Urshifu Single-Strike Style - Moveset & Best Build for Ranked Battle | Pokemon Sword and Shield

This is a strategy guide for using Urshifu Single-Strike Style in competitive play for the games Pokemon Sword and Shield. Read on for tips on the best Nature, EV spreads, Movesets, and Held Items to use with Urshifu Single-Strike Style, as well as its strengths and weak points.

Urshifu Single-Strike Style - Related Guides
Evolution and Learnset	Build for Ranked Battle	Gigantamax Urshifu Single-Strike Style

Basic Information for Urshifu Single-Strike Style

Types and Abilities

Pokemon	Type 1	Type 2
Urshifu Single-Strike Style
Abilities
Unseen Fist	Allows the Pokemon to bypass moves like Protect when it uses attacks which make direct contact.

Urshifu Single-Strike Style Weaknesses and Resistances

	Type
Takes 4x damage
Takes 2x damage
Takes 0.5x damage
Takes 1/4x damage
Takes 0x damage

What is Type Effectiveness?

Base Stats

HP	Attack	Defense	Sp. Atk	Sp. Def	Speed
100	130	100	63	60	97

Best Nature for Urshifu Single-Strike Style

Best Natures
Jolly (+Spd, -SpAtk)	Adamant (+Atk, -SpAtk)

What are Natures?

Singles Movesets for Urshifu Single-Strike Style

Focus Sash + Counter Moveset & Best Build

Nature	Jolly (+Spd, -Sp.Atk)
EV Spread	HP 4 / Atk 252 / Spd 252
Final Stat Values	HP 175 / Atk 182 / Def 120 / Sp.Def 80 / Spd 163
Ability	Unseen Fist
Held Item	Focus Sash
Moveset	・Wicked Blow ・Close Combat ・Counter ・Thunder Punch

This set gives Urshifu a Focus Sash to be used in conjunction with Counter. When up against a physical sweeper, Urshifu will be able to take a potentially life-threatening hit while dishing out its own counterattack for massive damage. When used correctly, this set can take out the opponent's physical ace.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Moves

Wicked Blow and Close Combat are Ushifu's main attacking moves and should be his move of choice against everything he outspeeds.

When up against other physical attackers that may outspeed you, this is where this build shines. Counter, in coordination with survivability from Focus Sash, will let you take a hit and dish back double the damage to the opponent. This almost always will guarantee a KO even on Dynamaxed opponents.

Thunder Punch is here to help you deal with Water/Fairy types such as Primarina or Tapu Fini.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's EV Spread

This set utilizes a standard physically offensive spread with maximum investment in attack and speed. The remaining EVs can be added to HP.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Ability

Unseen Fist allows Urshifu to make sure that contact moves will always hit, even when the opponent uses Protect.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Held Item

Focus Sash allows Urshifu to survive a killing blow at 1 HP, provided that it was at full HP.

Other Viable Moves

Sucker Punch	A priority move with STAB. Can take down a Dragapult with no EVs in HP in one hit.
Poison Jab Iron Head	Alternate coverage moves used for hitting Fairy-types.
Rock Tomb	For hitting fast opponents and reducing their Speed, or when you can read a switch-out.
Taunt	Used for handling defensive Pokemon and blocking their support moves.
Ice Punch	A coverage move used for hitting Dragon-types and Grass-types.

Choice Band Moveset & Best Build

Nature	Jolly (+Spd, -Sp.Atk)
EV Spread	HP 4 / Atk 252 / Spd 252
Final Stat Values	HP 175 / Atk 182 / Def 120 / Sp.Def 80 / Spd 163
Ability	Unseen Fist
Held Item	Choice Band
Moveset	・Wicked Blow ・Close Combat ・Thunder Punch ・U-Turn

This set takes advantage of the boost to the attack stat that Choice Band provides to let Urshifu hit like a truck against any opponent. Combined with the guaranteed critical hit from the STAB move Wicked Blow, this set is sure to deal significant amounts of damage.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Moves

Wicked Blow and Close Combat are Ushifu's main attacking moves which both benefit from STAB.

Thunder Punch is here to help you deal with Water/Fairy types such as Primarina or Tapu Fini.

U-Turn can be used to switch out of unfavorable matchups, while also dealing chip damage before it leaves the field.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's EV Spread

This set utilizes a standard physically offensive spread with maximum investment in attack and speed. The remaining EVs can be added to HP.

Jolly is preferred over Adamant as it lets Urshifu outspeed Landorus and Mimikyu.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Held Item

Choice Band gives a 50% boost to the user's attack stat, further strengthening it's physical prowess.

