Mega evolved Pokemon are some of the strongest and the coolest in the entire franchise, or that's how it's supposed to be. In reality, while there are some incredibly powerful mega evolutions, there are also a lot that are just real letdowns. So I decided to go through and figure out what the 10 worst mega evolutions were.
Now you might expect this kind of video to be difficult to make because there's not that many mega evolutions, so finding like the 10 worst ones might be kind of hard, but actually... there's a lot of Mega Evolutions that are pretty bad. I had to leave a couple off this list.
The thing that really made this video hard then was not finding Mega Evolutions that were bad enough to be contenders. It was instead ranking the different Mega Evolutions when most of them have almost no results in the official competitive format. Speaking of, this video centered around the official competitive format for Pokemon.
So I'm sure some of these Mega Evolutions were better in different like fan formats, but for the official one... Every Pokemon on here was really bad. So let's kick off our list with number 10, Mega Garchomp. If you love Mega Garchomp, don't freak out. Number 10 is the least bad of the bad Pokemon.
We're building up to the real worst Mega Evolution here. I showed this list to some of my friends who are also competitive players, and a lot of them thought that Mega Garchomp should be higher up, or I guess lower on the list, that it was a worse Mega Evolution. But I'm including it at number 10 because Mega Garchomp has an advantage over a lot of the other Mega Evolutions on this list in that...
it doesn't need to Mega Evolve. And so Mega Garchomp has a unique advantage in that, because it doesn't need to Mega Evolve, it can just stay in its base form. That probably sounds a little silly, but the thing about Mega Garchomp is that it's pretty much worse than regular Garchomp.
Any Pokemon that Mega Evolves gains 100 stat points spread across the five stats, not including HP. That's a ton of stat points, so it might seem weird that Mega Garchomp is worse than regular Garchomp, but there is a reason for it. Of the 100 points that Mega Garchomp gets, 40 of those are in its special attack stat, which is the stat that it doesn't even want to use.
In other words, compared to other Mega Evolutions, it's wasting, most of the time at least, 40 of the points that other Mega Evolutions normally get to use a lot more efficiently. The bigger issue with Mega Garchomp is that it actually loses 10 points from its speed stat. Speed is arguably the most important stat in competitive Pokemon, because the order in which Pokemon move matters a lot like being able to knock out an opponent before you get knocked out turns out to be a pretty big deal and regular Garchomp was for a while kind of right over the speed hump where it felt like a lot of Pokemon were just around or below 100 base speed where Garchomp was 102. Mega Garchomp is 92 so it goes from being able to outspeed a lot of the strong Mega Evolutions like Mega Charizard Y and Kangaskhan and a couple other ones to suddenly being slower than them. It does get a bit bulkier and it does also get some points in its attack, but overall, this doesn't make up for the fact that it's just such an inefficient use of its stat points.
The ability is also a bit awkward as well. Mega Garchomp gets Sand Force, which gives it power to rock, ground, and steel type moves if the weather condition is sand. And it's not that this is a bad ability, but I would say it's not so high impact.
Like considering the good Mega Evolutions like Mega Kangaskhan, who just gets like a big second hit, or Mega Charizard, who sits the sun. or Mega Gengar, which can trap opponents in the field. Like this is an ability that doesn't do anything if the sand is up.
And even then, like the boost isn't that impactful. And regular Garchomp already had two good abilities in Rough Skin, which is really great, especially against Mega Kangaskhan and Sand Veil, which I would argue is actually higher impact because although it doesn't actually activate all the time. If the sand is up, it means Garchomp can just dodge attacks and that can be really, really dangerous.
So basically Mega Garchomp is a version of Garchomp that's slower and also wastes a lot of the stat points that it gets from Mega Evolving. And at the best, I think you could say its ability is a side grade, but for the most part, it's going to be a down grade. That being said, it is the least bad Mega Evolution we're going to talk about today because you can just not Mega Evolve it.
And yeah, like then you have regular Garchomp, which although you're giving up your item is still better than Mega Garchomp, I think. Okay. Next up on our list is the number nine slot.
Mega Mewtwo X. This is probably going to come as a big surprise because Mega Mewtwo X looks really cool. I mean, it's Mewtwo, one of the most iconic Pokemon of all time. And the Pokemon who at least I think for those of us who grew up around like when I did, Mewtwo was thought to be like the strongest Pokemon for a little bit. At least casually, I think Mewtwo is probably thought to be one of the strongest.
Competitively, it's a slightly different story. So Mewtwo has two Mega Evolutions. And as a spoiler, I'm not going to talk about Mega Mewtwo Y, but Mega Mewtwo X has some pretty big problem.
One thing you have to keep in mind about Mega Mewtwo X, and this is the only Mega Evolution on this list that this applies to, is that Mewtwo is a special class of Pokemon titled a Restricted Pokemon or a Restricted Legendary Pokemon. And what that means is that it can only ever be used in official rule sets where other Restricted Pokemon are also allowed. Pokemon like Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, Mega Rayquaza, Xerneas, Yveltal, a couple other really powerful Pokemon. They can only be used a couple times per year, and even when you are allowed to use them, you're only allowed to have...
one or two on your team. Mewtwo is pretty widely agreed upon as being one of the worst restricted Pokemon. The thing is, because Mewtwo was like the original legendary Pokemon, the original legendary restricted Pokemon, it has been really suffering from something called power creep, which is when more recent Pokemon are stronger than past Pokemon.
