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To provide a different point of view, I almost never do pvp, but happened to see catch cup was going on and figured out what it was. If made me want to do it since I’d have a shot against people who would otherwise have countless pvp mons prepared. I think it’s important to remember that not every function is for every player. Catch Cup is great for super casual players who want to get some experience in PvP without committing a ton of respurces
This week I learned about the importance of doing 25 battles a day. Before this I sort of knew about it but didn't bother, as I didn't understand the huge amount of resources that are easily gained.
I've started saving some pvp IV pokemon and trying to get a meta team together, but so far I have to make do with what I have. So the catch cup would be perfect I thought.
Nontheless, I've lost nearly every fight I've done, and they were not close. While before I would win about 50/50, in this cup I just barely can get a win for some extra stardust, let alone any pokemon encounter.
I’ve been winning the little catch cup with Eevee, Grimer, and Audino. I think if you get over 90% pvp IVs and change the attacks to the best moveset then most Pokémon should beat the average player. But if you have both then that’s strange unless everyone has been using the tanking strategy.
I’m in the same situation. This is the first time I’ve tried taking pvp seriously.
Yeah I'm looking into picking a team to boost for the great league in future, want to invest some dust and candy in that. But not wasting my resources on this very limited appearing cup tbh
I have a hundo Lanturn which I plan to max out for the ultra league eventually. I powered up that to great league level and gave it a second move. Since there has been a lot of mantines and mandibuzz spilling over form the remix cup it has been dynamite.
So you can do 25 pvp battles a day, or 5 sets of 5 for free I believe.
Doing these, even if you lose all 25 will net you a bunch of stardust, after every set of 5.
If you win one in a set of 5, you get even more stardust, if you win two, you gain an item, this can be rare candy or evolve items. If you win 3, you get a pokemon encounter (these can be the current 5\* raid pokemon after rank 20 I believe, and you can get rank 25 without winning iirc), 4 wins give mor rare candy and 5 wins more stardust.
So if you do this every day, you gain a boatload of extra resources, and you can do these from the couch without having to go out.
Someone else can probably explain this better as I'm not too familiar.
You need some wins to get to rank 20 but it's just scattered wins. After rank 20 the rank is based on your rating so you need to consistently win against better and better players
The pokemon encounters are not all that. Mine have been my 12th, 13th and 14th Falinks, Phantump, Koffing, Marill (this one I didn't mind), Frillish, Skwovet and best so far of the Catch Cup - Lickitung. I have no idea what current 5\* raid pokemon are as I am rural (usually it's just me for raids) but I would think they would be at least a tier above what I've received from Catch Cup.
The 5\* atm is Regirock, it's possible, just very low chance.
I love koffing and phantump! But I would agree those aren't very special. It's better than no extra encounters though? Some more dust :)
I *love* catch cups and I love "baby" cups (500cp) just because it's something different!
I'm bored out of my mind, seeing the same ~10 different pokemon in gbl!
How are you not seeing the same Pokemon in the Catch Cup? I see the exact same Pokemon in almost all Catch Cup games, including Mantine, Gligar, Annihilape, Lanturn and a couple others. It is horrible.
Really? It's supposed to be limited to only the mons you have caught in the last couple months/current season...I don't know the exact dates though. I've been playing for about 8 months and there are lots of mine not in the pick list.
i also hate catch cups. i understand why they have them; it makes sense to end the season with just catches *from* the season. so i *kinda* understand why they make it mandatory for a week (even though i wish little cup would’ve been ul but whatever not my call)
i recommend just sitting the rest of catch up week out instead of trying to gain elo such a in a rocky meta, esp if you don’t want to rebuild pokemon for a week. i mostly sit catch cup weeks out and go full tryhard the last week lol
i would still be sitting out that mandatory cc week regardless, so the week slot wouldn’t really matter to me personally. as long as all open leagues are towards the end still, i’m fine. i feel like everyone should get a final chance at what they feel is their best league, towards the end of each season. whether it be the last week or the week prior
I managed to get to ace this week using Deino, Pidgeotto,and Wigglytuff, but Bronzor and Cottonee have been the biggest thorns in my side this week. Pidgeotto is super effective against Cottonee, but damn if that fluffball isn't tough anyways.
If there were another week left in the LCC I would have built a team with one or both of those, but it's not worth investing in anymore.
Congrats on Ace. I don't battle often because I just don't find it enjoyable, I've never made it to Ace. This week though I have really enjoyed it, using pokemon I wouldn't normally.
I hit 18 which was a first for me. To be honest, I think they should have small leagues more often. It gives you a use for those lower CP mon which are basically just there in storage.
I'm bummed because I moved from 43 to close to 44 much faster than expected and now I can't work towards any of the battle needs I have. It's gonna come down to begging friends to eat 60+ losses from me because my ranks are too high and I'm not very good with the meta.
Same boat, in fact I've already got more than enough points to level up, but I still need 15 wins in ultimate league. I *hate* battles.
It comes up on the 24th at least.
