Opted to go with a little-bit more of a supporty Milotic. The plan was to prevent its multiple Sleep effects with Safeguard, and use Haze to keep it from ramping. This worked well enough initially, but it all started going downhill when I got flinched multiple rounds in a row, lost my Sleep protection, and had to burn all my Cheers to recover. Went down twice, and barely managed to squeak by a win, thanks to STAB Surf against a Rock Tera and Darkrai's thankfully-low defensive capabilities.

Ironically, Carbink worked out really well here, with Leftovers and high defensive values to tank everything. Skill Swap became useful since there was a Gardevoir ally that was using Mystical Fire. Unfortunately, Earth Power didn't trigger its secondary stat reduction effect, but since Diancie was an Electric Tera, it did solid damage anyway ... long as I had the offensive cheer up, anyway.

This little trickster can make what seems like a simple fight into a quickly lost fight, but that's the nature of such an unpredictable encounter.

Ended up completing it with Klefki, which could easily tank all of Hoopa's attacks, and was more for setup, disabling it for a while with Thunder Wave and capitalize on its Poison Tera with Psychic.

Though frankly my allies did more outright damage than I did, so I kept them up with a couple healing cheers and an offense cheer to break through the shield phase.

330 combined base attack values sounds obscenely intimidating, and hard to prepare for, and Hoopa has decent enough type coverage, but not against Meowscarada, haha. Plus, high physical attack and speed to get some powerful hits in against a really low physical defense makes for a straight-forward smash.

Took a decent bit of searching to find a good choice that could take that hefty delayed-damage specialty, and ended up settling on a standard Ninetales. Got unlucky early with several on-hit effects going off from the Jirachi thanks to its Serene Grace, but after boosting up a few times with Calm Mind and bashing that Poison Tera down with Stored Power, it went smoothly.

What's good against a Bug Tera with solid special attack and a powerful ramping Ability? Apparently, a better bug type — Volcarona was highly resistant thanks to an early Quiver Dance, and could output some incredible damage from the not-as-OP Torch Song wannabe, Fiery Dance, thanks to STAB bonus and incredible special attack, and a lucky couple secondary effect procs right away.

Since this is such an anti-physical encounter, going all-in on special worked quite well.

Electric Tera and high special attack? Seemed like a good combination for Clodsire. Soul-Heart and Calm Mind definitely made this into more of a threat than originally expected — for my allies, anyway! I was thinking I should have brought Gastrodon for Clear Smog instead — but the just raw output of TERA-Stab Earthquake cannot be stopped by measly clockwork.

Because Clodsire has Unaware, it didn't matter (to me) how much the Magearna ramped up, since I could tank its base hits easily enough.

Clodsire is a powerful raid Pokémon choice~

Rock Tera was just too perfect for my Unaware Clefable, because Unaware is just amazing in raids. I went full physical attack, with Meteor Mash and Drain Punch. With Unaware and a single Amnesia, I was able to easily sustain through thanks to Drain Punch. Of all uses of my Meteor Mash, though, I missed four of them and only got one attack up boost, bah. Burned my cheer boost a few times just to negate the Burn from Scald, but it was a straight-forward smash.

Alolan Raichu was a very solid pick into this, especially because of the high utility that Nuzzle brings, and being able to Nasty Plot into Psychic against a Fighting Tera. Still lost once, though, primarily because of four rounds in a row of self-damage from confuse and another unlucky confuse condition later, ugh. Second time through went smoother.

A moderate special attacker against Aria Forme's high special defense wasn't so great, but I wanted an excuse to use the better surfing Pokémon, hence the need for Nasty Plot.

Armarouge was a fantastic counter, capable of withstanding those high physical attacks with type advantage and Will-O-Wisp, and could deal enough damage even while being neutral to Psychic, since this forme has terrible resistance to special attacks.

What happens when you become the raid boss? Ha~ This fight is goofy and fun. Because of its Electric Tera, I opted to come in with Mudsdale with an Assault Vest to try to tough my way through it, which went well enough. Straight-forward slug fest, since there's a significant element of randomness to the fight that's hard to prep for, not that Mudsdale could anyway with its moveset lacking in much utility.