And so comparing Mewtwo who has like very good stats for a regular Pokemon, but comparing it to something like Primal Grappler, which is like a very good stats for a regular Pokemon, but comparing it to something Groudon or Primal Kyogre or Mega Rayquaza, who have, like, ridiculous stats and better typing and pretty broken moves. Like, Groudon and Kyogre can both hit both of your opponent's Pokemon with huge damage, whereas Mewtwo can only hit one. And that's not even talking about Pokemon like Xerneas, which have the ability to, like, double all their stats. Mewtwo's signature move is just a stronger version of Psyshock, so it's not really that good.
The thing about Mega Mewtwo X and the reason why it was such a letdown is that this was an opportunity to kind of let Mewtwo keep up with the power level of some of these newer restricted Pokemon. I know I'm saying newer, whereas Groudon and Kyogre are like Gen 3, but still, let's do newer compared to Mewtwo, right? Anyway, the thing about Mega Mewtwo X is it's another Mega Evolution where the stat distribution is very, very strange. Specifically, Mega Mewtwo X gains 80 of its 100 points in its attack stat with 10 in each of its defenses. Now Mewtwo is known as being a special attacker and so giving it 80 points in attack does make it a stronger physical attacker but like it's kind of like Garchomp in that it's buffing the stat that it wasn't already good.
Like it's changing the way that Mewtwo plays but it's changing it in a way that was like not as strong to begin with. Mega Mewtwo X is also a psychic and a fighting type Pokemon which I would say I don't think it's a downgrade necessarily. Like I don't think it's such a huge upgrade like if it were a psychic and steel type for example or maybe psychic and fire or whatever.
um something else as well like i think that could have actually been a pretty interesting type combination psychic is decent synergy with fighting because it turns off its weakness to dark and it also hits those same dark type pokemon for super effective whereas psychic moves hit the poison type pokemon that resist fighting for super effective damage so it's not like bad by any means but it's also two types that i would say are like middling to like kind of lower on the typing tier list so it's not so overwhelming either mega mewtwo x also has an ability that is pretty mediocre, I would say. It's steadfast, which gives it a speed boost every time the Pokemon flinches. The thing is that Mega Mewtwo X isn't that bulky, and it also is only ever legal when we have these really powerful Pokemon.
So often, if you're flinching, you're probably not going to be lasting much longer anyway. And Mega Mewtwo X is a really good Pokemon to play with. Mewtwo X is already one of the faster Pokemon, so giving it a speed boost is just not that impactful. Another thing that really doesn't help is the fact that Mega Mewtwo X is a variant of base Mewtwo, so it has all the same moves that regular Mewtwo learns.
And so the moves that it learns really just isn't geared towards it being a physical attacker like the big one that sticks out to me is that mega mutual x does not learn close combat which is like the fighting type move that most fighting types want to use when they have the choice mega mewtwo x's strongest physical attacks that match its types are like zen headbutt which can miss in his 80 base power not very strong and then drain punch which is 75 base power on the special side mewtwo even gets a move that is a 100 base power move that never misses called psy strike i mentioned this earlier but basically psy strike does damage to the opponent's physical defense stat. So a special attacking Mewtwo, like regular Mewtwo, can still threaten Pokemon that are frail on the physical side without needing to actually Mega Evolve into Mega Mewtwo X. It is still a lot stronger than any like regular Pokemon, so I didn't feel comfortable putting it that much lower on the list. But overall, I would say it's a really, really disappointing Mega Evolution.
And even Mega Mewtwo Y, which is a bit better, like it's still not that good, though it wasn't bad enough to make it onto this list. Coming in at number eight is another Psychic type Mega Evolution, Mega Alakazam. I'm pretty sure that this one was good at some point during the game. like unofficial single battle stuff so there might be people angry about this one but yeah in the official competitive format alakazam was not very good as a mega evolution unlike mega garchomp and mega mewtwo x it does feel like they tried a little bit more with mega alakazam like the changes that they made to it makes sense in my opinion first it gets a lot faster which as i already mentioned is a really big deal alakazam goes from 120 base speed to 150. 150 being that really nice number where a lot of, at the time, a lot of the faster Pokemon were around, like Tapu Koko and Mega Gengar. Like, that was kind of the number you wanted to be at to outspeed pretty much everything.
Nowadays, there are Pokemon that are faster than it, thanks to Power Creep, but it doesn't matter because Mega Alakazam isn't even in Scarlet and Violet, so who cares? Mega Alakazam also doesn't waste a ton of its stat points. In fact, it doesn't waste any of them.
It gets 30 in Speed, 40 in Special Attack, and 10 in Special Defense, 20 in Defense. Basically, this is a really efficient use of the Mega Evolve stats, and overall, I think they probably expected Mega Alakazam to be really good. And while Mega Alakazam doesn't get like a super broken ability, I would say it's overall probably an upgrade given the circumstances.
It gets Trace, which turns into one of your opponent's abilities randomly. This can have a big impact, like if you Trace Wonderguard or Intimidate or Parental Bond, but... For the most part, it's a little bit inconsistent. So it's basically not something you ever want to like rely on, but there are times where it can really just pop off. So what makes Mega Alakazam deserving of a spot on this list?