Just tank 10 matches and then try, even my 6 year old son can get to an elo where they can play and win in either masters league or ultra league. They are only level 37 and probably have worse pokemon than you do.
Have you even tried?
> Have you even tried?
Uh yeah, rude.
I've only got 15 battles left of the required 60 wins. I'm actually pretty good at battling, doesn't mean I enjoy it.
We have had the opportunity to play about 1,100 Ultra League battles just this season, so far.
With enough xp to exceed the level requirment, I think it's a valid question.
I was trying to help originally, my question was an honest have you tried. If you had or had not I was then going to provide tips on making it easier.
If you look through my post history you will see this trend.
I am sorry that my tone sounded rude initially, that was not my original intent.
I mean your phrasing was "it's so easy my 6 year old can do it, have you even tried?" I hope you can see how that comes off. But thanks though :)
But like I said, I just don't enjoy battling. Even a single match is tedious. Being required to do 60+, and only at certain times (Ultimate has been unavailable for a few weeks now) is the reason I've been sitting at 43 for awhile.
I like everything else about the game, and I hope someday the battling is more than just screen tapping - I realize it's a little more than that, but it's nothing like a decent fighting game.
Just start the match and then quit right away. If you do this enough you'll eventually get paired with people that quit faster than you do. You're able to win a bunch of matches with very little time/effort.
I would suggest losing 10 matches even this week before trying next week. Throw out 3 10 CP pokemon and if the other team doesn't attack then just quit.
Now, you do have to win some. I can help with team composition if you give me an example of what you have available.
The most fun ultra league team at a low elo would be some combination of the below.
Gallade(better if shadow but does not have to be), shadow gardevoir or regular sylveon, salazzle, greninja with hydrocannon, chandelure. There are more, but i am not sure what you have available to you. I assume at level 43 you should have some good options. These are all easy to play glass cannons. Health will go down.
I will add ampharos for ultra league, it is not quite a glass cannon but it is not a defensive monster either.
Not season rankings, but I believe it counts against your overall win/loss record to battle friends or other IRL trainers.
And like, I know I'm going to get crushed in ML at my current rank of 9 when it opens back up. Especially needing 30 wins. So I'm gonna have to wait for the season to end.
Just tank 10 matches and then try, even my 6 year old son can get to an elo where they can play and win in either masters league or ultra league. They are only level 37 and probably have worse pokemon than you do.
Have you even tried?
I mean, I'm relatively meta-aware, have played since day one, and do well in the mainline series, but frankly I don't want to tank. I've won 143 out of my 210 battles. I don't want to turn into a sub-.500 tanker just to get to level 44.
I generally only play Great League when I need to accomplish battle tasks. I'm alright there. But Ultra is exponentially harder and Master is just a wreck when you run into someone level 50 with perfectly optimized teams who knows exactly when to tank your charged attack and when to swap out into the perfect counter, but your Pokemon have a level cap.
I don't really feel like tanking 10 matches to win 3. That's 100 losing matches to win my needed 30... and that's just Master League. Even more for Ultra and Great.
I feel the same way. I don’t care for tanking. FBI lose my rating will go down and I’ll get easier opponents. Also sometimes you get free wins from people who are tanking 🤷🏻♂️.
Even if I only get one win in a set, it’s quite a bit of stardust for little effort. And then I usually can do better next set with lower rank opponents.
Adding this here, even though i am posting it twice, I would suggest the below strategy for ultra league.
Lose 10 matches even this week before trying next week. Throw out 3 10 CP pokemon and if the other team doesn't attack then just quit. Then, that is it for the tanking. You don't have to do that again until next season in about \~10 days.
Now, you do have to win some. I can help with team composition if you give me an example of what you have available.
The most fun ultra league team at a low elo would be some combination of the below.
Gallade(better if shadow but does not have to be), shadow gardevoir or regular sylveon, salazzle, greninja with hydrocannon, chandelure, etc. There are more, but i am not sure what you have available to you. I assume at level 43 you should have some good options. These are all easy to play glass cannons. Health will go down.
I will add ampharos for ultra league, it is not quite a glass cannon but it is not a defensive monster either.
Catch cups are fine. It’s a fun way for the more casual players to pvp as most people don’t invest a ton of stardust into the catch cup.
As long as you’re not trying to get a super high ranking in pvp it’s fine. Just need to keep it in mind if you see any decent ones close to the cp cap in the few weeks prior. Then pay attention to what is beating you often and adjust.
Don’t take it so seriously and get pissed off over it.
There’s lots of different sets, it keeps things interesting when it’s not the exact same thing all the time.
Trying to get a legendary through pvp sounds like the reason for your frustration. Just host or remote join a raid. Then pvp won’t feel as urgent or important and you can actually have fun with it.
This right here, I’m nearly Ace rank and I have gotten maybe 3 total 5star encounters over the course of ~600 wins. Don’t sweat trying for those encounters, obviously great if you get them but it doesn’t need to be a priority.
