What it does on the ladder
Ariados appears on 0.05% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 227th of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Rage Powder, on 89.5% of sets.
The item is usually Sitrus Berry at 50%.
The ability is split: Insomnia on 83.7%, Sniper on 8.5% and Swarm on 7.8%.
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
Ariados is number 168 in the National Dex, a Johto Pokémon, Bug and Poison
with a base stat total of 400 — 229th of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Attack at 90, 120th
in the format; its weakest is Speed at 40, 208th.
It can have Swarm, Insomnia and Sniper.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 2-stage line: Spinarak → Ariados.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Spinarak is not.
What gets through
As Bug and Poison, 4 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 5. The board above
has all of it. 2 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Scolipede, Beedrill.
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 Ariados takes extra damage from.
- Incineroar — Flare Blitz (Fire, ×2), on 91.2% of its sets
- Garchomp — Rock Slide (Rock, ×2), on 75.9% of its sets
- Charizard-Mega-Y — Heat Wave (Fire, ×2), on 99.2% of its sets
- Farigiraf — Psychic (Psychic, ×2), on 54.4% of its sets
- Pelipper — Hurricane (Flying, ×2), on 98.1% of its sets
- Staraptor-Mega — Brave Bird (Flying, ×2), on 83.4% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Ariados reaches
101 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
60. Invested, it outruns 0 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 33.5 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 60 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Ariados learns 87 moves in the Champions data.
52 of them do damage, across 11 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 Megahorn at 120 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Giga Impact at 150.
It also has priority: First Impression at +2, Sucker Punch at +1 and Shadow Sneak at +1.
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.
