What it does on the ladder
Raichu appears on 0.33% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 116th of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Fake Out, on 98% of sets.
The item is usually Focus Sash at 72.3%.
The ability is split: Lightning Rod on 98.4% and Static on 1.6%.
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
Raichu is number 26 in the National Dex, a Kanto Pokémon, Electric
with a base stat total of 485 — 169th of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Speed at 110, 22nd
in the format; its weakest is Defense at 55, 224th.
It can have Static and Lightning Rod.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 3-stage line: Pichu → Pikachu → Raichu.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Pichu is not.
What gets through
As Electric, 1 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 3. The board above
has all of it. 7 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Bellibolt, Jolteon, Pikachu, Luxray, Manectric and others.
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 Raichu takes extra damage from.
- Garchomp — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 85.7% of its sets
- Swampert-Mega — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 73.4% of its sets
- Venusaur — Earth Power (Ground, ×2), on 77% of its sets
- Venusaur-Mega — Earth Power (Ground, ×2), on 95.6% of its sets
- Hydreigon — Earth Power (Ground, ×2), on 58.8% of its sets
- Excadrill — High Horsepower (Ground, ×2), on 56.9% of its sets
Against its own formes
Raichu 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 Attack at 90 and Defense at 55 of the 2.
It has the lowest Sp. Atk at 90 and Sp. Def at 80.
The others are Raichu-Alola.
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Raichu reaches
178 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
130. Invested, it outruns 15 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 30 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
Raichu learns 116 moves in the Champions data.
64 of them do damage, across 11 of the eighteen
types, and 15 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Volt Tackle at 120 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Focus Punch at 150.
It also has priority: Upper Hand at +3, Fake Out at +3 and Feint 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.
