The Z Megas · Garchomp

Mega Garchomp Z gets Levitate, and not much more

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Garchomp’s Z stone gives up the Ground typing and forty points of Attack, and takes 141 Special Attack, Levitate and 151 Speed in exchange. We ran it into the top ten and every Mega in the top thirty, both ways: it kills nothing outright, and only five of them kill it back. Then we ran the Ice attacks the ladder actually uses to remove a Garchomp — and that is the table the stone is really for.

Mega Garchomp Z · doubles · calculated against the top ten of the ranked ladder and every Mega in the top thirty, as they stood on 3 September 2026

This is not a reading of the ladder. The Z Megas arrive on 9 September and nobody has played one yet, so there is no usage to report — every number on this page is a damage calculation, run through the calculator on this site. What the ladder supplies is the opposition: the spreads, items, abilities and moves people are actually running, and that part is measured.

What the stone changes

Ordinary Mega Garchomp is Dragon/Ground: 170 Attack, 92 Speed, Sand Force. The Z is pure Dragon, 141 Special Attack, 151 Speed, Levitate. Read that trade back slowly, because it is not the one the name suggests: most of what it gives up is offence, and most of what it takes is defence — a Ground immunity, half the Ice weakness, and enough Speed to move before everything in the top fifty, Mega Aerodactyl by a single point.

The 108 base HP comes along unchanged, and it turns out to matter more than any stat the stone touched.

This is one of three. The index has what a Z stone is, the three formes side by side and a page on each. The other two are Mega Absol Z and Mega Lucario Z, written the same way against the same twenty opponents, so a number on one can be read against the same row on another.

Mega Garchomp Z, going out

Start with what this moveset is. The stone moves forty points from Attack to Special Attack, so the Garchomp on this page is not the one the ladder is running: Draco Meteor is on 3.8% of them and Dragon Claw is on 80.3%, because today’s Garchomp hits physically. Every other target on these pages is measured at what people actually play. This one cannot be, and it is worth knowing that the four moves below are ours.

141 Special Attack and pure Dragon, so Draco Meteor is the button. Fire Blast, Power Gem and Earth Power appear on the rows where they beat it — the Rock attack because Mega Charizard Y is Fire/Flying and takes it at four times, the Ground one because Kingambit is holding a berry against the Fire. Timid, 32 points of Special Attack and 32 of Speed, and every target at 32 HP and 32 Special Defence, because this one attacks from the other side and the question is what the move does to something built to survive it.

Why nineteen Pokémon and not ten. A Z Mega is competing for the Mega slot, so the list is the ten the ladder puts on top plus every Mega inside the top thirty — twelve of those, two of them already in the ten — with Mega Aerodactyl held back for a section of its own further down. The question is whether it is the stone to bring, and that is the comparison this list makes.

One thing no single-hit table can show: Draco Meteor drops its own Special Attack by two stages, so every row it is on is a first-turn figure, and the second turn is a third smaller. That is a real cost on a Pokémon whose whole case is moving first.

Mega Garchomp Z · Timid · 2 HP / 32 SpA / 32 Spe · Garchompite Z

Every target: HP 32 / SPD 32 / DEF 2

No clean kills in nineteen Pokémon, and one row that gets there on a roll. The mirror is that row: Draco Meteor takes 97.7 – 114.4% off the Garchomp at rank two, and the Z forme moves at 223 to its 169. Whimsicott is Fairy and immune to the Dragon attack outright, which is what Fire Blast is on the list for, and Power Gem is the only thing here that troubles Mega Charizard Y. Mega Floette is the same immunity and it costs more: a pure Fairy, so the move this whole forme is built around does not reach it at all, and 22.7 – 26.5% of Fire Blast is what is left.

And what the twenty do back

The same Garchomp, receiving, one row per attacker. Twenty rows coming back rather than nineteen, because Dragonite is in twice: with its stone, and with the Life Orb 16% of them hold instead. It is the one Mega on the list whose unevolved form anybody plays with a damage item; the rest hold their stone on nearly all of them, and a Life Orb row for those would be a number with no opponent behind it.

