STABmons Changes in ORAS

Diggersby

Ever since XY was released, Diggersby has been the best Pokémon in STABmons. Diggersby's unimpressive Speed stat is mitigated by its newfound access to Fake Out and Extreme Speed, giving it powerful priority. In addition, Diggersby has useful tools such as Shell Smash, Belly Drum, and Head Charge. In XY, it was used on more than half of STABmons teams simply because of how useful it was. Diggersby was pretty much the sole reason why Skarmory topped the viability ranks and things like Gengar were used: to counter it! With Diggersby already being the undisputed king of the metagame, even the smallest changes make a big difference. Knock Off is a neat tool for quickly ridding of both Gengar and Gourgeist, and it can remove a potential Shed Shell from Skarmory so that Magnezone can trap it. Diggersby also now has access to Primal Groudon's signature move: Precipice Blades. The move has lower accuracy than Earthquake, but the difference in power is generally worth it. For comparison, Earthquake always fails to OHKO uninvested Mega Tyranitar, while Precipice Blades secures a kill more than two-thirds of the time. Last but not least is Diggersby's newfound access to the elemental punches: Fire Punch hits Ferrothorn for an OHKO; Ice Punch, which has a niche of smacking Landorus-Therian; and Thunder Punch to smack Gyarados switching in. The future of Diggersby in STABmons is bright; there is no doubt it will remain a top threat for some time.

Mega Blastoise

Blastoise was never very interesting in STABmons. It already had access to all the Water-type moves it could want, and Rapid Spin is hardly enough to justify usage of the turtle. However, thanks to the introduction of Primal Kyogre, Blastoise is actually quite a threat. Primal Kyogre's signature move, Origin Pulse, is essentially an improved Hydro Pump. It has the same Base Power, but with higher accuracy and PP. This is a nice boost to many Pokémon such as Greninja and Keldeo that were tired of relying on Hydro Pump's mediocre accuracy. So why highlight Blastoise? The answer is simple: Origin Pulse is a Pulse move (who would have known?) and is thus boosted by an entire 50% thanks to Mega Blastoise's ability, Mega Launcher. This nearly doubles the power of Water Pulse and is a great improvement upon Hydro Pump. It's worth noting that Clawitzer receives this awesome boost as well but generally is not as good of a Pokémon as Mega Blastoise. To give you an idea of how strong this move is, it will OHKO Pokémon like offensive Garchomp with ease. This Mega is nothing new, but it has a destructive new trick up its sleeve—try it out!

Mega Lopunny

Lopunny returns this generation to fulfill a powerful role as a fast and powerful sweeper. Courtesy of being a Normal-type, Lopunny gains access to brand-new moves including Extreme Speed, Shell Smash, and Belly Drum. Furthermore, Lopunny's Mega Evolution has access to an excellent ability in Scrappy, making it extremely difficult to deal with. Normally, Ghost-types would wall it, but it can actually beat all Ghost-types with its unresisted STAB coverage courtesy of Scrappy. With a simple set of Shell Smash / Extreme Speed / Drain Punch / Ice Punch, it suddenly becomes nearly impossible to wall. Mega Lopunny is also difficult to revenge kill because of its high Speed stat, making it difficult for Choice Scarf users to outspeed and KO it. Mega Lopunny can also pull off another role as a utility check to popular threats with its combination of Fake Out / Extreme Speed / Drain Punch / Ice Punch, hitting a large portion of the metagame super effectively. Mega Lopunny is effective versus a large portion of the metagame, including Mega Tyranitar, Aegislash, Landorus-T, Diggersby, Sableye, and Thundurus, all of which are very common threats.

However, Mega Lopunny has one glaring flaw: its bulk is simply not good. Priority of all different kinds can give it problems, even though it has access to Extreme Speed; it just can't KO everything before being KOed in return. Furthermore, Mega Lopunny's moves all make contact and make it difficult for it to play around the ever-common King's Shield. Fake Out is increasingly common with all the Normal-types running about, and Mega Lopunny does not enjoy taking any, especially after a Shell Smash. Nonetheless, Mega Lopunny is a top-tier threat that every team must account for. Still, Mega Lopunny can run a few select moves such as Protect to ensure that it can survive a Fake Out, or it can have teammates to handle it. Either way, Mega Lopunny can somewhat mitigate its flaws and remain a large threat.

