Now that the 2024 competitive Pokémon season has finally wrapped up with the World Championships, VGC players are now already preparing for the impending Regulation H format change—and it’s finally time for one DLC Pokémon to shine.
At Pokémon Worlds this past weekend in Honolulu, we saw top players battle it out with the strongest Regulation G threats like Rapid Strike Urshifu, Miraidon, Calyrex, Ogerpon, and Farigiraf. However, the meta will soon shift starting Sept.1 when Reg. H begins, removing all Legendary Pokémon and Paradox Pokémon from competitive play.
Banning overpowered Legendaries like Urshifu and Calyrex naturally makes room for others to step up to the plate, and many VGC players are currently looking at one Pokémon that failed to make an impact in previous formats: Archaludon.
Introduced in The Indigo Disk as Duraludon’s new evolution, Archaludon has an impressive base stat total of 600, similar to Powerhouse Pokémon like Dragonite and Salamence. Despite its incredible physical bulk and Special Attack, the Steel/Dragon-type ‘mon just couldn’t find its footing in VGC until Reg. H. Now, many competitive players are adding it to their teams and rating it above all other Powerhouse Pokémon (even though the community remains divided on whether it counts as part of that elite group).
When it comes to using Archaludon, players are taking full advantage of its signature move, Electro Shot, and its Stamina ability. Electro Shot is normally a two-turn move that boosts Special Attack on the first turn and deals damage on the next turn with 130 base power and 100 percent accuracy. But when used in the rain, it only takes one turn to dish out that powerful attack with no drawbacks. That’s why many players are running Archaludon with Pelipper to set up the rain. As long as Pelipper’s rain is up, Archaludon is free to spam Electro Shot while also taking less damage from super-effective Fire-type attacks.
And, even if it isn’t raining, Archaludon still has other strong offensive options like Draco Meteor, Flash Cannon, or a combination of Stamina and Body Press. As previously mentioned, the Steel/Dragon Pokémon has great physical bulk that can be further boosted with its Stamina ability whenever it’s hit by an attack. The higher its Defense becomes, the more damage its Body Press will do. This Fighting-type move is perfect against common threats like Kingambit or Normal Tera Dragonite, as well as Intimidate users.
