What it does on the ladder
Arcanine-Hisui appears on 1.2% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 69th of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Flare Blitz, on 99.1% of sets.
The item is usually Focus Sash at 63.4%.
The ability is split: Rock Head on 85.3%, Intimidate on 14.2% and Flash Fire on 0.5%.
Those are Smogon's published usage figures, not anything measured here, and they describe what
the ladder plays rather than what is strongest. The full set is in the panel above.
The Pokémon itself
Arcanine-Hisui is number 59 in the National Dex, a Kanto Pokémon, Fire and Rock
with a base stat total of 555 — 11th of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Attack at 115, 46th
in the format; its weakest is Sp. Def at 80, 113th.
It can have Intimidate, Flash Fire and Rock Head.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 2-stage line: Growlithe-Hisui → Arcanine-Hisui.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Growlithe-Hisui is not.
What gets through
As Fire and Rock, 4 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it, and Ground and Water land for quadruple. It
resists 7. The board above
has all of it. No other legal Pokémon has this typing.
What threatens it
Smogon publishes no head-to-head checks-and-counters data for doubles formats, so this list is
computed, not measured: the most-played Regulation M-B Pokémon carrying a damaging
move of a type Arcanine-Hisui takes extra damage from.
- Garchomp — Earthquake (Ground, ×4), on 85.7% of its sets
- Basculegion — Aqua Jet (Water, ×4), on 96.6% of its sets
- Sneasler — Close Combat (Fighting, ×2), on 99.7% of its sets
- Staraptor-Mega — Close Combat (Fighting, ×2), on 100% of its sets
- Aerodactyl-Mega — Rock Slide (Rock, ×2), on 99.8% of its sets
- Blastoise-Mega — Water Spout (Water, ×4), on 96.4% of its sets
Against its own formes
Arcanine has 2 legal formes in this regulation and they share a
typing, so the only thing separating them is the stat line.
This one has the highest HP at 95 and Attack at 115 of the 2.
It has the lowest Sp. Atk at 95 and Speed at 90.
The others are Arcanine.
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Arcanine-Hisui reaches
156 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
110. Invested, it outruns 12 of the 20
most-used Pokémon in the regulation when they are invested too — which is the comparison that
decides who moves first.
It weighs 168 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 100 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Arcanine-Hisui learns 71 moves in the Champions data.
53 of them do damage, across 12 of the eighteen
types, and 21 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Head Smash at 150 base power.
It also has priority: Extreme Speed at +2.
That pool is what the team builder reads from when you seat it, and the
damage calculator will take it as the attacker with
the form already chosen.