Other Viable Moves

Poison Jab Iron Head	Alternate coverage moves used for hitting Fairy-types.
Rock Slide	For Charizard, Volcarona, and others. Its potential for flinching is a nice bonus.
Facade	Can be useful against Will-O-Wisp users.
Ice Punch	A coverage move used for hitting Dragon-types and Grass-types.

Choice Scarf Moveset & Best Build

Nature	Jolly (+Spd, -Sp.Atk)
EV Spread	HP 4 / Atk 252 / Spd 252
Final Stat Values	HP 175 / Atk 182 / Def 120 / Sp.Def 80 / Spd 163
Ability	Unseen Fist
Held Item	Choice Scarf
Moveset	・Wicked Blow ・Close Combat ・Thunder Punch ・U-Turn

In exchange for a bit of power, this set allows Urshifu to outspeed other threats in the metagame. In particular, with a Choice Scarf, Urshifu can outspeed Cinderace and Nihilego.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Moves

Wicked Blow and Close Combat are Ushifu's main attacking moves which both benefit from STAB.

Thunder Punch is here to help you deal with Water/Fairy types such as Primarina or Tapu Fini.

U-Turn can be used to switch out of unfavorable matchups, while also dealing chip damage before it leaves the field.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's EV Spread

This set utilizes a standard physically offensive spread with maximum investment in attack and speed. The remaining EVs can be added to HP.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Held Item

Choice Scarf gives a 50% boost to the user's speed stat, allowing it to outspeed certain Pokemon it couldn't before.

Other Viable Moves

Poison Jab Iron Head	Alternate coverage moves used for hitting Fairy-types.
Rock Slide	For Charizard, Volcarona, and others. Its potential for flinching is a nice bonus.
Ice Punch	A coverage move used for hitting Dragon-types and Grass-types.

Doubles Movesets for Urshifu Single-Strike Style

Doubles Lead Attacker Moveset & Best Build

Nature	Jolly (+Spd, - Sp.Atk)
EV Spread	HP 4 / Atk 252 / Spd 252
Final Stat Values	HP 175 / Atk 182 / Def 120 / Sp.Def 80 / Spd 163
Ability	Unseen Fist
Held Item	Focus Sash Life Orb
Moveset	・Wicked Blow ・Sucker Punch ・Close Combat ・Detect

Urshifu is a powerful physical attacker that functions well as a lead attacker in Doubles thanks to its great dual STAB, powerful moves, and Unseen Fist Ability.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Moves

Wicked Blow is Urshifu's strongest STAB move, and thanks to its guaranteed critical hit, allows the Wushu Pokemon to take on defensive Pokemon with ease. This move also allows Urshifu to take on Intimidate users like Incineror and Landorus (Therian Forme) since Wicked Blow's critical hits bypass Attack drops from Intimidate.

Sucker Punch is a utility move with STAB that lets it hit faster opponents such as Dragapult and Calyrex (Shadow Rider) that would otherwise outspeed and threaten it. Close Combat is another strong STAB move that has great coverage, with the tradeoff that it lowers Urshifu's Defense and Sp. Defense by 1 stage.

Since this Urshifu functions as a lead attacker, we're giving it Detect for its last move as a way to scout opposing leads. It also shields it from multi-target moves from its partner like Earthquake or Surf, or simply let it recover passive HP when Grassy Terrrain is up.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's EV Spread

This set utilizes a standard physically offensive spread with maximum investment in Attack and Speed, with the remaining 4 EVs placed in HP to give it some bulk.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Ability

Unseen Fist is Urshifu's only Ability and allows it to bypass protection moves such as Protect and Detect, as well as the held item Protective Pads.

This Ability is especially useful in Doubles since protection moves are very widespread, and allows Urshifu to function as an anti-lead of sorts.

About Urshifu Single-Strike Style's Held Item

Urshifu has two options for held items. Focus Sash allows Urshifu to survive a killing blow at 1 HP, provided that it was at full HP.

Life Orb, on the other hand, boosts the power of its moves at the cost of some residual damage.

Other Viable Moves

U-Turn	A good utility move that can replace Detect, allowing Urshifu to quickly pivot to another Pokemon when it faces a check.
Ice Punch	Can replace Detect and allows Urshifu to deal super effective damage against Landorus.

How to Use Urshifu Single-Strike Style Effectively

Unseen Fist Makes it a Powerful Attacker

Urshifu's Single-Strike Style gets the exclusive move Wicked Blow, which has 80 Power and a guaranteed critical hit. This allows it to essentially serve as a 120-Power move which ignores defensive boosts, Light Screen and Reflect, and has no downside. Its combination of Fighting and Dark type is also advantageous for attacking, allowing it to deal neutral or super effective damage with STAB against a wide variety of opponents.

