Maelstrom Cup

On our journey forward, sometimes it’s good to take a look at the places we were in the past. We did that this month with our Maelstrom meta by taking inspiration from the Vortex meta from several years ago. The premise behind both of these were to take some of the strongest and most commonly used Pokémon and ban them, then see what rises to the top. This also lets newer players sample a classic meta idea and if you’ve been playing for a long time, a chance to reminisce.

Pokémon Go has changed so much since then, so our some of our notable bans for Maelstrom are Empoleon, Marowak, Wigglytuff, and some that didn’t even exist for the first version like Annihilape and Galarian Corsola.
But having banned a bunch of popular, spammy Pokémon to create this meta, what can we look to use instead?

Of course we can start by looking at Mandibuzz. Just based on the bulk alone this bird is already off to a strong start. When you add in having the fast attack snarl with good energy generation to charge up foul play and shadow ball, it only gets better. Some of the key wins for Mandibuzz are against other popular Pokémon like Malamar and Metang.

But the bulky bird isn’t completely safe up in the skies. There are Clefable in this meta just looking to put some fairy type damage on any dark type Pokémon they can find. Trainers have many options with Clefable. Will you choose Fairy Wind or Charm for your fast move damage? Swift does neutral damage to most things, but there’s also meteor mash and moonblast to choose from. Being able to fight back against nine out of the top ten meta Pokémon is pretty good!

We hope you enjoy the meta for this month! Will you get caught in the Maelstrom, or will you be able to conquer your way through and come out on the other side?