Pokemon Go Battle League is getting a bit stale. Between the intense Stardust costs to make viable Pokemon, the constantly rotating meta, and the forthcoming removal of ‘Classic’ game modes that limit XL Pokemon, it’s hard to get passionate about Pokemon Go’s PvP offering. And that’s before you get to the problems with the battling itself.

Lag remains a big issue, especially as you reach higher levels and players count fast moves to guesstimate their opponents’ sets. The randomness of winning the lead matchup also feels unfairly weighted, and people keep using Registeel. Yes, I have a vendetta against Registeel.

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Go Battle League just isn’t fun any more. However, it can be useful. Pokemon players are ‘tanking’ in order to farm Rare Candies, Stardust, and encounters from rewards, with half of the usual PvP effort. First up, you need to lose a lot of games. And I mean a lot.

Pokemon Go Battle League Tanking Farm Rare Candy leagues

This is the ‘tanking’ part. Spend a day or two losing every battle in every set. You can take part in six sets of five battles every day in Go Battle League, so forfeiting every game for two days puts you at a massive deficit. In the game’s eyes, you’re a very bad player. Losing 60 games in a row? Ouch. Thanks to GBL’s ranked system, after these two days, you’ll be matched against much worse players. Now, all you have to do is win some matches while convincing the game you’re still really bad, honest.

On the third day, you should be able to easily win 4/5 matches in your first set, netting you the Rare Candy, Stardust, and encounter rewards, even on the free track. Your next set, however, you need to lose all five matches. Win four, lose five. Win four, lose five. Keeping this up for your six sets gives you no fewer than nine Rare Candies a day, as well as the best chances for a Legendary encounter, although those seem to have been nerfed to oblivion since the Ultra Beasts arrived.

Your total wins per day is just 12/30, and yet your rewards are likely better than if you’d been trying your hardest. They are for me, anyway. There are other benefits, too – it takes half the time, as you’re forfeiting half your matches, and you don’t really impact anyone else with your cheesing.

Pokemon Go Battle League Tanking Farm Rare Candy badges

Some people do consider this smurfing – where experienced players purposefully play on new accounts to stomp newer players – but it’s not quite the same. Yes, you’ll be playing against players who are statistically worse than you, but you’re only one of their 30 two-minute battles a day. They’ll likely face many losses against better players over the course of their day, so I wouldn’t feel too bad. Plus, you make up for it by giving half of your opponents free wins.

Tanking is not only the most effective and rewarding strategy in Go Battle League, but it’s also one of the only ways to fight against the game’s aggressive monetisation. The best way to get Rare Candies other than grinding Go Battle? Raids, which cost about a pound a pop. Best way to get candy for Legendaries? Rare Candy, or, again, Raids. Best Pokemon in GBL? Legendaries. The number of candy needed to power them up to competitive levels now that Classic modes are gone? Thousands and thousands, if you’re converting regular candy to XL.

It’s no surprise that everything in Pokemon Go funnels you towards spending cash – it’s one of the most lucrative live-service games out there – but tanking fights against that. Earning a regular, and free, supply of Rare Candies can help you to get involved with other aspects of the game; build better Raid counters, power up your Legendaries, and the like, without necessarily spending money to do so. More importantly, it’s a way to actually have fun with Go Battle League.

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