5 unexpected picks at Pokemon GO Baltimore Regional Championships

The recent Pokemon GO Regional Championships in Baltimore have just come to a close. During the event, the community laid eyes on some unique team compositions veteran trainers used, piquing the interests of many. Some of these teams utilized monsters not commonly seen in the metagame.

Many fans of Pokemon GO's Battle League may be curious as to why these players used such strange Pokemon and some might even want to try them for themselves. Here are five off-meta choices that made an appearance during Pokemon GO's Baltimore Regional Championships.

Note: This article is subjective, containing the author's opinions influenced by official usage statistics.

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5 strange picks from Pokemon GO's Baltimore Regional Championship

1) Arctibax

Arctibax is the pre-evolved form of Baxcalibur (Image via Niantic)

Unevolved Pokemon are not an uncommon sight in Pokemon GO's competitive scene, but Arctibax is the most recent to show such strong potential in an official tournament. Unevolved Pokemon of those with high combat power limits often make for much better battlers in the Great League.

This is due to these forms providing such high spikes in combat power upon evolving, that they cannot level up very much. In the case of Arctibax, trainers are using their candy and stardust to power up the Pocket Monster, essentially gaining a stronger version of Baxcalibur for use in lower tiers of play.

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2) Shadow Sealeo

Shadow Sealeo offers a more attack-oriented version of Dewdong (Image via Niantic)

A few trainers in Pokemon GO's Baltimore Regional Championship opted to use Shadow Sealeo rather than the standard Dewgong many more trainers tend to use. This is due in part to Sealeo being an unevolved Pokemon capable of leveling up more than Dewgong.

With the two having similar base stats, Sealeo is much more powerful at the cost of 40 points in defense. However, using its Shadow variant adds an extra 20% to its damage. Since Dewgong's Shadow variant is not in the game, Sealeo offers an almost identical Pokemon with the same base stats and typing, but with a stronger potential for offense.

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3) Shadow Jumpluff

Shadow Jumpluff is a surprisingly bulky creature with a low combat power cap and an amazing moveset (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Shadow Jumpluff was a surprising Grass-type pick to see in official tournament play. With the same defensive typing as Tropius and similar bulk due to its lower combat power allowing it to level up more, Shadow Jumpluff has slowly become the Grass-type of choice for many players.

Shadow Jumpluff's biggest draw is its access to Fairy Wind. This attack lets Jumpluff generate a ton of energy incredibly quickly, allowing it to deal most of its damage by spamming charged attacks. This makes Shadow Jumpluff incredibly dangerous as a closer when the opponent has already used their shields.

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4) Shadow Alolan Marowak

Alolan Marowak is a defensive Pokemon with great offensive typing (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Alolan Marowak has surprisingly good defensive typing for the Great League. Most notably, it resists Fairy, Ice, and Fighting-type attacks, which a fair amount of the most commonly used creatures have. Recent buffs to Fire Spin and Shadow Bone for the Max Out season have drastically increased Alolan Marowak's damage output as well.

Being a defensive Pokemon by nature, Alolan Marowak does not suffer too much from the consequences of being a Shadow Pokemon in Pokemon GO. In Shadow form, these creatures receive a 20% buff to damage while weakening their defense stat by 10%. However, it is vulnerable to Ground, Dark, and Ghost-type damage and its high combat power limit does not allow it to level up very much.

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5) Shadow Drifblim

Shadow Drifblim sports a unique Ghost and Flying typing (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Shadow Drifblim has shown some decent potential in the one team it was used on during the Pokemon GO Baltimore Regional Championships. Being a stamina tank rather than a defense tank, Shadow Drifblim sacrificed much less defense for more offense, since the bonus uses percentages instead of base values.

Hex also allows Drifblim to generate a lot of energy with each use, allowing it to fire off either a high-powered Shadow Ball benefiting from the same-type attack and shadow bonus, or a debuffing Mystical Fire or Icy Wind. Since debuffs bypass shields, Shadow Drifblim can prove incredibly annoying for unprepared opponents.

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For more information on Pokemon GO, check out our other articles:

• Ditto disguises
• Sierra counters
• Cliff counters
• Arlo counters
• Giovanni counters
• Team GO Rocket Grunts