'Pokemon Go' PvP System Will Breathe New Life to Game

Pokemon Go's new PvP system will breathe new life into the game by making dozens of Pokemon more relevant than they ever were before.

Last week, Pokemon Go announced that they were adding a new PvP system to the game, bringing an essential Pokemon feature to the game after years of waiting. Full details about the game will be released later this week, but Pokemon Go did tease some details about how the new battling system would work.

We know that players will choose three Pokemon to use in battles against trainers, and that battles will be divided into one of three "leagues." Two of those leagues, the Great League and Ultra League, will have CP restrictions so that players can only use Pokemon that have a CP under a certain threshold. The Great League will require players to use Pokemon with CPs under 1500, while the Ultra League requires players with CPs of 2500. There's also a Master League that has no CP restriction, and will likely be dominated by various Legendary Pokemon.

There's still a lot we don't know about these lower leagues, such as whether there's any incentive for higher level players to participate in those types of battle. However, the Great and Ultra Leagues are potential game-changers, especially in terms of what Pokemon will be most sought after by players.

For instance, with high level Kyogre kept out the Ultra League due to its CP, a Hydro Cannon Blastoise could potentially become the best Water-type Pokemon for the Ultra League. Likewise, Houndoom could also remain relevance even though it was recently surpassed by Weavile as the premier Dark-type attacker in the game.

Even Pokemon like Blissey and Chansey will see some new life in lower tier battles, even after their Defense and Stamina stats were nerfed by the recent re-balance.

Of course, this is all speculation as Pokemon Go hasn't revealed full details yet. Depending on whether Pokemon Go changes its battle system or adds things like Abilities or additional move slots to the game, we could see even more changes to Pokemon Go's metagame.

More details will be announced tomorrow, so stay tuned!