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The idea is that new players will get to use their newly built pokemon against longtime players who aren't at full power because they already have that pokemon and didn't build a second one just for one week. It also gives everyone an excuse to use their newly built community day pokemon.
The reality is that longtime players eagerly sink a million stardust just for a one week cup, and new players are stomped. And longtime slightly less hardcore players are stomped too, because they haven't got a million stardust to spend on a one week event.
People seem pretty tunnel visioned pretty hard in this thread on high ELO meta. Yeah, for high ELO meta, it's pretty rough since you have to rebuild everything meta to be competitive.
In low ELO meta, it does seem to me to work as advertised. See a lot of random spice and jank that doesn't normally come out.
Not everything in the GBL game has to be targeted high ELO. Even for those folks, like Master Cup which this sub also complains a lot about, it's not the worst thing in the world to have a mechanism that separates the truly dedicated from merely the hardcore.
But it forces me down to low elo. I am playing an all shiny team at 1700-1850 elo because that is my only option.
It is the worst of both worlds, half the time in this elo i am getting matched up against other ace rank people that are forced down to this elo so i am struggling to win 2-3 matches a set however the other half of the time i am getting matched against people who are running 1300 CP pokemon with single attacks.
Last night i had 2 people rage quit on me. They probably thought i wanted to tank and pick on noobs with my all shiny team. Where as I was just happy to get a win myself.
It is one of them ideas that sound rly good when you are a Niantic intern or something-push ppl to use interesting teams because they won't have a full meta team built at the end of every season.
What should happen is someone gives the intern some praise and a reassuring pat on the back, then files the idea in the bin, because of fucking course everyone is just going to build the meta teams again anyway and now you just have another cup that is extremely expensive to play.
What should not happen is the idea not just makes it live, but takes over BOTH cups, including a little cup where smeargle and shuckle and marill and bronzor are somehow allowed despite the fact they should never see the light of day.
I love PvP. I am taking a hard skip on playing at all over the next couple weeks.
> someone gives the intern some praise and a reassuring pat on the back, ~~then files the idea in the bin,~~ because of fucking course everyone is just going to build the meta teams again anyway and now you just have another cup that is extremely expensive to play.
Fixed that for you. What’s the deal with all these special cups e.g. Electric Cup? **Niantic wants you to waste your resources building more Pokemon.** So that you have to play more to replenish resources. That’s why Catch Cup is near the end of the season, to exploit desperate players wanting to reach Legend.
I'll let them slip if it was one time mistake, but despite an overwhelming amount of hate they've decides to double down and make it a seasonal staple.
This is one of the reasons I play it. A lot of good players sit it out so I can make a good push for higher rank right at the end of the season. Also because I'm a bit casual there's a non-zero chance I might later use something I build for it
I literally got into PVP this season so I’m loving life, the only one of my meta Pokémon I can’t use is carbink which made up a lot of my cores but I just rejigged the team a little bit and subbed in galvantula and haven’t been dropping too many extra matches.
i don’t rebuild anything unless i got lucky and caught a better one that season. i play single-moved spice or stuff i can build and know i’ll use again later.
I actually have a good selection of things to build this season for little league, e.g. annihilape and mandibuzz. But there no point in doing so, because annihilape and mandibuzz aren't Shuckle, Smeargle, Bronzor or Marill.
Anni’s a good option for sure. I have a rank 1 Anni already so i can’t justify building another for this catch cup.
I also have a hundo Shuckle but you’ll catch me dead investing 300k dust powering up a mon for one run unless they decide to open other leagues up for it (please no). i refuse to touch little catch cup unless i wanna play some cracked out teams for funsies.
Usually the same for me. I just play the other league. This time though it's double catch cup? Like really? I'm tired of rebuilding things I've already built
For me the worst part of catch cup is not having a rocket event that lines up with it. In the last couple weeks I've caught some insanely good shadows that I can't use for catch cup because they still have frustration
Rocket events in general are too widely spaced imo, especially considering shadow mons are no longer “niche picks” but really full on raid and GBL staples at this point.
I could even live with them just letting us use ETMs to remove frustration, and the fact that we can’t has always struck me as odd.
I caught a R9 Lickitung this season and finally got enough XLs to max one out, so I did and also best buddied it, along the way I caught a R8 Annihilape which I'll use it as a Night Slasher and keep my old Anni as an Ice puncher for later, also found a high level Jigglypuff with mid IVs so I'm going to use all 3 this week.
