Best Trainees for the Scorpio Cup in Umamusume Pretty Derby

The holiday season is coming to a close, and 2025 is wrapping up, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to rest on one’s laurels when it comes to training Umamusume to run in Champions Meetings, as Scorpio Cup remains on the horizon as the first event of 2026 to contend with. The Libra Cup ended about a week ago, and if you followed our guide from last week, you’ve likely started to consider your trainees for Scorpio Cup and begun to think about what you’d like to focus on for the race; or perhaps you are looking to finally get yourself into the field of competitive PVP in Umamusume, in which case Scorpio Cup offers an interesting mixture of opportunity and challenge due to the wide field of trainees available at this point in the game, and the current shift in meta from more available Support Cards and skill changes.

If you’re new to Umamusume: Pretty Derby, then we have a slew of guides that can really help you get started properly, whether that be in Career Mode, understanding Support Decks, Inheritances, or how PVP works, which should help you get a better idea of how the game actually works and what exactly the game is actually about. Also, you should absolutely check out our overview for the Scorpio Cup for the longer description of the race and finer details of it, as we will only gently cover some of the basics of it again here. Before that, let’s talk a little bit about the direction of the game in the next month or so.

Make a New Track on the Horizon

At the rate the Global release has been moving at, we can likely expect the Make a New Track scenario to be approaching sometime in early Spring. Make a New Track is a somewhat notorious scenario for the focus it places on races, not training, and how many races are often required by trainees to be successful in it; this is one of the reasons that Oguri Cap, whose base scenario goals require many races, performs so well in MANT era, especially in her Christmas variant. MANT was particularly unpopular for the fact that it felt punishing and too race focused, which is also why Kitasan Black finds herself slightly less useful than in previous scenarios due to the fact that cards with higher Race Bonuses become far more valuable. That doesn’t mean that the Kitasan Black you may have just rolled all of your Carats into is worthless, instead, it just means that MANT will be a fairly odd shake up to the meta that we will eventually need to consider. For the most part, if you pulled or built up a Kitasan Black during her current banner, you’re well paced to have a very solid Support Deck moving forward.

As far as building trainees goes, it is important to remember that any trainees you want to run for Champions Meetings should be trained in the most recent scenario, which at this point is Unity Cup. When MANT arrives, then that will be the next place to train PVP aces, as each scenario raises stat caps and training ability through their mechanics. If you have the time to experiment, run a trainee through URA Finale and then Unity Cup, and you’ll notice that the Unity Cup trainee will just generally come out with higher stats, even if your run wasn’t spectacular. If you haven’t been mastering Unity Cup, it is worth it to reread out Unity Cup guide for a few tips, but the biggest thing to remember about Unity Cup is that utilizing Riko’s Support Card will often net you a very solid amount of Stamina and Guts that can help take some of the pressure off of your overall training goals.

The Scorpio Cup Refresher

The Scorpio Cup is a Medium distance race (2000m) in Tokyo run from the Left in Fall with Rainy Weather and Soft Conditions. As we’ve established in previous articles, these details are important to note for Green skills, but also for the type of race you can expect, and as mentioned. The Scorpio Cup is the very first soft, rainy Champions Meeting, meaning that it already has a few odd things going for it, but something else that might stand out is that while it is Medium, it is actually a shorter race than others. The poor conditions will also impose a fairly annoying Power penalty on racers, and the fact that it is far shorter than other Medium races means that certain abilities, like Straightaway Spurt on End Closers, will be far less useful than other races.

The general statline that you’ll want to shoot for on your Ace (and ideally all of your trainees if you want them to be competitive) is 1200 Speed, 800~900 Stamina, 900+ Power (and more if possible), 400~500 Guts, and 500+ Wit (higher is always better). Medium races often have a slightly odd statline in that they quite often want a lot of everything, but not quite as Stamina hungry as Long races; that being said, you’ll still want to ensure that you have a lot of Stamina and at least one or two gold recovery skills in your kit to help deal with debuffers and the length of the race itself, as well as uphill segments that eat away at your stamina. You may also notice if you’ve been in previous meetings that the wit requirement is quite higher compared to previous events, and that has to do with the fact that skill reworks means skills are more reliable, but also that many skills that weren’t activating now do, meaning that only relying on previously “meta” skills like Swinging Maestro or Professor of Curvature (which almost always activated if you met the Wit threshold) are now not going to work if you have competitors with far more skills and Wit to ensure they activate.