On the plus side, Mew itself isn't that great a threat, so you can just take a generalist and probably be fine.

Later in the fight, it uses Transform, and picks a target randomly. That can really throw things off~

No amount of concentrated, pure, unfiltered, appreciable adorable will stop a Belly Drum and Amnesia-wielding Snorlax, it seems. Scaling up initially and keeping high Special Defense with Amnesia allowed me to stave off the Belly Drum downside. It was a Flying Tera, so Ice and Thunder Punch could chip it down quite handily. It skipped some crucial turns thanks to the secondary effects going off, so it wasn't all that much of a fight, in the end.

Took Alolan Sandslash with its resistance to Grass and Flying, which made for a straight-forward event, countering its Physical ramp with Defense boosting with Iron Defense. Earthquake made short work against the Steel Tera, and my allies afflicted it with some status conditions that kept it from becoming too much of a hassle otherwise.

Such a sturdy Pokémon with decent damage and type coverage, this fight gave me some trouble.

Couldn't brute force it with Gyarados or Hisuian Braviary; so I went to Galarian Slowbro. It was still a bit rough, but I wasn't concerned by Burn reducing damage, and was otherwise sturdy enough to only go down once. Damage was a bit iffy, but Shell Side Arm was decent enough; not particularly effective against a Dark Tera, but a few Acid Spray made up the difference here.

With a neutral defensive choice in Arcanine and Intimidate to lower Zarude's offensive capability, there wasn't much threat from incoming damage. Howl boosting allies as well as Arcanine made for a lot of outgoing damage, with Crunch doin' some numbers on the Ghost Tera.

A moderately strong Pokémon in the right scenario, it being weak to Fighting and Grass because of a Rock Tera was definitely not that scenario. Chesnaught could resist its attacks and heal through it thanks to Leech Seed and Drain Punch with a Big Root, while putting out significant damage.

A pretty weak Legendary with a rather limited moveset, which was dealt with in short order by Gallade. Since it was a Grass Tera, I didn't have anything especially great offensively, but a Swords Dance'd Aerial Ace after the raid ally Corviknight used some Screech early on made for some hefty damage and chunked it down quickly.

Man, this one gave me so much trouble, largely because multiple fights in a row its first few Ancient Power triggered the secondary effect, usually twice in the first minute or so, and with Competitive, selectively reducing its big stats only made the fight worse.

A Worry Seed using Meowscarada got close, but couldn't complete it, so I brought in a Brute Bonnet to get the win; it was a Normal Tera Articuno, so I didn't really have anything that could resist Psychic and Ghost while also doing solid Fighting damage, so I just had to brute force it and use Clear Smog to keep it from ramping out of control.

High type coverage and hybrid offense with a big shield and well-timed cleanse, Azelf is a bit of a surprise in how effective it can be, and how easy it can catch you off-guard. Came in with the defensively neutral Slowbro, relied on Slack Off to stay alive, and Surf to deal moderately-high damage to the Ground Tera Azelf. It got a little dicey toward the end still, though.

The King himself is not especially threatening, with mediocre stats in all categories and a pretty limited moveset; as such, he wasn't much threat for Florges, which could pretty easily take his empowered hits and deal significant damage in return thanks to Moonblast against a Fighting Tera. Synthesis and a single defense cheer was plenty enough to make it through.

This adorable little ... punk. Gave me some trouble.

This encounter has high type coverage, especially since it covered its weaknesses from the Poison Tera it had.

Had to test around several options; for instance, Klefki was useful in attempting to lock it down, but wasn't quite enough. In the end, Dachsbun ended up being the victor, albeit mostly due to Charm and Howl, boosting multiple physical attacker allies and keeping it from one shotting everyone. Psychic Fangs and a lucky healing cheer toward the end resulted in victory.

A good Water Tera made it a bit more difficult to find the right Pokémon which could resist Fire and Dark naturally and deal physical Electric or Grass ... so instead, I opted to just plow through it with Bellibolt.

Eerie Impulse, Charge, and the OP that is Parabolic Charge; had to swap in a Covert Cloak to avoid the double-whammy of Confuse Ray and flinching from Dark Pulse. Unfortunate allies contributed very little overall, except the few times I saw Roo (Pai's Glaceon) manage to get a Freeze-Dry in, which was a nice chunk of damage.

