Looking Back on an Era: ORAS RU Edition

Before ORAS, Gallade was a decent choice to run on some teams. However, ORAS made Gallade unbearable for the new RU metagame to handle. Mega Gallade received major boosts in its Attack and Speed stats, which put it as possibly the best physical breaker as well as one of RU's fastest Pokémon. Its STAB moves, along with Knock Off, provided Gallade with unresisted coverage, which meant Gallade had almost no trouble getting a couple of KOs per game. Swords Dance helped Gallade even more, since it made Gallade an unresisted sweeper with high Speed that also resisted most priority moves, aside from Fletchinder's Acrobatics. Offense often had to sack many Pokémon before being able to handle Gallade, while stall had difficulty stopping Gallade after it uses Swords Dance, and as a result, it was quickbanned from RU early into the release of the tier.

One of the Mega Pokémon that came out with ORAS was Lopunny. Lopunny was one of the better Megas in the tier, since it had unresisted coverage as a result of Scrappy, its Mega ability. Lopunny had quickly become one of the defining Pokémon in the metagame and was up for a council vote along with Gallade. However, despite similarities between Gallade and itself, Lopunny found itself to stay in the tier after the council vote. While Mega Lopunny had amazing stats, the metagame was well prepared for it, unlike with Gallade. Lopunny had no way to deal great damage to common defensive Pokémon, such as Cresselia, Amoonguss, and Aromatisse, since it had no good boosting move to help it break through Pokémon of these types. On more offensive teams, common Pokémon such as Fletchinder, Choice Scarf Moltres, and Choice Scarf Meloetta were also able to keep Lopunny from putting in exceptional work. Therefore, it was voted to stay in the tier. However, it shortly got banned from UU, which led to Mega Lopunny getting banned from every lower tier, and rose to OU, eventually settling there as an amazing Mega Evolution until the end of ORAS.

In a tier full of bulky Psychic-type Pokémon, Mega Houndoom found itself in a very powerful position. Not only was it a great option to handle many bulky Pokémon, it also had Nasty Plot backed up by a base 140 Special Attack stat, which was just enough to make it a fearsome sweeper. Its STAB moves were unresisted by all Pokémon by themselves, which meant with Nasty Plot, it had space for a fourth utility move, which could often become key in many games. Access to Sucker Punch, Flame Charge, and Destiny Bond further made it easier for Houndoom to do many different things with the end result of weakening a team severely. Mega Houndoom also got buffed-up defensive stats, which allowed it to survive priority moves and retaliate with one of its coverage options. Because of Mega Houndoom's sheer power, decent bulk, and great Speed tier, it was banned shortly after Mega Gallade had left.

Dragalge had finally gotten its hidden ability, Adaptability, released within ORAS. This gave Dragalge a tremendously powerful Draco Meteor that nuked everything not named Registeel or Bronzong and made it incredibly hard for the metagame to handle. It was also part Poison-type, which helped handle Fairy-type Pokémon, thus further boosting its dominance over the tier. However, it was not broken just because of its ability to nuke most of the tier. Its typing let it sponge most neutral hits, and it also added utility by being able to get rid of Toxic Spikes. Unless you were using a super effective or boosted attack, Dragalge would be able to survive any hit and retaliate with its powerful moves. Also, Dragalge could set up Toxic Spikes of its own to make it easier to wear down the opposing team, which would make it even harder to handle switching into one of its attacks, and fit well on bulkier teams that appreciated its support. Dragalge fit well on most team archetypes and did great damage to any other archetype as well. It eventually got banned as a result.

Pidgeot was one of the Mega Evolutions that came with the release of ORAS, and it had only gotten more usage when the aforementioned Mega Pokémon got banned. Mega Pidgeot was blessed with No Guard, which worked very well with its strongest special stab move, Hurricane, which also had a high chance to confuse the foe, and a high base 135 Special Attack stat as well as an amazing base 121 Speed tier that let it outspeed most of the unboosted metagame. Offense had an incredibly hard time dealing with the all-out attacker set, since Pidgeot could hit most Pokémon with either Hurricane or Heat Wave and U-turn out of any specially bulky Pokémon. It was able to keep itself healthy by Roosting on weaker Pokémon, which made it last a long time during a game. Work Up with Refresh was also an option to break down bulkier teams, as Pidgeot could set up against Pokémon like Alomomola and not have to worry about status thanks to Refresh. Much like many of the other suspects in RU, Mega Pidgeot was too much for the metagame to reliably handle (especially when Hurricane seems to confuse every time).

