The last time I saw these guys live was when they came to my uni in Bath, UK back in 2012. Although GTH isn’t my favourite album, it was really special to see them again. Boy has it been an eventful 14 years! 🥲
[GL/UL/ML] I ran a different Mega every day of the all-Mega Cup week — full breakdown, movesets, and a ranking (used AI to help me put this together)
This was the 1st time I've ever participated in a mega cup of any kind. I decided to run a brand new Mega each day rather than spending extra mega energy to mega evolve the same mon during its cooldown, which meant a lot of trial and error — especially once the mid-week CP boost change hit and started messing with my pre-planned CP targets. Got 7 different Megas in over the week. Here's the full breakdown, day by day.
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Day 1 — Great League: Mega Sableye
Team: Melmetal (lead) + Mega Sableye (Shadow Claw / Drain Punch / Foul Play) + Morgrem (ABB)
Classic ABB structure — Melmetal leads, with Sableye and Morgrem as the two flexible backline picks brought in based on matchup rather than either one holding a fixed "back" slot. Getting Morgrem right to 1500 CP feels great (very proud to finally hit 1500 after much grinding). Drain Punch was a fun mix of shield bait & defence boost. All three have very highly ranked IVs and I think this trio could do real work this season (especially with the DIB buff) — just wish I'd had more time to climb with it before the week moved on. Mega Sableye also just looks incredible.
Day 2 — Great League: Mega Lucario
Used an Elite TM to get Force Palm (Shadow Ball / Aura Sphere) specifically for this run. In hindsight this team was a bit too fragile — not enough bulk across the board, so some matchups were rough. Needed a lot of careful shielding to get through games. Still fun, and Mega Lucario looks amazing.
Day 3 — Great League: Mega Beedrill
Went with Mega Beedrill this time (Poison Sting / Fell Stinger / Sludge Bomb). Weak to Rock and very squishy — took some trial and error to land on a team with a bit more bulk. Didn't want to burn another ETM here, so went with a slightly spicy moveset. Beedrill's getting a Fell Stinger+ mega move soon, which sounds great for spamming and baiting shields off the boost — once that lands I’ll add Drill Run in place of the regular Fell Stinger charge move.
Mid-week: the CP boost problem
Around this point I discovered the mega CP boost had been adjusted, and Pokémon I'd already planned around (using PvPoke research, specific IV spreads, mega energy, candy, stardust, and multiple Elite TMs) would now overshoot the CP caps if I mega evolved them again. That invalidated a chunk of the planning I'd already sunk resources into — disheartening at the time.
Day 4 — Master League: Mega Mewtwo Y ✨
Decided to dip into ML for the first time using my shiny hundo Mewtwo (Psycho Cut / Psystrike / Thunderbolt, mega bonus: Future Sight+). I just haven't fully leveled it all the way yet (still learning the most efficient way to spend mega energy toward max mega level), so on the day it was sitting well below most of the other Mega Mewtwo Ys I ran into, which were mostly around 7000+ CP, with many running Shadow Ball. Psystrike is actually quick enough to reach that I don't fully regret running it over SB — though I barely ended up using Future Sight+ in practice. Pulled a few clutch wins despite being outgunned on CP most games.
Day 5 — Master League: Shiny Mega Gengar ✨
Still wary of the CP boost issue, so I went digging for anything fun that might be even half-viable in ML — landed on my party hat shiny Gengar (Shadow Claw / Shadow Ball / Drain Punch). The base shiny is a little underwhelming, but the Mega form is eye-catching. Wasn't powered up much, so I aimed to just clear 4000 CP without justifying an ETM. Performance was rough — Mega Gengar is glassy enough to basically always need 2 shields, and even then it couldn't out-race Mega Mewtwo's Psystrike. I think with a better moveset it could have done a bit better. Will revisit once I can afford to level it up and maybe ETM. And maybe a stronger team to bills around it.
Day 6 — Ultra League: Megalamar (rank 1!)
Started late in the evening with this Malamar (Psycho Cut / Foul Play / Superpower, mega bonus: Psybeam+) & was very excited to see it’s a rank 1 in UL. Unfortunately the CP boost event had already ended by this point, so I didn't want to risk overshooting by mega evolving further — meaning it's sitting below the ~2500 CP ceiling until it hits max mega level. Still, climbed a lot running it in an ABB structure. Getting a second STAB charge move (Psybeam+) on top of spammy Foul Play and the non-STAB Superpower nuke is fantastic.
Day 7 — Ultra League: Mega Gyarados
Team: Mega Gyarados (Waterfall / Twister / Crunch) + Tinkaton + Primarina
Only got half an hour in on my lunch break today, but this team ate. The new resistances to Ghost, Psychic, and Dark (traded for weaknesses to Fairy, Fighting, and Bug) caught a few opponents off guard, and it's especially strong into opposing Waters, most of which spam Hydro Cannon. Tinkaton usually traded a shield each before dying to a Fire-type safe swap. Crunch for the debuff if I expect a shield, Twister to race down a shieldless opponent or against Dragons. Climbed a couple hundred Elo quickly. Still unsure if Waterfall or the Dragon fast move performs better — and why is this thing Water/Dark and not Water/Dragon? Nice to have STAB on Crunch regardless.
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Elo talk, since people often ask
In general (mostly GL) I hit 2300-2400ish at best before I get bored of the same repetitive meta and start switching things up. This week's ML detour and Mega Gengar in particular hurt my Elo the most — Lucario and Beedrill were also both glassy enough that they needed very careful shielding. After losing a fair amount of Elo in ML, I climbed back up to around 1920 to finish the season.
Ranking them — enjoyment + performance
Sableye, Malamar, and Gyarados were my favorites, and honestly I could make an argument for any of the three being the best of the week. Beedrill and Lucario were both fun but too glassy to be consistent. Mewtwo Y did fine given the CP disadvantage. Gengar was the weak link — cool to look at, but underpowered and outclassed.
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Still on the priority list to Mega next:
- Hundo Chespin — tempted to mega the shiny one instead, but it has bad IVs. Needs a full level-up before it's ML-viable of course.
Also can't wait to try Mega Starmie at some point — it just looks hilarious.
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I had such a great time running a new team every day — the variety kept things fresh, and running into different comps kept it interesting. Doing this again for the next all-Mega Cup week, and looking forward to running some of these back now that a few of the cooldowns have wrapped up. Still don't know what happens once these mons hit max mega level — will they land exactly where I calculated, or overshoot the CP cap and force me to bench them? Fingers crossed it's the former.
Happy to answer questions about the non-Mega teammates in the comments — didn't want to make this novel any longer than it already is!
Did anyone else do something like this? Which was your favourite mega evolution that you tried? Thanks for reading!
This is one of my favourites!
What should I draw next?
Thinking to do Greedent - that'll be a very different challenge with lots of curves 😅
I recently injured myself and don’t have any gyms near me.
Don’t wanna spend money on remote passes so I could be stuck with this for a while…annoying research 😑