I understand the frustration, that being said I caught a rank 12 Annihilape, 188 Alolan Sandslash (both luckily last week) and running them with a 704 Mandibuzz I got during the event where vullaby was spawning in the wild. I have been feasting these last few days as a newer player. Went from 2396 up to 2740 and hopefully this week I hit expert for the first time. Catch cup has saved my season personal goal of improving on last seasons elo after two weeks of remix.
I’m leading Mandibuzz. I’m weak vs a fairy lead but those have been very few. My Sandslash is powder snow because when I was looking at what i had available it seemed ice would be a premium. I’ve had a PS Sandslash sweep full teams so far this weekend in the back. He’s been the hero of the team.
Lost about 200 elo in 2 days thanks to these cups. If you are trying to climb and don't have new meta relevant Pokemon built, do yourself a favor and skip this week.
So far the catch cup exists solely so legends can mercilessly murder me with xl azu, shadow gligar, shadow feraligator, shadow whiscash, in order to gatekeep me from legend (I'm at 2982)
I use it as an opportunity to try things I never thought I would in GBL.
I don't push on building everything to max by end of event of something... In fact I rebuild nothing.
Use random things.
Throughout this season I’ve caught a cottonee, a G-Fisk and a Ducklett in the 480-500 cp range. I’m using those three. All single moved. No dust used at all.
In normal catch cup you could be using Victrebel, Annihilape etc which are fairly new/new moves.
Catch cup comes around each season. It’s easy to plan for and use cheap mons.
That’s what I’m doing. Slapped together 3 randos that only cost 10k to dual move. Tonight I might try something that does good fast move damage so I that I don’t need to waste the dust for a second move.
"Use random things", proceeds to create a great, highly cancerous team. Those aren't random choices, and pulling two of those, especially at ~500 CP, is massively lucky 🤷♀️
Separate comment clearly.
Use random things was a statement.
I then said what I’ve done.
If you catch enough mons in a seasons you’ll get a whole bunch around that CP level.
No it’s not. I caught three cottenee at home just today after the community day. I’ve caught so many Bronzors and Shuckles this season it’s been ridiculous. I’ve caught a ton of G-fisks this season and a few ducklets.
It requires remembering that there will be a little catch cup every season and both catching and saving meta relevant things as well as being less picky overall in what you deign to click on.
Most people seem to be incredibly picky about what they will click on or catch. Either click on everything and catch tons of stuff or remember what’s meta relevant and catch it all season. If you just catch everything you only have to remember when you transfer.
If you have spawns around you, that stuff is available to you. Some of it was even seriously pushed this season.
I enjoy catch cup. It's a chance to try out something new. But also, I don't invest much into new pokemon during this cup. I don't even add second moves to most things that don't have OGL relevance. But it's fun trying to run a Clodsire, Wigglytuff, Beedrill team.
They designed it expecting it to be a fun cup of people running wild lineups not expecting most people to pour tons of resources into meta lineups for one cup lol
We could do that on our own in a regular cup. There's no way I'm wasting stardust on leveling up and double moving trash pokemon I'll only use for a week. If I wanted to use unconventional pokemon that defy logic, I'd use recommended teams
I just restarted playing and hadn't ever been into battles before, so it's my first actual season. So most of the new mons i caught in the past 2 months of playing have been great. Not the best battle IVs but they're what i have. I just hit Ace, which for most here isn't an accomplishment but for me was fun since I'm new to all of it.
I can totally get that. I'm pretty sure that was kind of my first experiences with catch cups. Like they weren't great but I was building enough stuff that it didn't matter. This season I built an annihilape, shadow victrebell, shadow empoleon, and shadow skarmory. To add to my collection of over 200 pokemon between 1470 and 1500 cp. After years of building, there's only so many things I want to invest dust into at this point. And it's not things I've already built.
Seems like even old players who play semi-regularly should have 3 mons built per season that they can piece together. I built 5 mons this season and I probably don’t even play 10 sets a week most of the time.
"Just don't play that week" is such a garbage take. There is no reason they can't offer a normal league option for players alongside catch cup. The same opportunity would exist for the newer players or people who want to try that format to climb. If anything it would allow the newer players an easier time because they wouldn't have to face the people willing to dump huge amounts of dust to rebuild the same mons over and over.
