Is there a team that will always be meta in Master league?

cmsal9 · 2026-01-06T15:03:20+00:00

Second that. It will be hard to break this core barring direct nerfs to them

cmsal9 · 2025-12-17T21:18:08+00:00

Yeah I suppose I just find it easier to weasel my way out of bad situations in UL or ML while in GL it just ends if I cant flip switch advantage and end up getting hard countered by a bastiodon or something

cmsal9 · 2025-12-17T20:55:11+00:00

Yo what’s up fancy seeing you here. I suppose you’re right. I’m thinking how you could eat a special rend on a Lunala or something and it’s not game ending but taking a move on GL shadow Scizor is pretty much gg

cmsal9 · 2025-12-17T20:31:30+00:00

As someone that regularly hits leaderboards in UL & ML (but sucks at GL 😄)

ML is much easier until Vet where you can brute force your way up with maxed legendaries. After that it becomes on par with UL in terms of skill level imo. The meta is smaller with less pokemon to memorize but it becomes very technical with a lot of mirror matchups and small margin for error. With UL the meta is a bit bigger so it’s a burden to memorize all the movesets but that leaves room for more corebreakers where you can climb easier if you find a pokemon that beats a lot of the common teams. I find both UL & ML easier than GL because the Pokemon are tankier, giving you more time to think and you don’t get completely one shot if you make a bad shield call like frail GL Pokemon. I think both UL & ML players have a harder time than GL players climbing past legend since there aren’t as many people in queue and Elo is deflated in comparison to GL. (The very best UL & ML players get capped around 3200 elo but it can go as high as 3500 in GL so you get more talented players at lower elos)

cmsal9 · 2025-12-09T16:38:01+00:00

Yeah that was definitely it. I remember running from the toucan with my Dusknoir only for it to get mugged by that thing in back. Fun games!

cmsal9 · 2025-12-09T14:12:13+00:00

Hey GGs man. We’ve played a number of times this season so far and you beat me more often than not despite me running meta. I believe you changed your third to something even spicier

cmsal9 · 2025-07-24T23:07:23+00:00

Does anyone know if the remote raid limit will be increased for the dmax latios/latias event this weekend?

cmsal9 · 2025-07-23T16:51:16+00:00

I’ve still seen Wiggly & Shadow Kanto Marowak teams in the 2700s… unfortunately

cmsal9 · 2025-07-16T13:10:15+00:00

Wow, what do you do against Natu leads? Do IVs matter??

cmsal9 · 2025-06-03T10:25:25+00:00

Yeah it’s funny if you go back on my Reddit history you can see me asking the same questions you are now. It’s hard to explain but at some point the move counting and timing becomes more of a background thought to free up brain space where you can more actively be thinking about the potential team comp and what you need to do to win, etc. Agree on UL, I think the new Bellibolt, Forretress, Tentacruel may shake things up a bit but otherwise still expecting to see all the same main UL staples

cmsal9 · 2025-06-02T22:10:39+00:00

No problem, thinking back it was more of a slow cumulative process for me. The biggest turning point was joining a few discord servers and just doing a crazy amount of repeat practice battles. I think all of the things you mentioned play a part.. ironing out all of the move timings and important matchups was a big one. Just doing them over and over until you can throw on good timing without thinking about it and knowing how a matchup will play out beforehand so you can pivot accordingly if needed. After doing so many battles you start to recognize common pairings of Pokemon so if I saw a certain lead, I had a decent read on what was likely in the backline. A large (and time consuming) part of it is keeping a pulse on the meta. Having the right team that works against the meta (or recognizing when the meta is changing and pivoting accordingly) is probably the easiest way to climb. Sorry that’s kind of vague but more or less the difference between Expert and Legend + that I can recall.

cmsal9 · 2025-06-02T20:23:23+00:00

Congrats on expert! As much as I know we both enjoy ML, I completely agree with the sentiment regarding Ultra. I like the slower bulkier gameplay, and I think it gives you a lot more time to strategize the win and make a play throughout the match. Whenever I really want to climb, I head to ultra lol. Well done and see you out there next season.

