Sandshrew (Alola)
As part of the Pokémon GO Holidays 2021 event, Alolan Sandshrew will be available in raids as a Tier 1 raid boss in Pokémon GO. In case you’re wondering, yes it can be shiny.
Alolan Sandshrew can be caught with the following CP values:
- 688 – 739 CP at Level 20, no weather boost
- 860 – 924 CP at Level 25 with Snow weather boost
It is an Ice & Steel type, which makes it weak to Fighting (x2), Fire (x2) and Ground type moves.
Alolan Sandshrew Raid Counters
Whenever the shadow variant of a Pokémon listed below is available in the game, it is strongly recommended to use it over its regular/purified counterpart. However, since Shadow Pokémon are extremely expensive to power up and require specific events to TM away Frustration, they will NOT be listed as raid counters in this article.
Alolan Sandshrew’s best raid counters are listed below:
| Supreme Counters | ||
|---|---|---|
Charizard (Mega Y)
|
Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Charizard (Mega X)
|
Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Lucario
|
Counter Fighting | Aura Sphere Fighting |
Houndoom (Mega)
|
Fire Fang Fire | Flamethrower Fire |
Reshiram
|
Fire Fang Fire | Overheat Fire |
Darmanitan
|
Fire Fang Fire | Overheat Fire |
Chandelure
|
Incinerate Fire | Overheat Fire |
Blaziken
|
Counter Fighting or Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Moltres
|
Fire Spin Fire | Overheat Fire |
Conkeldurr
|
Counter Fighting | Dynamic Punch Fighting |
Entei
|
Fire Fang Fire | Flamethrower Fire or Overheat Fire |
Heatran
|
Fire Spin Fire | Flamethrower Fire |
Machamp
|
Counter Fighting | Dynamic Punch Fighting |
Lopunny (Mega)
|
Low Kick Fighting | Focus Blast Fighting |
| Great Counters | ||
Flareon
|
Fire Spin Fire | Flamethrower Fire or Overheat Fire |
Emboar
|
Ember Fire or Low Kick Fighting | Blast Burn* Fire |
Typhlosion
|
Incinerate Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Charizard
|
Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Infernape
|
Fire Spin Fire | Blast Burn* Fire |
Hariyama
|
Counter Fighting | Dynamic Punch Fighting |
Sirfetch'd
|
Counter Fighting | Close Combat Fighting |
Breloom
|
Counter Fighting | Dynamic Punch Fighting |
* marks a legacy move
Alolan Sandshrew has a glaring 4x weakness to Fire and Fighting type moves, so it’s strongly recommended to use Pokémon that take advantage of that fact. If you don’t have any of the Pokémon listed above powered up, you can always use:
- “Generalist” Pokémon such as Psycho Cut + Shadow Ball Mewtwo or Mega Gengar
- Other heavy-hitting or weather boosted Megas
- Powerful ground type Pokémon
- Ho-Oh, Magmortar, Arcanine, Heracross, Pyroar, Houndoom, Toxicroak or Victini (with full fire or fighting type movesets, if possible)
Always keep an eye out for event-boosted Megas. Whenever a specific Mega Pokémon (from the ones listed above) is featured during an event, it instantly becomes a S+ tier counter. The temporary boost is too good to pass up, as it instantly pushes that Pokémon to level 55 once mega evolved.
Stats and Max CP
|
Sandshrew (Alola)
IceSteel
|
|||||
| Max CP at Level 40 1293 | Max CP at Level 50 1462 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATK 125 | DEF 129 | STA 137 | |||
| Weak to | Strong Against | ||||
| Fire (x2) Fighting (x2) Ground | Dragon Grass Ground Ice Rock Fairy | ||||
Moveset
| Fast Moves | Charge Moves |
|---|---|
|
|
Alolan Sandshrew is a pretty good pick in some restricted metas. In fact, it was used by some players in the Kanto Cup last season. If you don’t want to power it up all the way to level 50 (+ best buddy it to get as close as possible to 1500 CP), you can use it in Little Cups.
Alolan Sandslash also has some play in restricted metas such as the Kanto Cup. Aside from that, it could be used as a spicy pick in the Ultra League as a Giratina counter but it just doesn’t perform as well in open metas.
We hope you found this raid guide useful!
