The typing is so good, it hits almost everything hard, and it helps a lot vs meta as most sets can only hit it with boom. That being said i'm not completely sure it is the top1 pokemon but i felt like it's at least the easiest pokemon to spam, it helps vs a lot, can be ev'd to live pretty much any non-boom move in the tier out of sand (like band hp rock aero) if you want to and still have enough EVs to spare to outspeed Jolly metagross and have some SpA investment EVs with a modest nature (which it's all it really needs imo) and there isn't that much ground immunes/resists to choose from in the first place so that on its own make it easy to consider in a lot of team i think. I often have no idea what to do with the last move to be honest, from my understanding sub to help with boom is the standard so i just use that. No idea what to think about Twave when so much is running lum, although maybe you can just click twave twice sometimes? When watching games i saw pple using some cool stuff like bp + pinch berry, rain dance, light screen and agility. I was told about drill peck but then i did the calcs vs celebi and i cried. Maybe roar could be funny to deny setup from gyarados + marowak (or suicune), or just annoy setup in general and get to scout the opposing team a bit more as a bonus.
Honestly i'm not sure which one of the two is the best, although in general i'm not sure how easily you can get away without including at least one of these two. I'm a big fan of Celebi as i think ground/elec/water resists are super valuable and it gets the right stab combination to actually threaten the stuff it wants to check. In general i think they help checking/trading with a million stuff and that's why i rank them so high. Additionally, if you look at my tier 2, you can see a lot of Pokemon i think are good are be super threatened by Starmie, thus making Starmie a very threatening Pokemon in my eyes, which make me value Snorlax and Celebi even more. Snorlax might be the better of the two, because Celebi has a harder time threatening Metagross unless it runs CM HP Fire, and that set has issues trying to fit everything it wants to fit, like you certainly won't me able to fit protect and recover.
I really like CM HP Fire Celebi, although i believe it wants a plan vs boom or like a plan in the back that takes advantage of one of the boomers nuking Celebi, and once you do that you can wield cool gameplans i think, because one of gengar/meta/lax being gone (especially meta/lax) is a huge deal. I've been very interested by lead curse lax (normal stab + 2 of tect/sball/eq, lefties or lum) + arcanine, curse lax can be hard to kill and start trading as soon as the game start, and arcanine helps it with intimidate, threatens out metagross that could otherwise try to boom the lax, weaken boom from gengar and can use charm on other laxes to make them much less threatening. Credits to Zee for the charm thing by the way, idk if they were the one who actually invented it but i saw them use it in a replay and i thought it was super cool so i started using it too, i think being able to neuter other laxes is epic, although i don't even know if this was the original purpose of the set, or if there is more to it (dd ttar?).
Meta never felt like a top1 pokemon to me, i thought this was because i'm bad but then i asked some adv dou gamers about it and apparently this is a take that actually exists, and one of them even told me that they believe meta might not even be top 5. Thank you for telling me that because now i can put it in t2 without feeling bad.
My personal grief with Metagross is that, even though i don't deny it is one of the most, if not the most, centralizing/threatening mon in the tier, i don't think it is as good/spammable/consistent than the 4 guys i put above it. It is quite slow, and while it does have a very good bulk and typing, it still takes a lot from EQ and strong/super effective special moves, which are easy to stack on a team, and i believe you should probably almost always do it because Metagross will kick your ass otherwise. My thought here is that the tier being warped around making sure Metagross is not going to do dumb stuff for free plays in its defavor. Also its main way to hit Zapdos and the waters is boom which isn't always the most ideal, especially since Zapdos can run substitute, and a big reason why Arcanine exists in the first place is to cook Metagross.
Even though Meta is considerably more dangerous than the mons i ranked above it, i think there are more reasons to use these mons than Metagross, because in my opinion they are more helpful when trying to prepare for the metagame than Metagross, although i imagine this is more of a tierlist philosophy thing. Ironically one of the main reasons why i put Zapdos in top1 is because it helps a lot against Metagross!
Don't get me wrong though i'm not calling Metagross bad, it's still Metagross
Also i think agility might be cool, although you'll need to work around the lack of a moveslot, i brought it twice in derby and iirc it scored 2+ kills every time and got similar results in test games so i'm starting to be a fan. From my experience i felt like this set usually wants to be hp rock+mash+tect, although idk what the standard is. I've been messing around with choice band a bit too, tried it with one million spdef to try to trade with things better but i doubt it's very good %) I thought return/double-edge on band could be cool for the strong neutral hit as i've seen it running that in adv singles sometimes but didn't get to use it much yet
I already talked about sand, but i think i really like ttar as a dd wincon too. It can be so scary and i felt like it can be super rewarding to use if you position it well, if you get to push metagross in range, prepare the board for it, stuff like that. I think there is merit to move some EVs from atk to hp, ofc the power is nice but being able to eat stuff like tbolt from zapdos or EQs more comfortably is nice (you can even eat a mash guaranteed from meta if you are max hp, although you probably don't want to do that usually). Probably should always be max speed for starmie at +1?