Finally getting its long-awaited hidden ability, Serperior was finally able to make in impact within every metagame it was in. Contrary with Leaf Storm meant that every time Serperior used its strongest STAB move, its Special Attack would automatically get boosted by two stages, rather than drop by two. While having a weak initial hit, Serperior was easily able to get boosts while spamming a strong move. Serperior also follows the trend of the other suspects, because it also had a great Speed tier that made it a very formidable threat, especially late-game. Dragon Pulse and Hidden Power Fire gave Serperior great neutral coverage, as they could finish off what Leaf Storm couldn't after boosting with it. It had the space to run great utility moves in Glare and Knock Off for the last slot. Serperior could also be harder to take down with Substitute + Leech Seed, since it could set up behind a Substitute with ease, or switch out to an appropriate Pokémon to handle the foe and still regain HP through Leech Seed.

Pangoro excelled in breaking everything. Hardly anything could switch into it, and it also had decent bulk to take neutral hits if necessary. Since ORAS had move tutors, Generation 6 Pokémon now were finally able to get access to great options like Knock Off, and Pangoro was one of the fortunate ones to get access to the move buffed this generation. A set of Knock Off, Drain Punch, and Gunk Shot was able to demolish defensive teams after a Swords Dance. Not only that, but Pangoro's abilities played a key role in its success. For Swords Dance, Pangoro couldn't get shut down thanks to Mold Breaker, and Iron Fist helped for sets not running Swords Dance. Pangoro could run a Choice Band to be more of a hit-and-run Pokémon, or it could use a Life Orb set with four attacks and Trick Room support to shred teams under the twisted dimensions. Pangoro's lack of defensive checks got it on the suspect block, and it was later banned.

Moltres was one of the best titans to roam the RU metagame. It had access to a very powerful STAB coverage in Hurricane and Fire Blast, which in itself kept most of the tier at bay. Its counters were scarce, and Moltres could U-turn out on them anyway. The Life Orb set alone easily destroyed most of the tier, and Moltres had different variations that made any defensive response impossible, like Sunny Day + Solar Beam to destroy every Water- and Rock-type thanks to Solar Beam being much more stronger than Hidden Power Grass, while Choice Scarf made it a great revenge killer. Pokémon like Rhyperior, Assault Vest Slowking, and even Lanturn were used on almost every team to check Moltres, but most of Moltres's checks were easy to wear down with hazards and U-turn damage. Since Moltres was nearly impossible to switch into and had scarce answers, it was banned along with Pangoro.

With the release of the Johto starters' hidden abilities, Feraligatr was gifted with Sheer Force, and it instantly rose from being a NU threat to an RU superstar. Respectable bulk, two powerful setup moves in Swords Dance and Dragon Dance to threaten every team archetype, and a movepool to make the best use of its newfound ability made Feraligatr an incredibly versatile monster that could easily destroy teams given a single turn. Its arrival on the RU scene was shy, but it rapidly rose into popularity, so much that it got quickbanned after a week of rampaging through the RU tier. Pretty impressive how a new ability can make such a difference.

Flygon was a really welcome addition to the tier. Due to Gligar leaving, RU really needed something to fill its shoes. Even though Flygon isn't as proficient defensively as Gligar was, its excellent typing alongside Levitate, U-turn and reliable recovery made it a really nice pick for virtually any team, and it could certainly fill the niche Gligar left behind after its departure to the UU tier by providing hazard control pretty reliably, something the tier was lacking at the time. The more the metagame developed, the more Flygon established itself as a fantastic Pokémon on every metagame immediately after its arrival in the RU tier. In general, a much-needed introduction to the RU tier that remains amazing to this day.

Ah Kingdra, probably one of the most broken Pokémon that could have arrived to the RU tier throughout the entire 6th Generation. Making rain builds much more relevant virtually by itself, being able to pull off sets that would be considered cheesy by many like Focus Energy with Scope Lens and Agility, and forcing extremely niche Pokémon on teams to just check it, for example Shell Armor Escavalier and niche 'mons like Lapras started seeing usage! Ridiculous Pokémon that made the tier hell for the week it was allowed. The fact that RU lost many Pokémon during the tier shift that could have potentially checked it, like Whimsicott and Slowking, and the tier going through a literal overhaul made this drop much more overwhelming than ever. It was that good.

