End of GO Battle League Season 5 - Rank 10 achieved!

The 5th GO Battle League season has now come to an end. In the previous season I didn't play a lot, and was unable to get a high ranking. This season was much shorter, so they made changes where you didn't need a rating to achieve rank 8 and higher. Every rank just required a certain amount of wins to reach it. This season was also unique to the previous ones as regular Great, Ultra and Master League were unavailable. There were only special cups that lasted for a week each.

The first cup was a Little Cup, with only Pokémon up to 500 CP allowed. During this one I didn't really do any battles. The second cup was a Kanto Cup, with only Pokémon with Pokédex Numbers 1 through 151 allowed, and max 1500 CP. It seems Ditto was excluded from the list, as I couldn't find it during team selection. I wanted to give it a try for fun xD During this season I did battle several times. The third cup was a Catch Cup, only allowing Pokémon caught since the start of Season 5 and with a max CP of 1500. This is the Cup I battled in the most.

After reaching Rank 8, my first encounter from achieving at least 3 wins in a set of 5 was guaranteed to be Rufflet. I didn't have Rufflet yet. So that Rufflet encounter was my first ever, leading to a Pokédex registry. Here you can see the encounter, registry and its stats.

During previous seasons I got either rank 7 and didn't continue to play, or didn't play anymore if I did reach rank 8. Last season I didn't play much and only got to rank 6 I believe. Since late October it is also possible to hatch Rufflet from 10 km Eggs, which I haven't had happen yet so far.

After obtaining Rank 10 your first encounter is guaranteed to be Pikachu Libre. Since I've never obtained Rank 10 before it means I didn't have one yet. In this screenshot you can see my first encounter with it and the stats it has.

Pikachu Libre has the Fighting-type Attack Flying Press, which is currently unique to Pikachu. Once Hawluche is released throughout the generation 6 release it should also know this move.

Above Rank 7 it was also possible to encounter the current Legendary Raid Boss as one of the encounter rewards. I was able to encounter 1 Mesprit from my encounters this way.

I had been a bit busy the last day of the season, and didn't do battles yet. I was able to do some sets of battles but I was still in the process of them when the season ended. So as you can see in the screenshot with my results it says 104 battles as I was in my 4th battle of the set when the season ended.

Because I was at 2 wins and 1 loss before starting the 4th battle, I couldn't get my encounter reward yet since I needed one more win. After I won that 4th battle I got my encounter reward, but unfortunately due to the season having just ended it was an encounter reward based on the new season and so I encountered a Bulbasaur.

As for the rewards I received like 5 Charge TMs, 3 Fast TMs, a Premium Raid Pass, an Elite Charged TM and 100,000 Stardust. This could've been increased to 150,000 by using a Star Piece. Since I was still battling, the pop-up to claim my rewards appeared right after finishing my ongoing battle. I then claimed it immediately. What I could've probably done was restart my game, so that I'd have to go into the GO Battle section before being able to claim my rewards, allowing me to activate a Star Piece before claiming them. But so be it xD

Season 6 has now started. This season has quite some change to them with a lot of new ranks added. Now there will be 24 ranks. Ranks 1 through 20 can be achieved by completing battles and securing wins, the same as it's been for all ranks in season 5. The 4 ranks above 20 are called Ace, Veteran, Expert and Legend and are achieved by respectively earning a rating of 2000, 2500, 2750 and 3000.

Reaching rank 16 will be a guaranteed Chespin encounter, rank 17 a guaranteed Fennekin encounter and rank 18 a guaranteed Froakie encounter on your next encounter after reaching each of those ranks. For Rank 20 there will be a surprise encounter guaranteed for your next encounter, and after reaching rank 20 you'll have a chance of encountering the current Legendary Pokémon from Raids as well.

Did you do battles in GO Battle League during season 5?