my personal rankings after bwpl and most of bw cup is done (at top 8 at the time of this post)
shoutout fnh and theia for the usage stats
s rank:
tyranitar, latios, ferrothorn - the big 3 of the tier is quite clear if you look at any stats, ferro is a clear 3rd while lati and ttar compete for first. personally i think ttar is king right now. bulky offense sands have risen after spl and playing around stuff is so much easier when sandstorm is on the field, its just so much easier to ease up the matchup coinflip when you use tyranitar than when you dont. latios of course, still an absolutely broken pokemon and tyranitar is pretty much the only thing that keeps it from destroying everything.
a+:
landot - the best rocker, best pivot, fits in most structures, intimidate op, not much to be said.
excadrill - exca sands are in pretty good shape since they have tools to add to their team that can be great into whatever playstyle they want to. protect drill has sort of fallen off, but sd, subs and scarf are all incredibly scary in the right game
keld - its keld. threat. always been busted, always should be up here. voted ban on it in 2013 and wouldve done it again today. fits everywhere, incredibly versatile and if well played, difficult to deal with for almost any team really.
politoed - rain is very strong.
thundt - worthy of a+ for sure. honestly feels pointless using rain if you're not gonna abuse this guy. there's barely any answers, the biggest one is latios and thunder paras just destroy latios. (
exhibit a exhibit b)
a:
starmie - starmie has clearly eclipsed tentacruel as the second best spinner imo and i even considered it for a+. for one, its best spinner for HO wich is a very strong playstyle right now. two, a lot of rains have straight up dropped cruel for this guy because it applies more pressure and better fits a fast paced team. of course, it doesnt love facing alakazam spikes teams, but the baloon and the 56 ev spdef increment to survive zam after rocks are very very often gaming changing tweaks. a lot of ferros dont run leftovers anymore, rotoms dont use many spdefs evs anymore, celebis dont usually run grass move, etc. everything was in place for this thing to rise.
dragonite - number 1 ho defining pokemon. why wouldnt you use dragonite in offense? not only its so good, it feels incredibly difficult to not lose to keldeo without using this guy in ho, and even then sometimes it runs taunt and hp ice. dnite flips momentum vs the entire tier wich is essential for ho. nevermind the versatility, bulky dragonite and cb dragonite are two underrated sets that dont see much use now a days but are still quite decent.
tentacruel - starmie being so good right now doesnt mean tentacruel is worse. for the classic rains, this mon is as solid as ever... toxic spikes and substitute are good options over toxic if you want to mess with certain teams (or for nice combos for example, subs tenta with toxic keldeo, toxic spikes tenta with sub mamoswine, etc.)
skarm - abr psyspam may have fallen off a bit, but skarm still very good for sure. it checks like everything, spikes are busted, etc. skarm+zam is very strong on its own as always, be it in lead skarm offenses, in balanced teams, or in semi stalls, it doesnt matter spikes is broken lol.
zam - zam has fallen off from its throne a bit, ho has so much priority to troll it, steels are everywhere, and sands almost always run chople tar for it. but its still effective at cleaning things up and its obviously amazing with spikes. i find zam to be so good vs rain because their steel is often a ferrothorn that gets worn down early and then the counter play becomes politoed taking a hit.
garchomp - this mon is at an odd place right now but its still very good on its own. scarf chomp cleans disjointed offenses incredibly easily, though its deadweight vs fat and sr chomp is as effective as always at applying pressure and getting em up. dont really like other sets.
scizor - the now official latios removal tool for offense, being just as effective as tyranitar at doing so since you dont have to directly switch when using offensive teams, while also being a threat on its own. when you dont need to pursuit lati, you can run sd quick attack and do a lot of damage to things that normally check you such as keld and thund, very strong move. choiced scizor also fit incredibly well in hippo sands and rains that need a latios removal tool as well, though not nearly as effective at that as tyranitar in this case. its a very strong pokemon overall and worthy of a rank imo.
