Resource National Dex AG Viability Rankings [DLC I]

[Kate]

A+ to S-
Hard agree, this thing is much better than anything else and is consistently a threat to every team. It's even better than xern in a lot of aspects, since in a lot of games, you can just lead it and claim some kills. Band is also extremely potent as it capitalizes on all the checks to lo. Another dumb mon that lowers skill gap and benefits noobs.

Idrc about any of the others, but I do have a preliminary mon before HEAT...
UR to D/C
So this was a meme of mine back in gen 7, but I never nommed it because there wasn't a substantial enough niche imo for it to warrant a rise. However Dynamax has changed all of that. Its two glaring flaws in gen 7 were an average speed tier that left it easily revenged, and pdon. With hidden power now working with Dynamax, Thundurus now has a reliable way to boost speed and a way to deal with pdon.
+2 252+ SpA Sharp Beak Thundurus-T Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Primal Groudon: 396-466 (98 - 115.3%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO(hurricane is dyna hidden power)
+2 252+ SpA Sharp Beak Thundurus-T Hurricane vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ground: 439-517 (99 - 116.7%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ SpA Thundurus-T Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 52 SpD Ho-Oh: 668-788 (160.5 - 189.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ SpA Thundurus-T Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 448-528 (137.8 - 162.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ SpA Thundurus-T Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 342-403 (85.9 - 101.2%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Thundurus-T: 139-164 (23.1 - 27.3%) -- 63.6% chance to 4HKO
+2 252+ SpA Sharp Beak Thundurus-T Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Zygarde Complete: 534-628 (83.9 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(All calcs are dynamax accounted)
With Taunt it still does the same job of making sure stall will never get anywhere in gen 8, but its one last huge plus is that it is relatively imposterproof.
Most dittos get hp dragon, and Thundy's ability means it cannot be hit by tbolt. Ditto is forced to dmax to even come close to killing, and if dmax is wasted a healthy thundy can continue to sweep. P much just better naga this gen and 100% deserves at least D(even though like I said, it's better naga).

Also yes, heatran is coming. Stay tuned...

 

[pichus]

I feel like majority of the lower rank mons are straight up useless and deserve no place on a serious team. Most of the nominations in this thread have been about the higher ranked mons, which is fine but I think that the lower ranks need a lot of work as well bc while making the VR we really did not care much about them and just brainlessly threw them into random ranks. This should explain why things like Mega Blastoise and Quagsire (actually usable) are ranked below Steelceus (shouldnt exist on a serious team). Some of the noms will be one liners for very obvious reasons, like I really dont wanna explain why something like Kyurem-White is entirely outclassed by Xerneas or Eternatus. Some of these might be a bit controversial but please just ask yourself if you'd actually consider using it on a serious team. Theres stuff like Amoonguss which might actually be a decent pick depending on your team's requirements (checks the best offensive mon in AG and also a few other relevant special attackers like POgre) and then theres something like Corviknight which is ranked because?? Im aware that it is a /very cool/ mon because it gets Iron defense + Body Press. But you cant convince me that theres an actual reason to use this over something in A/B ranks. The noms might be a bit harsh but in my previous post I've already stressed on the fact that teambuilding is extremely hard this gen and you cant rlly get away with using a dumb/useless mon on your team. If theres 0 reason to use a mon, it shouldnt stay on the VR. If the mon actually does something, but something in the upper rank does the same thing but better, it shouldnt stay. If theres a mon which does something unique, it *should* stay unless it comes with huge opportunity cost.

also I'd like to see the C ranks merged again like last gen. I just dont think the viability difference between the mons C/C-/C+ ranks is big enough to justify the need for separate ranks. IDK about rest of the council members but I'm seriously not gonna bother sorting borderline unviable stuff into sub ranks.

Arceus-Fairy C to D/UR
staple arceus forme last gen but does it really do anything now? only mon which you actually check in the A ranks is Zygarde, which groundceus does better because it also has a chance at checking eternatus and zacian, and also beats Primal Groudon. It doesnt even check Yveltal anymore and fails to consistently check the only relevant Marshadow set (life orb Dynamax) as well. Ray isnt too common which sucks for fairyceus, everything walls the Scarf set anyway. Its a set up fodder for everything else. CM set is garbage. Absolutely no reason to use this.

Corviknight C to UR
whatever it does, skarm does better. and skarm doesnt do anything, so theres that.

Kyurem-White D to UR
"I really dont wanna explain why something like Kyurem-White is entirely outclassed by Xerneas or Eternatus."

Reshiram D to UR
pretty sure this doesnt do anything too unless theres a flames Dynamax set which I'm not told about. Even if there is one, I'd want to know why this should be used over Eternatus, Xern or Pogre.

Giratina D to UR
pressure + fog isnt as valuable this gen. this only worked well on teams which needed 2 defoggers and no team needs 2 defoggers anymore. i believe that lunala + hooh is a better defog core anyway. i guess it still checks Ho-oh and don but so does Zygarde.

Arceus-Steel B- to UR
refer to bigtalks post

Toxapex to UR/D
im really not sure about this one tbh since I havent used it at all. But it seems to be outclassed by Hooh/Amoonguss as a regen mon and bulky eternatus is pretty much the same mon except you get pressure and have some sort of offensive presence. B- is definitely too high though

Skarm and Steela to UR/D
both dislike too much Ho-oh and Don in the meta and have bad matchup vs HO. they cant check zacian or zygarde and give free switch ins to the special attackers in the higher ranks. Spikes / defog skarm isnt too good again because of Ho-Oh and leech tox steela is infintely walled by DM + ho-oh.

Shedinja C- to D
should drop one rank as it doesnt check Xern anymore but still checks DD Zygarde, POgre and Zacian-C without Crunch which is ok

Arceus Flying C+ to D
i used the SD and the CM sets today and it just doesnt work too well in practice. SD/CM + boosting speed with your stab sounds fun but its hard to make it work. From what ive observed, Sd is outclassed by SD groundy/ghosty and CM arceus formes are pretty meh in general.

Kyurem Black B to D
entirely outclassed by zekrom but the fact that it has a better matchup vs PDon and Groundceus and has an equally good matchup vs Hooh is good enough to save it from getting unranked but I honestly i wouldnt care at all if it got removed from the vr.

Magearna to D/UR
heavily outclassed by the 2 big steel types in the meta but it does a fine job at checking non dynamax xern and non heat wave yveltal. again i couldnt care less if this gets unranked but my point is that B rank is too high.

Chansey to C
specially defensive wall which is a gar fodder shouldnt be in B-, not to mention that isnt great at checking dynamax xern/yveltal if it has even minimal chip and eternatus also annoys it a lot. not the most reliable POgre check too because CM spout 1v1s it. it drops to every physical attacker but thats obvious.

Arceus-Dark to B-
already nommed this before i think but its not a solid arc form anymore and youd normally wanna use yveltal or ttar over this as your dark type

Ekiller to B+
this isnt as good anymore, gets walled by random dynamax mons and hesistates to click espeed vs gengar teams. Max strike is literally the most useless dynamax move. also sd ghostceus is just far better.

now for the actually relevant noms:

Lunala to A-
while making the VR I was under the impression that CM Z sets are still very good but thats rlly not the case. Any form of offensive lunala is really mediocre and I also dont think that the defensive set is really good now, youre getting hard walled by Ho-Oh and struggle to beat defensive dm as well because they always run knock off. also a set up fodder for yveltal or xerneas which is a big yikes.

Rayquaza to A
icemaster already explained this rlly well so I dont wanna do it again. Id still want to say that the non scarf sets are extremely underrated rn and deserve more attention. Band / Mixed Lo get a free kill every game unless they have a hard check for w/e reason. But the mons in A+ atm are just toooo good and this shouldnt be with them.

S rank
I really dont think that Xern should get its own rank. Its obviously the best mon in AG but it is *heavily* suffering from overprep at the moment. 90% of the good teams atm have atleast a Dusk mane or a Ditto. Its impossible for Geo xern to sweep the team if they have a Dusk mane and its also impossible to improof your Xern if the ditto comes in after the dynamax turns are over (you already used dynamax on your own xerneas so you cant dynamax your dusk mane or whatever check you have in the back) so if you try to sweep too early then the opposing ditto might counter sweep you which is terrible. The only way to beat Dusk mane teams is by using a gengar or something else which forces a mon to dynamax. This is a pretty huge support requirement and at this point I really dont think its *significantly* better than zacian or even yveltal. Again, dont get me wrong, this is the best pokemon in ag and has a huge impact on teambuilding. While building if you decide not to use a Dusk Mane or Ditto then you /have/ to make sure that the other mons dont give a set up opportunity to xerneas in any scenario which really shows how big of a threat this is. but the fact that the meta is adapting to it so much and its just not able to sweep teams anymore sucks and i dont think that a separate rank is justified. This might be a bit too early so I wouldnt mind if Xerneas does get its own rank after this update. It is undoubtedly the best mon in AG but definitely not the same mon which clicked geomancy and straight up just ended the opponent.
im pretty exhausted at this point so Ill just say that Zacian should stay in S rank as well. It is def better than everything in A+ rank.
I also agree with icemaster's yveltal nom, except I think that it should join Xerneas and Zacian in S because it has zero consistent checks, does not take a set up turn and isnt a one time use because even after the dynamax turns are over you can still sweep with your taunt life orb yveltal. I'm also using specs atm which is super good, it 2hkos Ho-Oh and pretty much nothing wants to switch into it. You can also run sets like HP Poison/Fmiss/Knock off/HP Rock if you wanna be creative or lure in specific threats. This has its own ways to get rid of the stuff which wall it. I'm using too much balance atm and its extremely hard to check this.

Heres how my 'ideal' VR will look like. I decided to attach this because the post was fairly long and I totally get it if you didnt want to read 1500+ words of broken english LOL.

VR

S Rank

S
Xerneas
Zacian-Crowned
Yveltal

A Rank
A+
Groudon-Primal
Ho-Oh
Necrozma-Dusk-Mane
Zygarde-Complete

A
Eternatus
Gengar-Mega
Rayquaza-Mega
Necrozma-Ultra

A-

Arceus-Ground
Ditto
Lunala
Zekrom

B Rank
B+

Arceus-Ghost

Arceus

Arceus-Water
Mewtwo
Kyogre-Primal
Smeargle
Tyranitar
Vivillon

B
Deoxys-Speed
Excadrill
Ferrothorn
Gothitelle
Lugia
Mewtwo-Mega-Y

B-

Arceus-Fire

Arceus-Rock

Arceus-Dark
Deoxys-Attack
Kartana
Marshadow
Naganadel
Shuckle
Grimmsnarl

C Rank

Arceus-Flying
Blastoise-Mega
Blissey
Chansey
Kyogre
Giratina
Quagsire
Sableye-Mega
Shedinja

D Rank
Aerodactyl
Amoonguss

Arceus-Poison
Dugtrio
Groudon
Kyurem-Black
Magearna
Wobbuffet

 

[Kate]

Lunala to A-
while making the VR I was under the impression that CM Z sets are still very good but thats rlly not the case. Any form of offensive lunala is really mediocre and I also dont think that the defensive set is really good now, youre getting hard walled by Ho-Oh and struggle to beat defensive dm as well because they always run knock off. also a set up fodder for yveltal or xerneas which is a big yikes.

While I agree defensive sets are not where we thought they would be at the beginning of the gen, having played around with offensive luna I have to assume you're playing some whack players. No darkceus and ttar being used rather sparingly means specs luna can p much claim a kill every single game, like sure you can send in yve but one wrong predict and its dead, can't even be trapped by gar so its very hard to revenge, and still works as an option to dynamax. It deserves to stay in A.

