The Cancer Cup is upon us, and if you’ve been training or preparing, then the time is almost nigh for the first Mile distance PVP race in Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s Champion’s Meet series. If you’re still working on the team you want to compete with or are scrambling for some last minute help, then our guide this week is going to focus on the best trainees available to run the race. Even if your team is pretty well set, this guide can help you by preparing you for what you can expect to see from other players out on the turf when the race begins on October 7th. It’s never too late to start preparing and refining your trainees, so never fear!
If you’re fairly new to Umamusume: Pretty Derby and the PVP scene, we have a few other guides we recommend you look at first, especially our introduction to the Cancer Cup, what Support Cards you may want to select or consider, as well as our general guides on Career Mode, Support Decks, Inheritances, and more! You may also want to take a look at our guide on training for Mile Distance, as there are some good fundamentals in that article that will provide you with solid guidance for the Cancer Cup.
Cancer Cup Refresher: The Basics
The Cancer Cup is a 1600m (Mile) Distance race run on Tokyo Turf from the Left during Summer in Sunny Weather and Good Conditions. While worrying about selecting skills or inheriting Greens based on these details, the most important thing to note when it comes to selecting trainees for this race is going to be their proficiency in Mile distance races. There are numerous easy choices that come with A rating in Miles innately, but as long as you can help a trainee through inheritances, there are many more options that you can look for, perhaps even with one of the widest pools of competitors in the Champions Meets so far. You’ll also want to make sure your racer has Turf A rating, and unlike the Gemini Cup, there’s no benefit in running someone like Haru Urara who is completely unable to compete, so if you wish to use someone like Smart Falcon, you’ll need to get her Turf rating up to really take full effect of her abilities.
There are a few other concerns that make certain trainees more or less viable, and that comes down to what position you plan on racing them in. The Cancer Cup has a very competitive Front Runner focused meta, in which every Front Runner is looking to utilize both Groundwork and Seiun Sky’s unique skill Angling and Scheming; because of this, while we’ll cover Front Runners more specifically in a moment, all you need to know is that if you are planning to run a Front Runner in this race, you’ll want to focus on having those two skills at least; if you wish to run any other position, you can relax on the requirements for this race and focus on other skills and strategies.
Most trainees are going to want to have maximum speed, 1200, 600+ Stamina, And As Much Power as possible (With 800 likely being too little; you want to get as close to 1200 as you can), 300 Guts, and 400 Wit. This stat line is more or less the same across all positions you may plan to run, but do remember that Pace Chasers tend to require a little more stamina than other positions; in this instance, that mostly just means that if you happen to get over the 600 threshold on a Pace Chaser, you’re probably fine. It is overall better to focus on hitting the Stamina goal than it is to take recovery skills, so keep in mind that the stat lines for this race are a little inflexible.
Running Ahead of the Pack: Front Runners
Front Runners are the most competitive group of trainees in this particular event, or at least, they’re the most focused on group of runners. This is mostly due to the introduction of Seiun Sky’s ability Angling and Scheming, which focuses on building a huge lead on the final corner of the race and blasting down the last straight with an insurmountable lead. Since this skill is only suited for Front Runners, the meta in the original Japanese running of the race focused on Seiun Sky and other trainees with her skill competing for first.
Probably the most important thing to note here is that you aren’t required to run a Front Runner if you don’t want to, and so if you’re afraid that you may not have a competitive Front Runner or lack Seiun Sky to either train or inherit the skill from, you don’t need to train one. If you do wish to, though, as mentioned above you’ll need to ensure that they have Groundwork, at least three Green skills, and Angling and Scheming as part of their main kit. From there, you’ll likely want to focus on skills like Front-Runner Straightaways or Mile Straightaways, and Professor of Curvature to help keep the lead on the final part of the race.
The primary and important part of training a Front Runner here is that they need to be in the lead and stay in the lead throughout the race. The Tokyo Racecourse also features a final uphill on the last straightaway, so a Front Runner with Highlander could also have a small edge in competition towards the last bits of the race. Many of the competitions in Front Runners is going to boil down to two main factors other than the above mentioned skills: Their Power, and their Stamina/Guts (Health) at the end of the race. Power governs how fast your trainee achieves full speed, and the less power they have, the more likely it is that they’ll lose when all other things are equal between competitors.
If you are looking to train a Front Runner, your best bets are Seiun Sky herself, as she can take the greatest benefit of her own skill. If you are looking to run other Front Runners instead of of her, Silence Suzuka and Maruzensky are good options, and you could also consider Sakura Bakushin O (if you make her capable of running Miles). This is different from what is known as “Blockushin”, a strategy in which Bakushin is used to debuff other Front Runners; if you just want someone to race, Bakushin is a fair, free option.
