Pokémon Champions - releasing April 8, 2026

Reminder that Masquerain's stat boost in Sun and Moon boosted its base stat total by almost 10%, in sheer stat boost it is close to Magmar to Magmortar or Ursaring to Ursaluna... And that placed it at Venomoth's level.

Just like Chimecho got a boost to its stats in that gen... that placed it into the same ballpark as Golbat, Primeape, Banette or Dusclops.

Delcatty has always been a stone evolution with the stat total of Butterfree and Beedrill. That's also Munchlax' stat total.

But yeah, Johto and Hoenn 'mons are the ones where the bulk of the final forms at their debuts are in the low to mid 400s in stat total. Difference being that Johto kept getting evolutions.

Not keen on how they stopped giving stat buffs after the 3DS gens for solely stat nerfs. And Cresselia's nerf was weird as fuck; if you wanted to nerf a sublegend, Landorus was right there waiting for being made consistent with its newly retouched group.
 
Karxrida said:
I mean if you consider "spends most of its usable game time spamming Rock Throw/Rock Tomb and nothing else" then I guess Solrock does well. Its really cool movepool is wasted on a Special Attack stat of 55.


Claydol probably sucks more in the context of singleplayer. 70/70/70 offenses that you only get at level 36 are bad even by Gen 3 standards – it's basically forced to Calm Mind every fight to do passable damage. If it was part of a draft league I'd actual consider picking it in a comp setting since it does have some nice attributes.


Hey remember how Platinum – from Gen 4 – was the first game to decide to make the pseudo usable between early availability, actually tolerable evolution levels, and a free Earthquake TM in the same location? That was fun.

Also I never want to go back to early gen movepools. Some of that shit was depressing.
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spamming rock throw is better than getting rock slide swords dance zen headbutt at like level 25 which is how most of these work

look I know most pokemon fans actually hate pokemon games and don't want to spend anymore time than they need to to beat them, "Goddamn this fight took 4 turns and not 2 turns so slow!" but yes I do think some Pokemon should be weaker or stronger than others and Pokemon should take work to actually become efficient

friction is good
friction is good
friction is good

you shouldnt like training your solrock in the late game, thats the point

you shouldnt like training your ralts until like level 26, thats the point

you shouldnt like training a magikarp until gyarados, thats the point

sinnoh is also not a good region for teambuilding because most of the mons are gen 3 and lower design and then there are like 8 mons that are super easy to use and scale the entire time and get their kits for almost free, so why bother

if all i wanted to do in an rpg is just spam strong attacks over and over i would play most turn based rpgs where all you do is have a loop of buff/debuff attack/attack heal in a loop mindlessly until you win, because at least that loop is more interesting and has more points of failure

friction is good and the basis of interesting games. the pokemon game playthroughs i forget the most are the ones where im just picking up mons out of convenience in a gen 6+ game and i just steamroll

edit: it is frankly harder to get a dragonite in any of rby frlg than it is to get fucking shiny pokemon in modern day
 
ant4456 said:
spamming rock throw is better than getting rock slide swords dance zen headbutt at like level 25 which is how most of these work
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Oh wow clicking exactly one move the entire time is so engaging and good for the friction you want.

ant4456 said:
look I know most pokemon fans actually hate pokemon games and don't want to spend anymore time than they need to to beat them, "Goddamn this fight took 4 turns and not 2 turns so slow!" but yes I do think some Pokemon should be weaker or stronger than others and Pokemon should take work to actually become efficient
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Listen man some of us are adults with jobs and lives and sometimes zoning out playing an easy game to relax and vibe is fine.

And games wasting your time can be a legit pace breaker and problem.

ant4456 said:
friction is good
friction is good
friction is good

you shouldnt like training your solrock in the late game, thats the point

you shouldnt like training your ralts until like level 26, thats the point

you shouldnt like training a magikarp until gyarados, thats the point
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Friction still needs to be accompanied by well considered difficulty design lest you make the game miserable to play. I have absolutely played games like that. Too many, actually; ragequit an RPG at the final boss a couple months ago because I got tired of its bullshit.

Too little options or too many bad options will either drive people away or funnel them to what's left. We meme on Gen 1 movepools being nothing but Normal moves for a reason.

Also making grinding something like Solrock in the late game miserable at all is never a plus and Gen 1 Gyarados removes friction completely once you do get it.

ant4456 said:
sinnoh is also not a good region for teambuilding because most of the mons are gen 3 and lower design and then there are like 8 mons that are super easy to use and scale the entire time and get their kits for almost free, so why bother
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But I thought you wanted to use those specific types of Gen 3 and lower mons. They're still there and make up most of the dex so why are you complaining.

ant4456 said:
if all i wanted to do in an rpg is just spam strong attacks over and over i would play most turn based rpgs where all you do is have a loop of buff/debuff attack/attack heal in a loop mindlessly until you win, because at least that loop is more interesting and has more points of failure
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Or Pokémon. Cause that's Pokémon.
 