A Poison Tera made for easy pickings with Spiritomb, thanks to Nasty Plot and Psychic. Calm Mind and Stored Power were another option, but Shell Bell meant I could heal up enough after Moonblast to not be in much threat. Since Cresselia is as defensive as it is, it does take some extra oomph to bring it down; the occasional Lunar Blessing back-to-back can add up.

Not really much to say about this one. Tablets of Ruin and good defensive bulk meant little concern over Deoxys' attacks, and healing every turn made it a fairly straight-forward bash since its Tera typing made it weak to my Tera-STAB'd Dark Pulse.

Corviknight took a pretty easy victory here, since it had a poor defensive Ice Tera.

Powerful though they are, moves that cause the user to skip turns can definitely add up, and in Dialga's case, it spamming its most powerful hit (which Corviknight could shrug off pretty easily) resulted in a bunch of skipped turns toward the end, giving me plenty of time to wear its HP down.

So Clodsire was not the best choice, but it worked, somehow.

That Extrasensory was really rough until I could get my Ground Tera on, at which point Superpower was still doing an incredible chunk of my health each time. Still managed, primarily because of the Fire Tera's weakness to Earthquake. If only I got lucky with Mud-Slap just once it'd have been less close, but alas.

Grass Tera gave me some hesitation, since Giratina's coverage allows it to be effective against Fire types, nearly all of my Poison types, and I have virtually no Flying attackers in my raid lineup.

Then I remembered that Slither Wing exists.

Leech Life and an Expert Belt and best behemoth bug boy just leeched and lunged its way through without any real threat.

Galarian Slowbro fit the bill pretty well, with Skill Swap to deal with the insanely powerful Ability (in raids, anyway), Iron Defense to toughen through, and Flamethrower to deal some solid damage against the Ice Tera.

Was originally going with a Covert Cloak to stop flinches from Icicle Crash, but swapped to a Shell Bell since I was bettin' a little on RNG favoring me. I don't know why I did that; I have notoriously bad luck. And unfortunately, two flinches and a crit at the very end almost made me lose anyway, so meh.

Got it, but it was way closer than it looked like it was going to be.

This encounter was nerfed slightly after this clear, since it felt too close still.

Between a Fighting Tera and its generally-high type coverage against most of my raid-ready Pokémon, this was a fight that gave me a lot of trouble. Swapped out to a few Fairy types before finding victory with Scream Tail; though the MVP of the round was the ally Sylveon. I played more of a support role here between Noble Roar, defense cheer, and Fake Tears, to enable the Sylveon and the Glaceon allies to do some decent damage.

Used my Fairy Tera and some Tera Blast to bust its shield and it was smooth sailing from there.

Gyarados would have probably been the better choice, what-with the Heatran's Dragon Tera and Gyarados with Outrage, and a better stat arrangement for this fight, but I didn't wanna spend time to fiddle with it when my Dondozo was right there, ha.

Pretty straight-forward, using Rain Dance to reduce damage to self and allies (Magma Storm still hits hard with low SpDef) and relying on Order Up (but without the neat secondary effect) to deal sufficient damage. Got real dicey toward the end, since the weakness of the Dondozo pick was becoming apparent, but made it through anyway.

Battle of the Swords Dance, apparently. The early portion was rough because of the resets and high damage output, but some attack reductions gave me a chance to get back into the fight. After that rough start, though, the Fire Tera was easily dealt with via boosted Tera-STAB Earthquake.

This lizzo really comes out the gates swinging, but like everyone's favorite Twin Turbo, it can't really maintain it that well.

Hard to bring its stats down since it cleanses itself so often, but re-application of Burning kept it from dropping allies too regularly. Ice Tera meant that it had little effective against my Armarouge, and I could burn it down with impunity.

Move over~ There's a new Lord of the Sea, and it's Gastrodon.

Went through a couple Pokémon before finding one that could handle the awkward combination of Grass Tera and Kyogre's type coverage. Storm Drain and being neutral to Ice Beam was useful, but I didn't change my Tera from Ground to Poison to capitalize on Sludge Bomb, so the latter half of the fight was slower and a bit rougher than it should have been.