Moltres's long-lost cousin! Jokes aside, the RU metagame got blessed with plenty of Dragons. That tier shift brought Flygon, Kingdra, and finally Noivern to RU lands (which also made Togetic rise to RU, but that's a story for another article). Noivern was compared to Moltres a lot, although not as powerful, because it shared many of the traits that made Moltres overwhelming, but with the main difference that Noivern had a fantastic Speed tier, being outsped only by Jolteon and some Choice Scarf users, so it didn't have to worry about using a Choice Scarf to do a lot of work against offense. Choice Specs and Taunt + Roost allowed it to put in work against balance, forcing players to use specific stuff like specially defensive Aromatisse and Piloswine to consistently check it, and its movepool made it tricky to switch into thanks to Flamethrower, Hurricane, and Draco Meteor providing really nice neutral coverage, leaving many Flying- and Dragon-resistant Pokémon alike shaky against it. Really fun Pokémon and probably one of the less broken from the actual BL2, but at the time it was way too much for the tier to handle.

Reuniclus, a fantastic Pokémon that was one of the most proficient stallbreakers the tier ever had. The combination of really nice bulk, reliably recovery, and a great ability made Reuniclus one of the most potent wincons against balance and stall teams. It forced many offensive cores like Doublade + Drapion to be used at the time so teams could have a safety net against Reuniclus, was a major contributor to Assault Vest Escavalier being the main set at the time, and was the worst headache to any stall team, since Pokémon like Skuntank and specially defensive Drapion just couldn't handle it in the long run. Surviving all of XY untouched thanks to Meloetta being better and Doublade's presence forcing it to run Shadow Ball, here it is on ORAS... with no Doublade around to stop it, so it could run Focus Blast without worries to stop Dark-types from switching in. It became an auto-win button against many teams, and plenty of times you could see this thing setting up and winning from turn 1 extremely easily despite it having checks. It went through a suspect test alongside Noivern, and both were sent to the BL2 realm. Pretty deservedly so, especially Reuniclus.

It took a while for Venomoth to arrive into RU; a new Baton Pass clause had to be implemented in order to invalidate the main strategy that made Venomoth so overwhelming for UU standards, Quiver Pass, so after some time it finally landed into RU and, oh boy, what a fearsome force it was at the time. The combination of Sleep Powder, Tinted Lens, and Quiver Dance alongside a pretty decent STAB move combination in the form of Bug Buzz and Sludge Bomb made Venomoth a terrifying pokemon to face, since all of its checks feared taking a Sleep Powder and giving Venomoth opportunities to set up. Because of this, many of its responses including Delphox, Mega Steelix, Emboar, and others had to rely on Sleep Talk to have better odds at beating it. Fletchinder, which could reliably revenge kill it, feared the Sludge Bomb on the switch, and Pokémon that could beat it like Escavalier and Registeel were mediocre options at the time. All this made for a fearsome metagame-defining force that dictated teambuilding, forcing subpar choices on some Pokémon and even cheesing through its checks thanks to sleep being an outstanding status and the unreliable nature of Sleep Talk. It went through a suspect and got subsequently banned with an outstanding supermajority.

A new change in tiering policy allowed the base formes of Mega Pokémon to be tiered separately, allowing lower tiers to see the base forms in action and bringing new possibilities to them. This gave RU amazing new Pokémon to toy with, which quickly became metagame staples. Blastoise and Venusaur had an immediate impact on the tier, Blastoise bringing a reliable spinner for balance and bulky offense builds, far more reliable than Hitmontop could ever dream to be, and Venusaur bringing a good offensive Grass-type switch-in to the tier, bringing a nice Tangrowth and Virizion check and a really consistent wallbreaker, which set it apart from Amoonguss and was something the tier was lacking; this was the main reason why Registeel started gaining some usage despite Mega Steelix being the premier Steel-type at the time. Eventually Tangrowth and Amoonguss left the tier, which gave defensive Venusaur some spotlight, but we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves here. Two drops that definitely had some notable impact in the tier, providing more teambuilding possibilities.

A Pokémon that was once an extremely mediocre option that required the support of an entire team to even function during XY just needed the release of its hidden ability, Rock Head, in ORAS and a simple tutor move in Outrage to become one of the premier threats in the tier for basically any archetype. Yeah, that's Tyrantrum. The combination of Rock Head + STAB Head Smash made Tyrantrum an outstanding offensive behemoth, with Choice Band having only Mega Steelix as a safe switch-in and Choice Scarf being mostly responsible for more offensive archetypes being considered unviable, since Cobalion was the usual response to it, and did an excellent job keeping it in check, until it rose to UU by usage at the time, which forced these builds to use niche 'mons like Mawile to attempt to survive against the dinosaur. Rock Polish sets were just the icing of the cake. For that reason, it went through a suspect test. The results were pretty surprising, since it didn't get banned; this certainly caused some disgust given most people thought the tier was better without it. However, the tier had to move away and learn from this event, with a rather bright future to come.