Theres stuff like Amoonguss which might actually be a decent pick depending on your team's requirements (checks the best offensive mon in AG and also a few other relevant special attackers like POgre)

I'm sorry, this isn't a reason for a rank. Checking "the best offensive mon" is smth a lot of pokemon did last gen and never got ranked. Xern isn't even being used in a fourth of higher end ladder teams, and pogre is much lower than that. It requires such a crazy amount of support to use that it ends up not even being remotely worth it. Not to mention it's the definition of passive as fuck. Like ik Chloe is on council but you can't just arbitrarily decide to rank dogshit like this. Checking like, three mons and losing to every other top tier pokemon is not viable in the least. to UR.

Anyway, I know I touched on naga in my first post, but after testing it a bit, I am honestly baffled on why it's even ranked. As a dynamax abuser? Why would I ever use this over kartana, yveltal, xern, thundy? It's so stupidly prediction reliant because of it's STABs that I can't fathom why you would ever choose this. Would you use it for coverage options? Oh wait, we have something called eternatus which completely outclasses it. As a Z move Abuser? Zacian being so common means it struggles to get even one kill. Its bulk is so pitifully weak and struggles to find any real set up opportunities. Its easily revenged by ditto and just seems so garbage. You're not ever using this on a serious team.
B- to UR

I also played around 20 ~ 30 games with thundy yesterday and won all of them. If this isn't ranked then smth is wrong with y'all lol, shit is insanely powerful.

 

[Chloe]

These are my opinions on the current nominations, not the list of changes; we'll vote upon all of these within the next week. I'll order this post with the nominations I agree with most up the top, leading down to the nominations I think are outlandish. Additionally, I have a few nominations of my own to throw into the arena.

Strongly Agree

B to C/D
This Pokemon is borderline useless in the current metagame, it really isn't something I'd ever want to add on a team. Demote it to D straight away. I would push for unranked but I believe it can perhaps justify D; however, either is completely fine for me.

UR to B-/C/D
I'd say not including base forme Zacian was an oversight on our part. It hits hard, it has excellent coverage, both Choice Scarf and Choice Band have suitable niches, and potentially Swords Dance Z-move sets can sneak their way into the meta. I wouldn't want to rank this too high but C+ at least is fair honestly.

C- to D
I've never ever liked this Pokemon in any iteration of AG. Not the ORAS Diancie/Sableye + Shedinja cores, not the mid to late Gen 7 stalls. Gen 8, it had potential though, with the ability to counter DMax Xerneas, but now every single Geomancy Xerneas runs Hidden Power Fire, and the Pokemon it can still check i.e Kyogre aren't prevalent enough to really justify running this.

B to B-/C/D
I really do not like Kyurem-Black. Despite having nice BoltBeam coverage it still has to rely on an unreliable STAB, and even once set up, seems almost completely outclassed by Zekrom. I can see why you'd use it, but I can't see why you'd ever want to. Something like C- makes complete sense to me.

UR to B-/C
Yes. Grimmsnarl is such a reliable screen setter. Taunt + Thunder Wave are good crippling options for a) Defoggers and b) constant switching to attempt to waste screen turns. It just works. I'm fine with whatever but I'm glad this nomination was made.

UR to C/D
After using it for a bit I have to agree that Thundurus-Therian is quite good this generation, especially when so many people are relying on Ditto to blanket check set up. I did have issues setting up Nasty Plot at times against more offensive builds but I always claimed at least one victim. The calcs in MDB's post speak for themselves. I'd support C.

C to UR
Okay, I understand why you'd use it, but that doesn't mean you should. There's only so much you can do with a passive Pressure Pokemon without status that only sort of checks what it intends to check. I'd never want to run this over Skarmory.

D to UR
Kyurem-White has always been trash and this generation is no different. You can potentially build around it but it's not viable enough to justify a VR spot.

D to UR
Reshiram is not aided by DD. Its Choice Scarf set is not a good check to Zacian-C. It's bad.

B- to D/UR
Even in Marshadow meta, I hated this Pokemon. I've never believed it lived up to the hype people were giving it. Now that Marshadow isn't prominent anymore, it needs to go down. It can sort of check Eternatus but at that point you might as well just run HDB Ho-Oh. TSpikes, pivoting, Haze, etc = D is fine I guess.

(Flying) C+ to D
Yea, this thing is weak and not good and it smells bad.

Agree

C+ to UR
Celesteela sees no usage and is in the category of "Pokemon that just consistently get worse". Why would I want to run Celesteela anymore?

B- to C
Yea, as much as I try to justify Chansey, it just doesn't cut it anymore. It requires Max HP / SpDef to adequately check Xerneas, and that makes it much weaker to a lot of other things. It doesn't really reliably check anything anymore and Stall teams are just starting to go without it.

(Normal) A- to B+
EKiller is still good, don't get me wrong, but not A- good. B+ is fine.

B- to UR
Yea, I get it. It's just not as good as last generation. It really struggles with how the metagame is shaped at the moment, with the prevalence of HDB Ho-Oh, support Necrozma-DM and just overall bulkier archetypes being more common.

(Dark) B+ to B/B-
I agree.

A+ to S/S-
Here's the thing, I'm bordering neutral here. I think Yveltal is probably better than everything else in A+ but I think it would be really inaccurate to rank it on the same rank as Xerneas. S- really makes sense to me here.

(Water) A- to B+/B
It's fallen off in viability but I'm bordering neutral with this one. I kinda agree but I really don't have a strong opinion on it.

Abstain

A to A+
I don't know. On one hand, Offense has only gotten worse since the VR went up and Mega Gengar thrives off of that, but I'm unsure if I see it as that much better a Pokemon in practice. I've never had an issue with Mega Gengar. It forces you to play a certain way. I don't know I guess. I really want to see the metagame evolve and perhaps strategies such as SpikeStack + Encore NP MGar to abuse removal can develop. I just think the playerbase isn't really using MGar to its fullest potential right now.

A to A+
Kind of. I don't know. Ugh. I'm really on the fence with this one. On one hand I think defensive sets are still quite good and offensive sets still have their place. It doesn't seem anywhere near as good as last gen, but admittely I've just seen a lot less of it. I'll abstain.

(Steel) B- to UR
I still believe defensive Steelceus has its place in the metagame, albeit I don't know where that is and I haven't seen it at all. Abstain bordering disagree.

A to A-
I really like defensive sets I always have, and I still think offensive sets are really potent, but I just don't know if it's as good as the rest of A.

Disagree

A- to A
Ditto has kind of fallen off. People often build their teams preparing for it, and its favourite target: Zacian-C's usage has gone down. A- is fine.

B+ to A-
B+ is accurate to me, I don't really see it as an A- Pokemon. It just sorta struggles.

B to A
I'm getting tired writing about now but I never ever see this and it never ever does anything of value in every game I've played against it. This is something I don't feel as strong about however as again, I 've barely seen it at all.

(Fire) B- to B
B- is fair, not B. It's not something I'd want to bring to a serious match and I'd even consider lowering it.

S to S-/A+
Zacian-C is still great and still the potent threat it always was. I kind of see where this nomination is coming from and I'm inclined to think perhaps S- is justifiable, but it's still S in my eyes.

A+ to A
No. MRay is still potent. People are preparing for it a lot less and it still functions the same way it always did.

(Fairy) C to D/UR
Eh, it's still okay.

C+ to UR
Skarmory is still a solid Pokemon. I can see lowering it, but unranking seems like a stretch.

Strongly Disagree

(Ground) A to A-/B+
Okay, no. Support Arceus-Ground is a very very good Pokemon in the current metagame. It checks so many common threats, has good utility options, pressures Pokemon that are seeing even more usage nowadays. Then there's sleeping on Swords Dance which is so good while Dynamaxed, there's the Calm Mind sets which can run Max coverage now to bop Ho-Oh. Arceus-Ground is really really good and I implore whoever made this nomination to try using it more. I believe this nomination is misinformed to say the least.

B+ to A
Mewtwo on paper looks great. Nasty Plot + Max Airstream, with its huge Special Attack and Speed stats, what could go wrong. In practice however, Mewtwo falls flat. It's a good Dynamax Pokemon sure, but when it comes to it, it just isn't as good as the Pokemon in A at all. B+ suits it well, and isn't really an insult. It's a good Pokemon and its treated that way with the rank it already has. There's no need to raise this.

D to B-
"Suicide Lead Dugtrio". You're 'avin a laugh my guy. The only reason I'd want to run this is trapping ever, that's what it does. Once you turn it in to a suicide lead, it's outclassed by stuff like Excadrill, like Deoxys-S, like Aerodactyl.

D to UR
Giratina is still great on stall and possibly worth C-. This nomination misses the mark stating that Giratina relies on Pressure+Defog to be a valuable Pokemon but this couldn't be further from the facts. It's still a super bulky Pokemon, it still spreads status, it still checks Ho-Oh and other various Pokemon rather well. It definitely justifies D at least.

D to UR
Don't single me out for this!!! I'm not the one who even put it on the VR initially. That being said, this Pokemon is good, it's probably the best Xerneas check in the metagame, it's a solid repeated switchin to Kyogre, it switches in to stuff like Eternatus repeatedly, it can repeatedly switch in to almost any special attacker in the metagame bar like Yveltal and Mewtwo. It's not as passive as you think it is either, it doesn't allow stuff like Mega Rayquaza and Mega Gengar in due to Foul Play, it is able to poison Pokemon that repeatedly switch in on it with Sludge Bomb. A much smaller point but it pairs well with Ho-Oh, when you're trying to rack up passive recovery on the opponent and potentially outlast stall. Your argument falls flat and it seems as if you've not used Amoonguss in the current metagame. I implore you to at least try it, as I have personally found it to be quite good. I'm of course biased though.

My Nominations

These aren't going to be normal, that would be boring.

UR to D
You could use a standard screen setter, but the ability to offensively pressure whole entire opposing teams while also setting up screens is something people should be paying attention to. I would never rank this any higher than D but in my time using it, I've been really impressed by how much it dismantles opposing teams early and how many people struggle and don't know what to do about it. The replays explain this better than I possibly could.

Content warning: I play like trash.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048318607
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048322030
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048323567

UR to D
Melmetal is really interesting to me. It has more physical bulk than Giratina, a super high attack stat, and it has a really nice signature in Double Iron Bash. I've been using this set.

Melmetal @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Double Iron Bash
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Rest

It's great support on balance builds. I can use it to remove Smeargle, Vivillon, Deoxys-S in one hit; it soft checks Necrozma-DM, Zacian-C and other potent attackers. It can also be used in the late game to establish a defensive wall that really has trouble with near nothing. There's other possibilities with Melmetal but this is the set I've liked the most so far. I want people to try it more than anything as I feel like a lot of people have just glanced over it without giving it a chance, but I truly believe it is viable.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048276414 (didn't do much here but i thought i'd include it regardless)

D to C-
I believe regular offensive Groudon is consistenly underrated. I was running Choice Scarf for a while to answer Zacian-C but I've been seeing Rock Polish Dynamax have consistency as well. Great offensive typing, good coverage and solid bulk, Groudon has a lot going for it. There's also the lead set which I still insist is viable but that's just not as potent at the moment as offensive sets.

Thanks for reading my post, sorry for boring you out of your mind.

 

[IronedSandwich]

Once you turn it in to a suicide lead, it's outclassed by stuff like Excadrill, like Deoxys-S, like Aerodactyl.

I've already said why I don't think Dugtrio is outclassed by Deoxys: Substitute + EQ is a reliable way to beat Smeargle, Memento is good momentum control. You could theorymon a DeoS set with Substitute + an attack (maybe Psycho Boost or Psychic) but the lack of Memento, lack of Arena Trap and certainly less useful coverage means after you have hazards up you'll basically be left behind a substitute waiting for your opponent to do things.

