Howdy folks! Ponyta and Galarian Ponyta Community Day gave Trainers a chance to  evolve a Rapidash with Wild Charge, a strong Electric-type move that should help Rapidash rank higher in both Great and Ultra League. So… let’s get right into it with the Rapidashes, starting with our customary Bottom Line Up Front!

B.L.U.F.

• Cutting RIGHT to the chase, Wild Charge seems like an overall upgrade for Kanto Rapidash, particularly in Ultra League, of all things, where it’s arguably a better Typhlosion now.

• Wild Charge is an acceptable sidegrade for Galarian Rapidash in Great League, and a slight upgrade in Ultra League, but it remains a niche play best suited for Limited formats… like Psychic Cup coming up in a few days!

• There’s enough good here that I recommend getting a Wild Charge of both varieties of Rapidash in Great League, and pump any XLs you get into a Kanto Dasher for Ultra League. G-Dash is a much lower priority there.

Alright, now onto the details!

RAPIDASH & GALARIAN RAPIDASH – Stats and Moves

• Rapidash

  Fire

• Rapidash (Galarian)

  PsychicFairy

Great League Stats

Attack

Defense

HP

135 (133 High Stat Product)

111 (112 High Stat Product)

111 (114 High Stat Product)

(Highest Stat Product IVs: 0-13-15, 1499 CP, Level 23)

Ultra League Stats

Attack

Defense

HP

174 (171 High Stat Product)

142 (146 High Stat Product)

146 (146 High Stat Product)

(Highest Stat Product IVs: 0-15-14, 2495 CP, Level 47)

Master League Stats

…no.

Typings first, briefly. Kanto Rapidash, as a pure Fire type, has its obvious weaknesses to Water, Ground, and Rock, and resists Grass, Bug, Ice, Steel, Fairy, and other Fire. Easy! Galarian Rapidash’s Fairy typing eliminates the usual Psychic weaknesses to Dark and Bug, leaving it with a single-level vulnerability to Ghost, Poison, and Steel. It resists Psychic damage, and double resists both Dragon and Fighting.

As you may expect from something that screams “speed”, the Rapidashes (who share the same stats aside from, obviously, different typings) are unfortunately rather on the flimsy side. Even among Fire types, which are by and large pretty glassy with only a handful of exceptions, Rapidash is on the lower end of bulk, trailing things like Typhlosion, Charizard, Lampent, Arcanine, Delphox, Darumaka, and Heatmor, among many others. Among Fairies, Galarian Rapidash’s standing is even worse, beign roughly equivalent to known glassy ‘mon Granbull, and ahead of only Gardevoir and Ribombee among fully evolved Fairies. Even Clefairy — not Clefable. but Clefairy — has more bulk in Great League, and it barely crosses 1300 CP! So none of that is great.

However, that doesn’t mean they’re useless. Not by ANY means, in fact. Thanks to some good movesets, bolstered by the new Community Day move, they both have enough potential impact on the PvP landscape to be well worth analyzing beyond just bad PvP stats. Let’s get into it!

ᴸ – Legacy Move

KANTO: Fast Moves

• Incinerate – Fire type, 4.0 DPT, 4.0 EPT, 2.5 CoolDown

• Fire Spin – Fire type, 3.66 DPT, 3.33 EPT, 1.5 CD

• Emberᴸ – Fire type, 3.5 DPT, 3.0 EPT, 1.0 CD

• Low Kick – Fighting type, 2.0 DPT, 2.5 EPT, 1.0 CD

Rapidash’s fortunes changed for the better when it recieved Incinerate. While it still was far from a core meta pick (with several more prominent and flexible Incinerate users ahead of it like Skeledirge, Talonflame, Typhlosion, Turtonator, Salazzle, even Magcargo), Rapidash at least became spicy with new wins like Clefable, Charjabug, and Skeledirge in Great League, and Cobalion and Drapion in Ultra. As with other things that have the choice, there’s really no reason to use other Fire fast moves (even the buffed-this-season Fire Spin), and we don’t talk about the PvP travesty that is Low Kick. It’s Incinerate or bust!

With that in mind, a quick reminder that each Incinerate generates excatly 20 energy. That will be important later.

ᴱ – Exclusive/Community Day Move

KANTO: Charge Moves

• Drill Run – Ground type, 80 damage, 45 energy

• Wild Chargeᴱ – Electric type, 100 damage, 45 energy, Reduces User Defense -2 Stages

• Flame Charge – Fire type, 65 damage, 50 energy, Raises User Attack +1 Stage

• Scorching Sands – Ground type, 80 damage, 50 energy, 30% Chance to Reduce Opponent Attack -1 Stage

• Heat Wave – Fire type, 95 damage, 75 energy

• Fire Blast – Fire type, 140 damage, 80 energy

So to this point, Rapidash has worked with primarily Fire damage, with Flame Charge beefing up Incinerate just as it worked for Talonflame (and Magcargo) for so long. For coverage, it had first Drill Run, and now the arguably better Scorching Sands. Why do I say it’s better despite costing 5 more energy? Because remember that Incinerate generates energy in chunks of 20, so 5 energy makes little difference in the order of how Rapidash does things. It’s 3 Incinerates to the first charge move regardless, and then at least two more to the next charge move after that, and it makes no difference whether that move costs 45 or 50 energy.