The Mega Icy Snowman came back with a vengeance, ready to spread the blizzard terror just like it did back in the XY days. Mega Abomasnow's insane combination of bulk, power, and the STAB combination and coverage to easily break most balanced cores forced notable changes on the balanced archetype, like making Mega Steelix worse by giving it competition for the Mega slot and due to the iron snake not being able to tank Blizzards, thus forcing Bronzong and Escavalier to be the Steel-type of choice in order for Mega Abomasnow to not ravage through the team by itself. Given the low number of reliable checks this Pokémon had, making some Pokémon like Tyrantrum notably more dangerous, and how big of a teambuilding constraint it was, the council decided it deserved a suspect test. It got banned after the suspect process.

Sharpedo dropped alongside Mega Abomasnow for a second round at RU after rising to UU during early ORAS, and the shark returned stronger than ever. Unlike what Sharpedo used to run during XY, which was a more physically oriented set, during ORAS Sharpedo used a fully special offensive moveset, and this was an incredibly destructive one, with unmatched wallbreaking and cleaning potential to make Sharpedo an outstanding Pokémon. Having extremely limited counterplay was just the start, since Poliwrath and specially defensive Alomomola being the only consistent countermeasures made winning games with Sharpedo extremely easily. Many people remember the Nasty Plot Baton Pass Togetic + Sharpedo core with love; it basically was an auto-win button. It got banned alongside Mega Abomasnow during the same suspect test.

Durant was a Pokémon that was blessed and cursed with its ability, getting enormous power at the price of always having 80% accuracy. As unappealing as this may sound on paper, this hardly affected Durant's incredible effectiveness. Being able to perform a lot of roles incredibly well, from being an outstanding wallbreaker with hardly any switch-ins thanks to its coverage to a Choice Scarf set capable of revenge killing a plethora of offensive threats (it could even pull off an Adamant Scarf set extremely easily thanks to its amazing Speed stat) made Durant a huge threat for virtually every team. This Pokémon alone was responsible for the rise in popularity of Rotom-S, probably the only reliable counter against it. A Pokémon that could cause rage on both sides, for the opponent because it could easily KO everything given the chance and for the user because it could miss at the worst possible moment. In the end, it proved to be way too much for the tier to handle in the long run, and it got banned after its suspect test.

Honchkrow's stint in RU was pretty short lived, but that was pretty justified because this thing was nothing but a powerhouse. On paper, Honchkrow would technically have a good number of checks available, think stuff like Diancie, Rhyperior, and Mega Steelix, but in practice it could simply pack a coverage move to nail every single one of them on the switch, like Superpower or Steel Wing if you want to go the extra mile. But the most terrifying aspect was its snowballing effect. Thanks to Moxie it got progressively harder to stop, so it getting a KO could be devastating, and that wasn't the hardest thing to accomplish, since it had Pursuit and Sucker Punch. Being part Flying just meant it could already demolish most common Dark checks by itself, like Fighting-types and Fairy-types, since Life Orb Brave Birds hit too hard to stomach. It was just too good, so it got quickbanned, and to BL2 we go.

After some time the RU council decided to go with a Tyrantrum suspect once more, for the same reason as before, with it being a massive constraint to anything remotely offensive with Choice Scarf and the Band set having no switch-ins, but this time the dinosaur wouldn't be dancing alone in the suspect dance. Mega Steelix was deemed worthy of a suspect test alongside Tyrantrum by virtue of its insane role compression in being an outstanding defensive Pokémon with fantastic offensive capabilities, able to beat a lot of physical attackers one-on-one and being quite the metagame presence, heavily dictating teambuilding due to how many Pokémon were deemed useless or way too hard to use due to its presence and just how good it was to not use it on any team, and being the most centralizing element since Gligar back in XY. Both Steelix and Tyrantrum shared quite the relationship since the dinosaur wasn't deemed broken at first because of Mega Steelix's presence, easily the most consistent check to Tyrantrum, but even that got easily worn down. Even though Mega Steelix wasn't as broken as Tyrantrum despite being rather centralizing, it was certainly worthy of a suspect test on its own. In the end, both got sent to BL2 by the community. Huge changes were about to come.