No idea how good sun actually is, i never even used it, but every time i saw it i got smacked by it, i can't tell if that's just me not knowing how to play against it or if it's actually as threatening as i feel like it is, although i think sun also punishes me for using Celebi as my special check over thick fat lax. Exeggutor sometimes felt weirdly unkillable to me because of its good typing, also the chloro mons get boom which is scary as well.
>:[
I hate prepping for amnesia+iron defense Registeel, please tell me if there is something i don't realize but it sometimes felt like i had to go a bit out of my way in the builder to be fine against it. I remember when prepping for Lhions, i saw some Registeels in their scout so i brought a taunt Gengar, thinking it was still a decent move even outside of the registeel matchup as it gives more security vs stuff like dd tar, rain, cm users, so setup in general (i imagine there is probably some merit to deny protect too, or troll a zapdos trying to avoid boom by blocking sub). They did bring demon registeel, so i thought i could just ignore it for the time being and KO the rest of their team first then handle it with Gengar, however Gengar couldn't do enough damages to it and just died to sand. Ngl i am the only one to blame for not thinking about Registeel just outlasting Gengar with sand lol (especially since i even had ttar in the team too), however i'm still left wondering how else you are supposed to deal with the mon besides fishing for a crit? Is it just a skill issue, is there some plays i have to make vs Registeel? Is it possible to just overwhelm it? So far i've been mostly using Recover Celebi (or anything with 16+ pp recovery really) to pp stall it and Curse Gengar, which i think is not so awful outside of the Registeel matchup because it still can help vs fat setup, kinda acts as a coverage move against Lax, can hit stuff behind protect, but i don't think i can slap one of these two in every team i make ever. I was told about lefties Gengar and Perish Song but are those things u'd want to run otherwise?
So what's the solution? Is it just a case of #PlayBetter?
I talked about it in the ttar spoiler, and i definitively think it should be ranked, although i admit tier 4 is probably overhyping it
tldr: a bit stretched out with EVs cuz the stats are kinda shit but still a functional mon because good enough defensive typing (esp w/ the elecs usually running hp grass, although weaknesses to water/ice is really annoying vs Gengar and Starmie), stab eq, sd, of course you mostly use it because it gets sand veil but it still does ok even when sand veil doesn't proc. The idea is that you use it to fish for luck, but even if you don't get the luck you'll still be fine as it's not too horrible of a mon.
It's as swift swimmer as strong as Omastar but isn't weak to EQ and resists mash, and is
much stronger than ludicolo. Under rain and with mystic water it reaches calcs Ludicolo could not even dream of (maybe those spreads aren't real idk, just there to compare):
252+ SpA 30 IVs Mystic Water Gorebyss Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos in Rain: 351-414 (109.3 - 128.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA 30 IVs Mystic Water Gorebyss Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos in Rain: 351-414 (91.4 - 107.8%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA 30 IVs Mystic Water Gorebyss Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross in Rain: 351-414 (96.4 - 113.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
vs
252+ SpA Mystic Water Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos in Rain: 300-354 (93.1 - 109.9%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Mystic Water Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos in Rain: 300-354 (78.1 - 92.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Mystic Water Ludicolo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross in Rain: 300-354 (82.4 - 97.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
In my opinion, if ludicolo and omastar are considered to be ranked then gorebyss probably should be too. To be clear, much like the other two swimmers, i believe Gorebyss is probably better alongside Kingdra instead of over it.
