Looking Back on an Era: ORAS OU

Introduction

With ORAS to be replaced by Sun and Moon as the main generation, it's nice to take a look back and reflect on everything that happened in the meta, looking at the history of suspect tests, additions to the tier, and trends that the metagame has gone through. In this article, we will be looking back at ORAS OU.

Timeline of ORAS

The start of ORAS introduced many new Mega Evolutions that shook up the late-XY tier, which many players considered to be a perfect meta. As well as new Mega Evolutions, move tutors and new movepool additions helped breathe life into OU underdogs, such as Weavile having Knock Off become compatible with Icicle Crash; already-solid Pokémon in OU also improved, such as Mega Gyarados gaining STAB Crunch, and move tutors even took top-tier Pokémon and made them more potent. An example of this was Greninja, which gained Gunk Shot, allowing it to bypass common answers in Clefable and Assault Vest Azumarill and quickly causing it to be banished to Ubers soon after the meta managed to stabilize slightly.

Mega Salamence

With all the shiny new toys running around in ORAS, one threat in particular stood out by a huge margin, having an extremely strong grip on the tier of unmatched precedent. Mega Salamence was incredibly broken when it was allowed in the tier, as its increased bulk, speed, and power on top of Aerilate bolstering its power even more and giving it strong Flying-type STAB put it at a power level that OU was simply incapable of handling. Mega Salamence restricted the meta so much that the meta boiled down to preventing it from setting up and trying to set up with your own one. Teams were almost always the same too, with the standard being Mega Salamence / Greninja / Rotom-W / Weavile / Landorus-T / filler. Rotom-W and Weavile could easily be replaced with Zapdos and Mamoswine, respectively. The meta quickly came to revolve around beating Mega Salamence, as the rise of Substitute variants forced Rotom-W to run Hidden Power Ice or a heavy amount of Special Attack investment to prevent it from setting up at all costs. Mega Salamence's tyranny was ended quickly when it was quickbanned to Ubers, and it managed to solidify itself as a meta-defining threat even there. Shortly after, the first official suspect of ORAS OU was revealed.

Greninja

Greninja gained Gunk Shot and Low Kick from the move tutors in ORAS; Gunk Shot was the main culprit of the suspect, though, as it allowed Greninja to have a strong physical Poison-type STAB move, picking off common Fairy-types used to check Greninja such as Clefable and Azumarill while also putting a huge dent into specially defensive Pokémon such as Assault Vest Raikou and Chansey, which could beat Greninja otherwise. On top of its other amazing qualities such as access to Protean and a very solid Speed tier that let it outpace almost the entire unboosted metagame, Gunk Shot pushed Greninja over the edge and found itself banned from the tier with an unsurprising 82% supermajority. Low Kick was another notable mention in that it could also hit Kyurem-B for solid damage as well as other Pokémon that had risen in usage specifically to check Greninja such as Empoleon.

Tornadus-T, Starmie, and Weavile

Obviously, the banning of Greninja helped loosen the tight restriction on offensive teams, which struggled the most with it; this also opened the gates for Tornadus-T, which finally got an opportunity to shine in the tier, as it no longer had to deal with the omnipresent Greninja that could pick it off easily. Starmie also improved a lot as a go-to offensive Water-type, as outside of Rapid Spin, it was completely outclassed by Greninja, which made it very difficult to justify using in OU. Along with the increased usage of the former two Pokémon, the increase in usage and viability of offense also opened an opportunity for Weavile to truly shine; Knock Off being compatible with Icicle Crash turned Weavile into a massive offensive threat since very few teams had something that could reliably handle it.

Serperior and Emboar

In January, shortly after Greninja was banned, the hidden abilities for the Unova starters were released: Contrary for Serperior, Shell Armor for Samurott, and Reckless for Emboar. The only relevant ones that actually received any hype in ORAS OU were Serperior and Emboar. Serperior finally gained Contrary, which has been hyped up ever since Dream World OU, where it was a massive threat, and it shot up from PU to OU, where it quickly became a big threat, being able to overwhelm teams extremely quickly with Leaf Storm; however, with its bad coverage options and the abundance of Pokémon that resist and quadruple resist Grass-type moves in OU, Serperior was never considered too much for the meta to handle and provided a nice overall addition. Emboar doesn't seem like a very interesting option, but with access to Reckless, it also received a lot of hype as one of the strongest wallbreakers, since it was a Fire-type capable of blowing through bulky Water-types with Reckless-boosted Wild Charges. Emboar also fell flat on its face, as it struggled to keep up with the high Speed of the meta, and despite having incredible wallbreaking potential, it was extremely prediction-reliant and fell out of favor really quickly.

