Have been collecting some thoughts on the meta, and even if it's still UMPL, I feel like sharing some quick thoughts since I may not care after this tour is gone.
Piloswine always feels around broken or playable enough for me. From the teambuilding aspect, it's an absolute pain to handle. It always feels ass to use its checks and counters, but in-game, it feels doable as most teams built their teams in a way where Piloswine can't aggressively switch in and tends to have a mix of two mons that switch in based on base stat + typing, or bring one + two mons that each resist its stab while creating meaningful progress. So it always makes me wonder, is Piloswine itself broken, or is it taking advantage of overtuned and centralized faults in the meta? And what I've been leaning into is that Piloswine isn't too much and can be a healthy thing for the meta. Obviously, Piloswine is kinda of lame for punishing playstyles such as setup reliance offense(my favorite type of playstyle), but you could argue that it's a good thing, it prevents other playstyles from being overtuned, and it keeps other things to be more centralizing since Piloswine itself isn't that spammed much in teams.
So it comes down to taking advantage of the meta's faults, which makes more sense. Now what are these "faults" you ask? In my mind, it's these aspects that define or have to be respected in certain parts of the meta, which impacts building, and what are good teams or not.
aka Ngas Tspikes
T-spikes are either insanely overtuned or absolute garbage if the opponent team brings a poison type that outlasts them, nothing in between. Every t-spikes besides maybe Glimmet(but even then has healthy counterplay in the long term) has a much healthier way to play against, while Koffing is basically bringing a poison type or die, since Koffing teams are built in mind to outlast or restrict counterplay vs every playstyle. There is also everyone besides Ivysaur(and even then, it is questionable) is mediocre to use, so that if you aren't forced to slot a poison type for Koffing only, there would be easier counterplay not only on Piloswine, but other pokemon like fire/fighting mons. Piloswine takes absolute advantage of this aspect of the meta, as Piloswine counters are all weak to tspikes.
There have been teams without poison types that can win that are often designed to neglect the long-lasting aspect, and built to overwhelm, but those are only good for certain Koffing teams, and more defensively structured Koffing teams can destroy those teams.
If you're gonna suspect or ban this, it's obviously not gonna be t-spikes, and by smogon preferences, it's most likely gonna be koffing itself than ngas. For what it's worth, it's borderline as well, but I think koffing t-spikes is objectively unhealthy and makes the tier feel so restrictive.
This is a minor one, as the meta has been less mandatory on using Tinkatuff(see mine and pandadoux's usage on tinkatuff), but I think how it centralizes hazard control, invalidates hattrem and defoggers besides fletchinder(Which is still unfavoured vs tinkatuff due to para + knock off), it also helps Piloswine, as the options against Tinkatuff + Piloswine require two or more mons to handle against this core, as both of them have insane synergy with each other. I do think this isn't that big a problem due to Tinkatuff falling off, but her existence in the meta will always have an impact on the meta; you just cannot neglect it. Piloswine will always be buffed by her centralization.
There are probably more things that I may forget, but my point is that external factors make Piloswine too much for me, instead of the Pokémon itself. Is the meta volatile though? Idk really. Is the teambuilding aspect so restrictive that it makes building the tier more fishy? Most definitely yes IMO, and it's what makes the tier such a chore to play and build, really.
