Hello World. With the initial content mainly focusing on the restricted but still emphasizing the importance of the non-restricted (for obvious reasons, you're gonna have 4 of them no matter what), I thought it couldn't hurt to scroll through the Pokédex a bit. What I've come up with is in no way the definite list or something naturally and I may have completely overlooked stuff. Anyway, here goes nothing.
Will Probably Be Used a Lot
Mega Kangaskhan
Bulky, reasonably fast and hard-hitting Fake Out bot with strong neutral coverage, same as last format. With only two restricted mons allowed in the full team, chances are you'd want a non-restricted Mega for the sake of having a third very strong mon at your service, and really, who would be better at exactly that job than freaking good old Kang. Will probably be #1 Mega for the third format in a row as well as top 3 overall usage again for the third format in a row.
Cresselia
Your generic Speed control, Skill Swap and other support slave. Have to watch out for Taunts and flinches, but if you can get around those, Cresselia will obviously do her job no problem. We might even see entirely non-attacking Cresselias a lot, because Cresselia really isn't hitting shit for damage anymore.
Will Be Used
Smeargle
Prepare for it or your skull may get fucked in the body bag. It's getting much better in this format.
Mega Mawile
I'm just putting it into this tier because people are hyping it up a lot, but personally I'm very sceptical. Taking care of Landorus and Heatran wouldn't have been too hard, but still only a handful of people actually felt able to do it. Now it has even bigger problems with fucking Primal Groudon that's so much harder to check, too! Add to that the stats that are still so meh that even the Kyogre matchup won't be too good, and then it should be clear why Mawile probably doesn't want to be the solitary Mega of any team, at least. It still beats Fairies and Kang and brings the probably rare Intimidate, so it has some valuable niche uses.
Mega Salamence
Special is probably dead, just can't keep up with the power creep. Physical can still be useful, because it's fast as fuck and that Double-Edge with proper Attack investment still slaughters animals alive. Main issue will probably be that most would just rather have Kang for the utility instead as their Mega, haha. Fun fact: If you can remove Desolate Land somehow, it has Hydro Pump in its movepool. Non-Mega obviously has Intimidate as well.
Togekiss
Follow Me bot, and also the oh so glorified primary partner to Mega Rayquaza. Can also do Speed control things and will be generally hard to OHKO.
Amoonguss
Rage Powder / Spore bot with excellent Speed for and against Trick Room shenanigans. It should have the bulk to survive anything below Overheat from Primal Groudon -- an issue that Occa Berry or even Focus Sash could fix easily --, and surviving attacks from Kyogre, Xerneas, Cresselia and Kangaskhan is basically free. Sitrus Berry could be very viable as well, for the purpose of eating up multiple hits and still standing.
Ferrothorn
Beats Kyogre, Xerneas and Cresselia. Low Kick Kangaskhan is annoying but can be somewhat answered with Rocky Helmet or Chople Berry. (And let's be real, everyone should use Low Kick in this format.) I expect it to again wall full teams once that one way to hit it hard (Groudon) is removed.
Thundurus
Eh come on. We will see no end to it. Prankster Thundurus is broken beyond repair and there's no way to forget. If Foul Play should become popular, we will especially see no end to Swagger, because, you know, how to best slam a Groudon right back into its grave!? However, Thundurus still suffers from moveset limits. He'll be most threatening in Bo1 play with the unknown movesets, but shouldn't be too hard to deal with in Bo3, unless your team for some reason is really fucking weak to him. Powering through his mediocre defenses got easier than it ever was, anyway, just gotta get those hits off in the first place.
Aegislash
The Good Deoxys™, you know. Steel type with amazing stats and cool moves like Wide Guard and Shadow Sneak in its movepool. It's definitely good, but it's also not too hard anymore to hate hard on it by just doing nothing that it can ever prey on.
May Be Used
Mega Venusaur
Psychic is trash and Flying is visibly limited, so you all know the turquoise fatass that still has almost no weakness and won't ever fucking die if you don't bullshit it via the RNG, because it's still slow and doesn't really threaten much, you know.
Raichu
Fake Out, Lightningrod, Encore, Nuzzle and all that stuff. It was already bad without the restricted in the format, doesn't get worse with them now in. Perfectly usable for all sorts of cheese.
Clefable
Another Follow Me Fairy. With Unaware, it can offer some Rayquaza cheese protection.
Parasect
Bad Amoonguss with Wide Guard.
