Sorry to interrupt this heated discussion of A+ and S ranks, but I'd like to nominate Lanturn for C- or even C, I've been trying this thing out a bit and it's really impressed me, I honestly I feel like it's much better than the other D ranks. The thing about the D rank is that it's populated with Pokemon who all fit on very, very specific team archetypes : Salamence is only good on Dragspam, Venomoth on Baton Pass teams, Dugtrio on certain types of semi-stall, etc. Lanturn, on the other hand, feels to me like a perfectly legitimate option on quite a number of completely non-gimmicky balanced/bulky offense teams, and I'm going to try and explain why.
Now, Lanturn might seem outclassed by Rotom-W as a defensive pivot, but it's really not. Think of it as a specially defensive counterpart to it. Rotom-W's Ground immunity makes it better at dealing with physical Pokemon such as Excadrill and Landorus-T, and is, admittedly, a pretty massive selling point, but one thing Lanturn does much better than Rotom-W is deal special attackers, thanks to a combination of its superior special bulk (takes special hits around 20% better assuming max SpD investment on both) and ability. Obviously, it counters most Thundurus, even checking the mixed set decently depending on Attack investment. It also walls Magnezone, and walls it hard. Seriously, if you want a perfect answer to Magnezone, Lanturn's your mon. Same applies to MManectric, as well as Raikou and Rotom-W. It does other stuff than completely stop Volt Switch from ever happening. It deals with Greninja pretty well, the most damage it'll take from it is around 45% from HP Grass which is seen less and less on Greninja. The fact that it beats 2 of the biggest threats in the metagame is in and of itself pretty impressive.
Movepool-wise, Lanturn has 2 considerable advantages over Rotom-W. The first is Heal Bell. This is pretty significant since viable Heal Bell users are pretty scarce in OU. I mean, we've got Chansey, Clefable, Celebi, Sylveon, Mew (if it can fit it), Togekiss (once again, can't usually fit it), Mega-Ampharos (who now that I think of it is pretty big competition for Lanturn though it blatantly loses to Greninja, and takes up your mega Slot, and gets worn down much more easily, and doesn't actually stop Volt Switch from happening, so I think it's safe to say Lanturn has a lot of perks over it), Dragonite (lol), Mega-Gardevoir (don't think this can viably use Heal Bell but I may be wrong since SpD MGarde is a thing apparently?), Gothitelle (lol), Granbull, and Espeon (no comment). Off all these, the only ones I'd ever consider using are Chansey, Clefable, Celebi, Sylveon and maybe MAmpharos. Heal Bell can be pretty important for a lot of teams, especially ones with frail powerhouses that are prone to status and which are exactly the kind of teams a slow pivot fits on, so Heal Bell is a really significant advantage over Rotom-W. Not only does it support teammates, but it supports Lanturn too. One of the biggest problems with Rotom is that it gets worn down a lot by burn and poison, so being able to just get rid of that is really nice.
The other is Scald. Let's face it, Hydro Pump sucks on Rotom-W. It's inaccurate and can very easily run out of PP, leaving you to get PP stalled or miss stalled a lot of the time. Rotom-W would absolutely kill for the spammable, accurate, rage-inducing water STAB that is Scald. No WoW isn't really too much of a problem for Lanturn since it's meant to beat special threats, but Scald really helps a ton when it comes to wearing stuff down. Honestly, I'm not sure if I really need to explain why access to Scald is a major plus over Rotom-W. I guess Ice Beam can also be considered a selling point, since it chips away at Latis but tbh, it doesn't really do that much to them. I personally prefer Toxic or TWave since that means you're no longer setup fodder for XZard.
This may be because no-one really knows what Lanturn does, but it ends up eating a lot of Volt Switches and Thunderbolts, and therefore generally lives a lot longer than Rotom-W usually does as long as I play it right. As I said, Ground immunity is a really, really big deal for Rotom-W, and the reason it's so much higher than Lanturn on the viability ranking in the first place. But a way to get health back without having to rely on Pain Split makes Lanturn a lot harder to wear down. It's a great deterrent to using Volt Switch in general which is always a plus.
Overral, I feel like there are enough situations where Laturn is a good pick on teams for it to warrant a rise. For instance, I recently made a team that needed a Greninja switchin, specifically HP Fire Greninja (I have a Ferrothorn on it so I wan't worried about HP Grass variants) as well as a good switchin to Thundurus, and also wanted a Heal Bell user. Clefable seemed to fit the bill perfectly, however, I started to spot a massive Magezone weakness. I replaced Clefable by Lanturn, and as it turned out it worked like a charm. You may just dismiss this nomination, but seriously, try Lanturn out. It's actually quite a decent Pokemon, so it's a shame it's completely overlooked by everyone. If you want something a bit like Rotom-W but don't really need a check to Pinsir or Sand, and instead would rather have something that stops Magnezone, Thundurus, and Greninja, I would recommend it. Lanturn is particularly good right now given how common Electric-types and Greninja are at the moment. In any case, and in my opinion, it's far less niche than anything currently sitting in D.
Lanturn for C
edit : also support MTTar dropping, I've tried it out and it doesn't pull its weight nearly as often as it should in all honesty. Has a tough time setting up and a tough time sweeping too, suffers from the omnipresence of scarf Lando-T, ruined by sand (which he provides himself so the opposing team doesn't even need to do it for Exca), ruined by rain. It's a good win condition if you can pull the DD off, but that's a big "if". Most of the time it'll just fire off a couple of Stone Edges or Ice Punch, dent something, and get forced out/KOed. It ultimately suffers from the same flaws as DD XZard, except it doesn't have all the other sets (Wisp, 3 Attacks, even Wisp DD) that makes XZard such a threat in general. If MGyara is A then MTTar needs to be A- because it's clearly not as good.
