Totally Aced: How The Community Conquered 7-Star Cinderace

By TheMantyke. Released: 2023/01/07.
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Art by Albatross

Art by Albatross.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have refined raid battles into a faster, far more fun version of co-op play and have stepped up the challenge big-time. Intense event weekends starring terribly powerful stat inflated level 100 Pokémon have turned Sword and Shield's brainless Behemoth Blades into tasks that take no prisoners.

After a fairly easy time trouncing the game's first Super Boss in Charizard, players were shocked to find an unexpected, brutal increase in difficulty with its second boss: Cinderace. This is the story of how players prepared, got pulverized, came together, and ended up trouncing the seemingly impossible Raid Boss, with a bizarre ensemble of Pokémon that just so happened to be the perfect options for the job.

The Pre-Game Spread

Azumarill used Belly Drum!

As the date crossed over and Charizard's raid left for good, a new notification popped up through Poké Portal. The next 7-star raid boss had already been decided with another exciting unreleased Pokémon: Cinderace. The Tera Fighting Pokémon came just as Charizard did, at level 100, likely with Charizard's immense health, and probably packing a host of coverage moves to deal with simple type chart answers.

As soon as the announcement was live, the community immediately began speculating on what tricks Cinderace might bring, and scheming for the best way to beat the bunny. A few contenders received special attention early on as safe bets for the event.

Azumarill

Azumarill, fresh off of its Charizard pulping days, seemed like the immediate answer in the wake of the announcement. Its Water / Fairy typing provided a resistance to two of the nearly guaranteed coverage options Cinderace would carry: High Jump Kick and Pyro Ball. The only real fear the community had was Gunk Shot. Yet, after Charizard's lack of Solar Beam, it seemed as though there was a decent chance the raid boss would lack the move, and that Azumarill was primed to score easy wins. Legions of wet rabbits assembled at the ready, prepared to take down what might be another stomping of a co-op battle.

Ceruledge

With a Fire and Fighting immunity, resistance to a potential Gunk Shot or Iron Head, and seemingly limitless sustain with the excellent Bitter Blade, Ceruledge seemed like a shoe-in for a good option going into the rabbit. Many had the Pokémon built up already, as a Sword Dance Ceruledge with a Metronome equipped can Bitter Blade away even 6-star Raid Bosses solo. The only truly lacking aspect to it was any sort of good super effective coverage, with Psycho Cut just 5 BP higher than STAB Bitter Blade. So long as Cinderace could be weakened to where it would not OHKO Ceruledge, a reasonable expectation after Charizard, it also seemed like a safe pick.

Skeledirge

Skeledirge, much the same as Ceruledge, was already a raid all-star with its combined boosting output and capacity to ignore stat boosts. With the exact same defensive typing, but trading an immunity to Fire for immunity to set up, Skeledirge seemed like perhaps a more sturdy pick than the other two. Torch Song mono-attacking could get it to +6 with little effort, and it even came with Slack Off should the heal cheers start running out. Among the options so far, this one came off as slow, but rock-solid.

Slowbro

A Pokémon not known for its capacity in raids also ended up catching a tad bit of discussion. Slowbro packed many of Azumarill's features with even better bulk and the capacity to boost it further. The real kicker, however, was access to Stored Power. The move was infamous for it's output on Gothitelle and Sigilyph in the past could be boosted to a 260 BP haymaker after 3 Iron Defenses and 3 Nasty Plots. It seemed fine enough, but was spending the resources on such a hyperspecific counter even worth it?

Shellder

After Blissey trivialized Charizard as the ultimate support Pokémon for the onslaught of Azumarills, some community members began to seek whatever viable Life Dew users were available for Cinderace. With a culled Pokédex keeping interesting picks like Primarina out of Paldea, there was only one real Life Dew user left: Shellder. Surprisingly, it didn't look the worst on paper. The clam has solid physical bulk as is, even higher with Eviolite, and it couldn't even be crit by the bunny, leaving its Iron Defenses sound. Combined with Chilling Water and Helping Hand, it looked workable on paper. With that said… it is a Shellder, so it is totally void of any offensive presence.

There wasn't truly much worry or discussion going into Cinderace's launch. Charizard ultimately wasn't terribly difficult; the true challenge was perceiving whether or not it was actually dead in the face of Gen 9's glitchtastic UI. There were multiple Pokémon that stone-cold-walled Charizard, and everyone already had a viable-looking counter that seemed to translate to a new battlefield effortlessly. How hard could Cinderace be?

It wasn't until the event began that the community found out how drastically underprepared they were.

Kickoff

Cinderace used Bulk Up!

Thursday night came and the New Year's celebration boss fight began. After the easily disposed of Charizard, many players gave solos a try. Trounced shortly after, teaming up led to much the same. Something had become immediately clear: Cinderace was no joke.

