pokemonisfun
Banned deucer.
New Pokemon
Chansey —> A or A+ seems reasonable, she is facing serious competition with Sylveon and Slowbro these days. With Protect, she’s one of the few good defensive answers to Future Sight attacks but Sylveon can do that with better typing in exchange for much less bulk.
Marowak-Alola —> Not easy to rank, I think you need to consider its most threatening set first which is anything in Trick Room. You can’t just go itemless to check this defensively because Shadow Bone will maul stuff like Slowbro. The only flaw is below average defensive typing (but you can still come in on defensive Sylveon and most Cobalion) and the SR weakness and the horrible Speed. Probably A- or B+ would be fair?
Slowbro —> not easy to rank, by itself it’s not a huge threat, not even impossible to overwhelm defensively since the most threatening sets don’t have room for Slack Off (it’s certainly a fine choice but you won’t be as threatening without one of the Psychic stand is my point). But the ability to abuse Regen and Teleport into attackers makes Slowbro pretty hard to kill. It also has plenty of offensive (Zarude, Fighting types, Lycanroc, basically any offensive mon tbh) and defensive partners right now (Chansey, Arcanine) and Volt-Turn-Teleport-Flip are basically at a high point. This probably depends on your philosophy, it’s always hard to rank mons that rely on partners, but since it fits so nicely in the metagame, it’s probably A or A+ for me
Torkoal —> he also benefits from TR, people like Skip The Drip know it can be a threat with Specs although less so with Chansey now. But overall, Torkoal’s fate will probably be tied to Sun which is surprisingly to me not great. It’s surely good still but I don’t see the need to use a relatively risky style (Sun means you need to use mons with little defensively like Charizard, Vileplume, and Shiftry) when you can run super solid mons in more standard bulky offense or voltturn balances (Sylveon, Keldeo, Rotom Wash, Zarude, for example are all super solid mons defensively and offensively and are hard to fit on Sun). I’m not high on Sun, not because I think it’s bad, I just think the opportunity cost is pretty high now, probably somewhere in the B ranks for torkoal
Zarude —> Even though he’s not properly explored yet, he’s one of the reasons why Volt Turn is so strong now. He loves abusing Future Sight from Slowguys to be basically unwallable and can pretty easily ravage most Sticky Web staples if he puts on Boots like Obstagoon, PZ, and MMQ if the disguise is broken (or UTurn to break it). The only couple of issues are some common weaknesses and lack of pure wall breaking power but partners easily fix that, again Slowbro by itself gives it breaking power with Future Sight and a crucial Fighting and Fire resistance. You don’t need to run Incineroar anymore to beat Polteageist which eases building. Despite Volt Turn being common, UTurn to target Zarude isn’t actually common, with only opposing Zarude and Scyther being common strong users, both of which you can speed tie, Incin is easily chipped or Close Combatted. Zarude is definitely an A+ mon for me, in a tier where I don’t think there any S rank mons.
Chansey —> A or A+ seems reasonable, she is facing serious competition with Sylveon and Slowbro these days. With Protect, she’s one of the few good defensive answers to Future Sight attacks but Sylveon can do that with better typing in exchange for much less bulk.
Marowak-Alola —> Not easy to rank, I think you need to consider its most threatening set first which is anything in Trick Room. You can’t just go itemless to check this defensively because Shadow Bone will maul stuff like Slowbro. The only flaw is below average defensive typing (but you can still come in on defensive Sylveon and most Cobalion) and the SR weakness and the horrible Speed. Probably A- or B+ would be fair?
Slowbro —> not easy to rank, by itself it’s not a huge threat, not even impossible to overwhelm defensively since the most threatening sets don’t have room for Slack Off (it’s certainly a fine choice but you won’t be as threatening without one of the Psychic stand is my point). But the ability to abuse Regen and Teleport into attackers makes Slowbro pretty hard to kill. It also has plenty of offensive (Zarude, Fighting types, Lycanroc, basically any offensive mon tbh) and defensive partners right now (Chansey, Arcanine) and Volt-Turn-Teleport-Flip are basically at a high point. This probably depends on your philosophy, it’s always hard to rank mons that rely on partners, but since it fits so nicely in the metagame, it’s probably A or A+ for me
Torkoal —> he also benefits from TR, people like Skip The Drip know it can be a threat with Specs although less so with Chansey now. But overall, Torkoal’s fate will probably be tied to Sun which is surprisingly to me not great. It’s surely good still but I don’t see the need to use a relatively risky style (Sun means you need to use mons with little defensively like Charizard, Vileplume, and Shiftry) when you can run super solid mons in more standard bulky offense or voltturn balances (Sylveon, Keldeo, Rotom Wash, Zarude, for example are all super solid mons defensively and offensively and are hard to fit on Sun). I’m not high on Sun, not because I think it’s bad, I just think the opportunity cost is pretty high now, probably somewhere in the B ranks for torkoal
Zarude —> Even though he’s not properly explored yet, he’s one of the reasons why Volt Turn is so strong now. He loves abusing Future Sight from Slowguys to be basically unwallable and can pretty easily ravage most Sticky Web staples if he puts on Boots like Obstagoon, PZ, and MMQ if the disguise is broken (or UTurn to break it). The only couple of issues are some common weaknesses and lack of pure wall breaking power but partners easily fix that, again Slowbro by itself gives it breaking power with Future Sight and a crucial Fighting and Fire resistance. You don’t need to run Incineroar anymore to beat Polteageist which eases building. Despite Volt Turn being common, UTurn to target Zarude isn’t actually common, with only opposing Zarude and Scyther being common strong users, both of which you can speed tie, Incin is easily chipped or Close Combatted. Zarude is definitely an A+ mon for me, in a tier where I don’t think there any S rank mons.