If you had to name one archetype that wins on the Reg M-C ladder right now, the data points to rain. It is not the most common style, but it has the best results, and those results hold up when you look only at stronger players.
The core: Archaludon + Pelipper
Archaludon is the best common pick on the ladder. It is on 13.6% of teams, and the side with it in the preview wins 53.5% (95% CI 53.1–53.8, n 65,296). When it is actually brought, in games where both sides showed all four, it wins 56.0% (95% CI 55.4–56.5, n 32,770). No species on at least 5% of teams does better.
Its usual partner is Pelipper, which sets rain on entry. Archaludon + Pelipper is the third most-brought pair on the ladder. It wins 56.4% (95% CI 55.7–57.2, n 18,253), and it was brought by 3,145 different players. That is a large edge on a large, well-spread sample. It also works as a lead: sides that open with the two win 56.8% (95% CI 55.5–58.2, n 5,090).
The other setter, Politoed, does nearly as well with Archaludon: 55.6% (95% CI 54.6–56.5, n 10,391).
Pelipper on its own is a modest 50.7% (95% CI 50.3–51.1, n 63,925) on team. The pair is what wins, which fits the idea that rain is a team plan more than a single strong Pokémon.
The top of the pair list
Pairs are ranked here by full-reveal win rate, and a pair must clear three bars to be listed: at least 500 games, a 95% interval no wider than ±3 points, and at least 50 distinct players. At all Elo, 348 pairs qualify. Only 45 of them include a rain piece, but 7 of the top 8 do.
- Espathra + Politoed64.9
- Politoed + Raichu64.1
- Espathra + Raichu63.5
- Archaludon + Espathra63.5
- Archaludon + Raichu60.8
- Archaludon + Gengar59.8
- Incineroar + Politoed58.1
- Archaludon + Incineroar57.9
The top four look like one team. Espathra, Politoed, Raichu and Archaludon keep appearing together: Espathra + Politoed wins 64.9% (95% CI 61.8–67.9, n 966), and Archaludon + Espathra wins 63.5% (95% CI 61.1–65.7, n 1,683). Espathra + Raichu has no rain piece itself, but it very likely comes from the same squad.
Above 1300
A fair worry about any all-Elo number is skill. Below 1300, players on well-built meta teams beat players on off-meta ones, partly because they are better players. The ≥ 1300 view keeps only games where both players are rated 1300 or higher, about 23% of the corpus.
Rain survives that filter. At ≥ 1300, 99 pairs qualify, 20 of them with a rain piece, and again 7 of the top 8 have one. The best is Incineroar + Politoed at 58.1% (95% CI 55.8–60.4, n 1,730). Archaludon + Pelipper drops a little, to 54.9% (95% CI 53.6–56.2, n 5,291), but the interval stays well clear of 50%.
- Incineroar + Politoed58.1
- Archaludon + Gengar58.0
- Archaludon + Incineroar56.8
- Gengar + Politoed56.5
- Grimmsnarl + Pelipper55.8
- Archaludon + Swampert55.8
- Gholdengo + Tyranitar55.5
- Archaludon + Pelipper54.9
Archaludon itself falls from 53.5% to 52.2% (95% CI 51.5–52.9, n 18,399) on team at ≥ 1300. That is a smaller drop than meta staples such as Rillaboom and Sneasler, which each lose about two points.
The caveat: who is playing the niche pairs
The confidence intervals on this site are Wilson intervals. They assume every game is independent. Ladder games are not: one player can play the same team hundreds of times. For a pair spread across thousands of players, that barely matters. For a niche pair, a handful of players can carry the whole number.
The Espathra rain pairs are niche in exactly this way. Espathra + Politoed was brought 966 times by only 179 players, and the five players who brought it most account for 18% of its games. Archaludon + Pelipper, by contrast, comes from 3,145 players, and its top five hold about 2%.
| Pair | Full-reveal WR | Players | Top-5 share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Espathra + Politoed | 64.961.8–67.9 · n 966 | 179 | 18.2% |
| Espathra + Raichu | 63.560.8–66.1 · n 1.3k | 231 | 18.3% |
| Archaludon + Espathra | 63.561.1–65.7 · n 1.7k | 307 | 16.7% |
| Politoed + Raichu | 64.161.2–66.9 · n 1.1k | 252 | 12.3% |
| Archaludon + Pelipper | 56.455.7–57.2 · n 18k | 3,145 | 2.4% |
| Incineroar + Rillaboom | 53.352.7–53.9 · n 26k | 5,217 | 2.8% |
That changes how to read the chart above:
- The Espathra pairs clear the 50-player bar, so they are ranked. But their true uncertainty is wider than the printed interval, and part of their result is probably the skill of the few players running them.
- Above 1300, Espathra + Politoed falls below the bar (62.6% (95% CI 57.7–67.3, n 385), 83 players), so it drops off the list. Its point estimate is still high, but there is not enough independent evidence to rank it.
- Archaludon + Pelipper is the safer claim. Its edge is smaller, but it is spread across so many players that no small group can explain it.
A fuller fix would be player-clustered or bootstrap intervals. The site doesn’t have those yet, so for now it filters on player counts and says so.
What it means
- Rain is the strongest archetype on the M-C ladder at this snapshot, at every Elo band the data can resolve.
- Archaludon + Pelipper is the robust version of that claim: 56.4% on 18,253 games from 3,145 players.
- The Espathra rain squad posts the highest numbers, but a few hundred players carry them. It is a strong signal, not a settled ranking.
- This is a new regulation. The meta will move, and teams built to beat rain will show up. Check the live pages for today’s numbers.
Every number here comes from the snapshot above, frozen in this file. Win rates carry 95% Wilson intervals, which assume independent games; see player clustering.