This mon is actually so sad, i can't tell you how many times i looked at it and went like "oh my god this mon actually solves the tier" but then i saw it being unable to do any sort of damages to anything, i mean come on the mon even is walled by Gengar of all things :( The real way to save adv is to free mega steelix i'm afraid
Now on some of the shitmons:
Maybe there is some use for flatter? They are the only two mons that get it that also have more than 3 bst. I think as Pokemon they lose to the whole tier barring the electrics and arcanine though lol
I tried to use this guy a couple times because intim + rock resist + fighting stab for lax + stab mach punch looked appealing but it let me down every time :( The mach punch calcs are really super sad, it does 80% max roll to 0 bulk ttar and everything else just eats, and in general it has some serious power issues. Breloom might be better but probably still bad i imagine, it's stronger but also frailer and dies to more things i think
Rock check, fighter so maybe it does ok vs lax,
damp, maybe could be paired with marowak...? (so just damp + excuses to convince yourself you aren't practicing self sabotage by running the mon)
I think an interesting application for damp is with your own boom lax/meta + bp zapdos (most probably meta+zap in the lead position): meta can click boom, and as zapdos bps out you see what clicked protect on the opposing side or if gengar came in, and then you can choose to block your own boom with poliwrath or go gengar and let the boom go off. I never actually tried this out though /shrug, and i doubt you want to try to do that every game, and blocking your own boom as a response to gengar can lead to an annoying position anyway since poliwrath just dies to it. In general i had a super hard time finding uses for the damp mons aside from blocking boom since their stats are just so bad. Maybe to enable some cm/sd celebi pass thing idk
So i think boom meta + bp zap + poli + gengar + 2 fillers is probably the best shot you could have with poli, no idea what the two last slots should be though. One of celebi/lax/marowak maybe?
Magnet pull isn't what interests me with it, although it's probably a nice bonus. I thought about it as a lead, 80 hp investment means you always live a fire punch from timid gengar and almost always 2 tbolts from modest zapdos and proc salac, you can hit some stuff hard, and draw a banded eq for something in the back to take advantage of. Probably still awful lol but still a perfect addition to the basically shitpost tier
ngl I put it on the tierlist by accident and i only noticed after uploading the image, and i'm too lazy to remove it
Is there any consistent ways to use that thing? I always wondered, no idea what u can do with it. I put Wynaut here for reasons i'm not brave enough to explain.
I looked at the mon and brain went like "zapdos big usage => clicking stab ice beam from the mon with big spdef good", but i never was appealed enough to actually try it cuz its matchup vs metagross bothers me too much
What if you were an ice type but instead of dying to Metagross you die to the n*1 ice beam target Zapdos? (By extension, most ice weak mons can hit you quite hard)
What if you were an ice type but you die to metagross
and zapdos? (it has stats though)
Okay well i think you can tell i got a bit desperate at some point. Glalie has boom, cloyster has boom and lapras syndrome, jynx has psychic and lovely kiss to pray for no lum berry 75% of the time, but they are all so slow and die to everything
On the topic of cloy and glalie, i tried spikes a bit out of curiosity and unsurprisingly they don't seem to do anything besides pressuring lax a bit esp w/ sand, maybe they can help secure some rolls vs some things i dunno, but all the spikers seem to be horrible mons so it is probably just self sabotage, although considering the list of mons we went over you can guess i'm probably self sabotaging myself more frequently than i'd like to admit it anyway
I don't have the slightest idea of what you do with this mon but i saw it in someone's else vr and since everything you see on the internet is correct it means Smeargle is viable
UR -> 3
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
UR -> 4
3 -> 4
Tier 4 - This mon is very overlooked because metagross exists, but it has its own unique advantages. It has a much stronger psychic for gengar and fighting types, it has access to icy wind and helping hand, so it can run a supportive set, and it has great special bulk making it less vulnerable to zapdos than metagross is, and psychic hits back hard too. I firmly believe this pokemon is good enough to be on the ranking.
Tier 4 - It’s criminal that this pokemon is not ranked at all. It’s great into both metagross and gengar, so it makes for an amazing lead pokemon, has access to willowisp to burn physical threats, particularly choice banded ones, and its quite good into other fire types thanks to Flash Fire. I think this one is a no brainer. 
Potential to be ranked eventually, explosion is broken, has STAB Earthquake, and is immune to said earthquake, and has a strong shadow ball for starmie/gengar/celebi. Actually a pretty decent sleeper pick. But I don’t mind this one not being ranked yet.
- probably the first and potentially most controversial ranking? but imo aero is #5. it's taken the spot as fastest viable pkmn being an excellent gatekeeper of big threats like dd tar and cm kou. it's definitely frail but can take one neutral hit which is usually all you need, sometimes it can be a bit weak and locking into a move is punishable but the value it's speed brings to a team in a metagame as fastpaced as this is enough to outweigh its shortcomings for me
- slightly biased placement but he's strong and fun. not ohkod by much so can be used to just trade damage with cb or try to get cooking with sd. I like it with screens
- cool lead, can live basically anything and rock/eq/boom/superpower is sick coverage
- fastest mon alive, tbolt good, boom good. difficult to justify but fun pick for HO teams to check aero. performed well in advpl :3
- fake out and strong normal stab with the usual coverage that normal types have, very usable but middling stats hold it back
- meme pick that doesn't really work but arena trap eq is funny nonetheless and technically can create some fucked up situations