Why is it bad if we're saying all these good things about it? Well, it's really not the Mega Evolution's fault, to be honest. The thing about Mega Alakazam is that it's working with Base Alakazam as a starting point.
The reason that matters is because Base Alakazam is extremely, extremely frail. And keep in mind that when Pokemon Mega evolve, their HP stats don't change. So even though Mega Alakazam does get a bunch of points in its bulk, It's starting with such a low number in its HP and defense stats that giving it this like big, well not big, but giving it like a sizable buff actually doesn't help keep it alive all that much.
To use an analogy that players who have started with Scarlet and Violet might understand, Alakazam has the same base HP as Fluttermane, and it starts out with 10 less defense points than Fluttermane as well. After Mega Evolving, it ends up with 10 more defense points, but unlike Fluttermane who has a way to raise its speed by using its item like the booster energy or who is so like naturally fast you can afford to invest less in its speed and a little less in its special attack or who can boost its power with an offensive item freeing up some of your stat points to invest in your defenses mega alakazam couldn't use an item and so it couldn't really afford to invest heavily in its defenses and on the special side mega alakazam special defense is 30 points lower than fluttermane so when you factor in that it was easier to put some stat points into your defenses as fluttermane than like it was for a mega alakazam it starts to make sense because Fluttermane is not that bulky of a Pokemon. And when you consider that Mega Alakazam is across the board, weaker on the physical side than most Fluttermanes and...
much weaker on the special side than all Fluttermanes, it starts to make sense why this Pokemon was so difficult to use. You could only Mega Evolve one Pokemon per battle, and so if your Mega Evolution got knocked out in a turn or two, it often wasn't offering enough value to justify using it. And because Mega Evolution also required your Pokemon's item slot, Mega Alakazam couldn't even hold the Focus Ash item to help keep it alive. Speaking of items, it's also worth noting that regular Alakazam gets the Magic Guard ability, which synergizes really well with the Life Orb item.
Magic Guard basically prevents all damage that isn't damage being done directly from your opponent's attacks and so pairing it with life orb which normally gives you a damage boost and then damages yourself a little bit magic guard will negate the recoil damage basically and so even though regular alakazam does have a much lower special attack stat than mega alakazam when you factor in something like life orb magic guard it isn't actually as big a difference as you might expect and it also doesn't require your item slot i think that if mega alakazam were strong enough that it could have KO'd most other Pokemon in a single hit, then it would have made a little bit more sense to use. But although it was great at doing a lot of damage to Pokemon, if it wasn't hitting something for super effective damage, it probably wasn't knocking it out. And although it has a good move pool, it isn't so good that it justifies using Mega Alakazam, especially when Pokemon like Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Gengar were capable of outspeeding it, whether with Sucker Punch or just with their, you know, naturally like same speed stat and could knock it out in a single hit. Mega Kangaskhan was the big one where...
Yeah, a single Sucker Punch would often knock out Mega Alakazam. So it's a Pokemon that I think had a lot of potential, but just didn't have a good enough base Pokemon that it was working off of in order to actually make it work. If you don't want me to say your favorite Mega Evolution is bad and deserves to be on this list, you should subscribe.
I'm paying attention to everybody who doesn't subscribe, and I'm noting their favorite Mega Evolutions. I'm going to put them in soon. You better watch out.
Ooh, it's going to be your favorite. You better subscribe. Let's talk about the number seven slot on our list. Up until this point, I would say that the base form of every Pokemon has been maybe not...
great, but at least like memorable and probably good at some point, right? I think Alakazam and Mewtwo were really, really good in the first generation, maybe the first two generations. And Garchomp is a great Pokemon in lots of generations. I don't think the number seven slots base form has ever been good, which is also true of its Mega Evolution.
I'm talking about Mega Pidgeot. Mega Pidgeot suffers from a lot of the same problems that Alakazam has, which is just like the base form of the Pokemon. It's not very good. I actually really like Mega Pidgeot, I think because I was always trying to do this like really goofy strategy.
Mega Pidgeot has the ability No Guard, which causes all of its moves to never miss, and then all of the moves that it uses to also never miss whatever they target. This is an ability I personally associate with Machamp, but there are a couple other Pokemon that get it as well, most notably Mega Pidgeot. I was always trying to like skill swap this ability to put it on another Pokemon and then try and use one hit KO moves like Sheer Cold and Fissure, like thanks to No Guard.
I never got it to work, but it was really funny in theory. So I like Mega Pidgeot just because I have fond memories. of trying to do that.
That being said, it's not a Pokemon that has had any success at all. Just like Mega Alakazam, Mega Pidgeot doesn't waste any stats when it Mega Evolves. It gets a decent bit faster, a lot stronger, and gets a couple points in its defenses with none wasted in its attack stats.
The thing is that Pidgeot stats are so bad that even giving it 100 more stat points just isn't that big a deal. I think that if Mega Pidgeot were the base form of Pidgeot and didn't require an item in a Mega Evolution, it would be a really, really good Pokemon, honestly. Like, I think it would be totally, totally solid because it is- a good Pokemon in a vacuum, but when you consider that it's a Pokemon that can only exist when you have not only given up your Mega Evolution, but also your item, it just can't really stand up against a lot of the stronger Pokemon. I feel like Noguard is also an ability that really shines when you're using these really high volatility moves. There are some moves in the game that hit 50% of the time, but are very strong and also like have a really good secondary effect.
