Psychic-types have historically remained one of the most overpowered types in the Pokemon series. Many have received nerfs to their attacks and new weaknesses like Dark-type moves to prevent them from ruling competitive play, but even in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Sword & Shield, Psychic-types still remain incredibly dominant.
Galar’s pool of Psychic-type Pokemon is massive, and many more members are competitively viable than most members of the Pokedex. That being said, some are undou🔜btedly more powerful than others, and it’s worth having at least one of the most powerful members in your team if you plan to take o🅠n the Battle Stadium. Let's take a look at the best Psychic Pokemon Sword & Shield have to offer.
Updated on June 26, 2021 by Gene Cole: Psychic-types continue to dominate the online metagame of Pokemon Sword & Shield, both in its single battle and double battle leagues. With changing rulesets and banlists, trainers have quickly taken to a few new Psychic-types that most players slept on before, while the best Psychic Pokemon in Sword & Shield have still proven themselves to be grossly overpowered.
15 Hatterene
Hatterene can only be described as one of the most destructive forces among competitive Psychic Pokemon over the past year. It might suffer from a wide set of weakness🔯es due to its combination of Fairy/Psychic, but it makes up for these𒐪 vulnerabilities with exceptional defenses and a low Speed stat that lets it take advantage of the move Trick Room.
Besides these features, it's also quite 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:famous for its Gigantamax Form, which gives▨ it a unique Max Move, G-Max Smite, which confuses all opponents while doing extreme Fairy-type damage. If you get Hatterene into play while a Trick Room is active, or just have an ally that can protect Hatterene from some damage, one attack is all it needs to destroy an opposing team's plan.
14 Starmie
Starmie is one of the most underrated Gen 🐭I Pokemon, being nearly as powerful as infamous Psychic-types like Alakazam thanks to a remarkably high stat total. Its Speed and Special Attack are remarkable for its size, and its range of move types between Water, Electric, and even Rock-type attacks can give it a huge edge.
It's an especially powerful Psychic-type in Sword & Shield, though, thanks to the new move tutor attack Meteor Beam. When combined with a Power Herb item, it'll let Starmie immediately hit with obscene damage while boosting its Special Atta𓄧ck stat by 50%, letting it potentially run over the competition with an off-type move that few opponents can easily plan around.
13 𝔍 Alolan Raichu
Alolan Raichu never got a great chance to shine 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:in its home of Alola, but Galar has far more ways to get it onto Electric Terrain thanks to both Tapu Koko and Pincurchin providin🐓g it when entering battle. This means you can reliably use its ability Surge Surfer to give it twice as much speed, making it one of the fastest Pokemon in the entire game while still havi🅺ng an ample supply of Psychic-type moves to deal with all kinds of threats.
This potential high speed also makes it the o🌼nly Psychic-type Pokemon that can use Electro Ball better than most pure Electric-types, as the Electric Terrain you want it on will boost the move's strengths while Alolan Raichu's speed can outmatch almost any oppone✤nt. It's a unique strategy for a Psychic-type, but one that you can build a pretty powerful team around.
12 Orbeetle
Hatterene might be one of the most beloved strong Psychic-types in Pokemon Sword & Shield, but Orbeetle is easily the one that's most often forgotten. Its Gigantamax Form gets a move (G-Max Gravitas) that few people understand the value of, as it'll deꦆal intense Psychic-type damage while also providing a Gravity effect that pulls floating Pokemon to the ground, and reduces the Evasiveness of all Pokemon in play for several turns.
This might seem useless until you realize all the inaccurate moves that can take advantage of it, particularly the sleep-inducing move Hypnosis and heavy damage-dealers like Zap Cannon. If you have a partner just slightly slower than Orbeetle in a double battle, it's easy to have Orbeetle blast one opponent with its Max Move and have the other put another foe to sleep, making for an infuriating combo 𒁃that's incredibly hard to predict.
