Ok, so full disclosure: When you peel away all the pomp and circumstance, this post is basically a work of fanfiction.
Well, kinda. See, a while ago I had an idea: What if every mainline Pokemon region made a team of their best trainers and duked it out to see who was the best in a battle royale like Dragon Ball Super’s Tournament of Power? I put what I considered some of the best teams for everyone, and now I’ve decided to expand those lists into a full write-up. See, the issue is that I’m not really doing this in a super objective mechanical way: I didn’t copy all the teamsheets into a simulation and have them duke it out, nor did I do powerscaling or anything like that. I just looked at each region and intuited who would be the weakest and strongest based on subjective factors including, but not limited to:
-How much certain trainers are hyped up within the world and by external media
-The named power tiers (Legendary, sub-legendary, 600 clubbers, etc.) and who had the best access to them
-How formalized and serious certain Pokemon Leagues seem compared to others
So on and so forth. As such, I advise you to not take the following ranking too seriously and enjoy it for what it is: A silly fun thought experiment.
The Rules
1. Each region’s team will have 10 key NPC trainers, who in turn will each bring one of their Pokemon to send into a massive battle royale. No duplicates on any one team.
2. Trainers and Pokemon will only be selected from the mainline games - absolutely no content from the anime, Stadium, Masters, etc.
3. No Pokemon that vary based on version/player choice (e.g. no starters for most rivals). 670+ BST legendaries are also banned.
4. Characters who show up in later games will have the region they represent be decided on a case-by-case basis. Kitakami will be considered part of Paldea.
Well, kinda. See, a while ago I had an idea: What if every mainline Pokemon region made a team of their best trainers and duked it out to see who was the best in a battle royale like Dragon Ball Super’s Tournament of Power? I put what I considered some of the best teams for everyone, and now I’ve decided to expand those lists into a full write-up. See, the issue is that I’m not really doing this in a super objective mechanical way: I didn’t copy all the teamsheets into a simulation and have them duke it out, nor did I do powerscaling or anything like that. I just looked at each region and intuited who would be the weakest and strongest based on subjective factors including, but not limited to:
-How much certain trainers are hyped up within the world and by external media
-The named power tiers (Legendary, sub-legendary, 600 clubbers, etc.) and who had the best access to them
-How formalized and serious certain Pokemon Leagues seem compared to others
So on and so forth. As such, I advise you to not take the following ranking too seriously and enjoy it for what it is: A silly fun thought experiment.
The Rules
1. Each region’s team will have 10 key NPC trainers, who in turn will each bring one of their Pokemon to send into a massive battle royale. No duplicates on any one team.
2. Trainers and Pokemon will only be selected from the mainline games - absolutely no content from the anime, Stadium, Masters, etc.
3. No Pokemon that vary based on version/player choice (e.g. no starters for most rivals). 670+ BST legendaries are also banned.
4. Characters who show up in later games will have the region they represent be decided on a case-by-case basis. Kitakami will be considered part of Paldea.
Johto
Yeah, no, it wasn’t even close. This region has been given a raw deal on a variety of fronts: For starters, most of the strongest lategame trainers are loaners from Kanto and Sinnoh, clipping its wings right out of the gate with only 2/5 of Indigo Plateau to spare. The Pokemon League as a whole is filled with an air of laid-back, unserious country bumpkinism, with multiple Gym Leaders needing to be reprimanded into giving you the Badge. It’s not as if additional content has propped up GSC’s foundations much, either: Outside of the (when it comes to boss trainers) relatively conservative HGSS the region has been revisited shockingly infrequently compared to the other settings of the sprite era, all of which have gotten much more substantial new talents and buffs to old favorites whereas Johto has received essentially no material since before the Fairy type was introduced. All these factors snowball into the gravest issue, which will immediately become clear once I show you the team I’ll charitably say I came up with:
Team Captain: Silver (Crobat)
Karen (Umbreon), Will (Xatu), Clair (Kingdra), Pryce (Mamoswine), Jasmine (Steelix), Chuck (Poliwrath), Morty (Gengar), Whitney (Miltank), Bugsy (Scizor)
In case it wasn’t obvious, Johto’s bench is utterly barren. One thing I must emphasize is that there is bound to be disagreement with how I constructed many of the later teams, with people citing trainers I underrated or overrated. This is only a complement to them, signifying how many formidable faces they have and how many “builds” they could field in this tournament. This is not a discussion you can have with Johto: Your alternatives to the above roster are Falkner, the smoldering wreckage of Team Rocket and Eusine if you’re exceptionally desperate. There is one (1) Dragon option, Whitney would have to switch out her iconic ace to get a Fairy on board and Silver is basically captain by default due to being the only one who has really solid type variety, something that in my book will always weigh above monotypers of comparable strength (A good rule of thumb is that the further we get, the fewer and fewer pure type specialists we’ll see).