Tyrantrum

Tyrantrum received Rock Head, which managed to breathe some life into its niche in OU. It received an enormous amount of hype, boasting a Head Smash that could even 2HKO Mega Slowbro when boosted by a Choice Band. Tyrantrum quickly fell flat on its face too, though, as it suffered many issues and faced competition from other Rock-type wallbreakers such as Tyranitar, Terrakion, and Mega Diancie. Tyrantrum's main issue was that Ground-types are very common in OU, so it had a difficult time breaking through the likes of bulky Garchomp and Hippowdon, which often forced it to use Outrage, which either resulted in Tyrantrum being taken advantage of by Fairy-types or by bulky Steel-types. Overall, it was an overhyped wallbreaker that needed proper prediction to put in a lot of work. Tyrantrum also lacks the ability to set up sand, useful resistances, Special Defense, and Dark-type STAB moves that Tyranitar has access to.

Mega Metagross

Shortly after, another suspect was chosen. This time, it was Mega Metagross, for its very solid offensive stats, which were complemented further by a great movepool and access to Tough Claws; on top of this, it reached a crucial Speed tier in base 110, tying with many big threats such as Mega Diancie, Latios, Gengar, and Latias while outpacing everything slower. Mega Metagross also boasted incredible defensive stats for an offensive Pokémon, being able to survive some very powerful attacks such as Adamant Life Orb Bisharp's Sucker Punch and Jolly Landorus-T's Earthquake, which many players thought made it too much for the tier to handle, given that it could also pick its own counters due to its large offensive movepool. The main ban arguments boiled down to it having no solid answers and that it was just too much for the tier to handle while being extremely difficult to wear down. Anti-ban arguments mostly consisted of Mega Metagross being a "necessary evil," in that it kept massive threats such as Clefable and Mega Altaria in check while fulfilling extremely valuable roles in teams. Anti-ban sides also disproved arguments of Mega Metagross being difficult to wear down due to the rise of Garchomp and Landorus-T running Rocky Helmet, and they brought up that Mega Metagross suffered from four-moveslot syndrome, which could be easily taken advantage of in the teambuilder, and with solid preparation, Mega Metagross can be easy to deal with. At the end of the suspect process, Mega Metagross narrowly avoided being banned to Ubers, with a 57.3% ban majority when a 60% supermajority was needed.

Feraligatr

In February, after the Metagrossite suspect test, the hidden abilities for the Johto starters were released: Leaf Guard for Meganium, Sheer Force for Feraligatr, and Flash Fire for Typhlosion. Feraligatr was hyped up to be a monster with Sheer Force, with theorymonning predicting it to outclass Gyarados, as it lacked the nasty Stealth Rock weakness and had additional coverage options such as Superpower to help handle Ferrothorn. However, this hype quickly fell on its face, as Feraligatr ended up struggling in the meta and couldn't make a name for itself in OU. However, it quickly found itself to be a very dominant threat in UU for a while, until other trends knocked it down from grace. The other two Pokémon didn't gain useful enough abilities to push them up to OU, and they remained in lower tiers.

Hippowdon, Mega Altaria, Mega Scizor, Mega Gardevoir, and Mega Diancie

The meta was fairly settled at this point, and new trends such as the rise of Hippowdon and defensive Mega Scizor also helped keep Mega Metagross in check. Obviously the metagame was finally able to stabilize, with a couple of notable threats running the tier such as Mega Altaria, Mega Metagross, and Clefable, while other Fairy-types such as Mega Gardevoir and Mega Diancie were very strong choices too, especially when paired with Magnezone to remove Steel-types such as Mega Scizor, Skarmory, and Ferrothorn. The meta seemed to be run by such powerful threats, and nothing was considered banworthy, but the OU tiering council had another idea in mind...

