Okay I've got a few noms, some up some down. Most of these were considered pre-hands ban, but I'd say they're still up to date, so here goes. This is another color-coded post so here's how you can identify everything:
Nomination to rise,
Nomination to drop,
The pokemon being discussed,
Good matchups,
Neutral matchups,
Bad matchups,
Other pokemon. I apologize to any colorblind person reading this if the color choices are confusing for you.
Talonflame A+ --> A
Some people would probably argue for even lower, but I think A would be fair. Anyway, while
Talonflame was doing very well in January, it feels like it has been hit really hard this month, not just with the new drops, but also with the meta developing. First and most notably is the drop of
Pawmot which is a physical attacker that does not fear
Talonflame at all, being able to outright kill it pretty easily and shrugging off burns with Natural Cure. In general though, the meta has grown rather hostile to it. The physically offensive metagame has shifted in a way that
Talonflame really can't risk switching in, staying in or burning many of the stuff it otherwise would have liked to. As said,
Pawmot is a new physical attacker that shrugs off burns, but it wants nothing to do with other physical threats like
Tyranitar and
Lycanroc-Dusk. Certain pokemon such as
Bisharp,
Tinkaton or
Hippowdon that it would've been considered good against in the past are adapting in a way that
Talonflame switching in is actually beneficial to them.
Tinkaton gets to Knock its Boots then Encore it into a useless move, basically forcing out
Talon while getting Rocks up and removing its hazard immunity,
Hippowdon has started running Stone Edge, not just for Talon, but for other threatening Ground immunities like Tera'd
TTar or
Oricorio and
Bisharp has been slotting Facade in recently, meaning it can almost welcome a burn from it and can even grab a sneaky kill if you're not ready for it. Speaking of Facade, CB
TTar has also started running it now that it has a freed up 4th slot after
Orthworm's leave. It's also worth noting that the metagame has been becoming more specially oriented with
Salamence focusing more on special sets and
Oricorio becoming more popular, both of which may actually welcome a burn as it can let them dominate
Quagsire if you're using it. I won't deny that
Talon still has great value, but it's been diminished quite a bit lately. I've found it also rarely gets free turns, especially if you're thinking of using it as a defogger as it's often forced to Roost or Will-O-Wisp else it risks instant death. Even if it finds a switch-in opportunity against something like
Slither Wing, it's likely you're just eating a U-Turn then getting forced out by
Sandy Shocks or
Kilowattrel. It's also pretty terrible at preventing hazards from going up in the first place since the best setters can all threaten it really well. Look at the hazards setters in A+:
Tinkaton and
Quagsire can cripple it really badly unless you're using Taunt (which you likely won't be able to fit alongside Defog in the first place) and
Tyranitar and
Sandy Shocks threaten it with a straight KO.
Talonflame has been having it very rough lately, I think you can just look at its overall matchups against the top mons and see that it doesn't want anything to do with the majority of them.
Altaria C --> B+
How the hell did this end up in C? There are a lot of things
Altaria does well, specifically for Balance and similarly bulky teamstyles, it's generally good at playing the long game. First of all, it's probably the most consistent Defoggers in the tier. Our options are still not great, but
Altaria isn't the easiest thing to force out of the field (unlike
Talonflame, it prevents
Slither+
Sandy cores from clicking the pivot button forever) and as such, can generally find turns to get the Defog off. It's also one of the few status absorbers available. It can switch into stuff like
Quagsire or
Fire Tauros comfortably to ensure other members of your team aren't getting crippled. It for sure suffers from passivity issues, it's easily shut down by Taunt and Substitute notably, but I believe it's the best anchor for bulky teams due to its reliability in keeping hazards off the field and due to how difficult it can be to force out. You can often just stay in to check the intentions of pokemon like
Iron Jugulis or
Gengar, making sure your switch-in isn't getting chipped more than you're comfortable with. I just consider it as a great consistent option, one that may not be super splashable and has its weaknesses, but the things it does help with are valuable enough for me to say it's for sure not one of the worst picks in the metagame.
Weavile C+ --> B/B+
Weavile is a strange mon as it's very easy to call awful due to previous experiences you might've had with it this gen. However, be aware that physical Ice STAB is incredible right now and that
Weavile is an extremely powerful user of STAB Tera. It's a mon that will require very aggressive play to get it in and start doing damage. It's not uncommon for me to Tera turn 1 when using it just to push for as much damage as possible. The best set is Choice Band with Tera Ice by a mile, though Tera Dark with Beat Up can also be considered as well as Swords Dance for cleaning purposes. Anyway Tera allows it to absolutely blow what some would call counters out of the water.