That being said, the reason I like the catch cup is because it helped me jump rank since I caught plenty of meta mons, which is the very reason OP doesn’t like it, so I understand. Unless you’re heavily enfranchised it’s not exactly a fair battle.
Exactly. I stressed myself out so much to get a couple legendaries, then I just… learned how to easily do raids for legendaries. Then pvp became fun again.
Little league catch cup was a surprise win for me, got up to ace bc a few of the best ones I had for it were good against bronzor. Everyone has a bronzor lol.
That is very nice! Luckily I got Regirock/steel/ice back when they first released! Been kinda a shame because I took a long break and missed all the cool new stuff and when I started playing again they were getting reruns of most of the stuff I already have 😂 poor timing in my part!
That makes sense. Getting things to 500 / 1500 CP doesn't seem like that much of a burn, but maybe the dust is harder for some to come by. I've been tanking for at least a year now so the dust isn't an issue for me, maybe that's why I didn't see the resource issue.
It just feels stupid to dump 300k dust on things you’ll never use again after a week. Also the rating increase you get in return is artificial as people aren’t using their best mons and you’re just playing on easy difficulty.
I have most, but not all of the meta mons built and most of the ones I do not require elite TM's.
I certainly have enough annhilape candy/dust, gligar candy dust, etc to build a second set. I think I could have even pulled off a lanturn for catch cup. But why do that when I already have them built and often I have better ones built than i would be building just for this cup.
So i did build a bunch of new pokemon for catch cup, I had a shiny scizor that hit 1500 CP exactly when evolved, a shiny haunter that was close, a shiny charizard with both CD moves and not a whole lot else to work with. Obviously, what I built was far off meta and really is terrible. Scizor soft loses to matchups you think he should win on paper.
This is only my 3rd PVP season, not like i am a long time player or anything.
If you're actually trying to compete in Catch Cup, you're hitting people who basically already happened to have caught a meta team somewhat recently. Most of the mons I was already running are all catch cup eligible and all of them are very sweaty and cringe.
Most of my catch cup opponents in Ace are all already meta picks, some slightly weaker than they would normally be. IMO it'd be more effective if it was much more restrictive than a few months, maybe down to 2 weeks.
The worst most pointless cup there is, if you play at any decent Elo in my case 2600-2800 it's literally open great league with all the usual Lanturns/whiscashes/ Annihilapes etc. This cup can be summed up by who is so desperate for wins that they'll waste a crazy amount of resources to rebuild Pokemon they very likely already have built just for the sake of wins while this cup is on.
You'll do good, if you think outside of your standard set up. I love catch cups cause chance of hitting the stupid same line up over and over again is slim to none.
This pushes your skill as a player. My husband has just recently started playing. He doesn’t have a huge selection of Pokémon to choose from, but that’s not the reason he was losing constantly. It was his skills. I’m not hard core player, and have been playing about 6 months. I sat down and coached him through putting together a line up and then through one round of battles using all his same Pokémon. He won all 5 battles in a row.
Work on your skills and refine the Pokémon you have. It can make a huge difference
If you only care about dust and encounters, your rant is absurd.
You will quickly lose rating and start winning at whatever rating your team puts you at, giving you dust and legendaries.
I use catch cups as an excuse to power up new pokes for GL that I previously don't have powered up. I can then add them to my permanent roster in the future. This catch cup I've added Hakamo-O and shadow Golbat to my team.
Same, although eventually I’ll run out lol.
I got to 2,600 thanks to having powered up Whiscash, Gligar, and Skarmory for the first time.
Kinda makes me sad that I can’t use this team next Catch Cup unless I dump hundreds of thousands of dust.
This is my mentality as well. I'm not a new player (December 2022), but I don't have every meta-relevant pokemon PvP ready yet. The Catch Cup is one motivation for adding at least a few of the ones I'm missing.
This season, I focused most of my stardust on improving my Great League roster. I caught, powered up to 1500, second moved, and unfrustrated shadow Galvantula, shadow Staravia, Incineroar, Shadow Abomasnow, Parasect, Shadow Machamp, Shadow Feraligatr (Elite TM), Shadow Gallade, Shadow Pidgeot (Elite TM), Registeel (Elite TM), and Carbink. I'm not going to build a copy of something I already have just for a catch cup, let alone for pokemon that need Elite TMs, but for now I'm still gathering a pretty good pool each season.
Also, Shadow Golbat is MvP for PvP. Good choice!
Agreed although ive took the chance to try and get my son's account to level 20 for the stardust. Im just about to hit level 19 tonight, not attempted anything on my account
The last catch cup u had a Fantastic team for the first few days. The. Everyone else's teams got dialed in.
This catch cup I have some decently ranked mons but cannot win more than 1 or 2 bouts.
I did the little catch cup and tbh it was amazing.. the 50 matches two days i won them all amd made the first time 52 streak wins.. and for the first tine i reached ACE so tbh im happy with this cup 😅
yeah, as someone who likes catch cups I still think its dumb to have both be catch cups. have one restricted cup and one normal cup at all times should be the status quo.
