While it has been de-emphasized in recent years, Pokemon is still well known for the “gotta catch em all” slogan. Each of the main series games still task trainers with completing their respective Pokedexes, even though they no longer contain the entire Pokemon roster.
The real challenge of this task is created by the existence of very rare Pokemon. While most of the dex is fairly easy to obtain, certain members can prove very hard to track down. Some trainers even go after rare Pokemon forms, which can be even harder to obtain. For PokemonScarlet and Violet, these are the hardest Pokemon to track down.
8 Baxcalibur
As the resident ‘pseudo legendary’ of the Paldea region, Baxcalibur is a powerful Pokemon that is easily missable in a first playthrough. It can’t be found in the wild, so trainers looking for a Baxcalibur will have to find either a Frigibax or an Arctibax first.
Both can be found on the snowy Glaseado Mountain, but are very rare spawns. Considering the sheer size of the mountain, finding them can take some time. Once they’ve been caught though, Arctibax still needs to reach level 54 to evolve into Baxcalibur.
7 Blaze/Aqua Breed Tauros
Despite being one of the original 151 pokemon, Tauros has gone a long time without much focus, being outshined by newer, stronger Pokemon. However, Scarlet and Violet changed this by introducing a regional variant for Tauros, which comes in 3 different breeds.
While the combat breed is found abundantly in certain areas, the blaze and aqua breed Tauros are quite rare, as well as being exclusive to Scarlet and Violet respectively. These breeds only appear in a maximum of 20% of Tauros spawns, so can be hard to find, but sandwich powers can make them much more common.
6 Sprigatito/Fuecoco/Quaxly
Every Pokemon game features 3 starter Pokemon who players get to pick from at the start of the game. In Scarlet and Violet, this role is filled by the trio of Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly. Just like any starters, each save file only gets one of the 3, with none available anywhere in the game.
Whatever starter a trainer picks can be bred to create more, but without trading with other players, or owning multiple switches, there is no way to obtain the other 2 starters.
5 Roaring Moon/Iron Valiant
Following concepts like regional variants and convergent evolutions, Scarlet and Violet introduced ‘paradox’ Pokemon. In Scarlet, they are ancient versions of current Pokemon, while in Violet they are futuristic robot versions.
Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant are the strongest of each version’s paradox Pokemon, and are fittingly hard to find. They only spawn in a secret cave that is hidden inside some rocks near the 3rd research base in Area Zero. And since paradoxes can’t breed, catching them is the only way to obtain them.
4 Gholdengo
The Pokemon series has had a lot of different evolution methods over the years. Newer games especially, have introduced some Pokemon which are really hard to evolve. Gimmighoul is one such Pokemon, requiring 999 Gimmighoul coins to evolve into Gholdengo.
Gimmighoul coins are obtained when interacting with roaming and chest form Gimmighoul which are scattered around the open world. Even trainers who are paying attention to this task the whole game likely won't have that many coins by the end of the game, making Gholdengo extremely hard to obtain.
3 Family Of 3 Maushold/3 Segment Dudunsparce
There are Pokemon like Spinda that have different forms that don’t change anything besides appearance. However, it’s quite uncommon for evolved Pokemon to have these forms. Maushold and Dudunsparce however, do.
Upon evolving from Tandemaus and Dunsparce, these Pokemon will most likely become their ‘family of 4’ and ‘2 segment’ forms respectively. However, there is a 1% chance they will instead evolve into the ‘family of 3’ or ‘3 segment forms. These low odds make these special forms some of the rarest in the series, especially since they only appear post-evolution.
2 Antique Sinistea/Polteageist
Sinistea and Polteageist were introduced in Pokemon Sword and Shield. They too have a special form, that similar to Maushold and Dudunsparce, doesn’t affect their abilities in battle, but have a small chance of being found in the wild.
Whereas Tandemaus and Dunsparce can be found quite commonly, Sinistea is already quite rare, only appearing in two areas on the map. Antique Sinistea only has a 1% chance of appearing, and the only indicator of it is a small stamp on the bottom of its cup. And only Antique Sinistea can evolve into Antique Polteageist.
1 Walking Wake/Iron Leaves
Just like Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant, Walking Wake and Iron Leaves are a pair of paradox Pokemon who are exclusive to Scarlet and Violet respectively. Instead of being found in a secluded location though, they are only found in 7 star tera raid battles.
While these raids are easy to gain access to, they are extremely difficult to beat. Strong trainers online might be able to carry their weaker teammates to victory, but that would require a lot of luck. NPC raid trainers also will likely not be enough. Even after beating the raid, each player only gets one no matter how many raids they beat.