Arena Trap is nice because it means they can't bring in one mon to Taunt or Spore you and another to set up, or back out of a bad opening matchup.

Excadrill has a speed stat of 88, giving it fewer turns to do anything in, and can get a move in before Spore but can't do anything about it. Mega Sableye is not a thing this gen. The only reason Excadrill doesn't deserve lower is that there aren't many other options for hazard control leads.

Aerodactyl can click Taunt and risk Magic Coat mindgames the same as non-Magic Coat DeoS but not do anything else about getting Spored. It also doesn't hit very hard, based on the most common -1760 set:

252 Atk Aerodactyl Rock Tomb vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Deoxys-Speed: 93-111 (30.5 - 36.5%) -- 57.6% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Aerodactyl Rock Tomb vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Groudon-Primal: 57-67 (16.7 - 19.6%) -- guaranteed 6HKO

252+ Atk Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Deoxys-Speed: 163-193 (53.6 - 63.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO for comparison

 

[pichus]

wanted to dedicate an entire post just to bitch about groundceus but MDB and Chloe made some well reasoned nominations so i figured that I should reply to those so that the post doesnt sound too mean

While I agree defensive sets are not where we thought they would be at the beginning of the gen, having played around with offensive luna I have to assume you're playing some whack players. No darkceus and ttar being used rather sparingly means specs luna can p much claim a kill every single game, like sure you can send in yve but one wrong predict and its dead, can't even be trapped by gar so its very hard to revenge, and still works as an option to dynamax. It deserves to stay in A.

disagree with this. Specs lunala does fine vs balance (I think you still cant break through Ho-Oh + Zygarde/Supportceus cores though) but it really struggles to perform well vs HO teams because of its low speed tier, and without HDB or sufficient bulk you cant rlly take hits from Zacian/Ray/Don/other threats. If youre locked into Ice beam/Fmiss you might be a set up fodder for some of the common mons on HO. Again I dont mean to say its bad, I really like using it too but everything in A rank is just much better :[. also id like to point out that ttar is good and fairly common. Just bcz its not a thing on ladder doesnt mean its bad lol.

I'm sorry, this isn't a reason for a rank. Checking "the best offensive mon" is smth a lot of pokemon did last gen and never got ranked. Xern isn't even being used in a fourth of higher end ladder teams, and pogre is much lower than that. It requires such a crazy amount of support to use that it ends up not even being remotely worth it. Not to mention it's the definition of passive as fuck. Like ik Chloe is on council but you can't just arbitrarily decide to rank dogshit like this. Checking like, three mons and losing to every other top tier pokemon is not viable in the least. to UR.

Theres just so many things wrong with this part. Firstly I feel like the comparision to gen7 is really unfair. Gen7 AG and Gen8 National dex AG are entirely different metas. This isnt the main point but I'll still go over it anyway. The best offensive mon (I'm gonna assume mega rayquaza) was walled/soft checked by lots of viable things which could be used on any team, like pretty much every supportceus, zygarde, skarmory, tyranitar, non scarf/dd sets got revenged by gengar or marsh and almost every scarfer. Also got revenge killed by plethora of other offensive threats like Marshadow, Unecro, fast supportceus and Ekiller because of which it wasnt extremely hard to beat it and you could totally just get away with not running a consistent check (not like it had consistent checks anyway, but the point is that the 2 pokemon core which u ran to beat rayquaza were usually the staple mons) unless your team was extremely passive. Im pretty sure that skarph, zen and most other top players ran just marsh/gar paired with a supportceus and were never troubled too much by it. This is why the need to rank a mediocre ray check was never required (they ranked solrock at one point but it got unranked right after) because the niche of checking the best offensive threat wasnt huge enough because the staple mons in the meta already kinda did it. This gen theres *really limited* checks to the best offensive mon (aka Xern). Theres Dusk mane which is the most viable option, Amoonguss, Chansey, Magnemite anddd thats about it (not gonna include Ditto because it isnt really reliable as it has to win the speed tie if it cant stall xern out of dynamax turns. but I really hope im not missing some other important mon). And you really just cannot make a team without one of these. So imo checking the biggest offensive threat in the meta is a much more valuable quality this gen since really few mons do it and actually do other things as well.

Back to the nom. I really dont think that youve actually used Amoonguss. Yes its a bit passive but it definitely does not give free switchins to anything relevant and the fact that it doesnt get trapped by gar is also really cool. The set it runs is Grass Knot / Foul Play / Sludge Bomb / Clear Smog with Assault Vest, max max hp spdef. You can fish for poisons vs Pdon, Yveltal and Ho-Oh switch ins, get decent chip with Foul Play vs Zacian, Rayquaza, Lunala and Gar and Grass knot does solid damage to Pogre, Waterceus and Groundceus. I didnt wanna say all this in my earlier post because the amoonguss mention was just a little example but I figured that i should justify what I said since you brought it up. Chloe explained this better so you might wanna give that a read ^^. Speaking of which, all the council members agreed to rank this when the VR was initially made. And I think its pretty obvious that nothing gets on VR unless majority of the council members agree to have it there.
yes i did oppose this nom yesterday in council chat but i realised later that i used this and got really good results. infact my first good gen8 team ever was an amoonguss stall.

Anyway, I know I touched on naga in my first post, but after testing it a bit, I am honestly baffled on why it's even ranked. As a dynamax abuser? Why would I ever use this over kartana, yveltal, xern, thundy? It's so stupidly prediction reliant because of it's STABs that I can't fathom why you would ever choose this. Would you use it for coverage options? Oh wait, we have something called eternatus which completely outclasses it. As a Z move Abuser? Zacian being so common means it struggles to get even one kill. Its bulk is so pitifully weak and struggles to find any real set up opportunities. Its easily revenged by ditto and just seems so garbage. You're not ever using this on a serious team.
B- to UR

I also played around 20 ~ 30 games with thundy yesterday and won all of them. If this isn't ranked then smth is wrong with y'all lol, shit is insanely powerful.

honestly I couldnt care less if naganadel is ranked or not but youre being a bit harsh on it. Its definitely not as useless as you think it is and can still murder unprepared balances/HOs. but yea i seriously wouldnt mind if this got unranked.

I didnt talk about the Thundurus-T nom because I wrote up everything in my previous post other than the 'S rank' part before you made the nomination post and I forgot to add in the thundurs later. I agree with everything you said in the post. D sounds too unreasonable but C+ (if the C ranks dont merge) or B- sounds fair >:)

UR to D
You could use a standard screen setter, but the ability to offensively pressure whole entire opposing teams while also setting up screens is something people should be paying attention to. I would never rank this any higher than D but in my time using it, I've been really impressed by how much it dismantles opposing teams early and how many people struggle and don't know what to do about it. The replays explain this better than I possibly could.

Content warning: I play like trash.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048318607
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048322030
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048323567

UR to D
Melmetal is really interesting to me. It has more physical bulk than Giratina, a super high attack stat, and it has a really nice signature in Double Iron Bash. I've been using this set.

Melmetal @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Double Iron Bash
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Rest

It's great support on balance builds. I can use it to remove Smeargle, Vivillon, Deoxys-S in one hit; it soft checks Necrozma-DM, Zacian-C and other potent attackers. It can also be used in the late game to establish a defensive wall that really has trouble with near nothing. There's other possibilities with Melmetal but this is the set I've liked the most so far. I want people to try it more than anything as I feel like a lot of people have just glanced over it without giving it a chance, but I truly believe it is viable.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1048276414 (didn't do much here but i thought i'd include it regardless)

D to C-
I believe regular offensive Groudon is consistenly underrated. I was running Choice Scarf for a while to answer Zacian-C but I've been seeing Rock Polish Dynamax have consistency as well. Great offensive typing, good coverage and solid bulk, Groudon has a lot going for it. There's also the lead set which I still insist is viable but that's just not as potent at the moment as offensive sets.

Thanks for reading my post, sorry for boring you out of your mind.

I'm gonna be entirely honest, I havent built with anything on this list except lapras so thats the only one im gonna comment on.
Lapras is surprisingly a decent pick. Its really annoying to face unless you have a pdon, you cant status it with toxic, cant beat it with Ho-Oh, nothing OHKOs it when its gmaxed and isnt too passive because it does ok damage to most things. The only problem with this is that you have to make sure that nothing on your team relies on Dynamax to be good (I'm looking at you, Yveltal) so the teambuilding part can be a bit tricky. Other than that its fine and good enough to be ranked imo.
I've actually seen Groudon in action but I dont know if a raise is necessary especially if we merge the C ranks. I'm really iffy on melmetal though. Its an anti cheese mon but idk if thats good enough to give it a spot on VR. I'd like to see some replays/a team around these before giving my views on them but atm its a no. Speaking of anti cheese I think that Dragpult might be a slightly better version of this. It gets fast screens. dragon darts and U-Turn. but again im not sure, I havent used it and never will because I'm extra uncreative. just my 2 cents though.

(Ground) A to A-/B+
Okay, no. Support Arceus-Ground is a very very good Pokemon in the current metagame. It checks so many common threats, has good utility options, pressures Pokemon that are seeing even more usage nowadays. Then there's sleeping on Swords Dance which is so good while Dynamaxed, there's the Calm Mind sets which can run Max coverage now to bop Ho-Oh. Arceus-Ground is really really good and I implore whoever made this nomination to try using it more. I believe this nomination is misinformed to say the least.

I'd normally not reply to this because youre just giving your own opinion but since its kinda aimed at me I figured that I should.
firstly I'm really not sleeping or underrating the offensive sets in any way, my nomination only criticized the support set and towards the end I did admit that the CM and SD sets are still as good as they were before and its just that the newer threats are straight up better (I really hope we all agree that Geo Xern, Yveltal and Eternatus are better than Special Groundceus and Physical is worse than Zacian, Zygarde and maybe Rayquaza). Regardless of how good the offensive sets are, its pretty evident in the post that the main reason I want Groundceus to drop is just because of its support set. I did say that I havent used the SD/CM sets too much and I think its really obvious that I wouldve nommed it to something lower than A-/B+ if I actually thought that the offensive sets are garbage as well. Why should something with bad offensive sets AND bad defensive set stay in A-? My apologies if I didnt make it too clear that the main focus of the nomination was the support set (had over 1000 words) and not the offensive sets (2 sets combined 40ish words) but I thought that was too self explanatory.
Now onto the support set, I'm REALLY not sure which 'common threats' groundceus is checking. I talked about every relevant threat in my post but I'll still give a detailed explaination of why it sucks vs every common threat again.
I'm also gonna go ahead and assume that the 'common threats' are those above A- ranks. Checking Rockceus, Steelceus and Fireceus really doesnt make it very very good.

And I'll also assume that the Groundceus set is

Arceus-Ground @ Earth Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Judgment
- Ice Beam / Toxic
- Recover
- Defog / Stealth Rock / Toxic

Run Wisp over Toxic (or Ice Beam) and congrats youre now the *biggest* liability in Pokemon history vs any sort Ho-Oh balance (most common playstyle atm)! and made yourself more vulnerable to Yveltal, Xerneas, Lunala and Supportceus!!! (Supportceus Toxics you and you... Wisp them. This is the worst trade ever).

lets just also assume that these first few are 1v1s, which are actually the best possible scenarios for Groundceus because it cant switch into any of the S rank mons. also id assume that you guys are smart enough to know this but keep in mind that in practice its gonna be even harder for groundy to beat any of the following mons. You guys are using it to check so many common threats and as a pivot to passive stuff, youre bound to get chipped or statused. before someone drops the 'this wall of calcs is irrelevant', its actually the fairest way to determine if it checks something or not, and is favouring groundceus if anything because in practice the groundceus is almost never going to be entirely healthy.


