certain I didn't. It should be clear that opportunity cost is a very real thing gengar has to deal with. It's not the only argument and doesnt mean it cant go up or become S rank, but it's not something to ignore.

Perish trap fits well with stall. While it isn't an ideal inclusion, stall would mean that the other five mons provide solid support and Mgar can choose mons to trap out of games. I do not find it incredibly difficult for BO to find a spot for Mgar, either.

I just don't agree here. These are two playstyles hard pressed to deal with some incredibly dangerous threats like Darkrai and Megaray, wasting a slot on gengar isn't easy at all. In particular I don't think stall can feasibly run that and not become unreasonably troubled by certain mons.

As far as offense goes, all you require is a bit of chip damage by bringing things within Mgar's range and Mgar will pull through 9/10 times. Considering how HO almost never carries defogging, rocks and two layers of spikes are really not that difficult to set up, which automatically brings everything within Mgar's range. Tbh, Mgar does better vs HO than any other playstyle if hazards are setup right (again, not incredibly difficult vs HO)

I don't think spikes are really easy to set up against a team built around hitting as hard and fast as possible to be honest. Neither do I think that any HO team that loses to gengar as soon as Ekiller has been slightly chipped to be put into range of focus blast is great HO team. There are multiple scarfers, other arceus formes not weak to focus blast, max HP cm arceus formes, Pdon, and a handful of other things that you can absolutely run to check gengar. You're not totally safe from it but it's not realistically going to just flat out lose after a hazard or two unless you suck and the team looks like deo-s/3 ekillers/xern/insert something else that loses to gengar here. So yeah, I'd call winning 9/10 times some serious bias.

Yes, but as easy as Fairyceus is to fit in teams, it does not threaten teams all on its own as well as Mgar. P don is S ranked, and should be more viable than Mgar, naturally. But again, anyone who has used P don would tell you that it lacks the same impact in AG as it does in Ubers (mostly due to lack of recovery, unable to cover all flaws with one set and generally being hard to keep alive or kill many mons with). Ghostceus, like Fairyceus, won't threaten teams on its own like Mgar. However, all three of these mons possess a solid bulk and can run multiple threats and check important mons in the meta, which justifies their higher ranking. Similarly, due to how well Mgar does its job and because of how that job is almost exclusive to it, it really needs to be A+, at least.

But at this point I've moved beyond threat level to something different. Mega Gengar is not splashable. These mons are. That's it. And while I'm here, on a separate note, I think people shit on Pdon too much with the argument "it's not as good here as in ubers". That's true but I don't think it's anywhere close to a bad mon or deserving to drop from S rank at all. Not directed at you, hunter, just in general I hear people talking about it maybe being ranked too high just because of ubers --> AG transition which is dumb.

As far as the argument of it requiring loads of support goes, Ho oh requires more support than maybe any other mon in the meta and is A+. This, I assume, was done because of how well Ho-oh works with the right support, which should be a consideration while ranking Mgar, as well.

More support? For what, stealth rock? Unless I'm missing something, just needing hazard removal isn't more support than a mon which requires chip damage and a team to work with trapping. And the rewards are different too. Ho-Oh is an incredible wall, while at the same time being an incredible offensive mon. Gengar just has that offensive quality, that trapping reward, and at the end of the day you can definitely break stall or remove mons with good play and teambuilding and not just trapping. Ho-Oh is just a more unique mon which I'd consider better. This second part is definitely subjective but just my opinion.

So if you missed my tiny sentence in there I also think we should consider dropping genesect on the basis that it sucks and loses to a lot of shit and bug buzz is kinda stupid bc special makes you even worse versus things like CM arc formes and, like, why use this. Minimum to B- is a good start but I could see this going further.

 

[HunterStorm]

I agree with most stuff here, but I still think there isn't enough to suggest Mgar isn't A+. Other than the mega slot and questionably high support needs, there isn't much that really pushes this thing down. In what appears to be one of the best offensive abilities in the meta, the best unboosted speed tier in the meta and potentially brutal sweeping abilities, this thing deserves to be one of the top ranked mons in the meta. While A in itself is high, I think Mgar is as viable as Ho oh, Ghostceus or Fairyceus would be, if not more.
I'll try to address some of the things I don't agree with

l also 100% disagree that disable is necessary, you can have a perfectly fine set of perish/protect/sub/taunt, disable is by no means a required option.

