Pokemon Champions is entirely focused on competitive battling, but a hidden menu option might help you gain an edge against opposing trainers.
Within the Battle option in the main menu is Battle Data selection, all the way at the bottom. Select Ranked Battles, and although the menu might look empty at first, changing to the Pokemon tab with the shoulder buttons will show you a list of the most-used Pokemon in competition.
And that’s not all the data you can use to your advantage–select an individual Pokemon, and you can see their mostcommonly used moves and held items, along with their most-frequent Pokemon teammates and other useful battle stats.
It’s an easy resource to miss, and with Pokemon Champions only supporting a certain number of Pokemon and items, along with other changes like the removal of IVs, the meta for this game will surely develop differently than previous titles in the series. Sifting through the data based on other players’ battles might help you catch up with the meta and optimize your Pokemon team.
As Pokemon Champions is such a fresh release, fans and players are still figuring out its ins and outs, and the game’s developers stated that they’re working to fix bugs and other issues.
Pokemon Champions should be a solid starting point for fans looking to get into competitive battling, and the Battle Data menu is just one of many tools available. You can also check out GameSpot’s own beginner’s guide to competitive Pokemon.