This is where 108 HP earns its keep. On the same two HP points that leave Absol Z dying to half the field, only five things here kill it: the Dragon mirror, Dragonite with the stone and without it, Mega Froslass and Mega Floette. The four built to hit — Kingambit, Garchomp, Sneasler and Basculegion — are on a Life Orb and an attacking nature, which for most of them is not what they most often play. This table is what has to be survived, so it is the version of each that is trying to kill you: the rank two Garchomp plays Jolly with a Life Orb 51% of the time and swings Adamant here, and the Orb alone is about a third of the row it sits on. Charizard and Staraptor hold the stones that make them the Megas they are calculated as, and Charizard’s brings the sun with it. The four support Pokémon are left exactly as they play — a berry or a sash, a defensive nature, no damage item — because a Careful Incineroar is not built to hit.

Mega Garchomp Z · Timid · 2 HP / 32 SpA / 32 Spe · Garchompite Z

Damage taken, as a share of its own HP

Five kills in twenty against Absol Z’s ten, on the same two HP points, which is the 108 base HP and not the stone. Two of the five are the same Dragonite, with the stone and without it, and the hardest is Mega Floette: 247.6 – 288.6%, from the one Pokémon here that its own best move cannot touch.

What the Z stone actually fixes

The top ten does not answer Garchomp’s real question, because not one of the top ten carries an Ice attack anybody plays. Fifty-three of the 235 ranked Pokémon carry one on a fifth of them or more, six of them inside the top thirty — and Dragon/Ground takes Ice at four times, which is the most reliable way this ladder has of removing a Garchomp.

Pure Dragon takes it at two. That is the trade the Z stone is really offering, and we think it is worth more than the forty points of Attack it costs. The two tables below are the same four Ice attackers, into the Z forme and into the Garchomp the ladder is actually running.

Ice, into the Z forme

Mega Garchomp Z · Timid · 2 HP / 32 SpA / 32 Spe · Garchompite Z

Damage taken, as a share of its own HP

Ice, into the Garchomp the ladder is running

Rank two, Life Orb, Jolly, 32 Attack and 32 Speed — the most used build on the most used unevolved Pokémon in the game.

Garchomp · Jolly · Life Orb · 2 HP / 32 Atk / 32 Spe

Damage taken, as a share of its own HP

All four can kill the ladder’s Garchomp — three of them outright — and one kills the Z forme. Ordinary Mega Garchomp, on 115 Defence and 95 Special Defence, sits between the two and still loses to three of the four: Mega Froslass’s Blizzard does 183.8 – 216.2% to it.

All thirty-two, and only just

Every table on this page spends 32 points on Speed, because that is what this ladder gives a fast attacker without thinking about it. On a base 151 Pokémon the reflex turns out to be exactly right, which is not obvious until you widen the table.

The top ten is the wrong place to check. It tops out at Sneasler on 189 and its bottom half is walls — Kingambit moves at 70. Widen it to the top fifty and the picture changes: Mega Aerodactyl reaches 222, on the Aerodactylite half of them hold, and Mega Delphox reaches 204.

A base 151 Z Mega with a Speed-raising nature and no Speed points at all reaches 188, which loses to Sneasler by one. Twelve points reach 201 — past Mega Raichu and Mega Gengar, still behind Mega Delphox. Only the full thirty-two clears the field, at 223 against Aerodactyl’s 222.

There is one cheaper build worth knowing, and it is bounded by Delphox at 204. Sixteen points reach 205, which is past every other row on that list — so a Z Mega that concedes Aerodactyl and nothing else spends 32 on its attack, 16 on Speed, and has eighteen left over where the full build has two.

