Best counters and builds for defeating 7-star Serperior Tera Raids in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Seven-star Serperior Tera Raids have landed in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and it’s time for you to bring your strongest counter to defeat it.

This month, seven-star Serperior Tera Raids will make two appearances in the Paldea region, starting from Thursday, Sept. 19 at 7pm CT to Sunday, Sept. 22 at 6:59pm CT, and again from Thursday, Sept. 19 at 7pm CT to Sunday, Sept. 22 at 6:59pm CT.

These special Tera Raids won’t be around for long, so make sure you have a powerful Pokémon you can rely on for this important battle against the Gen V Starter. If you’re not sure where to start with your prep, here’s a guide to break down the Unrivaled Serperior Tera Raid and how to beat it.

Beating the Unrivaled Serperior Tera Raid in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

This Serperior Tera Raid’s difficult mostly due to its Hidden Ability, Contrary, which turns its stat drops into stat boosts. If left unchecked, Serperior will quickly set up and blow you away. Therefore, the key to beating this raid is to bring a Pokémon that can either ignore or suppress Serperior’s ability.

What type is Unrivaled Serperior?

Serperior is a pure Grass-type Pokémon, and it has the Grass Tera Type for this specific event. This means it’ll be dishing out even more damage with its Grass attacks, so you may want to bring a counter that isn’t afraid of that typing such as Flying and Fire. And when it comes to offense, you also have a lot of options to hit Serperior for super-effective damage: Flying, Fire, Ice, Poison, and Bug.

What moves does Unrivaled Serperior know?

Serperior’s moves are all over the place with attacks like Dragon Pulse, Breaking Swipe and Iron Tail, but its main means of offense is Leaf Storm. Combined with its Contrary ability, Leaf Storm allows Serperior to boost its Special Attack by two stages each time it’s used.

To make things more annoying, it has multiple status moves to paralyze your Pokémon, suppress its ability, and lower its evasiveness.

Moves

• Leaf Storm
• Dragon Pulse
• Iron Tail
• Gastro Acid

Additional moves

• Breaking Swipe
• Sweet Scent
• Glare

Best counter for the Unrivaled Serperior Tera Raid in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Because Serperior relies so heavily on its stat boosts, the best counter is one that can ignore all those boosts while hitting it back for super-effective damage. I’m talking about the Gen IX Fire Starter, Skeledirge.

Best Skeledirge Tera Raid build in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Skeledirge has all the right tools to be the perfect counter for the Unrivaled Serperior Tera Raids. Its Hidden Ability, Unaware, allows it to ignore Serperior’s Special Attack boosts, meaning it takes significantly less damage. The raid boss will attempt to suppress Skeledirge’s ability with Gastro Acid, but you can avoid this altogether by having your gator hold the Ability Shield.

For the battle, the game plan is pretty straightforward:

• Use Torch Song three times to maximize Skeledirge’s Special Attack.
• Terastallize when it’s safe to do so and spam Flamethrower.
• On the turn when Serperior resets your stats and suppresses your ability, use Protect.
• Set back up with three Torch Songs.
• Heal with Slack Off when necessary.
• Heal with a cheer if Skeledirge is paralyzed by Glare.

If you’re soloing this raid, I found it extremely helpful to have the NPC with Bellibolt because its Light Screen reduces the damage of Serperior’s special moves. Gardevoir is also nice for some free heals with Life Dew, but Bellibolt is more of a priority to have here.