Go Battle League Days

Occasionally, in Pokemon GO, we get an event featuring the GO Battle League, where you can get somer rewards, and generally feature a specific Pokemon as well. However, the GBL isn’t the most fun around here, to the point that I actively avoid it whenever I can.

That being said, some of these GBL events sometimes have good rewards. The event on March 25th for example offered up an Elite TM of all things. Elite TMs are very rare, so it’s a good incentive to play in the GBL. After all, the only times you can get them are on Community Days and at the end of a GBL season. It’s a very tantalizing reward.

But here’s the thing. I don’t like the GBL and, in the past, I have ignored GBL events because I hate playing pvp stuff. So do I suck it up and slog my way through 10 matches, each one dragging out because most people use tanky Pokemon? No, of course not. Rather than bothering with strategy or anything, I just lose matches. Intentionally.

I used to get a bit hung up when it came to losing. I have never liked it. Back in season 1 and 2, I did my best to stay even with a 50-50 win rate. Seasons after that though were a bit too stressful, so I ignored them. But it occurred to me that literally no one but me cares about my win rate. So why not throw matches? No one cares and neither should I.

So yeah, I decided to intentionally lose the latest GBL event. What could have taken a good hour or so, I got it done in about ten minutes. I didn’t have to win 10 matches, I just had to play them. And aside from the 10 matches, the other tasks were easy. All I needed to do was power up a Pokemon 10 times, which I did with a lucky Salamance, and then I needed 10 supe effective charge attacks. Thankfully, the charge attacks didn’t need to be done in the GBL. A couple of Team Rocket grunts supplied a few, but the rest I did were all from beating Blanche in practice matches. Using my Lucario, I just punched my way to victory.

So yeah, I easily got the rewards from this GBL event. Didn’t take much time at all. Which is good.

Is it wrong though? Just throwing matches? I don’t think so. I don’t intend to actually so any battling, so I’m fine giving some other random players some free wins. If I was tanking to face easier players, that would be unfair, but I am just losing matches for the event rewards, not the season proper.

What’s worth noting is that I’m not alone in doing this. In the ten matches I played, two players had low level Pokemon on them, probably doing the same thing I was doing. And I don’t blame them. Fighting against other players feels like a chore at times.

But at the end of the day, as long as I get that Elite TM, I don’t really care. If someone gets a free win off my back, so be it. Meanwhile I can go back to catching Pokemon.