GO Stadium is not only a major influencer regarding the future of Pokémon GO PvP but is also the most recognised platform for facilitating global, remote PvP tournaments.
Anyone can get involved in GO Stadium’s remote tournaments, regardless of their skill level, experience, or location. You do, of course, have to reach Ultra Friends with the Trainers you’re matched with before you can battle them, a restriction which most Battlers would like to see reduced at some point.
The GO Stadium Discord server is where the world’s top PvP Battlers hang out to discuss all aspects of current meta(s), team building methods, and how to perfect those all-important battle strategies. So if you’re looking to improve your game or even get started in the world of competitive PvP, this is the place to GO.
GO Stadium’s Influence
A few weeks ago, GO Stadium led a movement to #SavePvP, encouraging Battlers to speak up and oppose the Switch mechanic changes which removed what many considered an important battle strategy. The response was massive and amazingly, Niantic did listen and they did reverse the changes, as explained in their Community Note. The entire community were extremely appreciative of GO Stadium’s (and many other influencers’) efforts but most of all, of Niantic’s prompt action to address and correct the issue.
Many prominent YouTubers and content creators view the GO Stadium team as a vital cog in the PvP-community machine. You can read below, the Testimonies provided to us by some of the most well-known and influential PvP content creators around.
Let’s look more in-depth at the key features of GO Stadium and meet some of the Admins and associated Content Creators that have made it the most popular Remote-PvP platform out there.
The Admin Team for GO Stadium
Scotty / Spyro – Founder and Developer
Scotty (Real name, Kris) lives in the UK with his wife and 3 month old daughter. He helped found GO Stadium back in January 2019 with the goal of forming an international Pokémon GO PvP Community. Kris is also behind the PvPBot which can be used for rank checking your Pokémon in your own Discord server! When he’s not busy tinkering with the PvPBot, he can be found playing Rocket League or battling in Auto Select Battles.
“What started as a place to talk about PvP has evolved into a thriving community of over 10,000 members where players can participate in remote tournaments against other battlers from all around the globe. GO Stadium is now the hub for everything PVP, housing all the best players, content creators, PvP tools, and meta analysts.”
JRHonda121 – Head of Marketing & Strategy
John is a lifelong Pokémon Fan and Self-Proclaimed Business & Marketing Expert [insert sweat smile emote]. He is married to his Wife Lydia, and they have a soon to be 3 year old daughter. He works as an Operations Manager for a Software Company in Birmingham, AL where he hosts the local community’s Silph Arena Tournaments. His main goal for GO Stadium is to reach the entire community of Pokémon GO and help them to enjoy PVP whether it be as a competitor, a content creator, or a spectator. #BuildTheCommunity
Torpedorunner – Head Tournament Manager
Igor graduated in Mathematical Statistics in 2011, and he loves everything that has to do with numbers, data and spreadsheets. He is a lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering. He’s been regularly running since 2014 and is a member of local club called “Torpedo Runners”, hence his in-game name. Since childhood, he’s been into all kinds of tournaments, tournament formats, tables and rankings, and his big desire was to organize something fun and meaningful on a large scale. GO Stadium has given him the opportunity to do just that and he hopes that PvP in Pokémon GO will become even more interesting and polished in the future and bring more trainers into the competition.
squawkdirtytome – Head of Commentary & Analytics
AJ is a 27 year old male who is 100% human. As a human with human interests, AJ spends an average 12% of his time with recreational activities. 20% of his time is spent with his biological human daughter who has almost completed a full calendar year since her exit from AJ’s human wife. 23% of AJ’s time is spent accumulating U.S. dollars for his human family as an airline pilot. AJ is not to be mistaken for the automation of his ERJ170-200 LR aircraft. 12% of AJ’s time is spent through miscellaneous activities including nutrition intake and disposal of waste. 33% of AJ’s time is spent lying on a flat surface going through stages 1, 2, 3 and REM sleep, AJ finds this both enjoyable and necessary for his human metabolism. These percentages are tentative and subject to change. AJ aspires, like so many other humans on Earth, to achieve world peace, stop global warming and analyze Pokémon GO metas so more fellow humans will share AJ’s interest in recreational activities.
*Writer’s note: Yes, the percentages do total 100! 
Testimonies From Supporting Content Creators
ZyoniK
“GO Stadium is an amazing Discord server for anyone to come join and become competitive for Pokémon GO PvP. You can stay on top of all the latest strategies, catch insightful live streams and talk to the best players in the world. They also provide international tournaments through a grouping system that pairs you with other community members from around the world to gain friendship in order to compete in remote tournaments. Overall if you are looking to up your game in Pokémon GO, GO Stadium is the place to start.”
Check out ZyoniK’s YouTube content here.
JFarmakis
JFarmakis“Serving as a center for all PVP enthusiasts, GO Stadium has effectively broadened their outreach for anyone in any community, whether big or small, to participate in the joys and rivalries of battle. These remote tournaments hosted on their discord give hardcore players and distant players the chance to hone their skills and test their Pokémon. Discord, Twitter, Twitch; GO Stadium effectively uses many platforms to grow their vision: Turning PVP into a rightful ESport. Many players and content creators hope to see this dream become a reality, and that starts with GO Stadium.”
Check out JFarmakis’ YouTube content here.
