hi so I guess i'm chloe now
this is going to be a really long post and I doubt anyone's actually going to bother reading all of it, but over the last couple of months I have been messing around a bit and trying some new stuff. I do have some noms to put out there, but I also wanted to talk about a couple of other things as well.
Nominations:
Arceus: A to A-
I've had an interesting relationship with this mon. When Marsh dropped, I hated this mon and I think a lot of people had it written off. Then came along thimo and hunter who definitely brought it back to life, and I started genuinely enjoyed using it. But now that they are gone, so is innovation and now all of ekiller's sets are pretty well known. Sure, there are so many different sets but honestly, basic cores can stop this mon with ease. The problem is that these cores can do so much more than cover ekiller. I don't think ekiller needs specific checks, it just comes naturally with teambuilding; and it doesn't help how many Pokemon stop ekiller straight out. And even if ekiller can break a certain Pokemon through surprise, more often than not the team will have another answer to that particular set. The problem is that ekiller only has 4 moveslots; which means it will only ever be able to do so much team breaking wise. Sure, you have that really nice z giga impact set, or that really nice chople facade set, but these mean you will lose to the likes of steelceus or ttar. Sure, you have that nice eq beam lo set, but this means you can't break the likes of skarm, marsh or wisp users. I just think on too many occasions ekiller has not done enough for me and it's not as good at sweeping as people make it out to be. Ekiller is a staple on hyper offense; but is hyper offense really the go to playstyle in ag? I personally don't think so, open finals clearly showed that balance and stall was the way to go, with hyper offense losing in both sets against silent mobius (with the exception of one game against highlighter, where the t wave miss arguably lost sm the game). A- is still a
good rank, I'm not trying to say it's the worst mon ever it deserves to be unranked, but I personally just don't think it's quite on the same level as the other Pokemon in A rank.
I hate to do this I really do, but this replay does showcase my point perfectly:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-868730542
This replay just goes to show how weak ekiller is. Support arcs are a common thing in the ag meta, and doing 39 at +2 against a support arc just shows how much it struggles to break walls. it can easily be revenged as well by ghost types such as Marshadow and Mega Gengar just when it looks like Ekiller might be able to break through.
Some slightly more lowkey noms:
Magearna: B to B-
So this Pokemon did have some importance a while back when cm refresh arc dark was actually relevant, but now that everyone has counters to that it honestly makes mag almost useless. It's niche is a yveltal/xern check in one, but why would you choose this over something like poisonceus? Mega Gengar, sure, but that's why this mon is B- instead of UR. Even Mega Gengar can easily be played around with earth power poisonceus or a pursuit user. Mag also requires huge amounts of team support. It's slow, and it's steel, which means a hella lot of offensive Pokemon are going to threaten this Pokemon severely. The list is almost endless: Mega Rayquaza, Dusk Mane, Ultra Necro, Primal Groudon, Kyogre, Arceus-Ground, Ho-Oh, Zygarde and there's probably more these are just the ones that first come to mind. It's just set up bait for so many mons and is threatened immediately by the most dangerous Pokemon in the tier for honestly very little reward, which for me means it needs to drop to B- or even C.
Arceus-Flying: B- to C
I'm just going to go ahead and say it, birdceus is a meme. A good meme, but a meme. I would classify VR into three sections: D rank being meme, C rank being good meme, and B- and above being perfectly usable Pokemon in a competitive setting. I have never seen birdceus used in a competitive match ever, its only relevance is in monotype ag when you just want to use mono flying and sd birdceus seems cool. This may seem like a personal attack on
Pigeons (and it is) but seriously this mon is just awful. Firstly, it has one set, cm refresh. Support t wave defog
Lavaclaw birdceus sets do not count. cm refresh is capable of random sweeps, but the consistency of cm refresh is non-existent and something like Dusk Mane or Roar ttar stops this mon in its tracks. It has absolutely no defensive utility, so birdceus will find it extremely difficult to get in and do something which means its likelyhood of sweeping is very low. Finally, Stealth Rock doing 25 just kills this mon for me, it simply should not be alongside Pokemon that are actually decent and perfectly usable.
The Mewtwo dilemma
I don't think anyone really knows where all the mewtwo's should be on the vr in correspondence with each other. I have my own opinion, but I'm not sure if it is the right one as ranking these mons are extremely difficult; for me the hardest out of all the pokemon in ag. I think what is clear however is that I don't think anyone is happy with where the mewtwo's sit right now. I am repeating a little on what others have already said, but Mega Mewtwo X at B, with Mewtwo at B-, is a disgrace in my eyes. MMX has to be the most overrated Pokemon of all time, I think the only argument I've heard for it is 'it can surprise arceus-dark with low kick'. This doesn't work in reality. If someone is bringing in a mewtwo on a darkceus, no one is staying in. It is clearly going to be a MMX, so all you have to do it go to your Arceus-Fairy which honestly cockblocks MMX for the most part. Toxic/Taunt/Recover sets help work around Fairyceus, but mono low kick can be very mediocre and means Mega Rayquaza and Mega Gengar come in easily, and Mega Rayquaza always claims a kill while Mega Gengar traps with no psychic STAB. Mewtwo, on the other hand, has some amazing diversity and can play multiple roles. Support Pokemon? Check. Sweeper? Check. Taunt webs support? Check. Screens support? Check. Smeargle spam??? Check. Mewtwo has more roles than MMX and MMY combined, making it arguably the most dangerous of the three. If it were up to me, MMX would be B- or even C, with Mewtwo and MMY at B, but these decisions are not up to me. I simply beg the council to reconsider the position of where these Pokemon are as I know I'm not the only one who is angry with this. This needs to be a priority.
