How to beat Cliff in Pokemon Go (July 2023): Best counters & weaknesses

Cliff is one of the Team Rocket Leaders in Pokemon Go, and it can be a tough challenge for unprepared trainers. We’ll cover all the details of his July 2023 team, including weaknesses and the best counters to beat his lineup.

After defeating Team Go Rocket Grunts in Pokemon Go and collecting all pieces of the Rocket Radar, players are ready to take on one of the Leaders: Cliff, Arlo, or Sierra. These characters can be sneaky and surprise unprepared players with powerful Pokemon that change regularly after events.

In this guide, we’ll cover Cliff’s July 2023 Pokemon lineup and provide all the information you need to build the best Pokemon Go team to defeat it in battle, including weaknesses and best counters.

How to beat Cliff in Pokemon Go

Cliff continues to be one of the toughest challenges in Pokemon Go and his July 2023 team composed of Shadow Pokemon will come at you with full force.

After the Team Go Rocket takeover event in June, Cliff’s lineup changed as seen below:

First Battle: Aerodactyl
Second Battle: Slowking / Gallade / Cradily
Third Battle: Tyranitar / Mamoswine / Dusknoir

To take down Cliff, you’ll have to make sure that you have Pokemon that can cover various typings both for defense and offense.

How to counter Cliff’s Aerodactyl in Pokemon Go

Aerodactyl in a Pokemon Go battle arena — Niantic/The Pokemon Company

Aerodactyl is Cliff’s first Pokemon.

Aerodactyl is a dual Rock and Flying-type Pokemon, which means it’s weak against Rock, Water, Steel, Electric, and Ice-type attacks. When picking your Pokemon for battle, you should also consider Aerodactyl can resist Ground, Flying, Normal, Fire, Bug, and Poison-type moves.

If you stick to type effectiveness, you shouldn’t have much trouble defeating Aerodactyl, so we recommend picking Pokemon with Electric or Water-type moves. Of course, the battle strategy is up to you. Many players like to use quick openers to spam fast Charged Moves and leave Cliff without shields early in the battle.

With that said, here are some of the best counters for Aerodactyl:

Raikou with Thunder Shock and Wild Charge.
Magnezone with Charge Beam and Zap Cannon.
Metagross with Bullet Punch and Meteor Mash.
Tyranitar with Smack Down and Stone Edge.
Lucario with Counter and Power-Up Punch.

How to counter Cliff’s Slowking, Gallade, or Cradily in Pokemon Go

Having a Ghost or Fairy-type Pokemon can help you deal with Cliff’s second choice.

Slowking

Slowking is a dual Psychic and Water-type Pokemon, so it’s weak against Bug, Ghost, Dark, Grass, and Electric-type moves. It’ll resist Psychic, Steel, Water, Fire, Fighting, and Ice-type attacks, so you won’t have many viable options to choose from.

Here are some of the best counters to defeat Cliff’s Slowking in battle:

Tyranitar with Bite and Brutal Swing.
Gengar with Shadow Claw and Shadow Ball.
Chandelure with Hex and Shadow Ball.
Hydreigon with Bite and Brutal Swing.

Gallade

Gallade is a dual Psychic and Fighting-type Pokemon, which means it’s weak against Flying, Ghost, and Fairy-type attacks. It’s resistant only to Fighting, and Rock-type moves, so you have a lot of options for dealing neutral damage.

If you want to bet on Ghost and Fairy-type Pokemon for this battle, here are some recommendations:

Togekiss with Charm and Ancient Power.
Gardevoir withCharm and Synchronoise.
Clefable with Charm and Moon Blast.
Gengar with Shadow Claw and Shadow Ball.
Chandelure with Hex and Shadow Ball.

Cradily

Cradily is a dual Rock and Grass-type Pokemon, so it’s weak against Bug, Fighting, Steel, and Ice-type attacks. It’s also resistant to Electric and Normal-type moves, so you’ll have to go with a different strategy here.

To defeat Cradily you can pick one of these counters:

Metagross with Bullet Punch and Meteor Mash.
Lucario with Counter and Power-Up Punch.
Conkeldurr with Counter and Focus Blast.
Galarian Darmanitan with Ice Fang and Avalanche.

How to counter Cliff’s Tyranitar, Mamoswine, or Dusknoir in Pokemon Go

A powerful Steel-type Pokemon can be the key to victory.

Tyranitar

Tyranitar is a dual Rock and Dark-type Pokemon, which means it’s weak against Bug, Fairy, Fighting, Grass, Ground, Steel, and Water-type moves. It’s resistant to Flying, Poison, Ghost, Fire, Psychic, and Dark-type attacks.

With that in mind, you’ll need a very different Pokemon to beat it. Here are some of the best counters:

Lucario with Counter and Power-Up Punch.
Machamp with Counter and Close Combat.
Conkeldurr with Counter and Dynamic Punch.
Terrakion with Double Kick and Sacred Sword.
Breloom with Counter and Dynamic Punch.

Mamoswine

Mamoswine is a dual Ice and Ground-type Pokemon, meaning it’s weak against Fighting, Steel, Fire, Water, and Grass-type attacks. It will only resist Poison and Electric-type moves, so you have a lot of options.

With many weaknesses to exploit, it’s always better to pick Pokemon that can also work against some of Cliff’s other Pokemon. These are some of the best counters to use:

Metagross with Bullet Punch and Meteor Mash.
Hydreigon with Bite and Brutal Swing/Flash Cannon.
Lucario with Counter and Aura Sphere.
Chandelure with Fire Spin and Overheat.

Dusknoir

Dusnkoir is a pure Ghost-type Pokemon, so it’s only weak against Ghost and Dark-type moves. Its list of resistances includes Poison, Bug, Normal, and Fighting-type attacks.

While Ghost-type Pokemon can deal super-effective damage, we don’t recommend going toe to toe with a Team Go Rocket Leader. Here you have some of the best counters to use against Dusknoir:

Tyranitar with Bite and Brutal Swing.
Hydreigon with Bite and Brutal Swing.
Gengar with Sucker Punch and Shadow Ball.
Zoroark with Snarl and Foul Play.
Chandelure with Hex and Shadow Ball.

Best team to defeat Cliff in Pokemon Go

Since you can only pick three Pokemon to face Team Rocket Leader Cliff in Pokemon Go, you’ll need to cover different typings to be prepared for whatever he throws at you.

Considering Cliff’s lineup, opening with an Electric-type Pokemon can be a great move. That way, you can deal with Aerodactyl and Slowking, if that’s what you get. As you can see, Lucario is a powerful choice that will help you deal with many of Cliff’s choices. Just make sure its moveset can cover different types. Tyranitar is another great Pokemon for these battles as long as you have both Dark and Rock-type moves.

A Fairy-type Pokemon can be great to deal with Tyranitar and Gallade, while a Ghost-type Pokemon can help you take down Gallade, Slowking, and Dusknoir.

A team composed of Lucario/Metagross, Gengar, and Togekiss should work wonders against Cliff’s lineup for July 2023. Having Tyranitar on your team can’t harm you, but be careful when facing Water-type Pokemon.

How to beat Team Rocket Leaders in Pokemon Go

Cliff is not the only Team Rocket Leader Pokemon Go players can face, so check out our guides on how to beat Arlo, Sierra, and Giovanni for more counter recommendations.

For more Pokemon, check out our other guides:

Original Article