Pokemon Champions has had a rough launch, but as someone with little experience in competitive battling, I’ve had a surprisingly fun time. The new freemium Pokemon battle simulator suffers from all the common complaints that have plagued the Nintendo Switch era of the series: Wii-era graphics, low frame rate, a limited Pokedex, lack of content variety, and an extra dose of dreaded monetization on top of everything else. For The Pokemon Company’s official answer to Pokemon Showdown, competitive veterans were naturally displeased with the lack of options in Pokemon Champions. But for all Champions’ current flaws, it succeeds at one thing: being a fantastic entry point to competitive play for otherwise casual Pokemon fans.
I’ve been playing Pokemon long enough to know my type match-ups, be aware of what EVs and IVs are, and recognize that seeing an Incineroar with Intimidate on the other team is a bad sign. But as far as actual multiplayer experience goes, the farthest I’ve gone in competitive was EV training a shiny Vivillon over a decade ago. It’s not that I don’t know how ranked works, but that there’s simply so much to consider that I didn’t want to spend the time required to navigate it. But with the “Train” feature in Champions, not only can I redo my childhood Pokemon teams to suit the meta with a couple clicks, but I can use pre-made Pokemon provided by the game itself. Team building is faster than ever, and I’m thankful for that.
Pokemon Champions’ Best Pokemon is Locked Behind a $70 Paywall
Pokemon Champions just came out, and the best Pokemon in the game is locked behind a different title that costs you $70 and many hours of your time.
EV Training Used to Go at a Shuckle’s Pace
For a series primarily aimed at children, Pokemon’s multiplayer mechanics can be notoriously complicated. In fact, competitive play is arguably more tailored to adult fans since there’s so much math, luck, and patience involved. And four cornerstones of team building kept both kids and adults alike from stepping onto the competitive stage: Effort Values (EVs), Individual Values (IVs), natures, and abilities.
EV training in the mainline games is always a bit tough to explain to newcomers. As of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, EVs can be described as a sort of “growth modifier” that will impact how many points a Pokemon will have in a particular stat by the time they reach level 100. Pokemon gain EVs when defeating an opposing Pokemon or using Vitamin items. However, the number of EVs they gain and what stats the EVs are in depends on the Pokemon they defeat.
So, imagine the grind of fainting Orthworm again and again to build up Defense EVs for that tank that you wanted. The series has thankfully added multiple ways of speeding up EV training through the years, like the aforementioned Vitamins that add 10 points to an EV or equippable items that multiply EVs earned. But at least EVs were something you had some measure of control over; if the Pokemon had a bad nature, ability, or IVs, you’d be better off breeding for that Pokemon until you got something you wanted — and that could take a long time.
Champions cuts out the grind by letting you take 66 EV points and distribute them across the stats as you want. It does cost Victory Points, the in-game currency, but the game starts you off with a large sum of the stuff anyway — and you can also earn Training Tickets to avoid using VP entirely. So finally, I can use my childhood Empoleon but simply rework its stats to take advantage of its Special Attack, all in less than 3 minutes.
Good Riddance to Individual Values
IVs are probably the Pokemon competitive scene’s biggest barrier to entry. While Effort Values could be managed through, well, effort, Individual Values are just what they sound like — stat values unique to individual Pokemon. Two Pidgeots could have different HP stats at level 100 even if they had the same nature and were EV trained the exact same way. And because IVs are randomly generated as soon as the Pokemon spawns in most cases, there was no way to improve them before the introduction of Hyper Training. Trainers would just have to keep breeding until they got that perfectly tailored starter they wanted.
Hyper Training did speed things up for a lot of people and allowed Pokemon to functionally have maxed out IVs. However, some competitive strategies still demanded Pokemon with minimum IVs in some stats, so it wasn’t a total fix and left some players with no other choice but to keep breeding. And for cheesy folks like me who get attached to their story team, the idea of dropping them completely because they aren’t competitively viable was always a little sad.
IVs were a huge time investment that had a large dose of luck behind them. While the idea of every Pokemon having its own “genes” is cute for worldbuilding. and admittedly does allow for more variety in stat spreads between the same Pokemon, many fans cheered when it was announced that Champions would drop the mechanic entirely (a moment of silence for Trick Room teams that made use of 0 Speed IVs, though).
Changing Natures and Abilities on a Dime
The final thing that makes Champions so accessible to people like me is the ability to change natures and abilities. Pokemon natures, like IVs, are randomly selected for a wild Pokemon when it initially spawns in. They also affect which of a Pokemon’s base stats are higher than average or lower than average. For example, a Jolly nature means that a Pokemon’s base Speed will be higher while its base Special Attack will be lower.
Imagine finally finding a shiny Mareep, eager to evolve it into Ampharos, only to see that the line’s biggest strength of Special Attack is crippled by a Jolly nature that also unnecessarily buffs their largely unnecessary Speed stat. The Nature Mints that were introduced in Pokemon Sword and Shield helped, but as they were late-game items, players had to wait a while before they could start making use of them.
New Questions Added!
GameRant Quiz
Easy (15s)Medium (10s)Hard (5s)Permadeath (5s)
As someone who went through Pokemon X with a Diggersby that had Cheek Pouch instead of Huge Power, I very much appreciate that I won’t have to grind through any battle facilities to earn enough points for an Ability Patch to switch that out. By the time I knew enough about Pokemon to actually seek out certain abilities in the wild, I still had boxes of Pokemon from previous games that I would’ve loved to use but had bad abilities or natures. By transferring those Pokemon to Champions, they can get another chance.
Just like with EVs, the “Train” feature in Champions lets you switch a Pokemon’s nature or ability almost immediately at the cost of some in-game currency. Being able to change these things with the push of a button is not only useful, but cathartic. At last, I can use so many of my favorite Pokemon and actually have a chance.
Pokemon Champions Shiny Hunting and Titles, Explained (Sociable, Spacey, Early Riser, Etc)
Learn how Kitt’s Recruitment Ranch works in Pokemon Champions, including how to spot the Shiny recruitment animation and what titles are for.
Pokemon Champions is a Good Start for Newbies, and a Disappointment for Veterans
As great as these quick quality-of-life features are, there are things missing from Champions that make even casuals like me confused. Where are items like the Life Orb? Why are most Legendaries and Mythicals unable to be transferred yet? Not to mention how there’s always the fear that not buying the Premium Battle Pass will set free-to-play players behind paying ones. And if these things are worrying me, then they must feel even worse for players who have dedicated themselves to competitive play.
That being said, the current “limited” meta of Champions makes it a good time for newbies to enter the field without getting overwhelmed. While I absolutely think the game should’ve released with more content instead of going the “drip feed updates” route, the ability to get a handle on a select few Pokemon instead of having to account for every potential strategy for 1,025 (and counting) monsters will make the basics of competition easier to digest. And at the end of the day, it’s still a Pokemon game, and a free one at that. The core battle system of Pokemon is just so refined and baked into the series’ DNA that it’s borderline impossible for an entry in the series to be outright devoid of fun. While Pokemon Champions feels like an early access game in many ways, I’ve at least gotten some good time out of it as a “casual veteran” of the franchise; I just wouldn’t recommend spending any actual money on it yet.
