Pokemon has lots of type matchups but many of them have a single Pokemon standing in the middle, having a dual-type of the opposing sides. Dragon/ice, ghost/psychic, water/electric, lots of Pokemon sit in the unique position of being on both sides of their own type advantage. The newest one of these is also a member of the newest type, the dual dark/fairy type Pokemon Grimmsnarl.
About Grimmsnarl
| First appearance in anime | In the Pokemon Twilight Wings miniseries episode ‘The Gathering of Stars’ |
| First appearance in game | Sword and Shield |
| Region | Galar |
| Evolution | Impidimp-->Morgrem--> Grimmsnarl |
| 1st Evo level | 32 |
| 2nd Evo level | 42 |
| Pokedex Entry | With the hair wrapped around its body helping to enhance its muscles, this Pokémon can overwhelm even Machamp. Its hairs work like muscle fibers. When its hairs unfurl, they latch on to opponents, ensnaring them as tentacles would. |
Grimmsnarl’s Base Stats
| HP | 95 |
| Attack | 120 |
| Defense | 65 |
| Sp. Attack | 95 |
| Sp. Defense | 75 |
| Speed | 60 |
Appearance of Grimmsnarl
Grimmsnarl is a strange-looking Pokemon, with its base shape being similar to just a very muscular humanoid, however, its differences show up quickly. Its face is a sickly green and its entire body is covered in wispy strands of hair that looks almost ghostly. These wisps curl up into spikes on its shoulders, down its back, and forming its fingers.
Behavior of Grimmsnarl
The hair surrounding its body is incredibly strong and acts like muscles more than hair. Grimmsnarl can flex them and control them at will and has the strength in its hair to overpower an incredibly strong Pokemon. It's fitting that its physique is similar to that of Machamp’s as it is said that it's capable of winning against one in a match of strength.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Grimmsnarl’s interesting dark/fairy typing gives it an interesting set of resistances and weaknesses. It's one of the few Pokemon with two total immunities, being completely immune to psychic-type moves from its dark typing and immune to dragon-type moves with its fairy typing. It takes 50% damage from ghost-type moves and 25% damage from dark-type moves. These are balanced by its weaknesses though, as Grimmsnarl takes double damage from poison, steel, and fairy-type moves.
Shiny Grimmsnarl
Shiny Grimmsnarl is the rare recolored version of Grimmsnarl and it sure is a change. Shiny Grimmsnarl has its colors almost inverted from its normal form. Shiny Grimmsnarl has its hair changed from black to white and its green skin turned to a purplish red. Even the small diamond on the chest of a Shiny Grimmsnarl is inverted to a dark blue.
Gmax Grimmsnarl
Gmax Grimmsnarl is the gigantic version of Grimmsnarl that can tower over opponents and take control of the field. While simply being a larger version of its design, there are differences in Gmax Grimmsnarl. Gmax Grimmsnarl is far less hunched over and its physique is much slimmer though still muscular. The face of Gmax Grimmsnarl is largely unchanged but its head is now framed with more spikes of hair behind it along with its hair fingers being longer and closer to tendrils than fingers.
Best Moveset for Grimmsnarl
Defensive Screens: Grimmsnarl is a very tanky Pokemon, especially due to its strong typing, so it can stay around on the field for a long time and that makes it great for setting up lots of defense. So giving it both Light Screen and Reflect can set up your team to never be KOed.
| Reflect | Taunt |
| Light Screen | Thunder Wave |
Sleep Talk Attacker: For the same reason Grimmsnarl is good for setup, which means it's good for using rest. The heal back to fully combined with its good defenses means it can usually get more than one rest in during a match. Combine that with Sleep Talk and Grimmsnarl can slowly take out a large majority of your opponent's team.
| Bulk Up | Rest |
| Sleep Talk | Spirit Break |
How to Catch Grimmsnarl in Pokemon Go
Grimmsnarl has not yet been added to Pokemon go through due to it being a relatively normal Pokemon in the mainline games, it will probably be fairly standard. Its pre-evolved forms will probably appear in the wild alongside other dark and fairy types. It may appear fully evolved very rarely but more likely it will be obtained by evolving Morgrem with 100 Impidimp candy.
Video Guide
Trivia
Grimmsnarl and its evolutionary line are the only Pokemon with the dark/fairy typing.
Grimmsnarl specializes in its attack and it has the highest base attack stat among all fairy types, only tied by Granbull.
Due to their similarities in their own stats as well as evolutionary families, Grimmsnarl and Hatterene are considered counterpart Pokemon.
FAQs
Q. Is Grimmsnarl weak to poison?
Grimmsnarl’s fairy typing makes it take double damage from poison-type moves.
Q. How do I get Gigantamax Grimmsnarl?
Gigantamax Grimmsnarl can be found by beating one in a Max Raid Battle.
Q. Is Grimmsnarl stronger than Machamp?
Grimmsnarl is said to be stronger than Machamp in its Pokedex entries though it has no in-game advantage over Machamp or the fighting type.
Conclusion
Grimmsnarl is already powerful, being the last Pokemon in its evolutionary line, its stats are pretty good but its main strength is its typing. If you want a Pokemon that can intimidate an opponent from them not knowing how to get a super-effective hit on it, Grimmsnarl is your best bet. Not only is it typing strong, it is strange and will force your opponent to really think if they haven’t matched against Grimmsnarl before.