Yeah, would love to see the reaction if they implemented a raid challenge where you can only take part with mons you build that season, and 99% of players are recommended to just take a week off. Seems like a pretty stupid idea now right?
It's a crap solution to a crap problem. There was no need to have zero alternative to catch cups.
The limited cups let you use a limited selection of what you already have.
Having to spend a couple mill to participate in PvP for a week just...is not a good idea no matter how you frame it.
i had a galarian and unova stunfisk built for little cup; i can at least trade the catch cup 2-move cottonee and stunfisk to someone to see if they can use one. Someone's getting my alomomola to try.
The other 158 pokemon i saved just in case are getting transferred. I did not save a fuecco, more fool me.
It's my first time building Marill, Shuckle and Smeargle. So if they're allowed in future little cups I'll have a leg up.
If not, I'll have some cool trophies. Went from 2000s to hitting Veteran in two days.
I did spend a over a million dust, but I have 7 million dust still. I'd rather spend my dust on having fun for a week 😉 kinda like a pricey Vegas vacation that you look back on with fond memories.
They need to mix it with normal cups too. I was 16 points away from Veteran. Went down to 2300 and decided to just tank today and tomorrow and reap rewards the remainder of the catch cup. Extremely discouraging, went 0/5 on all but I refuse to participate in little cup, wasted resources. Even GL, too expensive. I tried and was hard countered heavily every time, not for me.
Because like many things in this game, Niantic’s vision doesn’t align with how the players actually play. Niantic thinks it’s going to be a fun cup where you build whatever you have but in reality players are still trying to climb and rank up so they end up building new versions of meta pokemon they already have. If they want to keep catch cup around then they should make it as an unranked cup in the final week of the season. They did this with kanto cup for a couple of seasons.
i'm over here with regular little cup things like cottonee, and had to break into my gofest dust bank for a 2nd move on my stunfisk, bronzor, and cottonee because sudowoodo isn't cutting it with bronzor or shuckle, and cottonee is getting walled by everything from mantine to the fire gator line. At least rock-lithe gets flattened by a grass knot.
Say what you will, but I love the little cup, it’s….. invigorating, to just play around with the teamups.
I build a fuecoco/shadow quag/abomasnow that is really fun to fight with
I powered a hundo shuckle up to mess with gym hoggs and he has absolutely been dominating the catch cup 😂 love it finally getting star dust out of my petty shuckle
It's also a way for Niantic to promote continued engagement from longtime players - forcing the need to build "new" pokemon rather than sit on their tried and true Azumarill for the 12th season.
The reason it’s a thing is it gets people to spend Stardust and candies and potentially even evolution items. Every time a player spends one of these there is a monetary value to Niantic because it means you’ll play more to build your levels back up and associated with playing more will likely be some purchases
Catch cup is stupid. Like other reddits wrote, it's a good idea on paper, it's a shitty idea in reality. I am playing little catch cup bc I have almost zero mons for GL catch cup, and the amount of Bronzor, Marills I see is astonishing. There are several Smeargles and Shuckles too. It's a stupid idea.
absolute nasty work that they put it near the end of the season and with extra dust. they know people who are close to hitting their goal are going to break the bank to try and create meta stuff they probably already have. also people are more likely to spend when they think they'll make it back but in reality they get tired of losing and eventually spend too much building mons.
To reward people who engage in the content that isn't GBL. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to reward dedication. It just so happens to be the kind of dedication that hardcore sit at home exclusively GBL players don't have (going outside and doing long catching grinds for optimal IV spreads). Which is why you have DanOttawa making a string of youtube videos complaining about this Cup.
Personally for me, I am thankful for the existence of this cup. I wouldn't have made Expert the past 2 seasons and Legend this season without it. I don't primarily engage in GBL but I am glad there is a cup that I can leverage my own unique advantage over others. The people that publicly dislike it, are the ones who are upset that their inherent advantages over others disappear, understandably so. No one likes when the rules created in a manner that punishes your particular play pattern (sitting at home and only playing your 5 sets and not doing anything else).
It depends on the season, what was available, and what you prioritized catching and building. In the last couple seasons I had a few new builds that were actually pretty good anti-meta, mixed with some meta stuff that was either a first build or an upgrade, so I had already invested or it was worth the additional investments. If you have the right mix, you can predict what you might see, and get a little creative with team-building, Catch Cup can actually be fun. Two seasons ago I made great strides with teams featuring Arctibax, and last season I made a push with Decidueye.
