View attachment 186663Mega-Banette Unranked to A.
Mega-Banette Takes Advantage of Many Teams Thanks to its Decent Bulk being able to Threaten out The Majority of lead Pokemon Thanks to Taunt/Magic Coat While Forcing out other Leads Thanks to Destiny Bond. Mega-Banette doesn't Work Quite as well Against Dark Monotype Teams, However Despite It not Being Able to Effectively Get off Damage, It still Threatens out Most of The Pokemon With Knock Off and Destiny Bond, Some Examples Being That Scarfed Greninja Doesn't want to lose Its Speed Control, Nor Recycle Alola-Muk Its Berry, While Threatening Everything Else with Destiny Bond. Mega-Sableye Being The only Switch In, Which Given Mega-Banette's Base Attack, Mega-Sableye can Sometimes be Forced to Switch out on a Shadow Claw Crit.
(252+ Atk Banette-Mega Shadow Claw vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Sableye-Mega on a critical hit: 186-220 (61.3 - 72.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)
(252+ Atk Banette-Mega Shadow Claw vs. 248 HP / 252 Def Sableye-Mega on a critical hit: 153-181 (50.4 - 59.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)
Mega-Banette also Doesn't Find itself In a Nice Place when Facing Normal Due to its Main Attack Shadow Claw not Affecting Normal Types, Yet Mega-Banette Threatens out a Vast Majority of The Pokemon Because of Destiny Bond and Taunt. Some Examples Being Mega-Lopunny, Diggersby, Ditto, Staraptor and Porygon-Z are all Threatened by Destiny Bond. Chansey, Porygon-2 on The Other Hand are Threatened by Taunt and Knock off, Which Ditto, Diggersby and Scarf Staraptor can't Afford to Switch out on.
So As you can see, Despite all of These Disadvantages Mega-Banette Can Help In almost Any Situation
Mega-Banette Shines against Most Wall's Being able to Threaten Them out by Preventing Them from Recovering with Taunt, While Racking Tons of Damage on Them with Its Base Attack of 160 Stab Shadow Claw, While being able to Threaten most Switch Ins with Knock off. Teams based around Stall find Themselves quite Threatened by Mega-Banette and Don't want to Lose a Core Stall Pokemon To Destiny Bond, yet are Pressured to Because of Taunt and Its Incredible Base Attack.
Is Mega-Banette Unique? Well Looking deep into It some Pokemon Share a few Similar Things with Mega-Banette such as Mega-Sableye having Knock Off, However Only Mega-Banette can Pressure out More Wall Based Pokemon While always Being able to Take One Pokemon With it Thanks to Destiny Bond. Mega-Sableye Prefers a More Balanced Stall like Team and Doesn't Function as well Without It. Where as Mega-Banette Prefers more of an Offensively Balanced Team. Not only Is Mega-Banette different Than Mega-Sableye but No Pokemon can do Mega-Banette's Job nearly as well, and While Destiny Bond on Mega-Banette is Quite Common It can still Surprise you more Than you know.
Where does it stand compared to other Pokemon. Compared to other Pokemon Mega-Banette Excels, However Every Pokemon Has Its Job, Such as Mimikyu Helps with Dark Types Thanks to Its Fairy Typing but You Don't see Mimikyu Trying to Stay In on Skarmory, Toxapex, or Pokemon of Similar Nature. Mega-Banette Makes a Great Lead Pokemon Thanks to it Having Priority Taunt and Amazing Offensive Presence, Not to mention Destiny Bond. Mega-Banette is Exactly that a Mega-Pokemon and Is Worthy of That Ranking as a Stall Breaker, Priority Taunt/Suicide Lead.
I see, you used some of my suggestions to write a more convincing argument in favour of Mega Banette as a stall breaker and/or lead Pkm.
While I commend your efforts, I have to point out some issues.
First of all, I'm going to talk about the formal aspects.
For an argument to be convincing, you don't need to constantly stress those words you have in mind; honestly, it is too much and makes your text looks like as if it can't stand on its own because of its over-reliance on a feature. Worst of all, it makes your text look immature and aggressive because it gives the overall impression that some people here are not intelligent enough to grasp the basic of your argument. Moreover, by focusing on so many words, you will have a hard time to put a finger on your text and find out or summarize the most important aspects of the argumentation.
I'm sure this was not your intention, which is why I'd strongly suggest to avoid it.
Next, as Vid has already pointed out, rank A implies a Pkm is strongly needed or an integral part of a team. Ghost teams do not need Mega Banette at all to be succesful, especially not when you already have Blacephalon as a stall breaker and Mega Sableye and Alolan Marowak as a lead who all have a common and recommended use in a team.
Second, while it is true Mega Banette can threaten out Pkm, especially with priority Destiny Bond, and force out a Pkm with Knock Off, your success is, again, too dependent on a situation. For example: Mega Lopunny, which is quite a common Pkm on Normal, can simply use Encore and/or Power-up Punch to avoid Destiny Bond, and it doesn't mind Knock Off at all since it resists it. Players can simply switch out their Pkm or use any move to avoid the effect of Destiny Bond. Then, you have Toxapex, which can simply Scald you to death and reduce your attack stat and switch to Mega Venusaur or Crobat or Mega Sharpedo if necessary.