Attack and Speed are High

With a massive base Attack of 130 and a solid Speed of 97, Urshifu is posed to be a fast and hard-hitting sweeper. It even has the benefit of 1 Speed point over Mimikyu, allowing it to hit first with Iron Head.

Able to Gigantamax

Urshifu's Gigantamax form is also legal for use in Ranked Battle. Its G-Max One Blow has the special effect of hitting through Max Guard and other protecting moves, as well as dealing heavy damage.

How to Build a Team with Urshifu Single-Strike Style

Physical Attacker in an Offensive Team

Example Offensive Team

Physical Attacker	Special Attacker / Utility	Secondary Physical Attacker
Urshifu Single-Strike Style	Lapras	Mimikyu

This core relies on dealing a lot of damage while also protecting its sweepers. Lapras' access to G-Max Resonance can provide unparalleled utility for the team.

Access to Freeze-Dry also allows Lapras to take care of Fairy-type threats like Primarina or Tapu Fini. On the other hand, its Water-type moves can take care of Fire-types that Mimikyu may have trouble with.

The support Mimikyu will receive from Aurora Veil should help with its survivability and lets it fill the role of a secondary Physical Attacker for the team.

Urshifu Single-Strike can easily cover the Steel-type weaknesses of its teammates, while blowing away most other threats with its guaranteed Critical Hits.

How to Build an Offensive Team

Lead Attacker in a Doubles Team

Example Doubles Team

Lead Attacker	Lead Support
Urshifu Single-Strike Style	Zamazenta
Special Attacker	Redirection Support
Gengar	Indeedee (Female)

This team leads Urshifu and is focuses on getting as much damage as possible with its moves. Zamazenta functions as an unconventional lead support, boosting Urshifu's Attack and Defense with Coaching while also proviidng Wide Guard support on top of deterring Fairy-types with its STAB Behemoth Bash.

Gengar functions as a secondary attacker and is mostly used as backup for Urshifu in the event it encounters a Fairy-type. Indeedee, on the other hand, can swap places with Zamazenta if Urshifu needs redirection support.

How to Build a Doubles Team

Counters for Urshifu Single-Strike Style

Weakness

Use a Fairy-type

Fairy-type Pokemon have a resistance to both Fighting and Dark type, forcing Urshifu to use a non-STAB move. It also suffers from a 4x weakness to Fairy, making it easy to hit its weak spot and take it down. However, Urshifu does have substantial hitting power, so it's possible that it can overturn an opponent with mediocre defenses.

Best Pokemon to Use

Pokemon	Description
Tapu Fini	Ranking: ★★★★★ ・The Fairy-type is 4x effective against Urshifu. ・Durable enough to withstand Urshifu's attacks. Moveset & Best Build for Tapu Fini
Zapdos	Ranking: ★★★★★ ・Has favorable type matchups against Urshifu. ・Be wary of Scarfed Urshifu who may take Zapdos out first. Moveset & Best Build for Zapdos
Mimikyu	Ranking: ★★★★ ・Its Fairy-type moves are 4x effective against Urshifu. ・Can survive against Urshifu thanks to Disguise alongside resistances to Dark and Fighting. Moveset & Best Build for Mimikyu
Pheromosa	Ranking:★★★★ ・Has favorable type matchups against Urshifu. ・Be wary of Scarfed Urshifu's who may take Pheromosa out first. Moveset & Best Build for Pheromosa
Dragonite	Ranking: ★★★★ ・Dual Wingbeat can take care of Focus Sash variants of Urshifu. Moveset & Best Build for Dragonite

Bring Out a Physical Wall

Physically-defensive Pokemon can handle Urshifu's hits even when switching into an attack. If the type matchup is good, defensive Pokemon can resist its attacks and hit back with its weaknesses.

Best Pokemon to Use

Pokemon	Description
Drapion	Ranking: ★★★★★ ・Its Battle Armor Ability gives prevents Wicked Blow's critical hits. ・Resists all of Urshifu's STAB moves and can use it as setup fodder with Toxic Spikes or simply Knock Off its held item. Moveset & Best Build for Galarian Weezing
Galarian Weezing	Ranking: ★★★★★ ・Resists Urshifu's STAB moves. ・Its Fairy-type moves are 4x effective against Urshifu. Moveset & Best Build for Galarian Weezing
Clefable	Ranking: ★★★★ ・Resists Urshifu's STAB moves. ・Its Fairy-type moves are 4x effective against Urshifu. Moveset & Best Build for Clefable

Related Links

All Competitive Builds for Ranked Battle

Competitive Guides for Pokemon Sword and Shield

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Tier List		Best Builds		Series 10 List of Contenders
Doubles Tier List		Team Building		Rental Teams

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