Bel-Dumb!

Catching a Shiny Beldum yourself is completely different from being given one. If there's a Pokémon that can be called Metal Slime, then Beldum would be it. Difficult to find, even moreso to catch, but yields satisfying results.

Beldum first debuted in Gen 3, but it never really saw much use since Steven Stone only gives one post-game. All it has for a main moveset is Take Down...

Gen 4 made Beldum available in the wild, but this presented a lot of problems. Beldum was a swarm Pokémon, meaning that it only appeared on a random day; players may end up waiting for weeks and it wouldn't appear. When it did, it was in a Route with permanent sandstorm. As stated before, Take Down is its only move. Given the lack of Ghost-Typed False Swipers at the time Beldum would KO itself from the recoil when reduced to 1 HP, ruining the player's chance of catching it. The most frustrating part is that Beldum's catch rate is 3. 3! According to TV Tropes this might have been a placeholder for when it was a gift Pokémon, but there were plenty other gift Pokémon that had more reasonable catch rates when they became available in the wild. Putting Beldum to sleep helps, but not by much. It's several turns before Beldum wakes up and uses Take Down to KO itself.

Gen 5 allowed players to catch a Metagross in the Giant Chasm. Awesome, but the obnoxiously low catch rate is still present on top of being a very powerful Pokémon. Expect to throw so many Poké Balls before finally catching it.

Gen 6's Hoenn remakes distributed Steven's Shiny Beldum through the Nintendo Network during the first months of their release. Unlike most Beldum, this particular one is stupidly good, complete with STABs (Zen Headbutt and Iron Head) as well as Hold Back (works well with Metagross' high Attack) for catching wild Pokémon. It even came with the Mega Stone for when it evolves into Metagross. The in-game gift Beldum is still present, holding the Iron Plate. Steven also gives another Metagrossite after beating him in a rematch.

Gen 7, oh joy, made Beldum available in the wild again! SOS battles made the stakes even higher for those into Shiny hunting/IV hunting/both! Because SOS chains break when all present wild Pokémon in battle are KO'd, it's important to switch the calling Beldum more often. Thankfully, Decidueye and Alolan Marowak make things a bit easier by being Ghost-Typed False Swipers. If the player wanted to put Beldum to sleep, then Gengar, Palossand, and Lunala are the best bets (the ones available in Alola). This one time, I found another Shiny Beldum that it KO'd itself, but within that same chain I did find another one and caught it.

573V3 is the name I chose for the Beldum featured, since it's an artificial lifeform and has something to do with the former Champion. It's also kind of strange that Beldum's name on its own sounds vaguely like "Belle Dame", as well as being a hard, 2-foot long, one-eyed monster...

Pokémon belongs to Satoshi Tajiri, Nintendo, GameFreak, and The Pokémon Company.