Halloween is back, and this year it brought Megas with it. Mega Halloween Cup runs Oct 27 - Nov 3 at 1500 CP, and only Bug, Poison, Ghost, Dark and Fairy types get in. Hisuian Qwilfish and Shadow Nidoqueen came out as the core to beat, and Clodsire shows up as the thing to watch for over and over. Funny enough, a Mega isn't required to do well here: the top teams mostly don't run one, but Mega Mawile and Mega Audino slot in nicely if you want to bring yours. PvPoke only posted their rankings the day before the cup started, and there are just 36 shared battles behind these numbers so far, so expect things to move as the week goes on.

Top Cores

1. Qwilfish (Hisuian) + Nidoqueen (Shadow) -
   • Tinkaton - 93.5
   • Weezing (Galarian) (Shadow) - 93.1
   • Mawile (Mega) - 92.6
2. Drapion (Shadow) + Forretress -
   • Nidoqueen - 92.6
3. Amoonguss + Tinkaton -
   • Drapion (Shadow) - 91.7
   • Qwilfish (Hisuian) - 91.2
4. Clodsire + Araquanid (Shadow) -
   • Qwilfish (Hisuian) - 90.2
   • Drapion (Shadow) - 89.2
5. Araquanid (Shadow) + Spidops -
   • Forretress - 86.3
   • Incineroar - 85.6

Budget Cores - No Elite TM

1. Qwilfish (Hisuian) + Nidoqueen (Shadow) -
   • Weezing (Galarian) (Shadow) - 93.1
   • Mawile (Mega) - 92.6
2. Nidoqueen + Drapion (Shadow) -
   • Forretress - 92.6
   • Charjabug - 92.1
3. Araquanid (Shadow) + Carbink -
   • Drapion (Shadow) - 90.4
4. Clodsire + Araquanid (Shadow) -
   • Qwilfish (Hisuian) - 90.2
   • Drapion (Shadow) - 89.2
5. Clodsire + Greninja (Mega) -
   • Spidops - 85.1
   • Drapion - 84.3

Cores + Your Mega

1. Qwilfish (Hisuian) + Nidoqueen (Shadow) -
   • Audino (Mega) - 93.5
   • Mawile (Mega) - 92.6
2. Nidoqueen + Drapion (Shadow) -
   • Audino (Mega) - 90.0
   • Mawile (Mega) - 89.2
   • Altaria (Mega) - 88.4
   • Sableye (Mega) - 88.1
3. Araquanid (Shadow) + Altaria (Mega) -
   • Drapion (Shadow) - 87.1
4. Houndoom (Mega) + Qwilfish (Hisuian) -
   • Wormadam (Trash) - 86.7
   • Clodsire - 86.0
   • Tinkaton - 85.7
5. Scizor (Mega) + Spidops -
   • Forretress - 85.8
   • Clodsire - 85.4

The team I used was volt switch forretress, mimikyu safe switch and shadow araquanid closer. Had back to back 4-1s to hit legend today

call me bad at pvp bc im 1800 rating
but the teams fun
and i beat like at lst 3 opponents with this team
so gl everyone

I’ve been stuck around 2300 for a while, but after some serious larping in the Halloween cup I managed to hit veteran for the first time! Big shoutout to poison sting Nidoqueen for making this happen. We move!

Any thrifty people also hoping some hundo mega pokemon you may have invested into Mega Level 4 for raids/master league scale down decently for great league ultra league?

Even if the rank isn't too high, any hitting anywhere near 1500cp at least? Most megas are fun spice anyway, so high ranks not particularly required.

Excited to try some out!

4th time hitting veteran but I’ve had no luck for like the last 5 seasons. Hit 2498 last season before falling and I really needed this (hence Mimikyu lol). Started the day at like 2350 and went 14-1 with this team. Nidoqueen MVP!

My second straight season hitting legend! I posted last season, and it’s the same team that got me there. Ultra league: Cetitan, shadow Ampharos, shadow Raikou!

Now time to relax and have actual fun!

I am finally 90 xls away from maxing this. After the Nov 5th spotlight, I will finally have enough.

What would you guys run with it in the master league? Just regular ml, not mega.

Hey Gamers,

I wanted to let the community know that Oak Coliseum has some really exciting updates.

The Mega Halloween Cup: Great League Edition is live and ready to start getting team recommendations.
As the Great League has been seeing Mimikyu is once again the #1 annoyance that we'll all have to deal with. Alongside many of the usual offenders; Tinkaton, Clodsire, and Greninja too. But this cup will allow some lesser seen characters such as Klefki, Aromatisse, and Grafaiai. I think being restricted to Bug, Poison, Ghost, Dark, and Fairy will make for another league where we see a lot of the same teams. Personally, I like:
Tinkaton - Mimikyu - Clodsire
Umbreon - Nidoqueen - Azumarill
Lokix - Haunter - Golbat

Managing your inventory for PvP is one thing, and managing it for trades and showing off to your friends is a whole 'nuther thing. So I've launched the OakeDex, the Oak Coliseum Pokedex. With a free account you can manage all of your Caught and Shiny pokemon and with a Pro account, you can manage just about everything you've caught. Every single account has the ability to create a link to share your specific collection so you can show off what you have any more importantly, what you're missing; making trades much easier.

Lastly, I started creating an educational resource, Oak University. My goal in this is to provide details aimed at newer PVPers. How does it all work? What do I need to focus on? How do I become a better player? As time goes on, I will work on providing as much information and knowledge for Pokemon GO PvP.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

The difference in effort to get the XLs to get these ready for great league is pretty stark. But they both have a 96%+ stat product. Is it worth farming up the XLs for the "better" one or just use the "worse" one?

