hi i'm gonna make a few noms since my time in scl is over
from A to S: best mon in the tier hands down, there's literally no drawback with having this on your team and even less reason not to use it. it checks a lot, and is the best progress maker the tier has to offer by a substantial margin with very little that can properly switch into it reliably. it wins 1v1 vs a big chunk of the tier handily and the most efficient way of checking it is having your own. if that's not S rank worthy i don't know what is.
from A to A+: yeah dark types are phenomenal right now, knock off + spin adds a ton of value and it does very well into both offense and bulkier teams with taunts sets. after mana cooked me with sash morpeko it grew on me pretty hard and i jumped on the hype train, it's also still one of our best forms of hazard control for more offensively oriented teams which are the best kind right now.
from A- to A+: yep another dark type, otr sets have become very prominent with scl and spiritomb has been one of the most threatening mons for a few weeks right now and i think its rank should show just that.
from A to A+: pretty much same reasoning as spiritomb, this mons crazy does well in ho and vs ho which is extremely valuable in this meta, both agility and otr sets are phenomenal.
from B+ to A: phenomenal pokemon with great sweeping potential, synthesis 3 atks sets have been taking the tier by storm in recent weeks and they've been very hard to stop, most of the time requiring luck to get past it. it's also pretty splashable and is a big part of the "bulkier" builds while also being a perfectly viable form of hazard control. people should use it more.
from UR to B/B+: this mons unranked but it's a good pokemon and there's a few replays that prove it, fits well on ho being a good priority user and a good tool against fat teams as well as being a spin blocker and a cc blocker which is super necessary on passimian grounds. combine all that with the fact that ghost dark is very hard to switch into (i/e spiritomb) and you get a good pokemon, it's still a bit frail but tendencies favor it right now and that should be reflected on the vr.
from A+ to A-: this bird fell from grace hard, it's in my opinion a bit too much of a jack of all trades master of none kind of mon and it makes it awkward to fit on teams in this meta where most mons fulfill very specific roles very well and swanna is outclassed at most of them. it doesn't do enough damage, it can't take hits well enough despite having a great set of resistances thanks to its typing and it just struggles to achieve anything properly outside of being a flip turn bot that doesn't force out a lot because of how little damage it does. i think this mon is no longer at the top of the metagame and its ranking should reflect that.
S to A+: not as prominent as i thought it would be, it struggles a lot vs meta trends like spiritomb and otr giraffe and the myriads of hos you see everywhere rn. it's still a very valuable mon with well rounded stats and definitely a top scarfer option, but idt it's dominant anymore.
from A+ to B+: same reasoning as swanna except zard struggles even more right now imo, the meta isn't kind to it at all and its stabs aren't spammable as they once used to be.
from B to A- and
from A to B+: fast electric types are insanely good right now with whiscash being the only viable splashable ground, (screw camel this mon sucks don't use it) and while raichu-a's psychic stab might be appealing, reg raichu is better imo by virtue of providing teams with the electric immunity which is very hard to come by in this tier rn. it's also a very potent sweeper and a key part of some ho builds stopping volt-turn shenanigans with rotom and being able to 6-0 some fatter builds with tera fairy dkiss, while being a potent pivot and encore user itself making also valuable into opposing ho builds. there's not a lot of reasons to use raichu-a over raichu rn imo, but since raichu-a double stab and "fighting" resist is still nice on some teams i'm not going to drop it as much as i would've.
and that'll be it for now, i might as well do a team dump later today just tryna figure out if i have time to make whole descriptions of if i'll just share pastes and maybe a few anecdotes here and there. i'll just put it here while i'm at it and am going to thank
ima and
Vert for drafting me and allowing me to be part of the adventure, this tour was the most fun i had in mons probably ever ngl and also huge shoutout to
fish anemometer for helping me throughout this season. thanks for being around and bouncing off ideas with me, and for keeping me sane throughout the season if you weren't there god knows what i would've ended up using. you were a key part of my "positive" campaign this year and i hope you get a chance to make a name for yourself on the big stage next year because you deserve it.
(if you wanna discuss vrs a bit tag me on pu disc)