The Best Raiding Pokemon in the Master League

If you want to check out this article in audio/video format, a companion video can be found here.

Aside: This was written before the buff to Shadow Pokemon. While nothing has changed on the PvP front, this may prove to make some new top choices for PvE. That said, no current Pokemon have gotten worse and the Shadow buff will likely be nerfed in the future.

Master League is an extremely expensive league. If you want to compete at the highest ranks, you’ll want to max out any Pokemon you’ll be using, setting it apart from Great and Ultra Leagues, where some Pokemon are ready to go after a catch and an evolve. Because there’s no stat cap, many of the feature Pokemon are Legendaries obtained only through Raids, meaning they’ll require some 200 Rare Candy each to Power Up!

But Master League isn’t the only league requiring maxed out Pokemon. Great League’s star Azumarill and Ultra League’s Registeel will put a similar dent into your resources. The biggest difference is the Pokemon investments in the Master League can be just that; “investments!”

The core of this guide will cross reference GamePress’s Master League Tier List with our Attackers Tier List, which focuses heavily on Raid content. The goal of the Master League TL is straightforward; to rank available eligible Pokemon by Master League performance and thus determine the best Pokemon to use. The goal of the Attackers Tier List is slightly more subjective.

While many Pokemon have different uses for Raid content, they use the same resources; Stardust and Rare Candy (though not all species require Rare Candy, allowing them to be even more accessible). Your Master League team is going to be an “investment” regardless, firstly because you can’t expect it to pay you back immediately, but also because it is such a large drain on your resources that many players won’t be able to max out some legendaries willy nilly then scrap that team and begin anew.

But the best investments are low risk and high reward. We mitigate our risk by sticking to Pokemon that will have other uses or are otherwise easy to aquire candy for. The rewards for powering these Pokemon up is also larger! This is because these Pokemon will allow you to Raid easier and in smaller groups. Players can struggle to varying degrees to be able to consistently Raid. While some have no problem gathering 20 players, others may have issues just defeating the boss. Both groups benefit from powering Pokemon up, but in the case of the larger group, powering your Pokemon up allows you to split into smaller groups and facilitates shortmanning.

What is the value of a Raid Pass? Obviously the more common uses are shiny checking an/d high IV hunting, but shortmanners know the full value of a Raid Pass. According to the Silph Study on Raid Reward Probabilities, we can see just how profitable it is to shortman Raids for additional rewards (note: Niantic has been known to play around with these numbers from time to time).

While shortmanning, you can double the amount of Rare Candy that you receive per Raid. If you’re not already shortmanning whenever possible, and you’re missing the resources to compete at the top levels in the Master League, start shortmanning today! Shortmanning will provide you an average of 140 Rare Candy per month, plus the extra balls per Raid to allow you to comfortably Pinap catch Legendary Pokemon and acquire more candy that way too.

Practical Current Examples

Common advice stressed on the throughout all of Pokemon Go, is to only power up things when you need them. While the Attackers Tier List looks at the best investment options as a whole, this advice is still practical, especially considering that we don’t exactly know the future of Go Battle League’s Master League (making these versatile Raiding options even more important).

So, for Master League, another approach can be to look at Pokemon viable against current and potential upcoming Raid Bosses.

Note: Not all Pokemon will utilize the same movesets for both PvE and PvP, which means using them for both types of battles may require additional TMs.

This video showcases Pokemon highlighted in this section (Giratina, Rhyperior, Mewtwo) going 9-1 in Go Battle League!

Ghost/Dark-types

Raid Use: Armored Mewtwo, Giratina Altered, Lugia

Master League Tier List Rating: 5/5 for Giratina, 2.5/5 for Weavile, 4/5 for the others

Giratina is one of the premiere Ghost-type attackers in the game AND an excellent choice for Master League, one of the pillars of the format. Pokemon Day has brought Armored Mewtwo back to Raid battles for a short time, though these Pokemon are useful against many other returning Legendary Pokemon. The listed Dark-types fill a similar role in Raids but challenge Giratina directly in PvP. They each bring with them a few more weaknesses, but being able to challenge top dog Giratina gives them an interesting PvP niche. 

