It’s Officially The Dawn of a New Era for Pokemon Legends: Z-A

Pokemon Champions came out at a strange time, as it was released on April 8, in the middle of a series of VGC events for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet‘s last season and the next few live events coming up all signal the shift to Pokemon Champions as the main hub for competitive battling, which has both pros and cons. One of the issues with this is that the meta keeps evolving week after week because the game is very much in its infancy, but at the same time, it will need to host big tournaments like Worlds 2026.

So far, Pokemon Champions has been marred by a few controversies, such as the very small pool of available items, its Pokedex containing fewer than 200 critters, the fact that several Pokemon used in marketing materials were absent from the game on launch, and more. Yesterday, the very first new season for the game finally came out, but it left many players with a sour taste in their mouths, while also signaling the end of an era with changes that don’t seem to make fans very happy.

Pokemon Champions Resets All Ranks With Season 2

Pokemon Champions‘ Season 2 doesn’t add new Pokemon or items like many fans hoped for, and instead, it’s the same roster as the first season all over again. More importantly, all the progress players made in Season M-1 has been erased. This is because Pokemon Champions operates on the typical live-service formula, where players do not retain their rank from the previous season. So, if you find yourself at Poke Ball Rank 4 all of a sudden, it’s not a bug, unfortunately, but intended behavior.

This is a massive change from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet‘s competitive season format, which did cause players to drop a few ranks each season, but they didn’t have to start from scratch. Instead, Pokemon Champions does the exact opposite: if you reach Champion Rank in Season M-1, you’re not starting from Master Ball Rank or something similar, but rather from Poke Ball Rank. This can be particularly frustrating for various reasons:

• Season M-1 ending didn’t bring anything new, and instead, every player’s progress was reset on May 13, 2026. This not only means everyone starts on Poke Ball Tier now, but also that Champion rank may take longer to fill based on everyone’s points.
• Poke Ball Rank through Master Ball Rank can be a much worse grind than the first time around, because some players are newcomers, and a lot more are experienced gamers trying to reclaim their previous placement.
• The rewards for placements are very underwhelming, with the Master Ball Rank only awarding 10,000 VP and nothing else.
• The main focus now is Pokemon Champions‘ new Season M-2 battle pass, which does include new rewards, but cosmetics and Pokemon are paid-only. The game’s monetization hasn’t been received very well so far, and this may reinforce that feeling.
• The best Pokemon in Pokemon Champions have been the same for a whole month, with very few variations. The meta is adjusting pretty fast, but the strongest picks have been quite consistent. The difference is that, now, you can face Mega Charizard Y sun teams in Pokemon Champions in Poke Ball Tier, whereas this would only happen in Ultra Ball before.
• Some matches before Master Ball Tier may be against bots, which is not very rewarding or interesting to play.

For these reasons, the most important piece of progress aside from building teams in Pokemon Champions is now gone, and must be regained. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing with a new meta, but the meta is exactly the same now as it was at the end of Season M-1. Not only that, but there are also no new rewards, such as extra box spaces when reaching the same ranks as last season. On top of that, doing this once a month for Pokemon Champions‘ lifespan could prove tiring, as there is very little permanency of ranks with this system.

With Season M-2 comes the end of the first era of the game, but the second is more of the same. For now, fans don’t seem too happy about this, but it’s hard to tell whether changes will be made to retain ranks or at least not start from scratch every single time.

Pokemon Champions

Systems

Released

April 8, 2026

ESRB

Everyone / Mild Fantasy Violence

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

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