Gods,Catchable

MagcargoThe snail that is hotter than the sun — games

The dex puts its body temperature at 18,000 °F, which is roughly twice the surface of the sun. Nothing in any game, episode or film has ever treated it as dangerous to stand next to. It is the cleanest example on this site of a stated figure that the fiction itself does not believe: the number exists to sound enormous, and every subsequent appearance quietly ignores it.

• Pokémon Sapphire · 2002 · stated

  Its body temperature is given as about 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Pokémon Diamond · 2006 · stated

  The temperature claim is repeated in a later generation rather than corrected.

GengarSteals lives, on paper — games

Its entries describe a creature that hides in a target's shadow and waits for the chance to take their life, and several generations repeat it without softening. Then it turns up in the anime as a nuisance that pulls faces. The gap between the two is not a continuity problem — it is the dex being written to a different brief than the show.

• Pokémon Silver · 1999 · stated

  Described as slipping into its prey's shadow and waiting for a chance to take their life.

DrifloonThe one that takes children — games

A balloon that, by its own entry, is mistaken for a toy by children who then go missing. It is one of the more alarming things printed in a children's game, and it is also the whole feat: no scene, no body, no consequence anywhere in the series. Pure statement.

• Pokémon HeartGold · 2009 · stated

  Children who mistake it for a balloon and hold on to it are said to go missing.

ArceusThe Original One — games

• The Original Oneas the myth describes it, before anything else existed
• Catchable encountera stat total of 720, and one ball

Sinnoh's creation myth has it hatching from an egg in a void and shaping the world, then producing the trio that holds time, space and antimatter apart. Legends Arceus makes the myth playable and puts it in front of you at the end. Everything above regional scale in this series is downstream of it, and it can be caught.

• Pokémon Diamond · 2006 · stated

  Canalave's myth describes it shaping the world and creating the beings that govern time and space.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · stated

  The Distortion World and the creation trio are presented as its work.

• Pokémon Legends: Arceus · 2022 · shown

  Appears directly at the end of the game as an encounter.

GiratinaThe Renegade — games

• Altered Formethe shape it holds inside this world
• Origin Formeits shape in the Distortion World, where it is not constrained

Banished out of the world for its violence, and given a dimension of its own to be banished into. In Platinum it does not merely live in the Distortion World — it drags Cyrus there bodily, and gravity, geometry and falling all stop behaving on the way in. Second because the eviction stuck: it rules the place it was sent to, which is a smaller claim than making the place.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · shown

  Pulls Cyrus into the Distortion World, which does not obey ordinary gravity or geometry.

• Pokémon Diamond · 2006 · stated

  Said to have been banished for its violence into a world on the reverse side.

DialgaTemporal Pokémon — games

Time is said to have begun moving when it was born, which is a claim about the setting rather than about a fight, and it is the whole of the printed case for it. What the games hand it beyond that is Roar of Time, a move that costs the user a turn of recovery — the mechanics agreeing, quietly, that the thing is expensive to use.

• Pokémon Pearl · 2006 · stated

  Time is said to have begun moving when Dialga was born.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · shown

  Summoned by the Red Chain at Spear Pillar as one of the two forces Cyrus intends to rebuild reality with.

PalkiaSpatial Pokémon — games

The counterpart claim, one axis over: it is said to live in a gap between dimensions and to hold space itself stable. Ranked below Dialga on a thin margin and stated as such — the two are written as equals, and the tie is broken only by time being the axis the series actually shows being interfered with.

• Pokémon Pearl · 2006 · stated

  Said to dwell in a gap between dimensions, with space distorting where it goes.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · shown

  Summoned alongside Dialga at Spear Pillar by the Red Chain.

EternatusEternamax — games

• Eternatusthe catchable form, after the fight
• Eternamaxthe unwinnable state, stat total 1125

It arrived in a meteor, and the energy the whole Galar region runs on is leaking out of it. Left alone it would have consumed the region entirely, and the fight against its Eternamax form is the one boss in the series the game refuses to let you win conventionally — you cannot catch it, cannot catch it in that state, and need Hop beside you with the second of the two relics that call Zacian and Zamazenta. Contested because its stat total of 1125 is the highest ever printed and is exactly the kind of number this page distrusts.

• Pokémon Sword · 2019 · shown

  Its energy is the source of the Dynamax phenomenon across the whole region.

• Pokémon Shield · 2019 · shown

  The Eternamax form cannot be caught; the fight needs Zacian and Zamazenta, summoned by the player and Hop.