My thoughts on other nominations
There have been quite a few noms since the last update so I'm just going to talk about the most relevant ones, in particular, arushi's steelceus.
Heatran to D:
No. I don't think any explanation is required here.
Koko to D: Surprising, I
agree. Specs isn't as bad as I thought it would be all things considered and it has a niche in screens taunt and stopping smeargle, so I think D is warranted.
Pogre to A: I love this mon, but
no. Pdon and Mega Rayquaza are simply too prominent and dangerous for Pogre to be a higher rank. Offensive Pogre sets just get nuked by Mega Rayquaza, and Mega Ray has no switch ins so you lose a mon every time it comes in. Defensive Pogre is very nice, my favourite set by far, but I think sometimes it's simply too passive, and while rest works it is not ideal in certain situations. In addition it does still get nuked by Mega Rayquaza, it only takes a little chip to get dropped and even if it survives and takes out Mega Ray it effectively becomes useless as it is very slow and it is unlikely for it to be able to recover.
Arceus-Water to A: This is borderline, but I'm going to have to say
no. 4 moveslots is downright annoying for waterceus, when it wants to be able to run toxic/wisp/ice beam/recover/defog/judgment. Waterceus is just too passive for my taste even for a support arc, which is why I'm not willing to put it alongside absolutely fantastic arceus formes like groundceus and fairyceus.
Arceus-Ghost to B+: Another borderline nom, but I'm willing to give it a
pass into B+. I think this mon is honestly underprepared for, and its Z move is immensely strong. Ghost typing also makes it a decent pick for webs still, so it's not completely irrelevant. Stone edge allows it to break Yveltal, Sub lets it get past Wisp and Brick Break 2hkos Darkceus, which shows it does have weapons to get past its checks. Overall still a solid threat in the meta.
Yveltal to A-: Unsurprisingly, I
disagree with this. The utility and finesse of this Pokemon allow it to stay near the top. Defensive Yveltal for me is still the most consistent Dusk Mane, Ekiller and Ultra check in the game. Life Orb is generally good but an absolute powerhouse on webs, I personally think every webs team should feature Yveltal as it is that incredible. I have a soft spot for the mon but it has a plethora of moves that allow it to dominate in some games.
Lugia to B-: Definitely
no. Lugia is easily the most consistent Mega Rayquaza check in the game, and is honestly a monster for ho to deal with. Whirlwind and Toxic can just annoy the hell out of ho, sometimes there is absolutely nothing you can do. Dusk Mane has hampered the effectiveness of this Pokemon quite a bit for sure, but not to the point where it should drop it down with the likes of birdceus and deo a. Multiscale is an absolute beast, as long as you have good defog support with this Pokemon you should be fine.
Steelceus - Good, but not that good
Judging by the title, you can probably tell I disagree with Arushi's nom to A. Arushi has nommed this Pokemon twice for some reason? so for that reason alone, I feel I need to produce a direct rebuttal.
Let's be real here. Steelceus only has one good set, cm. Support I would say can be okay, but SD is pretty garbage and sounds like something a 1600 player would use. Support Steelceus being only applicable to stall for me hampers its effectiveness, a good Pokemon should be available on as many playstyles as possible. And this is not without evidence, stall-based Pokemon such as Lugia, Mega Sabe and Giratina are all B+ and below. So, as we have established Steelceus only has one really good set, that should already be ringing alarm bells. I've already slammed Birdceus for being a one dimensional one moveset Pokemon and so now I'm going to do that for Arceus-Steel. When you see a Steelceus, you know exactly what it's going to do; this makes it so much easier to play against. Calm Mind Steelceus is annoying, but it lacks too much consistency to be an A rank Pokemon. Steelceus can dominate against some teams but struggle to do anything against others because Steelceus does have its fair share of checks: Ho-Oh, Marshadow, Zygarde, Pdon, Pogre, Celesteela. Its offensive utility is really all its got going for it as its typing is too poor to be a good support Pokemon outside of stall, so with this in mind I think it sits perfectly in A-.
Conclusion
I am reasonably happy with vr, a lot of the noms are hard to decide which definitely shows most Pokemon are in the right place. I think for the most part the toxicity of the playerbase has reduced, with certain exceptions, although I must say some of the things said on ag forums is downright childish and unnecessary, but I'll take that any day over more lance shenanigans. I also have to stress that attacking staff is just pretty ridiculous, without them I can assure you ag would be a lot worse, and from knowing them all personally I can tell you every single one of them are chill even
Megazard, but that one might take some more convincing. Anyway, with Skarph having quit I'm going to go back and dip for the most part for a few more months, pce out and love you all o/