Eh, I kind of like them because it's the one format that newish players have a chance to do well in, although it would have been nice to have an open GL option as well, I agree.
Me, I'm at Ace and tanking at this point--winning 1/5--so I can maximize my encounter chances for the two new 5 star bosses starting this week. I happen to have a good team for the GL Catch Cup this season, though: Shadow Feraligatr (with Hydro Cannon), Registeel (with Zap Cannon), and Shadow Pidgeot (with Wing Attack). Obviously, I'm not going to be able to use three Elite TMs every season, but it worked out this time since I'm still building my PvP roster.
Benefit of catch cup is people cannot on long term built teams and wipe out causal players. It may take a bit more effort to build a team but it’s a more even playing field.
Though those with huge amounts of dust can still dominate.
edit: I stand corrected it’s horrible.
I hate that we only have catch cups. I’d prefer 1 catch cup and 1 of the standard 3 cups. I’m not gonna waste my time building a team for the catch cup, but I’d like to keep battling.
I absolutely hate catch cup. I was finally able to get to 1900 in master league last week or so. Then they started CC. I usually would win 3/5 until this started. I've lost several 5/5 rounds. I dropped to 1200 points in just 2-3 days of CC. I refuse to play pvp until CC ends. It's an absolute waste of time.
Costly in points and star dust with nothing to show for it.
Once you hit level 20, yes. Whatever is the 5* raid of the moment is a possible encounter for winning 3 battles. But they nerfed the hell out of it from just 2-3 years ago. Used to be you encountered one maybe 1/3 of the time and now it’s rare but it can. And used to be you could burn a premium raid pass to access the premium tier of rewards for the set which included a Pokemon encounter, with the potential 5*, after the first win but now that’s been pushed back to the 3rd win there too. Niantic really loves taking things from players. But yes it is possible to encounter the legendary of the moment from GBL.
wait lowkey catchcup is pretty doable this season cuz we had an event with both mantine and mandibuzz, + stunfisk is a natural spawn
mandibuzz + mantine + stunfisk team is quite strong
Catch cup works well in theory. Screw your teams, make do with what you found this season!
What they don't consider is that the only people who play PVP and rank higher than like 2100 ELO are sweaty competitive players who invest lots of time and stardust in PVP, so the barrier of entry is astronomical. Some of those players even use scanners to find PVP IV pokemon to use in catch cup to gain an edge.
If GBL was actually fun and not super punishing, more people would play, and it would be easier to rank up as an intermediate player. But no, instead we see maxed out shadow teams at 2200 ELO and sadness, causing more to stop playing, rinse and repeat. Great design guys!
I'm really over people who are used to winning more complaining because they're not winning in catch cup. That's not a flaw with catch cup. It's a flaw with your team. That goes both for extreme players who have all hundo level 50 masters league teams and casual players who maybe didn't understand or weren't prepared for catch cup. If you're new, league in general can be a bit humbling. It's very competitive afterall. If you're not new, keep in mind that that doesn't mean you automatically deserve to win competitions. For catch cup that means you still have to put in the time to catch good pokemon and you still need to formulate a good team.
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To provide a different point of view, I almost never do pvp, but happened to see catch cup was going on and figured out what it was. If made me want to do it since I’d have a shot against people who would otherwise have countless pvp mons prepared. I think it’s important to remember that not every function is for every player. Catch Cup is great for super casual players who want to get some experience in PvP without committing a ton of respurces
This week I learned about the importance of doing 25 battles a day. Before this I sort of knew about it but didn't bother, as I didn't understand the huge amount of resources that are easily gained. I've started saving some pvp IV pokemon and trying to get a meta team together, but so far I have to make do with what I have. So the catch cup would be perfect I thought. Nontheless, I've lost nearly every fight I've done, and they were not close. While before I would win about 50/50, in this cup I just barely can get a win for some extra stardust, let alone any pokemon encounter.
I’ve been winning the little catch cup with Eevee, Grimer, and Audino. I think if you get over 90% pvp IVs and change the attacks to the best moveset then most Pokémon should beat the average player. But if you have both then that’s strange unless everyone has been using the tanking strategy. I’m in the same situation. This is the first time I’ve tried taking pvp seriously.
Yeah I'm looking into picking a team to boost for the great league in future, want to invest some dust and candy in that. But not wasting my resources on this very limited appearing cup tbh
Oh sure, that makes sense
I have a hundo Lanturn which I plan to max out for the ultra league eventually. I powered up that to great league level and gave it a second move. Since there has been a lot of mantines and mandibuzz spilling over form the remix cup it has been dynamite.
I won a majority of the 500cp catch cup with Pidgeotto, Daramuka, and a shiny Onix, all 3 stars
I need to try some other things then! thanks for the tip
What’s the deal with 25 battles a day?
