Pokemon Go Guide: How To Take Over Gyms

It honestly is starting to seem like almost everyone is playing Pokemon Go right now, even those that have not touched the series in years. Capturing all the Pokemon you can is obviously a key part of that, but the ability to take on gyms and become gym leaders yourself helps a lot too, which we are going to tell you just how to do.

We’ve already told you about the PokeStop locations on the map, but there are also much larger icons on the map that you likely will see at some point soon in your journey, which are gyms.

First of all, you must reach level 5 to do anything gym related, so that is your first goal. After you have reached level 5, get ready to take over a gym.

If you happen to come across a grey gym with no other colors, this means it is essentially an undiscovered gym that no one has taken up at. If this is the case, you can place any of your Pokemon here, which won’t be returned to your team until they’re defeated by another.

At this point, you can actually battle the Pokemon yourself to level up the prestige of that gym by winning, which can also be achieved by defeating other challengers. If you take over a gym, it will turn into one of the three color teams you can choose from with Yellow (Instinct), Mystic (Blue), and Valor (Red), which is what you need to watch out for.

Now, if you see a gym on the map nearby that already has one of these three colors, you have a couple options. If you want to be gym leader of a gym that is your same color, you can go and challenge the current gym leader and trainers there and as long as the prestige is high enough to have more trainers, you can take over at that time.

If the gym is another color, you will actually have a much deeper Pokemon battle where you can use up to six different Pokemon. Gyms will vary in how many trainers they have beyond the leader, but to conquer the gym, you must defeat every trainer at that gym, plus the leader. By doing this, it will knock the prestige down. However, beating them all will not instantly kick them out, but rather you must keep battling them until their prestige is down to 0. At this point, the gym turns grey and you can take over just like we mentioned above.