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Karxrida said:
Oh wow clicking exactly one move the entire time is so engaging and good for the friction you want.


Listen man some of us are adults with jobs and lives and sometimes zoning out playing an easy game to relax and vibe is fine.

And games wasting your time can be a legit pace breaker and problem.


Friction still needs to be accompanied by well considered difficulty design lest you make the game miserable to play. I have absolutely played games like (too many, actually; ragequit an RPG at the final boss a couple month ago because I got tired of its bullshit). Too little options or too many bad options will either drive people away or funnel them to what's left. We meme on Gen 1 movepools being nothing but Normal moves for a reason.

Also making grinding something like Solrock in the late game miserable at all is never a plus and Gen 1 Gyarados removes friction completely once you do get it.


But I thought you wanted to use those specific types of Gen 3 and lower mons. They're still there and make up most of the dex so why are you complaining.


Or Pokémon. Cause that's Pokémon.
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i think frankly you and i do not have similar taste in games at all and we would absolutely never agree on this or like most game design things at all

i am of the opinion that games that are only designed to evoke positive emotions from the player are basically just worse than games that try to evoke a range of them (good, positive, mid, negative, sad, angry, etc.)

its like writing a book where every page is "Isn't is so happy the protagonist won the battleeeee" and that isn't to say games shouldn't be easy, but that variety is what make things interesting

as far as im concerned, when pokemon are just one shot machines they stop being pokemon and become what they are, cardboard cutouts of creatures that take up screen space

in pokemon swsh my team might as well have been a fucking screensaver and i cant even remember all of that team

a starter is supposed to have significance because its the pokemon they give you with the stats and straightforward movepool to be that consistent backup mon

but when 70% of pokemon perform as well as a starter nowadays does it fucking matter? i dont care about starters anymore. i dont feel anymore attached to my skeledirge than i do my arboliva because realistically the arboliva line performs essentially the exactly same as most starters in pokemon history, if not better than some grass starters

to me these kinds of things take a game from being a world to being cardboard cutouts for content

variety is what makes things more immersive and believable, because if everything is good and one shots everything then it literally doesn't matter

i can just google a png of my favorite pokemon from the back and thats the significance this kind of design that smoothens everything out is offering

edit: ftr this is about turn based, legends za i actually cared more and had more fun training a team than in swsh/sv/arceus (tbh) because the mechanical differences between pokemon felt more meaningful when it was real time, even if it was just in a few ways
 
RoyalDispenser said:
hoenn has i think the most pokemon in need of a new evolution or mega than any other region, which is ironic considering they got a remake with a bunch of megas focused on the region.

I can think of a few for gen 5 or gen 7 but hoenn is like...
- 2 shit butterfly mons EDIT: 3 if you want to add masquerain... ninjask is fine genuinely.
- swellow
- delcatty
- solrock & lunatone
- claydol which really did not hold up
- shedinja (rip being a physical attacker btw)
- basically every water mon with sharpedo being the only exception since it already got a mega
- two kinda forgettable fossils (what the fuck was their problem with anorith? shrimp pokemon but weak to water then given swift swim, it was like they were trying to be poetic in how it went extinct.)
- a sloth with a meme ability
- nosepass who did get an evolution the following gen
- chimecho who got... a baby form the following gen until recently in a DLC.
- castform, kecleon, spinda as quirky gimmick normals (basically dunsparce but with less jokes)
- tropius is the biggest missed opportunity for a grass/dragon.
- serviper and zangoose i will admit is one of the cooler rivals but them being single stage just adds to the list of single stages...
- mawile and sableye both got megas that could've been actual evolutions for them.
- roselia flat out should've just been released in gen 4 lol
- not 1 but two shitty pikachu clones.
- swallot and grumpig.

I know we collectively get depressed for flygon and milotic but like... they're functional at least lol. Hoenn had so many filler mons that were maybe cool in design but did nothing.
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While I get the sentiment, I think trying to make an exhaustive list just means there are more potential holes in the argument. As an example, I'd argue that Hoenn has the best-designed fossils in the series. Much cooler inspirations than the dinosaurs, they avoid the redundancy of Omanyte and Kabuto both being Rock/Water Swift Swimmers, and I just can't call them generic mechanically when their rare typings have frequently anchored Monotype teams up through gen 7.
 