11 Latios & Latias ✅
Latios has been known for its presence in various competitive Pokemon fields, but Pokemon Sword & Shield might be the first where Latios🅺 and Latias are tied for being the best Psychic-type Legendaries in a game. Their only difference comes in their Special Attack and Special Defense stats, in that Latios has a little more power and a little less bulk to give it more aggressive builds.
This makes Latias better for more supportive builds, where it can remove hampering abilities like Regigigas's Slow Start through moves like Simple Beam, but it can be just as much a sweeper as Latios now, thanks to its shared movepool and some greater defenses against common Psychic and Dragon-type weaknesses. If you don't have another Dragon-type or Psychic-type on your team, it's worth having 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:either of these classic Legendaries by your side.
10 Alakazam
Some of the strongest Psychic-types in the game are also the oldest, as Alakazam brilliantly proves. This Pokemon was so powerful in the original Pokemon Red & Blue that it garnered a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:dramatic nerf toward all P💯sychic-types, in the form of newly resistant Dark- and Steel-types.
Despite having more weakneᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚsses, Alakazam is still an intense powerhouse. Its Speed and Special Attack are nearly unmatched, and while it lacks a wide movepool of non-P🃏sychic attacks, any opponent that doesn’t resist Alakazam will have a troubling fight ahead of them.
9 Galarian Rap🦩idash
Not all o𝓀f the best Psychic-types are the classics, however, as newer members of the family have been esp👍ecially fortunate with their stats and secondary typings. This includes the new Galarian Rapidash, replacing the original Fire-type with a Psychic and Fairy dual-type to deal with Dark Pokemon even better.
What makes Rapidash so uniqu🔴e, though, is that it’s a physical attacker instead ofꩵ a special attacker. This is exceptionally rare for Psychic-types, but even rarer among Fairy-types, and access to moves like High Horsepower and Bounce give it a ton of moves that are Super Effective against common competitive threats.
8 𝓰 ꦜ Galarian Slowbro
Unlike many fast Pokemon, Galarian Slowbro’s quickness is significantly more varied. This is because of its unique ability Quick Draw, which lets it occasionally strike at the speed of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:moves like Quick Attack with any of i🌠ts attacks. It’s unreliable, but an undoubtedly powerful effect a💫gainst dangerously fast opponents like Cinderace and the new Regieleki.
Thankfully, the risk of a slower move can be mitigated further, as the often-forgotten item Quick Claw can give an additional chance to let Slowbro strike first. When it fails, though, its high defenses and wonderfully move-resistant ꦍcombination 🍃of Psychic- and Poison-type let it succeed no matter when it manages to attack.
7 Jynx
Putting opponents to sleep is one of the most effective strategies in competitive play. Sometimes an opponent might wake up immediately, but even gaining one turn to improve your stats or chip away damage can put you infinitely ahead of your oppone♉nt, and even more so if they take several turns to snap out of the🅺ir slumber.
The main problem with Sleep-based strategies is that many of these moves lack accuracy, but 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Kanto classic Jynx manages to circum🐼vent that with the 75% accurate move Lovely Kiss. It still can miss often without other accuracy or evasion changes, but it’s still reliable enough to hit most of the time and Jynx is fast enough to outrun most foes, giving it a huge potential to shut down🤡 opponents.
6 Azelf
Many of the recent changes to the online metagame are because of the Crown Tundra expansion, which brought back several Legendary Pokemon that populated the competitive scene of past online gam🌳es. An absurd amount of them come from Sinnoh and Unova, and Azelf remains onꦫe of the standouts from this era. It isn't as popular as it was before, but it's undoubtedly one of the strongest Psychic Pokemon Sword & Shield are home to.
This speedy elf from Sinnoh is especially known for its wide movepool, which features several classic elemental attacks like Flamethrower and Thunderbolt. This is accompanied by high Speed and Special Attack stats, as well as a surprisingly impressive physical Attack꧋ stat that can be combined with unexpected moves like Stone Edge and Play Rough. This versatility makes it extremely hard to deal with, since most Psychic Pokemon in Sword & Shield rarely have these many move types.