One underrated Starter Pokémon gets huge buff in Scarlet and Violet’s DLC

Every Starter Pokémon in the game will officially be in Scarlet and Violet when The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Part II: The Indigo Disk DLC drops in the winter, and one of them will be stronger than ever when they arrive.

According to popular content creator Joey Pokeaim, Serperior is one of the lucky Pokémon that can really benefit and take advantage of Gen IX’s Terastallization mechanic. In a YouTube short, he explains why this is the case specifically with the Gen V Grass Starter.

In previous generations, Serperior was always held back by its limited move pool. It was forced to run Hidden Power Fire, a relatively weak attack with only 60 base power, just to have type coverage against Pokémon that could otherwise wall it like the Grass/Steel Ferrothorn.

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Thanks to Terastallization, however, Serperior will now have stronger offensive options to help it shine on the battlefield. If Serperior has the Fire Tera Type, it can then use Tera Blast for a much stronger Fire attack than Hidden Power. As shown in the video, Serperior could be dishing out twice as much damage as before. That could be the difference between getting the one-hit knockout and letting the opponent survive.

In addition to stronger offense, Terastallization also helps Serperior defensively. With Serperior’s famous Contrary + Leaf Storm combo, it wants to stay on the field as long as possible to keep increasing its Special Attack while hitting harder each turn. If Serperior’s Tera Type is used in a defensive situation—like turning into a Fire type to resist an otherwise super-effective Ice attack—that can buy it more time on the field to set up while taking minimal damage. And once Serperior is all set up with its boosted Special Attack, it’ll be hitting pretty hard.

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Outside of Terastallization, we don’t know if Serperior will get access to any other interesting moves in Gen IX yet. Even if it doesn’t, this buff is already going to help it out a lot in competitive play.