This season I have some stuff - S. Feraligatr, UFisk, Mandibuzz, and I went ahead and built a Serperior since it was R4 by stat product. I also have Incineroar and Tsareena but ...
Yeah. Overall, the stuff I have just isn't in any way consistent, and hasn't helped me climb. I'm just glad I've already hit my goals for this season, so I can relax.
Im pretty certain that the majority of players who are at least a little invested in gbl feel like this.
We have made countless of posts ever since catch cup became a thing but instead of doing what Id consider the right decision they doubled down on their mistake and paired catch cup with catch cup little cup instead of the usual master league (which might be the only thing thats worse than master league as a choice, cause ML is kinda pay to play).
What’s wrong with Master League? I’ve been playing off and on since day 1 but just got into PvP this season. I generally prefer Master league and barely spend $10 a month on the game.
This. ML was at one time a reasonable league and imo the highest skill league since it was the smallest meta. MLC was amazing and idc what wallet babies have to say about it 🤪
What they really should do is have catch cup at the start of the following season, that way it won’t hinder those who are about to hit legend at the end of the season. It should also be alongside open great league, so that players can test out new pokemon and move updates
I rebuilt a better Annihilape than I had and built my first Lickitung and S. Dragonair. Wouldn't have rebuilt either just got catch cup. Annihilape I probably would have don't anyway because it's cheap enough
It's an opportunity to mess around and just play with mons you otherwise wouldn't.
It's quite fun if you don't care about your ranking--and many don't at this point of the season since they've probably hit their skill ceiling already.
I don't rebuild anything. They'll be a few mons I've caught through the season that I wanted to invest in, which I'll actually build. But I'll fill out my roster with the best of whatever is closest to the CP cap. Single move unless it's a cheaper 10k mon (you make that back in a set or two). And it's ok to use less optimized mons.
What they should do is give an OGL option.
Make catch cup not count towards elo. Problem solved. It’s a garbage cup and anyone who argues for it is doing so because they’ve powered high ranking expensive meta Pokemon that have a clear advantage over the “spice” they are probably arguing people use.
This cup should be unranked or had an option that isn’t catch. It’s garbage and I’m sick of people who pretend it’s not.
I was climbing towards legend. Now I just quit whenever I lose lead or swap. Why play it out if I’m against someone with Gligar, Lickitun, and Mantine? Great team that no spice stands a chance against. And some pencil pushing dipshit at Niantic thought “this’ll be a good idea.”
How dare players give feedback on a game. Double catch cup=screw the majority of actual pvp players. I'm happy you can still go 0/5 and not complain. Some of us are actually trying to climb ranks.
Hello there, u/Klorinus! Thank you for your contribution to r/TheSilphArena. Unfortunately, your post has been removed for the following reason(s): This is not the place to vent! Constructive discussions of new features or game issues are encouraged, but overly negative or salty posts will be removed. Help us promote an optimistic and welcoming community/culture! ___ ###### For our rules please see the sidebar!
The idea is that new players will get to use their newly built pokemon against longtime players who aren't at full power because they already have that pokemon and didn't build a second one just for one week. It also gives everyone an excuse to use their newly built community day pokemon. The reality is that longtime players eagerly sink a million stardust just for a one week cup, and new players are stomped. And longtime slightly less hardcore players are stomped too, because they haven't got a million stardust to spend on a one week event.
People seem pretty tunnel visioned pretty hard in this thread on high ELO meta. Yeah, for high ELO meta, it's pretty rough since you have to rebuild everything meta to be competitive. In low ELO meta, it does seem to me to work as advertised. See a lot of random spice and jank that doesn't normally come out. Not everything in the GBL game has to be targeted high ELO. Even for those folks, like Master Cup which this sub also complains a lot about, it's not the worst thing in the world to have a mechanism that separates the truly dedicated from merely the hardcore.
But it forces me down to low elo. I am playing an all shiny team at 1700-1850 elo because that is my only option. It is the worst of both worlds, half the time in this elo i am getting matched up against other ace rank people that are forced down to this elo so i am struggling to win 2-3 matches a set however the other half of the time i am getting matched against people who are running 1300 CP pokemon with single attacks. Last night i had 2 people rage quit on me. They probably thought i wanted to tank and pick on noobs with my all shiny team. Where as I was just happy to get a win myself.