Now, Lanturn might seem outclassed by Rotom-W as a defensive pivot, but it's really not. Think of it as a specially defensive counterpart to it. Rotom-W's Ground immunity makes it better at dealing with physical Pokemon such as Excadrill and Landorus-T, and is, admittedly, a pretty massive selling point, but one thing Lanturn does much better than Rotom-W is deal special attackers, thanks to a combination of its superior special bulk (takes special hits around 20% better assuming max SpD investment on both) and ability. Obviously, it counters most Thundurus, even checking the mixed set decently depending on Attack investment. It also walls Magnezone, and walls it hard. Seriously, if you want a perfect answer to Magnezone, Lanturn's your mon. Same applies to MManectric, as well as Raikou and Rotom-W. It does other stuff than completely stop Volt Switch from ever happening. It deals with Greninja pretty well, the most damage it'll take from it is around 45% from HP Grass which is seen less and less on Greninja. The fact that it beats 2 of the biggest threats in the metagame is in and of itself pretty impressive.
Movepool-wise, Lanturn has 2 considerable advantages over Rotom-W. The first is Heal Bell. This is pretty significant since viable Heal Bell users are pretty scarce in OU. I mean, we've got Chansey, Clefable, Celebi, Sylveon, Mew (if it can fit it), Togekiss (once again, can't usually fit it), Mega-Ampharos (who now that I think of it is pretty big competition for Lanturn though it blatantly loses to Greninja, and takes up your mega Slot, and gets worn down much more easily, and doesn't actually stop Volt Switch from happening, so I think it's safe to say Lanturn has a lot of perks over it), Dragonite (lol), Mega-Gardevoir (don't think this can viably use Heal Bell but I may be wrong since SpD MGarde is a thing apparently?), Gothitelle (lol), Granbull, and Espeon (no comment). Off all these, the only ones I'd ever consider using are Chansey, Clefable, Celebi, Sylveon and maybe MAmpharos. Heal Bell can be pretty important for a lot of teams, especially ones with frail powerhouses that are prone to status and which are exactly the kind of teams a slow pivot fits on, so Heal Bell is a really significant advantage over Rotom-W. Not only does it support teammates, but it supports Lanturn too. One of the biggest problems with Rotom is that it gets worn down a lot by burn and poison, so being able to just get rid of that is really nice.
The other is Scald. Let's face it, Hydro Pump sucks on Rotom-W. It's inaccurate and can very easily run out of PP, leaving you to get PP stalled or miss stalled a lot of the time. Rotom-W would absolutely kill for the spammable, accurate, rage-inducing water STAB that is Scald. No WoW isn't really too much of a problem for Lanturn since it's meant to beat special threats, but Scald really helps a ton when it comes to wearing stuff down. Honestly, I'm not sure if I really need to explain why access to Scald is a major plus over Rotom-W. I guess Ice Beam can also be considered a selling point, since it chips away at Latis but tbh, it doesn't really do that much to them. I personally prefer Toxic or TWave since that means you're no longer setup fodder for XZard.
This may be because no-one really knows what Lanturn does, but it ends up eating a lot of Volt Switches and Thunderbolts, and therefore generally lives a lot longer than Rotom-W usually does as long as I play it right. As I said, Ground immunity is a really, really big deal for Rotom-W, and the reason it's so much higher than Lanturn on the viability ranking in the first place. But a way to get health back without having to rely on Pain Split makes Lanturn a lot harder to wear down. It's a great deterrent to using Volt Switch in general which is always a plus.
Overral, I feel like there are enough situations where Laturn is a good pick on teams for it to warrant a rise. For instance, I recently made a team that needed a Greninja switchin, specifically HP Fire Greninja (I have a Ferrothorn on it so I wan't worried about HP Grass variants) as well as a good switchin to Thundurus, and also wanted a Heal Bell user. Clefable seemed to fit the bill perfectly, however, I started to spot a massive Magezone weakness. I replaced Clefable by Lanturn, and as it turned out it worked like a charm. You may just dismiss this nomination, but seriously, try Lanturn out. It's actually quite a decent Pokemon, so it's a shame it's completely overlooked by everyone. If you want something a bit like Rotom-W but don't really need a check to Pinsir or Sand, and instead would rather have something that stops Magnezone, Thundurus, and Greninja, I would recommend it. Lanturn is particularly good right now given how common Electric-types and Greninja are at the moment. In any case, and in my opinion, it's far less niche than anything currently sitting in D.
Lanturn for C
edit : also support MTTar dropping, I've tried it out and it doesn't pull its weight nearly as often as it should in all honesty. Has a tough time setting up and a tough time sweeping too, suffers from the omnipresence of scarf Lando-T, ruined by sand (which he provides himself so the opposing team doesn't even need to do it for Exca), ruined by rain. It's a good win condition if you can pull the DD off, but that's a big "if". Most of the time it'll just fire off a couple of Stone Edges or Ice Punch, dent something, and get forced out/KOed. It ultimately suffers from the same flaws as DD XZard, except it doesn't have all the other sets (Wisp, 3 Attacks, even Wisp DD) that makes XZard such a threat in general. If MGyara is A then MTTar needs to be A- because it's clearly not as good.
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