Dynamic Punch is the one that's like most famous, but moves like Zap Cannon and Inferno, I think it's called, which is the one that burns you. These moves are also really high impact. Mega Pidgeot's best move that it can use with no guard is Hurricane, which is great to never miss, because it is hard to have a strong flying attack that doesn't miss, but it's not so valuable, especially compared to a lot of the other moves that it's being compared to.
Mega Pidgeot also has somewhat limited move coverage. It can use Heat Wave, but because it's not a fire type, it's not that strong. And truthfully, that's like kind of it.
It doesn't really get very many good moves at all. The normal Mega Pidgeot set, well, there wasn't really a normal one because nobody wanted to use it, but you would normally run, in theory, like Protect, Hurricane, Heat Wave, maybe Tailwind, maybe U-Turn, maybe you'd run like a Hidden Power, but if your Mega Evolution is being forced to run a Hidden Power type because it doesn't have any better options, that's a really bad sign. I think Mega Pidgeot also suffers in comparison to other Flying type Mega Evolutions, most notably Mega Salamence, who has so many more stat points to start.
and gets a better ability and has a better ability in its base form which is useful and like They're, are they the exact same speed? They're pretty close in speed stats. Like they're both right around that same number. And so also considering the fact that Mega Salamence can be both a physical and a special attacker by using its aerial ability to power up strong normal type moves like double edge and return on the physical side. And it can use a spread flying type move, which is not very common, like a flying type move that hits multiple targets with hyper voice.
It really makes Mega Pidgeot look bad. That being said, Mega Pidgeot like isn't the worst Mega Evolution on our list. There are ones that are worse. And, and like...
It's not so bad. Like I said, if it was just like a regular Pokemon, I would like think it was pretty good, but because it requires like both your item and your mega slot, it's not so good. But there are Pokemon on this list that are bad, even if they weren't mega evolution. So, um, yeah.
So Pidgeot doesn't end up that low on the list. Okay. I think number six is going to make people mad. Uh, so I apologize in advance.
The next Pokemon on our list is mega Absol. People love Absol, which is fair. Absol's like really, really cool.
And I feel like mega Absol's also really, really cool. I actually really liked Absol as a kid, though. I remember when Diamond and Pearl came out or Diamond and Pearl were coming out, somebody in my class told me that Absol evolved into Arceus. So but you had to do something. And so I went and spent like a day catching a ton of Absol because I wanted to have all the different Arceus types.
And then I found out that it wasn't true. And I was like really, really sad because it was hard to catch Absol as well. Like I remember it took a long time.
This is really stuck with me, apparently. Anyway, Mega Absol is a Pokemon that was not very good in the official format, but I do think it was better in a lot of like single battles. Mega Absol has a mix of all the problems that we've talked about thus far first the base form of abseil is just not a very good pokemon its stats are so mediocre for context mega abseil with 100 more stat points has less total stat points than pokemon like salamence or garchomp in their base forms like before they make evolve so not only is base abseil not very good but also the way that the stat points are distributed is in my opinion awkward abseil gains a fair bit of speed points which is a really big deal. Like it actually, like the speed is good.
No complaints there. And it gets 20 points in its attack stat, which is the higher of its stats, which would be good, except for the fact that it gets 40 points in its special attack stat. Absol's base special attack stat is not very good. In fact, even giving it 40 points in its special attack, it's still weaker than Absol's attack stat before Mega Evolving. And so with this awkward distribution of stat points, it like kind of leans Absol into wanting to be able to attack with both of its offensive stats, like its attack and its special attack as this kind of like mixed attacker, but its special attack stuff isn't that high and it's also a really inefficient way of using a pokemon for the most part unless you have a good reason to some pokemon do really benefit from being mixed attackers but it normally is because they have a good reason that mostly has to do with like their moves for example mega salamence would sometimes run both double edge and hyper voice but it's just because both those moves are so good that you would sometimes want the spread damage or sometimes you want the burst damage from double edge absolutely other hand it only has one type and it doesn't really have like a good special dark move so it's mostly using like coverage moves on the special side which are just inherently weaker and the special attack set is lower so yeah it's just kind of a mess absolute ability magic bounce is also not super good um this is really good on pokemon that are really like slow and tanky or want to set up in some way like hadarini is a great example of a good pokemon that wants to set trick room magic bounce bounces back all non-damaging moves or I should say most non-damaging moves.
Maybe all. I don't actually know. And this is great because you can stop things like Taunt and Spore that prevent you from going for Trick Room.
But Mega Absol is an offensive Pokemon that... just wants to attack and do damage, so it's almost never getting any use as a magic bounce user. I guess it protects it from status conditions like Will-O-Wisp and Thunder Wave and Spore, so it's not like a useless ability, but it's also not super high impact.
Really the main issue with Mega Absol though is its bulk. Mega Absol's bulk is comparable to Mega Alakazam's. It's a bit bulkier on the physical side, but its special bulk is worse.
It is a bit more balanced, so like it might take a hit if it's not super effective, but most really strong neutral attacks and pretty much any skin. decently powerful super effective attacks will just knock it off the board right away. Just like Mega Alakazam, if it was possible to pick up one-hit KOs with it, like, then it would be usable because you could target down the threatening Pokemon, maybe double attack, or maybe just, like, threaten huge damage.