Speaking of Mega Banette's attack stat, using a crit Shadow Claw in your argumentation is unnecessary because the crit chance isn't exactly high and many other Pkm could be used instead of Mega Banette to convince people of their offensive prowess, which doesn't prove anything at all, especially when wallbreakers such as Alolan Marowak and Blacephalon become even more dangerous if you were to include crit calculations. Besides, while Mega Banette has a high attack stat, it is offset by the fact that it doesn't really have many strong and useful moves to take advantage from it.
To give an example:
252 Atk Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 87-103 (28.6 - 33.8%) -- 0.9% chance to 3HKO
252+ Atk Mega Banette Shadow Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 81-96 (26.6 - 31.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
There really isn't much of a difference to see between them, but it'd imply Terrakion is a more effective attacker, especially when it can still use a boosting item/boosting moves such as Swords Dance. And Close Combat does more damage to a neutral target than Mega Banette's Shadow Claw. Maybe, you would like to compare it with Gunk Shot, however, I should note that in this case Close Combat hits more target neutrally or effectively than Gunk Shot does. Plus, Gunk Shot is not a STAB move.
On another note, some lines of your argumentation are just circular reasoning, based on belief/experience, exaggerated or limited in their perspective. Therefore, we're dealing with a text based mostly on logical fallacies:
- Mega Banette's bulk isn't exactly decent, decent being somewhat a subjective perception. We can compare its bulk with Gardevoir (exlucding the special defense), which is known for its frailness. There isn't much of a difference between 64/75 and 68/65. Mega Banette is OHKOed or 2HKOed by most sweepers. Hippowdon, while not a sweeper, has a high chance to 2HKO you with Earthquake and Sandstorm chip damage although it usually doesn't have any investment into its attack:
4 Atk Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Banette: 151-178 (45.4 - 53.6%) -- 91% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
If Hippowdon already does that kind of damage to Mega Banette, imagine what Stealth Rock Garchomp might do, especially if it chooses to use a Z-Move. Other Pkm such as Skarmory or Ferrothorn may not be able to 2HKO you, but Mega Banette won't live long enough during a match to be useful. Ferrothorn may choose to leech seed you or power whip you because your opponent may assume a Taunt set, and Mega Banette suffers damage from its ability. This is all even more exacerbated by Stealth Rock/Spikes/Toxic. You won't have success consistently with Destiny Bond and/or Knock Off if your opponent can simply play around it. Furthermore, why should they use Greninja or Alola Muk as their switch in for Knock Off if they could just use Toxapex, Mega Venusaur, or Mega Tyrannitar?
Besides, Mega Sableye has access to Recover and a reliable ability while Mega Banette is prone to chip damage, has no reliable recovery move, and relies heavily on prediction, which is not reliable at all. Therefore, Mega Sableye outclasses Mega Banette in that aspect, even on an offensive balanced team where your teammates can fall back on its useful type combination to deal with Ghost and Dark moves.
"However Only Mega-Banette can Pressure out More Wall Based Pokemon While always Being able to Take One Pokemon With it Thanks to Destiny Bond. Mega-Sableye Prefers a More Balanced Stall like Team and Doesn't Function as well Without It. Where as Mega-Banette Prefers more of an Offensively Balanced Team. Not only Is Mega-Banette different Than Mega-Sableye but No Pokemon can do Mega-Banette's Job nearly as well, and While Destiny Bond on Mega-Banette is Quite Common It can still Surprise you more Than you know."
- again, this is all based on experience. It shouldn't be a central aspect of your argumentation, especially not when it lacks context and has no follow up explanation. Why does it matter Mega Banette prefers offensively balanced team? You should have tried to explain how well it fits and why you need it on such a team compared to other viable options. Furthermore, you won't always be able to take down one Pkm with Destiny Bond because, as I've already shown above, players have many options to deal with it and Knock Off. Also, why does it matter that, apparently, no other Pkm could do Mega Banette's job nearly as well when it is mostly outclassed by Mega Sablye and its niches are not exactly needed and rely heavily on prediction? It also comes with an opportunity cost of a mega. I could simply use Froslass to Taunt an opponent, lay Spikes, which supports your sweeping potential for your team mates, and take down an opponent with Destiny Bond while still having the option to use Mega Sableye to pressure Pkm with Knock Off and being generally hard to take down with Will o Wisp and Recover.
Last but not least, if I want to pressure "More Wall Based Pokemon", I may simply use Choice Spec Blacephalon which has a strong move in Fire Blast and a high special attack stat + a special variant of moxie. Blacephalon can also use Trick to deal with Chansey or Porygon2.
"Where does it stand compared to other Pokemon. Compared to other Pokemon Mega-Banette Excels, However Every Pokemon Has Its Job, Such as Mimikyu Helps with Dark Types Thanks to Its Fairy Typing but You Don't see Mimikyu Trying to Stay In on Skarmory, Toxapex, or Pokemon of Similar Nature."
- as already outlined, Mega Banette comes with many problems and is not necessary for a ghost team, which is why it shouldn't be ranked A. It doesn't matter whether or not every Pkm has its job. If they're outclassed or too nichey, there's no reason to put it on A. As Vid has already said, useable is not equal to viable.