I never said that it was necessary, disable Mgar was actually one of the sets that I mentioned to be awful. The wasted slot for dbond/taunt is huge.

"Fulfilling multiple roles with the same set" either doesnt mean anything or you're referring to being able to trap and clean slower teams, in which case saying ray can both sweep with DD and break things with a very strong ascent makes just as much sense. Anyway, I wholly disagree with DD not putting pressure on stall. It can literally 2hko everything except giratina, so once that's forced to rest it's just a matter of getting clefable in to heal bell before ray gets out. It doesn't just win but if you think that it's just not a threat to stall then I'm totally lost. And Ray's speed tier shouldn't be relevant at all when talking about stall since you're still gonna be faster than everything.

I was referring to it being a late game sweeper, a Stallbreaker, a revenge killer and a wallbreaker with the same set.
DD Mray is good vs stall, yeah, but it isn't as good as Mgar or other Mray sets are. My point was that unless a screw up on the part of the stall user happens, DD Mray will be dealt with by stall (Gira is ubiquitous in stall, and almost every team will run a secondary Mray check like skarm/Msab etc)

Well, except ghostceus and rockceus which can absolutely carry defog. But you're right, that's exactly half not over half. Gira's usage is wholly irrelevant here since you brought it up as something gengar handles, you can't just use it as an argument then be like "but it has 2% usage so you can talk about it".

The point is that even if they do carry defog, it won't make much of a difference as they'd still be within Mgar's range. Mgar can come in and kill them - getting the mega evolution, as well as allowing hazards to be set up again. (Which is circumstantial, as in rare cases, all the setters can be killed before defogging)

Except they literally just CM on gengar as it megas and then win? In what way is, say, gengar beating steelceus or rockceus or whatever the mon is in a 1v1 where steelceus calm minds as gengar megas and clicks whatever it wants. The best case scenario is you perish, protect, then disable and they don't have the sense to say, click earth power on the gengar that's no longer levitating. Yes, no judgement will OHKO gengar other than ghost (or dark/psychic but who cares) but that doesn't mean gengar is just winning magically. As far as dropping protect on the set, while you can I'm just arguing that it's shitty and you shouldn't unless you want to sacrifice the ability to actually do something vs Ekillers. It just doesn't have the safest time mega evolving and without protect they can just claw you before the judgement.

I'll try to explain this better.
Mgar carries protect, but it doesn't use it vs a CM form while mega evolving. Rather, it goes for an offensive move straight away.
Judgment/EP do 60% to Mgar. Fmiss from an Mgar does 75% minimum w/o CM and 50% after CM (vs Steelceus/Rockceus, in this example ). Regardless of what move the ceus goes for, fmiss will 2hko and outspeed second turn. This ensures an evolution and a kill, as well as ensuring a sweep if hazards are up. Protect is one of the 4 moves, and is used strictly vs E killers as they can't do anything about Fmiss if within range. In this way, Mgar guarantees a sweep of Arcspam with 2 spikes and rocks.

If gengar cant KO arceus after rocks and is itself OHKOd then in what scenario is there literally nothing arcspam can do? I'm genuinely curious how this works.
edit: also dodging focus blast is a legit strategy that works 100% of the time 30% of the time

I remember how you said the last time we were having this sort of a debate here how accuracy of Fmiss has never and should never be an issue while considering a mon's viability. And the scenario where there is "literally nothing Arcspam can do" involves hazards to be set up. Considering how common Arcspam choose not to carry defog these days, it isn't entirely fictional to assume the hazards are set up.

I was merely saying that waterceus/klefki/gengar isn't this incredible core that boosts gengar's power levels to over 9000. It's just two things that can go with it. Same response for the bottom of the paragraph.

