What Mega Evolution changes
Tyranitar, number 248 in the National Dex and a Johto Pokémon,
holds Tyranitarite to become Mega Tyranitar,
taking its total from 600 to 700. The biggest single gain is 40 Defense, followed by 30 Attack. Nothing goes down — HP and Sp. Atk stay exactly where they were.
The typing does not change — it is Rock and Dark before and after — so the Mega is the same defensive problem as the base form, only bigger. The ability stays Sand Stream.
What gets through
As Rock and Dark, 7 of the eighteen attacking types get through for extra damage, and Fighting lands for quadruple. It resists 6 and is outright immune to 1. The full board is above; the short version is that the
types listed under ×2 and ×4 are the ones worth planning around.
On the Regulation M-B ladder
Mega Tyranitar is played on 4.9% of teams in the Regulation M-B VGC
ladder, which puts it 31th of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to
measure. The move almost every one of them carries is Rock Slide at 99%.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
Those figures come from Smogon's published usage statistics rather than from anything measured
here, and they describe what the ladder plays, not what is strongest.
What threatens it
Smogon publishes no head-to-head checks-and-counters data for doubles formats, so this list is
computed, not measured: these are the most-played Regulation M-B Pokémon carrying
a damaging move of a type Mega Tyranitar takes extra damage from.
- Kingambit — Iron Head (Steel, ×2), on 67.8% of its sets
- Garchomp — Earthquake (Ground, ×2), on 85.7% of its sets
- Charizard-Mega-Y — Solar Beam (Grass, ×2), on 82.2% of its sets
- Basculegion — Aqua Jet (Water, ×2), on 96.6% of its sets
- Sinistcha — Matcha Gotcha (Grass, ×2), on 97.9% of its sets
- Whimsicott — Moonblast (Fairy, ×2), on 93.9% of its sets
Where it sits among the Megas
Of the 91 Mega forms in the dex, Mega Tyranitar is 6th by base
stat total. Its best stat is Attack at 164, which is 9th
among Megas; its worst is Speed at 71, 69th.
No other Mega Evolution has the Rock and Dark typing, so this matchup board is unique to it.
The unevolved Tyranitar is itself on 2.4% of teams.
Putting it on a team
A Mega slot is a commitment: the stone occupies the held item, so whatever Mega Tyranitar would have
wanted from an item, it does not get. Drop it into the
team builder to see what the rest of the six then have to cover,
or take it to the damage calculator to find out whether those
164 points of
Attack actually change a
knockout.