Kitasan Black

HARIKITTE IKOU!!

Wit, thankfully, can be easy to train during downtime turns instead of Resting, and many Wit cards possess useful skills for various Styles you are training, while others tend to carry generally helpful Green skills to learn. Having at least one Wit card in your deck is going to go a long way to getting you to the higher total, but also remember that taking Rest turns on your careers is one of the worst things you can do for your overall chances of getting good results. Maximizing your energy by training Wit effectively can also make that number easier, as well as focusing on Speed, which Wit also helps to train (even if it is small).

Support Deck Basics

Ensure you get recreation with Riko and she essentially is an energy recovering Stamina card.

Regardless of who you are planning on training, your Support Deck for the Unity Cup will remain somewhat static for Scorpio Cup trainees that aren’t Debuffers: R or SSR Riko, A Wit Card, and then 2 or 3 Speed cards (Depending on what you have available and at what levels you have them limit broken), and then either Power or Stamina to help you hit the target stats you need. If you feel like your trainee will have an easier time training one over the other, selecting cards for the stat you feel you may lack can help, and it is generally going to be a decision between Super Creek or Rice Shower to give you access to Swinging Maestro. While some other cards have certainly emerged, this particular skill still remains the best and most reliable recovery skill in the game. If you need Stamina, take Super Creek, preferably one at LB3, and if you need Power, take Rice Shower.

It is also somewhat important to consider what Sparks you are going to have access to, and the innate growth of your trainee, for using your Support Deck to, well, support you. Because Support Cards help you develop trainings and access things like rainbow trainings through friend trainings, they’ll also determine what stats you focus on while going through your career, which are going to almost always be Speed and a secondary stat, with Wit filling in the off days. But proper inheritances can make a big difference on lifting your general burden; for example, 2 high level Stamina inheritances can impart 100+ Stamina twice in your career from Inspiration events just from the parents.

So, knowing that you will have 200+ Stamina coming to you through the career, can also help determine if you’ll need to focus on Stamina training too, or if you can basically ignore Stamina to nail down Power. There are other options that will depend on what Veterans you have and what Guests you can use for parents, but generally the best possible results you’re going to achieve are going to come from 9 Star Parents (essentially, 3 Star parents with 2 3 Star Grandparents); if you have to split stats, just remember that you may want to try filling the gaps of those two stats during Summer training events, and also remember that Speed is generally the easiest stat to raise and train, especially with cards like Kitasan Black.

Trainee Options for Any Player

Perhaps you’ve noticed that during your time playing Umamusume that trainees don’t inherently win the game on their existence alone; even though trainees like Seiun Sky can change the meta of the game, you can always gain access to her unique skill by having her as a parent; in this sense, almost any trainee can work in almost any case, as long as their Style, Turf, and Distance grades are A rank. From there, almost anyone can work with the right combination of skills and stats, and that means that Free to Play players can absolutely compete with Whales, even though it may be more difficult and likely rely on higher rolling luck in training events.

So, with that said, here’s a list of trainees that can work; these aren’t necessarily the best or only trainees you can use, just some good suggestions; again, you can likely get anyone to work here if they are Turf and Medium A.