Agreed. But again, it's a good core. And there are many such cores Mgar can be a part of. Mgar + Rai, for instance. It is really hard to reliably check a well formed core involving Mgar, all because of how solid trapping is as an ability.

Unless you click waterfall or somth. Anyway the point is that's a kill, ray is a soft check, and I don't see any disagreement here so I guess cool.

Soft check, yeah. I'm not saying Mgar has a foolproof response vs Mray, but Mgar teams don't straight out lose to Mray, contrary to popular belief in this thread.

Nothing is doing gar's job, yes. But there are enough good and viable megas that the fact that you can't use them is important. There's no way to just brush off the fact that using gar automatically removes your options for a decent magic bouncer or you cant use Mray or whatever. And I don't think there's a lack of other viable megas to give it competition when we have 5 of them from S to B-. In fact, if you don't count gengar, that's 1/7 of the mons in that area, almost 1 member of a team and even better if you don't count more niche things that you obviously cant just slap on a team like smeargle and scolipede. (Also maybe we should drop genesect I mean seriously B rank c'mon when do I use this lol)

All I'm saying is losing out on another mega isn't HUGE. It's a slight issue, yeah. But if it were that big a problem, Mdiancie would be a lot lower- it is slightly above average, at best. It is rated high because no other Mega really does its job as well as it does and that opportunity cost issue is tiny. Similarly, because of how Mgar's traits are almost exclusive to it (and other megas in the meta are pretty mediocre), the consumed mega slot doesn't affect Mgar's viability TOO much (if at all).

I don't think spikes are really easy to set up against a team built around hitting as hard and fast as possible to be honest. Neither do I think that any HO team that loses to gengar as soon as Ekiller has been slightly chipped to be put into range of focus blast is great HO team. There are multiple scarfers, other arceus formes not weak to focus blast, max HP cm arceus formes, Pdon, and a handful of other things that you can absolutely run to check gengar. You're not totally safe from it but it's not realistically going to just flat out lose after a hazard or two unless you suck and the team looks like deo-s/3 ekillers/xern/insert something else that loses to gengar here. So yeah, I'd call winning 9/10 times some serious bias.

But honestly, it isn't that hard to set up layers vs HO. Something like a klefki or skarm (or ferro, occasionally) will at least set up two layers of hazard, which is all Mgar needs. It's not just fmiss, Mgar's coverage hits almost every Arc form except Groundceus super effectively. P don is perhaps the only Mon that legitimately tanks Mgar's hits from the ones you've mentioned. LO Y god and P ogre are some others. But again, these are not mons you see in endgames or mons too hard to be brought within killing range. Mgar beats most scarf variants, too (except ogre). Against a playstyle that is arguably the best in the meta, having this edge is very useful.

More support? For what, stealth rock? Unless I'm missing something, just needing hazard removal isn't more support than a mon which requires chip damage and a team to work with trapping. And the rewards are different too. Ho-Oh is an incredible wall, while at the same time being an incredible offensive mon. Gengar just has that offensive quality, that trapping reward, and at the end of the day you can definitely break stall or remove mons with good play and teambuilding and not just trapping. Ho-Oh is just a more unique mon which I'd consider better. This second part is definitely subjective but just my opinion.

Rocks, Mray, P ogre, P don with SE, e killers with SE. A lot of mons (especially physically defensive) will threaten to break through ho oh. And the issue is that some of these are very difficult for most mons to switch into. Not to mention a dead defogger is almost half the game lost. Also, toxic + rocks supportceus puts so much pressure, it is necessary to support the defogger. So you require another couple of mons to support your defogger, aside from your defogger already supporting Ho oh. You end up consuming 3-4 slots so as to make ho oh work efficiently.

So if you missed my tiny sentence in there I also think we should consider dropping genesect on the basis that it sucks and loses to a lot of shit and bug buzz is kinda stupid bc special makes you even worse versus things like CM arc formes and, like, why use this. Minimum to B- is a good start but I could see this going further.

I nommed this before to drop. Highly overrated.

