Written by Terry M.

Pokémon Sword & Shield’s latest promotional raid event is one that I personally recommend partaking in. The promoted raids are Gigantamax Flapple, Gigantamax Appleton, and both Gigantamax forms of Toxtricity. These are incredibly useful Gigantamax Pokémon and therefore worth catching if you have yet to do so prior to this event.

The hidden abilities of Flapple and Appletun are very useful. Hustle and Thick Fat respectively are both fantastic skills. Hustle increases the damage of physical attacks by 50%, but average accuracy is only 80%. Thick Fat causes Fire and Ice moves to only deal 50% damage to Appletun.

Both Toxtricity forms get Technician, which boosts the power of moves with 60 or less base power by 50%. Technician has been a viable ability for Pokémon like Scizor and Breeloom previously. Toxtricity’s move pool, unfortunately, does not have enough viable moves to justify a solid Technician set. It is clearly evident that most players choose Punk Rock due to the fact that Toxtricity trainers often use Throat Spray as an item in competitive Pokémon. This is due to the fact that it could get a special attack boost from its sound moves which are already boosted by Punk Rock.  Punk Rock boosts the power of sound moves by 30% and reduces damage taken by opposing sound-based moves by 50%.

You can also find Hidden Ability Boltund and Heliolisk during this event. If you are considering using either of these Electric Pokémon; right now is the perfect time to get those hidden abilities. Heliolisk’s Hidden Ability is Solar Power; when in the sun, boost special attack by 1.5, but decreases HP by 1/18 of max HP each turn. Boltund’s Hidden Ability is Competitive which raises the special attack stat by two stages after its stats are lowered by opposing Pokémon.

Flapple has one of the strongest Dragon Gigantamax moves. Flapple and Dracozolt have the strongest Dragon physical attacks that are boosted by Hustle and never miss as Gigantamax moves have an 100% accuracy rate. With this in mind, Flapple could be considered a wonderful lead in doubles. Appletun is a bit different as it is bulkier and so damage received is less of a factor when choosing to use it in battle. Toxtricity is useful as its Gigantamax move has the chance to either poison or paralyze enemies.

No matter what strategy you use when choosing a competitive team; there is something for everyone during this event.