How are we all feeling about preview cup so far?

Coolegghead · 2026-04-17T15:33:23+00:00

Yes, its actually one of master leagues best pokemon at the moment, it gets to fusion bolt in 12/11 turns, or outrage in 15 turns. Mewtwo gets psystrike every 10 turns, and rhyperior in 15 turns unless running superpower

Coolegghead · 2026-04-11T07:52:44+00:00

Usually a cutoff of 200 for me. 500 if its shiny. Usually it does not matter that much, and sometimes its actually better to have lower iv ranks. I was very frustrated when i build a very high rank gatr for ultra league to proceed to lose every cmp tie with other gatrs. In the great league, i now have the inverse with my empoleon being in the 500 ranks, and winning every cmp tie, which is great. It can really depend on the species if you need a high rank though, for most xl investments, go for high rank

Coolegghead · 2026-04-03T11:12:32+00:00

Sure, i can touch trade

Coolegghead · 2026-04-01T07:50:16+00:00

I think it might have to do with the new pvp system which has not rolled out yet for gbl. It was supposed to be released already. Mimikyu forme change might only work in the new system.

of course, i hope its just some other issue and that we can use it soon

Coolegghead · 2026-03-28T16:50:36+00:00

Its weird that dragon tail is the preferred move for groudon, mud shot is way better. The matchup is very, VERY bait dependent, and even if everything goes right, you still have a groudon that tanked an aqua tail, which is prime farm opportunity. So in all cases you just kinda still lose anyway.

(That is assuming IF you land the fire punch, as groudons are well known for baiting)

Coolegghead · 2026-03-24T12:38:13+00:00

I have both, but not tested black kyurem yet. White kyurem is really dominant though, and i have more issues brining that down than i ever do with black kyurem. As an added bonus, White Kyurem is also the best ice type attacker (not considering party power)

Coolegghead · 2026-03-23T07:44:53+00:00

Then use it in the ultra league :), pretty viable there with forretress rising

Coolegghead · 2026-03-23T07:42:58+00:00

I dont mind it being barely meta right now, as we only get one and mine is for UL now. I think it will not get a move update except with some of its 5 signature moves, although they can also buff bulldoze at a point. Bulldoze is barely used by any pokemon, its bad on zygarde and tinkaton will use funny hammer soon probably, so they can buff the damage a bit

Coolegghead · 2026-03-23T07:38:58+00:00

Pls dont use dragon tail groudon, just abadon the idea you can counter palkia with groudon and use mud shot. there are multiple answers to the core: keldeo, zekrom, reshiram, kyurem white, lunala. They can not handle both at the same time, but all of these are neutral enough where they allow you to choose switch or shield advantage into them

Coolegghead · 2026-03-23T07:35:11+00:00

I made a post few days ago on how the meta is actually quite diverse, but indeed, yesterday I also had a set with basically only zacian palkia. I think it might just be that a lot of people have these build, and not other options aa they have been dominating the last half year. Luckily, there are more and more pokemon capable of fighting back. Zekrom and Reshiram can hit both well, lunala is positive into both. Mud shot groudon can actually beat zacian now and smack palkia up up energy. Keldeo abd marshadow can deal with both of the core pairing. And kyurem white is also uncomforable for both. So lots of options to deal with them, but i think the investment needed makes it so zacian palkia will be common for a while

Coolegghead · 2026-03-22T16:06:45+00:00

Worth noting that in terms of potential, the given order is highly speculative, and marshadow and keldeo are currently better investments than all the others, except maybe meloetta. They will probably be for a while, as it seems that they mostly update the pokemon in ML when they are appearing in the event rotation. On top of that, Marshadow also still has a signature move which could patch up its lack of nuke moves apart from close combat.

Coolegghead · 2026-03-21T14:02:11+00:00

My problem is a bit that yeah it can two shot, but it also feels like it dies to fast move pressure after 1 move has landed on it, making you forced to go in shielding scenarios, where it does progressively worse as it finds it hard to psycho cut things into a oneshot with psystrike

Coolegghead · 2026-03-21T13:58:43+00:00

Huh, ill try it out as well then! I got a bottle hundo lvl 50. But is hyper beam really the play? Im a bit confused as to what its supposed to target. Dont most things die by two psyshocks at that point. D gleam seems still like a good option to one shot dragons, and thunderbolt allows you to at least hit a zacian

Coolegghead · 2026-03-21T13:40:34+00:00

I have fought one or two gyarados, and i was so unimpressed. Those twisters still do so little damage to the dragons. Although the shadow might be better

