What it does on the ladder
Hydrapple appears on 0.17% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 157th of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Fickle Beam, on 84.3% of sets.
The item is usually Life Orb at 33.5%.
The ability is split: Supersweet Syrup on 53.7%, Regenerator on 46.3% and Sticky Hold on 0%.
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
Hydrapple is number 1019 in the National Dex, a Paldea Pokémon, Grass and Dragon
with a base stat total of 540 — 21st of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Sp. Atk at 120, 22nd
in the format; its weakest is Speed at 44, 203rd.
It can have Supersweet Syrup, Regenerator and Sticky Hold.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 3-stage line: Applin → Dipplin → Hydrapple.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Applin and Dipplin are not.
What gets through
As Grass and Dragon, 6 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it, and Ice lands for quadruple. It
resists 4. The board above
has all of it. 2 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Flapple, Appletun.
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 Hydrapple takes extra damage from.
- Garchomp — Dragon Claw (Dragon, ×2), on 91.6% of its sets
- Whimsicott — Moonblast (Fairy, ×2), on 93.9% of its sets
- Sneasler — Dire Claw (Poison, ×2), on 63% of its sets
- Floette-Mega — Dazzling Gleam (Fairy, ×2), on 95.9% of its sets
- Archaludon — Dragon Pulse (Dragon, ×2), on 82.8% of its sets
- Pelipper — Hurricane (Flying, ×2), on 98.1% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Hydrapple reaches
105 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
64. 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 93 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
Hydrapple learns 57 moves in the Champions data.
36 of them do damage, across 9 of the eighteen
types, and 17 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Draco Meteor at 130 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Giga Impact at 150.
It also has priority: Sucker Punch 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.