Aegislash

Retesting Aegislash in order to keep these threats in check instead of banning more was the next idea the OU council had. Aegislash was previously banned in XY for being detrimental to metagame growth and one of the biggest restrictions to building in the tier, as well as its ability to force games into coinflips every turn it was on the field, especially in the face of contact attackers. It rendered nearly every Psychic-type near unviable, as well as other dominant forces such as Mega Heracross and Mega Pinsir, as their standard sets today were held back by Aegislash. On top of shutting out almost entire types, Aegislash also put a strong restriction on Choice item users and hurt their viability due to how easily it could scout them and punish overpredictions. Introducing Aegislash to the meta had some good effects, however, as it held back dominant Pokémon and threats considered borderline broken such as Mega Metagross and Mega Altaria, on top of the various other Fairy- and Psychic-types in the tier. However, it also made threats such as Mega Charizard X and Landorus more potent because it could trap their common checks such as Latios and helped discourage Choice Scarf users in the case of Mega Charizard X, making it harder to revenge kill and deal with in the teambuilder and in-game. When the voting period came around, Aegislash was kept in Ubers with a 72.8% supermajority. The effect that Aegislash had on the meta wasn't worth the meta-warping restriction against Fairy- and Psychic-types as well as the severely hindered viability of many Fighting-types on top of the ability to turn games into getting coinflips right.

Landorus

After huge demand from the community, Landorus was finally put on the chopping block. Many players considered it to be a massively broken threat due to its large movepool and insane power after boosts from Sheer Force and Life Orb, as well as multiple boosting options in Calm Mind and Rock Polish, which made it very difficult to keep in check as the former allowed it to obliterate bulky teams that didn't have Cresselia or Mega Latias, while the latter let it take on offense and completely break it down late-game. All-out attacking movesets also allowed Landorus to apply unmatched pressure to balance teams, with options such as Sludge Wave to pick off Clefable and Psychic to beat Mega Venusaur while also netting the OHKO on Fighting-types such as Mega Heracross (before they started running bulk) and Keldeo. Hidden Power Ice was another viable option that hit specially defensive Gliscor, which had high usage for its ability to check Landorus. Knock Off hit Latios and Latias while also removing Assault Vest from Tornadus-T, limiting its capabilities as a check. Rock Slide was another move that saw usage, since it blew back Tornadus-T and Zapdos, which were both often used to check Landorus.

Most anti-ban arguments from Landorus relied on the fact that Cresselia and Mega Latias were both OU viable and capable of completely shutting down Landorus all the time, while others brought up four-moveslot syndrome, as Landorus had so many different options to run, and it would always struggle in certain matchups because it lacked said moves to break into the opposing team. Landorus's Speed tier was also used against it, despite sitting at a trolly 101, narrowly outpacing many Pokémon in OU such as Charizard, Mega Gardevoir, Mega Medicham, Celebi, Jirachi, and Manaphy, as Landorus was still checked by faster threats such as Keldeo, Thundurus, Latios, and Mega Lopunny. Other anti-ban arguments cropped up saying that defensive teams will be too strong if Landorus was removed, but pro-ban brought up other examples of notable breakers including Manaphy in particular. Regardless, Landorus was kicked out by a 75.5% supermajority.

Nidoking

After the Landorus ban, many players were searching for alternative wallbreakers to harass bulkier teams with; people started using Manaphy and Mega Heracross, while some others looked towards Nidoking. Although much weaker than Landorus, Nidoking is still a formidable balance breaker in OU with its great movepool and access to Sheer Force. Coupled with Poison / Ground typing, Nidoking made for a very solid Clefable answer, as Ice Beam is one of the most uncommon coverage options on Clefable. This meant that Nidoking was a very reliable switch-in to the most common set, which ran Thunder Wave to cripple the likes of Mega Venusaur and Heatran. Nidoking manages to put in a lot of work against common balance builds, as it tears through the likes of Ferrothorn, Clefable, Skarmory, Amoonguss, and Heatran. Problems that prevent Nidoking from potentially moving up to OU include its middling base 85 Speed making it difficult to threaten offensive teams, especially against faster Pokémon such as Keldeo, Choice Scarf Landorus-T, and the wide range of faster Psychic-types used such as Latios, Mega Latias, Mega Alakazam, and Mega Medicham.

