Mismagius has seen a rise in notoriety after the Meloetta ban because of the lack of good defensive checks. Most Ghost resists get hit hard by its coverage of Power Gem and, more notably, Dazzling Gleam. Z-Shadow Ball is almost guaranteed to put a ton of heavy pressure on your opponent in the current meta considering how sparse Normal-types are.
Steelix is only getting more and more popular and Xatu is rising with it. The tier's almost complete lack of reliable hazard control puts the tier in yet another position where Xatu preventing Rocks from going up in the first place is arguably the best option on a lot of teams. The ability to shut down Seismitoad, Steelix, and Rhydon (on the right prediction) and generally apply offensive pressure as a result, is growing increasingly more valuable as much as the mon is boring as shit to play with and against.
The only Pokemon in the tier that really threatens Balance builds harder than Vanilluxe is Emboar and it's probably a lot closer of a call than many of you think. The ability to break down a team's infrastructure with just two moves, Blizzard and Freeze-Dry, is very impressive and should be recognized. Scarf Vanilluxe is also a rising threat as well considering how hard it smacks down offensive teams and punishes them for commonly running frail Fire-types as their only Ice resist.
As more experienced players have been experimenting with Druddigon, the more it has been coming into the limelight as a seriously good pick in the meta. Mold Breaker Stealth Rock sets really take advantage of Xatu's presence, the Life Orb Sheer Force set is a dangerous wallbreaker that has a lot of options for picking what defensive cores it wants to pressure, and the Rocky Helmet Rough Skin sets are one of the best options for an Emboar check that Offensive teams have right now.
The Z-Megahorn set has been seeing a lot of popularity lately because of how significant beating Slowbro, Vileplume, and Seismitoad is. Being a Water-type that beats out Guzzlord is also noteworthy because it demands that teams keep into consideration the presence of both SD Samurott and special Water-types in the teambuilder. It's also important to note that a powerful Aqua Jet is an extremely useful tool in a tier dominated by powerful Fire-types, such as Emboar and Delphox.
Guzzlord has been on the rise because of its very useful defensive utility in checking the majority of special Water-types, such as Vaporeon, Slowbro, and Slowking, special Fire-types, such as Delphox, Houndoom, and Typhlosion, and the obviously powerful special Grass-types, Rotom-Mow and Sceptile. The Specs set in particular does this great because it takes advantage of these omnipresent threats and uses them as an opportunity to fire off surprisingly hard-to-switch-into hits from its very diverse pool of coverage moves.
Viable Defog and Pursuit user. Both are pretty hot commodities right now in the tier and Skuntank is no slouch at either. STAB Sucker Punch and Aftermath are also very useful tools in its arsenal that help it stand out as an offensive threat.
Specs Typhlosion 2HKOes the entire tier bar AV Guzzlord, specially defensive Vaporeon, and Slowking. Extremely sturdy Fire resists are becoming increasingly less common in favor of offensive Fire checks and Typhlosion really benefits from the shift.
Pinsir to B- or B - The Z-Earthquake Stealth Rock Mold Breaker Swords Dance set is easily one of the most anti-metagame things in the whole tier and it does a fantastic job at setting up rocks, threatening/eliminating other Rockers, and managing the early game. People are starting to pick up on what it does and it is slowing down a bit, or at least when I personally use it, but I think it is a Pokemon that is good enough to rise to B- when C+ is a land of pretty shitty, situational Pokemon that hardly find their way onto competitive teams.
Just SD Z-Ground in general is rly good tho
As Vanilluxe and hyper-destructive Fire-types are quickly rising in viability, so shall the the ORAS-omnipresent Thick Fat tank. Though AV Hariyama finds it a lot harder to break past traditional Fighting checks in the tier, it has a very relevant niche against offensive teams as the sturdy special sponge that it is.
Togedemaru is one of the few options that defensive cores have access to that can shut down both Vikavolt and Rotom-Mow and, because both of these threats are so dominant, Togedemaru should follow with a rise. You can even see that, since Togedemaru's presence in the tier is so necessary for more defensive builds, Vikavolt are starting to run HP Ground in response to take advantage of them. It's also just a generally useful mon that has a good set of resistances and Wish.
In simple terms, Lapras takes advantage of teams that use Fire-types in order to prepare for Vanilluxe. It's a generally weak mon, but its dual STAB with access to Freeze-dry makes it an ok wallbreaker in the current meta.
By far still our best Defog user, but definitely becoming increasingly more noticeable how exploitable Golbat is. It loses to Steelix and Rhydon, our most viable and present Stealth Rock users, and is becoming noticeably easy to lure and/or offensively pressure to take out. Its weaknesses to Ice, Psychic, and, most notably, Rock really set it up as a less desirable pick for a team's defensive backbone.
Granbull is either very easy to whittle out of the game or demands the use of your Z Move in order to keep it relevant throughout the match. It's a good, sturdy Fighting check, but it struggles to make an impact when it gives way to Steelix, Vikavolt, and many other very relevant forces in the metagame. We also have a plethora of Fighting checks in the tier as is that can bring more to the table than what Granbull can typically do.
It's not really bad, it's just hard to justify over other Fighting-types. Even Medicham and Gallade's Z Move sets allow them to get through the most common Fighting resists.
I don't think there's much to be said on this thing that hasn't already been said. Impossible to set up with, can't break past the most common Flying checks in the tier, and there's no reason to use it over Barbaracle. It's just a bad mon.
See Sawk, but way worse because of its awful coverage and Speed.
Decent on paper, awful in practice. There's no real reason to ever consider Manectric over Vikavolt or Rotom-Mow because of its frankly irrelevant speed tier and surprisingly lackluster offenses.