Despite not generally being most people’s favorite type, there has always been a wide set of Poison-type Pokemon in every Pokemon game in the series. This is often due to the villain teams, who generally stick to Dark and Poison-types to showcase their nefarious nature, but trainers themselves have even more options than these one-note bad guys.
Because of this, it’s worth mentioning what the strongest Poison-types are in each region, since you may likely be wanting one for your regular playthroughs or Nuzlocke runs. Many are some of the most underrated Pokemon in the series, while others can be some unusually powerful competitive staples for serious trainers.
8 Galar: Toxtricity
Generally speaking, there aren’t many options for Poison-types in Galar if you want to stick to new Pokemon. The only other new Poison-type is the powerful Eternatus, but given that it’s a legendary, you likely can’t have on on your team until the very end of your game.
Thankfully, Toxtricity is a great addition to the series, having a unique Poison and Electric-type build and a wide range of Special Attack moves to work off its stats. Most notable is its signature move Overdrive, an incredibly powerful attack that hits both foes in Double Battles with higher strength than most other wide-range attacks.
7 Alola: Nihilego
Despite the main villain team of Alola, Team Skull, specializing in Bug-type Pokemon, there’s an unusually high number of new Poison-types across the islands of Alola. This leads to far more options as you work your way through your game, but the late-game Ultra Beast of Nihilego deserves a special mention due to its stats defying nearly every Poison-type in the series.
If its Rock and Poison-type combination wasn’t enough, this flying jellyfish from space has a terrifying amount of Speed, HP, and Special Defense. This lets it resist nearly all of its weaknesses incredibly well, while not taking a break from the maddening damage that this Pokemon is extremely capable of.
6 Kalos: Dragalge
Unfortunately, the Kalos region’s winner is entirely by default, as the Dragalge family is the only set of new Poison-type Pokemon in the entire region. The only others in the Kalos games are returning classics, meaning this Poison and Dragon-type is the winner entirely by its typing being the only match.
This is a shame, though, as Dragalge is actually quite strong thanks to this unique type combination and some remarkable Special Defense stats that help it counter Fairy-types with ease. Its combination is only shared with Naganadel and Eternatus, making it uniquely powerful for an average catchable Pokemon.
5 Unova: Scolipede
Unova has a much wider selection of Poison-types, with tons of new tanks being added to the series with Pokemon like Amoongus and Garbodor. That said, it’s hard not to consider Scolipede higher than the others, as it’s one of the fastest and highest-power Poison and Bug-types to have been released in quite a while.
It only gets stronger with its Hidden Ability, Speed Boost, which raises its movement speed by fifty percent at the end of each turn. This can give it enough speed to outrun some of the fastest Pokemon in the entire series and with a great set of physical Poison and Bug-type moves to hit certain species with, it’ll get the job done quickly and easily every time.
4 Sinnoh: Drapion
The Sinnoh region likely has some of the weakest Poison-types of the series, with many newer inclusions like Skuntank and Toxicroak having far too many weaknesses that don’t make up for its stats. This is the opposite situation for Drapion, a Dark and Poison-type Pokemon that absolutely has the stats to put it above its peers.
This Pokemon only got more impressive in later games, as it was uniquely built to take down the Fairy-type Pokemon that would normally threaten its Dark-type trait. This, alongside a great Defense stat to help it resist aggressive Ground and Fighting-type moves, make it an outstanding choice among the many toxic members of Sinnoh.
3 Hoenn: Seviper
It almost feels weird calling Seviper a powerful Pokemon, since it’s actually a substantial amount weaker than the other members of this list. Its offensive stats are certainly quite powerful, but its defenses are abysmal and it hardly has enough speed to take down its main predator, Zangoose.
That said, it still has a huge amount of power above nearly every other Poison-type Pokemon new to this region, with others like Dustox and Swalot being absolutely abysmal and functionally useless due to a lack of worthwhile moves. Roselia is certainly close, but with a new evolution of Roserade once it hits the Sinnoh region, it’s hard to praise it too much here.
2 Johto: Crobat
The Johto region is much more populated by Kanto Pokemon than near species, but that didn’t stop the region from having one of the most powerful Poison-type Pokemon in the entire series. Crobat has some of the most speed of any Poison-type in the game, and its strength is upgraded enough from Golbat that it makes these pesky cave dwellers feel worthwhile for once.
Johto’s other Poison-types are certainly unique too, with Ariados having a nice spread of moves and Qwilfish having a great Water and Poison-type combination, but it’s hard to argue that any of them are better than Crobat. It simply takes what was good about Golbat and makes it better, alongside a gorgeous slick look that makes it feel like a true upgrade.
1 Kanto: Nidoking
There are probably more Poison-type in Kanto than you’d think, as most of these Pokemon tend to populate every other region. There are all sorts of combinations from Grass, to Flying, to Bug and Ghost, but the only one you really need is the Poison and Ground-type combination of Nidoking.
This is another remarkably overpowered Pokemon in the original games, primarily since it could evolve so early and learn nearly every powerful HM and TM in the game. If you needed it to hit weaknesses, you could absolutely give it moves like Surf and Thunderbolt, but even with standard Normal-type moves like Strength and Hyper Beam it can annihilate nearly any foe in both the current and classic games of the series.
