Pokémon Scarlet & Violet - Blaziken the Unrivaled
11It seems there are three things going on with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet over this weekend (January 11th to January 14th, 2024). The first is the epilogue of The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, which I covered the first part of for Friday’s video. Another is the Blueberry Prologue, which I’ll cover over this following week. And there’s this: Blaziken the Unrivaled.
I covered in a video not long prior about where to find Torchic in the Terarium’s Polar Biome. While Cyndaquil is in a similarly elusive spot, we’ve had two 7-star Tera Raid Battles featuring Typhlosion (one Johtonian, the other Hisuian), allowing you to fill out the Blueberry Pokédex by breeding down. At that point, however, we hadn’t had anything similar with Blaziken. Well, we do now!
Blaziken is arguably the most popular starter from Generation III. Sceptile and Swampert have their fans, but not in the numbers that Blaziken did…and still do. This was the first starter in the series to have a humanoid fully evolved design, and while that might lead to groans now (and accusations of “furry bait”), the reason why starters trended toward that body shape in more recent generations is because of the enormous popularity Blaziken got back in the day. Of course, this Pokémon got a boost from Torchic being one of Ash’s companions in the anime that fully evolved. Sorry, Grovyle.
The Pokémon I used for this event was Latias. This is not an easy Pokémon to come across, since you’ll either need to get the Latias snack from Snacksworth or, as I have the Scarlet version and Latias is associated with the Violet version, import one forward from a prior Pokémon game. This one is from Pokémon Shield, gained via the Dynamax Adventures feature in Crown Tundra. (I did get a Latias in Pokémon Shining Pearl, but that one is part of my Battle Tower team.) So despite the same name as the Latias in Pokémon Battle Revolution, this is not the same one as that one:
Latias (Skye)
Level 100
Ability: Levitate
Effort Points: 252 Defense, 252 Sp. Attack, 6 HP
Hold Item: Leftovers
Nature: Bold (via Mint)
Tera: Electric
Moves: Recover, Thunderbolt, Healing Pulse, Chilling Water
This Blaziken has a daunting list of moves of different types, making it very hard to find a Pokémon that would work. This Blaziken has Blaze Kick, Low Kick, Brave Bird, and Earthquake, and will use Rock Slide and Overheat (at a randomly selected ally, sometimes your Pokémon) after about half of his HP is gone. In addition, this Blaziken will use Swords Dance towards the beginning, then Bulk Up later on. Since Bulk Up will be activated when Blaziken’s shield is up, and he’ll put up his shield almost immediately after using Swords Dance, it’s important to have a damaging move that lowers or resets Blaziken’s Attack stat, or he will overwhelm everyone regardless of type matchups. The shield begins when a small amount of his HP has been depleted, and it lasts to about halfway down his HP meter.
Blaziken will reset your Pokémon’s stat gains early on (which means if you’re bringing in Iron Hands, don’t use Belly Drum at the start, because his Attack will be reset to normal, and Iron Hands’s HP lost through Belly Drum won’t come back). He will reset his own stat drops at about three quarters of his HP left.
With the Flying Tera type, Blaziken would be weak to Electric, Ice, and Rock. As you can see, Blaziken has an answer for that: Earthquake for Electric-types, Low Kick and Blaze Kick for Ice-types, and Low Kick and Earthquake for Rock-types. It doesn’t matter that you can land a super-effective hit ahead of Blaziken; he has 30 times as much HP as a regular Blaziken, and there’s no way you can land a one-hit KO on him on the first turn. He’ll just return fire.
That’s why I chose Latias: she has no weaknesses in common with Blaziken’s moves, and thanks to Levitate, after Terastallization, she has no weaknesses at all. I would begin with Chilling Water to lower Blaziken’s Attack, using Recover and Healing Pulse as necessary to keep everyone alive. I save Thunderbolt for after Latias Terastallizes to help break through the shield.
I found this event to be pretty easy, at least much easier than the grueling Iron Bundle the Unrivaled event from a couple of weeks prior. Though I’m still seeing a huge amount of Miraidon and Iron Hands, both of whom fall quickly to Earthquake onslaughts, I’m seeing solid strategies from people who put some thought into this event. Here, you see Bellibolt, who, while vulnerable to Earthquake, also has Chilling Water to whittle down Blaziken’s Attack and Acid Spray to reduce his Sp. Defense, as well as Parabolic Charge, which heals HP, and both have Tera Water so Earthquakes are no longer super-effective. There’s also Mewtwo, who also has no weaknesses in common with Blaziken’s moves and has Will-O-Wisp to cut Blaziken’s Attack down at the start before the shield goes up. (Remember that as Blaziken has Terastallized as Flying, he can be Burned.)
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