Allies were down nearly the entire fight, so it was practically a solo Gastrodon victory.

Brought down by an Umbreon — General sturdiness combined with Cosmic Power and Glare made for little incoming damage. From there, it was just a slow process of whittling it down using Night Daze, which has a fantastic benefit of accuracy reduction, giving me several turns at the end where I took no damage.

This was not a particularly great choice and definitely a half-asleep battle, ha. Dragon Tera was resistant to my Charge + Thunderbolt combo, to begin with. Plus, Water typing getting tagged for double damage early was bad, but it wasn't ruinous, since Lanturn has generally good SpDef-oriented bulk (252 EVs, Leftovers, and Charge boosting), and Terastallizing into Electric helped on the incoming damage front, though I absolutely should have taken the time to go swap to Ice to capitalize on Ice Beam and add Tera Blast instead. Well, Eerie Impulse was able to mitigate most of the real danger, so it worked out.

Grass Tera on the poor Emotion Pokémon made for rather easy pickings with Flareon. It largely came down to its Charm against my Fire Lash, which was fine since Flareon has high base attack and could dish out solid damage even reduced thanks to that defense reduction. Its use of Drain Punch made for a slugfest in the latter half, though.

Highly synergistic offensive capabilities and decent defenses make this a generally tough Pokémon to deal with; downsides are that it's a bit one-dimensional. The raid is a little less the case, but Magnezone made for a great choice, being highly resistant or at least neutral to everything the lizard would do, while also being benefited by the Electric Terrain.

Magnezone has powerful stat reduction abilities, which are quite effective here, making for a solid choice despite being offensively neutral to the Ghost Tera.

Vaporeon is just such a solid tank of a Pokémon, especially with Leftovers or a Shell Bell and Aqua Ring. Pretty straight-forward fight since I had type advantage over the Rock Tera and could just heal through most things. Whirlpool and Surf kept plinkin' away at its health until Brine could start doing some solid damage.

Clodsire is such a good chonky boi~

High Sp Def against the Electric Tera bird was a solid choice, but I had to swap in a Covert Cloak because of a bad string of flinches from Fiery Wrath that dropped me and failed an attempt.

Clodsire was oblivious to Moltres' boosts, so I ended up taking out the bird primarily on my own toward the end.

Time to bust out the premier dragon slayer : ribbons.

A Dragon Tera Palkia was easy pickings for Sylveon. Even though I missed three of my five Springtide Storms (oh come on!), Moonblast made up for it with a couple stat down secondary effect procs.

Not that Sylveon really needed it.

The Scream Tail ally used Howl a number of times, boosting my and the Ceruledge's attack to max by the end of the fight, so the outgoing damage was great. Poison against the Fairy Tera make generally short work, since high Special Defense resisted the continual Blizzard onslaught effectively.

... Yeah, Huge Power Belly Drum Azumarill.

Took some precautions first by using Charm initially so I could offset Regidrago's boosting effects, which let me survive just a couple rounds before the inevitable failing of this vanilla-friendly strat. Got some big damage in from a Tera-boosted Play Rough against its Fighting Tera, but of course, went down and had to plow through it normally for the remainder.

Nothing can stop Gastrodon. Best sea cow.

Immune to the Eleki's most powerful moves and sturdy enough to not be too threatened by its other moves, while having solid STAB advantage on this Ground Tera, it was a straight-forward stomp ...

Except my getting downed after Terastallizing into Water to break that shield. Oops.

I know it's super low power, but honestly, don't overlook Mud-Slap. When dealing with a powerhouse 160 base Attack, that accuracy reduction can be huge.

It was a bit of a slow start (heh~), trying to set some reductions up before its Slow Start kicked in, but a few nice little Searing Sands Burn effect procs on top kept it from being too rough ... for most of the fight, at least.

It started turning the tide later on, but it was too late for it thanks to Tera-STAB Ground versus that Poison type. Best bug is winner.

