# Pokemon GO PVP Teams This page lists teams used by editors of this wiki to play ranked PVP matches on _Pokémon GO_{as=cite}. In PoGO, the ranked ladder resets with the game-wide 90-day seasons, at which point balance changes are introduced. It is overwhelmingly likely that [][@:Aescling] will be the only ever contributor to this page. ## Timeless Travels {as=section lang=en-X-catspeak} ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ### [][@:Aescling] at some point during timeless travels i began to build to build (reasonably) viable mons fur pvp and made a concerted effurt to climb the ladder. at time of writing, {% 2022-02-18 %} with less than two weeks remaining in the season, i am at 2200+ ELO, solidly in the ace ranking. (fur comparison, the highest ranking of legend requires 3000 ELO; my current ranking is hardly a great accomplishment.) #### _DYTSMBaL?_{as=cite} {as=details} :::::::::::: {as=summary} teamsheet * Death Charm (Alolan Ninetails) \ 11/15/11 (rank 731/4096) \ Charm, Weather Ball, Psyshock * Snampy (Froslass) \ 5/14/14 (rank 472/4096) \ Powder Snow, Avalanche, Shadow Ball * [Shadow][HNISILU]{title="external Twitter link"} (Umbreon) \ 0/15/14 (rank 2/4096) \ Snarl, Foul Play, Last Resort :::::::::::: the furst team i built fur pvp with (reasonably) viable mons, whose use began during one of the limited cups. the team has something of an anti-synergy; charm alolan ninetails generally sacrifices shields to take switch advantage with its very heavy fast move purressure, but froslass is so glassy you either need to lead or save shields to sweep with it in the back. umbreon is used as a basic and simple safe swap, as always. #### _GLemix_{as=cite} {as=details} :::::::::::: {as=summary} teamsheet * Mini Beast (Ninetails) \ 11/15/11 (rank 731/4096) \ Charm, Weather Ball, Psyshock * Snampy (Froslass) \ 5/14/14 (rank 472/4096) \ Powder Snow, Avalanche, Shadow Ball * Divebomb (Decidueye) \ 0/14/13 (rank 767/4096) \ Leafage, Frenzy Plant, Brave Bird :::::::::::: a team built fur the Great League remix cup, which ran just after the rowlet commewnity day. decidueye is not a purrticularly excellent mon but obtaining shield advantage allows it threaten to sweep in the back with brave birds. of course, this is not a fantastic synergy with froslass, leaving the team lacking in a safe swap and double weak to dark and ghost. one small benefit this team had thanks to rowlet learning spirit shackle on evolution during commewnity day was that many players in low ELO (i was well below ace rank at the time) were completely caught off guard by brave bird, even thuogh [PvPoke][PvPoke] recommends the moveset. #### _Meta-ish_{as=cite} {as=details} :::::::::::: {as=summary} teamsheet * Sparkblub (Lanturn) \ 5/15/12 (rank 68/4096) \ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt * Shadow (Umbreon) \ 0/15/14 (rank 2/4096) \ Snarl, Foul Play, Last Resort * Mini Beast (Ninetails) \ 11/15/11 (rank 731/4096) \ Charm, Weather Ball, Psyshock :::::::::::: despite a very obvious double weakness to the :U+201C:mudboys:U+201D: (that is, water/ground dual types) that had become very common in the open great league, i managed to climb to ace rank with this team. lanturn frankly hard carried this team; a bulky lead that counters a water-heavy meta (except fur mud) and the ever-strong safe swap in umbreon (even given the heavy purresence of counter users) gives the team more than enough bulk to work around purroblematic matchups to some extent. i frankly somewhat doubt the fact that lanturn is ranked so highly in the open great league on PvPoke, as ground types are so common lately. that said, its obvious strength cannot be denied; it is almost like simply using actually good mons makes it much easier to climb the ladder. #### _Meta-ish MBCed_{as=cite} {as=details} :::::::::::: {as=summary} teamsheet * Sparkblub (Lanturn) \ 5/15/12 (rank 68/4096) \ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt * Shadow (Umbreon) \ 0/15/14 (rank 2/4096) \ Snarl, Foul Play, Last Resort * Snampy (Froslass) \ 5/14/14 (rank 472/4096) \ Powder Snow, Avalanche, Shadow Ball :::::::::::: replacing ninetails my beloved with froslass helps this team substantially, giving it some (if not always excellent) play against dragon and ground, while dropping the double weakness to mud. the big challenge of running this team is that lanturn and umbreon do not consistently purressure shields enough to suppurt a glass cannon in the back, having led to many games where froslass proves too frail to clutch a win at the end of an even game, even with type advantage. notably, this team seems to be buffed by the current catch cup meta, which has removed most steel types and greatly increased the purresence of dragons (thanks to the recent lunar new year event). a funny gimmicky interaction that i have had multiple times on this team, and one that instantly wins the lead when it happens, is made pawsible when the opponent leads annihilape (which is popular at the moment at my pussition in ladder). most players seem committed to throwing shadow ball on alignment (which happens to line up with exactly when lanturn charges up thunderbolt); annihilape users generally do not respect surf (which is reasonable) and therefore eat the damage, and then allow their shadow balls to be caught on umbreon, instantly losing the lead and often forcing a switch. because it is not terribly useful to pair a counter to dark with a counter user (that already beats umbreon, but only slighly), the result is usually advantageous. this is hardly an excellent play, but it is very funny that i have pulled it as many times as i have, to the extent that i now actively look out fur the oppurrtunity. ##### _Meta-ish MBCed_{as=cite}: closing thoughts on the friday just befur the sinnoh tour weekend, just over a week befur the close of the season, yr cat just barely crossed the 2500 elo threshold of veteran rank. i have stopped making a concerted effurt towards laddering (even as stardust rewards are still boosted fur the remaining week of the season, which is a shame to miss out on), and i would like to purresent some closing extra thoughts on the team and my skills as a player i find it interesting that i managed to ladder so far---at least 700 elo---with a lanturn/umbreon