Tinkaton and
Talonflame which I would've argued to be common and reliable switch-ins to it in previous metas take far too much damage from Tera boosted Icicle Crash as
Talonflame risks a straight up 1HKO and
Tinkaton has to be at absolutely full health to be safe from a 2HKO. Other Ice resistances don't perform too well either.
Bisharp gets punted by Low Kick, switching
Slowking into a Choice Banded Dark move is just not it and
Slowbro will often need to Tera to avoid getting easily 2HKO'd (and that's ignoring that if
Slowbro isn't running Boots, Assurance will just kill it after Rocks if you want to consider that). There are a few other Ice resists that aren't too notable like the rather rare
Tauroses that do actually deal with it rather well, but lack recovery as well as
Armarouge which doesn't perform much better than
Tinkaton provided
Weavile uses its Ice move rather than its Dark one. Overall though, I'd say the Ice resists aren't really big issues for
Weavile since it's usually able to bypass pretty much all of them. These resists would need to show up at all though, I've faced teams whose best
Weavile check is
Donphan because people are just completely unprepared for it.
Weavile is mostly worried about something walling it with Tera, but if you get your opponent to use their Tera defensively, that can be a pretty good opportunity for you. It's definitely not without its flaws though, most notable of which is its Rock weakness which means it can get chipped quickly. It's also very frail and can be hard to get on the field, especially with its added Rock weakness, though its speed and super effective coverage means it can generally threaten out whatever's in front of it once it's in. It can also lead to some awkward teamcomps that are weak to certain Tera types. However, I'd say
Weavile is a very underrated threat as most teams are not prepared for it at all and it can do a lot of damage when it hits the field safely.
I'll finish this off with some quicker ones that I'm a bit less passionate about, but still want to express my opinion about.
Kilowattrel B+ --> A-
Very very strong on hazard stack thanks to Competitive. The best Hurricane switchins (
Tyranitar and
Tinkaton) can just get Volt Switched on and are vulnerable to Spikes which can make it very difficult to switch into a properly supported
Kilowattrel. It's also very good at abusing common trends like Voltturn cores using
Slither Wing and
Sandy Shocks as well as Defoggers using mono-flying as their attacking options.
Lycanroc-Dusk B+ --> A-
Extremely potent offensive threat overall, can wallbreaker very well with Swords Dance, Stone Edge and Close Combat and has Accelerock which can ease a lot of matchups against many fast Flying types as well as other offensive pokemon that are naturally fast or boost their Speed like
Gengar or
Haxorus. It's frail so it can be hard to use, but it breaks down some cores really well and can threaten a good amount of offensive mons, either with the intent to Swords Dance or to just KO them. I haven't played with Choice Band as much, but that also seems quite strong in theory.
Gardevoir B --> B+
If you weaken
Tinkaton or your opponent isn't using one, this just gets to Tera Fairy and click Moonblast. We have quite bad Fairy resists and Tera Fairy Moonblast can threaten certain SpDef walls like
Gastrodon enough to get them to waste 3 or 4 Recovers which can be massive. Trace is also very good and can make certain pokemon like
Oricorio,
Tatsugiri and
Slowking feel like they can never make progress against it.
Oricorio-Pom-Pom A --> A-
I feel like it needs a bit too many dances to properly sweep and start doing actual damage. The meta is also not especially easy for it, with stuff like
Quagsire,
Tinkaton or
Tyranitar around every corner to mess with it and make its setup difficult. Other matchups like
Hippowdon,
Gastrodon or
Gardevoir can also be annoying to get through. I just think it's a bit more flawed than its current placement would imply.
Decided to edit in another one I just remembered because it's kinda weird
Iron Thorns B- --> C(?)
This is a case of a mon not being bad, but mostly being outclassed. In this case, just use
Tyranitar. I feel like
Iron Thorns is good at using the bad setup sets
TTar has access to. Tera Grass beats some Ground types, notably
Quagsire, but leaves you hilariously wide open to revenge-killing from Scarf
Gengar,
Slither Wing and others. Loaded Dice Pin Missile is nice in theory, but it's kind of weak without Tera and probably not worth your Tera. The good Dragon Dance
Tyranitar sets utilize its bulk and
Iron Thorns being unable to do that makes it almost not worth using in my opinion.