View attachment 91590A- ---> A
Overview
Anyone who thinks Blacephalon is overhyped at this point hasn't been playing the same metagame. Despite its limited move pool, its actually able to fill quite a few roles and preform well in each and everyone one of them giving it the diversity to mold itself onto different archetypes and playstyle effectively. I believe the potency of all three of its major sets, which I'll detail below, make it worthy of A rank if not now sometime in near future.
Choice Specs
Specs acts as an instant nuke, being able to ohko-2hko everything in the tier with rocks up outside of Chansey and Tar. It's great offensive typing and solid speed allows it to come in frequently to fire off these big hits as well, which is usually a factor that holds back other powerful breakers. It also pairs great with a lot of the common u-turn and volt switch users due to taking advantage of both steels and grasses, which results in it being very splash-able. Finally, access to trick allows it to severely cripple majority of its common walls, effectively taking them out of the game allowing for itself or another member of the team to take advantage of later.
Fits on: Balance, Bulky offence and Sticky Webs
Roles: Balance Breaker, Stall Annoyer, Spin Blocker, Crippler
Calm Mind + Substitute
This set allows it to become one of if not the best stall breaker in the seventh generation, while still being effective verse other playstyles; which a lot of other dedicated stall breakers can't attest to at all. Obviously stall has seen a massive hit in its viability since the removal of another one of its trapping utensils in dugtrio, but i don't believe this devalues the set seeing as stall is still a relevant playstyle that sees usage on ladder and tours as well as it's formerly mentioned ability to operate outside of the stall match up effectively. It's potency verses stall stems from its ability to set up a sub on a lot of reoccurring faces of the playstyle via threatened them out by its stabs or in the case of Chansey it can't actually touch you. From there it's able to click cm and fire off attacks to blow through said stall team. The great part about it is it completely bypasses the usual hurdles a set up Mon would have with stall in unaware walls, since it is able to overpower both quagsire and clefable especially in conjunction with firium or ghostium. It also avoids being forced out behind a sub by ditto, avoids status that would wear it down as well as the formerly mentioned Chansey which it sets up on and beats 1v1 which is usually a massive issue for any special sweeper.
Fits on: Balance, Bulky Offence and Sticky Webs
Roles: Stall Breaker, Balance Breaker and Spin Blocker
Choice Scarf
Although I feel like choice Scarf is one of its weaker sets, it certainly does have its utility as a revenge killer and late game cleaner. It's revenge killing utility stems again from its massive Attack stat and solid speed allowing it to come in and threaten mons like SD Kartana, Volcarona (smack down or explosion), Landorus, Garchomp, Zygarde, SD Scizor, Bulu, Magearna and so on. As a late game cleaner it's access to beast boost providing it with the special attack boost after a kill, allows it to gain a lot of momentum late game and clean things up given the right scenario. Similiar to choice Specs, it also has access to trick allowing it to cripple a lot of its common answers, however it does have competition for alternative coverage as well as knock off
Fits on: Hyper Offence, Balance and Bulky Offence
Roles: Speed Control, Spin Blocker, Crippler or Item remover and Cleaner
Other Sets
I've seen sets like flame charge and Sunny day make some brief appearance on the ladder so I thought they might be worth mentioning although I'm not mentioning these sets as a reason for it to go up at least not now; but rather to highlight potential for it grow its versatility if these sets end up becoming relevant alternative to the above sets.
Fits on: Balance and Bulky offence
Roles: Sweeper, Spin Blocker and Balance Annoyer
Tyranitar Match-up
I felt like it was important to address the tyranitar match up and how much people overstate it as a reason it shouldn't be A-/A. If you look at the full picture you'll realise how well Blacephalon partners with fighting types, fairy types, Mega-Gyarados and Greninja; being able to remove psychic types like mew for fighting types, fat grass for Gyarados as well as Greninja, Steels for fairy and so on. The majority of if not all the mons that fall under this umbrella take advantage of tyranitar, especially when it's choice locked into pursuit allowing for free set or firing off a powerful hit. This alone can prevent a Tyranitar from clicking pursuit against Blacephalon allowing you to switch out freely and come back in later to force a similiar situation. There's also the potential to pair this mon with one of the various lures for Tyranitar such as Mega Latios with Earthquake which Gary illustrated in a post
here. I'm not trying to play down its Tyranitar weakness, as it is a very real stop to it, however I want to point out the reality that one pokemon countering it isn't the end of the world for it, especially when competent team building can take advantage of this weakness.
Closing Words
I would really like to see Blacephalon move to A as I believe it is unique presence in the metagame that is very competent at executing a variety of a roles that can benefit many different team archetypes and playstyles. At the least I'm fine with it staying A-, but I'd hope this post would stop some of the nonsense circulating this mon and asking for it to drop. Thanks for reading n_n