a-:
jirachi - for usage alone, jirachi would belong in a+. its clearly not that great, its just a support mon, although probably the best support mon. pivot jirachi is quite good in offenses and healing wish support turns threats like dragonite into s tier mons. not a big fan of wish tect since its so spikes bait and i personally dislike cm a lot, i think shuca or scarf is the way to go.
volc - does nothing or wins. bullshit mon. its clearly not broken but it is truly a no skill mon in my opinion, it would be nice if it were gone.
reun - it has fallen off a bit hence why its a- to me, teams are either well prepared for it or are too aggressive for it to do its thing, but the garganacl theorem of the last sv ou rankings applies here, once people stop paying attention to it, thats when it will be back at its strongest. spikes+reun is no longer a free win vs anyone decent, but its still good and will always be good.
gliscor - peng made a good video on why this mon has fallen off, go watch it, not much else to say, not a terrible mon by any means though, still great vs sand and the best at slow uturn.
mamoswine - applies monumental pressure on most sands and ice shard is a great revenge kill tool, the speed kinda sucks but its so strong, even without band. sub can get very hard to play around. staple threat at this point. dont use scarf it really sucks.
celebi - subpass is pretty broken and the mon itself checks a lot of stuff. subpass bi teams have been spammed after gary used it in spl and its pretty damn successful so it deserves a spot in a-. dont really like other sets personally but they can fit.
rotomw - still the same early game hero. dont count on rotom to check much because its so easy to worn out but its really good at getting threats in. you can get creative with it, i find trick scarf, hidden power something (modest) and twave to be very underrated.
terrak - sand's best way of not losing to volc basically, while applying great pressure. also a good ho lead. band and sash are the only good sets imo, baloon sd isnt very hard to deal with and scarf is too weak, but i suppose they can be good in the right game.
b+:
zone - not great at trapping exca, ferro and scizor often dont care about being trapped, still traps skarm well. zone teams arent very good rn imo but this mon is always gonna be okay in the right team. b+ is right for it. also cbeam hp ice is dope, use it more, ferro user now loses 2 guys.
hippo - ttar is king but its not the best at keeping up the sand weather, hippo is. sand helps a lot against many teams and when using hippo teams you get to play with sand in the field most of the time wich is dope. other than that its just a tanky mon in general, phazes, checks strong stuff like thundy, volc, zam, exca depending on the spread, its pretty good.
jellicent - i always see psyspam+jelli teams losing but on skarm jelli and sand stall its great. sometimes it destroys some rain teams on its own when tenta cant get the toxic on it, wich is cool.
loom - very strong breaker, but kills itself quickly and relies on seed rolls against lando wich sucks. mach punch is good. toxic orb can be very strong or useless depending on matchup. overall good mon, but would say its not worthy of a- anymore.
heatran - its heartbreaking to put it so low and i wasnt even sure if i should put it in b+ or b, but heatran severely lacks identity right now, it has a lot of shit matchups and even in the right matchup it can suck. meta just isnt kind to it. the mon allows creativity though, so go wild. sergi for example used offensive roar tran in a skarm jelly team and i thought that was pretty dope. i do believe its best set right now is magma hpgrass dragonpulse wisp/taunt @ baloon, earth power feels kinda useless.
cloyster - a few months ago i wouldve put this on a or even a+. teams have adapted to it, rotoms are now bold, ferros are now relaxed, keld is being used more again etc, and thus it has notably fallen off as fast as it rose up. still incredibly deadly in the right matchup or piloted by the right player (eeveon), but the recent games with it clearly show that it isnt nearly as good as it was in spl.
b:
cube - dragspam is kinda dead, but cube can still break nicely. this is an underxplored mon imo, ive seen lefties cube wreck people for example. scarf is pretty good too. a huge problem of cube though is that it invites all the dangerous mons to come and kill it, but this is as low as i'd rank it.