Here the eighteen buy something, which is not what happened on the Absol page and not what we expected. Five of the twenty kill Garchomp Z outright at two HP points and one more on a roll. At twenty-two HP points, two kill it outright and three need a roll, and the one roll stops rolling: Mega Froslass’s Blizzard goes from 101.6 – 120.0% to 91.7 – 108.3%, Mega Dragonite’s Dragon Pulse from 108.1 – 126.5% to 97.6 – 114.1%, and Sneasler’s Close Combat from 91.4 – 107.6% to 82.4 – 97.1%, which no longer kills at all.

So this one has a real decision in it. Move before Mega Aerodactyl, or turn three kills into coin flips — and the ladder says half the Aerodactyls hold the stone, so it is not a rare thing to be conceding.

The nature is not optional either. Adamant or Modest with all 32 points reaches 203, nineteen short of Aerodactyl, so a Z Mega that wants to move first is Jolly or Timid before it is anything else — and that is nine per cent off every figure in the first table on this page.

Where a base 151 Z Mega lands

The fast half of the top fifty, at the build each one plays, against a Z Mega that has spent all thirty-two of its Speed points. The top row is the only one nothing has played yet: all three Z Megas are base 151 and all three reach it.

A Speed table that ran to the bottom of the top ten would be mostly walls — Kingambit is on 70 and Incineroar on 80 — and outrunning those is not a fact worth printing. A fast attacker only needs the rows above it.

Speed at level 50, at the build each one plays

  1. Z Megas: 223 (all 32 Spe)
  2. Mega Aerodactyl: 222 (#17)
  3. Mega Delphox: 204 (#22)
  4. Mega Raichu Y: 200 (#12)
  5. Mega Gengar: 200 (#36)
  6. Talonflame: 195 (#35)
  7. Meowscarada: 192 (#49)
  8. Sneasler: 189 (#3)
  9. Whimsicott: 184 (#5)
  10. Mega Staraptor: 178 (#10)

All three Z Megas are base 151, so all three reach 223 with a Speed-raising nature and the full thirty-two points — and 222 is Mega Aerodactyl, which is what the whole investment is for. Half of it buys nothing: twelve points reach 201, which is past Raichu and Gengar and behind Delphox.

And the one it spent the budget to outrun

Every Speed point on this page is there to beat Mega Aerodactyl to the punch, which is why it is not a row in the tables above. What does the punch do?

Not a win for free, but the race goes the Z forme’s way. Garchomp Z moves first and Draco Meteor takes 79.0 – 92.4% off the Aerodactyl the ladder actually plays; the Ice Fang a third of them carry comes back for 62.7 – 73.5% — an Ice attack into a pure Dragon, boosted by Tough Claws. Neither kills on the first turn. On the second, Draco Meteor still does 40.1 – 46.5% after its own two-stage drop, which finishes it on every roll, and Aerodactyl needs that same second turn and does not get to take it. One point of Speed decides it, 223 against 222.

The one thing the typing buys is the row that is not there: Earthquake does nothing to Garchomp Z at all, and Aerodactyl runs it on 3% of them anyway.

Mega Aerodactyl, going out

Mega Aerodactyl · Jolly · 2 HP / 32 Atk / 32 Spe · Aerodactylite

Garchomp Z at the build the rest of this page gives it, not at a benchmark: this is the Pokémon the report is about, on the receiving end of the one it spends its Speed on.

Mega Garchomp Z, into the other two

All three at the build their pages give them — two HP points, 32 in the attacking stat, 32 in Speed — and all three at 223, so none of them moves first on purpose. A Speed tie is a coin toss, so the numbers below are what happens after the coin.

Of the three, this is the one that wins the mirror outright: it kills both of the others and neither of them kills it. If the Z Megas end up across the field from each other, which they will, Garchomp Z is the one to have on your side of it.

Mega Garchomp Z · Timid · 2 HP / 32 SpA / 32 Spe · Garchompite Z

Two kills in two rows, and the second is not the Dragon attack: Fire Blast into Fighting/Steel, at twice, which is what the fourth slot is for.

