I'm not quite sure what the last few posts of this thread have devolved into but I wanted to talk about my experience with the current meta. I think balance is pretty much the best and most consistent archetype in the metagame and also what I have the most experience with so I'm just gonna talk / rant about my thoughts on it.
The Fat Water-types:
Pretty much every team is forced to run 1 of these 4 mons unless they are a form of Hyper Offense. In my experience choosing the right bulky Water-type for your build is incredibly important for helping you beat out Ash-Greninja, Darmanitan-G, and Mega Metagross in the long term. None of these mons can stop all three by themselves so it really depends on how you want to flesh out the rest of your team but here's how I see them:
Personally, I find Toxapex to be the most splashable and think its probably the 5th best Pokemon in the metagame behind Tornadus-T and the brokens. Specially Defensive Toxapex with Baneful Bunker allows you to pretty comfortably check Ash-Greninja whilst maintaining the important role bulky Water-types need to have; being able to Pivot into Darm-G. Earthquake does a LOT to Toxapex, which is why I almost always find myself pairing Toxapex with Ground immunities such as Tornadus-T or Hydreigon, so that Pex can pivot in and then I can easily act accordingly the following turn. Using Toxapex also kind of mandates an extremely solid check to Mega Metagross, such as Hippowdon, Rocky Helmet Tangrowth, and Mega Scizor, for example. As Tapu Fini is a pretty common Mega Metagross partner, Toxapex can't even fish for Scald Burns and Mega Metagross can get a free switch in under Misty Terrain, so proper counterplay is really important here.
Tapu Fini is probably the one I use the most aside from Toxapex as it fits into builds where you cant fit Torandus-T and need to compress your hazard removal and Ash-Gren/Darm-G check into 1 slot which can be surprisingly often. However, since Tornadus-T has become more and more potent I find myself leaning on Tapu Fini much less then I used to (I am very guilty of spamming TangFini cores earlier in the meta). Tapu Fini suffers often from needing to check too much whilst not having reliable recovery of its own which means you need to play exceedingly carefully around teams that have both Ash-Gren and Darm-G in order to preserve Fini's HP as well as possible. Don't get me wrong this mon is still fantastic, personally I find it much easier to build and use Toxapex in the current meta though.
Slowbro has really fallen out of favor to me because not only is it a mediocre stop to Mega Metagross, it also forces your Ash-Greninja check to not be your bulky Water-type, and those are few and far between. This pretty much forces Slowbro to be used alongside things like non-Scarf Hydreigon, SpDf Ferrothorn, SpDf Kommo-o etc (AV Tang can sort of work but is not the most reliable Ash Gren check). I've not been a fan recently of how it constricts builds, however, it is one of the best checks to Darm-G in the meta and getting slow pivots into Pokemon such as NP Hydreigon, Mega Metagross etc is still really strong and can still very much be worth it if you can afford to fit another soft check to Metagross + a solid Ash Greninja stop alongside it.
Alomomola has seen a pretty meteoric rise recently since it was introduced to the meta courtesy of Zack stall. Since then it has become the premier Darm-G check on stall, and a great option for the fatter side of the Balance spectrum. Mola also offers teams a soft check to Ash-Greninja too as it can always pivot in and eat a hit to scout what it locks into, and then act accordingly the following turn. Of course its also able to just about check Mega Metagross, similarly to Slowbro, but again shouldnt really be a teams only counterplay to it due to how much Thunder Punch does. Much like Slowbro, Mola does not appreciate the recent trend of Mega Metagross packing Toxic as it makes it much easier to overwhelm. Due to its passivity, I really only consider Mola on really fat balances and Stall builds but on such teams, its ability to at the very least soft check all 3 of our S rank Pokemon is extremely valuable.
The Megas
There are other Mega Pokemon which are viable of course, such as Lati@s, Sableye, Slowbro, Swampert, and Zards, but I feel these are the most prominent ones on balance/BO and the ones you consider most often.
I'll be honest, I thought its suspect would be a formality. Mega Metagross is still insanely overcentralising in the metagame in my opinion and is the go to choice for the vast majority of builds. There are many posts in this sub about what Mmeta does so instead of repeating all of that I'm going to be using it as the gold standard and talk about when I would consider using something over it, as I think it really is like that when building these builds: you have to have a reason not to use it.
