Pokémon Go Psychic Cup – Great League Edition: Best Pokémon

Live in your opponent’s head rent-free with these Pokémon

Contents

1. Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Leads
2. Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Safe Switches
3. Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Closers
4. Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Attackers

Ready to play some mind games? Being available in Pokémon Go's GO Battle League PvP mode from September 15 to 29, 2023, Psychic Cup is another tournament format with a limited ruleset forcing you to adapt your battle teams to new conditions.

Psychic Cup has a maximum competition points (CP) limit of 1,500 CP in its Great League Edition. Additionally, as the name implies, you may only field Psychic-type Pokémon with the exception of Mew, which is completely banned from this competition due to its wide variety of moves.

We’ve summarized the best Pokémon for Psychic Cup – Great League Edition in Pokémon Go in this guide, which hopefully saves you some time researching. The ranking is based on all the lovely statistics and simulations provided by PvPoke.com.

Psychic Cup is back for its next stint in GO Battle League / Niantic

Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Leads

These Pokémon aggressively apply pressure on your opponent right from the start of a duel and can survive even tough battles for a long time – they are perfect to open a match up, enabling you to score an early knockout or set up a strong counter play.

1. Bruxish (Bite, Aqua Tail, Psychic Fangs)
2. Galarian Slowking (Hex, Surf, Shadow Ball)
3. Alolan Raichu (Volt Switch, Wild Charge, Thunder Punch)
4. Victini (Quick Attack, V-Create, Overheat)
5. Shadow Gardevoir (Charm, Shadow Ball, Triple Axel)
6. Galarian Rapidash (Fairy Wind, Megahorn, Body Slam)
7. Latios (Dragon Breath, Dragon Claw, Luster Purge)
8. Slowking (Water Gun, Surf, Fire Blast)
9. Malamar (Psycho Cut, Foul Play, Superpower)
10. Slowbro (Water Gun, Ice Beam, Surf)

Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Safe Switches

These Pokémon serve as switch options for your lead – should the opening pairing be to your disadvantage, switch in one of these monsters instead to preserve your lead Pokémon for later. According to this purpose, these are primarily Pokémon that counter some of the most popular leads or are strong leads themselves.

1. Victini (Quick Attack, V-Create, Overheat)
2. Galarian Rapidash (Fairy Wind, Megahorn, Body Slam)
3. Galarian Slowking (Hex, Surf, Shadow Ball)
4. Alolan Raichu (Volt Switch, Wild Charge, Thunder Punch)
5. Galarian Slowbro (Poison Jab, Sludge Bomb, Surf)
6. Bruxish (Bite, Aqua Tail, Psychic Fangs)
7. Malamar (Psycho Cut, Foul Play, Superpower)
8. Slowbro(S) (Water Gun, Ice Beam, Surf)
9. Slowking(S) (Water Gun, Surf, Fire Blast)
10. Bronzong (Feint Attack, Payback, Heavy Slam)

Pokémon marked with (S) deliver similar performances as their regular and Shadow forms.

Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Closers

These Pokémon are especially strong when there are no shields left in play on either side – they are incredibly tough themselves or end battles with a single hit of their powerful charge attacks.

1. Victini (Quick Attack, V-Create, Psychic)
2. Hypno (Confusion, Shadow Ball, Fire Punch)
3. Alolan Raichu (Volt Switch, Wild Charge, Thunder Punch)
4. Galarian Rapidash (Fairy Wind, Megahorn, Body Slam)
5. Malamar (Psycho Cut, Foul Play, Superpower)
6. Galarian Slowking (Hex, Surf, Shadow Ball)
7. Latias (Dragon Breath, Outrage, Thunder)
8. Galarian Articuno (Psycho Cut, Brave Bird, Ancient Power)
9. Slowbro(S) (Water Gun, Ice Beam, Surf)
10. Shadow Hypno (Confusion, Shadow Ball, Fire Punch)

Pokémon Go Psychic Cup: Best Attackers

These Pokémon perform best when fighting a trainer who still has shields, while you no longer have shields yourself – they have the ideal combination of resistances and strong fast attacks to compensate for this disadvantage. For this reason, you rarely see Shadow forms in this category – they take more damage than their regular counterparts, which is very risky at this stage of a match.

1. Bruxish (Bite, Aqua Tail, Psychic Fangs)
2. Medicham(XL) (Counter, Ice Punch, Dynamic Punch)
3. Shadow Gardevoir (Charm, Shadow Ball, Triple Axel)
4. Malamar (Psycho Cut, Foul Play, Superpower)
5. Cresselia (Psycho Cut, Grass Knot, Moonblast)
6. Gardevoir (Charm, Shadow Ball, Triple Axel)
7. Bronzong (Feint Attack, Payback, Heavy Slam)
8. Galarian Rapidash (Fairy Wind, Megahorn, Body Slam)
9. Shadow Wobbuffet(XL) (Charm, Mirror Coat, Frustration)
10. Claydol (Mud Slap, Shadow Ball, Scorching Sands)

Pokémon marked with (XL) must be upgraded with Candy XL to reach their best possible performance level under this ruleset.

Bruxish is still the king of this particular castle, ruling over a pretty stable meta that hasn't changed much compared to the previous edition of this format. However, thanks to the addition of Surf as a Community Day move to the Slowbro family and its Galarian cousins, this species has generally ranked up a lot. Claydol is worth a mention as well, benefiting from gaining Scorching Sands as a new move in the recent balance update.

Apart from GO Battle League, you should check out this month’s Raids, Field Research, and Spotlight Hours to not miss anything going on in the mobile game.