But Mega Absol isn't great at, like, picking up those one-hit KOs. Like, it's really great at hitting Pokemon for, like, 70, 60, 70%, but if it leaves them in the field and gets knocked out right away, it just doesn't have that much of an impact. I think Mega Absol's pure Dark typing hurts it. I think that if it was part Dark, part Fairy, then it could use Play Rough offensively, and maybe if it had better stat distribution and didn't worry about a special attack, that could have been a big deal as well. But with the way that thing shaked out for it, it just never ended up being that impactful.
Okay, we're into the top five, and every remaining Pokemon on this list is just awful. Like, really, really bad. I'm not saying that they're bad Pokemon, like, from a design standpoint. I'm just saying that competitively, they were really hard to use.
Next up on our list is Mega... Ampharos. I feel like people love Mega Ampharos, and I think it's because the design is actually pretty good, in my opinion, or at the very least, it's funny. And so I'm sorry to everybody who loves Mega Ampharos, but yeah, this thing is just not, it's not very good. Mega Ampharos is another one where I'm like, okay, you tried.
You really did try with this one, and I think it makes some sense. First of all, they gave it a secondary typing. Instead of just being a pure electric type, it's electric and dragon, which is definitely an upgrade.
Dragon and electric are incredible synergy, and we're seeing some pretty powerful electric and dragon types right now. In terms of the stat distribution, I would say that Overall, it's pretty solid. Mega Ampharos got 20 points in its attack stat, which is weird, to say the least. It's basically like they tried to waste 20 points, which feels strange because like Mega Ampharos I mean, it didn't get there, right?
It was never good. And so why are you wasting stat points if the Pokemon's not gonna be good in the first place? I don't know. Maybe they know something I don't. They definitely know some stuff that I don't.
Why have you not banned Incineroar? That's something I don't know. Anyway, just like Mega Garchomp, Ampharos also loses 10 points in its speed stat. But unlike Mega Garchomp, this actually isn't a nerf. Ampharos is already so slow that actually losing these stat points doesn't change all that much and makes it a bit more effective at being used in Trick Room, which is the main way that you wanted to use Mega Ampharos.
It also gets 20 points in each of its defenses and 50 points in its special attack stats. So excluding the attack points, this is overall a pretty good spread. So what makes Mega Ampharos so bad?
Well, just like we were talking about with Mega Mewtwo X, it can only use the moves that base Ampharos can use. And so it's one of the few dragon type Pokemon that can't learn the move Draco Meteor, which is a really incredible move. The real thing that holds Mega Ampharos back though, in my opinion, is that it's clearly designed to be this tricker attacker, right?
It's a Pokemon that's super slow and actually pretty strong. And so you really want to get it inside a tricker and start hitting things for big damage. But the thing is that Mega Ampharos doesn't really learn any good support.
supporting moves. And that's a problem because getting Trick Room set up often requires some support. Moves like Fake Out or Follow Me are big ones, but also even just priority moves like Mock Punch or Thunderclap can help you cover your Trick Room setter to knock out a low HP Pokemon while they get the move set up.
Mega Ampharos doesn't have any moves that can help get Trick Room set up. And so to really get it up consistently, you're often needing to use like a different Trick Room support Pokemon as well as your Trick Room setter. And then you have to find a way to get Mega Ampharos on the field, but you don't want to get...
like take too much damage in the process and like it can be awkward because if you have two kind of like bulkier pokemon on the field you're not exerting any pressure and then ampharos isn't on the field to begin with and so like you're not actually able to make full use of your trick room turns it gets really awkward there were other mega evolutions that couldn't really help get tricker set up but the impact that they would have in trick room was greater the biggest example that comes to mind for me is mega camera 2 was not a very good mega evolution but had enough of a niche that it didn't make it onto this list. Mega Camerupt also couldn't help get Trick Room set up, but it had the move Eruption, and it was able to do so much damage that like at least if you got it in Trick Room with like three or four, even sometimes two turns left, it could do enough damage that it was like worth going through all the trouble of getting it on the field and getting Trick Room set up. But with Mega Ampharos, it doesn't get Draco Meteor, so it's at best Thunderbolting something. And even though its special attack stat is... high it's not so high that it's picking up one hit chaos like it's barely stronger than flutter main which isn't a great bar but also like yeah it's also not holding an item so it can't boost its special attack even further so it's overall just a really awkward pokemon One niche that Mega Ampharos had was using the move Cotton Guard, which is one of the very few moves in the game that can raise a Pokemon stat by three stages instead of one or two.
This move gives it three stages of increased defense, which makes it incredibly tanky. But because it's so slow and because like you're almost never Cotton Guarding before the opponent attacks, this was never really making that much of a difference. I like Mega Ampharos. I think it's a cool Pokemon, but it was not very good.
And it makes me kind of sad talking about it because I feel like they got pretty close. Like if this thing had Thunderclap, I think it could have worked, honestly. If they had invented Thunderclap and given it to this Pokemon instead...
I think it could have been good. But as things stand, it just was never really very good. The next Mega Evolution on our list is a Pokemon that like, honestly, I find really confusing.