Hoopa

After suspect stage 4, Hoopa was released along with its Unbound forme. We will cover Hoopa-U later, but Hoopa is basically fully outclassed by Hoopa-U, as Hoopa-U is faster and stronger. The only thing Hoopa has going for it is its Ghost typing, which has some nice benefits, but also some huge downfalls. The good side about Hoopa's Ghost typing is that it provides a nifty immunity to Normal- and Fighting-type moves, allowing Hoopa to take advantage of Pokémon such as Chansey and Choice-locked Keldeo with Substitute or to fire off a Choice Specs-boosted attack. The main downside to its Ghost typing is the massive vulnerability to Pursuit. Even unboosted non-STAB Pursuits will pick off Hoopa extremely easily. Hoopa-U at least had opportunities to escape from Pursuit, as its barely passable bulk and neutrality to Dark-type moves allowed it to escape from most weaker Pursuits.

Mega Heracross, Manaphy, and Togekiss

With Landorus banned, the anti-ban expectation became a reality, with many more bulkier teams being seen on the ladder and in the tournament scene; however, becoming more common, these defensive teams weren't as game breaking like they were predicted to. Instead, players just looked for other breakers and this saw a surge in usage of Mega Heracross and Manaphy. Mega Heracross could obliterate slower builds with its sky-high Attack and high-Base Power moves, and even though Mega Heracross variants ran a lot more Speed at this period in ORAS, it was still deceptively bulky and was still a big thorn for many teams to deal with. Manaphy was discovered as one of the best breakers in the tier because of its large special movepool and access to Tail Glow on top of solid 100 / 100 / 100 bulk that provided it with many setup opportunities. Manaphy was capable of shredding through defensive builds and could even opt for a Rain Dance set that boosted the power of its Scald further and allowed it to power through its most common answers on stall teams in Chansey and Unaware Clefable. Togekiss was another very notable stallbreaker that began to see a lot of usage too; outside of trapping with Gothitelle, stall had very few answers to Togekiss as it could freely set up with Nasty Plot and flinch through the likes of Chansey and Skarmory while being able to heal poison and paralysis with Heal Bell. This could be seen especially during OLT II, where many teams utilizing Togekiss qualified for playoffs due to the abundance of stall on the ladder at the time. This began to raise concern, though, as some players thought Manaphy was too big a threat to defensive teams and it wasn't unlikely to be one of the next candidates for a suspect test.

Tyranitar and Excadrill

Tyranitar has always been a dominant Pokémon in OU for its ability to keep massive threats such as Latios, Talonflame, Mega Pinsir, and many more in check with its Choice Scarf set, but one of the most notable trends for Tyranitar as of late is the massive increase in usage of Choice Band over Choice Scarf. Choice Band gives up Tyranitar's increased Speed and more reliable Pursuit trapping capabilities to turn it into one of the strongest wallbreakers in the tier. Two main reasons for Tyranitar shifting to Choice Band were the release of Volcanion and the subsequent increase in usage of Mega Latias, as well as a lack of teams running proper Rock-type switch-ins. This also ties in with Terrakion becoming more popular too, as its Choice Band set could also harass many teams that relied on the likes of Landorus-T to act as a pseudo-Rock-type check. However, the main deal with Mega Latias is that Choice Band Tyranitar could reliably take it down as opposed to to Choice Scarf variants.

As for Excadrill, it has seen a lot more usage during ORAS compared to XY purely because of the extra threats introduced to the tier that are weak to it. Pokémon such as Mega Altaria, Mega Charizard X, and Mega Metagross all hated dealing with Excadrill, as it outspeeds all of them in sand with Sand Rush and threatens to OHKO all of them. This made Excadrill a very solid catch-all check to a lot of offensive threats and allowed teams to focus on dealing with other threats. One main thing with Excadrill is that it caused an increase in usage of Landorus-T and Rotom-W, two Pokémon that are commonly used to handle Excadrill apart from Mold Breaker variants for Rotom-W.

Mega Altaria (again)

Mega Altaria was considered one of the best Pokémon in OU around the time of the Aegislash retest for its ability to find setup opportunities very easily as well as its large movepool that made it difficult to reliably keep in check, as it could run Earthquake for Heatran and Fire Blast for Mega Scizor and Ferrothorn while Pixilate-boosted Return was really strong coming off its decent base 110 Attack. Mega Altaria also had a variety of healing and boosting options that provided longevity and allowed Mega Altaria to set up on a lot of passive Pokémon easily, and it still was fast enough to pressure offensive teams. On top of its decent offensive stats, Mega Altaria was also very solid defensively, being a great check to the likes of Mega Lopunny, Mega Charizard X and Y, Keldeo, and Thundurus. What made Mega Altaria fall from grace was the increased usage of Amoonguss and offensive Steel-types such as Mega Scizor and Sand Rush Excadrill. Amoonguss could wall Mega Altaria with ease and either put it to sleep with Spore or remove its boosts with Clear Smog, while Mega Altaria just struggled with the overloading offensive pressure from Steel-types, which made it harder for it to compete in the meta, eventually seeing it drop in viability.

