When I saw this thread pop up I was initially convinced that I would, should I get reqs for this suspect, immediately vote ban (not unlike how I knew if I got the Scizor suspect reqs I'd vote DNB). However, despite my own personal dislike for Mega Altaria, I... genuinely don't think it's something I can necessarily deem "broken" or "unhealthy." The tier is very actively preparing for it at this point and has been heavily doing so for a couple of months now, and at this point I feel like it's becoming pretty obvious that the tier has a decent amount of counterplay to it on both defensive fronts and offensive fronts.



First, I won't deny that MAlt offers what is arguably the best typing in terms of combined offensive and defensive utility; Fairy STAB is amazing in this tier and Dragon/Fairy gives it so many crucial resistances that it virtually outclasses Togekiss in terms of raw defensive utility. Its peak damage output before setup is nothing to write home about but both of its offenses are high enough that it can prove very unpredictable until scouted for; it can cook its Steel-type counters with a pretty strong Fire Blast on mixed or special sets, or it can run Earthquake and hit them hard on its more physical sets. There's no denying that Mega Altaria is very versatile since it can become among the tier's best setup sweepers, one of the tier's bulkiest defoggers, or even a pretty effective lure. That's why it has solidified itself as one of the five best things in this tier for a while now, and that's why it's even a top three threat.



That said, I think Mega Altaria is being "figured out" at a pretty fast pace right now; the thing can hit very hard after boosts but before a boost it will frequently struggle to OHKO - and at times even struggle to 2HKO - many of its best checks; its special sets face their own issues as they can break past these threats with careful prediction but then struggle against other more offensively-oriented teams. Its Poison and Steel type checks frequently hit hard enough to give it absolute hell, and this is particularly true in a meta where stuff like Mega Steelix is beginning to trend a bit harder than before. Hell, even stuff like Ferroseed has been explored as of recently and has proven quite successful for several of its qualities and this is largely due to Mega Altaria's presence. Yes, it can most certainly abuse Facade or Refresh sets to deal with the status some of its other checks will try to slap on it; that said, Facade still leaves Mega Altaria hindered by most of these status effects in the long run (Toxic will still kill it eventually and Paralysis still slows it down a notch and can still trigger a Full Paralysis on it; games are won over less) while Refresh absolutely forces Mega Altaria to give up its valuable coverage. It faces some intense 4MSS in this regard; if it wants to sweep it has to make difficult choices between hitting the most targets and getting more boosts or between providing beneficial team support or being able to threaten defensive checks much more significantly. It has no room to run all of Refresh, Roost, Heal Bell/Refresh, Defog, Hyper Voice/Return/Facade/Double-Edge, and Earthquake/Fire Blast and most if not all of these moves are extremely important and really hurt to not run.



Moreover, Mega Altaria has a significant opportunity cost to run even if it is more often than not completely worth the commitment. This is not the Mega Metagross era of the OU tier; your Mega Evolution choice is actually significant in this tier and every highly-ranking Mega has something the others simply do not. Mega Altaria offers versatility, being a threatening sweeper given a turn or two of setup, a threatening mixed wallbreaker, or a great bulky Defogger and cleric (though each is a completely different set). Mega Sharpedo offers great wallbreaking potential right out of the gate and excellent sweeping potential if given a setup opportunity at the cost of being nearly-useless defensively; on the still-powerful Spikes offense teams these are qualities that are greatly valued and as such Mega Altaria - another Mega that would favor Spikes support on its DD sets - faces some pretty hefty competition. On other teams Mega Aerodactyl and Mega Manectric offer a much better Speed stat and more immediate power without requiring a turn of setup and have significantly better coverage that can be customized for little opportunity cost while also having access to excellent moves like Pursuit or Volt Switch, both of which are still excellent moves in this tier; these, too, are notable qualities Mega Altaria simply lacks if not completely then to a significant degree. On Stall teams Mega Steelix and Mega Aggron offer different qualities from Mega Altaria courtesy of being tanky Stealth Rockers with defensive typings that check and counter a completely different list of things (hell, they can even pressure some Scizor variants offensively while Mega Altaria is always threatened to a significant degree by all Scizor sets) and Stall has more viable Defoggers and Clerics than it does physically-tanky Steel-type Stealth Rock setters. In that regard Mega Altaria, while being great at what it does, never feels like it's so overcentralizing of a force that I feel like I'm always pressured to run it over any other Mega on any team archetype; yet if I wanted to run Mega Altaria on any archetype I most certainly could and it would most certainly be quite good in that role.



Overall, I feel like I'm in the DO NOT BAN club regarding this one though it took a lot of deliberation to come to that conclusion. There's no denying that Mega Altaria is without question one of the most centralizing forces in the tier right now, but to me it just feels like another S-rank threat. Banning Mega Altaria doesn't come even remotely close to having the same implications as did the idea of banning Scizor - if it gets banned that ban won't singlehandedly destabilize four tiers at once - but it still doesn't feel necessary. UU most likely isn't actively gaining anything if it gets banned yet a lot of teams are losing a defensive backbone if it gets banned. Versatility is not an inherently bad thing. Role compression isn't inherently a bad thing. And these things are especially not a bad thing when the tier has at this point begun to adapt to this versatile threat that at almost all times compresses several roles into one teamslot. With the tier being more prepared for Mega Altaria it's more difficult to naturally build a team that does lose to it than it is to build one that keeps it in check.