Niantic compiles official Pokémon GO World Championships Celebration: A Basic Guide to Pokémon GO Battles

In Pokémon GO, Pokémon appear all around us, and there are many opportunities to catch Pokémon that can be used in battle. From the Charmander that you caught at your local park to the Scraggy you hatched from an Egg, there’s a huge variety of Pokémon to power up and battle with! Here are some tips and tricks for the best ways to get Pokémon ready for battle.

In-game events are great opportunities to catch lots of a particular Pokémon (and therefore end up with a lot of Candy!) and to teach Pokémon powerful Fast Attacks and Charged Attacks. Some of the most important events to participate in are Community Days. Community Days allow you to teach featured attacks—like Frenzy Plant, Hydro Cannon, and Blast Burn—to specific Pokémon.

Raid Hours increase the frequency of raids for a short time, which can lead to more opportunities to defeat and capture powerful Legendary Pokémon like Tapu Fini and Registeel.

It’s no secret that Shadow Pokémon are very strong, so make sure to battle against Team GO Rocket whenever they appear and rescue the Shadow Pokémon they leave behind! Pokémon like Shadow Alolan Sandshrew and Shadow Mudkip can become the mighty Shadow Alolan Sandslash and Shadow Swampert, respectively! The Shadow Pokémon you rescue are usually stuck with the Charged Attack Frustration, but if you want to teach them a new Charged Attack, you will need to wait until the next Team GO Rocket Takeover and use a Charged TM!

There’s always something exciting happening in Pokémon GO. Check your calendar for upcoming in-game events, from holiday events to Adventure Week and more! These in-game events typically spotlight particular Pokémon or types of Pokémon, so they are a great opportunity to acquire your next GO Battle League all-star! Pokémon that are above Level 40 require a lot of resources to power up, but they can also be the most useful—take advantage of in-game events for opportunities to get Candy XL!

You can also acquire GO Battle League favorites by hatching Eggs and trading with your fellow Trainers! If you trade certain Pokémon—such as Machoke, Haunter, and Phantump—the Candy requirement to evolve them is reduced to 0, so make sure to leverage awesome opportunities like these!

The GO Battle League is a great way to test your mettle against other Trainers. Every day, Trainers have the opportunity to play five sets of five battles each in the GO Battle League. All you have to do is tap “Battle” and enter with a team of three Pokémon.

There are three basic formats, the Great League, the Ultra League, and the Master League, which determine the CP limit and which Pokémon you can enter. Every few weeks, you might notice that the available formats change. In general, the formats rotate through the open Great League, Ultra League, and Master League. Special cups also become available throughout the Season, where only Pokémon that meet certain criteria are eligible to compete. For example, the latest Season— Hidden Gems—saw the introduction of the Single-type Cup in the Great League, in which only Pokémon with a single type and 1,500 CP or less were eligible. Each Season also contains special GO Battle Days, during which you can participate in four times as many battles as usual and earn additional rewards, such as extra Stardust, exclusive avatar items, and special rewards, including Elite Fast TMs, Elite Charged TMs, and Rare Candy XL.

As you climb the ranks to the prestigious Legend rank, you will also gain special rewards, such as the opportunity to encounter Legendary Pokémon in the GO Battle League, an encounter with Pikachu Libre, and exclusive avatar items. In addition, you can see the names of the top 500 Trainers in the GO Battle League on the leaderboard.