So of course, the new move is… 45 energy.  Wild Charge actually comes no faster than anything else, and really doesn’t speed Rapidash up in any meaningful way. Even firing off two back-to-back, requiring 90 energy, requires the same number of Incinerates as firing off two 50-energy moves back to back. Yes, with two 45s you’ll then be left with 10 leftover energy to get a jump start on charge move #3, but seriously, how often will Rapidash BE in a situation where that third charge move makes all the difference? Not that many, I reckon.

But even if you DO plan for your team to put Rapidash in that position often, you could go with 45-energy Drill Run. So it kind of comes down to coverage. The Ground moves double up with Fire versus Steel types (both are super effective), deals neutral to Water and Dragon types that resist Fire, and super effective to Rock and Fire types that resist Fire. Meanwhile, Rapidash’s Fire damage deals super effective damage to Bug and Grass types that resist Ground. In other words, Fire + Ground have really good coverage.

Wild Charge, by contrast, is resisted by Dragons just as Fire is, which is a problem. Beyond that, however, Fire and Electric combine for neutral coverage versus just about everything else, with Fire dealing at least neutral damage to everything that resists Electric (and super effective versus Grasses), and Electric’s big obvious advantage being that it hits Water, arguably Fire’s toughest foe, super effectively.

So which one to go with? Well….

GREAT LEAGUE

…at least in Great League, why not both? It’s all gains, with new wins versus Dewgong, Mandibuzz, and Talonflame in 1v1 shielding, and Dewgong, Talonflame, Sableye, Clefable, and Azumarill with shields down, with no notable new losses. In a way, it’s what Arcanine has always wanted to be: a Fire-type Swiss Army knife. In fairness, however, this is more due to Incinerate than anything… Arcanine with Incinerate would actually be quite a monster… but I digress. In the here and now, while Arcanine CAN sneak away with wins over things like Azumarill and Toxapex, Rapidash with Incinerate and Ground and now Electric damage is just better with its own special wins like Charjabug, Mandibuzz, Ferrothorn, Serperior, Dewgong, and Cresselia.

All that said, a mere 40% winrate is not very eye-catching. So yes, you CAN shed the Ground damage and go for broke with double Charges, Flame and now Wild, and push that winrate even higher with new wins over Malamar and Azumarill (another blow to Arcanine’s uniqueness). That’s about a 45% winrate now, which is obviously better but still probably more spice than corebreaker. Still, that winlist features some really big names in the Season 20 new meta. I do think Wild Charge will push Rapidash quite far up the ranks in some Limited metas if not Open, and I would encourage trying to snag a good one this Community Day.

But hold on… we’re not done!

ULTRA LEAGUE

I will start this by saying that Rapidash only works in Ultra League with some XL Candy investment. “Average” IVs still range somewhere in Level 45-47 territory to get close to 2500 CP. But if you can grind for that kind of investment on Community Day, I WOULD dare say it seems like a worthy investment, even moreso than the mighty (and scary!) Typhlosion. While the pure spam of Typh’s Thunder Punch equates to wins over Shadow Feraligatr and Golisopod that Rapidash can’t quite replicate, Dasher instead takes down Skeledirge, Talonflame, Shadow Drapion, Tapu Fini, Poliwrath, and Tentacruel, none of which Typhlosion can finish off without succumbing to its own wounds. And Arcanine can’t keep up at all, nor other spicy Electric/Fire combos like Manectric. If you want a fiery boi that can throw Electric surprises out too, I think there is now no better candidate than Rapidash. Or go for broke with the Fire/Electric/Ground combo for a slightly lower ceiling but also slightly more versatility to keep the opponent guessing. Either way, the thrifty lover in me feels compelled to close out Kanto Rapidash analysis by noting that you CAN go with decently high Attack and save yourself a couple levels (and a lot of XL Candy) of investment, and still get the same performance.