tornadus - very unique rain abuser, can be very strong in the right matchup. puts a lot of pressure on those popular celebi teams. imo its better at supporting thundt than replacing it. most items on it are decent imo, scarf is fun against offense.
slug - abr psyspam is no longer the dominant team it once was but slug is still more or less the same, hp grass keldeo got popular towards the end of spl so then it was trash but now that celebi and ho are more popular they're running hp ice so its back to being ok. checking non np/gk thund is very nice too.
aboma - hail is very unique weather that fit in both offense and defense and aboma has rightfully earned its place in the metagame. chipping steels with hail is just so good, too bad aboma is not the best pokemon.
xatu - only fits well on stall, but this mon is very strong on stall. it blocks rocks from most rocks users, wich is what you can ask for using it. doesnt block landot very well though, wich is where the next mon comes in.
forretress - best spinner against the best rocker (landot). other than that, its pretty bulky on the physical side and can take hits from guys like excadrill, mamoswine, terrakion, etc. doesnt fit in just stall, any balance team can run this mon and its probably gonna be okay. aboma+forre in particular is very annoying to play against since forre is immune to hail. underrated.
clefable - just like in the previous gen, its quite annoying to play against this mon. the only difference is that in this gen it actually dies. but its still clef, its still very strong with sand and spikes. deserves to be b at least imo.
i put guys that have a niche and can be strong in b-, and mons i dont think are very good but still viable in c. i think b- and below are quite subjective.
--> A: Scizor's SPL usage eclipses every used Pokémon in A-, and for good reason. It's easily of the best Psyspam counters in the tier since Alakazam can seldom afford HP Fire (unless it is paired with 3 Attacks Reuniclus). HOs are really in need of a consistent pursuit trapper and Scizor delivers that role in spades. It also has an argument on Rain since it improves the Psyspam MU significantly (albeit to the expense of the Thundy-T MU). Hell, it even sees use in Hippo Sand and Dual Pursuit teams with Tyranitar.
and 
--> Top of A: Dragonite's usage in SPL is equal to Keldeo's, which itself is the 7th most used Pokémon in the SPL. Dragonite's typing and ability add much-needed longevity to HO and its ability to check Breloom and Volcarona in a pinch should not be overlooked. Slowbro and Hippowdown, two of Dragonite's hardest counters, are also incredibly fringe in the current metagame, which Dragonite likes as it can prey on faster, frailer Zam Psyspikes teams. Skarmory is Sand's premier spiker, IMO eclipsing Ferrothorn in that category because it is much better equipped to deal with HO. Its incredible typing means that it's able to pull its weight in any matchup barring rain, and since it's so often paired with a water-immune, it's not like that is even as big of a deal as before.
--> B-: Aerodactyl has seen 4 uses so far in the SPL, meaning that its viability far exceeds other Pokémon that reside in C (and IMO, any Pokémon currently residing in B/B-). Aerodactyl is the fastest Pokémon in the tier, meaning that it's very consistent at getting rocks up and preventing other leads from getting rocks up themselves. Its obviously not quite a metagame defining force but the fact that its usage is on par with Celebi and Salamence and eclipses Kyurem-B, Tornadus, Seismitoad and Kyurem make it worthy of a rise.
Latios
Tyranitar
Ferrothorn
Alakazam
Landorus-T
Politoed
Thundurus-T
Gliscor
Excadrill
Tentacruel
Keldeo
Reuniclus
Garchomp
Breloom
Volcarona
Mamoswine
Starmie
Jirachi
Rotom-W
Cloyster
Heatran
Magnezone
Gastrodon
Jellicent
Terrakion
Kyurem-B
Gyarados
Tornadus
Latias
Celebi
Salamence
Seismitoad
Abomasnow
Mew
Kyurem
Hippowdon
Xatu
Slowking
Weavile
Slowbro
Milotic
Amoonguss
Hydreigon
Chansey
Forretress
Ninetales
Blissey
Cresselia
Bronzong