Chasing the Front: Pace Chasers
If you aren’t looking to compete in the Front Runner position in the race, Pace Chasers make up the main bulk of other “meta” competitors. Pace Chasers have an easier time in terms of what skills they can pursue because Groundwork is not required; Green Skills are always universally useful because of the fact that they give flat stat boosts, but the lack of needing Groundwork opens up the fact that your trainee won’t need to inherit the skill from a parent or pursue it off of cards that may not be very helpful otherwise, so deck building becomes slightly more freeing in that regard. This can also help relieve some of the stress of needing to worry about specific inheritances, like Angling and Scheming, and instead allow you to focus on a trainee that can attempt to steal the lead at the end of the race by overtaking the leaders on the final corner. And keeping the lead during the final straight.
The variety of talents for the Pace Chaser position are pretty prolific, and so while it may seem unhelpful, you can frankly train almost anyone you want in that position. However, certain trainees have some edge over others based on their unique skills; El Condor Pasa in particular shines in this role, as her Victoria La Pancha is an exceptionally strong Pace Chaser skill in the late part of the race that can help her take over and win with enough acceleration. The biggest overall issue Pace Chasers will have in the race is ensuring they have enough Power to overtake Front Runners, and the right amount of Stamina/Guts to make sure they don’t run out of steam before then.
Sakura Bakushin O is once again a great choice for F2P players, as well as Daiwa Scarlet, both of whom naturally excel in Pace Chaser position. Perhaps one of the benefits of the Cancer Cup and the proliferation of Mile runners and Pace Chasers is that you don’t really require many “premium” trainees, and many of the historically well performing racers in the cup are easily obtainable 3 stars promoted from 2 or 1 star versions; while there are quite a lot of 3 star rare trainees that can and do perform well, Cancer Cup is shockingly “open” for most players to compete in.
If you happen to have a wider roster than the starting few or the initial selector ticket and missions provide, some trainees that especially do well in Pace Chaser here include Taiki Shuttle, Oguri Cap, Curren Chan, Tokai Teio (both versions), and Biwa Hayahide. Almost all of these have abilities that activate on the final corner of the race, and a combination of their uniques and similar ones from inheritances can make for serious trouble for Front Runners who are looking to Angling and Scheming their way to victory. The biggest problem for Front Runners in that regard is that Angling and Scheming requires the user to be in the lead, but also be able to maintain that lead; if the burst of acceleration and speed dies off before the final spurt ends, they’re liable to fall behind; a well trained Pace Chaser with good acceleration and high top speed and good final skills (like Pace Chaser Straightaways or Mile Straightaways, or both) can quite easily steal the race.
While it may be tempting to consider recovery skills, it’s instead better to focus on skills that can help your racer work out towards the end of the race; Tail Held High is a very solid option as it triggers off late race skills. There’s also a fairly strong argument to be made that because meta chasers have been focused very heavily on the Front Runner meta, a strong, competent Pace Chaser is going to perform very well in many lobbies.
While it does pain me to say this, Fuji Kiseki is not really worth trying to snag before the Cancer Cup begins; I love Fuji, she is a great racer, and she’s got some of the best style in the game, but her unique skill is not game changing enough to guarantee victory in the Cancer Cup. I would say that if you did pull for her and received her, you still have time to train her and work on building a strong Fuji for the race, but don’t feel like you need her in order to be competitive. In many cases, most trainees won’t “make or break” Champion Meets, and when they do, it is often more important that you have access to their Unique Skill, like Seiun Sky, than the trainee themselves. Also, a good benefit for Pace Chasers (and actually most trainees for this race) is that you do not need to worry about Potential Levels in almost all cases. Some trainees, like Taiki Shuttle, do get access to good Mile skills from her potential, but no one in the cancer Cup meta requires extremely high potential levels to unlock skills. If you have a favorite Trainee, it is very likely that you can run them as a Pace Chaser in the Cancer Cup with fairly good success, so certainly don’t feel you need to compete in the Front Runner category or you’ll lose.
Late Surger and End Closer Options
While the Gemini Cup favored back of the pack positions like Late Surger and End Closer, Cancer Cup doesn’t have that much going on for it in this category, as the short length of the race and the competitive aspect of the Front Runner categories makes it far more favorable to trainees who run ahead of the pack. That being said, if you have a Potential 5 Narita Taishin that you raised for the Gemini Cup, you can try to raise a Mile runner Taishin to once again dominate from the end of the race with the help of her skill Encroaching Shadow. Unfortunately, that also means training Narita Taishin, who many players will agree can be one of the most frustrating trainees in the current global roster due to her moodiness. It also doesn’t help that her career requires mostly Medium and Long distance races, meaning that lagging Stamina (even with the boost that Career mode provides) might cause training to derail easier than not. If you can raise her, though, she’s incredibly strong and Encroaching Shadow + Nemesis is very difficult to beat, even for a Front Runner like Seiun Sky.