Despite not being very good, I can't even hit Veteran in the Great League, I have managed to find a team that just works for me.

It definitely has some corebreakers such as Houndoom, Seismitoad, and Zygarde but overall it is pretty consistent.

Edit with stats: Forretress: 13-11-15, VS, ST, RT. 13 attack means that it wins mirrors. At least I have never lost a mirror. Forretress is just generally a very strong pick and wins against a lot of meta mons. I was afraid that the rework to Sand Tomb would make it worse but it doesn't seem to be the case. I love to snipe half hp SHoundooms and STyphlosion with it.

GMoltres: 2-7-4, SP, Fly, BB. One could argue for Payback over Brave Bird which would make it better against certain mons like Empoleon and Corviknight, although my team is already decent against those.

Skeledirge: 0-15-10, Inc, TS, SB. Tried Blast Burn for a while which certainly caught a lot of people off guard. Torch Song is probably just better. I also tried Disarming Voice for dragons but it was in most games just way worse than Shadow Ball.

Gonna wait until Great League comes back

I'm struggling to figure this out. Ill use this malamar as an example, but I am in a similar predicament with a few others as well.

I'm trying to use pvpoke to figure out what level my mega malamar should be, looks like it should be at level 30 with these IVs, so I brought it to 29 to be safe while I work on getting the energy for mega level 4. But the "base malamar" CP listed when mega level 4 is selected is lower than what I have currently. Did I screw up and misunderstand how this works, subsequently over leveling him? I really wish scopely would release the cp squish they mentioned because this is super annoying to try and figure out.

I don't recall them ever taking this long, but are the rankings usually only posted a day or 2 before? I'd like to start putting together teams and have some idea if I'm on the right track.

Last week I hit Veteran with this team but with G-Moltres as the lead. I started running into a lot of Ampharos and due to being double weak to electric it became a bit of a problem.

In the interlude season earlier this year I was using Grimmsnarl as a fun bit of spice, and given I had already hit my target I decided to use it again for some fun. However to my surprise it ended up being a huge success and pushing me all the way to Expert for the first time!

Grimmsnarl is quite frail but incredibly fun to use. For some reason I was running into a lot of Zygarde, Regidrago, Jellicent & Armoured Mewtwo leads which it would feast on. It was an incredible core breaker and I’m surprised it’s not more common. I did run into one trainer also using it, kudos to you!

The most problematic leads (Tink/Florges/Melmetal) started to dry up the closer I got to Expert. Empoleon also beats this entire team, but I rarely saw that too. Melmetal is not as common in ultra league compared to great league, but if my Corviknight wasn’t aligned on it to do sizeable chip damage it would usually end in defeat for me.

As for the others, I know it will upset people seeing another Mimikyu team being successful. I think the most sensible nerf would be to make shadow sneak a 60 energy move so it can’t double up, reducing its pacing further. Corviknight is the damage sponge of the team and comfortable deals with any Tink in the back. I did notice that the majority of other Corviknight I faced had Payback whilst mine had Iron Head, so the mirror was nearly always lost as a result.

Not long after hitting expert, I had some bad sets so have dropped closer to Veteran. I won’t try to push much further as the skill level is difficult and the queue times are longer, but would really recommend Grimmsnarl if you build around it!

Hey all, I’m decently new to climbing the ranks and meant to ask, I’m trying to raise an Origin Dialga for Master League and I’ve been stressing a ton about IVs, I’ve made maybe 4 lucky trades and gotten annoyingly close to the floor each time. 14/14/14 is the best I’ve got so far, and I guess I’m making this post wondering if I’m stressing too hard about getting perfect IVs? Like assuming I fully build my team and attempt to climb the ranks, how likely is it that these IVs will harm me in the long run?

I have only been able to do it once on every account. Can someone help me and tell how did you do it again? It just doesnt and I tried, its like that on every acc of mine

Surprised I haven’t seen any other shadow zekroms. Definitely the weakest link of my team but he can catch a lot of people off guard. Running wild charge + crunch. Has anyone else tried zekrom?

Can anyone tell me what an attack weighted iv exactly is and how I know I have a good iv for this? Just got this 100% Sableye and was wondering if it’s worth using it in the Halloween cup if not mega evolving it for this cup?

I finally get to try out shadow Ursaluna the next time great league is in rotation.

I recently got a shundo Delphox from a lucky trade and was able to super max mega from the previous event, still working on getting to level 50 and best buddy. But this Pokemon has been extremely fun especially as a core breaker again Mega Mewtwo Y. I don’t typically play ML because I don’t have 3 viable level 50 Pokemon yet, but fantasy cup pushed me to go for something new.

Just a general question for those who have successfully run Mega Delphox, what are your recommended teammates? I’m currently sitting at 2100, up 200 elo this week (after tanking in fantasy cup)

As if the Fantasy Cup wasn't enough mimi. Next week is only master league, and Halloween cup. So if you aren't a master league player and are sick of mimikyu like I am you will have to slog through yet another week of this stupid ghost.

This is only my first few months of playing PvP. In the past would they ban or nerf a pokemon as highly used as mimikyu mid season, or do they only do bans and nerfs between seasons?

i guess even brokies can get somewhere lmao

15/15/15 mega metagross (SC MM/EQ)
15/15/14 sylveon (FW Mb/SB)
15/14/15 florges (FW Mb/CW)

Classic ABB fairy, this is dumpster elo so Zacian is on 99% of teams. If isn't on the lead I use Sylveon to lure it out, outpace it to the shadow ball and suddenly it's in meteor mash range so I can just let it die and bring in the metagross again (I'm well aware this doesn't work at any substantial elo)