and 
. I would switch the two positions. Meowscarda down to A because of its fraility and Iron Boulder up to A+ because its the fastest 
mon in the game and has Swords Dance. Just my opinion tho.Another thing to add here on top of what Alfa said, but this is notably the first time aside from early SwSh that Primarina no longer has to deal with being in the shadow of Tapu Fini, as the latter is not in the game. Even more notably is that this is also the first time Primarina doesn't have to deal with Toxapex (gen 7 & 8) or the Slowtwins (gen 8) every two games to annoy the absolute oblivion over it. Pex is still viable, but is a shell of its former self both in viability and usage, while the Kanto Slowtwins are straight up nonexistent in the tier. Its natural typing also works very well with the influx of Dragon types that swarm the upper end of the usage statistics.
The main problem with Gouging Fire from my experience is the fact that it can't really beat everything, as each set permutation has some kind of drawback that makes it a bit awkward to pilot regardless of how effective it is in a vacuum. For example, running Heat Crash is nice on paper but then you fall harder against Great Tusk while needing Dragon-type STAB for Pokemon like Kyurem and Ting-Lu, meaning that if you opt for Earthquake for Heatran or Skeledirge (for example) you will struggle harder into these Pokemon and need more support to break through them. Or if you opt for Flare Blitz, you become more vulnerable to priority and need to heal more often as to not KO yourself from recoil, or you'll just be KO'd faster if you aren't running Morning Sun. And if you're running Morning Sun, you have to drop a coverage option or STAB move. Obviously this is not to dog (haha) on Gouging Fire; it is an excellent win condition and its utility as an offensive check to Pokemon like Volcarona is not to be understated, but it isn't quite on the S-tier caliber imo.
In addition to what waffle04 said, Landorus-T's resistance profile with Intimidate makes it really splashable as a defensive pivot. This is pretty big into Pokemon like Archaludon, Iron Boulder, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, and Gouging Fire which are really nice Pokemon to have a blanket check for. While it isn't a utility machine like Great Tusk, being a super consistent defensive pivot is definitely enough to cement a stronger niche for it in DLC2.
The purpose of the D-rank here is to distinguish Pokemon that technically have a niche in the OU tier but often require too much support to be worth it in most situations. It's sort of a "use this if you're a god gamer and have extremely specific needs for your team" tier in the context of this VR, but that doesn't mean it's how other VRs have to make use of it.
Absolutely not?? I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. It's a flexible Stealth Rock setter, for one, and Stamina gives it insane mileage in the realm of tanking and enabling Body Press as a tool into Kingambit or Meowscarada. With this level of defensive resilience and splashability it can make use of its high power Draco Meteors, Electro Shot to exert pressure and become stronger simultaneously, and options like Dragon Tail as a failsafe for any passivity it somehow has throughout the game. Calling Archaludon a momentum sink with that in mind shows me that you probably haven't tried it, which I would highly recommend doing because it's really good and honestly shapes a lot of Rain's high tier viability rn.
Speed Boost
i hope this is foreshadowing
if you get a swords dance off, it can be really hard to stop because it ends up outspeeding all the revenge killers. and getting a swords dance off is a lot easier than it was in previous gens when you have tera to flip your matchups
atleast he managed to get in thereB- Rank
Garchomp
From my experience, not the best but better than before. It got excadrill back of course, which is a god send. Still, despite having one of the most broken mons in sand rush excadrill, if excadrill dies, the team is kinda goofed if it is full sand. However, sand being part of your team instead of your whole strategy could be good. Plus, stuff like houndstone or sandslash are potentially underexplored.
Something like Utility Tyranitar + SD Spin Excadrill and a core of 4 good mons (Gliscor, GTusk, Gholdengo, Kingambit for example) works?
From what I could think of, yeah. Sand does not have enough viable abusers, houndstone and sandslash are not great but are the best options. I would say use something like clefable that doesn't worry about sand or even overcoat mandibuzz if you want to get creative (Mandibuzz is probably not a good option, but stuff like that that doesn't care about sand), but it isn't a neccesity. It allows you to play two gamemodes if one doesn't work and means that if tyranitar goes down, you aren't complete dead weight.
It still has too many counters to be considered S-, any physical wall with access to toxic, such as Toxapex or Gliscor can generally shut it down, dondozo shuts it down and it notoriously struggles into rain as well. When we compare it to the Pokemon in S-, the only valid comparison is Kyurem, since they both are bulky wallbreakers. In general, Kyurem feels much harder to switch into compared to Gouging Fire, unless it is in Sun, which requires support. As for the other Pokemon in S-, they are there due to their viability in different roles, which they generally perform better than Gouging Fire acts as a wallbreaker.
Main reason is Zapdos completely falling out of the metagame, but I still believe B+ might be a little bit too high with Boulder, Weavile and Meow everywhere
Alongside supporting sand rush Excadrill, it is quite good at forcing progress against fat teams with beefy Knock Offs and Stone Edges. Its movepool is quite varied so it can mix and match options to bait in common Pokemon or support its team like Twave, Rocks or Dragon Tail. It's dark typing and speed tier allow it to function as a Kingambit check with Low Kick in the lategame as well. Its special bulk is very helpful against a lot of special attackers, in particular the very threatening Volcarona, Kyurem, Raging Bolt and Dragapult. Sand is a good tool to cutoff opposing weathers, all of which are quite popular right now, neutering the offensive potential of rain and sun abusing threats all the while preventing Ninetales from setting up Veil. Ttar also matches up well into the weather setters themselves so that is a plus as well.
