Analyzing Restricted Legendary Pairings in Regulation I

Introduction

Hello everyone,
This is the Showdown Tier team.

Showdown Tier is a web platform dedicated to statistical analysis of the Pokémon metagame. In addition to usage rates, we provide data on win rates when a Pokémon is included on a team, win rates when specific moves are used, and win rates for particular Pokémon pairings. To the best of our knowledge, no other platform offers this level of large-scale, data-driven win rate analysis.

In this first column, we'll examine Restricted Legendary pairings in Regulation I and analyze their positions within the current metagame.

Below is a matchup matrix showing the most commonly used Restricted Legendary pairings and their win rates against one another.

Why This Matters

Matchup discussions between Restricted Pokémon are nothing new. Many players share their impressions based on tournament runs or ladder experience, and team reports often include matchup notes.

However, systematic, data-driven analysis of Restricted Legendary matchups has been surprisingly rare. This matrix offers a structured, statistical view of how the top pairings actually perform against each other across a large number of games.

Rather than relying solely on intuition or isolated tournament results, we can observe broader metagame trends.

Key Takeaways from the Matrix

Even a quick look at the data reveals several important trends:

• Calyrex-Shadow + Zamazenta, currently the most used pairing, has almost no clearly unfavorable matchups among other top teams. Its only notable weakness among the upper tier is Ho-Oh + Miraidon.
• Calyrex-Shadow + Koraidon, despite its high usage, underperforms against several other top-tier pairings.
• Outside of Calyrex-Shadow + Zamazenta, the only pairings that consistently show positive matchups across a wide range of teams are: Calyrex-Ice + Kyogre and Lunala + Miraidon

Of course, these are only a few examples. The matrix contains many more insights waiting to be explored.

Closing Thoughts

We encourage you to share this article and discuss the matrix with other competitive players. Metagame analysis becomes far more powerful when combined with community discussion and strategic interpretation.

We hope this data helps inform your metagame reads and team-building decisions.

The Showdown Tier team will continue publishing metagame analysis columns periodically. If there's a specific topic you'd like us to cover, feel free to reach out via X (formerly Twitter) or email.

See you in the next column.