Other than some competent iconic powerhouses like Mamoswine, Gengar and Scizor, Johto simply has nothing going for it. No variety, no in-universe accolades, no Champion-level trainers besides maybe Silver. It’s the only team with zero access to any of the later-gen super mechanics. Until a Legends game drops it’ll remain the undisputed bottom tier, and even that might not help much if it’s set in a trainer-bereft old time period like Arceus.
Yeah, no, it wasn’t even close. This region has been given a raw deal on a variety of fronts: For starters, most of the strongest lategame trainers are loaners from Kanto and Sinnoh, clipping its wings right out of the gate with only 2/5 of Indigo Plateau to spare. The Pokemon League as a whole is filled with an air of laid-back, unserious country bumpkinism, with multiple Gym Leaders needing to be reprimanded into giving you the Badge. It’s not as if additional content has propped up GSC’s foundations much, either: Outside of the (when it comes to boss trainers) relatively conservative HGSS the region has been revisited shockingly infrequently compared to the other settings of the sprite era, all of which have gotten much more substantial new talents and buffs to old favorites whereas Johto has received essentially no material since before the Fairy type was introduced. All these factors snowball into the gravest issue, which will immediately become clear once I show you the team I’ll charitably say I came up with:
Team Captain: Silver (Crobat)
Karen (Umbreon), Will (Xatu), Clair (Kingdra), Pryce (Mamoswine), Jasmine (Steelix), Chuck (Poliwrath), Morty (Gengar), Whitney (Miltank), Bugsy (Scizor)
In case it wasn’t obvious, Johto’s bench is utterly barren. One thing I must emphasize is that there is bound to be disagreement with how I constructed many of the later teams, with people citing trainers I underrated or overrated. This is only a complement to them, signifying how many formidable faces they have and how many “builds” they could field in this tournament. This is not a discussion you can have with Johto: Your alternatives to the above roster are Falkner, the smoldering wreckage of Team Rocket and Eusine if you’re exceptionally desperate. There is one (1) Dragon option, Whitney would have to switch out her iconic ace to get a Fairy on board and Silver is basically captain by default due to being the only one who has really solid type variety, something that in my book will always weigh above monotypers of comparable strength (A good rule of thumb is that the further we get, the fewer and fewer pure type specialists we’ll see).
Other than some competent iconic powerhouses like Mamoswine, Gengar and Scizor, Johto simply has nothing going for it. No variety, no in-universe accolades, no Champion-level trainers besides maybe Silver. It’s the only team with zero access to any of the later-gen super mechanics. Until a Legends game drops it’ll remain the undisputed bottom tier, and even that might not help much if it’s set in a trainer-bereft old time period like Arceus.
Alola
Believe me, this one hurts. The big problem with Alola is that the Totem Pokemon, who are ineligible for the tournament, constitute the bulk of its firepower. With them gated out, you’re left with what can be surmised as a pretty underdeveloped trainer talent pool. The Trial Captains are decent battlers in their own right with a few even showing enhanced teams at the Battle Tree, but their day-to-day duties are clearly more focused on overseeing the Trial sites and Totems without the presumably near-daily practice any given Gym Leader goes through. Worse off still is the Pokemon League, a newly formed institution at the time of SM/USUM with only one dedicated Elite Four member to its name. Between Hau and Kukui the former misses out on his starters due to the “no player dependent Pokemon” provision (Kukui can use all 3 in the USUM Battle Tree) while the latter suspiciously keeps it vague whether he actually beat Lance during his trip to Kanto, likely putting him on the lower end of Champions.
Not everything’s doom and gloom, though. The most obvious secret weapon Alolan trainers have to their name is access to Z-Moves, which while debatably the weakest of the super mechanic batch still allow them to nuke opponents with big flashy finishing moves. The aforementioned Battle Tree also gives a surprising number of them access to Mega Evolution - while for most I’ve opted for their main story aces due to those being the Pokemon they have the closest bond and most experience with, this gives further options on top of a fairly decent bench that covers most of the type chart.
Team Captain: Kukui (Incineroar)
Gladion (Silvally), Lillie (Comfey), Hau (Alolan Raichu), Anabel (Mega Latios), Lusamine (Bewear), Guzma (Golisopod), Hapu (Mudsdale), Kahili (Toucannon), Mallow (Mega Sceptile)
Kukui’s experience building up the Pokemon League and recruiting its trainers makes him a prime candidate for team captain while Gladion’s Silvally and Anabel’s Mega Latios would be the main bruisers with their secondary legendary power. Some will object to me including her but I think she makes sense given her unresolved Faller status and this being the only game she has appeared in after the fact. Once the rest of the story-relevant characters are added all that’s left is to pull from the stronger specialists to fill out type diversity.
