By ArceusAurelius
Welcome to the Battle Frontier! I am ArceusAurelius, and I’ve been playing competitive Pokémon Go since May 2019. I’ve peaked as #19 on the GBL Leaderboard, earned several Top Cut finishes in Play! Pokémon Regionals and won a Cycle in the previous Silph Factions with my team Snovertappers. I’ve taken a look at the upcoming Battle Frontier’s Cycle 2 Open Great League format.
The Open Great League has always been a tough meta to balance. The depth of viable Pokémon combined with the low difference in power levels will always let some Pokémon carry extraordinary value compared to others in the same Tier. For example Master League is a bit easier to classify into a point system, as it is slightly more obvious what power level a Pokémon possess. In Great League, every Pokémon reaches the same CP, and their value might skyrocket due to other Pokémon simply being restricted.
For this OGL system, Battle Frontier has implemented a point tiering system, similar to what Silph Factions eventually did. This is what the tiering looks like:
**Update: Since the release of the initial ruleset for Cycle 2, Annihilape has been added to the game and to the S Tier.**
A Pokémon from the S Tier will cost you 7 points, the A Tier 5 points, the B Tier 2 points and what I’ll call the C Tier (consisting of everything unlisted) 1 point.
With 17 allocated points, there are several options to build your team.
The most important thing to note is that the Pokémon in the S Tier can’t be paired with each other. Your party must consist of 6 Pokémon. Picking two S Tier Pokémon plus four Pokémon from any other tier would exceed the 17 points limit.
S Tier
From the S Tier, I personally find Lanturn and Azumarill to hold the most value. Both have great stats and unique typings, and they can fight back against almost any threat. Their moveset flexibility is also incredible in a format where you can TM your Pokémon to matchup as strongly as possible into your opponent. Lanturn is also the Pokémon with the best matchups into the rest of the S Tier Pokémon.
Registeel is a very strong Pokémon, but because of multiple viable alternatives costing fewer points, I don’t expect it to get a lot of game time. Same goes for the now-nerfed Medicham. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Instead, there is Annihilape though. Fighting and Ghost is a coverage that can hit everything for neutral.
A Tier
I struggle to find a lot of value in the A Tier to be blunt. Poliwrath seems like the best option, as it is unique, has a lot of flexibility and a wide variety of strong matchups. I fully expect it to be a strong force in the upcoming season, while it also sports a strong showing into the rest of the A Tier.
The mudboys will always be comfort picks for a whole lot of trainers out there, so prepare to face either Swampert or Whiscash too. Alolan Ninetales might also carve out a niche, as it has decent matchups into some of the most popular picks from a few practice tournaments. More on that later.
I believe Talonflame and Serperior are red herrings in this category. Charizard and Venusaur are both available for three points less, and unless there are specific scenarios you need Talon or Serp for, your team will end up looking a lot better with any of the Kanto Starters.
B Tier
The B Tier is where the juicy stuff is for me. Cresselia at a cost of a mere 2 points is way too tempting to not bring. The only Pokémon really giving Cresselia trouble are bulky Steel types like Registeel and Skarmory, stored away due to the 7 points cost. Cresselia can even fight back against the most popular Ghost types, like Trevenant, Sableye or Froslass, due to them being frailer.
Clodsire, GFisk and Diggersby are tanky Ground types that pair exceptionally well with Cresselia too. Charjabug has been incredible since the Timeless Travels move update and will be a popular pick.
C Tier
From the C Tier there are some real gems. Dragon types like Dragonair and Guzzlord can be found here, together with other strong Pokémon like Skeledirge and Noctowl. Gliscor can also be a budget option instead of the 7-point Gligar, giving up Gligar’s consistency for a harder hitting Earthquake and 6 points difference.
The meta in practice
Inadequance’s Discord server hosts a lot of practice tournaments, and these are the 10 Pokémon with the highest usage from two practice tournaments in this format in December:
The most used Pokémon are B and C Tier Pokémon. It’s incredibly important to note when teambuilding what the biggest threats to your team are. Out of the 10 most used Pokémon, Whiscash and Poliwrath were the only picks more expensive than 2 points, and that’s why I will build my team focusing more on countering popular B Tier picks than some of the “fringe” S and A Tier picks that probably will see low usage.
Cresselia saw the most use unsurprisingly. As it can handle Ground, Water, Fighting and either Dragon or Poison types depending on the team, Cress offers bulk, flexibility and is all in all just an incredibly solid Pokémon.
Charjabug, Guzzlord and Skeledirge are all Pokémon that can be used to handle Cress, and they are still on a budget compared to other counters like Umbreon, Registeel or Sableye. They are also very good partners to Cress, which I believe this meta will revolve around.
The Pokémon you see on this graph is why I think of Alolan Ninetales as a niche Pokémon with high potential. 8 of the 10 most popular Pokémon are playable matchups for Alolan Ninetales, meaning it might become a very good anti meta pick. And if you’re crazy enough, Shadow Alolan Ninetales with Power Snow and Blizzard might even be able to beat Galarian Stunfisk in some scenarios!
The winning teams from the tournaments show us something very interesting. Froslass and Greedent were both(!) on the winning teams! Even though their usage was not the highest, their performances were incredible.
Lanturn is the only S Tier Pokémon to win in the first tournament, while Charjabug was the Electric of choice for the second winner.
Another interesting pick is Ferrothorn. With Power Whip and Mirror Shot, Ferrothorn would be a very safe Pokémon to bring into the first winner. That is a lot of value from a rare and unique C Tier pick!
Final thoughts
I predict that this will be a very bulky meta. There are a lot of bulky Pokémon available in the B Tier while some of the frailer Pokémon sit on a pricier shelf. It surely does free up some of the S Tier Pokémon to get picked, because there are a lot of valuable budget options.
When creating a meta for OGL, it’s important to restrict strong cores that would have to be RPS’d to have a chance at winning. I don’t think this will be a big problem as there are strong corebreakers available to most of the popular cores. Even though the meta might be somewhat unbalanced in the sense that some Pokémon will dominate the meta, that is simply hard to avoid in any given meta.
What I hope will emerge is that any team build will be equally viable, and that not a single pick will just be “free” in the sense that you put it on your team no matter what. I’m slightly worried about Cresselia usage, but other than that, I’m very optimistic about what we’ll see this meta. Happy battling!
