I think it’s time to bring in Mega evolved Pokémon into the Master League

Are you bored of the limited variety of Master League? Are you sick of dominant Pokémon like Zacian and Dialga on every team? Do you feel done with trying to use spicy picks with limited success?

The answer to all Master League problems is right there in the code. It’s working in trainer battles, but not GBL. It’s already implemented and used in draft leagues. Moreover, it’s even inherently balanced by the concept itself (one mega per team, no more). The only caveat is that it needs to be implemented differently in GBL.

Here’s what I suggest:

1- Make megas available in GBL after having mega evolved a Pokémon at least once, no time limit. Example: mega evolve a Steelix one time, and now a single mega Steelix is available to use in GBL whenever.

2- Make it one mega per team, of course.

3- Allow mega Pokémon only in the Master League. No need for these Pokémon atm to be in GL or UL. Maybe when Medicham or Sableye are introduced we can evaluate. Suggestion #4 would do this without need for restrictions.

4- This is extremely generous and I don’t see Niantic doing this but I think it’ll help: boost all megas to max CP value no matter the level. Example: you have a level 30 Charizard, it is boosted to 40 or 50 when mega evolved. All current megas would go over 2500 making them unusable in any other league.

Now the real question, how would megas improve Master League?

1- Variety: Mega Charizard, mega Steelix, and Mega Abomasnow, and mega Gyarados should become real competitors. Other megas in the pipeline would dominate the game completely. Those Pokémon cannot normally exist in ML but the Mega boost to defense just changes thing. They would also come with movesets that don’t work anywhere else but would work in ML.

2- dominance of certain species: Zacian? I give you Mega Charizard, Mega Beedrill, and Mega Gengar. Real counters that Zacian can’t typically beat. Dialga? Mega Steelix is the wall Dialga cannot climb. Not even at shield deficit.

3- New types can now exist in ML: you want to use Ice, Poison, Grass, Bug, Rock but don’t want to sink your rating. Instead of using the weak and fragile Roserade, you can use the infinitely better Mega Beedrill. Or Mega Gengar. For grass, there’s Mega Abomasnow, Venusaur. For Fire, there’s Mega Charizard. Mega Ampharos can act like a real electric Zekrom. They’re not all amazing picks but at least they have the stat product to compete.

4- Some of them are OP I admit, but at least you can’t use 2 of them on the same team. Mega Gengar is the most threatening but also Mega Charizard Y is borderline OP. However, unlike say Dialga and Zacian, no one can use both on the same team.

5- In case things get out of hand, Niantic can always reapply extra stats to Legendaries. The 9% nerf can always be removed because it makes no sense in the first place. This will boost legendaries and drown out non-legendary picks like Dragonite and Metagross but ML is already the Legendary league and frankly without legendaries, you’re in for a tough time.

TLDR: megas really need the right implementation to exist in GBL. My suggestion is just one way it could work. The one thing we really need is to eliminate the rent system at least for GBL. It would help ML feel less stale.

Feel free to ignore me and disagree. I look forward to a fun discussion.