Another option in the Late Surger category is Oguri Cap, who can run either Pace or Late, and King Halo, who is quite easily trained for Mile Races with inheritances. King Halo is an interesting trainee because her career is already fairly awkward (having you run Mediums and then Sprints) but she can be a strong Mile trainee; the biggest thing to consider is that she has to avoid Late Starts and Rushed status, meaning that raising her requires at minimum 400 Wit so she remains calm during the race. Assuming that she does, however, she can be a very strong Late Surger who can take advantage of waning Stamina from those in front of her, and then shoot forward. Both End Closer and Late Surgers would likely to inherit Mejiro Ryan’s Let’s Pump Some Iron, which can also easily help them clear the gap in distance between themselves and those in front of the race.
Blockushin Blockushin Blockushin
As with other Champion’s Meetings, there’s a very popular “debuff” option for the Cancer Cup that involves Sakura Baksuhin O (or Smart Falcon), which is referred to as “Blockushin”. The general gist of the build is to create a Front Runner that sits at the front of the race long enough to deny Seiun Sky (or other Front Runners) to get ahead, thus turning off Angling and Scheming. While they may fall through at the end, it is unlikely that Front Runners built to take advantage of being in the front of the race the entire time will be able to overcome the “debuff” of a Blockushin that works.
The primary build for this particular Debuff build is that you focus on getting max Power and extremely high Wit, NOT Speed. Front Runners work somewhat oddly in that who gets to the front sets the pace of the entire race, and a Blockushin will surge to the front faster due to the high power and then stay there, especially if they have high Wit that causes skills to guarantee their activations. Groundwork and Green skills are required here, as well as as many acceleration skills as possible; again, this trainee is not meant to win, it is simply meant to deny Seiun Sky/Front Runners from being able to take advantage of Angling and Scheming by preventing them from being in first place towards the end of the race.
You can also build various Debuff abilities such as those found on SR Fuji Kiseki Wit or other Wit cards, as you’ll have the high Wit needed for them to activate. This is very similar to “Nasty Nature” builds from previous builds, and entirely up to you. The downside of building Blockushins is that you cannot yourself run a Front Runner, and you are also relying on your other two trainees to compete in the race, because your debuffer is meant to simply deny other trainees the ability to win, not win themselves.
Lessons from Previous Champion’s Meetings
Now that we are three Champion’s Meets in, some of you have likely begun to realize things about how the system works, but for those who this may be the first, a few notes that can help alleviate stress, if any: First, these are supposed to be fun. That doesn’t mean they can’t be challenging or hard, and it also doesn’t mean that being disappointed in your performance is unreasonable. One of the issues is that Champion’s Meetings is the place in which you can most feel the gap between F2P, Casual, and Whales in the game. There are going to be times in which your lobby in a Champion’s Meeting is just unwinnable because you are faced against people who have sunk thousands of dollars into the game, and you aren’t going to be able to compete with that… or will you?
The irony of whaling in Umamusume: Pretty Derby is that it is somewhat cosmetic. Yes, better Support Decks make better Trainees, and make them easier, but races are controlled by RNG, and thus it becomes exceptionally hard to accurately predict what will always happen; I have written a few times before that my Support Decks are fairly mediocre, but I achieved Gold in both of my previous Champion’s Meets by simply planning and training solid trainees. There are going to be cases in which Whales beat you, and then there are going to be cases in which their heavily invested trainees just don’t perform as expected and you win.
Also, most players will be in Graded whether they mean to be or not, solely because the cut-off of B grade trainees in Open is actually far more competitive than Graded is. Open is where the sweatier, more competitive players lurk, those who know how to perfectly craft “B” rank trainees that are terrifyingly competent. In Graded, the cut-off is primarily A rank, but since you will be facing the vast majority of players in the game, there’s a very good chance that you can still get to Group B finals by simply trying your best, and securing yourself a win based off of that is not impossible.
While the new Scenario in the game is on the horizon, and with it some of the biggest changes in the game since launch, right now the schedule of Umamusume is Champion’s Meeting to Champion’s Meeting. If you find that tiring, your best bet is to focus on what you do find fun, and participate in the event enough to get the participation prizes; there’s no harm in doing so, and you’ll get some solid rewards for really doing very little. If you aren’t enjoying the PVP aspect, don’t sweat it. And if you are frustrated that you haven’t done very well in the past ones, know that Gemini Cup is exceptionally hard, but Cancer Cup is very much more accessible, so I think you should consider giving it a try!
Good luck in the Cancer Cup! 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, I’ll be training to hopefully see you all out there on the Tokyo Turf!