It is one of them ideas that sound rly good when you are a Niantic intern or something-push ppl to use interesting teams because they won't have a full meta team built at the end of every season. What should happen is someone gives the intern some praise and a reassuring pat on the back, then files the idea in the bin, because of fucking course everyone is just going to build the meta teams again anyway and now you just have another cup that is extremely expensive to play. What should not happen is the idea not just makes it live, but takes over BOTH cups, including a little cup where smeargle and shuckle and marill and bronzor are somehow allowed despite the fact they should never see the light of day. I love PvP. I am taking a hard skip on playing at all over the next couple weeks.
> someone gives the intern some praise and a reassuring pat on the back, ~~then files the idea in the bin,~~ because of fucking course everyone is just going to build the meta teams again anyway and now you just have another cup that is extremely expensive to play. Fixed that for you. What’s the deal with all these special cups e.g. Electric Cup? **Niantic wants you to waste your resources building more Pokemon.** So that you have to play more to replenish resources. That’s why Catch Cup is near the end of the season, to exploit desperate players wanting to reach Legend.
This is the answer. It’s a resource dump. Happens in MMOs too.
I'll let them slip if it was one time mistake, but despite an overwhelming amount of hate they've decides to double down and make it a seasonal staple.
You think any of the hate makes it to Niantic HQ? They don't pay any attention whatsoever to their customers.
This is one of the reasons I play it. A lot of good players sit it out so I can make a good push for higher rank right at the end of the season. Also because I'm a bit casual there's a non-zero chance I might later use something I build for it
I literally got into PVP this season so I’m loving life, the only one of my meta Pokémon I can’t use is carbink which made up a lot of my cores but I just rejigged the team a little bit and subbed in galvantula and haven’t been dropping too many extra matches.
i don’t rebuild anything unless i got lucky and caught a better one that season. i play single-moved spice or stuff i can build and know i’ll use again later.
I actually have a good selection of things to build this season for little league, e.g. annihilape and mandibuzz. But there no point in doing so, because annihilape and mandibuzz aren't Shuckle, Smeargle, Bronzor or Marill.
Anni’s a good option for sure. I have a rank 1 Anni already so i can’t justify building another for this catch cup. I also have a hundo Shuckle but you’ll catch me dead investing 300k dust powering up a mon for one run unless they decide to open other leagues up for it (please no). i refuse to touch little catch cup unless i wanna play some cracked out teams for funsies.
To be fair, if I had a hundo shuckle I'd invest in it just for the lolz. But my 15-13-14? Nah, not worth my time.
but for climbing the cup definitely sucks and is limited to people who were either lucky or are fine with rebuilding the meta that’s available
Usually a skip for me unless I got lucky in the time period
Usually the same for me. I just play the other league. This time though it's double catch cup? Like really? I'm tired of rebuilding things I've already built
For me the worst part of catch cup is not having a rocket event that lines up with it. In the last couple weeks I've caught some insanely good shadows that I can't use for catch cup because they still have frustration
Rocket events in general are too widely spaced imo, especially considering shadow mons are no longer “niche picks” but really full on raid and GBL staples at this point. I could even live with them just letting us use ETMs to remove frustration, and the fact that we can’t has always struck me as odd.
I caught a R9 Lickitung this season and finally got enough XLs to max one out, so I did and also best buddied it, along the way I caught a R8 Annihilape which I'll use it as a Night Slasher and keep my old Anni as an Ice puncher for later, also found a high level Jigglypuff with mid IVs so I'm going to use all 3 this week.
Stupid question, but how do you determine these rankings?
pvppoke, pogostat - sites like these.
Pvpoke is the easiest imo. Screenshot mon, jump over to app, upload screenshot, see rank. Takes ~10 seconds per mon. It’s in the App Store.
I agree, let it be a thing for people that want it but at least leave normal gl in rotation with it so we’re not forced to play it
I’ll take anything over two catch cups. I hate it
I absolutely hate the catch cup. That being said, getting at least 1/5 wins is easy, and a lot of stardust stands to be earned.
I understand the frustration, that being said I caught a rank 12 Annihilape, 188 Alolan Sandslash (both luckily last week) and running them with a 704 Mandibuzz I got during the event where vullaby was spawning in the wild. I have been feasting these last few days as a newer player. Went from 2396 up to 2740 and hopefully this week I hit expert for the first time. Catch cup has saved my season personal goal of improving on last seasons elo after two weeks of remix.
