Pokémon Go Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Pokémon

Form the best Pokémon team to battle in Color Cup

Contents

1. Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Leads
2. Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Safe Switches
3. Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Closers
4. Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Attackers

Hoist the colors! Wait, we aren’t going sailing or plundering? What’s going on then? Ah, the Color Cup is coming to Pokémon Go, replacing the Fantasy Cup for a week. This change of shifts is happening on March 8, 2023, at 1 pm PT. Color Cup – Great League Edition will subsequently run until March 15, 2023, 1 pm PT.

This Go Battle League competition features a competition points (CP) limit for participating Pokémon of 1,500 CP. In addition, the Color Cup ruleset restricts you to only using Pokémon of the Fire-, Water-, Grass-, and Electric-types.

Get ready to make your opponents see only black with the best Pokémon for Color Cup – Great League Edition in Pokémon Go based on statistics and simulations provided by PvPoke.com.

Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Leads

These Pokémon aggressively apply pressure on your opponent right from the start of a duel and can survive even tough battles for a long time – they are perfect to open a match up, enabling you to score an early knockout or set up a strong counter play.

1. Shadow Luxray (Spark, Wild Charge, Psychic Fangs)
2. Abomasnow (Powder Snow, Weather Ball (Ice), Energy Ball)
3. Shadow Zapdos (Thunder Shock, Drill Peck, Thunderbolt)
4. Swampert^(S) (Mud Shot, Hydro Cannon, Earthquake)
5. Shadow Abomasnow (Powder Snow, Weather Ball (Ice), Energy Ball)
6. Togedemaru (Thundershock, Fell Stinger, Wild Charge)
7. Trevenant (Shadow Claw, Seed Bomb, Shadow Ball)
8. Toxapex (Poison Jab, Brine, Sludge Wave)
9. Stunfisk (Thunder Shock, Mud Bomb, Discharge)
10. Tropius (Air Slash, Leaf Blade, Aerial Ace)

(S) = Regular form and Shadow form perform comparably.

Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Safe Switches

If the opening pairing is to your disadvantage, you should consider switching out your lead for another Pokémon. This is where this category comes into play. They are either strong leads themselves or are specialized in countering some of the most popular leads. In any case, a switch will preserve your original lead to fight later on in the battle and perhaps force your opponent to also adapt their strategy on the fly.

1. Trevenant (Shadow Claw, Seed Bomb, Shadow Ball)
2. Shadow Zapdos (Thunder Shock, Drill Peck, Thunderbolt)
3. Shadow Charizard (Wing Attack, Blast Burn, Dragon Claw)
4. Galvantula (Volt Switch, Discharge, Lunge)
5. Charizard (Wing Attack, Blast Burn, Dragon Claw)
6. Charjabug (Spark, X-Scissor, Discharge)
7. Gourgeist (Super Size) (Hex, Seed Bomb, Shadow Ball)
8. Shadow Galvantula (Volt Switch, Discharge, Lunge)
9. Shadow Ampharos (Volt Switch, Brutal Swing, Thunder Punch)
10. Pelipper (Wind Attack, Weather Ball (Water), Hurricane)

Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Closers

These Pokémon are particularly useful when there are no shields left in play on either side – they are incredibly tough themselves or end battles quickly thanks to powerful charge attacks.

1. Victini (Quick Attack, V-Create, Psychic)
2. Toxapex (Poison Jab, Brine, Sludge Wave)
3. Torkoal (Fire Spin, Overheat, Earthquake)
4. Shadow Electivire (Thunder Shock, Ice Punch, Wild Charge)
5. Shadow Swampert (Mud Shot, Hydro Cannon, Earthquake)
6. Cradily^(S) (Bullet Seed, Stone Edge, Grass Knot)
7. Shadow Raikou (Thunder Shock, Wild Charge, Shadow Ball)
8. Trevenant (Shadow Claw, Seed Bomb, Shadow Ball)
9. Amoonguss (Feint Attack, Grass Knot, Sludge Bomb)
10. Ferrothorn (Bullet Seed, Power Whip, Flash Cannon)

Color Cup – Great League Edition: Best Attackers

These Pokémon perform best when fighting a trainer who still has shields, while you no longer have shields yourself. They combine important resistances and strong fast attacks to compensate for this disadvantage. For this reason, you rarely see Shadow forms in this role – they take more damage than their regular counterparts, making them a risky card to put on the table.

1. Toxapex (Poison Jab, Brine, Sludge Wave)
2. Mantine (Wind Attack, Bubble Beam, Ice Beam)
3. Tropius (Air Slash, Leaf Blade, Aerial Ace)
4. Araquanid (Bug Bite, Bug Buzz, Bubble Beam)
5. Ferrothorn (Bullet Seed, Power Whip, Flash Cannon)
6. Abomasnow (Powder Snow, Weather Ball (Ice), Energy Ball)
7. Pachirisu^(XL) (Volt Switch, Thunder Punch, Thunderbolt)
8. Shadow Gloom (Razor Leaf, Sludge Bomb, Moonblast)
9. Shadow Vileplume (Razor Leaf, Sludge Bomb, Moonblast)
10. Alolan Marowak (Fire Spin, Shadow Bone, Bone Club)

(XL) = The Pokémon requires Candy XL to reach its optimal power level.

Overall, this is quite a varied meta that doesn’t require all too much investment, since many of these Pokémon are strong in regular Great League as well. The Attacker category has a few throwbacks to older GO Battle League times in store – Razor Leaf users like Shadow Gloom and Shadow Vileplume once dominated the competition and make a bit of a return here thanks to their ridiculously high attack speed.

Apart from GO Battle League, you should check out this month’s Raids, Field Research, and Spotlight Hours to not miss anything going on in the mobile game.