Worldie said:
I still to this day wonder why ya'll so obsessed with this very specific shitmon when the early usage data on the temporary ladder already shown that it's going to have no use in any remotely serious contest because, unsurprisingly, using a shitmon only for the possibility to burn something isn't worth it.
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ant4456 said:
spamming rock throw is better than getting rock slide swords dance zen headbutt at like level 25 which is how most of these work

look I know most pokemon fans actually hate pokemon games and don't want to spend anymore time than they need to to beat them, "Goddamn this fight took 4 turns and not 2 turns so slow!" but yes I do think some Pokemon should be weaker or stronger than others and Pokemon should take work to actually become efficient

friction is good
friction is good
friction is good

you shouldnt like training your solrock in the late game, thats the point

you shouldnt like training your ralts until like level 26, thats the point

you shouldnt like training a magikarp until gyarados, thats the point

sinnoh is also not a good region for teambuilding because most of the mons are gen 3 and lower design and then there are like 8 mons that are super easy to use and scale the entire time and get their kits for almost free, so why bother

if all i wanted to do in an rpg is just spam strong attacks over and over i would play most turn based rpgs where all you do is have a loop of buff/debuff attack/attack heal in a loop mindlessly until you win, because at least that loop is more interesting and has more points of failure

friction is good and the basis of interesting games. the pokemon game playthroughs i forget the most are the ones where im just picking up mons out of convenience in a gen 6+ game and i just steamroll

edit: it is frankly harder to get a dragonite in any of rby frlg than it is to get fucking shiny pokemon in modern day
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Smogon tiers and competitive formats in general are a straightforward way to avert a "why would I use this?" question because of the division. Solrock feels better when you are playing a game where it IS one of the more viable options (hypothetical for illustration, I don't know what tier it performs well in if any), rather than handicapping yourself to play against the same opponent (barring challenge runs where you do this as a concession as opposed to a "casual something different" experience). Since within a tier you are playing against human opponents who can actually think at a more sophisticated level than Gamefreak coding (at a ceiling at least), it also feels more rewarding to play to those strengths because the game rewards synergy to make a better team, as opposed to "the opponent is never going to change their approach so I can grind through them the same way but slower.

A lot of things I consider true "shitmons" are those that neither bring flavor to the single player nor to playing against other humans, formatted or otherwise, which is a lot more common prior to Gen 4 because a much larger proportion of Pokemon feel like they exist to be wild encounters or trainer/grunt fodder than options that are fun for the player to use themselves. By design this usually makes the "fodder" mons pretty bad in competitive because they don't have the stats to be imposing and rarely have the "tricks" to make that work since the IG opponents aren't smart enough to use most of those strategies.
 
Worldie said:
I still to this day wonder why ya'll so obsessed with this very specific shitmon when the early usage data on the temporary ladder already shown that it's going to have no use in any remotely serious contest because, unsurprisingly, using a shitmon only for the possibility to burn something isn't worth it.

No, like, really, why are you, in all seriousness, considering using this over Mega Charizard, Gengar, Metagross, Gardevoir, Tyranitar, Salamence and like a dozen other mons that will just click and delete everything and usually not care for the burn either. Why do ya'll love Scovillain so much. Please tell me. I want to understand. Not even Malamar had this many people obsessed over him, and Malamar had a entire campaign about hyping it up.
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I don't think anyone was planning on using Scovillian... it's just theorizing on what it could do and how it could be used. And the thing about it is its new. If anyone wanted to play champions with the original megas, there's Natdex. It isn't good, but it's interesting to see it's niche.
 
seeing calcs for mega metagross in vgc and it really was the biggest mistake of all that they decided that pokemon is allowed to have heavy slam

meganium players getting a cool mega with a cool new ability only to get one shot by adamant no attack ev heavy slam from mega metagross

0+ Atk Tough Claws Metagross-Mega Heavy Slam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Meganium-Mega: 374-444 (102.7 - 121.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
 
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I'm confused on how that's important?
"Pokemon gets oneshot by high BP supereffective stab from opponent who has 2x type advantage against it", shocking
 
Delibird is Amazing said:
Do we even know that metagross in champions gets heavy slam? thanks to moves being wiped between games now they can arbitrarily change learnsets as much as they want between games. And even in balance patches in champions.
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we don't afaik and I very much hope they don't let it keep it, like how they didn't let greninja keep nasty plot or gengar encore.

I don't remember when they gave metagross psychic fangs, that's another buff it got inbetween being a meta and megas going away, but it having it is probably not as big of a deal as heavy slam is.
 
I'm pretty confident mega Metagross getting Heavy Slam would be the least of your issues... considering its vulnerability to Incineroar (it loses Clear Body on mega, remember it) it's already set on a poor start as a physical attacker in VGC metas.
Mega Metagross is definitely no longer the top dog of megas either, there's a lot of other strong ones now.

Look, Mega Meganium is fine even if one more mon can KO it. Pretty much anything with a poison attack can already, one more isn't going to change much.
 