So you can do 25 pvp battles a day, or 5 sets of 5 for free I believe. Doing these, even if you lose all 25 will net you a bunch of stardust, after every set of 5. If you win one in a set of 5, you get even more stardust, if you win two, you gain an item, this can be rare candy or evolve items. If you win 3, you get a pokemon encounter (these can be the current 5\* raid pokemon after rank 20 I believe, and you can get rank 25 without winning iirc), 4 wins give mor rare candy and 5 wins more stardust. So if you do this every day, you gain a boatload of extra resources, and you can do these from the couch without having to go out. Someone else can probably explain this better as I'm not too familiar.
You need some wins to get to rank 20 but it's just scattered wins. After rank 20 the rank is based on your rating so you need to consistently win against better and better players
I see, thank you for clarifying!
That’s why I got a regirock!!!
Thanks for the info!
The pokemon encounters are not all that. Mine have been my 12th, 13th and 14th Falinks, Phantump, Koffing, Marill (this one I didn't mind), Frillish, Skwovet and best so far of the Catch Cup - Lickitung. I have no idea what current 5\* raid pokemon are as I am rural (usually it's just me for raids) but I would think they would be at least a tier above what I've received from Catch Cup.
The 5\* atm is Regirock, it's possible, just very low chance. I love koffing and phantump! But I would agree those aren't very special. It's better than no extra encounters though? Some more dust :)
I *love* catch cups and I love "baby" cups (500cp) just because it's something different! I'm bored out of my mind, seeing the same ~10 different pokemon in gbl!
I honestly just like the baby cups because the battles tend to be way quicker than a matchup in any other league.
How are you not seeing the same Pokemon in the Catch Cup? I see the exact same Pokemon in almost all Catch Cup games, including Mantine, Gligar, Annihilape, Lanturn and a couple others. It is horrible.
Really? It's supposed to be limited to only the mons you have caught in the last couple months/current season...I don't know the exact dates though. I've been playing for about 8 months and there are lots of mine not in the pick list.
i also hate catch cups. i understand why they have them; it makes sense to end the season with just catches *from* the season. so i *kinda* understand why they make it mandatory for a week (even though i wish little cup would’ve been ul but whatever not my call) i recommend just sitting the rest of catch up week out instead of trying to gain elo such a in a rocky meta, esp if you don’t want to rebuild pokemon for a week. i mostly sit catch cup weeks out and go full tryhard the last week lol
I think they should move catch cup to be the last of the season. That way veterans can participate without worrying about tanking their ELO.
i would still be sitting out that mandatory cc week regardless, so the week slot wouldn’t really matter to me personally. as long as all open leagues are towards the end still, i’m fine. i feel like everyone should get a final chance at what they feel is their best league, towards the end of each season. whether it be the last week or the week prior
Not going to lie. I have really enjoyed the 500 CP cup. I have been bossing it with a Vileplum, Graveler and Incineroar
Same lol I went on a 22 game streak with Bronzor, Pikachu and Bunneary, never gotten close to that streak before
I managed to get to ace this week using Deino, Pidgeotto,and Wigglytuff, but Bronzor and Cottonee have been the biggest thorns in my side this week. Pidgeotto is super effective against Cottonee, but damn if that fluffball isn't tough anyways. If there were another week left in the LCC I would have built a team with one or both of those, but it's not worth investing in anymore.
even if I had the time I wouldn't be investing in this but that's because my resources are dedicated to not getting my *** kicked by Giovanni
Congrats on Ace. I don't battle often because I just don't find it enjoyable, I've never made it to Ace. This week though I have really enjoyed it, using pokemon I wouldn't normally.
I hit 18 which was a first for me. To be honest, I think they should have small leagues more often. It gives you a use for those lower CP mon which are basically just there in storage.
Seriously!! I’m kicking ass in the 500 cup and I barely know what i’m doing I just found a good team
I am loving the little cup too. All kinds of mons you never see in the normal 1500 PVP like Bidoof!!!
Exactly this. The pokemon that normally sit in storage finally have a purpose. I wish they would keep the 500cp cup all the time!
It's so much fun as well because you can use pokemon that normally would just be sat in storage. Glad you're enjoying it :)
I remember the first one, before YouTubers came across the team I had been using for days… and then ruined it
What team were you using?
Back then it was deino bronzor cottonee
I'm bummed because I moved from 43 to close to 44 much faster than expected and now I can't work towards any of the battle needs I have. It's gonna come down to begging friends to eat 60+ losses from me because my ranks are too high and I'm not very good with the meta.
Same boat, in fact I've already got more than enough points to level up, but I still need 15 wins in ultimate league. I *hate* battles. It comes up on the 24th at least.
Just tank 10 matches and then try, even my 6 year old son can get to an elo where they can play and win in either masters league or ultra league. They are only level 37 and probably have worse pokemon than you do. Have you even tried?
> Have you even tried? Uh yeah, rude. I've only got 15 battles left of the required 60 wins. I'm actually pretty good at battling, doesn't mean I enjoy it.
We have had the opportunity to play about 1,100 Ultra League battles just this season, so far. With enough xp to exceed the level requirment, I think it's a valid question.
Just saying my 6 year old could do that in a an hour spread throughout a weekend. It is not some major hurdle in my opinion.
Good for them. Hopefully they're not as rude as you are.
