How to unlock Basculegion
Getting Basculegion means pulling the Galar banner and hitting its 4★ slot. The 4★ band takes 6.5% of all pulls and holds 211 partners, so one specific Basculegion works out to about 0.0308% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter only applies to 5★ results, so Basculegion has no floor of its own and no targeted pull. A duplicate Basculegion refunds 120 coins at the 4★ rate.
Basculegion stats and rank
Basculegion carries 124 HP, 111 speed, a ×1.32 attack multiplier, ×1.32 physical, ×1.14 special, 65 defense and 75 special defense, 530 in total. On the three-stat percentile this is 79.3 out of 100, which puts Basculegion at rank 78 of 966 and in tier A. What separates it from its neighbours is shape, not size: its strongest slot is HP (96th percentile) and its weakest is defense (44th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Basculegion's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (140.1 effective DPS, ×1.32 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (118.3 effective DPS, ×1.32 multiplier), then Shadow Sneak at 28.4 damage per 0.34s (111.2 effective DPS, ×1.32 multiplier). 7 of its 17 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 10 with the special one, alongside 5 support moves. Its physical multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.32 against ×1.14), so physical moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 21.8 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Basculegion
Its starting move, Water Gun, evolves into Scald once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Power card, which boosts attack for that run. If Power never appears in that run's level-up offers, the move stays at level 5 and unevolved. 17 of its 22 moves carry an evolution card, across 7 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor, Synthesis and Magnet). The strongest of them is Body Slam at 140.1 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Basculegion compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Centiskorch (-9 HP, -6 speed, +0.01 attack, -5 total) and Grimmsnarl (-11 HP, -8 speed, +0.04 attack, -20 total). Against Centiskorch, Basculegion is 6 speed faster and Centiskorch hits harder by ×0.01, and the rank gap is 104 places. Those differences are what you actually trade when swapping partners, not a straight upgrade path, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.