Charizard Tera Raid Guide: Counters, dates and more

Charizard returns to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet this weekend, giving fans another chance to catch the powerful monster.

Charizard will appear in 7-star Tera Raid Battles at black crystals from Thursday, December 15, at 4:00 p.m. PST and then leave raids on Sunday, December 18, at 3:59 p.m. PST.

As we know from its previous appearance this month, the Charizard Tera raid is one of the toughest challenges in the game, so we’re here to help with a list of the best counters you should make sure you have available on your side for the Charizard Tera Raid.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Guides:

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet walkthrough, tips, and Pokemon locations | Roaring Moon location | Iron Valiant location | Shiny sandwich recipes | Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Legendaries | Pokemon type chart

Charizard Tera Raid Guide: Best counter Pokemon

Azumarill

Water/ Fairy 

Moves:

• Belly Drum
• Play Rough
• Aqua Jet
• Liquidation

Azumarill has become an early favourite in the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Tera Raids due to its incredible combination of Belly Drum and Play Rough. High-tier raids are being ended in the space of three turns by teams of Azumarill setting up the hard-hitting move. The key here is type weakness. Charizard’s Tera type is Dragon for this raid. That means that Fairy-type moves will be super effective against it.

Charizard’s move set won’t be revealed until the event starts, but the hope is that it doesn’t have any Steel-type moves, which would do significant damage to Azumarill, even when IV trained. We’ll update this guide once the Charizard Tera Raid move set is revealed, but for now, Azumarill is one of our front-runners.

Grimmsnarl

Dark/ Fairy 

Moves:

• Taunt
• Light Screen
• Foul Play
• Draining Kiss

Grimmsnarl is a Pokemon that you’re going to look to essentially take the brunt of the damage in the early part of the battle. Setting up Taunt to make the Charizard focus on it, this is when you should be Belly Drumming with Azumaril and using your other set-up moves with your team for an attack on the second move. Draining Kiss is a solid Fairy-type move if your team is tight with damage, but you should really be focussing on setting other moves up and staying alive.

Sylveon

Fairy 

Moves:

• Moon Blast
• Last Resort
• Dazzling Gleam
• Play Rough

A pure Fairy-type attacker, Sylveon should be protected at all costs so that it can hit Charizard over and over again for massive damage. Last Resort is a perfect move for the late-raid as it’s turned into the strongest Fairy-type move in the game by Sylveon’s ability, Pixilate.

Dachsbun

Fairy 

Moves:

• Misty Terrain
• Tera Blast
• Draining Kiss
• Play Rough

Use Dachsbun to weaken the Tera-type Dragon moves that Charizard will be throwing out and then focus on doing damage in a similar way to Sylveon. If you can find a fairy-tera type, even better. Dachsbun’s ability, Well-Baked Body means that it doesn’t take any damage from fire-type moves, potentially eliminating a huge part of Charizard’s offense.