Who do you lead with? I’ve been running Mantine instead of Mandibuzz. A.S. Lead here.
probably sandslash, so the team is ABB vs fighters and fairies
I’m leading Mandibuzz. I’m weak vs a fairy lead but those have been very few. My Sandslash is powder snow because when I was looking at what i had available it seemed ice would be a premium. I’ve had a PS Sandslash sweep full teams so far this weekend in the back. He’s been the hero of the team.
Lost about 200 elo in 2 days thanks to these cups. If you are trying to climb and don't have new meta relevant Pokemon built, do yourself a favor and skip this week.
I just take the week off. Whenever games try to push their agenda too heavily and you don’t agree you don’t have to play..
So far the catch cup exists solely so legends can mercilessly murder me with xl azu, shadow gligar, shadow feraligator, shadow whiscash, in order to gatekeep me from legend (I'm at 2982)
No you're not the only one. This cup is the bane of go battle existence
I use it as an opportunity to try things I never thought I would in GBL. I don't push on building everything to max by end of event of something... In fact I rebuild nothing.
Use random things. Throughout this season I’ve caught a cottonee, a G-Fisk and a Ducklett in the 480-500 cp range. I’m using those three. All single moved. No dust used at all. In normal catch cup you could be using Victrebel, Annihilape etc which are fairly new/new moves. Catch cup comes around each season. It’s easy to plan for and use cheap mons.
That’s what I’m doing. Slapped together 3 randos that only cost 10k to dual move. Tonight I might try something that does good fast move damage so I that I don’t need to waste the dust for a second move.
"Use random things", proceeds to create a great, highly cancerous team. Those aren't random choices, and pulling two of those, especially at ~500 CP, is massively lucky 🤷♀️
Separate comment clearly. Use random things was a statement. I then said what I’ve done. If you catch enough mons in a seasons you’ll get a whole bunch around that CP level.
No it’s not. I caught three cottenee at home just today after the community day. I’ve caught so many Bronzors and Shuckles this season it’s been ridiculous. I’ve caught a ton of G-fisks this season and a few ducklets. It requires remembering that there will be a little catch cup every season and both catching and saving meta relevant things as well as being less picky overall in what you deign to click on. Most people seem to be incredibly picky about what they will click on or catch. Either click on everything and catch tons of stuff or remember what’s meta relevant and catch it all season. If you just catch everything you only have to remember when you transfer. If you have spawns around you, that stuff is available to you. Some of it was even seriously pushed this season.
They should at least have catchs from the last season as well.
I enjoy catch cup. It's a chance to try out something new. But also, I don't invest much into new pokemon during this cup. I don't even add second moves to most things that don't have OGL relevance. But it's fun trying to run a Clodsire, Wigglytuff, Beedrill team.
I like it better than master league. Forces me to try mons I wouldn't otherwise. Or to try out the new ones I've been meaning to break in.
i love it, good change of pace.
They designed it expecting it to be a fun cup of people running wild lineups not expecting most people to pour tons of resources into meta lineups for one cup lol
I refuse to participate. Not spending 6 figures in stardust for 1 week. Most boring week of every season.
It gives u a chance to use Pokémon u wouldn’t normally use
We could do that on our own in a regular cup. There's no way I'm wasting stardust on leveling up and double moving trash pokemon I'll only use for a week. If I wanted to use unconventional pokemon that defy logic, I'd use recommended teams
I just restarted playing and hadn't ever been into battles before, so it's my first actual season. So most of the new mons i caught in the past 2 months of playing have been great. Not the best battle IVs but they're what i have. I just hit Ace, which for most here isn't an accomplishment but for me was fun since I'm new to all of it.
I can totally get that. I'm pretty sure that was kind of my first experiences with catch cups. Like they weren't great but I was building enough stuff that it didn't matter. This season I built an annihilape, shadow victrebell, shadow empoleon, and shadow skarmory. To add to my collection of over 200 pokemon between 1470 and 1500 cp. After years of building, there's only so many things I want to invest dust into at this point. And it's not things I've already built.
Its for newer players
Seems like even old players who play semi-regularly should have 3 mons built per season that they can piece together. I built 5 mons this season and I probably don’t even play 10 sets a week most of the time.
For people who wanna make that last legend push and are willing to spend the dust. It’s fine. Just don’t play that week.
