Call me someone who judges books by their covers, but Sierra doesn’t really look like a Team Rocket Admin to me. She looks more like… a Team Galactic Admin. Team Plasma, maybe, with her little lightning bolt motif. But I guess when you’re a powerful trainer you can wear whatever you want and nobody can tell you different. Here’s how to beat Sierra in Pokémon GO for November 2021.

Like Arlo and Cliff, Sierra has a designated partner Pokémon that she’ll always throw out first, followed by two rounds of one of three random Pokémon. Sierra’s team lineup for Pokémon GO is as follows:

• Phase 1: Shadow Nidoran (F)
• Phase 2: Shadow Beedrill, Shadow Vileplume, or Shadow Slowbro
• Phase 3: Shadow Houndoom, Shadow Marowak, or Shadow Nidoqueen

How to Beat Sierra in Pokémon GO (December 2024)

Starting with Nidoran, any decent Ground or Psychic type will make short work of it. Shadow status aside, it’s not a very strong Pokémon, so even without type superiority, it’s more just a hurdle to get over than anything. It does know Bite, though, so you might want to play it safe and use a Ground type like Garchomp or Rhyperior.

For phase 2, we’ve got Beedrill, a Bug/Poison type, Vileplume, a Grass/Poison type, and Slowbro, a Water/Psychic type. Taking the cross-section of type weaknesses into account here, your best bet would probably be a strong Flying type in order to get superiority over Beedrill and Vileplume. A Dark/Flying type like Yveltal would be an excellent choice here, as it’ll provide cover on those two Pokémon as well as Dark moves for Slowbro. Speaking of Slowbro, it’s got a lot of health and high defense, so good DPS is a necessity here to keep the fight from dragging too long.

For phase 3, we’ve got Houndoom, a Dark/Fire type, Marowak, a pure Ground type, and Nidoqueen, a Poison/Ground type. Luckily, we’ve got a perfect counter to all three of these: Water types. Water types have type superiority over all three of these Pokémon, so you can keep a Water type in reserve just for this phase. As for who, Kyogre is naturally the strongest, but any sufficiently strong Pokémon with Water moves will work fine. Gyrados is a much more realistic pick, for instance, though be mindful of Houndoom’s Rock attacks.

For more related guides, learn how to beat Arlo, Cliff, Sierra, and Giovanni. You can also check out our Pokemon GO Rocket Grunts guide to learn a thing or two.