What it does on the ladder
Sinistcha appears on 26.1% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 7th of the 277 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Matcha Gotcha, on 97.8% of sets.
The item is usually Colbur Berry at 35.6%.
The ability is split: Hospitality on 99.6% and Heatproof on 0.4%.
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
Sinistcha is number 1013 in the National Dex, a Paldea Pokémon, Grass and Ghost
with a base stat total of 508 — 103rd of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Sp. Atk at 121, 21st
in the format; its weakest is Attack at 60, 205th.
It can have Hospitality and Heatproof.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 2-stage line: Poltchageist → Sinistcha.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Poltchageist is not.
What gets through
As Grass and Ghost, 5 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 4 and is immune to 2. The board above
has all of it. 6 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Gourgeist-Super, Decidueye, Trevenant, Gourgeist, Gourgeist-Large 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 Sinistcha takes extra damage from.
- Kingambit — Sucker Punch (Dark, ×2), on 99.9% of its sets
- Incineroar — Flare Blitz (Fire, ×2), on 91.1% of its sets
- Basculegion — Last Respects (Ghost, ×2), on 99.9% of its sets
- Charizard-Mega-Y — Heat Wave (Fire, ×2), on 99.9% of its sets
- Staraptor-Mega — Brave Bird (Flying, ×2), on 66.2% of its sets
- Delphox-Mega — Heat Wave (Fire, ×2), on 99.6% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Sinistcha reaches
134 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
90. Invested, it outruns 5 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 2.2 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 20 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Sinistcha learns 41 moves in the Champions data.
18 of them do damage, across 5 of the eighteen
types, and 13 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Leaf Storm at 130 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Hyper Beam 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.
