The Master League section of GO Battle League Season 1 has started. Here are the best Pokemon to use for the premium league in PvP.
Master League is the only league in Pokemon Go that doesn’t have a CP limit. That means you can use any Pokemon – with absolutely no restrictions!
Naturally this favors the strongest species with a lot of them being legendary and mythical types. The maximum CP of a Pokemon also becomes more important, whereas in Great and Ultra League, moves and stats (at a certain CP) are more vital.
Dialga
Much like Giratina Altered Forme in Ultra League, Dialga is the undisputed champ of Master League. That’s a big claim but the Temporal Pokemon has everything on paper to live up to that.
Firstly, its high max CP is an obvious advantage in the Master League format. It can reach 4,038 CP, the eighth highest in all of Pokemon Go.
Secondly, it’s dual dragon and steel typing gives it a lot of resistances and few weaknesses. It is only vulnerable to fighting and ground-type attacks and is resistant to 10 different types of moves. Among those is grass and poison which it is doubly resistant to.
Then we come on to Dialga’s moves and they make for just as good reading. It has one of, and if not the, best Fast Moves on the game in Dragon Breath. Its four damage per turn (DPT) and three energy per turn (EPT) is rivaled by only a handful of moves.
You’d have thought its Charge Moves may be a little more forgiving but they certainly aren’t. The ultra-powerful Draco Meteor is its go-to move, dealing out a massive 150 damage for just 65 energy. For damage per energy, this the second-best move in all of Pokemon Go behind Overheat.
This can be combined with either Iron Head or Thunder. While the latter is the harder hitting move, Iron Head requires less energy and is a two-bar move.
As a result, this compliments Draco Meteor nicely. It’s also important to have the ability to use Charge Moves fairly regularly in the PvP format. It’s also useful to have a move to deal with fairy-types, something that the other two dragon-types struggle with.
Giratina – both forms
The Altered Forme of Giratina is the Pokemon of choice for Ultra League but, interestingly, in Master League, that has flipped. Giratina Origin Forme actually comes out on top in GO Battle’s premium league.
That isn’t because of Giratina-O’s superior attacking stats but because it has a higher max CP. It can reach 3,683 in comparison to Giratina-A’s 3,379. Granted this isn’t this a monumental difference but it is enough to give the Origin Forme the advantage between the two.
Both forms can boast the ghost-type Fast Move Shadow Claw, which gives 4 EPT. This is the obvious choice for the Origin Forme but its counterpart also has Dragon Breath available, which makes it a close run thing.
Dragon Claw is a must have Charge Move for Altered Giratina due to the fact it only requires 35 energy. The Origin Forme has its own excellent Charge Move too, though.
Ominous Wind may have undergone a recent nerf but its still a useful move to have to burn through Protect Shields. It may only deal 45 damage giving it a low damage per energy ratio of one but it does provide attack and defense boosts.
Shadow Ball would seem a good compliment to this but it is another ghost-type attack which therefore doesn’t mesh well with Ominous Wind. This is doubly true when using Shadow Claw as your Fast Move.
The alternative Charge Move is Dragon Pulse which isn’t as efficient as Shadow Ball but does offer more versatility. If relying on the Origin Forme of Giratina though, be wary of dark and normal-types, especially the latter. Fortunately they aren’t common sightings in Master League.
Mewtwo
Armored Mewtwo was the choice for Ultra League but for the same reasons the Giratina’s switched around, OG Mewtwo is better at Master League. It can reach a massive 4,178 CP, the fifth highest of all Pokemon.
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It’s comparably weaker defense means it does have vulnerabilities and these don’t come any more prominent than dark-types. Assuming you can avoid these and steel-types though, Mewtwo should be able to win most matchups.
Unfortunately, Mewtwo’s diverse moveset doesn’t apply to its Fast Moves. The Genetic Pokemon is stuck with two psychic-type Fast Moves – Confusion and Psycho Cut.
Confusion may seem better on paper with its significantly higher damage and good energy generation but Psycho Cut is the way to here to make the most of Mewtwo’s Charge Moves. It has 4.5 EPT which only trails Lock On for energy generation.
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Psystrike is a must-have Charge Move if available, despite it being another psychic-type. Its damage per energy of two just cannot be ignored. The Legacy Move Shadow Ball is another one you can’t look past but again this may not be readily available.
This leaves Flamethrower, Focus Blast, Ice Beam, Psychic and Thunderbolt as the alternatives. With such a diverse set of moves your opponent will certainly be second-guessing.
Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Psychic and Thunderbolt share exactly the same damage and energy requirement. As the ice-type move will probably be more effective against species seen more frequently in Master League, Ice Beam gets our vote. It is also doubly effective against an array of Pokemon.
Focus Blast is an very powerful alternative move and can negate Mewtwo’s weakness to dark and steel-types.
Togekiss
The Jubilee Pokemon only has a maximum CP of 3,332, which may lead some of you to question just how good it can be at the Master League level. Its appeal isn’t so much its strength but what it protects you against.
It has four double resistances which are bug, dragon, fighting and ground-types. The most important of them is dragon as there are a lot those types used in Master League and a lot dragon-type moves utilized by various other Pokemon.
Togekiss’ Charm Fast Move is an absolute must. It has low energy generation but is comfortably the second hardest hitting Fast Move in all of Pokemon Go.
This will naturally limit your Charge Moves but given Togekiss is used to counter certain Pokemon this isn’t too much of an issue. It can defeat Giratina, Dialga, Palkia and Dragonite just to name a few.
Ancient Power would have been its Charge Move of choice before the April PvP update and because of that Aerial Ace is arguably favored. The latter hits a bit harder but both require 45 energy. Given the poor energy generation of charm, you should look at one of, if not both of these over Dazzling Gleam and Flamethrower.
Palkia
If Dialga is such a good Pokemon for Master League, then a lot of you will be wondering about Palkia. The Spatial Pokemon doesn’t have as many resistances but more notably, its Charge Moves are too expensive.
Draco Meteor is its cheapest at 65 and its other two are Fire Blast and Hydro Pump. That doesn’t mean you should write Palkia off, though.
It can be used as a last choice option when, hopefully, your opponent has exhausted their Protect Shields. After all it does boast Dragon Breath so energy generation isn’t too much of an issue.
There are plenty of other Pokemon you can use in GO Battle Master League but these are among the best of them.