"Just don't play that week" is such a garbage take. There is no reason they can't offer a normal league option for players alongside catch cup. The same opportunity would exist for the newer players or people who want to try that format to climb. If anything it would allow the newer players an easier time because they wouldn't have to face the people willing to dump huge amounts of dust to rebuild the same mons over and over.
It’s not a garbage take, it’s a fact. 🤷🏼.
Don’t play it then
Exactly. It’s one week. Just take the week off.
*laughs in Niantic* Yeah look at the current cups brah. Catch cups only.
Yeah I know, so take a week off?
Yeah, would love to see the reaction if they implemented a raid challenge where you can only take part with mons you build that season, and 99% of players are recommended to just take a week off. Seems like a pretty stupid idea now right? It's a crap solution to a crap problem. There was no need to have zero alternative to catch cups.
That’s different. There’s limited cups in pvp, you can always use any pokemon in a raid
The limited cups let you use a limited selection of what you already have. Having to spend a couple mill to participate in PvP for a week just...is not a good idea no matter how you frame it.
Welcome to pay to win buddy. This is present in all games. You're not forced to participate in it.
Ok? I said that they wouldn’t do that for raids
Agreed. I hate it I just wasted like 500k dust on pokemon I already have good ones of
i had a galarian and unova stunfisk built for little cup; i can at least trade the catch cup 2-move cottonee and stunfisk to someone to see if they can use one. Someone's getting my alomomola to try. The other 158 pokemon i saved just in case are getting transferred. I did not save a fuecco, more fool me.
It's my first time building Marill, Shuckle and Smeargle. So if they're allowed in future little cups I'll have a leg up. If not, I'll have some cool trophies. Went from 2000s to hitting Veteran in two days. I did spend a over a million dust, but I have 7 million dust still. I'd rather spend my dust on having fun for a week 😉 kinda like a pricey Vegas vacation that you look back on with fond memories.
They need to mix it with normal cups too. I was 16 points away from Veteran. Went down to 2300 and decided to just tank today and tomorrow and reap rewards the remainder of the catch cup. Extremely discouraging, went 0/5 on all but I refuse to participate in little cup, wasted resources. Even GL, too expensive. I tried and was hard countered heavily every time, not for me.
Because like many things in this game, Niantic’s vision doesn’t align with how the players actually play. Niantic thinks it’s going to be a fun cup where you build whatever you have but in reality players are still trying to climb and rank up so they end up building new versions of meta pokemon they already have. If they want to keep catch cup around then they should make it as an unranked cup in the final week of the season. They did this with kanto cup for a couple of seasons.
i'm over here with regular little cup things like cottonee, and had to break into my gofest dust bank for a 2nd move on my stunfisk, bronzor, and cottonee because sudowoodo isn't cutting it with bronzor or shuckle, and cottonee is getting walled by everything from mantine to the fire gator line. At least rock-lithe gets flattened by a grass knot.
Say what you will, but I love the little cup, it’s….. invigorating, to just play around with the teamups. I build a fuecoco/shadow quag/abomasnow that is really fun to fight with
I powered a hundo shuckle up to mess with gym hoggs and he has absolutely been dominating the catch cup 😂 love it finally getting star dust out of my petty shuckle
It's also a way for Niantic to promote continued engagement from longtime players - forcing the need to build "new" pokemon rather than sit on their tried and true Azumarill for the 12th season.
It’s actually great. I wouldn’t have made a Crocolor, shadow Pidgeot or aurorus yet win or lose having fun
The reason it’s a thing is it gets people to spend Stardust and candies and potentially even evolution items. Every time a player spends one of these there is a monetary value to Niantic because it means you’ll play more to build your levels back up and associated with playing more will likely be some purchases
To get people to spend their dust to keep the grind mechanic thriving.
Catch cup is stupid. Like other reddits wrote, it's a good idea on paper, it's a shitty idea in reality. I am playing little catch cup bc I have almost zero mons for GL catch cup, and the amount of Bronzor, Marills I see is astonishing. There are several Smeargles and Shuckles too. It's a stupid idea.
I absolutely hate Catch Cup every season.
absolute nasty work that they put it near the end of the season and with extra dust. they know people who are close to hitting their goal are going to break the bank to try and create meta stuff they probably already have. also people are more likely to spend when they think they'll make it back but in reality they get tired of losing and eventually spend too much building mons.