core; both mons are absol-utely strong in the great league but it is not exactly an obvious pairing, since umbreon does nothing to deal with lanturn:U+2019:s ground weakness. (again, grass is currently uncommon enough to mostly ignore.) it is not lost on me that my push to veteran did involve covering ground, even if not with the most obvious choice of skarmory, who i do not have (with great league stats, at least) i think of the significant changes i made that allowed me to reach veteran was a reevaluation of how to play froslass. while it *is* true that froslass heavily benefits from shield (or energy) advantage, sometimes it is still the best play to bring it out even in two shield scenarios (though this must be done decisively; froslass gets destroyed by minor energy disadvantages.) i found myself :U+201C:safe switching:U+201D: against mud boys very often; against whiscash (who is often left in) this play will actually usually force the oppenent to give up their shields (especially as i lead a good mon hard countered by ground.) (umbreon is a losing switch into whiscash if a scald burn ever happens, and that usually does happen) a consistent weakness i have recognized in my play while laddering to veteran is my poor sense of alignment: i often recognize situations where i have a hard counter to one or more mons in the opposing team, but have many times failed to force the team to have to deal with the disadvantage by giving up switch. similarly, i have forced myself into bad matchups in many situations by switching aggressively to purrevent energy disanvantages, which i really should have learned better than to do a long time ago. so it goes. i am not sure what the next season will look like fur me, what with any pawtential balance changes and a general lack of extra mons to play with. i do have an rank 9 lickitung i intend to build eventually, as well as a rank 40 (non-shadow) dragonair, as well as a reasonably good chargabug and (eventually) azumarill; and, of course, the cresselia from the road to sinnoh raid challenge (who i would like to trade fur better IVs). but it is not immediately clear to me that i have mons that would solve my current purroblems when it comes to overall teambuilding. i also do not have much stardust left to build mons with either, not to mention elite TMs time will tell what the future hath in store, i suppose! #### _Meta-ish Dair_{as=cite} {as=details} :::::::::::: {as=summary} teamsheet * Dragonair \ 4/14/15 (rank 40/4096) \ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt * Sparkblub (Lanturn) \ 5/15/12 (rank 68/4096) \ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt * Snampy (Froslass) \ 5/14/14 (rank 472/4096) \ Powder Snow, Avalanche, Shadow Ball :::::::::::: fur the final week of gbl i decided not to worry about laddering, and in fact almost decided not to play any gbl at all. then i remembered that stardust rewards fur the last week of gbl were inflated, so i decided to try out dragonair and see how it worked, especially given that it would be somewhat buffed in world of wonders, just enough that early PvPoke simulations were giving dragonair a just barely pawsitive weighted battle record it may be clear from the teamsheet already, but this team _struggled_. i dropped to 2200 elo trying to make the team work. at furst i used dragonair on the lead with my lanturn/umbreon core that i used to climb ladder, but after getting punished enough fur the double-weakness to fairy i switched out umbreon fur frosslass. this left the team without anything of a real safe swap, and made it difficult to play around lost leads. it definitely did not help that both dragonair and froslass are quite frail. more than anything else, i fuond from playing this team that familiarity with the mons on your team is very impurrtant to this game. i think it even bigger deal that i did not know how to play dragonair well that made this team, than that the team has obvious weaknesses (hell, my most tryhard laddering team has obvious weaknesses). if i were to try a team like this again, i might simply accept the double weakness to fairy and run the umbreon/lanturn core until i have better mons to suppurt dragonair with #### timeless travels: some unfocused closing thoughts {as=details} :::::::::::: {as=summary} end of season stats * Veteran rank; 2220 final ELO * **Wins**{as=b}: 729 * **Battles**{as=b}: 1,415 {% 51.5 purrcent winrate %} * **Longest Streak**{as=b}: 13 * **Stardust Earned**{as=b}: 1,933,448 :::::::::::: it is really too bad that i have struggled to even find a skarmory this season, not to mention one with good IVs! the rough end to my season, as well as the chaos inevitable from a ladder reset, has shaken my confidence in the game more than a little bit. this is somewhat unfair, i suppose, given that even the best purrformance i have managed out of a team still has some very obvious weaknesses, but it is still unnerving to face the fact that i still have a long way to go in this game, and not just in getting the mon fur good team compussitions something that has also become clear to me is that i simply do not have it in me to consistently play all my sets (the fact that my team needs a lot of work sure does not help!); i have simply come to expect this. frankly, i am surpurrised that i have played all my sets so far in the season at time of writing{% 2024-03-02 %}; but this streak will surely end soon enough. as a side note; it has been fun that M and J have seemed to pick up gbl since the end of the season with evidently some expectation to play at all in the current one. i do wonder how much my teams would struggle against theirs! ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ## World of Wonders {as=section lang=en-X-catspeak} ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ### [][@:Aescling] #### _Meta-ish MBCed_{as=cite} {as=details} :::::::::::: {as=summary} teamsheet * Sparkblub (Lanturn) \ 5/15/12 (rank 68) \ Spark, Surf, Thunderbolt * Shadow (Umbreon) \ 0/15/14 (rank 2) \ Snarl, Foul Play, Last Resort * Snampy (Froslass) \ 5/14/14 (rank 472) \ Powder Snow, Avalanche, Shadow Ball :::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: [PvPoke]: https://pvpoke.com [HNISILU]: https://twitter.com/LuxxArt/status/1731524063787438207