+1 252+ Atk Zacian-Crowned Behemoth Blade (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 211-249 (47.5 - 56%) -- 81.6% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 270-318 (83 - 97.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

groundceus fails to beat Zacian in a 1v1 scenario 80% of the time. Its also pretty obvious that you also cant reliably switch into it.


0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Xerneas: 153-181 (38.9 - 46%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
doesnt do good damage, you can just toxic but thats rlly not helping. you know what xern does after this;;


0 SpA Arceus-Ground Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Yveltal: 154-182 (39.1 - 46.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Dark Aura Yveltal Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ground: 214-253 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 91% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Yveltal Oblivion Wing vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ground: 161-191 (36.2 - 43%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Yveltal can just not dynamax and still beat Groundceus. You cant even toxic because yveltal taunts you.


0 SpA Arceus-Ground Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 52 SpD Ho-Oh: 51-60 (12.2 - 14.4%) -- possibly the worst move ever
yeah nvm



defensive
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 153-181 (38.4 - 45.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
NDM Toxics you and spams Morning Sun

offensive
its really obvious that no one is gonna set up with DM vs a healthy groundceus .-. and Groundceus cannot beat DM after it hits +1

both not dynamaxed
+1 252 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Sunsteel Strike vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 180-213 (40.5 - 47.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 211-249 (62.9 - 74.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
weakness policy is activated and its over for groundceus

both dynamaxed
turn 1: necrozma dusk mane max quakes, arceus ground max quakes (ndm gets +1 spdef boost and +2 attack boost)
+1 252 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 157-185 (22.9 - 27%) -- 48.1% chance to 4HKO
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 181-216 (34.2 - 40.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

turn 2: ndm max quakes again, arceus ground max quakes again (ndm gets to +2 spdef boost)
+3 252 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 260-307 (38 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. +2 0 HP / 4 SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 136-162 (25.7 - 30.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

turn 3: max guard or max steelpike, doesnt matter at this point
+3 252 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Sunsteel Strike vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 390-460 (57 - 67.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


(nothing switches into mega rayquaza so lets assume a 1v1 scenario again)
252+ Atk Life Orb Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 230-270 (51.8 - 60.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Arceus-Ground Ice Beam vs. -1 0 HP / 0 SpD Rayquaza-Mega in Strong Winds: 226-268 (64.3 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(note that if its draco mega ray you really have no chance)
scarf is walled by toooo many things anyway so ill not talk about that


finally something it actually beats!! but im just gonna ignore the fact that don can toxic you and then switch out, rest of the mons on the team pressure tf out of you which gives you a hard time (keep this in mind, ill use this in the zygarde and gar part). And Overheat sets have good chance at getting rid of groundceus. 0 SpA Groudon-Primal Overheat vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Ground in Harsh Sunshine: 255-301 (57.4 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

anyway id argue that zygarde is a far better don check. speaking of which,


gonna leave this one out because none of us know how the zygarde-complete dynamax tech is supposed to work. if it is supposed to regain HP i really dont think that groundy can beat it. but otherwise it does so theres that. also keep in mind that since youre using groundceus to check 'so many common threats' and is 'used as a pivot into various things' theres a high chance that something might toxic you (don hooh or dm mostly). everyone knows what ddance zygarde does to a toxicd mon lol.


+1 252+ Atk Necrozma-Ultra Light That Burns The Sky vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 415-490 (93.4 - 110.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
0 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Necrozma-Ultra: 154-183 (45.9 - 54.6%) -- 55.9% chance to 2HKO


also loses to groundceus but keep in mind that you cant switch into it


tbf everything (not exaggerating, literally everything) after A- beat this 1v1. but realise that groundceus has to recover/defog/toxic plenty of times when youre playing vs teams built around gar so you theres a big chance that u get trapped.


im tired of copy pasting calcs. but specs does too much to groundy and +1 z most definitely ohkos it.


do i really have to?

conclusion:

List of mons which beat support Groundceus in 1v1 scenarios *every* time:


again, please keep in mind that the 1v1 scenario is actually the most ideal scenario for arceus-ground and perhaps the worst for the offensive threat since the mon hasnt actually set up yet. its also fair to say that groundceus is a set up fodder for these mons

List of mons support Groundceus cant switch into, or cant beat after they set up:
(cant switch into) (cant beat after set up)

List of mons support Groundceus actually beats

and as I said earlier, these 3 have their own ways to get rid of it

even if they cant, very evidently this is not checking 'so many common threats' in the meta. its more of a liability than help.

As I said earlier, Ho-Oh/Lunala/Giratina are just much better defoggers. And defogging isnt a big issue anyway unless theres a Toxic Spikes or Spikes user. In that case Ho-Oh and Lunala are better options because they dont take entry hazard damage and dont chip themself to a point that u can basically switch into nothing (groundceus already cant switch into anything so this isnt helping loool).

Stealth Rock users without Toxic are extremely mediocre since you give free defogs to every defogger. Arceus cant afford to run Toxic + Rocks since it has no real way to damage rayquaza or zygarde then. Plus youre getting walled by fog Ho-Oh anyway. Don is a much better rocker. So is Toxic Rocks Waterceus since it can actually do something to ho-oh

and no im really not the one whos 'misinformed'

im pretty exhausted so ill end it here
any questions lmk
Groundceus to A- incase you guys forgot lol

 

[Kate]

So uh, A rank is really weird ngl. I have a problem with half of the mons in there and others have brought up points about more. I'm going to try and change it with how I think it should be while also respecting other people's opinions.

First off, drop both Eternatus and Lunala. Etern is one of the best wallbreakers in the tier but from my experience playing against and with it, it really relies on heavy predicts and sacks to get in. Imo it fits an A- mon much more, Medium risk, high reward. This isn't a mon you can consistently slap on teams, you kinda need to build around it. That being said, Luna deserves to go if etern does, not on the same level as other A rank mons.

Keep Groundceus. SD sets are super underexplored and Stone Edge support sets make ho-oh a liability. Hasn't been explored enough imo to warrant a drop, one of the best glue mons rn.

Keep Mgar and Ultra. They are p much the perfect A rank mons rn and I see no reason to move them.

Move Mray to A. Yeah, I don't like to see this but defensive dmax screws so many chances of wallbreaking and sweeping, and scarf is weak af lol.

Move Zygarde up. Fucking fantastic as always, doesn't get prepped for and no fairceus means ddance sets are even better than gen 7 imo.

I believe this fixes a lot of the problems while being as accurate as possible. I get eternatus is p controversial but I don't see it in A, agility sets still suck and defensive sets seem like why bother.

A





If both arcs in A- get moved down (they should) you keep the same number of mons in A- and A+.

Lemme know thoughts on this and what you would change around.

 

[Pigeons]

Just gonna drop some thoughts / noms here even though most of what I feel like saying has been addressed.


Yveltal A+ -> S
Yeah for sure. This has been covered by others but this thing is a fucking monster that can tech around pretty much any check. Balance being the main playstyle right now is awesome for it since it can just blow holes in it with Dynamax. I don't have much to add but if you've played vs this you likely know just how scary it can be.


Zygarde-C A -> A+
Other people have covered this pretty well but it should definitely rise imo. Still one of the best physical walls that doesn't give a crap about all the status being thrown around. Not much else to say, it's really good at not dying and stuff like supportceus being much worse helps the DD set a lot too (haven't used it much myself though)


Rayquaza-Mega A+ -> A
Again, other people have pretty much covered this. The metagame is pretty rough to Scarf Mega Rayquaza (almost every team has 3-4 switchins naturally), and offensive sets don't get as many chances to shine due to being unable to Dynamax and being relatively easy to revenge kill. Overall Ray really isn't a metagame staple like the other members of A+ nor is it as threatening as them in most cases, so a drop to A seems fair.


Necrozma-Ultra A to B+
I was super hyped for DD UNecro like many people, but this mon definitely needs to drop a fair bit. UNecro doesn't really suffer from being bad, the biggest problem is that Dusk Mane is just so damn good in the current metagame and giving it up means you're almost always going to be weak to Xerneas. UNecro's problems don't really end there, Lunala is very common and a plethora of soft checks (Physdef UNecro, Zyg-C, Physdef PDon) make it really hard for UNecro to actually do work. Yes, Dawn Wings is a possible base for UNecro, but UNecro itself isn't really powerful enough to justify that. Overall it's just a super awkward mon to build around and the payoff doesn't really justify all the extra work, so I think it should drop at least to B+.

Arceus-Ground A -> A-
Pretty mixed on this one but leaning yes. Groundceus is still the best Arc form by far in the metagame but supportceus really aren't that amazing right now. It's very easy to pivot into given the prevalence of Ho-Oh and doesn't enjoy the high power level of the metagame. Hesitant mainly because it can still threaten a lot of really popular mons and I think other options are underexplored, but I think a drop makes sense for now.


Arceus A- -> B+ / B
The meta just isn't that kind to poor EKiller. ESpeed doesn't revenge kill many notable threats with most sweepers abusing Dynamax, most teams just naturally have options to take this on. EKiller isn't a fantastic user of Dynamax itself and only really shines on offensive archetypes, with those being much weaker in the current metagame I think a drop makes sense.

Arceus-Dark B+ -> C
Xerneas / Zacian-C food, doesn't really check much since it can't actually beat Yveltal and offensive Necro isn't really relevant. Support sets struggle, CM Refresh sets aren't great, overall Darkceus just doesn't fit well into the current metagame.


Kyurem-Black B -> C
While Zekrom is quite good in my experience, KyuB is not. It can't hit Steels well, lacks a consistent Ice STAB without consuming Dynamax, doesn't really set up vs anything, etc. Don't have much else to add but I think most people who have tried to use this / played against this can agree it's not very good.


Gothitelle B -> B-
Gothitelle's favourite target of supportceus have declined a lot in the current metagame. While balance is fairly common (which would theoretically be great for Goth), a lot of the common glues there aren't readily trapped by Goth. Goth isn't useless but it's more on the level of the niche stuff in B- in my opinion.

Not gonna comment endlessly on stuff below B- but Fairyceus can probably drop and some stuff there can go UR / D. Thundy-T seems rankworthy given how much it can eat up balance with NP + Max Airstream.

 

[Chloe]

VR Update Time!

A lot of nominations to start off the generation, there were upwards of 50 nominations made, focusing on 44 different Pokemon. Given the large number of nominations, we wanted to vote on these as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this means Bacon and Pigeons were unable to vote this time around. We've had Catalystic help in the voting process instead. Additionally, due to the lack of Pokemon and minimal difference in viability between Pokemon in the lower half of the VR list, we've merged C subranks together into one rank. Here are the nominations that made it through, and the ones that didn't.