GALAR: Fast Moves

• Fairy Wind – Fairy type, 2.0 DPT, 4.5 EPT, 1.0 CoolDown

• Psycho Cut – Psychic type, 1.5 DPT, 4.5 EPT, 1.0 CD

• Low Kick – Fighting type, 2.0 DPT, 2.5 EPT, 1.0 CD

Quite the opposite of Kanto Dasher already, as there are no high damage fast moves here at all. The newly improved Fairy Wind is the best of the bunch, tied for highest damage (and with STAB, it’s actually the best of the three) and highest energy gains. Maybe some odd Limited meta will come along where the Psychic-type damage of Psycho Cut will push ahead, but generally I think you can set it and forget it with Fairy Wind now. Many had probably already done that for Psychic Cups of the past anyway.

ᴱ – Exclusive/Community Day Move

GALAR: Charge Moves

• Body Slam – Normal type, 50 damage, 35 energy

• Wild Chargeᴱ – Electric type, 100 damage, 45 energy, Reduces User Defense -2 Stages

• Psychic – Psychic type, 75 damage, 55 energy, 10% Chance to Reduce Opponent Defense -1 Stage

• Megahorn – Bug type, 110 damage, 55 energy

• Play Rough – Fairy type, 90 damage, 60 energy

• High Horsepower – Ground type, 100 damage, 60 energy

While Body Slam was nerfed by 10 whole damage this season, it’s still a good move overall (a clone of things like Dragon Claw and Double Iron Bash), just not great. It’s still a move that I think G-Dash wants, sometimes setting up one of the varied closing moves, or sometimes just spamming to victory on its own. But yeah… G-Dash is as good as it is mainly because of its array of closing moves. We’ve got STAB Play Rough as a nice catch-all, [High Horsepower(https://pvpoke.com/battle/multi/1500/all/rapidash_galarian/11/0-1-2/2-1) for a Hail Mary versus troublesome Steel and Poison types, or Megahorn for general beatings (and things weak to Bug like Cresselia, Abomasnow, and Serperior). Conveniently, Megahorn is also the cheapest move Galarian Rapidash has had aside from Body Slam (yes, I am willfully ignoring the now pretty awful Psychic [the move]), and the cost of each means you can generate the perfect amount of energy for a Body Slam and a Megahorn (35 + 55 = 90) with exactly ten Fairy Winds. Play Rough and High Horsepower require an additional charge move’s worth of energy, so that may also explain Megahorn’s better results.

GREAT LEAGUE

But now we have Wild Charge in the mix, which is 10 energy cheaper than even Megahorn. Does that make it the new frontrunner? Well, let me give you a very enthusiastic “meh, maybe”. Unlike KantoDash, the Electric damage of Wild Charge doesn’t really provide any needed coverage… it doesn’t deal super effective damage to anything that outright resists both Fairy and Normal damage. Though it’s worth noting that it at least deals big neutral damage to Steels that resist Fairy, Normal, and Bug, though High Horsepower and its super effective damage would be superior in metas where Steels would be plentiful. And that’s probably the best thing going for it here, other than the cheaper cost: it provides very good, wide neutral coverage. But it’s really no better than a sidegrade, picking up things strictly weak to Electric (Mandibuzz, Talonflame, Feraligatr, Azumarill, Dewgong) while Megahorn… well, does the same, taking out Bug-weak Serperior, Abomasnow, Cresselia, and Chesnaught (technically neutral damage, since Fighting resists Bug but Grass is weak to it) instead.

More specifically to Psychic Cup coming up next week, I do think Megahorn will still reign supreme, since Bug deals super effective to Psychic types, meaning it will NEVER deal less than neutral damage (even against Steels like Bronzor and Fires like Victini) and deals DOUBLE super effective to scary Malamar, able to OHKO it even from full health. Wild Charge is also resisted by Claydol (which should be huge this season in Psychic Cup), Alolan Raichu, and the few Grass and Dragon types that sneak into the meta. But it should be a viable alternative, and people who just got Wild Charge on Community Day will surely be looking to deploy them. Wild Charge DOES have the advantage in the mirror match, so there is that.

ULTRA LEAGUE

At Ultra League level, Body Slam becomes less important as chip damage it provides is less effective due to everything having much higher HP than in Great League, and G-Dash itself lasting longer, allowing it to race to more expensive (and more effective) moves. Galarian Rapidash therefore works a bit better with double closers, though “better” is still relative. Yeah… this isn’t a great League for G-Dash to make a splash… not like its fiery cousin can. The good news is that Wild Charge DOES represent a potential upgrade, albeit a small one, gaining Greninja, Golisopod, and Shadow Feraligatr while dropping only Virizion in the process. (It basically always struggles to beat Viz without Play Rough, so nothing unusual there.) The bad news is… well, still a sub-40% winrate. There are nine Fairies ranked ahead of it, including one that doesn’t even reach 2300 CP (Whimsicott) and Enamorus which basically nobody would ever use in Ultra League. I don’t see G-Dash breaking out here even with Wild Charge, but I guess stranger things have happened? Someone will try, and more power to them. Just not something this writer will be recommending.

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