7-Star Cinderace

Cinderace

The two main game changers came hard and fast. The lesser of the two evils gave Cinderace an uncomfortable damage output from the start: Acrobatics. An option many didn't sweat during set up proved to be a major trouble, just on the might of its effectively 110 BP neutral coverage. Suddenly, Azumarill and Ceruledge were dealing with a hit far harder than they had anticipated, pressing things close to death too quickly.

Far and away though, the big headache, the defining aspect of the raid that made it so much more difficult, was Bulk Up. Charizard's lone set up move, Sunny Day, had led to a bit of underestimation of just how powerful a boosting move could be, not to mention a Turn 0 boost that repeatedly occurred throughout the game. The immediate damage output of a +1 Cinderace was bad enough, but that was hardly the worst of it. As the match progressed, Cinderace's mid-game status-immune shields would raise, allowing it to sponge far more damage for a limited time. With that protection, often a truly devastating combo unfolded: a stat wipe of the player's side or a cleansing of Cinderace's negative stats followed by two Bulk Ups. Raid wipes were inevitable from there.

Like a grand extinction event, strategies crumbled to dust under the might of Bulk Up boosted blitzes, sending hard trained Level 100 competitive Pokémon crying for a Pokémon Center. Azumarill learned a new favorite strategy of Belly Drum into death. Ceruledge's Bitter Blades were Brittle Blades. Skeledirge found it hard to stomach, and what progress it could make was agonizingly slow. Cold leftovers from Charizard like Grimmsnarl and Sylveon were promptly converted into raid shields and lowered raid timer. Almost all that planning went down the drain.

Few sets survived first contact. Yet, in the end, there was one clear impossibly sturdy winner left standing.

…Well, truthfully, there were two, but one option was clearly the more powerful play.

Halftime Adjustments

Slowbro used Stored Power!

Through an onslaught of rabbits, only one answer truly stuck. After a little bit of experimentation, the community learned a neat secret: this seemingly monstrous raid was actually not a difficult solo.

Solo-Bro

Slowbro

With enough stat boosts and modifiers, Slowbro soon became a well-known face. Not only was it one of the only options for soloing the raid offline, but it was an option that could also OHKO Cinderace. Iron Defense twice, Nasty Plot thrice, use Psychic Terrain and a Go All Out Cheer, then Stored Power will OHKO. The only trouble was outspeeding the NPCs before they could damage Cinderace to whip out its shield, the reason why only two Iron Defenses were preferred. The information broke out fast, and soon nearly every raider had a Slowbro in their ranks ready to blow back Cinderace.

Yet, it seemed a little melancholy at first. Was this a raid challenge doomed to the confines of solos only? Was the whole point of this raid experience, to join together with others online and conquer a terrible foe, all for naught? What about some of the newer faces that needed help to push along for a win? Was the only way to deal with this beast by playing quiet, single player raids with perpetually perishing Pokémon piloted by robots?

As it turned out, no, not quite. While Slowbro did make the offline experience possible, there was still much fun to have online.

Team Huddle

Armarouge used Acid Spray!

In the wake of the startling difficulty spike, the online community showed a downright shocking capacity to adapt that defied skill levels and language barriers. Within hours, the flow of suboptimal Pokémon in online random lobbies came to a trickle. Slowbro in grand pink heaps fell upon the land, soon accompanied by new, quirky faces. Strategy spread like lightning. Interesting and effective support options simply observed in passing were remarked upon, tested, and propagated. Info dumps and videos consumed Twitter, Youtube, Discords, and of course, our dear Smogon forums. Everything changed in the span of a night's sleep. Soon a cast of characters custom built for culling rabbits came onto the scene, and turned frustrating lobbies into wordless, effortless one taps between international strangers, never to meet again.

With Slowbro as their anchor, impressive displays of player ingenuity came into existence; some notable picks are shared below. Keep in mind that some of the stranger aspects of these sets are purely from the raid environment. No special attacks meant that the extremely rarely used Lax nature was perfectly fine, if only to burn useless nature mints rotting in pockets. The traditional philosophy of maxing out HP before Defense on most Pokémon also didn't apply here, as the noticeable decrease in Special bulk was unneeded. Finally, Leftovers, while still excellent for long term sustain and perfectly viable, can suck up precious time should the raid go sour. Bright Powder works as an excellent alternative without a cumbersome animation every turn, with a very appreciated evasion boost that can occasionally be game winning in troubled lobbies.

With all that in consideration, now came the new generation of support Pokémon, ready to get that sweet OHKO through their Slowbro ally. Past the weekend of the 13th, if the raid is rerun, these movesets are all highly recommended.