Starters Only: Daiwa Scarlet (Front), Gold Ship (End)

Some Pulls: Agnes Tachyon, Super Creek, Mayano Top Gun, Nice Nature (Debuffer), Mejiro Ryan

3 Stars: Silence Suzuka (Runaway Blocker), Seiun Sky, Summer OR Regular Maruzensky, Taiki Shuttle (Pace), Meisho Doto, Oguri Cap, Mejiro McQueen, Manhattan Cafe, Narita Taishin, Autumn Gold City

As you can see, the amount of 3 Star trainees that you may have acquired from various pulls that can work in this situation is very large. To take a moment to talk about in real life horse racing, this is mostly due to the fact that many of the most famous racers in Japanese horse racing are medium distance runners, and that’s why the amount of Medium A trainees continues to grow larger and larger with every update. For example, Tosen Jordan’s banner was just released last week, and while she’s not particularly considered amazing, she can absolutely work here with proper training and skills. Depending on how dates and timing overlap, though, I will mention that keeping an eye out for Christmas Oguri Cap could be worth your consideration if you want to try and pull a new trainee just for the Scorpio Cup, but also that at this point Umamusume can very easily fall into “train who you like” and find the skills and stats to support them.

Positional Advantages

Front Runners can succeed in this race with enough Stamina, but the biggest thing to be aware of is the existence of Runaway Silence Suzuka, who exists as something of a debuffer and a serious competitor, depending on how she is being trained and how competent her trainer happens to be. Runaway Silence Suzuka utilizes the Runaway skill to surge forward and stay forward for the majority of the race, which can make it very difficult for the Seiun Sky Angling x Scheming strategy to work the way it has in the past. If you do plan on running Front Runners like Seiun Sky or Summer Maruzensky, you may want to also include or inherit Mejiro McQueen’s Duty of Dignity Calls in their kit, which can help in the event that they are not leading on the final corner for Angling x Scheming to activate. Keep in mind that Front Runners need more Stamina, and Runaway trainees need even more Stamina, especially if there are more of them, so try to ensure you have at least 800 and a Gold recovery skill if not more Stamina and Guts to compensate.

Pace Chasers have a strong competitive ability in this race, but the presence of Runaways can complicate matters as they can get stuck in a weird mid-spot between the Front Runners and Runaway trainee that can stymie their ability to get past the Front Runners in the last moments of the race. If built correctly, Pace Chasers can absolutely take a win here, and trainees like Meisho Doto or Mejiro McQueen work fantastically in Scorpio Cup, as does Taiki Shuttle if you can ensure she is Medium A; her kit excels at helping her overtake Front Runners in a way that Scorpio Cup feeds into, but just remember that many of her innate skills are focused on Mile races, and you’ll need to give her good access to other skills.

Late Surgers and End Closers Are a bit more present in this race than one might expect, although that has always been the case in most of the Champions Meetings so far. If you’re a regular competitor, you can absolutely expect to see Narita Taishin and Gold Ship in End Closer position once again. To sum up, Narita Taishin’s innate recovery skill Sleeping Lion and her acceleration skill Encroaching Shadow team up with her ability Nemesis to essentially give her a fully built-in kit to dominate this type of race. Gold Ship is similar, with her innate skills at Potential 5 giving her almost all of the tools to succeed. Late Surgers are a little more varied, with trainees like Mejiro Ryan, Symboli Rudolf, Manhattan Cafe and more working very well here.

Debuffers can run in numerous positions, but primarily you’ll find them in Pace or Late positions. If you’re looking to build a Debuffer, just remember that your other two trainees are who you are going to be focusing on to win, as Debuffers are rarely competitive, instead utilizing their skills to make other trainees suffer while then burning out at the end of the race. Nice Nature remains the best and most widely available Debuffer, but other good options include Halloween Super Creek, Wedding Mayano Top Gun, and Grass Wonder.

The End of Year 1 (Kinda) of Umamusume!

It is hard to consider that a game many thought would never come out in the wider global market is now closing out over 6+ months of live service, and moving from 2025 to 2026, but here we are with the first set of guides for the first event of 2026. There is a huge amount of content and changes to the game coming down the line, and even though MANT is somewhat infamous, new Scenarios will be even more on the horizon beyond it. It remains an exciting time to be an Umamusume fan, so if you have any questions, please leave us comments down below, drop by the Goonhammer Discord if you’re a Patron, or even email me at marcy@goonhammer.com! Until then, see you out on the track!

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Tags: umamusume | Uma Musume Pretty Derby