Easily Obtainable Meta-Relevant Pokémon for New and Casual Trainers

With everything that’s been going on in Pokémon GO during the past month, it’s to be expected that many Trainers will be returning to the game after long hiatuses, starting out their Pokémon GO journeys, or participating more actively in the raid scene.

Whatever the case, we must acknowledge that not everyone can invest the time and effort needed to obtain top-tier attackers to use in raids and battles. Thus, we’ve compiled a list of Pokémon that are easy to get and can hold their own in the battling metagame.

Legendaries are not included in this list, as they are still difficult to obtain for many players. However, if your area has an active raid scene, it’s easy to fill up your battling roster (even at lower levels) by simply raiding and catching legendaries.

Pokémon	Candy to evo	Alternative to	Usage in Meta
Houndoom Snarl, Foul Play	50	Tyranitar	Mewtwo, Latios and Latias raids
Arcanine Fire Fang, Fire Blast or Wild Charge	50	Moltres Entei	Future Regice and Registeel Raids
Flareon Fire Spin, Overheat	25	Moltres Entei	Future Regice and Registeel Raids
Jolteon Thunderbolt		Raikou Zapdos	Charizard Raids
Espeon Future Sight		Mewtwo Alakazam	High DPS glass cannon
Vaporeon Water Gun, Hydro Pump or Aqua Tail		Gyarados Kyogre	Tyranitar, Charizard and Aggron Raids, future Regirock Raids
Cloyster Frost Breath, Avalanche	50	Articuno Lapras	Rayquaza Raids, future Latios and Latias Raids
Piloswine Ice Shard, Avalanche	50
Rhydon Mud Slap, Earthquake	50	Groudon	Future Regirock and Registeel Raids, Aggron Raids
Hariyama Counter, Dynamic Punch	50	Machamp	Tyranitar, Aggron, Lapras and Absol Raids, future Regirock, Regice and Registeel Raids
Ursaring Counter, Close Combat	50
Breloom Counter, Dynamic Punch	50
Exeggutor Solar Beam	50	None; Exeggutor is  the strongest Solar Beam Pokémon and it’s now easily obtainable from Tier 2 raids. What a joy!	Tyranitar and Aggron Raids, Future Regirock Raids
Golem Rock Throw, Stone Edge	125	None; Geodude is fairly common and Golem is an excellent meta Pokémon on its own	Charizard  and Rayquaza Raids

(*) Check out our guide to evolving Eevee in order to get correct eeveelutions for your 100% Eevees.

Note: Not every Pokémon on this list will be easy to get for everyone — biomes and climate (weather) will greatly impact your ability to find some of these species. This is simply a list of common alternatives to, or “cheaper” (in terms of Candy cost to evolve) high-performance Pokémon.

All of these Pokémon are strong battlers on their own, even if they aren’t the best of the best in their respective niches. They are great discount options to use for casual players, but of course this only lists recommendations.

Keep in mind other Pokémon in the game which are more common to your specific biome and weather patterns, be creative with how you build your battling teams, and of course, have fun!