Mega Steelix leaving really impacted the metagame in a pretty positive way, allowing stuff like VoltTurn offense with Magneton to flourish, and Pokémon like Uxie, Escavalier, and even Scyther started getting some time in the spotlight. Glorious metagame development. Anyways, many months passed, and the metagame reached a pretty stable point actually, so... the only thing left was to see what the tier shift would bring to shake the tier a little bit. And boy, some crazy stuff was pretty close to dropping at the time. Cloyster, Goodra, Mandibuzz, Shaymin, Slurpuff, and even Haxorus! In the end, RU only got Shaymin and Slurpuff, and it didn't take long for them to show how good they were. Shaymin had extremely limited switch-ins, and the very few available were easily worn down by a Substitute + Leech Seed set or were just worn down by Seed Flare and its ridiculous secondary effect, dropping the target's Special Defense by two stages, which is insane for a Life Orb set and made the move extremely spammable, with only drawback being the low PP. Slurpuff was back, now without its best check in Doublade, meaning that it became an auto-win button because of the combination of Belly Drum + Unburden, and thanks to its checks being really easy to wear down, besides like defensive Venusaur, which needed to be really healthy to take a +6 Return anyways. It even had Aromatherapy to avoid status, so yeah... Both were kicked to BL2, these two were way too much for the tier to handle.

The metagame returned once again to stability, with diverse Pokémon quickly becoming metagame staples, like Registeel becoming the premier Steel-type, usual metagame stuff. Now, archetypes like balance and semistall quickly became the top builds on the metagame and, while this isn't necessarily a bad thing because there will always be archetypes that are better than others, some people perceived these types of builds as "too good". It is pretty hard to perceive something defensively oriented as broken or overpowered by virtue of the fact that most of the cases are pretty passive Pokémon that are easy to take advantage of through setup sweepers or sheer offensive pressure. What's the deal with this explanation? Well, it is because there were words of a potential Alomomola suspect test. When you look at Alomomola, you don't really see suspect test material at first glance. It relies on Scald for its offensive presence and gives many dangerous Pokémon like Virizion and Venusaur plenty of opportunities to do whatever they want, but there is another way to look at things regarding Alomomola in particular. This post by Double01 is what pretty much set the track for the suspect to be a reality, providing really solid reasoning as to why Alomomola was suspect worthy given how it generally gave the user massive control of the momentum throughout the match and provided support that was just outstanding for its teammates, which could easily patch up Alomomola's issues with Grass- and Electric-types. It is a good read, you should check the post out. In the end, the suspect happened, and Alomomola was saved! While it was deemed not guilty of this perceived balance "utter dominance" in the metagame, this suspect helped the community identify an obnoxious unhealthy element alongside Alomomola... which was probably the actual problem behind that feeling of unhealthiness in the metagame. In the end, it was a pretty interesting happening that provided us with some nice points of view and discussions, and not having a one-sided suspect was neat for once.

And here it is, the "problem", as many pointed out through their experience on the Alomomola suspect test, and a Pokémon that managed to get really good lately. Inconsistency aside, Dugtrio's niche is unique, being one of the few Pokémon in the entire game that have Arena Trap as their ability. Its ability allows Dugtrio to prevent grounded Pokémon, except Ghost-types, from switching out, meaning it could easily remove said Pokémon from the game. This was certainly a problem, given that during stage 18 of ORAS RU many teams were extremely vulnerable to Dugtrio, because even though they technically didn't have any Pokémon weak to ground, if their Pokémon were grounded, Dugtrio could easily KO them or weaken them for another Pokémon in the back. Dugtrio alone made preparing for stuff like Substitute + Bulk Up Braviary extremely difficult and attempting to break a standard defensive core like Alomomola + Registeel + defensive Venusaur virtually impossible, because many of the wallbreakers that could aim to break this were limited to just one KO; the moment they pulled the trigger and got rid of any mon, Dugtrio came out, and you were basically left with no methods of winning at that point. Pokémon like Virizion, Magneton, offensive Venusaur, Nasty Plot Houndoom, Calm Mind Delphox... all rendered ineffective by Dugtrio. There is the relationship between Dugtrio and Alomomola, because this way trying to prepare for Alomomola ended up in players running specific stuff like Hex Jellicent, which is a good set on its own but rather team specific, or something that is Pursuit weak like Sigilyph. A losing battle. Dugtrio had some nice things going for it, though, like allowing some niche strategies that weren't possible otherwise such as the use of SubCM Uxie, but in the end, the cons heavily outweighted the pros; Dugtrio was found just way too constraining, even on teambuilding, so it had to go through a suspect test; the community demanded it at this point. It got banned by a landslide, leaving the metagame in a pretty desirable state. This was the last suspect test during ORAS.