Mega Latias

Mega Latias saw a lot of usage during OLT II in both the qualifying and the playoffs stages, where it was used as a bulky paralysis spreader and blanket check to a large variety of threats in OU such as Thundurus, Mega Charizard Y, Keldeo, Breloom, Landorus-T, Garchomp, and non-Life Orb Tornadus-T. The main selling point of Mega Latias over regular Latias is the reduced damage taken from Knock Off and the drastically increased bulk, which allowed it to stick around for a long time and prevent teams from being broken down by the aforementioned threats. Later on, Calm Mind sets were discovered, allowing Mega Latias to function as a bulky sweeper with either Psyshock or Stored Power along with a status-blocking move such as Refresh or Substitute or a coverage option to hit Dark-types. The most common fourth move was Surf, as it dealt heavy damage to Tyranitar and enough damage to Bisharp. Eventually Volcanion was released, and Mega Latias retained high usage in order to reliably keep it in check too. Mega Latias's flaws slowly became more noticeable, as it was very passive against the likes of Clefable and Mega Scizor, which led to it being used less, with the increased usage of Choice Band Tyranitar hurting it too.

Mega Sableye and Shadow Tag

Around the time OLT II finished, the next suspects were revealed: Mega Sableye and Shadow Tag. Mega Sableye was suspected for its ability to invalidate a lot of teambuilds, forcing many teams to run Clefable or Heatran in order to stand a chance against the kind of builds Mega Sableye functioned on. It made stallbreaking significantly more difficult, as stall teams couldn't be pressured the traditional way of using entry hazards, status moves, and Taunt to open a hole for a wallbreaker to come in and open up a game-winning plan. This alone was considered broken by many players in the community, and during the OLT II qualifying phase, an infamous stall team made by CleanerThanRotom-W started to appear everywhere on the ladder and became one of the most known stall teams throughout ORAS. The most notable aspect of this team is using Gothitelle to trap the stallbreakers that could take on Mega Sableye, effectively removing them from the game or crippling them to the extent that they couldn't do anything. This led to stall teams being extremely difficult to break without running very specific countermeasures such as Shed Shell on stallbreakers such as Manaphy and Togekiss. This obviously hurt them too, as they could no longer run Leftovers and therefore missed out on passive recovery, which made stallbreaking consistently a very difficult task. The community was obviously really strongly torn on Mega Sableye, but a massive supermajority wanted Shadow Tag gone, mostly because such trapping elements backed by such a strong defensive Pokémon really warped the metagame and made it extremely difficult to break into these teams without running overspecialized answers to them. Shadow Tag was banned by a massive 89.2%, even surpassing Greninja in ban vote percent. Sablenite wasn't far from the 60% supermajority required, achieving a 53.5% for banning. Despite over half of the voters wanting to get rid of Sablenite, it was kept in the tier.

Amoonguss, Tangrowth, and Mega Venusaur

Amoonguss and Tangrowth both rose up from RU to OU for many various reasons. Amoonguss, although facing a lot of competition from Mega Venusaur, mostly rose for its ability to similarly check threats such as Keldeo, Mega Diancie, and Clefable, while Mega Venusaur had become a lot worse at handling Clefable ever since Thunder Wave became a staple on it. Amoonguss was used a lot more often because it didn't use up the Mega Evolution slot, which opened up more options when building, as well as because of its access to Regenerator, which helped deal with the rising trends of sand usage, making for a great pivot into many threats because it could heal back up easily while Mega Venusaur relied on an 8 PP recovery move that was nerfed in sand.

Tangrowth gained a lot of usage for its physically defensive set, which is insanely bulky and allows Tangrowth to survive basically anything that isn't a very powerful STAB move such as Mega Charizard X's Flare Blitz or Mega Heracross's Pin Missile. This meant that Tangrowth could easily punish many physical attackers in OU such as Mega Lopunny, Breloom, Mega Metagross while annoying the likes of Mega Medicham with Rocky Helmet damage. Tangrowth also has a lesser-used Assault Vest set that patches up its horrible Special Defense, allowing it to survive some strong attacks such as +3 Manaphy's Ice Beam and take much less damage from the likes of Choice Specs Keldeo and Latios.