Wo-Chien had just the right amount of defense to withstand even supereffective moves used by Regirock while being able to comfortably heal through use of Leech Seed, Ingrain, a Big Root, and the effect of its Tablets of Ruin reducing the attack (it's not a direct stat reducer, so the Clear Body on Regi didn't stop this) ... also a little bit of Life Dew from Pai's Vaporeon, Ren.

The damage was just there with Dark Pulse against the Psychic Tera, with a little Cheering.

Zap Cannon could have been disastrous, but the first few misses gave me just enough time to Tera away from 4x weakness before it wised up and used Lock-On before the Zap Cannon and that painful paralyze.

Still, solid defense to the damage it dealt (still 2x weak but a maintained defense cheer and Shell Bell was enough to stay ahead for a good portion of the fight) and being able to Tera-STAB Waterfall resulted in a victory.

Grim Neigh is a powerful Ability in raids, and can easily cause this pony to ramp out of control, so bringing something to negate that was my highest priority, like Worry Seed. And since it was a Rock Tera, that meant there were several good contenders to choose from —

Opted for Gogoat because of powerful Ground and Grass moves (especially Horn Leech), and other than a bad string of confuse self-hits, didn't have that hard of a time.

Though it did some pretty hefty damage to my allies, Clodsire resulted in a straightforward beatdown and easily powered through without any real strategy.

There are a lot of upfront effects from this fight, but if you can weather those, it's not super bad. Came close with Corviknight, which was great except Ting-Lu's Taunt and Throat Chop kept me from making use of Screech, Iron Defense, or Roost ... which was definitely not so great, actually.

So instead, I swapped in a strange Haxorus with a neutral Dark Tera with Taunt so I could Swords Dance after cleanse, and relied on Low Kick to deal massive damage. The result was straight-forward but going with this was a little awkward.

Blissey is an absolute beast in some matchups — A nearly unbreakable SpDef wall that can output some decent damage (in rather limited encounters, admittedly). Combined with a Shell Bell and it was not even close.

So much Intimidate — with the Overqwil I brought and the Arcanine that an NPC had — and getting downed just made it even weaker.

Despite that, though, I still went down several times because Counter on a Swords Dance'd Barb Barrage against the Toxic'd Urshifu would always be an OHKO. Yeah, I did a ton of damage each hit, but man, Counter.

So it ended up surprisingly close.

This Urshifu must be really good at controlling its emotions, because for some reason Hatterene insisted on getting up in its personal space and using Nuzzle.

Between the Paralyze that stopped a few of its turns, and a single use of Charm, the Urshifu was much less threat to everyone, though Wicked Blow still hits really hard. With Psychic Terrain to boost the Psychic moves of my Hatterene and my NPC ally's Gardevoir, the unfortunate Poison Tera encounter went down quickly.

Mystical Power is just such a great move. I like it a lot.

I like it a lot less when I have to go against it, though.

On the other hand, Tinkaton with an Assault Vest is surprisingly sturdy against it. Even after it ramped up, and a total lack of utility in Tinkaton's rather-poor kit, I could power through it.

Burned all of my Gigaton Hammer against its Fairy Tera and then relied on Play Rough for neutral damage ... which was a mistake. 4/10 missed, sheesh. Should have used Metal Claw, as it would have done more damage anyway.

Never stood a chance against Delphox, nevermind that Steel Tera. With little threat from its offensive moves, and Mystical Fire to keep weakening it down, the outcome was inevitable, and quick to occur.

Mudsdale with an Assault Vest managed to get really close on this Fairy Tera, thanks to Heavy Slam, but just couldn't quite cut it. Between Static and three burns from the secondary effect of Heat Wave in a row meant I couldn't cheer to heal it enough or output enough damage. Unlucky.

Swapped in Gastrodon with Sludge Bomb and cleared with a decent amount of time left. Then I realized after that I even forgot to put an item on; Covert Cloak would have been very useful here.

The most nerfed raid, seeing significant changes to everything — its moves, shield, mitigation, extra actions, and then again; this encounter is amazingly powerful because of enormous type coverage and very high meaningful stats.

Houndstone and Gholdengo both seemed to have solid typing advantage and decent enough stat allocation to handle the bird, but they'd eventually get overpowered since they lack enough utility useful for this fight. Defiant and the raid actions ramping Zapdos up here really put the hurt on without a way to negate it, like Clear Smog or Haze.

