What it does on the ladder
Archaludon appears on 14.3% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 12th of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Electro Shot, on 98.6% of sets.
The item is usually Leftovers at 88.7%.
The ability is split: Stamina on 94.6%, Sturdy on 4.5% and Stalwart on 0.9%.
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
Archaludon is number 1018 in the National Dex, a Paldea Pokémon, Steel and Dragon
with a base stat total of 600 — 2nd of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Defense at 130, 14th
in the format; its weakest is Sp. Def at 65, 188th.
It can have Stamina, Sturdy and Stalwart.
The Champions module tiers it OU.
It sits in a 2-stage line: Duraludon → Archaludon.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Duraludon is not.
What gets through
As Steel and Dragon, 2 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 9 and is immune to 1. The board above
has all of it. One other legal Pokémon shares the same typing and the same board: Goodra-Hisui.
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 Archaludon takes extra damage from.
- Garchomp — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 85.7% 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
- Blastoise-Mega — Aura Sphere (Fighting, ×2), on 34.2% of its sets
- Swampert-Mega — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 73.4% of its sets
- Venusaur — Earth Power (Ground, ×2), on 77% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Archaludon reaches
150 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
105. Invested, it outruns 11 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 60 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 80 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Archaludon learns 58 moves in the Champions data.
35 of them do damage, across 9 of the eighteen
types, and 10 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Steel Beam at 140 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Giga Impact at 150.
It has no priority move, so it moves in Speed order every turn.
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.
