Hey, I'll try to answer to most of the questions regarding the new Rises and Drops. There's a lot so I may miss some (and I'll only reply to the first instance of each question) but here we go. Note that it's mostly my opinion/vision of the metagame and does not necessarily reflect the whole VR council opinion or reasoning. Other members may add other elements for some answers, especially since I don't have time to go very deep into details for most of them.
Sun is still the least popular weather but may have risen a bit in popularity as people don’t always fit Sun breakers answer anymore and some Fire types who saw a rise in popularity too are extremely deadly in Sun teams (like Blaziken) making the whole playstyle better.
Tapu Koko remains super good, and it won a lot of games during Wcop. I think it was so deadly at some point that people started to adapt to avoid having only Lando-T as a Koko answer. There’s quite a few Gastrodon, Ferrothorn and Glowking around and they make Koko job harder.
Galarian Slowking has seen some new sets emerge like the Trick Nasty Plot one who was used to anti stall during OLT (and it does the job quite well if the stall team is not prepared for it). Assault Vest Glowking bulkiness and offensive presence also makes it really good in a bit faster pace metagame.
Volcanion is becoming a popular Water resist (or in this case immunity). It’s an insane breaker in Rain teams, but is also very efficient outside of Rain teams as it can pressure a lot of structure while annoying opposing Rain teams / Water type breakers (like Urshifu).
Seismitoad rise is mainly due to it become a popular Electric immunity in Rain teams while having great coverage option to beat annoying Pokemon for Rain teams (see Eeveeto post).
For Victini, I'm less sure, it may just be because Koko is droping and Victini often needs Koko support to be efficient.
Hail has fallen in popularity and even Veil HO are a bit rarer, Alotales remains the setter of Choice, but I think it suffers a bit from the HO archetypes becoming a bit less popular as it struggles against common threats like Melmetal and Dragapult.
Going from C to C+ means Gengar is still a super niche Pokemon, though I think Ghost types in general are getting more threatening as Shadow Ball answers are often only able to take 1 or 2 hits. Gengar having Nasty Plot means it can have a niche over another Ghost type in Ghost spam and could even fit in some specific HO.
Sun is still the least popular weather but may have risen a bit in popularity as people don’t always fit Sun breakers answer anymore and some Fire types who saw a rise in popularity too are extremely deadly in Sun teams (like Blaziken) making the whole playstyle better.
Tapu Koko remains super good, and it won a lot of games during Wcop. I think it was so deadly at some point that people started to adapt to avoid having only Lando-T as a Koko answer. There’s quite a few Gastrodon, Ferrothorn and Glowking around and they make Koko job harder.
Echoing what I said on Gengar, Ghost types are super deadly right now because the metagame is getting a bit more offensive and Shadow Ball answers are a pain to find. Dragapult often beat its check on the long run and is super good in general against most offensive teams.
Galarian Slowking has seen some new sets emerge like the Trick Nasty Plot one who was used to anti stall during OLT (and it does the job quite well if the stall team is not prepared for it). Assault Vest Glowking bulkiness and offensive presence also makes it really good in a bit faster pace metagame.
I think Clefable is good where it is. It’s definitively super good and versatile and can fit in a lot of teams, but it’s no way near Clefable golden age earlier in the gen and it may struggle checking some very common offensive threats (Melm, Heatran, Kart, Lele…) meaning you’ll have a hard time fitting it in some team structures.
Sand as a whole became way more popular (especially during OLT) as the Banded Ttar + Excadrill duo has proven to be super-efficient and threatening. Overall, Choice Band Tyranitar has almost no switch ins in the tier (if you predict right, but it’s often not that hard) and also brings a very valuable defensive utility, even with a fully offensive set since it prevents Shadow Ball Spam from Pokemon like Dragapult or Blacephalon.
Volcanion is becoming a popular Water resist (or in this case immunity). It’s an insane breaker in Rain teams, but is also very efficient outside of Rain teams as it can pressure a lot of structure while annoying opposing Rain teams / Water type breakers (like Urshifu).
Seismitoad rise is mainly due to it become a popular Electric immunity in Rain teams while having great coverage option to beat annoying Pokemon for Rain teams (see Eeveeto post).
For Victini, I'm less sure, it may just be because Koko is droping and Victini often needs Koko support to be efficient.
I would say that, with a metagame becoming a bit more offensive, Dragon Dance Dragonite is even more a threat and has an easier time acting as a setup sweeper, but I’m not entirely sure on this one.
Hail has fallen in popularity and even Veil HO are a bit rarer, Alotales remains the setter of Choice, but I think it suffers a bit from the HO archetypes becoming a bit less popular as it struggles against common threats like Melmetal and Dragapult.
Mew was not moved mainly because Demon Mew is less popular than before, so even if Mew has seen some usage with new sets, it’s not enough to justify a rise, but it kinda compensate for Demon Mew fall.
I would say that Grassy Terrain teams are getting stronger than ever with new abusers like Blaziken emerging and super strong Pokemon like Melmetal and Heatran being very efficient on this type of teams. Tapu Bulu remains worse than Rillaboom overall, but its ability to catch the very common and annoying Zapdos with Stone Edge may explain why Rillaboom is not the only one to rise.
Blissey is mainly a stall mon right now yeah, but I think OLT made stall a bit more popular than before and some stall got optimized, increasing in viability and helping Blissey keeping its B rank. There’s also some non-stall structure with Slowbro + Blissey which are rather efficient right now, especially since Blissey is good at preventing Shadow Ball spam.
Heatran is a massive threat for sure, but I don’t think it fits in S rank with Lando-T as it’s not as easy as Lando to fit in a team. I don’t think Heatran became significantly better recently and S- seems appropriate for it.
Answer is pretty much the same than Heatran’s one. Melmetal is indeed super good right now, but still not as easy to fit in a team as Lando.Idk who's running this thread these days, but whomever that may be is doing a great job with the ratings and these changes! (with the lone exception of Landorus-Therian...put that thing in A- lol).
Only one I want to hear more about is Tapu Koko dropping, because CM Koko is free wins in most games for me. If discussed, I would also like to know whymelmetal
Bisharp is getting less popular because people often run Weavile instead as it does a similar job but with way more Speed. I think in hazard Stack teams, Gapdos remains a better choice due to its better Speed tier, its super good STAB combo and its somehow better defensive utility.
Weavile is one of the most threatening offensive Pokemon but being very threatening offensively means most teams will be prepared hence why it’s very hard for it (or any purely offensive Pokemon) to reach the same viability as a Pokemon like Lando which can easily fit in most teams.
Blaziken is a huge threat right now and it saw a huge increase of usage during OLT as there’s a bit less annoying bulky Water types (which can still be dealt with by the Tpunch set if you manage to chip them). Though, I think the main reason is that there’s a lot of rather offensive teams and Blaziken is an amazing wincon against these teams because getting to +2 late game often results in a sweep.
I think that there’s a little too much AV Melmetal or Garchomp for Nihilego to work efficiently and it may also suffer from HO becoming a bit less popular as it was mainly a threat in this kind of teams.
The explanation for Arctozolt and Alotales not being in the same ranking is just that Ninetales is used in some pure Veil Ho without any proper Hail abuser while Arctozolt only works with a Hail setter and Ninetales is almost always the setter of choice.
from A+ to A
from A to A-
from A- to B+
from B to B-
from B to B-
