Best Metagross Nature: The 23 Speed Points Jolly Buys You, and What They Actually Outrun

Adamant and Jolly Metagross aren’t really competing for the same job. One is built to hit as hard as a Steel/Psychic pseudo-legendary can; the other spends part of that power buying a specific, narrow window of speed. Neither choice is wrong — but most guides just say “Adamant for power, Jolly for speed” and stop there, which tells you nothing about whether the speed is actually worth having. It depends entirely on what Metagross is trying to outrun, so that’s where this comes down to real numbers instead of a coin flip.

Quick Start

• Running Assault Vest or a bulky held-item set? Take Adamant. Live tournament data has it at 85.7% usage on non-Mega Metagross for a reason — you’re switching in to tank a hit, not racing for speed.^[5]
• Building a Life Orb or Choice Band speed-control sweeper? Jolly is worth the 36 Attack if your metagame has real threats sitting around base 71–81 Speed — otherwise you’re paying for a window you never use.
• Playing Mega Metagross? The math changes completely — see the Mega section below before you commit a Mint.
• Caught a bad-natured Beldum in Legends: Z-A? You can’t breed a replacement — this game has no breeding at all. A Nature Mint is the only fix. Details in the FAQ.
• Metagross learns Meteor Mash naturally at level 52 in Scarlet & Violet, so you’ll have it well before you’re deciding on EVs.^[2]

Why This Is Even a Question

Metagross carries a genuinely awkward stat line for a physical attacker: 135 Attack backed by only 70 base Speed.^[1] That’s a strong number sitting on a slow chassis — the kind of split where a nature swing changes what the Pokémon can actually do in a turn, not just how big the number on the damage calc looks. Compare that to something like Dragonite, another 600-BST pseudo-legendary wrestling with the identical Adamant-vs-Jolly dilemma at a slightly higher 80 base Speed — the underlying math is the same shape, just shifted.

Meteor Mash adds its own wrinkle: 90 base power, 90% accuracy, and a 20% chance to raise Metagross’s own Attack by one stage on top of whatever nature you picked.^[2] That RNG bump is real, but it’s a 1-in-5 shot per hit — not something to plan a Speed stat around. The nature decision has to hold up on the 80% of turns where Meteor Mash doesn’t proc anything extra.

The Exact Numbers at Level 100

Full investment (252 EVs, 31 IVs), computed from Metagross’s own base stats via the standard Generation III+ stat formula^[1]:

Jolly trades 36 Attack — almost exactly 10% less power on every physical hit — for 23 extra Speed. That’s the whole trade, stated honestly: not “a bit slower” versus “a bit weaker,” but a fixed, known exchange rate. The question is only ever whether 23 points of Speed buys you anything real.

What Jolly’s 23 Speed Points Actually Outrun

Here’s the part most nature guides skip: naming the actual speed band Jolly wins you. Using the same formula against a neutral-natured, fully-invested opponent (2×base Speed + 99 at level 100), here’s where 239 Speed (Adamant) and 262 Speed (Jolly) land against real threats:

That’s the real payoff zone: roughly base 71–81 Speed, against opponents running a neutral nature with no Speed investment of their own.^[1][3] Outside that band, Jolly buys nothing — Adamant already ties the bottom of it, and Gholdengo’s 84 base Speed is already out of reach for either nature. If the threat you’re worried about is running its own Jolly or Timid nature, push its invested Speed up by roughly 10% and the whole table shifts against you — a rival Jolly Dragonite (284 Speed) still beats Jolly Metagross outright. Jolly buys certainty against a specific tier of slow-to-mid attacker, not a general speed advantage.

Does the Attack Loss Actually Cost You a KO?

The honest answer is: it depends heavily on what you’re hitting, which is exactly why blanket nature advice fails here. Two illustrative cases, both computed at level 100 with an uninvested defensive baseline (0 Defense EVs, 31 IVs) so the comparison isn’t muddied by guessing someone else’s spread^[1][3][4]:

Against a neutral-type wall like Landorus-Therian (216 Defense, 319 HP): Adamant’s Meteor Mash lands 181–214 damage (57–67% of its HP). Jolly’s lands 166–196 (52–61%). Neither cleanly one-shots or guarantees a two-hit KO on its own — both need one prior chip instance (Stealth Rock, a switch-in hit, anything) to reliably close it out. But Adamant needs less chip to get there, because every hit is doing roughly 15 more damage than Jolly’s version of the same attack.

Against a 2x-weak target like Iron Valiant (Fairy/Fighting, 90 Defense, 289 HP — Steel hits its Fairy half for double): both natures overkill it. Adamant’s Meteor Mash hits 363–428 damage, Jolly’s hits 333–392 — both comfortably clear Iron Valiant’s entire HP bar in one shot. The nature choice is irrelevant here, and so is the Speed stat: Iron Valiant’s own 116 base Speed outruns even a maxed Jolly Metagross by a wide margin regardless, so this matchup is decided by who moves first, not by anything covered on this page.

The pattern holds generally: the Attack gap matters against bulky, type-neutral targets where every point of damage counts toward a KO threshold. It disappears against anything already 2x weak to Steel, because both natures overkill those targets anyway.

If You Are… (Player-Type Verdict)

Does Mega Metagross Change the Math?