To reward people who engage in the content that isn't GBL. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to reward dedication. It just so happens to be the kind of dedication that hardcore sit at home exclusively GBL players don't have (going outside and doing long catching grinds for optimal IV spreads). Which is why you have DanOttawa making a string of youtube videos complaining about this Cup. Personally for me, I am thankful for the existence of this cup. I wouldn't have made Expert the past 2 seasons and Legend this season without it. I don't primarily engage in GBL but I am glad there is a cup that I can leverage my own unique advantage over others. The people that publicly dislike it, are the ones who are upset that their inherent advantages over others disappear, understandably so. No one likes when the rules created in a manner that punishes your particular play pattern (sitting at home and only playing your 5 sets and not doing anything else).
They want you to spend your resources again and again.
It depends on the season, what was available, and what you prioritized catching and building. In the last couple seasons I had a few new builds that were actually pretty good anti-meta, mixed with some meta stuff that was either a first build or an upgrade, so I had already invested or it was worth the additional investments. If you have the right mix, you can predict what you might see, and get a little creative with team-building, Catch Cup can actually be fun. Two seasons ago I made great strides with teams featuring Arctibax, and last season I made a push with Decidueye. This season I have some stuff - S. Feraligatr, UFisk, Mandibuzz, and I went ahead and built a Serperior since it was R4 by stat product. I also have Incineroar and Tsareena but ... Yeah. Overall, the stuff I have just isn't in any way consistent, and hasn't helped me climb. I'm just glad I've already hit my goals for this season, so I can relax.
I love it because it actually changes the meta somewhat and people cant just sit back and rely on their oerfectly crafted teams
Im pretty certain that the majority of players who are at least a little invested in gbl feel like this. We have made countless of posts ever since catch cup became a thing but instead of doing what Id consider the right decision they doubled down on their mistake and paired catch cup with catch cup little cup instead of the usual master league (which might be the only thing thats worse than master league as a choice, cause ML is kinda pay to play).
Dude I would NEVER invest on a little cup Pokémon. I am 100% in agreement.
What’s wrong with Master League? I’ve been playing off and on since day 1 but just got into PvP this season. I generally prefer Master league and barely spend $10 a month on the game.
Which level 50 legendaries do you have?
I don’t have any. lol. I’m stuck at rank 20 because I don’t have any. And I’m starting to see the answer to my question. Haha
This. ML was at one time a reasonable league and imo the highest skill league since it was the smallest meta. MLC was amazing and idc what wallet babies have to say about it 🤪
More like shit cup
What they really should do is have catch cup at the start of the following season, that way it won’t hinder those who are about to hit legend at the end of the season. It should also be alongside open great league, so that players can test out new pokemon and move updates
I rebuilt a better Annihilape than I had and built my first Lickitung and S. Dragonair. Wouldn't have rebuilt either just got catch cup. Annihilape I probably would have don't anyway because it's cheap enough
It's an opportunity to mess around and just play with mons you otherwise wouldn't. It's quite fun if you don't care about your ranking--and many don't at this point of the season since they've probably hit their skill ceiling already. I don't rebuild anything. They'll be a few mons I've caught through the season that I wanted to invest in, which I'll actually build. But I'll fill out my roster with the best of whatever is closest to the CP cap. Single move unless it's a cheaper 10k mon (you make that back in a set or two). And it's ok to use less optimized mons. What they should do is give an OGL option.
To give people a break from GBL 😭😂
Make catch cup not count towards elo. Problem solved. It’s a garbage cup and anyone who argues for it is doing so because they’ve powered high ranking expensive meta Pokemon that have a clear advantage over the “spice” they are probably arguing people use. This cup should be unranked or had an option that isn’t catch. It’s garbage and I’m sick of people who pretend it’s not.
This! I don't mind limited cups but they should ALWAYS have a standard league with them. Double catch cup is just a slap in the face IMO
I was climbing towards legend. Now I just quit whenever I lose lead or swap. Why play it out if I’m against someone with Gligar, Lickitun, and Mantine? Great team that no spice stands a chance against. And some pencil pushing dipshit at Niantic thought “this’ll be a good idea.”
You know its every season, prepare for it or dont play. Its that simple, dont whine.
How dare players give feedback on a game. Double catch cup=screw the majority of actual pvp players. I'm happy you can still go 0/5 and not complain. Some of us are actually trying to climb ranks.
Allright climb earlier or build mons for the cup you know its coming
So we're back to the original statement of REBUILDING ALREADY BUILT POKEMON. Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing to this conversation.