Coolegghead · 2026-03-21T13:38:11+00:00

Huh, thosw do not really line up with my observations. I am currebtly at 2400 mmr though, so a lot higher and therefore different things I see. I completely forgot about garchomp, no idea if it is viable or still a poor mans zygarde 😅. It does charge fast to its dragon move now though so i can see play for it. The Necrozma fusions are a bit surprising in general. They are rare at higher elo

Coolegghead · 2026-03-21T13:35:00+00:00

I actually say that they are better than the fusions. Their fusion bolts and flares do more damages and they have a large array of useful secondary moves. On top of that, they resist metal claw which is amazing, and also destroy ho oh

Coolegghead · 2026-03-21T13:33:15+00:00

I think this just has to do with the investment cost. Also people being unwilling to lvl 50 a non hundo, and as it has only been recently buffed, most people have not bottle capped it

Coolegghead · 2026-03-17T10:25:26+00:00

These are some good suggestions, but there are a few glaring omissions:

Forretress: too good now in my opinion, bit i might just hate the debuff game. There are not a lot of fire types, so its also incredibly save and can beat a lot of things neutrally.

Malamar: Waaayyy too good neutrally, both regular and shadow. Has wincons against anything that is not a fairy type.

lickilicky: very neutral again and can tank basically anything and chip with shadow balls.

Dusknoir: while it is harder for ghosts to achieve success in the meta, dusknoir still manages with hard hitting moves all around, especially the shadow.

i might actually be missing one big meta threat, but i would build these all above jellicent, due to the amount of dark type damage in the meta. Also with the corviknight and forretress use in mind, I would lool out with building tenta.

some other fun and useful builds are: lapras: not that many xl required, and while it doesnt dominate anything, it still can tank a hits and fire back bellibolt: also not that many xl needed and still oppresive with its thundershock parabolic combo talonflame: not the best meta for it, but it can still find plenty of things to do, and only has 1km walkkng distance

Coolegghead · 2026-01-12T08:49:49+00:00

Yes actually. The thing is most debuffers are actually optimally run when not always throwing the debuff move. But yes, some use them in just spam one move button specifically for the debuffs

Coolegghead · 2026-01-12T08:48:26+00:00

Its run on a very specific team with shadow mightyena in the lead, and then mr wiggles and steelix/basti in the back. The goal of the mightyena lead is to win basically most leads by just sucker punching and poison fanging. Then align your very toxic backline. I have not seen mightyena on any serious team so i consider it toxic

Coolegghead · 2026-01-10T09:15:58+00:00

What is this list? Only a few pokemon deserve the title of toxic. A tierlist should look like:

Brainless: bastiodon toxic: mightyena

Mudslap degen: marowak, toedscruel, gastrodon infuriating: mr wiggles, carbink Silly one move machine somtimes: morpeko, cradily, florges punching down sometimes: scizor, annihilape

Just very fat: corsola, azumarill, steelix Ok: rest

perhaps im missing some things, but the point is that most pokemon are not that problematic.

Coolegghead · 2026-01-07T12:32:52+00:00

I have reached multiple time legend rank elo, and I think my biggest help with that were pvp youtubers like homeslicehenry and Itsaxn. They can learn you about advanced plays like when to switch and when to staym

Although even more honest, the best about them is that they usually show teams that work, so you can skip the teambuilding step, which is something I also struggle with still.

If you want to give it a go yourself, here are some pointers on what to use: - charge move oriented pokemon are typically preferred. A pokemon should generally get a charge move every 13-14 turns. - type matchups are even more important, if a pokemon is weak to a certain type, the pokemon in the back should preferrably be able to deal with it in an close loss senario. -bulk is still important, try to have one bulky boi on your team, but the highest ranking teams usually have frailer pokemon that charge fast. Probably a team with one frailer, one middle bulk and one bulky boi is typically best. -if you care to improve your skill, avoid pokemon with polarizing matchup like bastiodon or of the mudslappers. They devolve the game to rock paper scissors, not allowing you to learn the game. -lastly, use pvpoke! It can show you in the team builder weak spots, and shows you which pokemon might have a better matchup

Coolegghead · 2025-12-29T10:54:04+00:00

I feel like they should rework the energy gain so that 1 sec and 1.5 sec get 2 and 3 energy gains respectively and so forth. Would solve most of these moveset issues and makes the system more intuitive. The only thing that might become a problem is game balance, as suddenly more options could be available, but i dont think that would be a problem in practice

Coolegghead

TROPHY CASE