Mewtwo

Raid Use: Also Armored Mewtwo, Giratina, Lugia

Master League Tier List Rating: 4/5

Mewtwo with Shadow Ball is a pseudo Ghost-type for Raiding purposes and a great Pokemon to unlock an additional Charge Move on. The other huge reason to run Mewtwo is his candy is even more readily available by catching him in raids. In PvP, Mewtwo can be a tough Pokemon to run, requiring a decent knowledge of matchups and shielding. Psystrike Mewtwo can be great in the Master League too so you may decide to spend your Mewtwo candy there. Psystrike Mewtwo is also quite useful in Raids, for example Gengar Raid Day (Psystrike is better though Shadow Ball is great there too).

Rhyperior

Raid Use: Tornadus, Thundurus, Lugia

Master League Tier List Rating: 4/5

Our recent Community Day star is actually fantastic in both Raiding and Master League, and also a great Pokemon to unlock a 2nd move on. As a dual-type Pokemon, Rhyperior is a top Rock AND Ground-type attacker. Since Rock Wrecker is an exclusive move, you’ll need to unlock an additional move to fully utilize it for both types of content. Tornadus has passed and you may not have powered up Rhyperior for that yet, but Thundurus, another of the Forces of Nature Trio is also weak to Rock-type attacks. Both also have an additional forme too, meaning Rhyperior will do double double duty when the pair returns with their Therian Formes. Terrakion, a recent past Raid boss, does a middling Rhyperior impression, though it’s more costly and worse for both ML and Raids.

Ice-types

Raid Use: Thundurus, Landorus, Lugia

Master League Tier List Rating: 3.5/5 for Mamoswine, 2.5/5 for Weavile

Thundurus and Landurus are the two other members of the trio that began with Tornadus. The remaining two sport a weakness to Ice-type attacks, with Landurus being double weak. Mamoswine is the cream of the crop for the Ice attackers and another great dual-type. Weavile is too, as evidenced by its inclusion both here and in the Dark-type section. Ice types role in Master League are to threaten Giratina while also threatening Togekiss, the premiere Giratina counter. Weavile fills this role worse than the other two as its weak to Togekiss’s Charm.

As demonstrated in the linked video. Not only are these Pokemon all good in both Raids and PvP, but there’s several ways to construct teams using these Pokemon with few gaps in coverage.

The Attacker Tier List provides a tiered suggestion example for which of these to prioritize based on how good they are and how frequently they’ll be useful. Many of these Pokemon will also be useful during March’s month of Legendary Special Raid Weekends. If you’ll need better teams for those events, it can make powering them up now for Master League serve double duty.

Dialga

Master League Tier List Rating: 5/5

Dialga is the other pillar of the Master League and an incredible Dragon-type Pokemon. It’s niche in both gamemodes is similar, a Dragon-type with great resistances. Not much can challenge Dialga. It beats Giratina and anything not there specifically to counter it. In Raids, it’s the only Dragon-type that doesn’t tak Super Effective damage from Dragon-type attacks, meaning its a great Giratina Raid counter when that returns in March too. This makes it an extremely effective use of Stardust when making a Dragon team.

Togekiss

Master League Tier List Rating: 5/5

Togekiss is an outlier in this guide because it isn’t spectacularly useful in Raids and just barely misses out on the Attacker Tier List. In fact, Togekiss wouldn’t have been mentioned on this list at all if not for the upcoming return of Darkrai (with Giratina-Altered forme as a bonus). It’s Raid use is honestly quite limited, but it’s use in the Master League is so strong that it’s probably worth mentioning here. Togekiss is the only Pokemon that challenges both Dialga and Giratina, earning it a 5/5 rating in the Master League. If you’re bringing the Dragon duo, prepare for Togekiss. Consider bringing a Togekiss to ML yourself to capitalize on other players utalizing Dialga and Giratina.

