How to unlock Lugia
Lugia is not sold directly, so the only route is the Johto banner, where it occupies a 5★ slot. The 5★ band takes 1.5% of all pulls and holds 103 partners, so one specific Lugia works out to about 0.0146% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter guarantees a 5★, but it does not target Lugia specifically, so a guarantee can still resolve to another 5★. A duplicate Lugia refunds 300 coins at the 5★ rate.
Lugia stats and rank
Lugia reads 118 HP, 124 speed, ×1.2 attack, ×1.2 physical, ×1.2 special, 130 defense and 154 special defense, for a 680 base-stat total. On the three-stat percentile this is 78.6 out of 100, which puts Lugia at rank 84 of 966 and in tier A. The relative picture matters more than the total: its strongest slot is special defense (99th percentile) and its weakest is attack multiplier (52nd percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Lugia's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Gust at 31.2 damage per 0.26s (144.2 effective DPS, ×1.20 multiplier), then Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (127.3 effective DPS, ×1.20 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (107.5 effective DPS, ×1.20 multiplier). 8 of its 18 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 10 with the special one, alongside 4 support moves. Its physical and special multipliers are identical at ×1.2, so the pool decides the build. The top option beats the second by 16.8 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call. Compare it as throughput, not as damage per hit, because the cooldown is already divided out.
Evolution cards for Lugia
Its starting move, Confusion, evolves into Psyshock once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Reflexes card, which boosts cooldown for that run. The permanent menu cannot substitute: only a Reflexes card picked during the run unlocks the evolution. 18 of its 22 moves carry an evolution card, across 6 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes, Armor and Magnet). The strongest of them is Gust at 144.2 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Lugia compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Virizion (-7 HP, -1 speed, same attack multiplier, -100 total) and Cobalion (-7 HP, -1 speed, same attack multiplier, -100 total). Against Virizion, Lugia is 1 speed faster and the two carry an identical ×1.20 attack multiplier, and the rank gap is 38 places. Every one of those numbers cuts both ways, so the decision is about which stat the run needs, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.