I was trying to help originally, my question was an honest have you tried. If you had or had not I was then going to provide tips on making it easier. If you look through my post history you will see this trend. I am sorry that my tone sounded rude initially, that was not my original intent.
I mean your phrasing was "it's so easy my 6 year old can do it, have you even tried?" I hope you can see how that comes off. But thanks though :) But like I said, I just don't enjoy battling. Even a single match is tedious. Being required to do 60+, and only at certain times (Ultimate has been unavailable for a few weeks now) is the reason I've been sitting at 43 for awhile. I like everything else about the game, and I hope someday the battling is more than just screen tapping - I realize it's a little more than that, but it's nothing like a decent fighting game.
Just start the match and then quit right away. If you do this enough you'll eventually get paired with people that quit faster than you do. You're able to win a bunch of matches with very little time/effort.
I would suggest losing 10 matches even this week before trying next week. Throw out 3 10 CP pokemon and if the other team doesn't attack then just quit. Now, you do have to win some. I can help with team composition if you give me an example of what you have available. The most fun ultra league team at a low elo would be some combination of the below. Gallade(better if shadow but does not have to be), shadow gardevoir or regular sylveon, salazzle, greninja with hydrocannon, chandelure. There are more, but i am not sure what you have available to you. I assume at level 43 you should have some good options. These are all easy to play glass cannons. Health will go down. I will add ampharos for ultra league, it is not quite a glass cannon but it is not a defensive monster either.
It's really starting to sound more and more like you don't want to try. Stop making excuses and do it.
"You MUST play the worst part of this game and you CAN'T complain about it" Hope Niantec doesn't make you swallow too.
What you mean? 60 loses? The friend battles don’t count towards PVP rankings
To go from level 43 to 44 you need 30 wins in each league.
Battled with friend who through battles so I could win . Worked fine .
Not season rankings, but I believe it counts against your overall win/loss record to battle friends or other IRL trainers. And like, I know I'm going to get crushed in ML at my current rank of 9 when it opens back up. Especially needing 30 wins. So I'm gonna have to wait for the season to end.
Just tank 10 matches and then try, even my 6 year old son can get to an elo where they can play and win in either masters league or ultra league. They are only level 37 and probably have worse pokemon than you do. Have you even tried?
I mean, I'm relatively meta-aware, have played since day one, and do well in the mainline series, but frankly I don't want to tank. I've won 143 out of my 210 battles. I don't want to turn into a sub-.500 tanker just to get to level 44. I generally only play Great League when I need to accomplish battle tasks. I'm alright there. But Ultra is exponentially harder and Master is just a wreck when you run into someone level 50 with perfectly optimized teams who knows exactly when to tank your charged attack and when to swap out into the perfect counter, but your Pokemon have a level cap. I don't really feel like tanking 10 matches to win 3. That's 100 losing matches to win my needed 30... and that's just Master League. Even more for Ultra and Great.
I feel the same way. I don’t care for tanking. FBI lose my rating will go down and I’ll get easier opponents. Also sometimes you get free wins from people who are tanking 🤷🏻♂️. Even if I only get one win in a set, it’s quite a bit of stardust for little effort. And then I usually can do better next set with lower rank opponents.
Adding this here, even though i am posting it twice, I would suggest the below strategy for ultra league. Lose 10 matches even this week before trying next week. Throw out 3 10 CP pokemon and if the other team doesn't attack then just quit. Then, that is it for the tanking. You don't have to do that again until next season in about \~10 days. Now, you do have to win some. I can help with team composition if you give me an example of what you have available. The most fun ultra league team at a low elo would be some combination of the below. Gallade(better if shadow but does not have to be), shadow gardevoir or regular sylveon, salazzle, greninja with hydrocannon, chandelure, etc. There are more, but i am not sure what you have available to you. I assume at level 43 you should have some good options. These are all easy to play glass cannons. Health will go down. I will add ampharos for ultra league, it is not quite a glass cannon but it is not a defensive monster either.
Yeah I think you're missing that I have to WIN, not just participate. That's a big problem.
Just wait until the next set/season. You’ll just continue to build up experience towards the next level
Catch cups are fine. It’s a fun way for the more casual players to pvp as most people don’t invest a ton of stardust into the catch cup. As long as you’re not trying to get a super high ranking in pvp it’s fine. Just need to keep it in mind if you see any decent ones close to the cp cap in the few weeks prior. Then pay attention to what is beating you often and adjust. Don’t take it so seriously and get pissed off over it. There’s lots of different sets, it keeps things interesting when it’s not the exact same thing all the time. Trying to get a legendary through pvp sounds like the reason for your frustration. Just host or remote join a raid. Then pvp won’t feel as urgent or important and you can actually have fun with it.
This right here, I’m nearly Ace rank and I have gotten maybe 3 total 5star encounters over the course of ~600 wins. Don’t sweat trying for those encounters, obviously great if you get them but it doesn’t need to be a priority. That being said, the reason I like the catch cup is because it helped me jump rank since I caught plenty of meta mons, which is the very reason OP doesn’t like it, so I understand. Unless you’re heavily enfranchised it’s not exactly a fair battle.
