So far, all four pseudo-legendary Pokémon were great.
Dragonite is a fantastic generalist, Tyranitar is the best Dark-Type in the game, Salamence is pretty much a more offensive Dragonite, and Metagross is the best Steel-Type
So what does the Generation IV pseudo-legendary, the Mach Pokémon, Garchomp, have in store for us?
Let’s start with his stats:
His attack is wonderful, at 261, just five points bellow our Gen I pseudo, which means that his hits will hit very hard
His defense isn’t too bad either, at 198, and with the HP of 216, Garchomp will definetly stay in for a long time and do a ton of damage
These stats mean his CP tops at a whooping 3823, higher than almost everything we’ve had so far
Does that mean Garchomp will get the standart 9% nerf?
Moves:
Garchomp has quite a wide movepool, so I’m just gonna list what could be usable in PoGo at this time.
Fast:
Fire fang [FIRE]
Mud-slap, Mud shot [GROUND]
Dragon tail, Dragon breath [DRAGON]
Rock smash [FIGHTING]
Shadow claw [GHOST]
Hidden power, Take down, Tackle, Cut [NORMAL]
Poison jab [POISON]
Iron tail [STEEL]
Charge:
Crunch [DARK]
Dragon claw, Twister, Draco meteor, Dragon pulse, Outrage [DRAGON]
Brick break [FIGHTING]
Fire blast, Flamethrower [FIRE]
Aerial ace [FLYING]
Earthquake, Dig, Sand tomb, Bulldoze [GROUND]
Hyper beam, Body slam [NORMAL]
Stone edge, Rock slide, Rock tomb [ROCK]
Iron head [STEEL]
Aqua tail [WATER]
Now, since PoGo usually uses 2-3 spreads, I would assume he will get Dragon tail and Mud-slap/shot as fast attacks, and Outrage/Dragon Claw, Earthquake, and either Stone edge or Rock slide as charge attacks
Garchomp is definetly going to be a prominent Pokémon in the meta, hitting the Creation Trio and Heatran with super-effective STABs, Cresselia with potentional Shadow Claw/Crunch, Shaymin with a Fire-Type attack, you get the idea
He can also beat up Rhyperior, a Pokémon with even higher CP than the landshark himself (assuming he doesn’t get an Ice-Type attack) and other pseudo-legendaries with its great typing and sheer bulk and power
So how do you counter this beast?
Basically, use an Ice-Type, like Articuno, Lapras, the upcoming Glaceon or Regice are all great counters to Garchomp (as long as he doesn’t get Fire-Type attacks)