One thing I feel people really need to keep in mind before posting is how the metagame changes affect the Pokemon in question. Your arguments and posting quality will substantially increase if you actually demonstrate how shifts in the metagame positively or negatively affects the Pokemon you are nomination. Showing a wall of calcs and talking about good sets is a waste of time unless you actually demonstrate how the metagame has improved/hurt the mon you're arguing, unless there is a less-common set that people have been sleeping on. Everyone (or most people) know the common sets of a Pokemon, so don't just mention how the mon is "fast and strong and has good coverage." We know this. No one will buy your argument for Weavile dropping by listing a bunch of Weavile checks. We all know that it has these checks. Actually show us how the usage of these checks in notable formats (high ladder/tours) and/or team structures that benefits or harms Weavile's viability.
Support your post with good replays, cores using the mon you are nomming (if you want something to rise), and some good teams using the Pokemon in question. You really want to avoid theory-monning, because a lot of things are good in theory but fall flat in practice. Overall, this VR thread has been painful to read, and a large part of that is due to a lack of a detailed posting guide, and also because some users are posting one-liners shutting down posts without actually helping to educate the user on why their post was bad.
Here is an example of what I mean. It doesn't reflect the current meta or my thoughts on the mon used, and only serves to demonstrate the components of good and bad posts.
Bad nomination:
I nominate Pheromosa to A+ because its coverage is so good with ice beam hitting lando which is used a lot and poison jab hitting fairies. It's also really fast and outruns the whole metagame . It can also uturn on mons like toxapex and tapu fini which wall it otherwise making it easy to gain momentum (we know this already, why does this matter?). The scarf set is really good because offensive teams can't switch in on it (yes, we know) so it can steamroll really really easily. Finally heres a replay where pheromosa got 4 kills [insert low ladder replay against a player who clearly is inexperienced] and this showcases how strong this mon can be.
This nomination is poor because it recites information that we all know. We know that pheromosa runs ice beam and poison jab, so why mention it? Also, the scarf set is extremely common, so singing odes to how good it is doesn't tell us anything new. Finally, a low-ladder replay doesn't show anything, because frankly you can get away with pretty much anything up to 1300.
So what was missing? This nomination failed to discuss how 1) metagame changes benefit pheromosa, 2) mention less common/underrated sets that have a niche which justifies a rise, 3) a decent replay (not needed, but helps a lot) against a notable player/high ladder that demonstrates the set you mentioned or just the mon putting in a lot of work and 4) grammatically correct and easy to read (imagine this had a lot of spelling errors and was a block of text; I can't bring myself to write like this though). Now let's look at what a good nomination would look like:
Good nomination:
Pheromosa has really been slept on recently. The rise of offensive teams (those which this mon does well against) as evident by [insert a popular offensive team seen on the ladder] psychic spam (mega metagross+tapu lele bulky and hyper offence) means that this mon is really anti-meta at the moment (discussing metagame trends). In addition, the lack of stall (remember, this doesn't reflect the current metagame, it's an example) and balanced builds means that the opportunity cost of running Pheromosa as a breaker instead of something like Hoopa-U is low, as you don't need to take into account bulkier teams as much when building (again, discussing metagame trends).
The specific set which people really don't prepare for is band. You can chunk mons like Magearna much more effectively, and banded poison jab 2HKOs max defence tapu fini, whereas the LO set does not [+1 252+ Atk Pheromosa Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tapu Fini: 196-232 (56.9 - 67.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO] (slept on set and evidence that it's decent). Given the popularity of fini at the moment, this mon really helps to break through it, and fits really nicely on an offensive core with something like A-Greninja, Zard-X. A particular team I've been using is this [insert a team] and here is a replay that showcases banded Pheromosa. In this, I manage to lure tapu fini and chip it with Pheromosa to the point where my Zard-X cleaned. Anyways, this mon is really slept on atm, and should rise to A+ (good replay, explains a core/how to use the set you mentioned, and how this mon was useful in that replay).
Discussing how metagame trends benefit or hurt the mon you are nominating is crucial to have people take your post seriously. Here, mentioning how stall was not as common (lol though) due to a common build (metagross+lele) directly supports my nomination of Pheromosa. In essence, don't discuss how good or bad the mon currently is; use trends to justify why so.
Replays, cores, teams, etc. are proof and really help you stand out from people just theory-monning. While something might be good in theory (think: donphan in oras uu), it doesn't work in practice a lot of the time. Thus, it is critical for you to actually back up your post with something tangible. Doing all of this will add weight to your post, and consequently will improve the chance of people supporting it
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This is just an example of the posting quality that people expect when reading your posts. Let's try and improve the quality of this thread and have an intelligent discussion.
