Pokemon Go Battle League – Season 17: Dual Destiny Guide

With Pokemon Go’s latest season coming to a close, it’s time for a brand-new season of the Go Battle League, the competitive PvP portion of the game. Like past seasons, this season brings important changes and updates to the Go Battle League, with this new season taking place over the course of three months.

These changes include new cups and competitions, new Go Battle League events, additions and changes to Pokemon attacks, and many more. Below you can find everything you need to know about this season of the Go Battle League.

Updated on December 3, 2024, by Christian Pellegrino: Pokemon Go’s seventeenth season has been introduced, titled Dual Destiny. Like with other seasons, this brings a handful of changes to the Go Battle League, the competitive PvP arena of Pokemon Go. Below you can find information about all of these new changes, including a complete season schedule, new rewards, information on special events, and important changes to Pokemon attacks.

Season Schedule

Throughout this season, there will typically be two to three cups available to participate in at all times, rotating out on a weekly basis.

For the most part, one will be a standard cup, including the Great League, Ultra League, and Master League, while another will be a special limited-time cup, placing unique restrictions on the Pokemon that can be used.

The schedule for this season’s Go Battle League can be found below, showing which cups will be available each week of the season.

Each of these Cups
will begin and end at 1pm PT.

Season Rewards

Guaranteed Rank-Up Encounters

Throughout the season, you will encounter specific Pokemon when reaching certain ranks in the Go Battle League. You will only encounter each of these Pokemon once per season, each found below with the rank needed to encounter them.

Standard Reward Encounters

There will be different Pokemon that you can encounter throughout this season as a standard reward for winning in the Go Battle League. To encounter each of these Pokemon, you will have to reach a minimum Go Battle League Rank.

These Pokemon and the Rank required to encounter them can be found below.

Go Battle League Timed Research Pass

Like last season, there will be a Timed Research Pass available at the in-game shop free of charge, starting at the beginning of this season. This Timed Research Pass will remain active for the entire season, progressing through winning in the Go Battle League.

Each page of the Timed Research Pass will require you to earn 100 wins in the Go Battle League, rewarding you with Stardust, Rare Candy XL, Elite Fast TMs, Elite Charged TMs, and other items for each completed milestone and page.

Additional Rewards

This season, you will be given different avatar items for reaching certain ranks in the Go Battle League. These avatar items will be themed around Grimsley, an Elite Four member from Pokemon Black and White.

Each of these rewards can be found below with the rank required to earn them.

Season Events

Go Battle Week: Dual Destiny

This event will take place from Tuesday, January 21, 2025, at 12am local time to Sunday, January 26, 2025, at 11:59pm local time.

For this event there will be three different bonuses available for players. During each day of this event, you will benefit from the following bonuses:

• Receive four times the Stardust from win rewards (not including Stardust from end-of-set rewards).
• You will be able to complete a maximum of 20 sets daily instead of five.
• The stats of Pokemon caught from Go Battle League rewards will have a larger variance.

Additionally, all players will be able to complete event-themed Timed Research, free of charge. Completing the tasks for this free Timed Research will reward you with different in-game rewards, including Grimsley-style Shoes.

Attack Changes And Additions

Switch Timer Update

Last season, there was a significant change to the Switch Timer mechanic in Pokemon Go battles, the time you are required to wait after switching Pokemon before you switch again. For last season, this time will be reduced from 60 seconds to 50 seconds, and this will continue throughout this season, Dual Destiny.

There may be future tweaks and changes to this in future seasons.

Attack Changes

This season, there are several attacks that are receiving stat changes in the Go Battle League. Each of these attacks and the changes being made can be found below.

Attack Availability

A handful of Pokemon will be able to learn new attacks this season, which were previously unavailable to them. These attacks and their details are provided below with the Pokemon that will now be able to learn them.

To teach these new attacks to a Pokemon that you already have,
you will have to use Elite or standard Fast and Charged TMs.

Elite TMs
will
let you choose your Pokemon’s new attack
from those that are available to them, whereas standard
TMs
will give you a new one
randomly.