B+ ----> A aight guys, hear me out on this one. as someone who for the longest time have vouched for how much an amazing underdog drampa is, it's finally about time that i chime in on this one. i feel that a lot of drampa talk here and elsewhere has gotten to the point where we should settle on a final ranking for the time being, and this is more or less my attempt in trying to establish that. basically, i truly believe that drampa should be highlighted as one of the upper mons in the meta right now. this is largely because as a wallbreaker, it creates a massive teambuilding constraint on its own to the point where defensive teams or teams that carry defensive pokemon that lets it come in for free
really have to play aggressive in a way that doesn't let it get in and claim an easy kill. as a result, it just eats slower teams up, and you really have to scout for it when you run the type of mons that would be used there. not only that, but there are a myriad of pokemon that it is able to take advantage of in the same way that can be run on even more balanced/offensive teams, such as qwilfish, lanturn, ferroseed, bulky mesprit, miltank, gastrodon, sableye, and weezing, and more often than not, it just claims a kill. it easily rips apart many balance cores, and has decent enough bulk and an ability that even lets it offensively check pokemon like special floatzel, pyroar, lilligant, and non-fb magmortar, and just effortlessly claim a kill from there. drampa is easily one of the most terrifying balance-breakers right now, with utterly flawless coverage in
hyper voice / draco / fire blast / focus blast. i realize that by pushing for a rank this high i'd be comparing it to eggy-alola, but the reason i give drampa the nod is because of its less exploitable dual stab and its ability to take on the spdef normals like type: null and audino much more efficiently, making it a more prominent wallbreaker in the meta. that having been said, exeggutor is still a strong late-game cleaner with tr, but i just feel that drampa's advantages make it slightly more effective. therefore,
A will be my proposal.
drampa. is. ridiculous.
B+ ----> A- agreed. lol, another low-key crazy mon. basically, type null influences teambuilding in the sense that players have to be quite meticulous with their ghost-types and mons that can be run to break through it. thanks to it being among the bulkiest pokemon in the tier (especially on the special side) and its ability to essentially function as a status absorber all in one, it basically walls and sets up on the majority of the tier (including 90% of special attackers and passive mons). even boosting special fighting-z mons like raichu and mr. mime run the risk of being scouted (and thus breaking through it will be a lot harder if they waster their z move), and if that wasn't already enough, as a bulky set up sweeper, it's not even passive enough to where things other than like a gurdurr can come in and really aggressively take advantage of it. one of the scariest win cons in the tier, and it's definitely a step above the things sitting in b+ right now.
also, i think a case can be made for
natu to get out of
unranked. yeah, it still pretty niche and weird to use, but its got quite a few things going for it that makes it actually viable, namely its ability to take safely come in and block hazards from all of bulky mesprit, defensive carracosta, qwilfish, ferroseed, and miltank, which are some of the most common options right now for stealth rock/hazards. it's not even all that pursuit bait either, due to having access to options like slow u-turn and reflect (which it would use for this and to better deal with stuff like pilo or support by u-turning into something that can take advantage of the reflect turns) to reduce its damage output. between pohjis' stall team actually beating some good players, and teddeh crushing the ladder with a team using it, i think i've seen it put in enough work to where it can justify being ranked somewhere, on top of it having a relevant niche.
c- or
c (leaning towards the latter tbh, as i think its niche is better than the stuff in c-) seems fine.