It's not fair to say that these Grass-types outclass Mega Venusaur, though; Mega Venusaur is still a solid choice, as it has better mixed bulk and more power than Amoonguss, which is very important in taking on threats such as maximum Attack Mega Diancie, Substitute + Calm Mind Mega Gardevoir, and Belly Drum Azumarill, all of which are capable of breaking through Amoonguss.

Zapdos

Zapdos has always been considered a terrible Pokémon in OU by players, mostly because people used to rag on its Stealth Rock weakness and passivity in the face of Pokémon such as Clefable. Zapdos eventually dropped to UU, but it soon rose back up to OU, as Zapdos managed to find a place on bulkier teams to counter common Flying-types such as Talonflame, Tornadus-T, and Mega Pinsir while also being able to take on Bisharp and the omnipresent Mega Scizor. The main selling point of Zapdos over Rotom-W as a defensive Electric-type is that it has reliable recovery and access to Roost and Defog. Roost allows Zapdos to reliably take on the likes of Mega Scizor, which could easily wear down Rotom-W or beat it with offensive sets, and Defog allows Zapdos to get rid of entry hazards and makes for a solid answer to Skarmory and Ferrothorn, preventing their entry hazard stacking. Zapdos also gained its hidden ability in Static in March, allowing it to punish the likes of Mega Lopunny and punishing the Pokémon it could already check such as Bisharp and Mega Scizor even more. Zapdos saw a very sharp spike in usage during the OLT III qualifying stage, where many people used a team relying on various Flying-types (Talonflame, Dragonite, and Mega Pinsir) to break each other's counters and create a game-winning plan using any of three Pokémon. Zapdos had a great matchup against this team and was used a lot to counteract the trend of bird spam.

Hoopa-U

Most likely the last suspect of this generation, Hoopa-U was put on the chopping block this time. At first, Hoopa-U wasn't a massively dominant force like it was predicted to be, as the metagame adapted to it fairly quickly, with a rise in Pursuit users such as Tyranitar and Weavile. At this time, Hoopa-U's main set was Life Orb, which found itself being worn down very quickly and could be picked off by common Pursuit users, while its 80 base Speed hurt Hoopa-U's matchup against fast offensive threats such as Mega Lopunny, Tornadus-T, and Weavile. On top of this, there were (and still are) common priority move users such as Mega Scizor, Azumarill, Talonflame, and Mega Medicham that all could also heavily pressure Hoopa-U. The meta then shifted as Hoopa-U's Choice Band set was discovered, which pushed it up further as a threat, but still not enough to be considered suspect worthy. Choice Band was very effective, but the meta was more than capable of dealing with it, as Hoopa-U struggled to break down Pokémon such as defensive Landorus-T and Mandibuzz. Nearer the later stages of SPL 7, TDK used a team with Choice Specs Hoopa-U, which was shortly after considered to be the best Hoopa-U set; it had unresisted coverage across three moves in Dark Pulse, Psyshock, and Focus Blast. Access to STAB Psyshock and a towering 170 Special Attack meant that after the Choice Specs boost Hoopa-U was capable of shredding through anything; even Chansey was 2HKOed by Psyshock, which just shows the extent of how powerful it was.

Most ban arguments brought up that it was near impossible to keep Choice Specs Hoopa-U in check and that it was just too much for the tier because it was capable of devastating everything. Although Hoopa-U was a very offensive Pokémon, it also had solid Special Defense, meaning that it could survive powerful attacks such as Life Orb Latios's Draco Meteor, Mega Alakazam's Focus Blast, Life Orb Starmie's Hydro Pump, and Choice Specs Keldeo's Hydro Pump. This is very solid considering that these are all very powerful neutral attacks, but the anti-ban side brought up the fact that Hoopa-U has no useful resistances, it can be easily punished by some of the more common moves in the tier in U-turn and Pursuit, and it rarely finds itself able to take advantage of its high special bulk because entry hazards and passive damage from sand made this much less effective in practice. The increase in Pursuit users was another anti-ban point used, as Choice Scarf Tyranitar, one of the most reliable trappers against Hoopa-U, was a staple on many balance and even bulky offense teams, and Choice Band Weavile also picked up some traction, as it could pick off Hoopa-U more easily while also having Pursuit trapping capabilities against Tornadus-T, which beats Tyranitar with Superpower and Focus Blast. Choice Band Weavile could also OHKO Latios with Pursuit even if it didn't switch, but other than that, Choice Band Weavile didn't have much going for it and quickly dropped from grace. Other Pursuit users such as Mega Metagross also saw more usage. Hoopa-U ended up banned to Ubers in a very close vote, reaching a 61.24% ban majority. This was one of the closest votes in the entire generation, with only XY Genesect coming closer, which was banned by one single vote.