NecrozmaUltra Necrozma — games

• Dusk Mane / Dawn Wingsfused with Solgaleo or Lunala
• Ultra Necrozmathe fully restored state, after taking the light back

A whole civilisation lost its light to this. Ultra Megalopolis is dark because Necrozma took the light out of it, and the Ultra Recon Squad are refugees from that fact rather than mystics describing it. When it takes Solgaleo or Lunala as a host and goes Ultra, the game changes its type chart and its music and stops pretending this is a normal fight.

• Pokémon Ultra Sun · 2017 · shown

  Ultra Megalopolis is permanently dark because Necrozma drained its light.

• Pokémon Ultra Moon · 2017 · shown

  Takes Solgaleo or Lunala as a host and transforms into Ultra Necrozma.

RayquazaThe one that settles it — games

• Rayquazathe ozone-layer resident
• Mega Rayquazareached with no Mega Stone — it swallows the meteorite instead

Kyogre and Groudon are ranked below it for one reason: when the two of them fight, Rayquaza is what stops the fight. Then Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire went further and had it intercept a meteoid on a collision course with the planet, in the upper atmosphere, with a trainer riding it. Regional weather is the floor of what it does, not the ceiling.

• Pokémon Emerald · 2004 · shown

  Ends the confrontation between Kyogre and Groudon that neither side could resolve.

• Pokémon Omega Ruby · 2014 · shown

  Mega Evolves and destroys an incoming meteoid above the atmosphere in the Delta Episode.

KyogrePrimal Kyogre — games

• Kyogrethe awakened but ordinary state
• Primal Kyogrethe state reached through Alpha Sapphire's orb

The sea is bigger because of it. Its stated role is having expanded the oceans, and when Archie wakes it the rain over Hoenn does not behave like weather — it is a permanent state the region cannot come out of without the other half of the pair or the thing above them both.

• Pokémon Sapphire · 2002 · stated

  Said to have widened the sea by bringing down heavy rain.

• Pokémon Alpha Sapphire · 2014 · shown

  Primal Reversion produces rain that cannot be overridden by other weather.

GroudonPrimal Groudon — games

• Groudonthe awakened but ordinary state
• Primal Groudonthe state reached through Omega Ruby's orb

Same claim, opposite sign, and one place lower only because the drought is the easier of the two disasters to survive. Continents are attributed to it, and Primal Groudon's sunlight is written the same way Kyogre's rain is: not a forecast but a condition.

• Pokémon Ruby · 2002 · stated

  Said to have expanded the continents through drought and volcanic activity.

• Pokémon Omega Ruby · 2014 · shown

  Primal Reversion produces sunlight that cannot be overridden by other weather.

MewtwoThe one with a body count — anime

Everything else on this page is a force of nature or a myth. Mewtwo is the only entry that was made deliberately, escaped, and killed the people who made it — it brings the laboratory down the moment it understands what it is. In the first film it then clones a set of trainers' Pokémon, wipes the memory of every human who witnessed the island, and turns Ash to stone in the crossfire. Its reach is one island and one lab — the smallest arena anyone in this tier has been measured in, and the reason it sits at the bottom of it.

• Pokémon: The First Movie · 1998 · shown

  Destroys the laboratory and its staff on waking, then clones a set of Pokémon and erases the witnesses' memories.

• Pokémon Red · 1996 · stated

  Described as created by gene-splicing research, with the Cinnabar mansion journals as the record.

Ho-OhBrings them back — games

Three Pokémon died in the fire at the Brass Tower and Ho-Oh brought all three back. That is the single most concrete thing any entry on this page has done, and it is a resurrection rather than a demolition — worth more than it looks on a list that mostly measures how much of a map somebody removed.

• Pokémon Gold · 1999 · stated

  Revived the three Pokémon that died in the Brass Tower fire, producing Raikou, Entei and Suicune.

LugiaThe beast of the sea — anime

Its dex line — that a flick of its wings can bring on a storm lasting forty days — is the sort of claim this page normally files under Tier 00. It gets ranked because the second film actually shows the weather system: the whole climate of the Orange Islands goes wrong and only Lugia can put it back.

• Pokémon Diamond · 2006 · stated

  A storm lasting forty days is attributed to a single movement of its wings.

• Pokémon: The Movie 2000 · 1999 · shown

  The global weather disruption is resolved only by Lugia's intervention.