Updates
Yveltal | A+ to S-
Zacian-Crowned | S to S-
Zygarde-Complete | A to A+
Rayquaza-Mega | A+ to A
Arceus-Ground | A to A-
Necrozma-Ultra | A to B+
Arceus-Water | A- to B+
Zekrom | B to B+
Kyurem-Black | B to C
Arceus-Dark | B+ to B-
Magearna | B to D
Grimmsnarl | UR to B-
Zacian (Base) | UR to C
Arceus-Steel | B- to UR
Corviknight | C- to UR
Kyurem-White | D to UR
Reshiram | D to UR
Giratina | C to D
Toxapex | B- to D
Skarmory | C+ to D
Celesteela | C+ to UR
Shedinja | C- to D
Arceus-Flying | C+ to D
Chansey | B- to C
Arceus | A- to B+/B
Lunala | A to A-
Naganadel | B- to D
Thundurus-Therian | UR to C/D B-
Gothitelle | B to B-

Rejected Nominations

Kyogre-Primal | B+ to A-
Ditto | A- to A
Gengar-Mega | A to A+/A-
Arceus-Fire | B- to B
Xerneas | S to A+
Arceus-Poison | D to C-
Whimsicott | UR to D
Mewtwo | B+ to A
Dugtrio | D to B-
Arceus-Fairy | C to D/UR
Amoonguss | D to UR
Lapras | UR to D
Melmetal | UR to D
Groudon | D to C-
Eternatus | A to A-

The viability ranking looks far more accurate than it did initially, as I feel the majority of the nominations made this time around were fair and even most of the ones that didn't make it had logical reasoning behind them, so I really appreciate that. That being said, I'll comment on why nominations passed, and give a brief overview of my thoughts.

Zacian-C and Yveltal are both excellent Pokemon, that we and the community believes through their posts, are not quite as good as Xerneas currently in the metagame. They're substantially better than the Pokemon in A+, other than potentially Necrozma-DM. Yveltal is beyond excellent at sweeping in Dynamax, with a very noticeable lack of checks. Even Tyranitar, the most common dedicated answer, can be bopped by Max Knuckle off of Focus Blast. It's incredibly difficult to stop, and in my mind definitely justified the jump to S-. Zacian-C on the other hand, has slowly slightly fallen off in viability since the metagame's inception. Groudon-Primal and defensive Necrozma-DM being so so common definitely do not help its case.

Zygarde-C is excellent offensively and defensively as always, with Arceus-Fairy's lack in usage among other various factors helping benefit it. In Dynamax it gains SpD boosts off of Max Quake, which additionally aids its Coil set. It does extremely well against common Pokemon Ho-Oh, Groudon-Primal and Necrozma-DM too. It's in a very good place in the metagame at the moment. Mega Rayquaza on the other hand has a lot of trouble doing what it used to do. It's still great and justifies its place on teams frequently; however, its inability to break through many common archetypes definitely hurts its viability. Generally, it just gets overlooked for other sweepers and wallbreakers in the current metagame.

Arceus-Ground is one I disagreed with personally, but I can see where this point comes from. pichus wrote extensively on this in an above post so I'd encourage you to read that. Necrozma-Ultra is still a great sweeper that doesn't require Dynamax, but its main flaw comes from the requirement of Necrozma-DM requiring to be in its DM forme to deter and defeat Xerneas. You can still run Necrozma-DW into Ultra, but it isn't as threatening and pretty much gives away its set at the beginning of the game.

Other accepted nominations should be fairly self-explanatory. Thundurus-T was nominated for C or D rank, but got boosted to B- due to how much better it is than the remainder of C rank. Grimmsnarl is an excellent screen setter with the utility to back it up. Chansey has issues walling Pokemon it had no issues with previously, and is being commonly excluded on stall due to how stall essentially necessitates better Xerneas checks, and CM/support Arceus is nowadays much more uncommon. Lunala is cool but it's not A.

A lot of the rejected nominations are pretty self-explanatory with a few exceptions potentially. Mewtwo is incredibly hard to justify over other Dynamax Pokemon like Yveltal, with non-Dynamax sets not really being used at all. Amoonguss remaining at D was unanimous, due to how difficult it is to check Xerneas, and how you may potentially want to free up your Necrozma-DM for another purpose, or require a Kyogre and Xerneas answer in one. Kyogre-Primal isn't threatening enough in the current metagame to begin to justify A-; however, this may change as the metagame develops.

See our individual votes here:
Posts #2 to #23
Posts #24 to #33

Thank you for your continued support on bettering the accuracy of the viability rankings in the previous month. I look forward to your future nominations.

 

[Kate]

I look forward to your future nominations.

You've been looking for it, and here it is:

HEATRAN

It's been over a year since Heatran was accepted onto the gen 7 vr. Now, it's time for it to rise again.

So a lot of things have changed in gen 8. Overall, the presence of way more ground moves and lack of support arcs make standard spdef a lot harder to spam. However, I do believe it has a lot more viable sets it can run. The meta being so physically based gives a great opportunity for heatran to run a very good physically defensive set, which is able to do this:
+1 252+ Atk Zacian-Crowned Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chople Berry Heatran: 182-215 (47.1 - 55.6%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. -1 0 HP / 0 SpD Zacian-Crowned: 360-426 (110.7 - 131%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Ho-oh is one of the most prominent pokemon and one of the most annoying to deal with. Heatran is literally a straight up counter:
252+ Atk Choice Band Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Heatran: 111-132 (28.7 - 34.1%) -- 2.3% chance to 3HKO
Even band can't 3hko and no one is running band. Meanwhile, heatran just traps it and wins.

Support Dusk Mane is incredible and even better than last gen. Unfotunately, it can't touch tran:
0 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Heatran: 72-85 (18.6 - 22%) -- possible 5HKO
0 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Heatran: 48-57 (12.4 - 14.7%) -- possible 7HKO

These are huge niches that no other pokemon can reliably do (zygarde is prone to getting worn down)

And scarf mray just loses if it's not surf or eq(these moves suck)
252 Atk Mega Rayquaza Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Heatran: 87-102 (22.5 - 26.4%) -- 20.8% chance to 4HKO

You really don't even need chople since beating zacian shouldn't be a priority. With leftovers, tran can prove to be unkillable when it's facing balance. Not to mention, Spdef sets can still do well.

Xern can't reliably set up on tran since it gets toxiced, as tran can stall it out with it's own dmax. Let's look:
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 117-138 (30.3 - 35.7%) -- 36.6% chance to 3HKO
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran in Electric Terrain: 152-179 (39.3 - 46.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
The first calc actually doesn't matter, as tran max guards on turn 1, flares turn 2, and guards turn 3 again.
Toxic does a total of 57 percent over these turns, and max flare does:
0 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. +2 68 HP / 0 SpD Xerneas: 90-106 (21.9 - 25.8%) -- 2.8% chance to 4HKO
Xerneas dies finishing off heatran 100 percent of the time, or even better, misses thunder.

Lets examine yveltal:
252+ SpA Life Orb Dark Aura Yveltal Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 140-165 (36.2 - 42.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Assuming yveltal maxes, Heatran is able to stall it out of dmax pretty reliably. While you cant land toxic, yveltal w/o speed boosts or dmax is a very manageable threat

Not to mention Eternatus is just beaten, especially if earth power is being run.

Looking down the ranks, tran either counters or checks around half of the mons there. It's able to run different attacking moves, different EV spreads, and different items, giving it actually way more diversity than last gen. Scarf Eruption sets also outspeed ada zacian, and hit like this:
252 SpA Heatran Eruption (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 200 SpD Primal Groudon in Harsh Sun: 164-193 (40.5 - 47.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

With all this being said, I'd say heatran perfectly fits our current D rank (I'd consider it better than almost all of D rank, but not quite on par with C)


UR to D

Beat out.

 

[Icemaster]

A+ to S-

This is just an absolutely insane mon which can run all sorts. The main sets are defensive and dragon dance. Defensive is just too important, with physical defense reliably switching into non Swords Dance Zacian-Crowned without needing to dynamax and switching into Dynamancy Xerneas, being able to decently damage it (46%) and fully stall out its dynamax, making it that much easier for the rest of the team to handle (generally you can go into Ho-oh afterwards and just sacred fire it, you always live thunder with 252/52 and its only 50% to hit. Or Zacian can revenge it given it has enough hp left). Special defense allows you to always beat Xerneas by using your dynamax, at the cost of leaving uou weaker to Zacian-Crowned, so depending on the team you can tailor the set. Solganium Z is also a very viable option for SpDef sets as it lets you usually KO Dynamancy Xerneas after rocks/minimal chip, so you get to defeat it without even dynamaxing, and allowing you to bail out of a Gar trap without dmaxing.

Calcs

+1 252+ Atk Zacian-Crowned Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 160-189 (40.2 - 47.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery, Crunch does the same damage too however it does allow the opponent to fish for either a drop or crit.

0 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Sunsteel Strike vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dynamax Xerneas: 168-200 (42.7 - 50.8%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO. Solganium Z is doing 85.4 to 101.6%.

+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 186-219 (46.7 - 55%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery.

+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 135-160 (33.9 - 40.2%) -- 41% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery.

It's also generally one of the best status spreaders/rockers, typically running toxic/knock off, rocks/toxic, sunsteel and moonlight, and can actually beat Ho-Oh.

The other main set is Offensive, typically running dragon dance, earthquake, sunsteel strike and moonlight/stone edge with Lefties or WP. This is literally the definition of a snowball mon as it is blessed by the fact that its main coverage moves are boosting up def/spdef while WP fits very well and ddance compresses its old double dance set into one moveslot. Moonlight just allows it to setup for days, while stone edge allows you to break hooh. The only real counters to this set are Defensive Zygods and Wisp Defensive Lunala. Weakness Policy also can come into and cleanly defeat Xerneas after dynamaxing and taking a Max Flare, which happens every time as you'd generally expect the defensive dusk mane.

The fact that it can counter both Zacian and Xerneas depending on the set, and its sheer offensive qualities together literally necessitates every good balance team to use it (hence why it has 52% usage, which is more significant as you're forced into running just one), so yeah it definitely fits in S-.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

Absolutely agree with Necrozma being S-. It's arguably the second best Dynamax user in the game (perhaps even above Yveltal). Max Steelspike and Max Quake boosts both it's defenses, and Prism Armor ensures it can tank Super effective moves without breaking a sweat (even after Dynamax is over). After the dynamax defense boosts, it becomes almost unkillable.

Speaking of Prism Armor, it's also the best user of Weakness Policy for that reason, which can pair nicely with Automize/Rock Polish and makes it a fearsome sweeper. If Leftover is preferred over Weakness Policy, it can still setup with Dragon Dance without worrying about getting killed due to its bulk. Its checks (Ho-Oh, Yveltal, Primal Groudon) an't switch into it safely, as they could get KO themselves if weakened due to its fantastic coverage (Earthquake, Rock Blast/Stone Edge). It can also run a stall set with Toxic and Morning Sun due to its bulk, or spread hazard like Stealth Rock. This is simultaneously a tank, wall, wallbreaker and a potential sweeper.

I would nominate it above Zacian-S, and it's arguably as good as Yveltal if not better.

 

[IronedSandwich]

Short post but I'm going back on my opinion on Dugtrio. Although the advantages still apply, it suffers from having nothing it can do if it leads vs Yveltal leaving you in a really awkward position. It's sorta usable as a lead but not really better than Aerodactyl.

edit to avoid double posting

And scarf mray just loses if it's not surf or eq(these moves suck)

I disagree with this point. For choice sets including Scarf EQ is usually the 4th best move once you already have Ascent, V-Create and Espeed. On the latest -1760 VR it's at 53.799%

 

[Pigeons]

Don't have much to say since I've been on hiatus but there are 2 noms I wanted to make real quick

Necrozma-Dusk-Mane A+ -> S-
This nom was already made but I have to give my 2 cents since I 100% support this. NDM is probably the most splashable Pokemon in the current metagame and its inclusion is nearly obligatory. The most obvious reason for this is that it's the best check to Xerneas available while also being a great soft check to Zacian-C. Defensive Dusk Mane also brings great utility to the table: Knock Off is an extremely annoying move to switch into (especially if NDM is also running Toxic), and it's a very solid Stealth Rock user since it can remove Heavy-Duty Boots from Defog Ho-Oh and Lunala. Offensive sets are great as well, DD Weakness Policy is tricky to check given the flexibility it has in its 4th moveslot to cleave through either Ho-Oh or Lunala. Most sets are hard stopped by Zygarde-C, but that's not really the end of the world given that support NDM is the defining set at the moment (so being walled isn't the end of the world).

