How to unlock Sandy Shocks
Getting Sandy Shocks means pulling the Paldea banner and hitting its 4★ slot. The 4★ band takes 6.5% of all pulls and holds 211 partners, so one specific Sandy Shocks works out to about 0.0308% per draw. The 70-pull pity counter only applies to 5★ results, so Sandy Shocks has no floor of its own and no targeted pull. A duplicate Sandy Shocks refunds 120 coins at the 4★ rate.
Sandy Shocks stats and rank
Sandy Shocks carries 108 HP, 120 speed, a ×1.37 attack multiplier, ×1.15 physical, ×1.37 special, 97 defense and 85 special defense, 570 in total. On the three-stat percentile this is 81.6 out of 100, which puts Sandy Shocks at rank 61 of 966 and in tier S. What separates it from its neighbours is shape, not size: its strongest slot is special multiplier (93rd percentile) and its weakest is physical multiplier (59th percentile), so it is a specialist rather than an all-rounder.
Best moves in Sandy Shocks's pool
At move level 5 the pool is led by Body Slam at 75.6 damage per 0.71s (122.0 effective DPS, ×1.15 multiplier), then Tackle at 33.6 damage per 0.38s (103.0 effective DPS, ×1.15 multiplier), then Hyper Beam at 126.2 damage per 1.76s (98.2 effective DPS, ×1.37 multiplier). 10 of its 18 damaging moves scale with the physical multiplier and 8 with the special one, alongside 4 support moves. Its special multiplier is the higher of the two (×1.37 against ×1.15), so special moves convert better. The top option beats the second by 19.0 DPS, which decides slot one and leaves slot two as a judgement call.
Evolution cards for Sandy Shocks
Its starting move, Thunder Shock, evolves into Thunder once the move is at level 5 and you hold the Power card, which boosts attack for that run. The permanent menu cannot substitute: only a Power card picked during the run unlocks the evolution. 18 of its 22 moves carry an evolution card, across 5 distinct cards (Vigor, Sprint, Power, Reflexes and Armor). The strongest of them is Body Slam at 122.0 effective DPS, so that is the one worth holding a card for first.
Sandy Shocks compared to similar partners
The two closest stat lines in the roster are Walking Wake (+7 HP, +4 speed, +0.02 attack, +20 total) and Zapdos (+2 HP, +0 speed, +0.02 attack, +10 total). Against Walking Wake, Walking Wake is 4 speed faster and Walking Wake hits harder by ×0.02, and the rank gap is 42 places. Every one of those numbers cuts both ways, so the decision is about which stat the run needs, so neither side is a strict upgrade and the move pools have to break the tie.