
Everything else in s- rank makes complete sense but why Lando? I think Lando is still the quintessential defensive piece and even speed control on a ton of structures atm. Defensive sets are able to blanket check a large swathe of the tier depending on your spread; for example, physdef sets do excellently at dealing with stuff like Rmoon, aoa zama, lop, gambit, etc and spdef does well against things like ghold, dia, and koko and also takes hits from other special breakers such as yard Volc and scarf lele in a pinch. Scarf is also one of balance’s best forms of speed control as it provides very nice role compression and momentum against offense.

Some people may wonder why pex is so high especially when it’s getting cteamed to shit by new innovations such as hatt and stuff like gking glisc and moon (a phys attacker pex doesn’t really check) being really good rn, but even in spite of these matchups being somewhat bad pex can still get immense value out of them and for as many bad mus as it has it also has a bevy of great ones. For example, hatt and some Gliscor sets can be a huge pain, but even so hatt can get scald burnt / hazed and Gliscor needs to waste eqs to beat pex if it’s a utility toxic set, and pex also helps out in so many other areas such as against Volc yard shifu and helps pivot against ferro and other pex for certain teams. Tspikes are also really good in some matchups like ho / sun.

I think for many bo / offense / even ho structures dnite still has an insane amount of defensive utility that cannot go unnoticed to me. Being a true water and fire resist in one that also checks ogerpon and has good longevity is something that no other pokemon can do and dnite does it really well. Not only that, it also soft checks stuff like gambit and bulky np Gholdengo. No teams are ever auto-losing to a boots dd dnite, but z sets are extremely threatening with the right moveset in exchange for some longevity against certain threats. It’s a kind of trade off between what you prefer more on your team at least on offense as balance / bo should always be using boots dnite lol. Bulky dtail espeed sets also blanket checks like pretty much the entire tier it’s kinda crazy how much dtail + ada espeed can come in clutch vs. super aggro structures.

was against rising this before but I think it’s a pretty reliable pivot in the current metagame, as it’s able to scout tons of offensive threats like ogerpon zama and shifu (the primary ones on paper but in practice there are a lot more). AV is my personal favorite pivot set as although you need some support with other removal it’s really good at just clicking knock off and scouting special threats along with the stuff above like Val lele pagos and tran and can really help shift momentum in your favor. In test games for mspl arty also brought np tornt balance vs. me and it actually was surprisingly good at breaking down balance teams / bo teams, and uturn boots on such a set meant it consistently gained momentum to come back in and break later.

Not a surprising ranking considering the meta but I’m more so questioning where this goes (A- vs. A). It’s a great defensive anchor against virtually every fighting type and dragon (besides maybe bolt) including moon and is great at setting rocks / clicking knock vs. balance, and as such has garnered a ton of usage on balance teams recently. Calm Mind is really good against ferro bo and Lorb is able to catch a ton of balance teams off guard. However I’m not sure if these traits warrant A rank despite how well clef does its job considering it’s mu vs. meta staples like Gholdengo and how some breakers like tusk / ogerpon can overwhelm it easily. Still the goat mon though.

Ace is something I’m up and down on but rn I really like it because of its capabilities as an offensive pivot with a good blend of utility and defensive traits. Offensively, it offers extremely strong pyro balls that rip through many fire resists not named pex or mola combined with coverage like HJK and gunk shot, and it’s also extremely fast. Defensively, it checks iron valiant, gholdengo, and Volcarona for offensive / bo teams. And even on balance it’s good because it’s one of the tier’s few forms of removal and generates a ton of momentum for balance which the structure greatly appreciates. It’s also worth noting that wisp and uturn is extremely good at breaking down common fire resists on offense like dnite, chomp, and mtios.

I personally think tusk is hella overrated as it gives you some poor mus against flyings like zap / tornt and it’s a ground that doesn’t check electrics properly but it’s still fine at doing its job of being a spinner / dark resist. Cc ice spinner offensive sets are able to dismantle a large amount of squads and defensive sets with knock off are good at forcing progress with hazards while having a good amount of defensive utility against gambit, dnite, lop, and zama.

I think stocks for this are up rn as it is a very solid pivot vs. the tier as a whole (think stuff like lele, koko, pagos). Av is also really nice at blanketing nearly every special threat in the tier, and fsight support is really good at breaking down cores with pex / clef for fightings.

molt is still solid but I think it’s exploitable in a ton of mus as there are a ton of things that molt wants to check but gets knocked off by or it gets annoyed by things like pads shifu / ogerpon / Diancie gaining free entry on it. I think it’s best use is with like roar / toxic as the last moves because toxic makes it not extremely passive vs some threats like chomp and yard while roar helps vs. stuff like moon and Volc. Uturn is still good obvs but with sub volc and ho styles in general on the rise I like roar to be insured vs. those.

I’m a fan of weavile personally because of the metagame surrounding it; balance is still performing really well at the moment and weavile combined with spikes support is efficient at forcing progress vs. those structures, and knocking something like pex or ferro can open up mons like lop or Koko late game. Sd is a decent win condition against pexless bo (think: the stuff that uses Pecha or has a dragon as the main fire / water resist like on offense). I think being a fast knock mon with Prio for moon / dnite are really good traits vs. balance and ting lu ho teams in the current meta. Band also has potential since it pursuit traps things like yard, ogerpon, and offensive variants of Gholdengo, allowing you to outplay them easier.

if you’ve watched ndwc lately or just follow meta trends in general you’ll see that this is on the rise but I place at B rank instead of a safe b- mainly because of its usefulness against balance and preventing spikes (from any kind of team tbh) from going up against offense, which is good to prevent balance teams that utilize spikes Gliscor from choking out offense.

I for the life of me cannot build a good mtar team and although it may just be a skill issue I also haven’t seen too much usage of it in ndwc. Whenever I’ve played against it I find it’s too easy to overwhelm with the things it’s supposed to check and being extremely spikes weak hurts, makes you feel like you need a tusk / Mola with it which can cause some other building hurdles. Of course it’s still a good rocker in the short term and some balance teams have trouble switching into knock off reliably but I feel mtar doesn’t get enough chances to do that consistently.

I like this bias aside because of psynoise + scald being able to consistently overwhelm checks such as pex / ferro over time while pivoting on the former to bring in breakers like bolt or lele. Sub Calm Mind sets are also extremely annoying against fatter teams.

Moth is not that bad in my eyes as it does have potential to clean vs. offense especially since it has the coverage to win against foes like weakened dnite and moon, however it does jackshit vs. balance which is why it’s in b-.

Hard to slot but sd is kinda ok vs. some teams (Prio and more longevity / bulk is what separates it from kart and ogerpon) and it’s an ok facilitator of some gterrain abusers.

After testing and watching some tour games where this was used I think this actually has legitimate potential, it’s a decent rocker especially because it checks Terapagos extremely well and other forms of removal such as Zapdos, tornt, and the rarer Corviknight. Balance stuff without gking has a tough time outlasting Garg because salt cure is that good and not many teams are prepping for Garg anymore. Offense teams also generally don’t like how it spreads so much chip damage at once especially in combination with tect, and it does have some neat defensive utility in checking stuff like Volc, Sun, tornt, and Koko. It still has its issues but this does have some traits that could be explored more.

I’ve used this in rain because I remember one of my friends using it and after giving their rain a spin it actually does an ok job at breaking down water resists for the structure so then Mpert can clean up later.
There isn’t really else anything notable to talk about in C / C- tier but if there is any question on why something is ranked lmk, or anything else on this list really.