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Should You Pull? Raihan & Duraludon

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TL;DR: Should You Pull?

What Does It Do?

They’re back! The rival of Leon and top Gym Leader from Galar have made his return, and at his side is his trusty Mecha Godzilla Duraludon, and they’ve achieved new power in the form of a Sync Grid update! With tiles stretching all the way to their 5/5 Sync Move level, they’re poised to bring even more power to the field. So is it worth investing in Raihan & Duraludon now that their training has given them even more to achieve than ever before? Let’s review the changes and find out.

Sync Pair History 

Raihan & Duraludon hit the game as a powerful Steel Type Sync Pair at a time when we had very little Steel representation available, giving them instant utility for a lot of players. Over time, their utility has waned a bit in the face of powerful attackers that could compete with many of the top Steel Types even with neutral damage, though they haven’t had much direct competition materialize outside of Sygna Suit Giovanni & Nidoking moonlighting in Steel Type damage and Kimono Grimsley & Bisharp dropping Steel Type bursts. Arguably, the best thing to happen to Raihan & Duraludon since their release is the introduction of Marnie & Mawile, who are near-perfectly designed to fill in many of our favorite selfie-taking Sync Pair’s holes and provide huge damage buffs with Steel Zone. 

All-in-all, Raihan & Duraludon have stayed pretty relevant throughout their time on Pasio, and have only gone up in usefulness this year.

Post-Update Options

Raihan & Duraludon’s new Sync Grid tiles largely take them in one of two directions; leaning heavier into Sandstorm builds, or setting up stronger Sync Moves even if weather isn’t involved. Both directions are fine for helping out in terms of damage output, with potentially large dividends for some builds. This is still an overall great Sync Pair with a lot of general viability that will definitely be useful fairly frequently.

How To Use It?

New Grid Tiles

New 2/5 Grid Tiles:

  • Fierce Entry 2 grants +2 Attack when Raihan & Duraludon take the field, but it is strictly useful for Rock Slide builds as that’s literally their only physical move. If you use them for their Rock Type performance anyway, then this is a potentially useful tile, but the 10-energy cost is staggering for such a small bonus. Most builds will ignore this.
  • Stalwart prevents Duraludon’s Special Attack from dropping. It can be useful on some stages, but overall it’s not going to be doing Raihan & Duraludon many favors. On the bright side, it’s directly next to the core six tiles, so it can easily be picked up regardless of your build with a small adjustment when it actually is useful.

New 4/5 Grid Tiles:

  • Trip Twice 9 lowers the target’s Speed with any successful attack. Speed drops aren’t exactly the best in this game, so the main utility of this tile is to set up Cakewalk at 5/5.
  • Weathered Warrior 3 grants a fairly substantial damage boost while any Weather effect is active, which not only ties into Raihan & Duraludon’s Sandstorm builds, but also gives a bit of additional flexibility for any other weather as well. It’s a great tile if you already use them on a Sandstorm team in particular!

New 5/5 Grid Tiles: 

  • Sand Sync can make Raihan & Duraludon’s Sandstorm performance a bit better, as it’s a reliable way to refresh Sandstorm. However, it also comes out a bit late for a quick-setup Sync Pair like this, so it’s probably best to keep a pocket Sandstorm setter for before/after this activates.
  • Cakewalk adds a lot of Sync Move damage the more that the target’s Speed has been dropped, but it’s going to require that you also pick up Trip Twice 9 or pair Raihan & Duraludon with a Sync Pair that can drop the opposing team’s Speed for them.

Sync Grid Levels & EX Viability

Honestly, ⅗ is still a perfectly viable goal for Raihan & Duraludon. The new tiles are all nice, but none of them drastically change Raihan & Duraludon to any tremendous degree. That said, ⅖ should generally still be the minimum goal here, as it makes it far easier to drop consistent Steel Beams.

As for EX viability, they’re a fairly solid priority. They appreciate the added stats and the ability to turn their Sync Move into an AoE attack is definitely great, especially if you go for a Sync Nuke build which definitely gets improved a lot with 5/5 now.

Lucky Skills

Critical Strike 2 is still the goldilocks choice due to its high performance and ease of use, though Weathered Warrior 3 from the Deluxe set is a prime choice for Sandstorm builds.

Team Comps

First up, Raihan & Duraludon appreciate a mere +1 Critical Rate to finish that off without fishing for an MP refresh, and possibly +2 Special Attack if you don’t pick up Grand Entry 2 via their grid. This is a pretty easy goal, with a plethora of Support units like Sygna Suit Brendan & Latios, Special Costume Jasmine & Celesteela, Kiawe & Alolan Marowak, and Sygna Suit Elesa & Rotom all capable of filling that role. 

With that out of the way, Raihan & Duraludon are arguably strongest on Sandstorm teams, so Sync Pairs like Ingo & Excadrill, Bertha & Hippowdon, Acerola & Palossand, or even Anniversary Raihan & Flygon can all fill the need for sand. And before you point out that we can’t have two of the same trainer on the same team, remember that it’s been announced that they’re removing that limitation soon, so it’s best to consider the future as well as the present! In conjunction with this, some Steel Zone support from Palentines Marnie & Mawile can raise Steel Beam’s damage to outstanding levels while also granting the missing +1 Critical Rate, and can be paired with the aforementioned Ingo & Excadrill to setup Sandstorm and pave the way for horrific bursts of Steel Type damage. 

Other, less obvious pairings can work wonders here as well. Anniversary Skyla & Tornadus can grant the elusive +1 Critical Rate with their grid and potentially max the team’s Speed while disrupting the opposing team with Confusion and Flinch. Bede & Hatterene can melt away the opposing team’s Special Defense, opening the way for even more powerful Steel Beams as a result. Sygna Suit Lyra & Celebi can debilitate the opposing team with status and finish off Raihan & Duraludon’s Special Attack and Critical Rate needs with ease. Palentines Serena & Whimsicott are great for boosting the team’s Speed while also debuffing the opposing team’s Speed in to activate Cakewalk easily. Finally, Classic Elesa & Emolga can enable Cakewalk and accelerate the Sync Move counter alongside Raihan and another partner while also not taking much of the Move Gauge to keep active, making Steel Beam a bit easier to unload.

Is It Worth Pulling?

If you don’t already have Raihan & Duraludon, then this is a great opportunity to add them to your team, or if you’ve had them for a while then this is a chance to get their Sync Level a bit higher. And while they do have more power available thanks to their recent updates, investing in anything beyond ⅗ isn’t going to make huge waves for the most part. They’re competitive with most of the Sync Pairs that we’ve got slated for October, so they’re definitely not the worst investment for the month.

One question though, DeNA: where’s their trademark Max Move?!

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Long-time Gamepress fan and writer for Pokemon Go and Pokemon Masters sub-site

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