Dugtrio
If you really, really, like REALLY want to get rid of Groudon... Dugtrio can trap it and should be able to kill it with a double-target. Note that this doesn't really work when they can bring Trick Room or something else, it's not exactly hard to get around the Dugtrio troll.
Golduck
If you really hate Groudon for your life...maybe Cloud Nine Golduck can do something!?? Golduck is really fucking terrible though, so don't expect to have an easy time with it. I can only see it doing well in great players' hands -- in the average ones', not so much.
Arcanine
Decent Intimidate user. Very good against Xerneas and learns Wild Charge to hit Kyogre hard with a boosting Item. Otherwise is still kinda terrible against Hoenn trio though.
Machamp
Trick Room Dynamic Punch, potentially Iron Ball Fling.
(Mega) Gengar
Mega is probably more useful than traditional, because Shadow Tag is a broken Ability and the support of non-Mega seems to be easily overpowerable (and it can't Burn Groudon). Of special note: Gengz is pretty fast and learns Skill Swap.
Exeggutor
I'm putting this here because it was sort of a thing in 2010 as well. It has Chlorophyll to be fast in Desolate Lands and it has Trick Room coupled with medium bulk (or Focus Sash) for Speed control.
Rhydon (and Rhyperior)
It's Rhydon, lol. It could see some use as a cheap Groudon check. Survives and 2HKOs a lot of things. Also learns Horn Drill, as you should be well aware from Battle Tower and friends.
Jynx
Fake Out bot with Dry Skin, a decent pool of support moves and decent offense.
Lapras
Has amazing bulk and seems to have decent matchups against some common stuff. I'm very afraid it might be lacking in damage output, maybe you just have to Specs or Life Orb it at this point to get kills.
Ditto
Two Primals or two Megas for your team or something along those lines. Could potentially be even moved a tier up, who knows.
Crobat
Fast, Inner Focus, Tailwind, Taunt, Super Fang, Poison type (but bad STAB sadly), Quick Guard.
Lanturn
Real men use Lanturn. Never forget.
Jumpluff
Another stupid support slave. Normally Chlorophyll, but Infiltrator could be interesting if Substitute or Safeguard become common.
Sunflora
Sorry Evan, Sunflora still sucks!
Wobbuffet
More Shadow Tag. Can lock down mons that rely on spread damage in hilarious ways.
(Mega) Scizor
Threatens Xerneas and Cresselia, could be decent if you can avoid Fire or keep Primordial Sea up.
Hitmontop
Fake Out, Intimidate, support moves. The weird Technician thing of 2010 is probably dead, and I don't see the proper Intimidate variant ever getting too much traction either.
Blissey (and Chansey)
Special attackers can't ever beat her if they're not boosting, nuff said. Also learns an obscene amount of nice shit, there's not even much reason to use the Minimize gimmick to begin with.
Raikou (maybe Entei and Suicune too?)
It's fast and has a cool movepool. Unfortunately very weak to Groudon.
(Mega) Tyranitar
Not as good as it used to be, has to play without that increased Special Defense now. Mega can sort of make up for that loss, but in turn costs the Item slot. But you know, Tyranitar still is The King of VGC, so it will never really be dead.
(Mega) Swampert
It can do well against Groudon and learns Wide Guard. Swift Swim cheese could be situationally useful, but I'd focus on its usefulness against Groudon.
Ludicolo
Not as good as back in 2010 anymore imo. Flying and Poison both got more relevant, attacks are stronger and stuff.
Shiftry
Ludicolo's disrespected brother. Has STAB Foul Play, otherwise not too good.
Breloom
Sash it and not even weather to fear. Very usable, and very inconsistent.
Shedinja
Everyone better prepare for this fucker. Could be prudent to establish having a Toxic / Leech Seed / whatever user per team as a basic rule of team building. If you're not following it, there's a chance you will be either unable to hit Shedinja or even be made unable! Bonus: It doesn't necessarily have to come with Golduck and (normal) Rayquaza anymore.
Hariyama
A Machamp that trades Dynamic Punch for Fake Out. Ray's 2010 team warrants it being mentioned.
Sableye
Prankster.
Mega Manectric
Bad Raikou and Landorus in one slot, threatens some stuff at least. Has the option of Intimidate Volt Switch.
Claydol
Has a remotely acceptable Groudon matchup. Pretty terrible otherwise.
Milotic
Can still wall a lot of shit. May be difficult to bring against Kang/Groudon teams with how they can just power through it anyway.