Compared to the other threats in A+, NDM clearly stands out as head and shoulders above the rest. PDon, Ho-Oh, and Zyg-C are all very strong but aren't nearly as necessary when building nor do they put in the same amount of work that NDM does in an average game. I'd say defensive NDM defines the metagame in a similar way to the threats in S: players have been notably gravitating towards Yveltal over Xerneas because it fares much better against the prevalent NDM builds. Again, offensive sets are very good too and only add to the viability of an already solid pick.

Gothitelle B- -> B+
Yes, I am the one who originally nommed this down. When I nommed this down originally Gothitelle hadn't really appeared on many teams and its former niche had seemingly disappeared, but having experimented with it a bit I think Gothitelle is extremely well-positioned in the current metagame. For reference, here is the set that I think is most effective in the current metagame:

Set Import

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 248 HP / 160 Def / 100 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charm
- Cosmic Power / Substitute
- Rest
- Taunt

The speed investment puts Gothitelle 1 point faster than uninvested Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, which is this set's primary target. Cosmic Power and Substitute are both good options here, Cosmic Power allows Gothitelle to trap multiple things in succession and is a bit more reliable overall, while Substitute insulates Gothitelle against potential crits and allows it to trap defensive Zygarde-C with Dragon Tail. Either works, pick whichever suits the needs of your team better.

If you hadn't figured it out already, the primary draw of this set is that you can hard switch into defensive NDM and eliminate it. Knock Off on the switch does ~50%, after a Charm no subsequent hit should KO Gothitelle provided you don't get crit. Goth's targets aren't limited to NDM, Ho-Oh and Ferrothorn are fairly easy to trap and you have a decent shot at trapping support Groundceus. The main draw of this is the same as any other generation: you can enable massive offensive threats by removing key checks. The best partner in my opinion is Xerneas, since most teams just get flattened by it once NDM gets removed. Zacian-C is another good one that appreciates the removal of Ho-Oh (and potentially Zyg-C).

Gothitelle is very not fun but it's very potent right now and I think a substantial rise is warranted.

 

[Guard]

Don't have much to say since I've been on hiatus but there are 2 noms I wanted to make real quick

Necrozma-Dusk-Mane A+ -> S-
This nom was already made but I have to give my 2 cents since I 100% support this. NDM is probably the most splashable Pokemon in the current metagame and its inclusion is nearly obligatory. The most obvious reason for this is that it's the best check to Xerneas available while also being a great soft check to Zacian-C. Defensive Dusk Mane also brings great utility to the table: Knock Off is an extremely annoying move to switch into (especially if NDM is also running Toxic), and it's a very solid Stealth Rock user since it can remove Heavy-Duty Boots from Defog Ho-Oh and Lunala. Offensive sets are great as well, DD Weakness Policy is tricky to check given the flexibility it has in its 4th moveslot to cleave through either Ho-Oh or Lunala. Most sets are hard stopped by Zygarde-C, but that's not really the end of the world given that support NDM is the defining set at the moment (so being walled isn't the end of the world).

Compared to the other threats in A+, NDM clearly stands out as head and shoulders above the rest. PDon, Ho-Oh, and Zyg-C are all very strong but aren't nearly as necessary when building nor do they put in the same amount of work that NDM does in an average game. I'd say defensive NDM defines the metagame in a similar way to the threats in S: players have been notably gravitating towards Yveltal over Xerneas because it fares much better against the prevalent NDM builds. Again, offensive sets are very good too and only add to the viability of an already solid pick.

Gothitelle B- -> B+
Yes, I am the one who originally nommed this down. When I nommed this down originally Gothitelle hadn't really appeared on many teams and its former niche had seemingly disappeared, but having experimented with it a bit I think Gothitelle is extremely well-positioned in the current metagame. For reference, here is the set that I think is most effective in the current metagame:

Set Import

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 248 HP / 160 Def / 100 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charm
- Cosmic Power / Substitute
- Rest
- Taunt

The speed investment puts Gothitelle 1 point faster than uninvested Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, which is this set's primary target. Cosmic Power and Substitute are both good options here, Cosmic Power allows Gothitelle to trap multiple things in succession and is a bit more reliable overall, while Substitute insulates Gothitelle against potential crits and allows it to trap defensive Zygarde-C with Dragon Tail. Either works, pick whichever suits the needs of your team better.

If you hadn't figured it out already, the primary draw of this set is that you can hard switch into defensive NDM and eliminate it. Knock Off on the switch does ~50%, after a Charm no subsequent hit should KO Gothitelle provided you don't get crit. Goth's targets aren't limited to NDM, Ho-Oh and Ferrothorn are fairly easy to trap and you have a decent shot at trapping support Groundceus. The main draw of this is the same as any other generation: you can enable massive offensive threats by removing key checks. The best partner in my opinion is Xerneas, since most teams just get flattened by it once NDM gets removed. Zacian-C is another good one that appreciates the removal of Ho-Oh (and potentially Zyg-C).

Gothitelle is very not fun but it's very potent right now and I think a substantial rise is warranted.

I fully support both of these nominations, and since there has been a sufficient amount of discussion on NDM already, I will provide my thoughts on Gothitelle instead, as I have been toying around with it for a few days too, albeit with a preference for Substitute and a slightly different spread.

Seeing as Pigeons elected to emphasize its capabilty of trapping NDM, I will provide some more insight on a few alternative Pokemon it is able to trap:

and situationally



For the sake of clarity, this is the set I've been using

Hide

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Def / 204 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charm
- Substitute
- Rest
- Taunt

Spe EVs allow you to outspeed uninvested Ho-Oh

Let me preface this by emphasizing the sheer magnitude of this list. All six of these Pokemon are staples of Balance, and more often than not, you will find yourself facing at least three of them simultaneously. What makes Gothitelle so potent is the fact that oftentimes, with good positioning, it has the potential to trap all that is trappable on the opposing team, while also wasting the opponent’s Dynamax quite frequently. No support Pokemon, other than certain Mega Gengar sets, comes remotely close to enabling some of our fiercest offensive options in Xerneas, Zacian-C, Yveltal and Eternatus, to that degree, and Mega Gengar needs a considerably higher amount of skill to pull off what Gothitelle can do in a fairly straightforward fashion.

In order to paint a picture, take a look at these calcs:


On the switch
0 Atk Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 56+ Def Gothitelle: 145-172 (42.2 - 50.1%)
2nd hit
-2 0 Atk Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 56+ Def Gothitelle: 73-87 (21.2 - 25.3%)


On the switch
0 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 56+ Def Gothitelle: 186-220 (54.2 - 64.1%)
2nd hit
-2 0 Atk Necrozma-Dusk-Mane Knock Off (65 BP) vs. 248 HP / 56+ Def Gothitelle: 64-76 (18.6 - 22.1%)


(This one's slightly trickier since Foul Play is unaffected by Charm; nevertheless it doesn't do significant damage. The game can drag on for quite some time, but since you have the benefit of being able to deny its Rest, you ultimately win)
0 Atk Tyranitar Foul Play vs. 248 HP / 56+ Def Gothitelle: 84-98 (24.4 - 28.5%)


0 Atk Ferrothorn Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 56+ Def Gothitelle: 120-142 (34.9 - 41.3%)


This is quite obvious

As is demonstrated, none of these Pokemon are able to 2OHKO Gothitelle, and contrary to Mega Gengar, they cannot hope to defeat Gothitelle through Dynamax, as Gothitelle outspeeds and Charms them. As soon as you have identified all that is trappable from team preview, and set your priorities regarding what to trap based on your Gothitelle abuser, you'll constantly find yourself at an advantage throughout the match due to the uncomfortable positions you can force the opponent into. Due to this potential, combined with the fact that Gothitelle's targets are ubiquitous in the current metagame, I also think Gothitelle is underrepresented by this VR.

 

[Kate]

B- -> C
Is it bad? No. But why would I ever use this over other Dmax abusers? It struggles mightily vs most common teams, cant OHKO Zacian even at plus 2 unless you run a suboptimal move in Smart Strike, and gets immediately revenged by Ditto with no way to stop it. Not only that, but Kartana requires two turns of setup(SD and Airstream) which is generally not very ideal for a pokemon that has a middling speed tier and cant KO what it wants without plus 2.

B -> B+
Easily a B+ mon, on paper it may struggle with top tier pokemon, but I think anyone who's played against it should know how infuriating it is to kill. Koff, Leech, Hazards is a great combo and I think Ferro separates itself from the rest of B tier.

S- -> S
Hear me out on this one: Yveltal is the best Pokemon in the meta right now. Lo sets are "checked" by literally two pokemon; Ass Chansey and Ttar. Neither beats all of its sets. Chansey loses to Koff and Taunt, while Ttar loses to Fblast. Defensive sets are rather unexplored at the moment, but on paper Taunt, Toxic, FP sounds like a great antimeta set that can cleave through unprepared Balance. Band is also an incredibly devastating set, Beating LO's checks and p much having no switchins either. It doesn't need to be in a position to sweep like Xerneas. It doesn't need to constantly worry about what move to click on the switch or ditto coming out like Zacian. It doesn't have to be worried about being walled by Zyg-C like Dusk Mane. There is literally no drawbacks on this pokemon, it's the definition of broken. S tier easily.

 

[theotherguytm]

Real quick: Agree with Yveltal to S. Every time I try and think of a switch-in for this thing I can't. I thought before that it was just because I'm stupid, but the more and more I think about it, the less wallable this monstrosity seems. Its inability to be checked offensively after a couple of Max Airs is stupid too. I've come to the conclusion that it is probably the only Pokemon in the game with no counters. Even Xern is beatable by a Weakness Policy Nec-DM (Agree this to S- btw, it's nuts). Yveltal? Good luck is all I have to say. It can shut down half the game with Taunt, blow past "checks" with Heat Wave, and Max Airstream.exe to victory. Name another sweeper that can lead against a prepared opponent, Dmax Turn 1 and 6-0 them. And that's without reaching into its utterly insane support movepool, from Knock Offs that seriously sting, Toxic, Foul Play and Sucker Punch, even Defog and U-turn if you want to go that far. Yveltal is a massive threat, and unlike Xern it is a beast of many faces that only gets more dangerous in the hands of a strong player. Going into a match against a top player without at least 2 different ways of dealing with it is suicide.