At the time of writing this, Mega Lopunny was still around, but it has since been banned from STABmons for the reasons listed above.

Mega Tyranitar

Mega Tyranitar did not gain anything new in the ORAS transition. It did, however, take a huge blow in effectiveness and usage with the advent of all these new and powerful Pokémon, namely Mega Lopunny and Mega Metagross. Both of these Pokémon carry powerful STAB moves that overwhelm Mega Tyranitar. There's also the opportunity cost that comes with using Mega Tyranitar; if you're using it then it means you're not able to run Mega Lopunny or Mega Metagross! Even some more uncommon Megas, such as Mega Audino and Mega Sableye, are seeing more usage, giving Mega Tyranitar an even rougher time. Mega Scizor is also on the rise as of recent, as it does well versus the new threats and is still as dangerous as ever, further knocking Mega Tyranitar down. However, this is not to say that Mega Tyranitar is no longer unusable; it's just not what it once was. Mega Tyranitar still has useful traits such as a powerful Knock Off, Diamond Storm, and Sucker Punch, along with an excellent typing and stellar bulk. The new Mega Evolutions in ORAS are just making Mega Tyranitar's life a bit rough in STABmons.

Mega Altaria

Mega Altaria is a powerful threat that most teams are unequipped to handle and one of the largest additions to STABmons this generation. Mega Altaria was recently banned because it was just too much for the tier to handle, essentially being a better Sylveon, another banned Pokémon. With all of Pixilate Fake Out, Extreme Speed, and Boomburst, backed by Shell Smash, Mega Altaria was way too difficult to stop and was centralizing the tier. Furthermore, Mega Altaria has excellent typing and excellent bulk, making it all the harder to prevent from setting up. Mega Altaria's Boomburst was so powerful, in fact, that it could 2HKO Chansey at +2. Altaria had the coverage to back this firepower up as well with moves such as Earthquake and Fire Blast to break down Steel-types. While it was relatively untouched, a defensive set was also quite viable because of Boomburst's raw damage output and Mega Altaria's typing and bulk. Mega Altaria had been turning the tier into "who can carry the most Mega Altaria checks and hope to win," and so it was banned!

Mega Metagross

Mega Metagross may not look as though it gained much, but it still receives both Gear Grind and Shift Gear to use with its new Mega Evolution. Shift Gear boosts Mega Metagross's high Speed stat to even more dangerous levels while simultaneously boosting its Attack. Gear Grind makes contact, which means it's boosted by Tough Claws, effectively giving it a Base Power of 132 with no drawbacks. To put that into perspective, it's more powerful than Overheat, has STAB, has decent accuracy, and has absolutely no drawbacks to using it. That's insane. Oh, and did I mention that it breaks Substitute and still damages the opponent on the second hit? Over Gear Grind, one can choose to run Heavy Slam to smack just about everything, and although it's weaker, it does have perfect accuracy and usually achieves its maximum power. What sent Mega Metagross over the top was its resistance to the most common forms of priority, Fake Out and Extreme Speed. This was compounded with Mega Metagross's astounding bulk, which allowed it to set up on practically everything. Mega Metagross instantly shot to being a top-tier threat and was eventually banned.

Mega Slowbro

Mega Slowbro was a Pokémon that many debated about being broken or not, and it has a backstory leading up to its ban. Firstly, Mega Slowbro's brokenness came into light when w0rd, a well-known STABmons player and a member of the STABmons council, brought it up with the council. It was then announced as a suspect test because of its ability to use just about everything it needed and either wall the opponent or set up mercilessly. A simple but effective set was Stored Power / Cosmic Power / Slack Off / Calm Mind, which allowed it to set up easily without fear of critical hits, thanks to its ability, and recover off any health. However, most of the council was not sure it was actually broken, so they voted down the ban by a 2-5-1 vote. But where did it get banned in all of this? Well, after the decision to not be banned, there was an outcry in the thread. People argued in the thread for a while and tried to bring up why they personally thought it was or was not broken. After around a week of discussion, Eevee General, the STABmons leader, made an executive decision and reversed the council's decision, thus banning it from STABmons. This brought much relief and was possibly the most controversial ban in the metagame.

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