Opinions on Pokémon Go have been fluctuating over the last year, with some players unhappy with the state of the game or calling out imbalances in mechanics and events. Today, however, the competitive community is pleased with the current meta—including newly crowned Europe International Champion MEweedle.
MEweedle is no stranger to Pokémon Go’s biggest stage, having won the 2022 Pokémon Go World Championships and 2022 EUIC in the Seniors division. But now that he aged up and is playing in Masters, he has claimed his second EUIC title at the largest Pokémon tournament in history and is confident the game is in a great place heading into the summer.
“I think there is one issue that needs to be addressed, and that’s Scald debuffs. But other than that I think this is the healthiest meta in a long time,” MEweedle told Dot Esports in an interview after his latest victory. “There’s a lot of neutral play and less RPS (rock, paper, scissors) than there has been in previous metas.”
MEweedle’s run through EUIC 2024 was dominant, with the star dropping just two games as he went 10-2 through the playoffs as the event’s top seed, including a 3-0 sweep of multi-time Regional Champion Doonebug97 in the grand finals. And, on the back of that incredible performance using Vigoroth to take down a Lickitung one last time, he now turns his sights to winning a second World Championship in August.
His team did feature a unique Pokémon compared to the other top 32 players, that being Skeledirge, but every other member of his lineup was featured on at least one other squad. Four of his Pokémon were in the top 12 for overall usage in the event: Lanturn at 40.3 percent, Cresselia at 39.9 percent, Vigoroth at 19.4 percent, and Altaria at 19.1 percent.
While the meta is wildly considered very healthy right now, MEweedle noted many of the top picks for competitive play like Gligar and his own choices like Lanturn are used because they are “safe” options. “Not many things completely wall them out,” MEweedle said. “Even if there are things that completely wall them you can just counter those things, which is why [Gligar and Lanturn] fit so well into so many team compositions right now.”
Even with the modern metagame leaning toward safe team-building and some talk around the game’s recent events being negative, MEweedle still encourages anyone with even a little interest in competitive Pokémon Go to give it a chance.
“The community is so great, even if you’re not a big part of it,” MEweedle added. “Everybody’s so nice. I recommend going out to [a big event like EUIC] and trying it out. If you don’t like it, that’s that, but I think you will.”
Published: Apr 7, 2024 07:03 pm