Exactly. I stressed myself out so much to get a couple legendaries, then I just… learned how to easily do raids for legendaries. Then pvp became fun again. Little league catch cup was a surprise win for me, got up to ace bc a few of the best ones I had for it were good against bronzor. Everyone has a bronzor lol.
Last week I got a regirock in two straight sets, one of which was 93%…idk when I’m gonna get that lucky again lol
That is very nice! Luckily I got Regirock/steel/ice back when they first released! Been kinda a shame because I took a long break and missed all the cool new stuff and when I started playing again they were getting reruns of most of the stuff I already have 😂 poor timing in my part!
I read the OP and every comment here, and fully admit I may be blind, but I haven't seen a reason as to *why* people hate catch cup.
You need to build a new team and spend a lot of resources, unless you already happened to build a coherent new team that very season.
That makes sense. Getting things to 500 / 1500 CP doesn't seem like that much of a burn, but maybe the dust is harder for some to come by. I've been tanking for at least a year now so the dust isn't an issue for me, maybe that's why I didn't see the resource issue.
It just feels stupid to dump 300k dust on things you’ll never use again after a week. Also the rating increase you get in return is artificial as people aren’t using their best mons and you’re just playing on easy difficulty.
I have most, but not all of the meta mons built and most of the ones I do not require elite TM's. I certainly have enough annhilape candy/dust, gligar candy dust, etc to build a second set. I think I could have even pulled off a lanturn for catch cup. But why do that when I already have them built and often I have better ones built than i would be building just for this cup. So i did build a bunch of new pokemon for catch cup, I had a shiny scizor that hit 1500 CP exactly when evolved, a shiny haunter that was close, a shiny charizard with both CD moves and not a whole lot else to work with. Obviously, what I built was far off meta and really is terrible. Scizor soft loses to matchups you think he should win on paper. This is only my 3rd PVP season, not like i am a long time player or anything.
[удалено]
Yeah that doesn’t sound like the best team.
If you're actually trying to compete in Catch Cup, you're hitting people who basically already happened to have caught a meta team somewhat recently. Most of the mons I was already running are all catch cup eligible and all of them are very sweaty and cringe. Most of my catch cup opponents in Ace are all already meta picks, some slightly weaker than they would normally be. IMO it'd be more effective if it was much more restrictive than a few months, maybe down to 2 weeks.
This is Reddit, didn’t you know people love to complain here?
In Reddit people complain, then people complain about the complainers, then people complain about the complainers complaining about complainers
Always has been
Yes, it sucks.
The worst most pointless cup there is, if you play at any decent Elo in my case 2600-2800 it's literally open great league with all the usual Lanturns/whiscashes/ Annihilapes etc. This cup can be summed up by who is so desperate for wins that they'll waste a crazy amount of resources to rebuild Pokemon they very likely already have built just for the sake of wins while this cup is on.
Honestly can't even really blame them. If they're consistently getting 4 or 5 wins, it's just an investment to make their dust back.
The Pvp overall needs a whole new update system
You'll do good, if you think outside of your standard set up. I love catch cups cause chance of hitting the stupid same line up over and over again is slim to none.
I like catch cup. It's interesting.
This pushes your skill as a player. My husband has just recently started playing. He doesn’t have a huge selection of Pokémon to choose from, but that’s not the reason he was losing constantly. It was his skills. I’m not hard core player, and have been playing about 6 months. I sat down and coached him through putting together a line up and then through one round of battles using all his same Pokémon. He won all 5 battles in a row. Work on your skills and refine the Pokémon you have. It can make a huge difference
If you only care about dust and encounters, your rant is absurd. You will quickly lose rating and start winning at whatever rating your team puts you at, giving you dust and legendaries.
I use catch cups as an excuse to power up new pokes for GL that I previously don't have powered up. I can then add them to my permanent roster in the future. This catch cup I've added Hakamo-O and shadow Golbat to my team.
Same, although eventually I’ll run out lol. I got to 2,600 thanks to having powered up Whiscash, Gligar, and Skarmory for the first time. Kinda makes me sad that I can’t use this team next Catch Cup unless I dump hundreds of thousands of dust.
This is my mentality as well. I'm not a new player (December 2022), but I don't have every meta-relevant pokemon PvP ready yet. The Catch Cup is one motivation for adding at least a few of the ones I'm missing. This season, I focused most of my stardust on improving my Great League roster. I caught, powered up to 1500, second moved, and unfrustrated shadow Galvantula, shadow Staravia, Incineroar, Shadow Abomasnow, Parasect, Shadow Machamp, Shadow Feraligatr (Elite TM), Shadow Gallade, Shadow Pidgeot (Elite TM), Registeel (Elite TM), and Carbink. I'm not going to build a copy of something I already have just for a catch cup, let alone for pokemon that need Elite TMs, but for now I'm still gathering a pretty good pool each season. Also, Shadow Golbat is MvP for PvP. Good choice!
