Cinderace is the second seven-star Tera Raid event target in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and it’s a bit harder to take down than Charizard was. Cinderace hits very hard and has a variety of moves to exploit weaknesses.
Cinderace is in raids from Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. EST until Jan. 15 at 6:59 p.m. EST.
Cinderace Tera Raid rewards
Upon defeating Cinderace, you’ll be able to catch one, but only one. After you capture your first one, you will not be able to catch any more, even if you defeat it again. You’ll also get TM64 (Bulk Up) and a guaranteed Ability Patch for your first victory.
The caught Cinderace has its Hidden Ability, Libero, which changes its typing to the first move it uses once per switch-in. (Libero does not activate if the Pokémon is Terastallized, so you don’t have to worry about it in this raid.) It also comes with the Mightiest Mark, just like the Charizard from earlier raids. It also has complete perfect IVs.
Similarly to other Tera Raids, you can get other drops, like Exp. Candy, Tera Shards, Bottle Caps, and treasure items to sell for money. Serebii.net has a complete drop table. Cinderace raids do not drop Herba Mystica.
Cinderace Tera Raid counter builds
There are two common builds you’ll see in Cinderace raids: Espathra and Slowbro. These are successful builds that do work quite well, allowing players to even solo the Cinderace without using online allies. We’ll explain how to mimic these builds and how they work.
Cinderace is level 100 with a fighting Tera Type. It knows High Jump Kick, Pyro Ball, Acrobatics, Iron Head, and Bulk Up. Bulk Up makes it extra dangerous, as it’ll power up its attack a ton before attempting to nuke your Pokémon. It’s important to either lower its stats back down or to beef up your Pokémon defensively.
You can still use your Azumarill (the one everyone builds with Belly Drum and Play Rough) against Cinderace, but your mileage may vary. You need luck and/or a reliable support Pokémon; when we used our Azumarill, we were unable to Belly Drum successfully without risking fainting. Cinderace hits like a brick and without proper support, your Azumarill will not work.
Personally, I do not recommend using Azumarill. You’re better off cheesing the raid with the two builds we list below:
Cinderace Tera Raid Slowbro build
- Nature: Modest
- Ability: doesn’t matter
- Tera Type: Psychic
- EVs: 4 HP/252 Defense/252 Special Attack
- IVs: Maxed HP, Defense, Special Attack
- Held item: Life Orb or Twisted Spoon
- Moveset: Stored Power (TM41), Iron Defense (TM104), and Nasty Plot (TM140)
With your level 100 Slowbro, you can one-shot Cinderace — as long as it doesn’t have its shield up. Use Iron Defense twice, Nasty Plot twice, a “Go all out!” cheer once, and wrap up with Stored Power to defeat the Cinderace.
Stored Power does more damage the more your stats are increased, so after beefing up your Defense and Special Attack, you’ll be able to take out the Cinderace quickly while withstanding its attacks.
If Cinderace debuffs your Pokémon, you will need to start this process again, sadly.
We used this Slowbro strategy successfully to win against Cinderace.
Cinderace Tera Raid Espathra build
- Nature: Modest
- Ability: Opportunist
- Tera Type: Psychic
- EVs: 252 HP/252 Defense/4 Special Attack
- IVs: Maxed HP, Defense, Special Attack
- Held item: Light Clay or Shell Bell
- Moveset: Lumina Crash, Reflect (TM74), Feather Dance, Roost (egg move)
In order to successfully use this build, you need to spam Feather Dance in the beginning of the fight to keep Cinderace’s ever-growing Attack down. If the Cinderace has the shield up, stop using Feather Dance and use Lumina Crash instead, also mixing in Roost to heal up. Make sure to also Terastallize to make Lumina Crash even stronger. Remember to also using healing chants if your and/or your teammates’ HP is getting too low.
The key here is Opportunist, Espathra’s ability, which will match its stat growth based on Cinderace. If Cinderace keeps using Bulk Up, then Espathra’s Attack and Defense will also rise.
We did not test this Espathra build ourselves, but we had seen it many times in our raids, which we were able to clear successfully.
Players have found success with a handful of other builds, as catalogued in this comprehensive Reddit thread, but the two above builds are ones we can confirm have worked.