Dusclops
If you don't want Cresselia, maybe for some reason you want Dusclops instead. I guess Night Shade is better damage output than anything Cresselia can do in that regard, lol.
(Mega) Metagross
Eh, it's just so bad against a lot of common stuff...and only good against not enough common stuff. There's a chance this thing may be somehow figured out, but till then I'd rather have a safer Mega and another Steel type.
Infernape
Fast Fake Out and decent against Kang and Steels. I don't expect much from it, mentioning it here is mainly another relict from 2010 Worlds Finals.
Gastrodon
Unlike Swampert, it isn't terrible against Kyogre (in turn not as good against Groudon though, lol). But still, chances are that Kyogres STAB won't be single-target, and that means Storm Drain will always be doing a bit less than what is theoretically intended.
Ambipom and Mega Lopunny
Yaaaay, more fast Normal Fake Out bots, we can never have enough of them!
Garchomp
Good Speed and decent Groudon/Kangaskhan matchup, can potentially feast on Cresselias stopping to use Ice Beam.
Toxicroak
A Fake Out slave for Kyogre teams. It's probably terrible with that atrocious Speed and not too much else to offer in return, but if anything, we can be sure it will pop up in minor age Divisions at the very least.
Weavile
Come on, you know the text by now!
Mamoswine
Can do something against Groudon and Rayquaza. My hopes in it are very low, because these are so much stronger than the targets Mamoswine normally addresses.
Various Rotoms
The thing has mediocre stats, and those already came back to bite it in 2015. It can basically resist the Hoenn trio but its ability of doing something back isn't too outstanding, so they may power through it anyway.
Liepard
More fast Fake Out. More Prankster. More Foul Play. People have been talking about it a lot already and it will definitely be decent -- not exceptionally good though, because it just will always be a first-Route shitmon and that's it, lol.
Conkeldurr
Iron Fist Life Orb Trick Room glass cannon. Everything else is complete shit and/or outclassed.
Whimsicott
More Prankster. Gets Worry Seed, but that may become just as one-dimensional as Encore already is.
Cofagrigus
Could do some funny Skill Swap Mummy things. Also learns Ally Switch, Imprison, Fake Tears and lots of other bullshit that you're never gonna fit onto a set.
Gothitelle
Shadow Tag that is neither a frail Mega nor freaking Wobbuffet. Cresselia outclasses it hard if you don't actually do things with Shadow Tag.
Escavalier
Your usual Fairies and mushrooms counter that looks like a degenerate mushroom itself.
Mienshao
More Fake Out, matches up well against Kang without requiring it to be Mega itself.
Hydreigon
Hydreigon is bad, but it's one of the best answers to Groudon available. We should see it around, the only question is how (un)successful it will be.
Volcarona
Rage Powder and Fire type, should match up well with all the Steel types likely to be used, especially since Heatran will inevitably fall off the face of the Earth. Interesting slot for Xerneas cheese. Also learns Tailwind, Struggle Bug and stuff like that.
Virizion
Can take a hit of Primals, threatens some stuff and is immune to Amoonguss's shit. Trick Room will be its worst enemy.
Tornadus
Similar to Thundurus, with a few differences in movepools.
Landorus
Yep, we've seen him everywhere, now he's only niche. Therian has Intimidate, Incarnate has good Speed and can just spam Earth Power. Similar problem as Virizion otherwise.
Talonflame
I consider Talonflame the spiritual successor to weird old Hitmontop, with a few different attributes, naturally. Brave Bird with priority and good neutral coverage is decent. It can even get two of them off in the face of Groudon -- or provoke it to waste a turn Rock Sliding. Just slap a Life Orb and some nifty support moves on it and you're good to go.
Male Meowstic
More Prankster, more Fake Out, more Role Play (no Skill Swap because fuck Game Freak), more Swagger, more awwdorable.
Sylveon
I don't know. It matches up awfully against Groudon and it just isn't as threatening anymore as it used to be. Maybe if Dragons not named Rayquaza ever get big or something. I'm assuming RIP Sylveon.
Klefki
More Prankster. Freaking Crafty Shield may be a nice little tech that Klefki gets exclusively.
Yep, that's only 3 tiers, if you will. Not much point in separating further when right now it's all imagination anyway. Tournaments will show everything. I'm expecting CHALK-style teams where you replace Landorus and Heatran with your two restricted to be solid and common at the lower-numbered tables.
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