 

[Adeleine]

On the other hand I think dropping Mega Diancie is kinda ridiculous. A combination of Adamant and V-Create are way more common now than Jolly+EQ together (or jolly waterfall CB), which has honestly been huge for giving it more breathing space. It's also incredibly understated how useful this is, somehow bouncing isn't too useful when people run magic coat on literally anything? It's not just a solid Darkrai switch, but also annoys the rising amount of lead deo-s, wallceus without attacks, etc. Offensively, it's only easy to switch into if you take into consideration that its best switchins take around 40% with rocks up. So not only is it a conveniently good check to major mons like ray/darkrai/hooh but unless you have a max spdef careful arceus it really puts pressure on what's coming in. And you have a built-in Klefki stopper. I don't see how this is overrated at all.

I've had some time to think this over, and I still really disagree.

What you say about Mray is true, but I just want to add that while it does help, it only does so much. Besides CB Jolly (I use CB Mray now and would never run adamant to ensure I outspeed adamant Mray and Speed tie jolly mray) and EQ meaning obvious death, +1 Adamant Lum Berry Dragon Ascent after rocks has a 37.5% to OHKO after rocks, doing 78.8% minimum before rocks.

People run Magic Coat on "literally anything"? I don't see what mons it gets relevant usage on besides Arceuses and maybe Deoxys-Speed. Besides that, I can definitely say with experience that even as a balanced team user who loves using Toxic, I fear having my Skarmory or Supportceus trapped and eliminated by Mgar far more than I worry about having Mdiancie to bounce back status. Look at users of other prominent status besides poison in AG and you basically find Klefki (bouncing back Swagger and Twave is nice, but Flash Cannon, especially Sub on switch + Flash Cannon?), Darkrai (as I said, which Mdiancie admittedly does handle excellently), Smeargle (Mdiancie is a great help here, but Smeargle doesn't define the meta or anything, is predictable, and is a reason why Lum Berries are a thing), and maybe Twave Pdon or something (which Mdiancie has no business switching in lol) or something unless I'm missing a big threat. Stall teams have more toxic which Mdiancie can bounce, but they have clerics, and for stall break why wouldn't you use Mgar?

"Offensively, it's only easy to switch into if you take into consideration that its best switchins take around 40% with rocks up." Perhaps true... if you bring switchins in in the wrong move. Something like Arceus-Steel can come in on anything besides Earth Power, take a pittance of damage, and threatening to outspeed and OHKO. And 40% after rocks is something, and prevent repeated switchins if you sustain correct prediction, but far from desolation (especially considering that rocks add 12% on neutral hits).

Having such unimpressive defenses and no recovery also puts a damper on its longevity.

I'd agree that it would belong in A neutral if it didn't have to compete with Mgar and Mrsy for the mega slot, but with that problem added, I don't think it deserves to be in A.

 

[MZ]

I've had some time to think this over, and I still really disagree.

What you say about Mray is true, but I just want to add that while it does help, it only does so much. Besides CB Jolly (I use CB Mray now and would never run adamant to ensure I outspeed adamant Mray and Speed tie jolly mray) and EQ meaning obvious death, +1 Adamant Lum Berry Dragon Ascent after rocks has a 37.5% to OHKO after rocks, doing 78.8% minimum before rocks.

People run Magic Coat on "literally anything"? I don't see what mons it gets relevant usage on besides Arceuses and maybe Deoxys-Speed. Besides that, I can definitely say with experience that even as a balanced team user who loves using Toxic, I fear having my Skarmory or Supportceus trapped and eliminated by Mgar far more than I worry about having Mdiancie to bounce back status. Look at users of other prominent status besides poison in AG and you basically find Klefki (bouncing back Swagger and Twave is nice, but Flash Cannon, especially Sub on switch + Flash Cannon?), Darkrai (as I said, which Mdiancie admittedly does handle excellently), Smeargle (Mdiancie is a great help here, but Smeargle doesn't define the meta or anything, is predictable, and is a reason why Lum Berries are a thing), and maybe Twave Pdon or something (which Mdiancie has no business switching in lol) or something unless I'm missing a big threat. Stall teams have more toxic which Mdiancie can bounce, but they have clerics, and for stall break why wouldn't you use Mgar?

