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Type matchups guide

The type chart looks daunting — 324 cells, 18 types. But there are patterns. This guide gives you the mnemonic shortcuts so you can predict matchups without checking the chart every time.

The 'physical reality' mnemonic

Many type matchups follow real-world physics:

  • Water > Fire (water puts out fire)
  • Fire > Grass (fire burns plants)
  • Grass > Water (plants absorb water)
  • Fire > Ice (fire melts ice)
  • Ice > Dragon (mythological — ice slays dragons)
  • Electric > Water (electricity conducts through water)
  • Ground > Electric (ground absorbs current)
  • Electric > Flying (lightning hits birds)
  • Rock > Flying (rocks knock birds out of the sky)
  • Rock > Fire (rocks smother flames — debatable, but in-game it's true)
  • Water > Rock (water erodes rock)
  • Grass > Rock (plants break rock)
  • Fighting > Normal (martial artists beat normies)

The 'thematic' mnemonic

Other matchups follow lore or character themes:

  • Dark > Psychic (Psychic-types fear the unknown — Gen 2 introduced Dark as a Psychic counter)
  • Bug > Psychic (originally a hard counter; bugs creep psychic types out)
  • Ghost > Psychic (ghosts haunt the mind)
  • Fairy > Dragon (fairy tales slay dragons)
  • Steel > Fairy (cold iron repels fairies, classic mythology)
  • Fighting > Steel (martial artists shape metal)
  • Poison > Fairy (toxic to the otherworldly)
  • Ghost > Ghost (only ghosts can hurt ghosts)
  • Dragon > Dragon (only dragons rival dragons)

The 'immunity' shortcuts

Eight type immunities are easy to remember because they're paired:

  • Normal ↔ Ghost — they can't touch each other (Normal → Ghost = 0, Ghost → Normal = 0)
  • Fighting → Ghost — you can't punch a ghost
  • Ground → Flying — your earthquake doesn't reach the sky
  • Electric → Ground — current absorbed by earth
  • Poison → Steel — you can't poison metal
  • Psychic → Dark — Dark-types are immune to mind games (Gen 2 design)
  • Dragon → Fairy — fairy magic resists draconic might (Gen 6 design)

The 'defensive types worth memorizing'

Only a few types stand out defensively:

  • Steel: 10 resistances, 1 immunity, 3 weaknesses. Best mono-type wall.
  • Water: 4 resistances, 2 weaknesses. Versatile defensive type.
  • Fairy: 3 resistances + Dragon immunity, 2 weaknesses.
  • Ghost: 3 immunities (Normal, Fighting, and Ghost-only takes 1× from Ghost). Combined with Dark resist, Ghost is the meta-defining defensive secondary type.

The 'best offensive types'

Ground and Fighting tied for most super-effective matchups (5 each). Most teams have at least one Ground and one Fighting attacker — they're the universal coverage answer to Steel and Fairy threats.

Tera type meta

Gen 9 added Terastallization, which temporarily changes a Pokémon's type. The most common Tera types are:

  • Tera Steel — gives 4× resistances to Steel-typed teams; common on Iron Valiant, Iron Hands, Roaring Moon to flip matchups.
  • Tera Ghost — removes Fighting weakness; common on Garchomp, Kingambit, Baxcalibur.
  • Tera Flying — Ground immunity + Acrobatics activation; common on Kingambit, Roaring Moon.
  • Tera Fire — Water resist + Fire STAB boost; common on Sun-team Pokémon.
  • Tera Fairy — Dragon immunity + Fairy STAB; common on Dragon-types like Roaring Moon, Garchomp.

For the interactive type chart, use our type chart calculator. For coverage analysis (which 4 moves hit which types), see the coverage calculator.