The Megas

One Raichu in four is now a Mega X. Most of that happened in ten days.

· MetaRoll

For four seasons, Mega Raichu X was the other Raichu. About one in ten held its stone, and everyone else went for Y. Then, in the second week of October, that changed quickly. On 9 October, 15.5% of ranked Raichu held Raichunite X. Today it is 26.1%. In between, one team took Mega Raichu X to the Louisville Regional, and a week later the same six won Nice.

The ranked ladder, season M-7, read at 15:46 UTC on 19 October 2026 · and every day-two team list of the six Regionals played since 18 September

The ladder publishes one set for every ranked Raichu and does not split it between the two Megas. The share holding Raichunite X is exact; how the X is built on the ladder is read from how the whole Raichu set moved, which is spelled out where it matters. The Regionals publish full team lists for day two, and every count of Mega Raichu X teams here comes from those.

Raichunite X, season by season

Raichu has been a top-twenty Pokémon since its Megas arrived in M-3, and it has always been a Y. Mega Raichu Y is the obvious one to pick: 160 Special Attack, 130 Speed, and No Guard, which turns Zap Cannon and Focus Blast into moves that never miss. X sat at around one in ten for four seasons.

This season it is one in four, and Raichu itself hasn’t moved: it is 8th today, the same place it opened M-7 in. Nobody new is picking Raichu up. The people who already played it are switching stones.

Share of ranked Raichu holding Raichunite X

  1. M-7, 19 October: 26.1% (Raichu 8th · Raichunite Y 71.8%)
  2. M-6: 13.8% (Raichu 13th · Raichunite Y 83.6%)
  3. M-4: 11.4% (Raichu 18th · Raichunite Y 80.7%)
  4. M-3: 9.8% (Raichu 16th · Raichunite Y 78.6%)
  5. M-5: 8.1% (Raichu 12th · Raichunite Y 85.7%)

Each past season is its final reading. M-7 is still being played.

Ten days in October

The rise isn’t spread across the season. It starts in the second week of October and it doesn’t stop. Each of these is one reading of the ladder, a day apart from the next, and the share goes up on every single day after 9 October.

The dates line up with two Regionals. Louisville was played from 9 to 11 October, and Nice on 17 and 18 October. The climb starts after the first and speeds up after the second: a little under a point a day in between, and more than a point and a half a day since Nice.

Share of ranked Raichu holding Raichunite X, by day

  1. 19 October: 26.1% (the day after Nice)
  2. 18 October: 24.4% (Nice, day two)
  3. 15 October: 20.3% (between the two Regionals)
  4. 12 October: 17.2% (the day after Louisville)
  5. 9 October: 15.5% (Louisville, day one)

At the Regionals

The tournaments tell the same story, just faster. Mega Raichu X wasn’t on a single day-two team at Baltimore, Brisbane or Recife, and only one made it to day two at Frankfurt. Then there were three at Louisville, one of them finishing 3rd, and six at Nice, including the winner and the 4th place.

That’s ten teams across six events, which isn’t many. But those ten won 75.4% of their games, when the average for a day-two team over the same six events was 68.5%, and three of them finished in a top eight. Mega Raichu Y was on 172 day-two teams and won 67.5% of its games, with six top-eight finishes. Fewer players picked X, but the ones who did went further with it.

Share of day-two teams with Mega Raichu X

  1. Nice: 4.8% (6 of 125 · finished 1st and 4th)
  2. Louisville: 2.1% (3 of 143 · best finish 3rd)
  3. Frankfurt: 0.6% (1 of 163 · finished 121st)
  4. Baltimore: 0% (0 of 155)
  5. Brisbane: 0% (0 of 47)
  6. Recife: 0% (0 of 31)

The same six, three times

Six of those ten Mega Raichu X teams were exactly the same team: Mega Raichu X, Mega Golisopod, Archaludon, Pelipper, Basculegion-F and Sneasler. It first shows up at Louisville, where Kai Morton and Ryne Garrett both took it to day two and finished 33rd and 37th. A week later, four more players brought it to Nice.