KyuremBlack and White Kyurem — games

• Kyuremthe incomplete remainder
• Black or White Kyuremfused with Zekrom or Reshiram

What is left over when the original dragon split, and it works by taking the other pieces back. Absorbing Reshiram or Zekrom is not a power-up in the usual sense — the game presents it as a partial reassembly of something that used to be whole, and the fused forms are what that looks like when it is only half done.

• Pokémon Black 2 · 2012 · shown

  Absorbs Zekrom or Reshiram to form Black or White Kyurem.

• Pokémon Black · 2010 · stated

  Described as the remainder of an original dragon that split in two.

YveltalThe one that ends on a mass casualty — games

Its entry states that when its life ends it takes the life energy of every living thing with it, and returns to a cocoon. That is the largest death toll claimed by anything in the series. It is contested and ranked here rather than in the tier above for the reason this whole page exists: it has never been shown doing it once.

• Pokémon Y · 2013 · stated

  When its life ends it absorbs the life energy of every living thing and returns to a cocoon.

• Pokémon Y · 2013 · shown

  Fought and caught as the box legendary without the absorption ever occurring.

XerneasThe other half of the argument — games

Eternal life, given away. It is the counterweight to Yveltal in every sense including the evidentiary one — both are enormous printed claims with a caught legendary at the end of them — and it is one place higher only because sharing life is a thing the games let it visibly do in battle, and ending all life is not.

• Pokémon X · 2013 · stated

  Said to be able to share eternal life.

• Pokémon Y · 2013 · shown

  Geosenge's ultimate weapon is powered by the life energy the pair embody.

ZygardeComplete Forme — games

• 50% Formethe standard assembled state
• Complete Formeassembled from 100% of its cells, in response to a crisis

It is the ecosystem's response mechanism, and it assembles out of cells distributed across the region when something has gone badly enough wrong. The Complete Forme exists specifically as an answer to Xerneas and Yveltal going too far, which makes it the only entry here whose stated job is policing other entries on this list.

• Pokémon Sun · 2016 · shown

  Assembles from distributed cells into Complete Forme, described as a response to ecological crisis.

RegigigasTowed the continents — games

The dex credits it with dragging the continents into position with ropes, which would put it near the top of this page if anything supported it. In the games it is a slow, sluggish encounter with an ability that halves its own attack for five turns. Contested because the distance between the claim and the creature is the widest on this page — wider than Magcargo's, because Regigigas is at least ranked.

• Pokémon Diamond · 2006 · stated

  Said to have towed continents into place using ropes.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · shown

  Encountered at Snowpoint Temple with the Slow Start ability halving its attack and speed for five turns.

DarkraiNewmoon Island — games

Everyone in the town sleeps and does not wake, and the cause is one Pokémon on the next island doing what it does involuntarily. Ranked for the mechanism rather than the magnitude: it is the rare entry whose effect is on minds at a settlement scale and whose own account of it is that it cannot help it.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · stated

  Afflicts those around it with nightmares to protect itself, and is said to mean no harm by it.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · shown

  Encountered on Newmoon Island as the cause of the Canalave sleeper's nightmares.

DeoxysCame down in a meteor — games

• Normal Formethe balanced default
• Attack Forme180 attack, 20 defence — the highest-variance line in the series
• Defense and Speed Formesthe other two allocations of the same budget

A virus that arrived in a rock from space and reorganised itself into something with four bodies to choose from. Its Attack Forme carries one of the highest offensive stats printed and effectively no defence, which is the closest the series gets to admitting a stat total is a budget rather than a measurement.

• Pokémon Ruby · 2002 · stated

  Described as a space virus mutated by exposure to a laser, arriving via meteorite.

• Pokémon Platinum · 2008 · shown

  Changes Forme at the Veilstone meteorites, redistributing the same stat budget.

MewThe original sample — games

Mewtwo exists because someone found Mew and worked from it, which makes Mew the most consequential entry on this page by inheritance and one of the least demonstrated by feat. It is stated to carry the genetic material of every Pokémon. It has been shown to be very hard to find. Last in the ranking, and contested, because those are not the same kind of sentence and this list only counts one of them.

• Pokémon Red · 1996 · stated

  The Cinnabar journals record Mew as the source organism from which Mewtwo was produced.

• Pokémon Ruby · 2002 · stated

  Said to hold the genetic composition of all Pokémon.

• Pokémon: The First Movie · 1998 · shown

  Fights Mewtwo directly and matches it.