Explosion

Cofag is only commonly seen with one set, and already it establishes itself as one of the polarizing forces in the tier as it offers just so much in one slot. Nasty Plot Ghostium just smashes through most bulky cores in the tier while access to Trick Room lets it put in work against offense as well. Its typing and ability makes for one of the best Fighting answers in the tier, even able to answer monsters like Hitmonlee, Guts Machamp, and Medicham, which, in addition to its bulk, pretty much guarantees at least one setup opportunity in a match. Its status as a bulky yet explosive wincon not only makes it splashable for a wide variety of teams, but is even a significant factor that exacerbates the potency of certain playstyles, such as Aurora Veil and Trick Room. This mon certainly has a lot going for it, and while I personally don't find it too overwhelming, I wouldn't mind its absence from this tier.Sneasel is an offensive force, especially when its STABs and defining Speed tier just threaten nearly every offensive mon in the tier, but it still suffers from its core flaw in that it has to KO its targets to avoid being crippled or just KOed back in return. While Sneasel's attacks are certainly very strong for not having much drawback, they aren't powerful enough in that they can just OHKO uninvested neutral targets for the most part, and certainly has issues 2HKOing bulkier Pokemon such as Steelix and Colbur/Waterium Z Slowbro. The entry hazard weakness certainly does not help its case, as that alone makes Life Orb much less appealing than it otherwise would be, whereas Sneasel bears weaknesses to 'punch-based' priority, which are amongst the most common priority moves in the tier.Hitmonlee, on the other hand, does have the power to just OHKO uninvested neutral targets with the sheer power of its Reckless High Jump Kick. Otherwise, it still suffers from needing to KO its targets (although its Special Defense is pretty respectable, but then again it has no good special resists and its HP is piss), and while its Speed tier is influential in that it's among the fastest of the heavy-hitting wallbreakers, it's still slow enough to be worked around; it does have Choice Scarf or Unburden to patch that up, though those have their own sufficient drawbacks. Finally, Hitmonlee's coverage isn't flawless either, especially when it often makes way for auxiliary moves such as Mach Punch and Rapid Spin which limit its range of targets. Speaking of which, Hitmonlee is one of the most important users of both of those aforementioned tech moves, making its presence more healthy than unhealthy if anything.I can understand the sentiment behind Virizion being a potential issue; SD Z-move sets became exponentially harder to keep in check, while its Speed, typing, bulk, and 'weight' (to weaken Heavy Slam) give it several setup opportunities, and became the sole reason Steelix favors Gyro Ball these days. On the other hand, I feel Virizion can be managed offensively without going too much out of one's way, as mons like Sneasel, Dodrio, and Zen Headbutt Tauros can keep Viriz in check, whereas nearly every relevant Choice Scarfer in the tier just seems to be able to hit Viriz with some super effective attack, or just raw power in Hitmonlee's case. While defensive answers to Viriz are few, they do come in the form of existing Fighting checks, such as Gourgeist-XL, Whimsicott, Garbodor, Weezing, Granbull, and (Thunder Wave) Uxie. I can even see potential adaptations to Virizion, such as Poisonium Z Vileplume or the other bulky Poison-types running Z-Haze, to help combat the threat. While Virizion's access to Zen Headbutt (and by extension Shattered Psyche) does invalidate some of these checks, it does expose Virizion to others ones such as Sigilyph, Xatu, and Scyther. As far as I can tell, Calm Mind Virizion hasn't really taken off since it doesn't have Z-moves to help get rid of most of its checks, has less convenient coverage than its physical counterpart, and has notable competition with Z-Move Lilligant as a late-game cleaner, so I have doubts if this will add too much to Virizion's potential brokenness, at least for the moment.Holy shit, this is easily my least favorite Pokemon to fight in this tier. Between Colbur CM and Choice Specs, this Pokemon can badly punish you for hazarding a guess and has the gall to not even slow down the pain train afterward. Meloetta has unreasonably respectable Speed for a Pokemon so specially tanky, and its coverage lets it nails the entire tier for neutral at worst. Colbur Melo flips off attempts to Pursuit trap it and blasts away with +1 Hyper Voice to instantly put down your Sneasel or Drapion or whatever and continue holepunching while being just generally annoying to revenge kill, whereas Choice Specs has absurdly strong neutral coverage and has the option to either run moves like U-turn, Knock Off, or Dazzling Gleam or even consider forgoing Hyper Voice to fully round out its Psychic coverage and throw you off your game. And then we got sets like SubCM which preys on your overconfident AV Slowking, and even some whack Calm Mind + Bloom Doom set to smash counters like Spiritomb + Steelix + Slowking in one go & give me nasty Necrozma vibes all over again. Basically,fighting this mon.I shared my thoughts on Aurora Veil before, and I brought up my proposal ofcomplex ban back then. With that said, it's come to my attention that even with AlolanSlash/Shrew no longer able to set up a fast 8 turn Veil and spin away hazards, there is a single next best alternative in, which boasts natural Speed, Spin, and even a similar tolerance to entry hazards. Cryogonal would be a bit less effective than AlolanSlash since its Speed doesn't reach insane levels and is more susceptible to Mach Punch and Bullet Punch, which are more common than Vacuum Wave. However, Cryogonal's biggest asset over AlolanSlash is its access to, which brings its teammates in for free; this prompts an entirely new level of urgency which AlolanSlash does not, which can be problematic to face in its own right. Furthermore, Cryo's lesser Speed compared to AlolanSlash is made up for by the fact that the opponent still has to face the same issue which they have against Aurorus + AlolanSlash: they have to be able to bypass Aurorus without getting crippled and stop the incoming Aurora Veil setter from setting up, and I've mentioned numerous times previously how effective Aurorus is at slowing down foes. Because of this, I won't be pushing for my prior proposal very strongly, and I won't expect the council to consider it much either.Man, RU Heracross, UU Conkeldurr, and now this? While it's certainly true that Guts Fighting-type wallbreakers have gotten a substantial buff, I don't think Machamp is quite on the level of 'broken' just yet. For starters, it lacks extra sustain, STAB priority, nor a good Speed tier, which do hold it back from breaking as much as it could; the lackluster Speed tier is especially notable as it means that certain walls such as Golbat, Qwilfish, and Garbodor can keep Machamp under much better control, and also weakens its matchup against opposing offensive teams since being outsped by the majority of wallbreakers is almost never a good thing. While Machamp can certainly function well on speed control teams like Trick Room and Webs as Jarii said, but I would attest that there's competition in those categories: personally I would actually consider Guts Hariyama on Trick Room to be able to outrun base 30s such as the Slow-siblings and non-Gyro Ball Steelix, whereas on Sticky Web, I would much rather choose Fighting-types with better Speed tiers such as Emboar, Medicham, Sawk, and Hitmonlee, as Jolly Machamp cannot even outrun -1 Virizion. Simply put, while Machamp is certainly very powerful, I don't consider it particularly tier-breaking.