Volcanion

Aside from Hoopa-U, Volcanion was definitely one of the most interesting additions and had one of the biggest impacts in the tier. A Fire / Water type with all-around solid stats as well as a signature move in Steam Eruption, or super Scald as dubbed by the community, sounded like a great addition to the tier on paper, and it definitely made a solid impact in practice. In a tier run by powerful Water-types such as Azumarill and Keldeo with many bulky Grass-types such as Amoonguss and Tangrowth, Fire-types such as Heatran and Talonflame, and Steel-types such as Mega Scizor and Jirachi, Volcanion found itself fitting into OU very nicely, as it could take on the above threats, or at least handle them to an extent by deterring the likes of Keldeo from mindlessly using Scald. Overall, Volcanion fit nicely into the meta and was a very fresh addition to teambuilding, pairing nicely with some top-tier threats such as Mega Diancie and Latios.

Crawdaunt

Crawdaunt has always been overlooked in OU, mostly because of the very strong competition from other Water-types such as Azumarill, Manaphy, and Keldeo, but the meta has been slowly shifting in its favor. Mega Altaria has dropped drastically in usage, as well as Mega Venusaur, meaning that two of Crawdaunt's best counters are much less common, giving it more freedom. On top of that, a lot of bulkier teams end up relying on Grass-types such as Amoonguss or Tangrowth as an answer to Water-types, which fall flat on their faces, as Crawdaunt powers through them extremely easily. A lot of offensive teams also rely on Keldeo as their sole Pokémon that resists Dark-type moves, which Crawdaunt takes advantage of very easily as Adamant Choice Band Knock Off does 55% at minimum to it, which opens up an opportunity for picking off weakened teams with a strong boosted Aqua Jet.

Hydreigon and Suicune

Hydreigon and Suicune were two Pokémon that picked up notable usage during WCoP XI, where Hydreigon was used as a Hoopa-U replacement as a very powerful Choice Specs user along with its great Dark typing, which teams struggle to find proper answers for especially when paired with Pokémon that can weaken Clefable and outright remove Chansey, such as Dugtrio, allowing Hydreigon to break down bulkier teams with ease. Suicune has seen usage after its age-old Substitute + Calm Mind set was rediscovered in ORAS, which let it set up on many slower Pokemon such as Clefable and Heatran, while PP stalling Serperior, Amoonguss, and Ferrothorn, heavily limiting their effectiveness as answers.

Dugtrio

Dugtrio has only recently picked up a lot of usage, especially with OLT III, mostly where players experimented with stall teams and utilized Dugtrio to deal with stallbreakers such as Mega Gardevoir, Heatran, and Kyurem-B. Dugtrio is very effective in the meta because the likes of specially defensive Jirachi, Mega Diancie, Tyranitar, and Heatran are all very common, which Dugtrio can remove or at least deal very heavy damage to, crippling them. Other options for Dugtrio are being explored too, with one of them being Screech, which allows it to weaken Chansey and remove it, opening a hole for special wallbreakers such as Hydreigon, Mega Charizard Y, Mega Alakazam, Mega Gardevoir, Mega Diancie, and many more.

Mega Sableye re-suspect

Mega Sableye was revisited as the last suspect test of ORAS OU, giving the community another chance to decide whether it stays or not. It was mostly suspect tested for the aforementioned reasons, but a large amount of the community still considered it a problem despite Shadow Tag being booted out of the tier. Mega Sableye caused a large outcry from the community during OLT III, where many players considered it uncompetitive due to the matchup issues it brings to the tier, found itself suspected again and was booted from the tier with a 65.67% supermajority.

Conclusion

Overall, ORAS OU has been a great tier in its lifetime and its lifetime is far from over, with tournament representation in SPL, WCoP, and potentially Smogon Classic, the tier will still be given many opportunities to develop despite it being recently shaken up with the banning of Sablenite.

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