Armarouge

Armarouge's resistances to the Cinderace onslaught made it a viable choice coupled with its dizzying array of support options. What made it outshine its equally extremely cool brother Ceruledge was access to Acid Spray, a debuff that let Slowbro skip on its Psychic Terrain, Life Orb, Cheer, and even multiple stat boosts for the OHKO. While many an Armarouge attempted their best Slowbro impression with Calm Mind and Iron Defense, raw setup Armarouge proved to be suboptimal compared to its support abilities. Reflect and Will-O-Wisp reduced Cinderace's damage to the point where a heal cheer could easily shrug it off. Clear Smog, though a double-edged sword if used by inexperienced players after thorough stat dropping, could even pacify out-of-control rabbits with multiple Bulk Up boosts, even behind a shield. A trio of Acid Sprays at the start of the game while the Slowbro prepared ensured a sweet, swift victory, so long as partners didn't attack unwisely.

Espathra

The horror of Cinderace's immediate Bulk Up snagged the attention of an often neglected feature of the Speed boosting Ostrich: Opportunist. Pilfering the buff from Cinderace, outspeeding with some investment, then dulling the bunny's damage with Feather Dance proved enough to keep the delicate bird alive, even through an onslaught of neutral Pyro Balls. From there, Espathra could soften up Cinderace severely with Lumina Crash, providing Acid Spray's delicious debuffs while doing surprisingly solid damage throughout the onslaught.

Qwilfish

Perhaps above all other options, Qwilfish became the most rock-solid support. Chilling Water and Acid Spray both became instant staples for this intense raid for their capacity to debuff, even when the raid boss's status-immune shield was online. Qwilfish not only combined both moves into one Pokémon, but came with the two important Fire and Fighting resistances, Intimidate, enough Speed to act before the 0 Speed EV Cinderace, and an incredible way to directly support Slowbro. Every click of Acupressure with Slowbro selected as the target was another 40 BP on the all important Stored Power. The actual stat boosts were mostly meaningless, though evasion, Defense, and Special Attack boosts were far from unwelcome. All that truly mattered was the increase in power. Qwilfish quickly cemented itself as an all-star super glue, able to adapt to exactly what the team needed, and winning faster when everything else was covered.

Azumarill

Down but not out, a new breed of Azumarill emerged, one that scarcely clicked Belly Drum and put almost all its trust in the big Slowbro one-shot. Charm let all that set up at the start feel far more comfortable, with some opting for Chilling Water to trudge through a victory on botched set ups. Fake Tears made that Slowbro OHKO all the more comfortable. To round it all out, should the opportunity present itself deep into a raid gone bad past the ally stat wipe, there was still a plan. Belly Drum and Play Rough were back on a new hybrid existence, ready to pound down shields if the game dragged on past Cinderace's stat refresh and the player stat wipe.

This list is far from all inclusive. Pokémon like Toxapex, Iron Moth, Dachsbun, Arcanine, Scream Tail, Level 1 Intimidate Pokémon, and more all ended up with impressively clever support sets to neuter the rabbit's damage output and expedite Slowbro's nuclear Stored Power. Chances are, if it looked a little weird, it was about to pull out some kooky nonsense and contribute towards that sweet one shot.

Play of the Game

Gotcha! Cinderace was caught!

The raid had been solved. Now, all over the globe, Trainers could converge in wordless synchronization to kill a rabbit as quickly as possible, as if the spirit of Elmer Fudd himself had channeled itself through their flesh. An impossibly difficult challenge was now a monolith to ingenuity, all on the backs of a dopey Water / Psychic-type firing off pink supernovas with its weird little friends. By Saturday night, the big bad behemoth of a bunny was a Tera shard dispensary. The hardest part now was figuring out where to dump all these large EXP candies. Why even bother looking for raid dens in-game for more Cinderace battles anymore when a coordinated team was a few menu presses away? Sure, there was a chance for failure, but with partners that carried so hard alongside a Slowbro, teammates as green as a Turn 1 Hyper Beam Miraidon could be carried to a win, simply standing still and jamming games became a fun and fast way to play.

Pokémon strategy, be it direct player vs player competition or co-op, usually tells a story through its existence. Certain Pokémon come up as front runners, metagames build themselves around these players, and major innovations reshape the story for as long as it's possible to play. Environments of Pokémon, sets, and strategy can live, die, and leave behind something as small as a handful of forum posts as any evidence they ever existed. This is an effort to put one of these stories that burnt so fast and hot as to last only three days in stone. All the discourse, strategizing, optimization, re-optimization, artwork, memes, and all sorts of shared experiences deserve to be cataloged in some fashion before they eventually crumble to memory. It's the story of how the Pokémon community as a whole got decimated, came together, and fought back with impressive, anonymous cohesion against a menacing challenge.

At the time of writing, the rerun of Cinderace has yet to come. We have no idea what the next boss will be, or if the easier experience that graced the community with Charizard will more often be the norm moving forward. The scramble for answers and the astounding reversal of a devastating challenge has been so captivating that for many, it's a new gold standard of engagement. If this was all an anomaly not to be matched in the future, let it at least be known that the whole Pokémon community burnt this challenge right down to its cinders.

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