It's Mega Aggron. They got some stuff right with Mega Aggron. So let's touch on the good parts first.
First, it's typing. It goes from being a Steel and a Rock type Pokemon to a pure Steel type. This is actually a big upgrade.
upgrade. Normally having two types is better than one, but with Aggron's rock and steel typing, it has quadruple weaknesses to ground, quadruple weakness to fighting. It's got weaknesses to water and there's probably a couple other ones that I'm forgetting as well. Overall, just like not super good.
Steel on the other hand is an incredible, incredible defensive type. And whereas base Aggron's abilities are pretty mediocre, Mega Aggron has a great ability. It's called filter and it powers down all super effective moves. So on a pure steel type Pokemon, not even being able to hit it for like full power, super effective damage is really nice.
They also didn't technically waste any of its stat points. points when it Mega Evolves. What I mean is that they didn't put any stat points into its special attack. The thing is though, they did spend 50 of its 100 stat points into its defense, which is already absurdly high.
Mega Aggron goes from 180 base defense to 230. For context, that ties Mega Aggron as having the highest defense stat in the entire game as of Generation 7. It ties with Shuckle, if you're curious. That might sound very good, but the truth is that there's really diminishing marginal returns for a Pokemon increasing their bulk stats above a certain point. Basically, the difference between Aggron's defense stat and Mega Aggron's defense stat is like not worth those extra 50 points that it puts in.
And on the special side, Mega Aggron only gains... 20 points of special defense, which is the lower stat by far. Now with the HP and the special defense are decent enough, like it's not so low that it will go down to like strong neutral hits, but also if those 50 points have been a special defense that would have made it incredibly tanky.
And instead it's like, oh, there's Aggron, like I better not hit it with a physical move. I'll just hit it with like two strong special moves and that'll be that. The other issue with Aggron is that while it does gain 30 points to its attack, the attack still isn't like so high for a mega evolution, especially for a mega evolution, not getting a damage amp from its ability, like Charizard, Salamence and Kangaskhan. And although not having a secondary typing helps it defend. offensively it holds it back a little bit offensively because it also limits how how strong the moves that it uses are.
Mega Aggron also has a similar issue to Mega Ampharos in that it's really slow, but it's also not strong enough to justify using as a trick room sweeper. And so it kind of is just consistently moving after your opponents most of the time, but it's also not hitting them hard enough to justify being so much slower than your opponents. And so it just ends up being really awkward. Also, because it's a physical attacker, if its attack stat is ever lowered via Intimidate or, God forbid, a burn, it's just going to sit there doing absolutely nothing. Bulky Pokemon are really appealing, I think, to a lot of players, but the thing is that a Pokemon that just sits in the field and doesn't contribute, that actually is often more times a hindrance than a help.
Like, sticking around is only useful if you're going to actually be doing something in return, and for Mega Aggron, it was really easy to shut it down and just have it be a Pokemon that you ignore and deal with its partners, kind of putting you in a situation where if you're using it, it turns into a one against two sometimes. If Mega Aggron had had a better move pool with, like, more supporting... moves that it could use, I think it would have ended up a lot better.
But because its best supporting moves are like Thunder Wave, it just really never had much of an impact. I do think it's cool that they made base Aggron so much better, but I think it's a shame that they didn't take it far enough. Some of these Mega Evolutions, I'm like, man, I wish this could just replace the base form of the Pokemon and then it would actually be somewhat usable.
Like if this thing could hold an item, then maybe it would be decent, but... Yeah, it just couldn't do it. Okay, before we talk about the top three, let's talk about a couple honorable mentions. Mega Pinsir.
It's really frail and Bug is an awkward typing, but it was strong enough with like an Aerial 8 powered return, which actually does good damage. And it was decently fast. And you could use Flying type Faint, which is cool.
So I didn't put it on the list, but it was close. Mega Heracross is another one, but Mega Heracross actually has a couple results. And pretty much any Pokemon that had even like the most mediocre results of all time, I decided to leave off the list because most of the Pokemon on here have literally no data at all.
Mega Mewtwo Y is another one that I thought was pretty underwhelming, but it's at least better than Mega Mewtwo X. And so, and it had a little bit of usage as well, like not very much, but again, even a little usage, I was like, all right, you survive. You're not making it onto the list. So yeah, Mega Mewtwo Y escaped. You might expect Mega Binette to be on this list, but I actually used it to win a regional, despite the fact that it was extremely bad. So even that one result is enough to keep it safe from this list.
Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about the three worst Mega Evolutions. Coming in at number three is Mega Altaria. I think this is another one people are going to be mad at. I feel like people really like Mega Altaria. Mega Altaria is really cool in concept.
I think it's the only dragon and fairy type Pokemon, which is a really neat combination since dragon is weak to opposing dragon type Pokemon and the fairy is immune to dragons. They work. decently well together.
Mega Altaria is also one of the only Pokemon on our list that actually has a good ability. Pixely turns all normal type moves into fairy type moves, and it's a big part of the reason why Pokemon like Mega Gardevoir were so strong, but Altaria is not the best user of it. Despite the better typing and the better ability, Mega Altaria still couldn't cut it, and that's in large part because of the way that the stats are distributed when it Mega Evolves. Just like a couple other Pokemon on our list, Mega Altaria suffers because its base form is so, so bad, but it also suffers because when it Mega Evolves, rather than gaining a ton of points in one of its stats, it gains 40 points in both. So if it's 100 points, 40 of them, pretty much regardless of which stat you're using, are just wasted.
