Pokemon Go Preemptively Nerfs a Legendary Pokemon

Pokemon Go is tinkering with an unreleased Legendary Pokemon, hinting that we could see it attacking gyms soon.

Players have discovered that Pokemon Go recently made two sets of changes to the Legendary Pokemon Kyogre, a powerful Water-Type Pokemon and the "mascot Legendary" of Pokemon Sapphire. Back in December, Kyogre got the infamous 9% stat nerf that several other Legendary Pokemon have gotten prior to release. This dropped Kyogre's overall maximum CP from 4874 to 4074, which puts in on an equal footing with fellow Legendary Pokemon Groudon.

While players were expecting the 9% nerf (any Pokemon with a CP above 4000 seems to get it), players were not expecting Pokemon Go to make a second change to the game today. Kyogre originally had two potential fast moves: Dragon Tail and Waterfall. When coupled with the charge move Blizzard, Kyogre had the potential to be one of the most powerful Dragon-Type counters in the game...something that would come in handy when Rayquaza, Latios, and Latias eventually makes its appearance as a raid boss.

However, Pokemon Go just removed Dragon Tail from Kyogre's move pool, which means that Kyogre would have Waterfall as its only fast move it were released today. This is a pretty devastating blow to Kyogre's place in Pokemon Go's metagame, as it goes from a top tier counter to multiple potential raid bosses to a Pokemon that's only effective if it has Hydro Pump.

Pokemon Go players were pretty excited to get their hands on Kyogre, but it looks like Niantic decided to keep this Legendary Pokemon from becoming too OP. However, the fact that Pokemon Go is tinkering with Kyogre hints that we could see its arrival as soon as Groudon leaves the game later this month.