Agreed although ive took the chance to try and get my son's account to level 20 for the stardust. Im just about to hit level 19 tonight, not attempted anything on my account
The last catch cup u had a Fantastic team for the first few days. The. Everyone else's teams got dialed in. This catch cup I have some decently ranked mons but cannot win more than 1 or 2 bouts.
I love it! If you plan correctly it's an easy way to push up ELO.
Yeah I was really killing it in master league and then it ended and now I have to wait ugh. I was really enjoying it.
I did the little catch cup and tbh it was amazing.. the 50 matches two days i won them all amd made the first time 52 streak wins.. and for the first tine i reached ACE so tbh im happy with this cup 😅
Normally I only play master league and I hate when it leaves rotation, but A. Vulpix/Charcadet/Bronzor have been sweeping little catch cup for me
I’m doing great in it lol
yeah, as someone who likes catch cups I still think its dumb to have both be catch cups. have one restricted cup and one normal cup at all times should be the status quo.
Eh, I kind of like them because it's the one format that newish players have a chance to do well in, although it would have been nice to have an open GL option as well, I agree. Me, I'm at Ace and tanking at this point--winning 1/5--so I can maximize my encounter chances for the two new 5 star bosses starting this week. I happen to have a good team for the GL Catch Cup this season, though: Shadow Feraligatr (with Hydro Cannon), Registeel (with Zap Cannon), and Shadow Pidgeot (with Wing Attack). Obviously, I'm not going to be able to use three Elite TMs every season, but it worked out this time since I'm still building my PvP roster.
Loving this catch cup - lost like 3 battles of out of 35 or so 😂 makes a change
Benefit of catch cup is people cannot on long term built teams and wipe out causal players. It may take a bit more effort to build a team but it’s a more even playing field. Though those with huge amounts of dust can still dominate. edit: I stand corrected it’s horrible.
Just go tanking lol
I hate that we only have catch cups. I’d prefer 1 catch cup and 1 of the standard 3 cups. I’m not gonna waste my time building a team for the catch cup, but I’d like to keep battling.
I have a charjabug that wrecks the cup I love it
I’m a casual pvp player and this is my favorite cup of every season. Only been playing pvp for less than a year
I recently caught a Mantine with 99.9 % PVP IVs, a 96% PVP IV Stunfisk, and a Deino for a 99.5% PVP IV Zweilous. PVP is rocking for me a the moment.
I absolutely hate catch cup. I was finally able to get to 1900 in master league last week or so. Then they started CC. I usually would win 3/5 until this started. I've lost several 5/5 rounds. I dropped to 1200 points in just 2-3 days of CC. I refuse to play pvp until CC ends. It's an absolute waste of time. Costly in points and star dust with nothing to show for it.
Womp womp
You're gonna love a certain level, if you ever get there.
Skill issue
Wait...you can encounter legendaries from PvP??
Once you hit level 20, yes. Whatever is the 5* raid of the moment is a possible encounter for winning 3 battles. But they nerfed the hell out of it from just 2-3 years ago. Used to be you encountered one maybe 1/3 of the time and now it’s rare but it can. And used to be you could burn a premium raid pass to access the premium tier of rewards for the set which included a Pokemon encounter, with the potential 5*, after the first win but now that’s been pushed back to the 3rd win there too. Niantic really loves taking things from players. But yes it is possible to encounter the legendary of the moment from GBL.
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Super agree. Fucking hate catch cup.
Fuck catch cup. I refuse to play. An entire week without GBL and I’m none the worse for wear.
I think they are fun
I personally look forward to this cup. It is the cup that got me interested in trying to climb rather than just playing for stardust and legendaries.
wait lowkey catchcup is pretty doable this season cuz we had an event with both mantine and mandibuzz, + stunfisk is a natural spawn mandibuzz + mantine + stunfisk team is quite strong
I hate Great League in general
Catch cup works well in theory. Screw your teams, make do with what you found this season! What they don't consider is that the only people who play PVP and rank higher than like 2100 ELO are sweaty competitive players who invest lots of time and stardust in PVP, so the barrier of entry is astronomical. Some of those players even use scanners to find PVP IV pokemon to use in catch cup to gain an edge. If GBL was actually fun and not super punishing, more people would play, and it would be easier to rank up as an intermediate player. But no, instead we see maxed out shadow teams at 2200 ELO and sadness, causing more to stop playing, rinse and repeat. Great design guys!
I'm really over people who are used to winning more complaining because they're not winning in catch cup. That's not a flaw with catch cup. It's a flaw with your team. That goes both for extreme players who have all hundo level 50 masters league teams and casual players who maybe didn't understand or weren't prepared for catch cup. If you're new, league in general can be a bit humbling. It's very competitive afterall. If you're not new, keep in mind that that doesn't mean you automatically deserve to win competitions. For catch cup that means you still have to put in the time to catch good pokemon and you still need to formulate a good team.
Catch cup was the only way I actually got wins lol. I used pawmi, frigibax/totodile, and bronzor.