Alpha Pokemon are the most powerful in the game after bosses and Nobles. As such, you’ll want to catch a few of them. For one, they’re going to be part of your research missions. But, more importantly, they’ll return the highest tier Grit items when releasing them so you can max out the Effort Levels of your squad.

The problem is that Alphas can seem a bit hard to catch. Below, we’ve assembled the best ways to catch Alpha Pokemon in Legends Arceus.

Be Sneaky

Stealth plays a big part in your Pokemon research mission. It’s by far one of the easiest methods to catch Pokemon, and that includes Alphas. There are several ways you can take advantage of this overpowered mechanic.

Get the Back Strike

The basics of catching Pokemon from stealth is getting the back strike. This means tossing your Pokeball when they have their back turned to you, yielding the highest catch rate possible. Alpha Pokemon can also be caught just as easily. All you need to do is sneak up while crouching, and they’re not looking. This should allow you to get behind them and land a ball squarely on their back.

Spray It Up

Sneaking up is fine and all, but if you’re looking for more guarantees, then Stealth Spray is what you need. You essentially make zero sound with your footsteps by spraying yourself with this. It’s so overpowered that Alpha Pokemon can’t hear you even if you’re running, so as long as they haven’t seen you, you can run up to their back and catch them.

Strike from the Grass

Sprays and other items are precious commodities, so when grass is available, you’ll want to take advantage of it since it’s stealth for free. By crouching into grass, you’ll effectively be undetectable even to Alpha Pokemon. Once you’re well-hidden, wait for the Alpha to turn its back, then hit it with your Pokeball.

Smoke Bomb Like a Ninja

Some areas of Legends Arceus don’t have any grass in which you can hide. Thankfully, there are Smoke Boms which act as makeshift grass. By tossing a Smoke Bomb, you effectively create a temporary stealth zone. What’s more, you can use multiple bombs to carve stealth pathways all the way to your Alpha prey.

All About the Food

Like their regular counterparts, Alpha Pokemon like to eat, and that helps us catch them more easily. Legends Arceus has various food types and mechanics we can take advantage of to ensure we capture more of these powerful brutes. By tossing food out, you can distract them while you position yourself for a back strike. What’s more, different foods will improve your catch rate, which is indicated by a colored indicator that goes from orange to yellow to green. 

Toss a Berry

Berries are the most basic food you can throw out to distract an Alpha Pokemon. They don’t provide the highest catch rate, but they definitely bring it down to at least yellow, which is close to guaranteed when combined with a Pokeball from behind.

Give What They Prefer

Each Alpha Pokemon has a preferred food which you can check out by inspecting them in your Pokedex. Mechanically, they can be used in the same way as berries, just toss them out and wait for the Pokemon to start eating. Preferred foods, though, have the advantage of giving you a higher chance of the Pokemon not ignoring your bait. The catch rate is no different than with the berries.

Let Them Eat Cake

To achieve the highest possible catch rate from foods, you need to turn them into cakes. The recipes for the various cakes can be purchased for 1000 each from Anvin in the village. Once you have crafted a cake out of an Alpha Pokemon’s preferred food, you can use it like other food to distract it. However, the cake will not only give you a green catch rate, but also the Pokemon will be eating it for a longer time, giving you enough leeway to reposition yourself.

Battle it Out

Battling Alpha Pokemon is the standard way of catching them, but it’s also a bit risky. Because of how powerful they are, your squad may be wiped out before you can get a chance to get a Pokeball out. To catch an Alpha while battling, you simply need to take it down to red health then hit it with a Pokeball. What helps is also to stun them or inflict other status effects.

Don’t Stun Me, Bro

Speaking of stunning, the last method you can use to catch Alpha Pokemon in Arceus is to use items that immobilize them. By tossing several of these items while outside of battle, you can place Alphas in a stunned state, giving you time to get behind them and toss out a ball.

Early Game Stun Items

In the earlier stages of Legends Arceus, you can use items you find while out in the wild, such as Spoiled Apricorns, Balls of Mud, and Snowballs. You’ll need to toss over 10-12 of these to stun an Alpha, but there’s a more economical way of going about this method.

Use the Sticky Stuff

Sticky Globs are items that can stun an Alpha with only 4-5 shots. The recipe for this item costs 20,000 and can be bought from Anvin, and the ingredients you’ll need is 1 Spoiled Apricorn, 1 Ball of Mud, and 1 Caster Fern Leaf. The recipe will appear as you rank up, and it’s absolutely worth buying.