"Offensively, it's only easy to switch into if you take into consideration that its best switchins take around 40% with rocks up." Perhaps true... if you bring switchins in in the wrong move. Something like Arceus-Steel can come in on anything besides Earth Power, take a pittance of damage, and threatening to outspeed and OHKO. And 40% after rocks is something, and prevent repeated switchins if you sustain correct prediction, but far from desolation (especially considering that rocks add 12% on neutral hits).

Having such unimpressive defenses and no recovery also puts a damper on its longevity.

I'd agree that it would belong in A neutral if it didn't have to compete with Mgar and Mrsy for the mega slot, but with that problem added, I don't think it deserves to be in A.

I feel like this misses the two major points in Diancie's favor. First off, Diancie has this massively amazing niche going for it. You sorta gloss over "yes it checks darkrai" when that's just massive. That alone makes this thing amazing not something to just ignore. Other than that Magic Bounce is really quite excellent for random shit and has more uses, but the Darkrai check is so nice that I immediately know exactly why I want to fit this onto a team. It has a very useful, clearly defined niche that nothing else can do as well. In a meta without species clause and with, to be honest, comparatively few Pokemon you use on 99% of your teams, this is pretty important.
The other point is against Diancie's offenses, and the general argument is "well it only does damage if you predict right". I just don't think this is really the case. You brought up Steelceus, but not only is that a fairly obvious switchin that's all but forced to come in every time it's one of the few mons that actually stops diancie from spamming its STABs. Prediction is a slight part of it, but if you look at high ranks Diancie has perfect neutral coverage, SE coverage for most, and basically fears general bulky Arc formes the most. And the thing about that is, bulky arc formes have to check everything. Diancie can overload them with partners like LO Yveltal, chip them for considerable damage on the switch, and make them think twice about clicking wisp/rocks/roar. All I'm saying is this is an incredibly annoying mon to face offensively when it can chip the most common fairy resists like keys, hooh, and don really easily.

 

[Chloe]

Sorry for the delay on these, I completely forgot. Well, here they are.

Giratina-O | A- to B+
Mega Gengar | A to A+
Water Arceus | B+ to A-
Dragon Arceus | B to B+
Ice Arceus | C to D
Genesect | B to B-
Poison Arceus | C to C+

Uh, I added a ladder milestones thing to the OP. Because I was bored and it sounded like a good idea at the time. So it's in the first post of this thread, it shouldn't be too hard to miss.

 

[Cott0nM3]

I don't know how much of a gimmick it really is, it IS pretty gimmicky to be honest, but is there any chance to have Octillery ranked at D anyhow?

Octillery @ Leftovers
Trait: Moody
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Happiness: 255 / 0
Calm Nature
-Protect
-Substitute
-Scald / Surf
-Charge Beam / Return / Frustration / Ice Beam / Flamethrower

Investing in Special Defense allows Octillery to switch on unboosted Moonblast from Xerneas, take it and set a sub then protect. The goal is to keep a Substitute up as much as possible, while Protecting every other turn to get the Moody boosts coming. Moody's unpredictable nature makes Octillery seriously disgusting to face if it pulls off Evasiveness boosts for example. The last two moveslots would be dedicated to attacking, I like having a STAB that has high PP because if Octillery pulls off SpA decreases, at least it will have a better time in attempting to restore them; the other option is to have a coverage move such as Charge Beam that can increase SpA at a good rate, Return if you want nice neutral coverage and use of potential Attack boosts, Frustration if Ditto is a big concern (if you setup a Substitute, Ditto can't copy Octillery), Ice Beam and Flamethrower being coverage options.
The downside is that Octillery has terrible stats in a tier where it can face monsters like E-Killer Arceus, M-Ray or Geomancy Xerneas; but I believe it deserves a ranking as it helped me breeze through low ladder with relatively no effort, and can be fun. If Numel got ranked at a time, maybe Octillery may deserve it?
PS: If it has already been suggested and refused, then sorry, I didn't read all 21 pages because time is a thing :/