I, too, like to do 3% to the Magearna, Zygarde, Tyranitar and Celes with my scarfer :thinking:
If they switch out of their boosted sweeper to one of these, Nihilego has done its job. Dugtrio and Magnezone are the only revenge killers that guarantee no switch on the stuff they want to revenge.
Also: 252 SpA Nihilego Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Celesteela: 170-200 (42.7 - 50.2%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery,,,,,,, Hidden Power Ice vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Zygarde: 272-320 (76.1 - 89.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Neither are particularly reliable switch ins to Nihilego.
TTar is an issue for it, yes.
scarf Nihilego isn't realistically revenge killing anything. Its main targets, like CharY, Pinsir, Volcarona, are all accompanied (usually) by heavy counterplay such a Dugtrio, Magnezone, and Charti;
And Nihilego's team can carry counterplay to these in turn. It is not 1v6ing every CharY/Volc team it comes across, nor should it be. For example, a big deal has been made of its inability to target steels. If you wish, you can utilize Magnezone or Dugtrio to alleviate that weakness. As you say, Nihilego invites in most steels. Both of these mons quite like that.
It revenge kills quite a bit. I went over exactly what in my other post.
Metagross was banned which, funnily enough, left it in a worse position in the meta. Magearna and Celes rising makes it an underwhelming pick as a pokemon.
Celesteela isn't quite a reliable switch in, and I'll address Magearna later.
Since Mag is even more of a thing which forces you to run HP Fire, you're now countered by Zygarde and Garchomp. The former being broken, and the latter being a formidable breaker.
No, it doesn't. Nihilego has very little desire to revenge kill Magearna, and it's not like HP Fire does all that much to it anyway. It's still going to run HP Ice for the meta 4x weak trio.
Tyranitar is rising and giving free switches to any of these pokemon are huge headaches to deal with.
TTar rising also helps it, as I pointed out in my last post. Moreover, banded 40 BP pursuit only 2HKOs, which means if BandTar switches into a power gem and hazards (SR and 1 spike), Nihilego beats it (assuming pursuit which is mostly a safe assumption). I realize this is a pretty specific situation, but it's worthwhile to point out that its situation against BandTar isn't completely hopeless as soon as it switches in. But yeah, Tyranitar rising is definitely a problem for it and a viable reason for a drop.
It doesn't even beat volc anymore since Charti is either it's best set or really close to it.
I still see tons of Psychium/Firium Z sets, and Nihilego 100% does beat those. Even Charti Volc still takes +50% at +1, which leaves it open to all good priority - AshNinja (reliable even after it gets to +2), Mega Pinsir, Mega Mawile, BandGarde, and Medicham (This one is iffy; both power gem and fake out need decently high rolls to kill).
ok the whole post was kind of wack imo
I'd like to point out, once again, that Vertex used several very poor (by definition) arguments in his post. Strawmans and "if you predict right" do not an argument make. That does not mean his viewpoint is wrong, it just means he did a poor job of explaining it. You can't have it both ways.
That's like saying Lando being more common doesn't stop Exca from doing what it wants.
It's not comparable. Excadrill wants to do a few things. The first is spin, and if it can't beat Lando-T—THE rocks setter—it can't keep rocks off the field. The second is sweep/break. If it can't get through the most common mon in the tier, it can't sweep/break. Nihilego is a revenge killer, not a breaker or a sweeper. So long as it can reliably deal with the set up sweepers it wants to, it doesn't really care about getting walled by some other mon. If the sweeper switches out and loses its boosts, Nihilego has done its job. If the sweeper dies and Magearna then forces it out, Nihilego has done its job.
Personal opinion on Nihilego's viability:
I think Nihilego is just as viable a revenge killer as Terrak is, currently. Terrak can hit steels, sure, but Nihilego can hit Fairies. Hitting on the special side is pretty important as well, since - bar Volc - many if not most set up sweepers have better Def than SpD.
The worst recent meta trend imo for Nihilego has been Charti, but that became relevant at least a month ago iirc. Tyranitar is a mixed bag for it (sandstorm turns it into an actual SpD tank nearly rivaling Goodra), Celesteela doesn't do as well as people seem to think against it, and I've gone over Magearna. If it drops, I think it should be because it was overranked in the first place, not because it just suddenly became worthy of one. And like I said before, I think it's on a level with Terrak in terms of scarf revenging. If that means they're both dropped, I think it's reasonable.