And it's not like, oh, okay, well, like, they made both stats really good, right? Well, the thing is that they were so bad to begin with that, like, Magaltari's special attack is lower than Pokemon, like, Haunter and, like, Cacturn. In fact, its physical attack stat is also worse than, like, Cacturne and Kamala and Archon?
Arkin? The baby Archeops? Yeah, so it didn't really get there with either stat. The remaining 20 points are put into its defense, which makes it... decently tanky like because it already had decent defensive stats to work with but without having good offensive stats it's a real issue megaltari is also not as slow as some of the other pokemon we've talked about but it's certainly not fast it'll be slower than pretty much any pokemon that actually like cares about how fast they are and also slower than a number of pokemon that aren't even trying to be especially fast so when you put it all together you get a pokemon with two mediocre offensive stats decent bulk if you're being generous and then uh like a mediocre middling like kind of below average speed stat so it's just bad across the board if it had gotten all of its offensive stats into a single stat whether that was physical or special i think it actually could have worked on the physical side you could have made it like a dragon dance sweeper with like dragon ant earthquake return turn, which would let you kind of offset a little bit of its slow speed stat and make it even stronger.
And if it had been a special attacker, you could have made it this kind of like bulky, consistent damage dealer with like decent defensive typing, trying to consistently use like Hyper Voice and Draco Meteor and Tailwind to support the team. But with how things landed, it just like can't. do anything very well megaltar is another pokemon that learns the move cotton guard i guess there were multiple like really fluffy pokemon that they wanted to include and it's a great move but megaltaria is not fast enough to really make good use of it it really is a shame too because like this is such a cool concept for a pokemon like a dragon and fairy type with pixelate to make it like even better uh like move wise and yeah like it has like decent starting defensive stats well okay that's kind of being generous i could have seen a world where this was good but it's such a letdown because it just executed so so poorly this one really makes me question like what were they thinking?
Like, surely they knew this wasn't going to work, right? I'm probably being too harsh to be honest. Like, I imagine it's actually really hard to tell in advance, like, when a Pokemon's going to work and when it isn't. But yeah, poor Mega Altaria. It just, it didn't get there.
Speaking of Pokemon that didn't get there, let's talk about the number two worst Mega Evolution, Mega Audino. Mega Audino In doing research for this video, I was actually reminded that Audino, not Mega Audino, but Audino, had a couple results. It was used as a bulky Trick Room Setter that wasn't like a Psychic or a Ghost type, which was useful. And I remember there was this one strategy where it would use the move Simple Beam, which replaces a Pokemon's ability with simple and simple doubles all stat changes so i remember there was a strategy where you would use like memento whimsicott and audino so the memento would help you get trick room up and give you a free switch and then audino would use trick room and then you would use simple beam on your partner chandelure and use minimize to get plus four evasion calm mind to double your special attack and special defense and then acid armor to get plus four defense stat And it was just super, super, super mean.
Like it was just a really annoying strategy to play against. That being said, Mega Audino has no results. And actually Mega Audino kind of has a different problem than any Pokemon we've talked about thus far. Because Mega Audino was one of the few Mega Evolutions clearly intended to be a supporting Mega Evolution. We've seen some bulky Mega Evolutions before, like Mega Slowbro and Mega Venusaur, but those were still capable of doing damage over time.
Mega Audino gains 20 points in its special attack stat, going from 60 to 80. and that's it and 80 is not very good at all like 80 is i'm not gonna make any comparisons because it's it's bad bad it also doesn't get any points in its speed though which means all of the other points are put into its defense and special defense stats which does make it incredibly tanky except like making it so much tankier doesn't actually help all that much mega dino's a normal and a fairy type pokemon which is overall i would say a pretty solid combination barry's just a great type both offensively and in this case defensively and normal only having one weakness to fighting which various resists so it doesn't actually get the normal weakness at all overall just helps it think about mega audino is that using your mega evolution to like make a pokemon super super tanky to support the team is oftentimes less effective than just using a mega evolution for offense and then using your other pokemon to support it i think that makes sense intuitively right if you only have this once per battle thing and you have all these strong options you can always use another pokemon to like be a defensive component but you only get one chance to access these really strong offensive pokemon It also doesn't help that Mega Audino's ability is a bit of a letdown. It's healer, and if you don't know what it does, that's very valid. It's almost never used.
Basically, it does nothing in single battles, and in double battles, at the end of every turn, it has a 30% chance of healing your partner's status condition. So if Mega Audino gets put to sleep, it can't heal itself. And even if your ally is affected by a status condition, it's only a 1 in 3, not even a 1 in 3, it's only a 30% every single turn.
And so you could have Mega Audino and spend three or four turns with your partner being burned or paralyzed or asleep or frozen and just have it never activate. I think it would have been a bit more appealing if the ability said, hey, the partner Pokemon can't be affected by status conditions because that would actually be really interesting. But the way that it works and it's not even being guaranteed, it's just, it really feels like most of the time Mega Audino just doesn't have an ability. Megaudino does get some useful supporting moves. I already mentioned Trick Room and Simple Beam.
