Leafeon - 7 Star Pikachu Raid - Solo - Pokemon Scarlet/Violet

Leafeon @ Covert Cloak
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 196 HP / 176 Atk / 138 SpD
Impish Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Swords Dance
- Knock Off
- Synthesis
Vitamins: 19 HP Up (or Health Mochi), 17 Protein (or Muscle Mochi), 13 Zinc (or Clever Mochi)
Feathers: 6 Health Feathers, 6 Muscle Feathers, 8 Clever Feathers
* The last 2 EVs of the 510 total do not affect stats but are included so that the EV diagram in game shows the EVs as maxed
Stats at lvl 100 w/ perfect IVs:
HP : 320
Attack : 300
Defense : 325
Sp.Def.: 200
Speed : 226
NPC Advantages: no requirements. arboliva (seed sower), gardevoir (life dew), arcanine (flamethrower burn), sylveon (moonblast), toxapex (chilling water), and other intimidators (tauros, staraptor) help. bellibolt is harmful because it can activate lightning rod with discharge, which will raise pikachu's spatk one stage.
Strategy: knock off, 2x leaf blade, terastalize, 3x swords dance, synthesis if HP gets low, leaf blade to victory.
Notes: synthesis and covert cloak can be swapped with sunny day and shell bell if using leaf guard as the ability. pikachu seems to not want to use iron tail, perhaps due to leafeon's high defense, and leafeon can't be paralyzed in the sun, so the covert cloak is less necessary on leafeon than on most other grass types.
Pros: supereffective tera type matching base type, decent HP stat, excellent atk and def stats, outspeeds pikachu, resists thunder and surf, knock off removes pikachu's light ball, halving its atk and spatk. synthesis heals half of HP bar (1/4 in rain), swords dance buffs 2 atk stages. leaf blade has 90 base power, 100 accuracy, deals supereffective STAB (tera-boosted when terastalized) damage. it also has an elevated critical hit ratio. cloak prevents paralysis from thunder (normally 21% chance, 30% in rain) and def drops from iron tail (normally 15% chance).
Cons: mediocre spdef stat
Overall Rating: 9/10

[@jksplays_gvo]

I also soloed with Leafeon MAX HP & Attack with held Shell Bell plus Sunny Day, Leaf Blade, Knock Off & Swords Dance. Sunny Day was used twice for the Leaf Guard ability to prevent paralysis from Thunder, which Pikachu missed four times.

[@DaniSoloRaids]

were you using adamant nature? i was originally going to try sunny day and shell bell, but i wasn't sure if pikachu would ever try iron tail which was one reason I used the covert cloak. seems that it didn't. with the ability preventing paralysis in sun, i think you made the right call.

[@jksplays_gvo]

@@DaniSoloRaids Yes it was Adamant nature. RNG did help a bit with Pikachu missing Thunder four times, including the time I was going to use Sunny Day a second time.

[@tonyhibbert7348]

Very nice, I ran this build with sunny day to drop thunder’s accuracy to 50% (thereby mostly negating the need for a covert cloak) and instead of synthesis had a shell bell

[@DaniSoloRaids]

wow, I did not know about the 50% thing. I always thought that it just reduced it to 70%, and that it worked the same in sun as it did with no weather. i'll probably start using sunny day more.