Two of those four met in round 10 of Swiss: Francesco Pio Pero beat Louis Fontvieille with the same six Pokémon. They met again in the semi-final, Louis won 2–0, and then he won the final against Eduardo Cunha to take the title 15–2. Francesco finished 4th. It’s the same team at the top of the event twice, with the same items and the same moves on all six.

All eighteen match: the same six Pokémon and the same six items on all three teams.

The two Megas

The same Raichu, the same Electric typing, and two Megas that want completely different things from the rest of the team.

Why X, and not Y

The two Megas have barely anything in common. Mega Raichu Y is 60 HP, 160 Special Attack and 130 Speed with 55 Defence: it hits very hard and it goes down to almost anything physical. Mega Raichu X is 60 HP, 135 Attack, 95 Defence, 95 Special Defence and 110 Speed. It’s slower and weaker on the special side, but it can take a hit, and its ability is Electric Surge.

Electric Surge is what makes the team work. As soon as Raichu Mega Evolves it sets Electric Terrain, and that does three jobs at once. It consumes Sneasler’s Electric Seed, which raises its Defence and triggers Unburden to double its Speed. It boosts Raichu’s own Volt Tackle. And Archaludon’s Electro Shot fires straight away under the Pelipper rain.

And Volt Tackle with the terrain boost and STAB hits hard enough that the Mega doesn’t need any Attack investment. The spread Louis ran in Nice, as we read it from his matches, is 30 HP, 4 Defence and 32 Speed, with nothing in Attack. Even so, a single Volt Tackle takes out the ladder’s most common Sneasler (107.6 – 128.0%), its Basculegion (162.4 – 192.9%) and its Mega Charizard Y (179.4 – 212.9%). The points it doesn’t need for damage go into bulk, which is where the difference with Y really shows.

What it takes as X

The ladder’s most common attackers, each with its own most-used set, hitting Louis’s Mega Raichu X. Mega Raichu X survives every one of them, apart from a high roll on the Scarf Garchomp’s Earthquake.

Mega Raichu X · Jolly · 30 HP / 4 Def / 32 Spe · Raichunite X

Damage taken, as a share of its HP

And the same hits into Y

The same ten moves, from the same ten sets, into Mega Raichu Y built the way most Y players build it: 32 HP, 11 Defence and 23 Speed, nothing in Special Attack. Even with all of that bulk, five of the ten can knock it out in one hit with a good roll, and two of them do it on every roll. As X, only one can, and only on a high roll.

Mega Raichu Y · Timid · 32 HP / 11 Def / 23 Spe · Raichunite Y

Damage taken, as a share of its HP

Earthquake and Heat Wave are spread moves and are measured hitting both targets, as they do in doubles.

How it is built

On the team sheets, the ten Mega Raichu X look almost identical. Nine of the ten are Jolly. All ten carry Volt Tackle and Fake Out, eight carry Volt Switch, six Protect, and four have Feint, which goes through a Protect on the turn the opponent is trying to stall the terrain out. It’s a support Pokémon that also hits hard, not an attacker.

The ladder doesn’t split Raichu’s set by Mega, but you can see the X in how the whole set has moved since the end of M-6. Jolly went from 6.3% to 18.0%, Volt Tackle from 6.6% to 18.8%, Volt Switch from 9.4% to 17.5%, and Feint from nothing to 10.9%. None of those does anything for a Mega Raichu Y, and they rose together with the stone. The spread Louis used, 30 HP / 4 Def / 32 Spe, went from 0.4% of ranked Raichu to 6.2%.

Where it goes from here

Mega Raichu Y is still on nearly three Raichu in four, and it should be: it’s the one that wins a game by itself. What has changed is that X is now a real choice, and a different one. Y goes with a team that wants damage. X goes with a team that wants Electric Terrain, an Sneasler that moves first, and a Pokémon in front that can take a hit and still use Fake Out. The rain team is the clearest version of that, and right now it’s also one of the best results in the format.

Method and limits