Ranked meta
Pokemon Champions tier list
This is a tier list for Pokemon Champions, built from what the meta actually looks like right now. Everyone has an opinion about which Pokemon are best, and there is no real way to settle it. We tried scoring them on stats, coverage and typing. That tells you what a Pokemon looks like on paper, but it does not tell you whether it works on an actual team, which is the part that matters.
So this list uses how often people play each Pokemon instead. If something shows up in a lot of teams, it is probably good, because players drop what does not win.
The number next to each Pokemon is the percentage of teams it appears in, taken from 1,269,250 ranked battles at the 1760 rating floor. 67 Pokemon are played often enough to rank. Anything rarer than that does not have enough games behind it to say much.
Where the games come from matters, so: these are Pokemon Showdown ladder games in the gen9championsvgc2026regmb format, published monthly by Smogon. Champions does not publish usage from its own ranked mode, and this is the closest public record of what people actually bring. Simulator ladder and in-game ladder are not the same population, so read it as a strong signal rather than a census.
Usage from August 2026, gen9championsvgc2026regmb on the Pokemon Showdown ladder via Smogon. Updated on the 2nd of every month.
S Tier Pokemon
8 Pokemon
A Tier Pokemon
8 Pokemon
B Tier Pokemon
12 Pokemon- 17
VenusaurGrassPoison8.6% - 18
PelipperWaterFlying8.3% - 19
Mega FroslassIceGhost7.6% - 20
Mega AerodactylRockFlying7.4% - 21
GholdengoSteelGhost7.4% - 22
Mega SwampertWaterGround7.2% - 23
GrimmsnarlDarkFairy6.6% - 24
Alolan NinetalesIceFairy6.5% - 25
Mega GengarGhostPoison6.4% - 26
MiloticWater6.0% - 27
Hisuian ArcanineFireRock5.7% - 28
Maushold (Family of Three)Normal5.5%
C Tier Pokemon
26 Pokemon- 29
Mega DragoniteDragonFlying4.9% - 30
Mega ScovillainGrassFire4.8% - 31
TorkoalFire4.8% - 32
ExcadrillGroundSteel4.5% - 33
Kommo-oDragonFighting4.3% - 34
Mega TyranitarRockDark4.2% - 35
ToxapexPoisonWater4.0% - 36
GlimmoraRockPoison4.0% - 37
Mega MetagrossSteelPsychic3.7% - 38
PolitoedWater3.5% - 39
Wash RotomElectricWater3.5% - 40
DragoniteDragonFlying3.4% - 41
Vivillon (Icy Snow Pattern)BugFlying3.3% - 42
TyranitarRockDark3.3% - 43
Mega MawileSteelFairy3.3% - 44
PrimarinaWaterFairy3.1% - 45
Mega VenusaurGrassPoison3.0% - 46
Mega GardevoirPsychicFairy2.9% - 47
Lycanroc (Dusk Form)Rock2.7% - 48
AerodactylRockFlying2.6% - 49
AnnihilapeFightingGhost2.4% - 50
CeruledgeFireGhost2.4% - 51
CorviknightFlyingSteel2.3% - 52
SableyeDarkGhost2.1% - 53
MeowscaradaGrassDark2.1% - 54
TalonflameFireFlying2.1%
D Tier Pokemon
13 Pokemon- 55
HydreigonDarkDragon1.9% - 56
Mega GarchompDragonGround1.8% - 57
Mega BlazikenFireFighting1.5% - 58
Mega CameruptFireGround1.4% - 59
StaraptorNormalFlying1.4% - 60
Mega GlimmoraRockPoison1.4% - 61
TsareenaGrass1.3% - 62
Mega PyroarFireNormal1.2% - 63
SwampertWaterGround1.2% - 64
DragapultDragonGhost1.2% - 65
MamoswineIceGround1.1% - 66
Mega KangaskhanNormal1.1% - 67
ClefableFairy1.0%
The state of the Champions meta
The meta is narrow. Champions has 396 battle forms and only 67 of them get played in as much as one team in a hundred. 8 of those appear in a fifth of all teams or more, which is why the same faces keep turning up on ladder.
That concentration is what makes preparing for it possible. You are not building against 396 Pokemon, you are building against the 28 that turn up in S, A or B, and the rest of the roster is where the surprises come from.
What this list does and does not tell you
Usage tells you what you will be up against, not what you should bring. Those are different things. The Pokemon near the top are the ones you are most likely to face, which is worth knowing, but it does not mean you need them on your own team.
It is also worth remembering that everything in Tier S is common, so most players have already built around it. A Pokemon further down can be the better pick precisely because nobody is preparing for it. That is normal in a settled metagame and it is why tier lists go out of date.
Read this as information about what people are playing, then decide for yourself what to do with it. If you are working out whether you move first against any of them, the speed tiers list every form in the game by Speed.