With that all in mind, Armarouge came to mind, which could also reliably apply Burn to reduce its impressive damage, but I still struggled, and this clear was a bit close.

This encounter was nerfed slightly more after I cleared it.

Took a few attempts for Ting-Lu to take it down. Got pretty lucky with multiple Dark type allies against a Psychic Tera. Ting-Lu's ability is incredibly strong to keep allies alive for longer, but it was pretty rough chewing through that shield since the AI was not cooperating especially well.

An incredible physical attacker with very high defensive bulk, Calyrex is a tough matchup to just attempt to overpower. Instead, I brought a Glaceon that could resist its strongest moves and just has enough physical defense thanks to Snowscape, Ice Body, and a Shell Bell to withstand the High King's offensive might.

And it was a Flying Tera, giving me double damage on everything I did, making Glaceon an even better counter in this case.

If you thought Magearna's Soul-Heart was great in raids, just imagine that, but it cannot be affected by Simple Beam or Worry Seed. Yeah, that seems fair.

This can be a very difficult fight unless you shut it down early, so after several failed attempts, I brought out Magearna and played almost pure support, focusing on Eerie Impulse and Thunder Wave to keep it weak for most of the fight.

Soul-Heart gave me a bit of oomph to heal up a bit with Shell Bell, since sometimes the healing cheer just ... really sucks.

Pokémon with Unaware, Haze, or Clear Smog are generally good choices here, as well.

That shield makes this really tough, and Delphox was the only Pokémon I had immediately that could survive long enough to do any sort of setup or have meaningfully-powerful enough Psychic moves to deal with that Fighting Tera.

Even then, a single Metal Burst counter would often drop me no matter how much HP I had left.

Really rough, and took several attempts to get meaningful enough allies to cover the last little bit I needed to win.

Fought using four other Pokémon before Toxapex proved itself the best choice, as it could just stand up to everything Eternatus would throw at it with little impact.

I did have to spend all of my cheers to heal, though — I opted against Recover since with Eternatus' Pressure, I was concerned I would not have had enough offensive PP if I didn't take multiple attacks.

And unfortunately, Eternatus was resistant to all of Toxapex's moves (Ground Tera, ugh), but the combination of Toxic, Merciless, and a few Acid Spray resulted in high enough damage output regardless.

Hisuian Zoroark is not really my kind of Pokémon, since it's just so ... frail, but that doesn't really matter when you have one of the most busted defensive typings in existence, and Bitter Malice.

A lucky Toxapex ally also kept it at minimal attack, so it wasn't much of an offensive threat, though I think my constantly-dead raid allies would disagree, ha.

With a decent type coverage and an odd Rock Tera, there weren't many options to go with. Spiritomb was able to get pretty far but never was good enough; swapped to Grimmsnarl for a few Fighting moves and general resistance, which worked after a couple attempts — a few lucky crits that managed to OHKO me made it take a bit longer, but each fight was close, befitting one of the most powerful entities in the series.

Multiple Fairy users against a Dark Tera was just about the best setup of allies, given my Flutter Mane could chip Palkia's SpAtk with Mystical Fire and then burn it down with Moonblast.

Ran out of PP for my best moves because of Pressure, but burned it pretty quick once its shield was depleted regardless.

An unfortunate Bug Tera made for easy pickings for Skeledirge. Will-O-Wisp and Torch Song carried the majority of the fight pretty hard, with only a couple uses of defensive / healing cheer to survive.

Taken down by an Iron Defense Slowbro~

Clear Amulet prevented Noble Roar, and Stored Power is insanely strong when you're given time to bulk up your stats; those resets gave some worry, but Slowbro is solidly sturdy to begin with, and Slack Off meant I was nearly always outside of one-shot range when I was reset.

It weak-to-Fire damage Bug Tera made for an overall relatively easy fight with Torkoal, which could make decent use of White Smoke and Torkoal's solid stat arrangement.

Metal Burst did me in pretty good a couple times, though, since it doesn't care about Burn or Iron Defense, ha.