Yes, and in a way that explains a real discrepancy in the usage data. Mega Metagross jumps to base 110 Speed and 145 Attack.^[1] At level 100, that works out to Adamant 427 Attack / 319 Speed versus Jolly 389 Attack / 350 Speed. A neutral-natured, fully-invested 319 Speed already clears most of the non-Mega, non-Paradox metagame without spending anything on a Speed nature — which is exactly why live Pokémon Champions data on the pre-Mega “Metagross” usage slot (heavily populated by Metagrossite holders) shows a near-even 50.8% Adamant to 47.7% Jolly split,^[6] instead of the lopsided 85.7/14.3 lean seen on standalone held-item Metagross.^[5] Mega’s base Speed is already doing most of the work Jolly does for the regular form, so the nature argument narrows instead of disappearing.

The Other Way Out: Agility

There’s a third path that sidesteps the Adamant-vs-Jolly trade entirely: running Agility, which doubles Metagross’s Speed stat for the rest of the battle. Older competitive sets built around Agility have used either nature underneath it, on the logic that once Agility is up, the base Speed argument stops mattering — what matters is surviving long enough to use the turn.^[7] That’s a real option, but it costs a moveslot Adamant and Jolly builds usually spend on coverage (Earthquake, Ice Punch, Zen Headbutt), so it’s not a free upgrade — it’s a different build with its own tradeoff, not a fix for this one. Community sources also note that Bullet Punch, Metagross’s priority option, functions as a partial escape hatch on its own: a slower nature doesn’t cost you the KO on a frail target you can finish with priority regardless of who moved first.^[7]

FAQ

Is Jolly ever actually the better pick over Adamant?

Yes, but only inside that base 71–81 Speed band against neutral-natured opponents — outside it, Jolly is strictly worse than Adamant, since it gives up 36 guaranteed Attack for Speed that doesn’t clear the next tier up (Gholdengo at 84 base Speed already beats a maxed Jolly Metagross). That narrow, conditional payoff is exactly why live usage data shows Adamant winning 85.7% to 14.3% on standalone held-item Metagross — most builds aren’t tuned around beating that specific window.^[5]

Does Mega Metagross change which nature I should run?

It shifts the calculation rather than eliminating it. Mega’s base 110 Speed already outruns most of the field on a neutral nature, so Jolly’s marginal gain is smaller in relative terms — which is the actual reason the live nature split narrows to near 50/50 on the Mega-heavy usage pool instead of favoring Adamant as heavily as it does on the regular form.^[5][6]

Does Agility make this whole debate pointless?

No — it replaces one tradeoff with a different one. Agility fixes Speed for the rest of the fight but costs a coverage moveslot up front, so you’re trading matchup flexibility for a guaranteed Speed sweep later. That’s a build decision, not a nature decision, and it doesn’t make Adamant or Jolly “wrong” underneath it.^[7]

I caught a bad-natured Beldum in Legends: Z-A — do I need to breed a replacement?

You can’t — Legends: Z-A has no breeding, Nursery, or egg system at all, unlike mainline Scarlet & Violet.^[9] A Nature Mint (20,000 Poké Dollars, sold at Herb Stalls around Lumiose City) is the only way to fix a caught Beldum’s nature in this game — not a shortcut alongside breeding, the only option.^[8] See our Beldum in Legends: Z-A guide for where to actually find one.

What EV spread should I actually pair with each nature?

Live tournament data shows the two natures pairing with genuinely different builds, not the same spread with a different nature slapped on. Adamant runs lean toward bulkier held items — Assault Vest (42.9%) and Weakness Policy (28.6%) — paired with something closer to 252 HP / 252 Attack / 4 Special Defense, since you’re switching in to take a hit, not racing.^[5] Jolly builds lean toward the standard 252 Attack / 252 Speed / 4 HP glass-cannon spread, since the entire point of the nature is spent on winning a speed check.

The Verdict

Default to Adamant. It’s the statistically dominant choice on live ladders for a reason — 405 Attack is a number every team has to respect, and most of the metagame Metagross actually threatens either outspeeds it regardless of nature or is slow enough that Adamant already wins the race. Reach for Jolly only when you can name the specific base 71–81 Speed threat you’re building around — if you can’t name it, you’re paying 36 Attack for a Speed tier you’ll never use.

Sources

• Metagross Pokédex — Pokémon Database
• Meteor Mash move data — Pokémon Database
• Landorus-Therian Pokédex — Pokémon Database
• Iron Valiant Pokédex — Pokémon Database
• Metagross VGC 2026 Regulation Set I usage stats — Pikalytics
• Metagross VGC 2026 Regulation M-B Champions usage stats — Pikalytics
• “What nature for Mega Metagross, Adamant or Jolly?” — Pokémon Database PokeBase
• Legends: Z-A stat training and Nature Mint guide — RotomLabs
• Pokémon Legends Z-A breeding confirmation — Video Games Chronicle

Verified against Scarlet & Violet move-learn data and live Pokémon Champions VGC 2026 Regulation Set I / M-B usage stats, current as of August 2026. Stat calculations use the standard level-100, 31-IV, 252-EV formula — recalculate for level 50 VGC play, where the gaps compress proportionally.

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.