Lopunny is probably the option your going to pick most often over Metagross as it eases Offense matchups so much thanks to its really good speed tier + stab priority options. Much like Metagross, it has also opted to run Toxic in its 4th slot a lot lately which makes traditional counterplay such as Slowbro, Rocky Helmet Tangrowth, and Alomomola a lot less effective at walling it long term. Mega Lopunny's surge in usage is part of the reason why Tornadus-T has become so common (at least in my opinion) as Rocky Helmet chip is a pretty consistent way to wear Lop down and Tornadus-T is an all around solid soft check to it in general. I tend to consider Lopunny when I need a little better natural speed control than Metagross can offer or I need a better matchup vs more offensive builds.
I've used quite a bit of Scizor lately, as I said earlier I trend towards Toxapex as my Water-type and Mega Scizor is one way to sure up the Mmeta matchup. This is when I tend to consider Mega Scizor - when I need a more solid Metagross check than I can otherwise afford to fit onto a team. Mega Scizor also has the added benefit of being a soft check to Darm-G; being able to both take any non-Flare Blitz hit from it, and revenge kill it easily with Bullet Punch. In this regard, Mega Scizor also frees up your Choice Scarf slot, as Scarfers in this meta tend to need to be faster than Darm-G in order for teams to have a way to revenge kill it. As this isnt the case with Mega Scizor teams, they can often afford to run options such as Choice Scarf Landorus-T, or a Darm-G of their own. I want to try and fit Pursuit Mega Scizor into a build to really punish Metagross, but it really struggles to fit all the moves it wants as it is, so its hard to justify. It goes without saying that using Scizor, you really need a good Heatran check in the back which can be somewhat restricting but fortunately, Garchomp fits pretty well and you can even do stuff such as Scizor + Shed Shell Toxapex + Scarf Landorus-T (shoutout
Jordy for this idea), to fix this matchup.
Sand has been a pretty prominent archetype in the meta thanks to the potency of Excadrill and Tyranitar is often used to facilitate it in that regard. However, outside of dedicated Sand builds Tyranitar also sees a decent amount of usage thanks to its ability to check and trap Heatran effectively, as well as it being one of the only Stealth Rock setters that can consistently beat Tornadus-T. I know that Dragon Dance Tyranitar has been seeing some usage on HO recently but I have no experience using it and only a little facing it so don't really know how effective it really is.
Mega Alakazam is a pretty niche Mega choice right now in my opinion, as I only really consider it when I'm specifically building with an opposing Rain matchup in mind. Whilst it is a fantastic source of Natural Speed control, its ability to break through teams is rather lacklustre, especially since it has to choose between hitting Water-type like Gastrodon and Manaphy, or hitting Pokemon like Aegislash and Mega Metagross with its third attack really hurts it. If you can support it properly though, and need a Mega which can almost autowin the Rain matchup whilst also acting as a decent Heatran check and speed control option, Alakzam is a pretty decent choice. In fact, I did an RMT with it, check it out and feed me likes please:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-ghost-1k-post.3664691/
Im not ashamed of this plug if im getting spending over an hour writing this im cashing in on all the likes i can get.
The Scarfers
This is broken. If you pair Darm-G with things that can force Toxic onto bulky Water-types (hint: mmeta/lop) it becomes so difficult to deal with. This thing defines the Scarfers in the tier, as for the most part, all Scarfers which cannot revenge kill Darm-G are invalidated outside of niche situations like I bought up earlier with the Landorus-T example.
I'm pretty sure Scarf Hydreigon is a product of Darm-G being so centralising, as it compresses a decent Ash-Gren check with a way to revenge kill Darm-G. This is pretty much my default choice for speed control on 90% of teams despite Darm-G being better, as it makes checking it + Ash-Gren a lot easier and gives me a way to reliably revenge kill Metagross, after a little bit of chip damage from something like a Rocky Helmet.
I haven't used this as much recently as the overwhelming amount of Rocky Helmet Tangrowth + Tornadus-T make it pretty lacklustre, however, it fits the criteria of outpacing and revenge killing Darm-G, but also goes one further and can outpace and revenge kill Scarf Hydreigon. I rarely ever consider Kartana though, unless the rest of my team is exceptionally well suited to forcing Toxic/Damage onto Tangrowth / Tornadus-T. If we can force Knock Offs onto them, thats even better and would likely be when I start to think Kartana is a good fit.
Of course there are other decent scarfers in the tier but these are really the main ones I have seen.
Of course balance isnt the only playstyle in the meta right now, but I do think its the best and would be curious as to what other peoples experiences are with these sorts of builds. I was going to talk about the various breakers you consider and how to fix your mmeta matchup too but didnt want this post to rival Jamvad's book so we'll leave that for another time.
