Been a while since I posted in here, so here's a couple of my responses and my reasonings:
Enjoyment, balance: 7.0 / 7.0
The meta is in a good but a little weird spot right now - Derby and NDWC had a lot of great games with tons of varied team styles, but Flutter Mane is very dominant, and I don't really enjoy that in the builder or in-game. I think we're at a particularly important crossroads of what the next tiering steps will be.
How do you feel about Urshifu Rapid-Strike? (Water) - Urshifu Rapid-Strike might be banworthy and it should be suspect tested.
I think it's possible Urshifu-R was banned out of order/prematurely. When it was (quickbanned) we had things like Zygarde, Mega Metagross and Zamazenta in the tier. Each of these punished different mons that would otherwise be solid counterplay to Urshifu-R, such as Raging Bolt, Tapu Fini, and Rillaboom. These mons still had a presence in the tier of course, but it seems possible to me that it'd be ok in combination with other trends we're experiencing i.e. high MMence/Rilla/Fini usage, and so on. If it got tested and still didn't get freed, I'd be ok with that.
I also don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that broken checks broken, but I think there's a discussion to be had on whether to test either/both of the Urshifus before we test Flutter. Urshifu's existence in the tier might create a knock-on effect of Flutter sacrificing Choice Specs to get ahead of Scarf Urshifus by using Booster Energy, reducing even further the offensive output of Flutter.
How do you feel about Urshifu Single-Strike? (Dark) - Urshifu Single-Strike might be banworthy and it should be suspect tested.
I've pretty much always held the opinion that Dark is generally worse than Water, obviously it's composition dependent on which one you might want to use but I think the idea that you can just rip "+1 From Gouging Fire + Choice Band/BlackGlasses + Tera Dark + Sword Of Ruin Wicked Blow" into everything in the tier is oversold. Previously, I was of the opinion "well you can't switch into its coverage" but I think that is not really true in the current iteration of the tier as it was when Melmetal, Commander, Genesect and Annihilape got cycled through the tier in a 30 day period. Not to mention the things that stayed legal and were banned later as mentioned above. Mence being faster, locking into cc/drain makes you Iron Hands food, Fini eating it for breakfast, and so on. It's also true that many other Pokemon exist in the tier that have strong attacks which are hard to switch into such as Mence DEdge, Lando-I EP/Sludge, Marsh CC/Spectral, the list goes on.
Flutter Mane - 4/5. It's somewhere between a 3 and 4 for me, but I rounded up.
It's evident that Flutter is the (mostly) uncontested best Pokemon in the tier - according to the VR, anyways. At minimum, it requires the most respect in the builder, meaning sturdy fairy checks that disincentivise clicking Tera Fairy Dazzling Gleam/Moonblast. Unfortunately, there's not that many good options outside of like Jirachi/Heatran/Ferro/AV Gambit/Celesteela, some with pretty glaring issues. I think Flutter makes building this tier pretty unpleasant for me, I don't like using it and I don't like playing against it. Call it a skill issue if you want, but it's been a strain on my enjoyment of the tier for quite a while. If I were to vote today, I'd vote ban. I do think the tier is playable if it doesn't get banned though, but teambuilding will remain strained.
Jirachi - 4/5.
I kind of hate this Pokemon. It's easily the best support in the tier - completely non-interactive, with diabolical bulk and the ability to tera into the perfect redirector that can cover a significant portion of the team's bases in one slot. It sort of counters Flutter but doesn't entirely check it, and it feels like a lot of the common structures and high usage Pokemon in the tier have a some amount of trouble with it. I don't think it will ever get suspected, but I'd be very happy if we had never freed it in the first place.
Enjoyment, balance: 7.0 / 7.0
The meta is in a good but a little weird spot right now - Derby and NDWC had a lot of great games with tons of varied team styles, but Flutter Mane is very dominant, and I don't really enjoy that in the builder or in-game. I think we're at a particularly important crossroads of what the next tiering steps will be.
How do you feel about Urshifu Rapid-Strike? (Water) - Urshifu Rapid-Strike might be banworthy and it should be suspect tested.
I think it's possible Urshifu-R was banned out of order/prematurely. When it was (quickbanned) we had things like Zygarde, Mega Metagross and Zamazenta in the tier. Each of these punished different mons that would otherwise be solid counterplay to Urshifu-R, such as Raging Bolt, Tapu Fini, and Rillaboom. These mons still had a presence in the tier of course, but it seems possible to me that it'd be ok in combination with other trends we're experiencing i.e. high MMence/Rilla/Fini usage, and so on. If it got tested and still didn't get freed, I'd be ok with that.
I also don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that broken checks broken, but I think there's a discussion to be had on whether to test either/both of the Urshifus before we test Flutter. Urshifu's existence in the tier might create a knock-on effect of Flutter sacrificing Choice Specs to get ahead of Scarf Urshifus by using Booster Energy, reducing even further the offensive output of Flutter.
How do you feel about Urshifu Single-Strike? (Dark) - Urshifu Single-Strike might be banworthy and it should be suspect tested.
I've pretty much always held the opinion that Dark is generally worse than Water, obviously it's composition dependent on which one you might want to use but I think the idea that you can just rip "+1 From Gouging Fire + Choice Band/BlackGlasses + Tera Dark + Sword Of Ruin Wicked Blow" into everything in the tier is oversold. Previously, I was of the opinion "well you can't switch into its coverage" but I think that is not really true in the current iteration of the tier as it was when Melmetal, Commander, Genesect and Annihilape got cycled through the tier in a 30 day period. Not to mention the things that stayed legal and were banned later as mentioned above. Mence being faster, locking into cc/drain makes you Iron Hands food, Fini eating it for breakfast, and so on. It's also true that many other Pokemon exist in the tier that have strong attacks which are hard to switch into such as Mence DEdge, Lando-I EP/Sludge, Marsh CC/Spectral, the list goes on.
Flutter Mane - 4/5. It's somewhere between a 3 and 4 for me, but I rounded up.
It's evident that Flutter is the (mostly) uncontested best Pokemon in the tier - according to the VR, anyways. At minimum, it requires the most respect in the builder, meaning sturdy fairy checks that disincentivise clicking Tera Fairy Dazzling Gleam/Moonblast. Unfortunately, there's not that many good options outside of like Jirachi/Heatran/Ferro/AV Gambit/Celesteela, some with pretty glaring issues. I think Flutter makes building this tier pretty unpleasant for me, I don't like using it and I don't like playing against it. Call it a skill issue if you want, but it's been a strain on my enjoyment of the tier for quite a while. If I were to vote today, I'd vote ban. I do think the tier is playable if it doesn't get banned though, but teambuilding will remain strained.
Jirachi - 4/5.
I kind of hate this Pokemon. It's easily the best support in the tier - completely non-interactive, with diabolical bulk and the ability to tera into the perfect redirector that can cover a significant portion of the team's bases in one slot. It sort of counters Flutter but doesn't entirely check it, and it feels like a lot of the common structures and high usage Pokemon in the tier have a some amount of trouble with it. I don't think it will ever get suspected, but I'd be very happy if we had never freed it in the first place.