What it does on the ladder
Steelix appears on 0.02% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 252nd of the 277 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Steel Roller, on 60.3% of sets.
The item is usually Quick Claw at 42.8%.
The ability is split: Sturdy on 60.9%, Sheer Force on 36.8% and Rock Head on 2.3%.
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
Steelix is number 208 in the National Dex, a Johto Pokémon, Steel and Ground
with a base stat total of 510 — 101st of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Defense at 200, 1st
in the format; its weakest is Speed at 30, 227th.
It can have Rock Head, Sturdy and Sheer Force.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 2-stage line: Onix → Steelix.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Onix is not.
What gets through
As Steel and Ground, 4 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 8 and is immune to 2. The board above
has all of it. 2 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Excadrill, Stunfisk-Galar.
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 Steelix takes extra damage from.
- Incineroar — Flare Blitz (Fire, ×2), on 91.1% of its sets
- Garchomp — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 85.1% of its sets
- Basculegion — Aqua Jet (Water, ×2), on 96.8% of its sets
- Sneasler — Close Combat (Fighting, ×2), on 99.9% of its sets
- Charizard-Mega-Y — Heat Wave (Fire, ×2), on 99.9% of its sets
- Staraptor-Mega — Close Combat (Fighting, ×2), on 100% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Steelix reaches
90 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
50. 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 400 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 120 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Steelix learns 100 moves in the Champions data.
60 of them do damage, across 12 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 Steel Beam at 140 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Explosion at 250.
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.
