O.oi'm strongly against deoxys-attack dropping.
In general, sure if you want to sack a mon to get rocks up and possibly a layer of spikes/screens and make it a 5v6, sure, deo-s does it best for ho. But the difference is, deo-a can actually potentially pick up a kill while it's leading, and isn't dead weight if you lose the 50/50 with diancie or sableye. and really, because of how easy it is to slap a defog arceus on any team that needs rocks off, deo-s ho really isn't the best in ag.
What 50-50? Deo a just loses to Msab. There's no 50-50, it won't do shit as long as Msab is on, which makes it a shitty lead to begin with. And since when is "the prevalence of defog" a reason not to use Deo speed? The screens + rocks set up in the beginning alone gives you tons of momentum. It can opt for a different set and set up a layer of spikes to go with the rocks and going for skill swap to beat the bouncers. And it isn't an awful "5v6 situation because you sacked your lead", Deo S sets up multiple sweeps, which Deo A still fails to do. Moreover, Deo A just straight out loses to the most common of Arceus leads with recovery (unless it's running taunt, in which case it loses out on E speed and just dies to dual judgment), e killers, swagkey (while allowing it to spike up), Deo S.. Name a common lead, and it'll almost definitely do well against Deo A. Even Mexican don can get away with minimal damage or stop the rocks set up with one parahax turn. Let's not forget 4MSS here, Deo A will either get taunt or E speed, not both (or it will just lose to dual e speed/dark types/steel types with no superpower). Speaking of which, let's have a look at some of the leads ranked below Deo A
Deoxys Speed
Excadrill
Based don
Scolipede
Cloyster
We are actually saying that Deo A outclasses these leads entirely if we're ranking them 5-6 ranks below Deo A. Anyone who has ever played with any of them will tell you they all far, far better leads than Deo A.
What. What? What?!Or use this magic thing called Life Orb! Not every mon has espeed you know, and even if they do it's a 50/50 because if you switch to your Skarm, Bulkyveltal, or another espeed absorber which you should always have with lo deo-a, then you picked up a kill and they didn't do jack shit! The thing is, that doesn't sound too great until you realize for that to happen deo-a has already picked up a kill and pulled its weight. Also, having an espeed that is faster than Arceus gives you a way to revenge kill a weakened ekiller (and it will be weakened if you play right because this is ag and everything bar stall hits hard) that isn't just winning a speed tie.
When was the last time you played a serious AG game? Are you actually suggesting using a life orb deoxys in a meta that has like 80% teams with priority usage, often multiple extreme killers, and passing it off as a serious strat? Moreover, are you ACTUALLY suggesting using a Life orb Deoxys while a skarmory is in the same team? I mean, let alone lousy playstyle-team building, it just makes 0 sense in general.
If that is the only legit way you are suggesting Deo A be used (considering how it is outmatched as a lead by plenty of other mons, and slapping on a Skarmory/Yveltal because you are Arceus weak is something that's best left for the mid ladder), I'd rather use legit cores with legit synergy.
??????????????252 SpA Life Orb Deoxys-A Ice Beam vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Mega Sableye: 144-170 (47.5 - 56.1%) -- 82.4% chance to 2HKO
^ya foul play obviously kos you back, its not a good matchup. But you have to realize, this is stall's best deo-a answer, yes ho-oh is a thing but if you need to account for it more than sableye its not hard to slap on rock slide instead. If your best answer gets 2HKO'd on the switchin, that's not good. If you see your opp has a sab in preview why would you lead deo-a in the first place, save it for later >_>.
Ho oh, Lugia, P dong, def P ogre, Def Yveltal... Deo A loses to more stall mons than it threatens. Actually, I can't think of a single "must-have-in-a-stall-team" mon that Deo A threatens.
And ice beam on Deo A in AG??
I'm sorry, are we talking about this same mon here?No, it doesn't. At least 80% of the mons lose to one of its two sets (sash and life orb). Before you say it, yes, I realize you don't have both at once. But they don't know that until you drop an attack. If they espeed your sashed deo-a, rip ekiller and deo-a already pulled its weight. If they go to sab on the lo ice beam, goodbye only check. Not to mention the ridiculous coverage this things gets, so if your team is weak to any particular mon chances are deo-a can hit it.
If you're going for sash, Taunt and Stealth rock are an absolute necessity. Psycho boost is standard stab, which leaves you with one slot for coverage. So much for "insane coverage"
I can't start with LO Deo A again, it baffles me to that LO deo a is actually being considered as a very viable set in AG. If you actually think LO Deo A is easy to slap on teams/super swell at breaking through teams in AG, I have absolutely nothing to say.
You do realise that even off of that example, Xerneas comes off with a Geo set up and kills? Not to mention we're talking about the most easy-to-kill Mon in the game (LO, not sash), which just can be brushed aside without needing to be set up on. We have 1-3 e speed killers per team high ladder and you're actually talking about promoting LO dipshit as a set?Really? What's setting up on it?
-2 252 SpA Life Orb Deoxys-A Psycho Boost vs. 184 HP / 0 SpD Xerneas: 195-230 (44.4 - 52.3%) -- 16% chance to 2HKO
68 Atk Life Orb Deoxys-A Extreme Speed vs. 184 HP / 28 Def Xerneas: 133-157 (30.2 - 35.7%) -- 38% chance to 3HKO
Just an example that it still hits hard. Don't forget just about all deo-a sets run mixed, so most things drop to whatever side of your attack didn't drop.
Um.. The fact that it doesn't deserve to be in the same rank as Skarmory, Dragonceus, Rockceus and MMX? The fact that it is basically mediocre at everything it does and no one has ever done well with it? Let alone do well, when was the last time you saw someone use a Deo A and hit top 10 (while the ladder was still active) ? The fact that there are at least 5 better leads for HO than LeadSash Deo A and innumerable better wallbreakers than LO Deo A? The fact that you can't give me one single good reason to ignore the fact that it is the frailest. Mon. Of. All. Time. ?I'd also like to know what changed to make deo-a worse. From what I can see, stall and balance is becoming more popular, which deo-a thrives on because they don't typically carry much priority. You just spouted a lot of "facts" about it, but nothing has actually changed to make it worse and you want it to drop 3 subranks? That's not how it should work.
I could go on, but there is not one single good reason for this to be ranked so high.
On the topic of unranked > ranked noms: in my opinion they shouldn't be considered until you can show us at least one viable team where that mon is the optimal choice. If that can't be done, then it isn't worth it to rank a mon, because this is a resource for new players and if the best can't build with it how could they? Afaik Forre is completely outclassed by other suicide leads, but hey, if you show me a team and some replays showcasing Forre I'll happily reconsider.
I peaked with Forretress like yesterday.... There are better leads, yeah, but none of them provide Tspikes + Rocks as efficiently as Forretress does. It beats 2 of the 3 viable bouncers and aids Mgar immensely at breaking teams. Tspikes, in general, is brilliant and Forretress is one of the only few Tspikes user aside from Cloyster that does a good job vs Magic bouncers (aside from Msab). Why do I use it over Cloyster/Scoli (I won't in 9/10 teams) ? But if I do, I use it because Scoli, fails to do anything vs any of the bouncers, whereas Cloyster, while the best tspikes setter imo, will quite often be limited to doing nothing other than setting up one layer of tspikes. Also, both of them miss out on the rocks, whereas custap allows forretress to set up both, which saves me a spot for a rock setter. I'm going to assume that being exclusively nice at doing these things should allow it to fit in a rank that has Grassceus and Liepard in it (And Darkceus is C-).