It also gets Heal Pulse after you, Helping Hand. It has a pretty wide supporting move pool, to be honest, but... the thing is that like because it's never supporting a mega evolution it just doesn't feel that high impact i think some players tried to like use mega audino as like a setup pokemon with calm mind maybe draining kiss but the thing is that its special attack set is so naturally low that even setting up a couple times like it's not going to actually end up being that threatening i think part of what's messed up is that audino actually has a pretty wide move pool it gets like ice beam thunderbolt flamethrower a bunch of fairy moves it gets grass not like it has a really good offensive move pool but it doesn't matter because like it's not going to be able to do any damage even if it's hitting things for super effective mega do you know might have been okay if it didn't require both the mega evolution and the item i think the fact that base audio saw at least a little play as proof of that but the fact that you have to give up your mega evolution to use a pokemon that then will never do damage and in a worst case scenario can get stuck just sitting on the field where your opponent ignores it and takes out your partners makes it one of the worst mega evolutions of all time but it's not the worst I wonder how many people have kept this Mega Evolution in mind, have known that we haven't talked about it yet and are expecting it to be at number one, or maybe some of you don't expect to see it at all. There's no use beating around the bush. The number one worst Mega Evolution is Mega Beedrill, if you can even believe that.
Mega Beedrill is really interesting because it's the only case of a Pokemon on our list where they take points out of the worst offensive stat to try and make the Pokemon better. Mega Beedrill loses 30 points from a special attack stat to put it elsewhere in a stat that's more valuable. which is ridiculous. That's basically like a Mega Evolution gaining an extra 30 stat points, which is like just a straight 30% increase over other Mega Evolutions. But it doesn't matter because Mega Beedrill is so, so bad.
Beedrill's base stats are terrible. So already there was gonna be a problem here. And even min-maxing them, like it just didn't do enough. Mega Beedrill got 60 points in its attack and 70 points in its speed, which is absurd.
If you gave that to something like Garchomp, it would have been by far the best Mega Evolution in the game. Even Absol would have been much, much better if you'd done that kind of distribution for it. But they didn't do it to those Pokemon.
They did it to Beedrill. And the reason for that is that Beedrill needed all the help that it could get, and it wasn't enough. Beedrill does hit hard now that it has such a decent attack set, and it's also really fast. It'll outspeed pretty much everything else in the game unless it's holding a choice scarf. The problem is that, well, there's a couple problems.
First, Mega Beedrill's typing is awful. Bug and Poison is just really, really, really bad. There are three separate types in the game that resist both bug and poison being poison ghost and steel the mega beadroll not even being able to hit those types for neutral damage is a pretty massive deal it also doesn't get very good coverage moves like it basically learns almost nothing and so you don't have that many good options outside of your stab attacks your bug and poison type attacks to hit these pokemon having all these pokemon that resist your primary types is already a big deal but it's a bigger deal with mega beadroll because they gave it a great ability adaptability which powers up its Bug and Poison type moves.
The only issue being, of course, that all these different Pokemon resist both Bug and Poison. To be honest, if these were the only issues with Mega Beedrill, I think that it wouldn't, it probably still would have been on this list, but I don't think it would have been the number one slot. The problem with Mega Beedrill is that while it got so many points in its attack and its speed stat, its defense stat remained unchanged. Mega Beedrill has a lower defense stat than Alakazam. Not Mega Alakazam, Ace Alakazam.
And although his HP stat is marginally better than Alakazam's, it's like still really, really bad. I remember one time my Mega Kangaskhan was going up against a Mega Beedrill, and I used Sucker Punch, and I don't remember if there was a critical hit or not, but like, I got the one-hit KO with Sucker Punch, a move that Kangaskhan wasn't even like getting max value out of because it wasn't a Dark-type. I've seen Fake Out from Mega Kangaskhan do like 70-75% to Mega Beedrill.
And just like we've been touching on, when a Pokemon is so frail that it gets knocked out very, very easily, it's not a good contender for your Mega Evolution. It also doesn't help that while some Pokemon had some use in their base forms, like Mawile and Solomon's having Intimidate, Kangaskhan having Inner Focus and Scrappy, which allows... was like fake out to do some interesting things.
Even Gengar having levitate before a Mega Evolved, at least in Generation 6. Beedrill not only couldn't contribute anything in its base form, because it's just as frail as Mega Beedrill, it couldn't even switch in ever. Like you basically could only ever start within the lead or bring it in after one of your Pokemon has fainted, which is not the case for some of the other Mega Evolutions. So even though it looks like they tried pretty hard with Mega Beedrill, it just wasn't enough.
And it ends up being the absolute worst Mega Evolution of all time. thus far. Mega Evolutions are returning in Pokemon Legends Zygarde, and so there's a chance that, you know, maybe a new Mega Evolution will take the throne of worst Mega Evolution of all time, or maybe there's a chance we get some balancing. Maybe Mega Beedrill gets a bit stronger.
Maybe Mega Altaria has its stats redistributed. I don't have a ton of hope. I imagine that most of these Pokemon are going to stay the way that they were, but it is fun to think about. Anyway, that's it for me.
If you enjoyed this video, you might also like this video I made talking about the worst legendary Pokemon. A lot of people were surprised by the number one slot because they hadn't even heard of it before. So if you like this video, you should check that one out too.