"The Evolution of the Pokemon GO Meta"

#PokemonGO: Pokemon GO Meta: 1 Year LaterOnce Pokemon Go came out, it took a couple months to develop the end-game meta, and the original meta formed after trainers started getting pokemon to the upper 2000’s Combat Power and we were left with some very powerful pokemon that dominated gyms. Gyms were the end-game content in defending for coins and stardust and attacking for control. Because defending had priority over attacking, Gamepress released the first Gym Defender list on 8/26 that gave insight to the first defense meta:Tier 1: Snorlax, Dragonite, Lapras, Exeggutor, VaporeonTier 2: Slowbro, Poliwrath, Arcanine, Venusaur, Wigglytuff, GyaradosOn 9/13 the Gym Attacker list was released, and nothing much was different from the defender list as the reason the pokemon were strong was also the reason they were good at defending, CP. The Tier 1 pokemon generally filled all 10 spots of the gyms and occasionally you would see Tier 2 pokemon or something different. The main factor was CP, as gym spots were sorted by CP and the higher the CP, the deeper the pokemon is in the gym. Pokemon like Snorlax, dragonite, and lapras ruled because they had huge stamina, huge CP and few weaknesses from Generation 1 counters.November Rebalance to CPNovember saw an update as Niantic had released a CP overhaul to more align powerful pokemon to their original power level. Special stats and speed were buffed and the meta did shake up because of this. Machamp, alakazam, the eeveelutions, Golem, Snorlax, Dragonite were all buffed and gyarados/rhydon received a huge buff. However, even with the changes the meta was still about the same apart from a few shifts in the relevant pokemon in the top tiers:Defenders Tier 1: Snorlax, Lapras, Exeggutor, Dragonite, Slowbro, VaporeonDefenders Tier 2: Venusaur, Rhydon, Poliwrath, Gyarados, Golem, OmastarAttackers Tier 1: Dragonite, Snorlax, Vaporeon, Rhydon, AlakazamAttackers Tier 2: Gengar, Lapras, Exeggutor, Gyarados, OmastarGeneration 2 ReleaseFinally Niantic released a large update and a new generation of pokemon joined the meta, like the powerful pokemon Blissey and Tyranitar. However, gen 2 is a weak generation overall and the meta did not change drastically for defense. Gym rewards and playstyle remained the same, and the Tier list was updated:Defenders Tier 1: Blissey, Snorlax, Tyranitar, Dragonite, Rhydon, GyaradosDefenders Tier 2: Vaporeon, Lapras, Exeggutor, Espeon, Slowbro, SteelixThe attackers however did change up quite a bit with new moves being added to the pool as well as the CP rebalance pulling more pokemon up to the top tier of attacking. Machamp, jolteon/flareon, gengar and Alakazam saw nice changes as they moved up to viable. The pokemon with asterisks are defensive oriented pokemon, but also pulled their weight battling, though not quick battles damage over time was considered.Attackers Tier 1: Dragonite, Blissey*, Tyranitar, Vaporeon, MachampAttackers Tier 2: Snorlax*, Heracross, Exeggutor, Jolteon, LaprasGym OverhaulWe then got to see the overhaul to gyms update come through that really changed gyms drastically as the end-game content prepared to shift to raids. This would be the last time the meta was gym relevant; the large change initially included that any pokemon over 3000cp had a huge motivation decrease and can be knocked out of gyms much more easily. Tie in that no more multiples of the same pokemon were allowed and a huge shift in gym usage occured. Another change was that stardust was removed as a reward and coins reduced to 50 max per day. The change to pokemon over 3000cp was eventually evened out across all pokemon and left us with the final meta tier for defending, which was the same as the previous tier apart from Muk coming up and Rhydon going down. Attackers also remained the same as the previous tier and the meta quickly shifted towards raids.Raid Meta ShiftNiantic released raids in time for summer 2017 and this saw a huge change to the end-game content and meta for attacking pokemon. Initially raids that were relevant to high level players(which is most of the people still playing the game) included Tier 3 and most of Tier 4 raids. Tyranitar, Snorlax, and Lapras became new high priority raids and Machamp rose to the top of usefulness at this point. The meta of Pokemon Go now shifts to having up to 6 attackers for each specific raid boss. With this knowledge, stardust priority went towards certain pokemon based on top tier 4 raids counters and how many different bosses they could attack effectively:High Priority Attack Tier: Machamp, Tyranitar, Dragonite, Golem, VaporeonLow Priority Attack Tier: Venusaur, Exeggutor, Rhydon , Alakazam/Espeon , JolteonLegendary Raids- Birds MetaRecently, Pokemon GO raids introduced a new tier, Tier 5 legendary raids which is currently the eng-game meta in Pokemon GO. Now that the meta has changed to an attack-oriented meta for top tier raids and legendaries, the priority has shifted again as to which pokemon deserves stardust. For the legendary birds, Omastar with legacy rock moveset, Tyranitar with Stone Edge, Golem with rock moves were clear winners.High Priority Attack Tier: Omastar, Tyranitar, GolemLow Priority Attack Tier: Eeveelutions, Rhydon, Dragonite, Lapras/CloysterLegendary Raids- Beasts/Mewtwo Meta (Current)The current meta is around attackers for the legendary beasts and Mewtwo. The assumption is that the next major meta change would occur if other Tier raid bosses cycle and/or Gen 3 is introduced. Priority has now shifted again to the current counters:High Priority: Rhydon, Golem, TyranitarLow Priority: Houndoom/scizor, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Exeggutor/Venusaur, Dragonite.Once trainers start getting their legendaries and dusting them up to max level, the meta will include legendaries as the counters to other bosses(mewtwo vs mewtwo, Raikou vs Suicune etc.). Until a Raid Tier shake-up or gen 3 comes, this is the current meta.Thanks to Gamepress, TrainerTips, and SilphRoad for the details!(Gym Tiers are not 100% accurate/all-including for everyone as the gym meta is also based on location and some omissions were made) via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2hammAY