 

[pichus]

extremely low quality post, few noms of my own + views on others:

to B+
yes, anyone who has played vs this knows how annoying this can be. Almost every balance team struggles vs the standard Spikes + Knock off set and its really hard to defog vs this, even Ho-Oh doesnt like having its HDB knocked off. Also does a decent job at checking POgre and act as a switch in to passive mons. Is a great teammate for offensive threats like Yveltal, Zygarde, Zacian, Gengar, Eternatus and every other mon which benefits from Spike Stack. Definitely really underrated.

to B
Mewtwo seems to be a great pokemon on paper but fails to work well in practice. It is heavily outclassed by other dmax users and is hard to fit on a serious team. I also dont think its a great sweeper to begin with but thats probably because I've not used it a lot, but I've never had trouble dealing with one and most of the time its kind of a liability. I really dont think this is as good as the other B+ mons.

to B
Ekiller is extremely underwhelming this gen. It really dislikes too much of Ditto/Zygarde/Gengar/Tyranitar and faces competition from SD Ghostceus and SD Groundceus. Non DMax sets arent great because they get walled by common dmax walls and standard balances arent really threatened by it. I dont think this is good enough to be used as a dynamax user but its also not benefiting much from Max Strike (secondary effect: lowers foe's speed. could this be any more useless?) and again theres just better dmax users out there.

to B
I havent used this at all and I never will but I dont think this is doing great this gen either. Meta being centralized over offensive threats and prevalence of phasers like Whirlwind Ho-Oh / Roar Ttar is always bad for viv. It has a hard time setting up since most people know how the vivillon trick works now. Its hard to stop when it has set up ofcourse but it just doesnt get enough set up opportunities like it did last gen. I havent seen it work well in practice and teambuilding around it is also a bit of a struggle.

to B
This is really slept on. While this isnt the go to revenge killer/sweeper like last gen, dynamax marshadow is kinda overlooked. Nothing likes to switch into a Max Phantasm (except zygarde but idk the calcs for that) and Max Knuckle being weaker than Close Combat is a big yikes but the attack boost kinda makes up for it. Unprepared teams do struggle vs this and ets like Bulk Up life orb are still unexplored which I think have great potential. With proper support like webs or spikes stack this might actually work well. Either way I do think B- is a bit too low.

to C
These dont work really well in practice and we kinda overrated these while making the initial VR. They really dont deserve a place on a serious team.

to B+
is very good, Pigeons and guardsweeper did most of the explaining so i wont bother doing it.

to S-
not really sure about this one yet but I'm leaning towards yes.


yes
S+++++ this thing
rn

 

[Bread Sandwich]

Time for some more dumb agl mons

Magearna D -> Ur

This mon is absolute trash now, you might want to run this as a xern check but then you just die to max flare, well then ok maybe it still checks yveltal, nope you get hit by max flare. There is 0 reason to run this other then to cheese wins vs bp and that pretty much puts it at murkrow tier imo

Dugtrio D -> Ur

On paper taking out pdon and zacian seems good but this mon is too frail to usually do it and the scarf variant that takes out zacian requires a sack and is kinda done better by ditto imo

Thundy T B- -> C this mon is overrated and is kinda just not that great. I think the main problem with this pokemon is that it kinda struggles to set up because it is so frail and once it is set up you opponent can dynamax and just kill you as well

and that concludes my dumb noms, stay tuned to see how many people mock this in ag chat and how many of these pass

 

[Geysers]

Wooo! I’ve unquit! Cower in terrror or something.

Anyway, noms!


UR -> D
Ik this got mocked a ton last gen, and tr was really really bad, but it’s a lot better now. The crazy high speed tier in the meta rn makes tr especially viable. While the increased presence of physically defensive and hurts a bit, it’s overall extremely solid, once tr has been set against something passive. The omnipresence of is an enormous boon for , providing it with a mon that it can fairly safely switch into, then force out and set TR against. Even while burned, is capable of trashing quite effectively. It also can set tr against with an air balloon, allowing it to die and let in a more dangerous sweeper. This pile-o-bricks had a really bad rap last gen because tr was unusable due to the omnipresence of fat support , but they’re much less common in natdex ag, allowing my boy to shine. Also, rock blast annihilates bp shenanigans! While is kinda walled by , it can run superpower to break through those, while also gaining a potentially interesting max knuckle to boost past defensive .

replays!

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1066101420
Late game cleaning: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1066089946
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1066081008
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1066007595

UR->D

At first glance, this thing seems useless. It’s way to fast for TR — or is it? With the significantly higher overall speed tier in natdex land, no longer risks being undersped by most defensive mons. With its impressive 150 Spa, it’s capable of easily blasting through most of the physically defensive cores in the meta, neatly complementing on TR teams. A set like LO + tr/focus miss/hydro pump/spacial rend hits the entire meta at least neutrally, and is capable of absolutely melting defensive with a dynamaxed spacial rend. It can proceed to ohko almost any defensive mon in the tier, barring , which still takes a hefty chunk from a max geyser. It’s hard to overstate how much work this tends to put in on TR. Once dynamaxed, it is capable of setting its own rain, and with rain up, it’s effectively got a 210 BP STAB move, putting it in territory. is also capable of safely switching into , since it really doesn’t care at all about burns, allowing it to set TR while forcing the birb out. Under TR, it outspeeds most offensive mons and obliterates them. Additionally, because it‘s best used on TR, it’s freed up to run max hp, allowing it to eat hits from and set TR up against it. also has the potential to be used on webs, due to it’s fairly impressive speed when invested. I personally haven’t tried this but it seems on paper like it should be reasonably effective. One more thing distinguishing this gen from last is that and are almost non-existent, drastically reducing the number of viable switchins on stall. Even without dynaing, has more than enough firepower to rip holes in teams, doing ~60 to physdef with hydro pump.

replays!

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1066089946
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1066084289
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8nationaldexag-1066081008
I’ve got more but they’re private. You can pm me on showdown to get one or two of them if you’re interested.

Opinions:
to UR: solid no. The combination of and allows one to stall out dynaed with a few good predicts. It’s also one of the few mons that can set up tr against a trapper then volt out, which is very helpful. It’s a nice specially defensive glue to hold TR together, and it can occasionally pull off the odd sweep by dynamaxing with soul heart.
to S-: absolutely yes, maybe even S. This thing is incredibly versatile and is a really solid physical wall.
to B+: absolutely, it’s an absolute pain to deal with, although it’s very uncommon.
to S: yep, this thing is totally meta-defining, and very hard to wall.

now time for the non-nom part of this post!

TR TEAMS

=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/TR 6HEAT ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Ndm (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Sunsteel Strike
- Rock Blast

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Heatran @ Choice Specs
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Eruption
- Earth Power
- Flash Cannon
- Fire Blast


=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/TR 6D ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Ndm (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Sunsteel Strike
- Rock Blast

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Dialga @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Fire Blast
- Draco Meteor
- Flash Cannon
- Trick Room


=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/TR 6P ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Ndm (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Sunsteel Strike
- Rock Blast

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Palkia @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Spacial Rend
- Hydro Pump
- Focus Blast
- Trick Room


=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/TR 5 ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Palkia @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Focus Blast
- Spacial Rend
- Hydro Pump

Mew @ Focus Sash
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Stealth Rock
- Explosion
- Magic Coat
- Trick Room


=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/TR 4 ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Ndm (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Sunsteel Strike
- Rock Blast

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Hoopa-Unbound @ Life Orb
Ability: Magician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Focus Blast
- Nasty Plot
- Hyperspace Hole


=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/TR 3 ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Ndm (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Sunsteel Strike
- Rock Blast

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Vish (Dracovish) @ Choice Band
Ability: Strong Jaw
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Fishious Rend
- Low Kick
- Earthquake
- Outrage


=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/Tr 2 ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Ndm (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Sunsteel Strike
- Rock Blast

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

NDW (Necrozma-Dawn-Wings) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Calm Mind
- Moongeist Beam
- Heat Wave


=== [gen8nationaldexag] TR/Tr ===

Staka 1 (Stakataka) @ Life Orb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Stone Edge
- Superpower
- Gyro Ball

Mag (which one?) (Magearna) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soul-Heart
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Fleur Cannon
- Heart Swap
- Trick Room

Ndm (Necrozma-Dusk-Mane) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Earthquake
- Sunsteel Strike
- Rock Blast

Staka 2 (Stakataka) @ Air Balloon
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Lonely Nature
IVs: 15 Def / 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Trick Room

Ray (Rayquaza-Mega) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Delta Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- V-create
- Surf
- Draco Meteor
- Dragon Ascent

Pdon (Groudon-Primal) @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Eruption
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Hidden Power [Ice]

A little commentary on these teams: TRs 1, 2, 3, and 4 all started around the solid core of scarf , , 2x , and . I experimented with slotting different mons into the 6 slot, with a mixed achieving solid results. It was, however, incapable of dealing with a variety of walls, so I tried a cm , which also worked reasonably well, but exacerbated the weakness. made a super fun TR team, capable of dealing obscene damage to any team lacking a pdon. Difficulty breaking pdons led me to experiment briefly with , but I ultimately decided that is a stronger 6th mon. TR 5 was an interesting experiment, replacing the with a suicide lead . It, however, performed extremely poorly, although the addition of was extremely interesting. For TR 6, I decided to graft the innovative from TR 5 onto the tried and true core from TRs 1-4. I experimented with briefly, but decided that it exacerbated the weakness unacceptably. TR 6HEAT came from a discussion in the AG chat where MDB suggested that I try specs on TR. Needless to say, the result is extremely mediocre, although borderline usable. The omnipresence of makes it significantly worse. Enjoy the teams!

e: added stuff about killing

 

[Guard]

B+ to A-

Tyranitar is very much a staple presence on Balance currently, as it is the most reliable check to Yveltal we have, while also admirably checking the likes of Ho-Oh, Eternatus, Mega Gengar, Lunala and Mewtwo and, if holding a Shuca Berry, Mega Rayquaza and Ultra Necrozma too. In addition to its checking prowess, it offers a few other notable perks too. For starters, it is a very good Stealth Rock setter, being the only one that is completely unharmed by both Ho-Oh and Lunala, while also forcing both of them out. It also acts as a status absorber, which is a nigh mandatory role to fill on Balance. This allows for different builds other than the tried and true PDon/Ho-Oh/NDM/Zyg-C balances. To cap things off, it is the only Pursuit trapper we have and makes excellent use of it as it able to trap Scarf/Band Mega Rayquaza, force Lunala’s Shadow Shield to break along with its ability and notably countertrap Mega Gengar lacking Focus Blast. As we have finally come to our senses regarding the ludicrous potential of Yveltal, this Pokemon is more clutch than ever and definitely deserves to be stamped as a Staple presence in the current metagame, despite its shortcomings.

to S

Players have been attracted more and more to Yveltal in lieu of Xerneas lately for reasons that have already been stated before this post. Ergo, I can only agree with a justified rise.
also, ice would have slaughtered me if not for this abomination, so I owe it one lol

 

[bigtalk]

A >> A+
I have been trying this out more lately. This destroys fat teams effortlessly and walls most of its "checks" like Tyranitar / Dusk Mane, all you really need to pair with it is a solid backbone to deal with Zacian / offense teams and you're good to go. There are just so many teams that have no idea how to deal with this, it's way less prediction reliant than the other mons in A, and the defensive utility it provides as a Ho-Oh switchin is extremely valuable in this meta.

B >> B+
I was going to say I disagreed with this nom because Ferrothorn is pretty hard to build around, you either pair it with Dusk Mane and stack type weaknesses, or you don't and you have the potential to get cucked by Xerneas / Zacian (and Eternatus either way). Primal Kyogre isn't very common either despite how antimeta it is because it's also hard to build around; many teams are getting by just fine running weaker checks like Primal Groudon / Arceus-Water (or none at all).

...and then I saw the other mons in B. yeah move this up, i will save the above argument for when someone noms it to A-

Stay in B+
I was a proponent of a raise during the last slate, but I don't think Tyranitar should move up any further for a couple of reasons.

• I lied in my analysis, this actually does not check Eternatus; first of all, it beats you 1v1 without Rest. If you do have Rest, there's little reason why it can't just stay in and force you to use it, at which point you become exploitable by just about everything in the meta. Or they can continue staying in and break through you once sandstorm expires, or they could be holding Metronome, etc.
• Getting rocks on Ho-Oh is meaningless unless you manage to Knock Off its boots, otherwise the opponent can continue the cycle of switch Ho-Oh into rocks, Defog as you switch to tar, switch into something that takes advantage of tar (aka 90% of the meta) as you go for rocks again, generating momentum in their favor with very little risk on their part.
• Being forced to run a specially defensive spread this gen means it's a completely unreliable Mega Rayquaza check (can get 2hko'd by band ascent / ohko'd by lo or band earthquake without shuca), its 4MSS has gotten even worse from needing to run a Rock-type move, and stuff that it's supposed to check is starting to tech for it, like Mega Gengar with Focus Blast or Choice Band Yveltal with U-turn.
• Even the Pursuit support it provides isn't that valuable anymore, considering that Mega Gengar is behind a sub half of the time, it does jack to Lunala once you are burned, and as mentioned earlier the Mega Rayquaza matchup is shaky.