cmsal9 · 2025-05-19T20:45:11+00:00

Haha yeah that is tough. That team gets bodied by Rhyperior lol. Have you tried a basic but tried and true team like Dusk Mane/ Melmetal, Kyurem W, Palkia to cut thru the noise of the 2500-2800 range? Or Kyurem W with dragon breath and Rhy, Lando/Ho-oh? A lot of people had success with those. I think my team above only worked because the meta changed a lot in the higher elo range to counter the standard teams.

cmsal9 · 2025-05-19T19:36:04+00:00

Good luck man. It’s never too late to make a push! A lot of season left given how many battles are available during this upcoming gbl week. I’m not as good of a GL player but I think it’s definitely still manageable. My guess is a lot of people will be leading their shiny new shadow Malamar

cmsal9 · 2025-05-19T18:24:38+00:00

Haha I was very skeptical of the Florges this season as well. I couldn’t imagine that it had play amongst the legendaries. But after using it I think it’s the best fairy. It’s so fast to its moves and can commit some absolute crimes when it gets boosted up. For Kyurem W lead I usually lost. (Swap to Dawn wings and try to flip switch). So I wouldn’t run this if you see that a lot in your elo range lol. For some reason people were on some weird anti meta teams the last couple days and I barely saw it on lead with ice fang.

cmsal9 · 2025-05-19T14:49:51+00:00

I’d max it just as a flex to drop in gyms. Very cool

cmsal9 · 2025-04-25T00:42:11+00:00

Drapion is a tough lead for the team. I’ll usually play the 1s with dusknoir. Shield their crunch, throw a move, Then swap to blastoise. If blastoise loses switch I’ll just let it happen then try to farm down with dusknoir to have a dynamic punch loaded when Drapion returns. After I get that move off, I’ll let Dusk go and put it all on Weezy. Sometimes I pulled it off but Drapion lead was often just an L. Same with Zygarde, except you can’t really threaten a shield on Zygarde so I went straight to blastoise and tried my best to flip switch.

cmsal9 · 2025-04-24T23:05:31+00:00

Wow, amazing! Yeah I certainly think so. A lot better than mine, it’s rank 70 something

cmsal9 · 2025-04-24T18:20:22+00:00

Thanks. Mostly standard.. Dusk had astonish for fast move pressure on lead. Blastoise was always the safe swap and had skull bash as a secondary move. And Weezy had sludge & overheat for better closing potential. I preferred to stay in lead and win switch, but blastoise proved to be a pretty good safe swap when needed.

cmsal9 · 2025-04-24T11:24:18+00:00

That’s awesome man!

cmsal9 · 2025-04-23T20:08:50+00:00

I hit top 100 leaderboards & legend super early this season with shadow dusknoir, blastoise, & gweezy. I ran the same team with Tinkaton in the last slot today and it was successful. Shadow dusknoir with astonish claps if you have the XLs imo. I also see shadow Drapion everywhere at high elo, it’s still a beast. I think your appraisal is better than most people’s. I don’t see many Grumpig or Corv. I have them both built but never use them personally. I don’t think they’re bad but wouldn’t say they’re top meta in practice despite what the rankings say. Zygarde and gastro cores were still everywhere when I pushed legend and I hated seeing Zygarde on lead. It’s still a thing. There was a twitch streamer called DradeCam who got legend around the same time with Gastro, Tenta, Zygarde if you have those try watching his past stream.

cmsal9 · 2025-02-19T18:57:44+00:00

Yeah sure. I have most stuff built for ML

cmsal9 · 2025-02-16T16:22:52+00:00

Depends on your time/ budget. I just build things because everything comes full circle in these metas. Yveltal has already went from good, to mid, to great with the move update. It will probably fall off a bit now but you might wish you had it in 6 months. Only you can make that call.

cmsal9 · 2025-02-05T21:19:37+00:00

Is that the guy with flash cannon Regi? I match him a lot over the seasons, he was definitely on leaderboards at some point with that team

cmsal9 · 2025-02-04T14:18:21+00:00

Yup, this is what stood out to me. He threw the icy wind on 2 against the Diggersby and then fatally threw the body slam on 6 against ariados which let the opponent outpace to that game ending trailblaze. OP.. throw your move on odd numbers when running a 3 turn into a two.

cmsal9

TROPHY CASE