CynicalGiant said:
seeing calcs for mega metagross in vgc and it really was the biggest mistake of all that they decided that pokemon is allowed to have heavy slam

meganium players getting a cool mega with a cool new ability only to get one shot by adamant no attack ev heavy slam from mega metagross

0+ Atk Tough Claws Metagross-Mega Heavy Slam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Meganium-Mega: 374-444 (102.7 - 121.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
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I have to admit, this is absurd.
Considering this isn't even maximum power, I think it might lose Heavy Slam. In singles, this could be a bit busted, not so sure about VGC tho, the new megas have gotten really, really fast and most can OHKO it unless it's a bulky set
 
Mega Metagross in Singles will probably be banned again. And not for having Heavy Slam, but for having Knock Off. Heavy Slam/Meteor Mash + Knock Off + Thunder Punch + Earthquake cover pretty much everything and it will be making progress every time it hits the field.

Ferrothorn right now is not in the game (and even if it was, Knock Off makes it worse and Metagross learns Hammer Arm). Mega Scizor, one of the best Metagross checks... lost Roost and I don,t see a reason to run Rest on it, since its very pressured in moveslots. Many Mons got nerfed with Recovery moves PP nerf, so can,t check Metagross long term. Dondozo, Mega Steelix, Mega Aggron and Mega Scovillain would be the best checks, 3 of them consume Mega slot and all of them need Restalk to work (though Steelix and Aggron could have offensive sets without Rest).

So, I don,t see Metagross returning to OU for a long time. Out of the Megas that have been banned in the past, Mawile, Sableye (both banned in Gen 6 only and both a mistake in my opinion), Blaziken and Kangashkan are the only ones who will probably stay, and I have still some doubts about Kanga and Blaziken. But not about Metagross, it belongs to Ubers.
 
I wonder what impact the PP changes will have on singles. Having an actual reason to use Pressure seems like a bad thing for both VGC and Singles honestly lol. Literal move stalling being incentivized.
 
CynicalGiant said:
I wonder what impact the PP changes will have on singles. Having an actual reason to use Pressure seems like a bad thing for both VGC and Singles honestly lol. Literal move stalling being incentivized.
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Particularly for VGC it probably depends a lot on the moves impacted and if there's a Pressure mon worth bringing in to capitalize on it.




Also depends on if you really can't increase PP on anything, not like everyone had access to the full suite of options.
 
R_N said:
Also depends on if you really can't increase PP on anything, not like everyone had access to the full suite of options.
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all the preview videos from creators emphasized the 8/12/16/20 changes pretty hard, seems like there really isn't going to be a way to go beyond it and that moves are just set to those values
 
im late to that convo but pokemon has always been bad at designing friction. the paths of friction are usually not rewarding: pseudos coming too late to have time to bond or engage with a normal level of friction, rare pokemon who Do offer a fun challenge for a collectible but not really anything interesting in the long term for battles, movesets that are bad in un-engaging ways and dont offer a different experience from the usual clicking A on your good move 10 times, except your good move is worse and so are your stats etc.

its just too easy of a game to offer satisfying friction. it cannot even give a good argument as to why you shouldnt just use your overleveled starter and sweep, where the average rpg would hit you in the head for trying that too often
 
Worldie said:
I'm pretty confident mega Metagross getting Heavy Slam would be the least of your issues... considering its vulnerability to Incineroar (it loses Clear Body on mega, remember it) it's already set on a poor start as a physical attacker in VGC metas.
Mega Metagross is definitely no longer the top dog of megas either, there's a lot of other strong ones now.

Look, Mega Meganium is fine even if one more mon can KO it. Pretty much anything with a poison attack can already, one more isn't going to change much.
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I do imagine that the combination of Heavy Slam and Psychic Fangs might let Mega Metagrosss sit near the top-tier of VGC megas. You can Incin Inimidate it, but the timing can get awkward since Metagross is still safe from Intim on the turn it mega evolves, so you might need to stagger Incin a bit.

But what’s to Mega Meganium’s benefit is that M-Metagross is Archaludon food if you’re running Meganium rain. Pivoting around M-Metagross should be doable and just have Meganium deal with other mons.

The more annoying matchups are Sneasler since that guy goes crazy against M-Meganium, Archaludon, and Incin (the latter especially if it’s a White Herb set). Mega Gengar is also a pain because you only get one turn of switching against it.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot Sneasler Metagross teams which is where Meganium struggles. But the non-Sneasler ones shoukd ve manageable.
 
It would be funny if they decided to give all the things that haven't had Roost since USUM Roost back for Champions. Some of them at least still had it in BDSP!

My Big Dumb Chart (linked in signature) has historical learnsets that I can't wait to compare with however the hell these things will be formatted for Champions. I wonder if they'll just omit low power moves with little utility (Embers et al) for simplicity
 
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