Top 10 pokemon by usage in Great League GBL are banned for the cup, banned mons were just announced:
Talonflame
Skarmory
Stunfisk
Venusaur
Marowak
Azumarill
Galvantula
Umbreon
Swampert
Raichu
Note that the order is arbitrary, and both kantonian and alolan variants of marowak and raichu are banned
Thoughts?
Interesting that Alolan Raichu (because it sure wasnāt Kanto) was used more than a number of āmetaā Pokemon.
Anticipating a spike in Altaria users. And then I guess steel tanks and then the meta goes from there.
Yeah, really surprised Raichu beats out Altaria and Hypno!
Guess weāll want some ānewā steel tanks for those guys.
Basto-Medicham-Sable is safe??? Oh ok guess I can go ham because of no azu :D
Enter Sableye, I donāt really care about winning overall just shut down Deoxys-D. Bonus beating Medicham, Hypno, and Jellicent/Drifblim
Nothing there that quite ranks as a āsurpriseā maybe Raichu? Iād have thought Politied or A-tails sees more use then him. I donāt see a ton of Venusaur either these days.
Iām going to lol if people go back to the Altaria/Regi/Azu meta and swap Azu for Whiscash or Jellicent. Iām not sure Blizzard Pelipper or Politoed are fast enough for Altaria.
I think they wanted to hurt fairy with Steel and Fire, instead of Venusaur, too. Altaria will be popular and fairies can be valuable vs Medicham/Sableye/Scrafty/Shiftry/Toxicroak/ShMachamp/Sirfetchādā¦fairies lose hard to steel and fire (Especially A-9)
Wonder if thereās room for beedrill to get some play. Not sure why I like using him but I do when I get the chance. Weāll see how fairy heavy this winds up.
I do asume that Raichu got so high because itās cheap, easy to obtain, and that alone made it a popular choice in very low tiers were people only play to obtain the Ć©lite TM. That, and the fact that 2 variants count as a solo mon for Niantic.
I was impressed on how high was in usage tho, I expected bastiodon, sableye, medicham or deoxys to take the 10th spot. In my opinion raichuās ban is bad, but this is what we got
When you look through that list, other then arguable Azu that costs a fortune to max out, these are all readily available pretty cheap to GL level use. There may be a higher proportion of casual PVPers then we like to assume around here.
I guess it depends on the level of casual. Alolan Raichu required you to raid to get it. I canāt imagine Kanto Raichu was used more often than Alolan Raichu and so often that it made a top 10. Maybe Niantic combined the use of both Raichu?
Oh clearly combined, K-Raichu doesnāt make the list otherwise, same with regular Stunfisk and Marowak. A-chu was out in the wild at some point briefly, but I mean everyone has at least one, you knock it off in a raid at some point just to get one. And we all have a million Pika-candy, easy to fire up that raid catch to play with in GBL.
A-Wak stands out a bit, I think he was out in the wild briefly too, probably same time as A-chu, but I put that down to the raid dayā¦ which I completely missed and still donāt have a dang Sbone version, not ETMāing for it either lol
Raichu and Venusaur unexpected, but given their low costs compared to bastiodons and medichams it makes sense. Would have thought hypno is in though, instead marowak or Raichu
Iāve personally yet to use hypno, I have a shiny shadow Drowzee Iām waiting to TM (or I missed TM-ing it last event most likely) but I have definitely thrown both Raichu variants into teams. Kanto chu with Brick Break is usually never expected and works wonders against many people with less move-base knowledge.
I agree. I also think its a localized thing as its one of, if not the, cheapest counters to Talonflame. Which confirms that the data pulled was from this season only.
Yep. Stunfisk and Azu are the only really expensive ones. The rest are cheap-to-moderate and the raid-exclusive stuff had raid days. Still shook that Altaria didnāt make the listā¦ 
lol
Really? Altaria was always shaky, with never being in the top 6 or 7 mons used by experienced players and also quite expensive (400 candies) for the casuals. I bet that hypno was ranked 11, Medicham and bastiodon 12 and altaria 14 ;)