A+ >> S-
Agreed, this is almost mandatory on any good team lol. Super versatile, offensive sets are very difficult to wall while the defensive set with Toxic / Knock Off / Sunsteel Strike / Morning Sun proves very annoying to switch into.

 

[Ktütverde]

Hi there, first post in AG -yeah I'm that lazy-. I've been playing AG on a regular basis for a couple weeks now, and here the things that strike me most:

-Xerneas. S-> A+

Seriously this mon is not terrible. It gives your opponent the win if they are using ditto because they dynamax last and you can't stop them with your own ditto or dmax NDM. On paper Xerneas is the most broken sweeper ever, but in practice you aint setting up on anything except zygarde alseep, an example: how do u setup vs Groudon+NDM+hooh+zacian+ditto, this is just pointless. You dont really need to prepare for xerneas bc u already do indirectly, and honestly just weigh the risk/reward for using xerneas and tell me how often it is worth more than Yveltal which doesnt need to setup and is unwallable and quite ditto proof.

-Yveltal. S- -> S

Not only does Yveltal have 0 counterplay (ttar? focusblast bye. chansey? taunt/koff bye. AV tapukoko? okay) but the best thing to do in order to have the best matchup possible vs it is... using your own yveltal and being the last to dynamax. I dont think i need to explain more, Yveltal is the most broken thing that ever touched a Smogon metagame (nvm forgot eternamax in PH) and is ridiculously good, let's stop hyping xerneas because it has geomancy, yveltal doesn't need setting up, max airstream does it for free while KOing something. If i could i would ban yveltal, what it does to all teams is just insane and you can't do nothing about it except having ur own yveltal

-Zacian. S- -> S

Yveltal's best friend and most broken pokemon ever #2. number 2 cuz it loses BAD vs ditto and u can actually "check" it with defensive NDM and pdon (wellplayed pdon ofc) for example. But yeah, if ditto didnt exist everyone would run SD zacian and the tier would be dead, now u better run crunch or protect (yeah crunch is great, makes lunala worthless and reminds you NDM is actually just a toy for a wellplayed zacian, good times). Not using Zacian in your team is something that deserves a lot of respect and a trophy maybe. Anyway yeah this thing is ridiculous and p much the only reason Ditto is such a thing, how is it not S yet, you are forced to run defensive NDM in every team just for this dog

-Ditto. A- -> A/A+

Ditto is cheese, a 0% risk mon, the best answer to Zacian and xerneas, and the pokemon that invalidates 99% of the sweepers available in AG. Every single ladder team seems to be using it, more experienced players use it less because they believe in AG being fairly balanced and that you can make truly good teams without ditto (that was my belief too that got shattered to nanoscopic pieces a week ago and led me to delete my entire builder and start from scratch again), but honestly, you can put this in any team and call it a day, nobody can punish you for using ditto because you can't punish ditto in any way: Imposter-proofing is merely "an attempt at imposter-proofing under perfect circumstances including no chip damage etc". Ditto can beat anything, Arceus-ghost? well you can dynamax and speed tie with max phantasm. Mewtwo screens? just waste the screens time? Dragontail DD zekrom? wtf who invented that, you dragontail first with ditto, or better, max wyrmwind. Ditto is God, never forget it.

Thanks for reading, I hope you felt the irony in my writing and my despair when faced with a tier where justice doesn't belong. Peace frens

edit: and yeah I agree with NDM rising, even though I think we should not keep S-, so in S with yveltal and zacian sounds good because NDM saved the tier defensively speaking

 

[pichus]

low quality post #2

Xerneas to S-

I think we can unanimously agree that this has gotten worse because of Dusk Mane being on pretty much every team. Atm the standard balances in the meta are overprepping for Xern with Ditto + Dusk Mane cores and by running less passive stuff / status users which dont allow xern to set up easily. While Xern does narrow down my teambuilding and makes sure I play with my NDM/Ditto cautiously, I really dont think this is a very consistent sweeper in practice and moreover at this point I feel like Yveltal has proven that its good enough to have a rank of its own since it has zero checks and claims almost 2 kills every game. I cant make a detailed nomination right now but I'm sure that most people who actively play the meta know what I'm talking about and will strongly support this nomination anyway.

Arceus-Fire to UR
This is kind of an early meta meme back when people where trying to come up with zacian checks and ended up discovering this. This does a great job at checking Zacian *when rocks are off the field* but I really dont see why this should be used over Dusk Mane. Fire is a horrible offensive typing and supportceus are already super passive this gen which really isnt helping fireceus. I would absolutely never use this on a serious team. This is outclassed by even Quagsire.

Arceus-Dark to C
This is easily the worst out of the B- mons (after fireceus) but I still use it sometimes as it does a decent job at stalling out 2 (or 3 if youre lucky) turns of dmaxed yveltal and I think that the SR + Toxic set is still usable. It hits dusk mane, unecro and lunala for se damage and Don/Ho-Oh dont resist it which makes it a decent supportceus and good enough to not be unranked.

bunch of D/C to UR nominations:

Arceus-Flying

Arceus-Poison
Magearna
Naganadel
Skarmory
Wobbuffet
Kyurem Black

I'm not going to explain these nominations. Instead I'd like to hear why these pokemons deserve to be ranked when they are *entirely* outclassed by something in the higher ranks and can never be a viable choice on a serious team. They do have their uses but also have major drawbacks because of which they heavily struggle to work well in practice. I am yet to see people build actually solid teams around these and I havent seen these mons perform well in a serious game. I'd never seriously consider using any of these on my team and I cannot be convinced that they should be used over the other excellent defensive/offensive mons in the meta.

We're doing an update very soon, so if theres a change you'd like to see in this VR update then please make your noms asap!
Also, Guardsweeper and Catalystic are now official on the Viability Council, congrats!!

 

[Chloe]

Nominations
A+ to S-
Zygarde-Complete is borderline a necessity on every team at the moment due to the increased prevalence of Ho-Oh, Primal Groudon and Necrozma-DM, among a plethora of other common Pokemon. DD sets are still amazing, support sets have gotten even better, even Safety Goggles Haze variants have crept up due to the increase of usage in cheese. Zygarde-Complete is in an amazing spot at the moment, and more than justifies the same rank as Necrozma-DM. That being said if Necrozma-DM didn't move up, I wouldn't push for this to move up either. They feel as if they're very similar in terms of viability at the moment.

A to A-
Can't believe this was nominated up. Eternatus is really not good at the moment, especially with almost every team having Necrozma-DM, Ho-Oh and Primal Groudon on them. It rarely ever has a dent on the match and shouldn't be used very frequently. It loses to so many common Pokemon, and doesn't do much back. There are Pokemon in the lower ranks I'd rather fit onto a team than this honestly. Eternatus is not that good.

(Fire) B to D/UR
This was initially ranked highly due to being a great Zacian-C check, but it's 2HKOd by Close Combat after Stealth Rock and that should be all I have to say. There's virtually no reason to use this over say Primal Groudon or Necrozma-DM.

(Rock) B- to C
Offensive variants struggle to do anything due to Necrozma-DM having over 50% usage. Defensive variants do absolutely zero for the same reason. Zygarde-C and Primal Groudon being everywhere certainly doesn't help. It's overwhelmed by Yveltal, every team with Ho-Oh just switches in one of their three or more checks to this Pokemon. RIP Arceus-Rock.

C to B-
Regular Kyogre has picked up in usage and is quite a menacing threat. With Ferrothorn being somewhat rare and Primal Groudon having to account for multiple threats in a game, Kyogre often has an opportunity to late-game sweep.

C to D
Stalls are starting to go without this due to its inability to effectively check common threats, Sableye-Mega just doesn't hold up.

C to D
No reason to use this, nominating it up was probably a mistake. D is fair for it I feel.

C to D
This Pokemon really doesn't hold up. I'd want to use Zekrom 99% of the time, but I don't ever want to use that either honestly.

C to UR
This checks Zacian-C and non-Toxic Zygarde-C, but there's no reason to use it because of everything else that exists and is better, why would I run Quagsire in National Dex Anything Goes?

D to UR
Outclassed by better Dynamax sweepers, Naganadel just isn't used for any good reason.

D to UR
Name me a common Pokemon other than Kyogre that this is walling.

Opinions
Not going to write much for each of these but just outlining my thoughts.

S- to S: Agree
Best Dynamax target in the metagame, breaks even teams prepared for it, there's really nothing I need to say that hasn't been said already.

S to S-/A+: Disagree
Xerneas doesn't deserve to be lowered because of this however, it's still an amazingly potent sweeper that breaks through Necrozma-DM if it plays it right. It REQUIRES you to preserve your Dynamax until it comes out, meaning you can't abuse any potential Dynamax Pokemon you have. It's much more restricting than Yveltal in the fact that it literally requires Necrozma-DM as a check, whereas Yveltal can be played around by using Ho-Oh and a sack. I definitely wouldn't demote this just because Yveltal has gotten better than it was before.

A+ to S-: Agree
I find Necrozma-DM and Zygarde-C to be substantially better than the remainder of A+, Ho-Oh and Primal Groudon namely. Just so good and borderline a necessity on every team.

B+ to B: Agree
Not as good as it used to be, Taunt Yveltal / Safety Goggles Zygarde / RB Necrozma-DM / Roar Tyranitar picking up usage definitely doesn't help its case.

B to B+: Leaning Agree

(Normal) B+ to B: Agree
EKiller is fine, but B+ is too high for it.

B+ to B: Agree
I unironically think MMY is better than regular Dynamax Mewtwo due to not taking up the Dynamax slot of Yveltal or another sweeper.

B- to B: Agree
Definitely an improvement since the metagame first dropped, B is fair.

B- to C: Agree
Initially overrated due to being an "imposter-proof strong Flying-type attacker", but it isn't imposter proof with almost any prior chip and isn't justifiable over another Pokemon like Yveltal 9 times out of 10.

B- to C: Agree
More people should use this, it's underrated. That being said, I haven't seen much success from it in the recent months, maybe it could rise again once someone sees success with it.

B- to C: Agree
Similar case to Kartana; however, I believe PsySpam is still viable and that people should try it out more. Still, no one really has so, bleurgh.

B- to B+: Abstain
No one ever uses this, it really looks good on paper but no one is using this and it's impossible to know how good it is in practice, at least for me, so I'm abstaining until I can try it out more / see it in action more.

B+ to A-: Disagree
No need for this to rise, Yveltal can overcome it with Focus Blast and usually doesn't require a dedicated check. B+ is accurate imho.

D to UR: Agree
Useless, useless, useless.

D to UR: Agree
Bad in the current metagame, if it outsped Zacian-C or Scarf OHKOd it I'd reconsider.

(Flying) D to UR: Disagree
Still a potent Refresh CM sweeper which common builds have a very hard time breaking without Zacian-C. I definitely disagree with unranking this.

Ben's Nominations: Disagree
Stakataka and Palkia are not Pokemon I'd consider on a serious team.

ALSO ALSO I FORGOT TO SAY THIS BUT. We're voting on nominations soon so please get in any last minute nominations soon so they can be voted on.