Mega Metagross is fine in A+. Yes, its checks are pretty common, but it’s still an excellent glue for offensive teams which handles a lot of scary stuff while hitting super hard. The shift towards offense is a great thiong for it since it performs really well vs that playstyle, it can pretty much 1v1 anything on offense especailly if running Bullet Punch (which I personally would never use Metagross without nowadays), and switches in on a handful of offensive threats too. Plus, I’ve been seeing less Garchomp and more Lando-T recently, which definitely benefits Metagross a lot.
I honestly haven’t seen Mega Gyarados in a while, and while it can be really threatening to teams that don’t prepare for it (for instance, teams whose check to Gyarados is a Specs Keldeo), I’m not sure it’s on par with stuff like Manectric and especially Altaria. It’s got great bulk and can set up easily vs any playstyle, but it’s not really *that* powerful even at +1, and unlike Altaria it can’t really come out until lategame due to its lack of recovery which is a problem. Not sure about this one, could go either way, probably leaning towards a drop because I’m more inclined to move stuff down than up generally speaking.
Jirachi is a solid mon, but A seems like a stretch to me. Obviously, this nom is mostly based off the Scarf set, which is a pretty good blanket check/emergency hax button if it’s your only way to prevent getting swept by a Talonflame or something. And while it’s good, there are still a bunch of other steels that are availible on offense, so its niche isn’t exactly unique or anything, and I don’t think it’s better than Klefki in terms of what it checks+the type of support it provides. It also relies a bit too much on hax to check stuff, the odds are in your favor usually but if you need more than 3 Iron Heads to kill something, (which given that Jirachi is pretty weak happens quite often), then you’re unlikely to succeed There’s also the fact that it really sucks vs bulkier teams in general. You have other sets like subtoxic and mix but those suffer from a lot of different problems and have even more competition in their roles (what with being bulky steels for balance teams and everything), so even with those taken into account I don’t think it’s A rank material.
Aero should definitely drop, it’s not on par with any of the A- ranks, it doesn’t hit nearly as hard as it wants to, has pretty bad 4MSS and its meh bulk, is hard to fit on teams, and SR weakness really doesn’t help it switch into all the stuff it’s supposed to. Don't really understand why people hype this up when i've barely ever seen it do much.
Togekiss and Heracross are kind of in the same boat, in the sense that they just annihilate slow, passive teams. And yeah, you can argue that these teams are bad and have problems vs a ton of stuff and shouldn’t be used and whatever, but these teams still exist and are still seen pretty frequently, and being almost guaranteed to smash these builds to pieces is certainly worth B+ rank to me
Amoonguss is pretty good. Nice resists, amazing ability, checks a bunch of big threats, Spore is really good, fits well on a handful of balance and stall teams, just a solid mon overall. Seems about on par with Celebi to me, not much else to say.
Tangrowth I was really sceptical about at first, but man this thing surpassed my expectations, I’d argue it’s even better than Amoonguss due to Knock Off being fantastic utility, good coverage which makes it surprisingly hard to switch into (you don't even need EQ that much ouside of 3HKOing Metagross since Knock Off already cripples Tran a lot, which means you can run Leaf Storm or Giga Drain / Knock Off / HP Fire / Rock Slide and cover a most of the metagame), and the fact that it can 1v1 a pretty large number of threats and then just switch out whenever it’s weakened and do it all again. B+ rank seems appropriate for it.
I'd say Crawdaunt is about as good as Hydreigon, if not better. Good wallbreaker with some defensive applications like swicthing into Psychics and checking Bisharp and stuff. Priority is really important nowadays and gives it a huge edge over other wallbreakers. Move it up.
Manectric is an interesting case. This thing is a massive threat to offense, possibly even more than Excadrill or Lopunny or Zam, but I still don’t think it’s A+ rank because when you compare it to these three, it’s just not as effective againts other playstyles. It struggles a lot against balance and especially stall, and while you can run Toxic to cripple all the stuff that annoys it on those playstyles, you’re going to miss Thunderbolt a lot since you can’t actually break through much, you’re forced to Volt Switch out. That’s another problem with Manectric : as good as Volt switch is, it's a double-edged sword since Manectric can't really stay in and just cut through stuff as easily as stuff like Lopunny can, so it's much more prone to chip damage from hazards, and much more reliant on pivot support, since it can only switch in on stuff a handful of times. Then, there's the fact that it can struggle to find an opportunity to Mega Evolve against offense since most of you see on there has over 105 speed, and running protect once again leads to the problem of not having Tbolt. I think it's one of the better A ranks, but it's not A+.
Starmie can probably move to A rank, although I’m slightly torn on this one since, as I mentioned before, I’d rather drop stuff than raise stuff. But Starmie is a really strong attacker which a lot of offensive teams just cannot handle, especially if they don’t know what coverage it’s running, and access to Rapid Spin makes it a very easy pick on a lot of HO teams. Rapin Spin isn’t its main selling point though imo, heck it can even run a 4 Attacks set which has very limited switchins and is great at luring stuff. It does struggle a bit vs balanced teams though, due to the prevalence of Clefable and Torn-T on them, but as I’ve mentioned beofre, the metagame is getting more offensive, which benefits it. As an offensive threat, I don’t think it’s a stretch to put it on the same level as Gengar or Kyu-B, and access to Rapid Spin just makes it better
I have no opinion on Gastrodon, but if we move it up we should consider move Seismitoad up too; it’s seen a rise in popularity on stall teams as an alternative to Gastrodon with access to SR and Knock Off, as well as a better ability for a defensive Pokemon.
Also, Breloom can possibly rise to A. I’ve used this thing a lot recently and i’m constantly impressed by how much work it puts in. Yes, Amoonguss and Tangrowth rising in popularity counts against it, but those two really aren’t that common. Despite the fact that certain Pokemon can stop it cold, Breloom puts in work pretty consistently. Not only does it check huge threats to offense like Excadrill and Lopunny, it’s also very good against offense, partly due to said threats to offense requiring some kind of slow, bulky glue like Lando-T or Rotom-W. Breloom does a great job on preying on these kinds of Pokemon, first of all by getting off a free Spore, and then by dealing a ton of damage to whatever else comes in afterwards. And it can keep doing this every time the bulky thing comes in. There's a ton of teams it can seriously damage that way. It’s very anti-meta, what with being a threat to offense that beats stuff that’s used to handle common threats to offense in the first place, and the metagame is getting more offensive which benefits it etc etc you’ve heard this before.
It's still pretty good against balanced teams, especially those lacking a Grass-type, and the combination of Spore and Rock Tomb’s speed-lowering makes it much less prediction-reliant than you’d think. Generally speaking, it’s either very effective or complete deadweight, but the instances of the former far outnumber those of the latter, at least from my experience. I can totally see it in A rank, it’s just a very good Pokemon in the current metagame.