Every New Indigo Disk Pokémon, Ranked From Worst To Best

Pokemon SV Gouging Fire in-game

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s second and final DLC, The Indigo Disk, was released last week, and brought with it a handful of brand-new Pokémon — some legendary, and some just regular old Pokémon. All of them have their uses, though, and some of them are quite cool, while others… not so much.

Having now played the DLC – and discovered a surprising connection to the Pokémon Horizons anime – we feel confident enough to rank every single new Indigo Disk Pokémon from worst to best. Some of these rankings are based on how powerful they are, while others are based on appearance alone. It’s a vibes thing, y’know?

Iron Boulder

Iron Boulder is the future Paradox form of Terrakion, representing what the legendary Sword of Justice could potentially look like in a far off future. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly boring. While its counterparts Iron Leaves and Iron Crown both did a few things to spruce up the design a bit, Iron Boulder is just… a robot Terrakion. It’s boring, uninspired, and doesn’t really have a lot going for it.

Terapagos

Look, I love Terapagos, it’s a cute little turtle guy with a few different forms and heaps of personality in Pokémon Horizons. But somebody’s gotta be second-last, and all of the other Pokémon (except Iron Boulder) are better than it. At the very least, Terapagos’ Tera Shell ability, which makes all attacks not very effective if the Pokémon is at full health, which is pretty neat, but its Stellar Form ability is lacking — a huge bummer.

Gouging Fire

There’s a simplicity to Gouging Fire’s design, in that it’s pretty much just a large Entei with a fancy hat. “But wait,” you might think, “Didn’t you knock Iron Boulder for not being different enough?” And yes, I did. But this ancient Paradox Entei is exactly different enough to be good, and still not different enough to rank higher in the list. Gouging Fire also has a great signature move in Burning Bulwark, which protects the Pokémon from attacks and also burns any attacker that tries to make contact.

Iron Crown

Iron Crown is the most divergent of the future Paradox Swords of Justice. It had a colorful paint job, some wild crown-like horns atop its head, and its signature move Tachyon Cutter never misses and hits twice, making it wildly powerful. Its Steel/Psychic typing is something it shares with few others, and it’s a great type combination, with only four weaknesses but nine resistances and an immunity. In the grand scheme of things, Iron Crown is just a faster, Special-focused version of Metagross, which is surprisingly useful.

Archaludon

This is where things start to get really interesting Duraludon was an okay Pokémon to begin with, but its introduction in Sword and Shield bolstered it by giving it a Gigantamax form with a powerful move that reduces its opponents PP. When we moved over to Scarlet and Violet, a post-Dynamax world, Duraludon was much less useful. Now, it’s got a great new evolution, with an incredible signature move and base stats rivaling some legendaries. Sure, it looks like a big dumb suspension bridge, but it’s a good big dumb suspension bridge.

Raging Bolt

Speaking of big and dumb, look at this silly giraffe guy. Raikou has always been a bit of a weird one, being a weird, puffy, electric cat, but its ancient Paradox cousin Raging Bolt takes the weirdness and dials it up to 11. There are other things it has going for it, like its incredible special attack stat and its Electric-type Sucker Punch variant, but it’s mostly just the goofy design that we love. We stan a tall cat dragon.

Hydrapple

Dipplin, which was introduced in the last DLC, The Teal Mask, was already a fascinating and fun design, being based on a dipped candy apple, but its evolution into Hyrdrapple was both unexpected and an absolute delight. One big, goofy head poking out of an apple is utterly hilarious, but when it attacks, even more heads sprout, which is even better. It’s also got decent stats, a good typing if you don’t mind the 4x Ice weakness, and a signature move that has a chance of doubling in power randomly. It’s a wonderful Pokémon all around, and easily the best new Pokémon of the DLC, if not in gen 9 as a whole.

Related: There’s A Secret Meloetta Hidden In Pokémon’s New DLC