Kyogre

Master League Tier List Rating: 4.5/5

Kyogre is the premiere Water-type Pokemon in Go for raiding and PvP purposes. It struggles against the Dragon duo but beats almost everything that beats them. As a Tier 1.5 on the ATL, you likely already found yourself powering a Kyogre up for use in Raids. With it’s recent addition of Surf, it’s even better in both PvE and PvP.

Metagross

Master League Tier List Rating: 4.5/5

This Community Day all-star defines Steel-type Pokemon in Raid battles and is useful for a variety of different Raid bosses. In PvP, Steel-types are one of the few things that can challenge Dialga by resisting its Dragon Breath. They’ll also beat any Togekiss attempting to challenge the Dragon duo. Metagross is the only Steel-type Pokemon you can also justify powering up for Raids.

Heatran

Master League Tier List Rating: 4.5/5

Heatran is technically another Steel-type Pokemon though in PvP and Raids it’s really a Fire-type Pokemon. It’s a bulky but less DPS Fire-type, which makes its Raid use pretty limited, but still enough to crack the ATL. It’ll have some use in Cobalion Raids, and it’s high TDO may mean its a better Stardust and RC investment than a few other Fire-type options. In PvP Heatran crushes the other Steel-types and Togekiss, a very similar role to its Steel partner Metagross.

Fighting-types

Master League Tier List Rating: 3.5-4/5

Fighting-type Pokemon are infinitely useful in a variety of T4 and T5 Raids, along with gyming. These are worth considering just because you certainly already have one powered up already. They’ll also be useful for upcoming Darkrai and Cobalion Raids, as well as Terrakion, which is likely to return soon. Fighting-types take on all Steel-types in PvP, including big boss Dialga- but be warned; Fighting-types are horrible against Giratina and Togekiss.

Ground-types

Master League Tier List Rating: 4/5

Ground types have middling effectiveness in Raid Battles, help back by crappy movesets. Though largely outclassed, they’ll be okay Cobalion counters (Terrakion too). Rhyperior serves double duty as a Rock-type and Garchomp is a potential better investment than the other Dragon-types which only have one PvE purpose. Swampert beats all his brothers with its access to Hydro Cannon. In PvP, the Ground-types fill an almost identical role to Fighting-types as Steel’s other weakness. The only difference is now instead of losing hard to Giratina, only Togekiss gets to Charm you down.

Dragonite

Master League Tier List Rating: 4/5

Dragonite is an excellent raiding Pokemon. The tradeoff between it and other Dragon-types is negligible for all of the Rare Candy saved. It’s a great Pokemon to bring to upcoming Giratina Raids. As that would imply, Dragonite puts excellent pressure on Giratina in PvP too. Dragonite doesn’t deal with Steel-types as well as Giratina, but this can occasionally be a worthwhile tradeoff.

Electric-types

Master League Tier List Rating: 3.5/5

Electric-type Pokemon are excellent in raids. Though Electric is only Super Effective to Water and Flying types, turns out a lot of Legendaries fly, including Lugia, returning this month. Electric-types are at a very interesting spot in PvP, countering Kyogre and Togekiss with ease. Despite this, the Dragon duo doesn’t care about Electric-types too much. 

Gyarados

Master League Tier List Rating: 3/5

Gyrados has had an interesting history in Raid battles. It has been a “Dark-type” that doesn’t get Focus Blasted, a “Dragon-type” that shakes off an Outrage, and a Water-type that can dodge a Solar Beam or Earthquake, notably from Groudon. Though its not the best Water-type, it does have some niche uses. In Pvp, Gyrados reprises his role as a “Dragon-type” that shakes off Dragon-type moves and puts it in a similar space in the meta to Dragonite, with worse overall performance.