And the other two back

Mega Garchomp Z · Timid · 2 HP / 32 SpA / 32 Spe · Garchompite Z

Damage taken, as a share of its own HP

Neither kills, and neither is close. 108 HP again.

What to do with it

If you are bringing Mega Garchomp Z, know what you are paying. Forty points of Attack and the Ground typing buy a Ground immunity, half the Ice weakness and 151 Speed on a 108 HP body — and against the twenty it will meet most often, that is a Pokémon that does not kill. Its best row is the Dragon mirror at 97.7 – 114.4%, which needs a roll, and the two behind it are a Power Gem into Mega Charizard Y at 77.8 – 90.8% and a Fire Blast into a Whimsicott holding a Focus Sash at 76.6 – 89.8%. Every other row is between 45% and 81%: two-turn damage from a Pokémon that has spent its whole budget on going first.

The competition is not the ordinary Mega. It is the Garchomp at rank two — Jolly, Life Orb, 32 Attack — which costs no Mega slot at all. Into the same nineteen, planted at 32 HP and 32 Defence because this one hits from the physical side, it is the version with kills on the board: Earthquake takes 113.8 – 132.3% off Mega Raichu Y and 97.3 – 113.9% off Sneasler, and Rock Slide is 84.3 – 101.1% into Mega Charizard Y. One clean kill and two on a roll, against the Z forme’s none and one. The Z forme is ahead on twelve of the nineteen and the one without a stone on seven — but those seven include all three of its kills, and the Mega slot is still empty. What it cannot do is touch a Fairy or a Grass: 22.8% into Whimsicott and 36.0% into Sinistcha, which are the two rows Fire Blast is on the Z forme’s list for.

The ordinary Mega does not change that picture, and we expected it to. At 170 Attack it lands between two and seven points under the Life Orb figures on eighteen of the nineteen rows — the Orb’s thirty per cent is the forty points the stone adds — and it is ten points of base Speed slower. The one row it wins is Mega Tyranitar, 60.9 – 70.5% against 48.8 – 58.0%, because Tyranitar brings the sand that Sand Force needs. The ladder has done this arithmetic already: 7.8% of Garchomps hold the Garchompite and 50.8% hold a Life Orb. Outside sand, the stone Garchomp has had since Regulation M-B is worth less than the item.

What you get for it is a Garchomp that most Ice attacks stop removing. Mega Tyranitar’s Ice Punch goes from 129.7 – 151.4% to 70.3 – 82.2%, Mega Swampert’s from 118.9 – 140.5% to 65.9 – 76.8%, and Milotic’s Ice Beam from a kill on the high roll to 44.3 – 51.9%. Three of the four stop killing, and the rank two Garchomp’s own Earthquake does not reach it at all.

Mega Froslass is the one that does not stop. Blizzard is 203.2 – 240.0% on the Garchomp everybody runs and 101.6 – 120.0% on this one — less overkill, and still a kill on every roll. Halving the Ice weakness moves three of these four out of range and leaves the hardest one exactly where it was.

Does it earn a place? Of the three Z Megas this is the one we would bring, and not for anything it does to the opposition. What it does is take most of the answer away: hard to remove, and not much of a threat. That is a real role in doubles and an odd one to spend a Mega slot on, because the Garchomp on this ladder that hits is the one at rank two, and it is holding a Life Orb. Bring it if what keeps beating your Garchomp is Ice — unless what keeps beating it is Mega Froslass, which goes through this one too. Do not bring it wanting a Dragon that hits harder, because that Dragon costs no stone.

And the Speed question gets an answer here that Absol’s page could not give. Sixteen points reach 205, concede Mega Aerodactyl, and leave eighteen — which on this body turns three kills into rolls. If you are meeting more Froslass and Dragonite than Aerodactyl, that is the build.

Two reports sit beside these three. Champions Stat Point spreads is where the 32-and-32 reflex comes from and what the ladder does with its last two points; Mega Staraptor is the other case on this ladder where a stone changes the ability rather than the numbers, and that report is what the players did about it.

Method and limits