JimmaBanks
JimmaBanks“GO Stadium is best PvP Discord in the world; They have been trend-setters and have elevated PvP to new heights. In the Discord server, experienced members will help you build your team for PvP tournaments. They have created a PvP IV stat checker to help you decide which Pokémon to invest in, and the streamed content on the GO Stadium Twitch channel is always epic. I’ve personally learned so much from GO Stadium and my gameplay would not be the same without them. Thank you GO Stadium.”
Check out JimmaBanks’ YouTube content here.
Kieng
Kieng
“There is no better community in PvP than the GO Stadium Discord. They are putting out the best content, period. PvP content innovation at its best.”
Check out Kieng’s YouTube content here.
The GO Stadium Website
As Jimma mentioned above, GO Stadium also provides an IV analysis website which allows you to evaluate your Pokémon and their individual potential to be great (within their species) in Trainer Battles.
The GO Stadium website analyses the IVs of your Pokémon and calculates how high its stat product will be when powered up to the appropriate level for the League you want to use it in. It then ranks it compared to the best stat product it could possibly have. Typically, 90% of the best stat product is about the worst you’ll find, so Battlers tend to regard anything above 98% (or ranked within the top ~50) and relevant to the current meta, as being worthy of investment. Anything less than this is still perfectly usable, but may not be worth a big investment unless it’s essential to the current meta and you’re not likely to find anything better before your battles commence.
The screenshot below shows the evaluation of a Skarmory which has a 0 Attack IV, a 15 Defense IV and a 14 HP IV. We can see that this particular combination of IVs is optimal for Skarmory in the Great League, as it results in its best possible stat product, while remaining under the League’s CP cap.
The GO Stadium Twitch Channel
As some of the Content Creators that we talked to mentioned, GO Stadium regularly provide live-streamed coverage for the Tournaments they host and/or organise. These can be watched on their Twitch Channel and the impressive viewing figures (1.6k views for one livestream was the highest at the time of writing this) demonstrate that Pokémon GO PvP has a growing following and the potential to one day become an official esport.
GO Stadium also live-stream large Silph Arena tournaments like the Jungle Cup in Philadelphia, and more recently, their own “Ultimate Showdown” events that were held in Seattle and Philadelphia. If you’re looking to learn from some of the best PvP Battlers out there, catching these Livestreams is a great way to do so.
The next major tournament being organised by GO Stadium will be hosted by London’s Finest on October 26th. All Battlers are welcome, regardless of Ranking or experience. The hope is that they can get at least 64 Battlers to attend and hold the UK’s first 7 round tournament. There’s also a Telegram group where everyone who’s hoping to attend can discuss and coordinate.
To stay up to date with when other Tournaments are due to be streamed, follow GO Stadium on Twitter.
My Experience of GO Stadium Remote Tournaments
I’ve personally been involved in two GO Stadium Tournaments; The Jungle Cup and a Mirror Twilight Cup.
In both tournaments, the quality of the battles was extremely high. It was at this point that I realised that my understanding of several battle strategies was lacking. Luckily their Discord server was just the place to get advice on how to start mastering the arts of move counting, learning match-ups, under-tapping, energy farming, shield baiting, and many other essential strategies. I still haven’t mastered any of them, but my knowledge is far better for having discussed the theories behind them with some of the experts on the server.
Reaching Ultra Friends with the other 17 Battlers in my League was easier than expected; Even though I didn’t always pick up enough gifts to send one to each of my co-competitors, I found that others were very generous with their gifting and I was able to level up with everyone almost every single day.
Despite losing many of my battles against my League-mates, I haven’t allowed myself to get disheartened; For me all of the Pokémon GO roads that I’ve travelled so far have led to this part of the game. I’ve always strived to have the strongest team possible but have always been dissatisfied with the lack of opportunities we’ve had to use them in a strategic and competitive way. If I quit just because I wasn’t competent straight away, then my only option is to go back to that almost competition-less game. I decided that the best way to improve was to continue practicing, continue competing, keep learning from my mistakes and to seek the advice of better Battlers than myself.
The Tournament Managers (shout out to Alfindeol) do a great job in keeping each League informed about when Tournaments will be starting and making sure that match schedules stay on track. Tournaments are always well organised and run smoothly thanks to their efforts.
The GO Stadium Discord Server
How to Get Involved
Once you’ve joined the GO Stadium Discord server, head to the #how-to-tournament channel, where everything is explained.
Once you’re registered, you’ll be assigned to a League and once the League has 18 competitors, it’s time to start levelling up.
Your Tournament Manager will guide you from there and ensure that everyone knows when their battles can begin. With this being a Global community, time zone management does come into play, but with the use of the super-helpful PvPBot, you can easily see the difference between your time and your opponent’s time. You usually have a couple of days per round to co-ordinate a mutually convenient time to battle so there’s very little pressure to get it done straight away.
Closing Thoughts
If you want to evolve from a Pokémon Trainer to a Pokémon Battler, there are many quality sources of information you can combine to gain the knowledge to do so, but few are more valuable than being part of the GO Stadium community.
GO Stadium has been, is, and will continue to be, a pillar of the Pokémon GO PvP community. Long after they’ve achieved their long term goal of making this an official esport, they will continue to affect and enhance the way we battle each other.
Get into GO Stadium now and we’ll see you on the field Battlers!