Believe me, this one hurts. The big problem with Alola is that the Totem Pokemon, who are ineligible for the tournament, constitute the bulk of its firepower. With them gated out, you’re left with what can be surmised as a pretty underdeveloped trainer talent pool. The Trial Captains are decent battlers in their own right with a few even showing enhanced teams at the Battle Tree, but their day-to-day duties are clearly more focused on overseeing the Trial sites and Totems without the presumably near-daily practice any given Gym Leader goes through. Worse off still is the Pokemon League, a newly formed institution at the time of SM/USUM with only one dedicated Elite Four member to its name. Between Hau and Kukui the former misses out on his starters due to the “no player dependent Pokemon” provision (Kukui can use all 3 in the USUM Battle Tree) while the latter suspiciously keeps it vague whether he actually beat Lance during his trip to Kanto, likely putting him on the lower end of Champions.
Not everything’s doom and gloom, though. The most obvious secret weapon Alolan trainers have to their name is access to Z-Moves, which while debatably the weakest of the super mechanic batch still allow them to nuke opponents with big flashy finishing moves. The aforementioned Battle Tree also gives a surprising number of them access to Mega Evolution - while for most I’ve opted for their main story aces due to those being the Pokemon they have the closest bond and most experience with, this gives further options on top of a fairly decent bench that covers most of the type chart.
Team Captain: Kukui (Incineroar)
Gladion (Silvally), Lillie (Comfey), Hau (Alolan Raichu), Anabel (Mega Latios), Lusamine (Bewear), Guzma (Golisopod), Hapu (Mudsdale), Kahili (Toucannon), Mallow (Mega Sceptile)
Kukui’s experience building up the Pokemon League and recruiting its trainers makes him a prime candidate for team captain while Gladion’s Silvally and Anabel’s Mega Latios would be the main bruisers with their secondary legendary power. Some will object to me including her but I think she makes sense given her unresolved Faller status and this being the only game she has appeared in after the fact. Once the rest of the story-relevant characters are added all that’s left is to pull from the stronger specialists to fill out type diversity.
Kanto
Kanto is the posterchild of roster centralization. It’s the region with Red & Blue, who have consistently been framed as two of the strongest and most revered trainers in the world complete with their starters getting Mega Evolutions in Gen 7. You also have Lance, one of the more iconic Champions, as well as the presumably roughly equivalently powered Green from LGPE. And that’s about it! Just like Johto there’s almost nobody of note in the reserves outside of Gym Leaders (3 of whom are largely redundant due to type overlap with the main trio’s starters) and Elite Four members, leaving this region with an immensely powerful core let down by everyone surrounding it.
Team Captain: Red (Mega Venusaur)
Blue (Mega Charizard Y), Green (Mega Blastoise), Trace (Mega Pidgeot), Lance (Dragonite), Giovanni (Nidoking), Agatha (Gengar), Bruno (Machamp), Sabrina (Alakazam), Brock (Tyranitar)
Other than reminding you of Trace’s existence and a debate over whether Red should use Pikachu over Mega Venusaur there’s not much to comment on here. You got the Indigo League challengers with their LGPE mains, Team Rocket’s leader, the two Elite Four members with unique typings and two Gym Leaders to round things out, Brock’s Tyranitar being an extra pseudo-legendary while serving as one last kick in the teeth for Johto.
Kanto is the posterchild of roster centralization. It’s the region with Red & Blue, who have consistently been framed as two of the strongest and most revered trainers in the world complete with their starters getting Mega Evolutions in Gen 7. You also have Lance, one of the more iconic Champions, as well as the presumably roughly equivalently powered Green from LGPE. And that’s about it! Just like Johto there’s almost nobody of note in the reserves outside of Gym Leaders (3 of whom are largely redundant due to type overlap with the main trio’s starters) and Elite Four members, leaving this region with an immensely powerful core let down by everyone surrounding it.
Team Captain: Red (Mega Venusaur)
Blue (Mega Charizard Y), Green (Mega Blastoise), Trace (Mega Pidgeot), Lance (Dragonite), Giovanni (Nidoking), Agatha (Gengar), Bruno (Machamp), Sabrina (Alakazam), Brock (Tyranitar)
Other than reminding you of Trace’s existence and a debate over whether Red should use Pikachu over Mega Venusaur there’s not much to comment on here. You got the Indigo League challengers with their LGPE mains, Team Rocket’s leader, the two Elite Four members with unique typings and two Gym Leaders to round things out, Brock’s Tyranitar being an extra pseudo-legendary while serving as one last kick in the teeth for Johto.
Sinnoh
At a glance, Sinnoh seems like a repeat of Kanto that if anything may be even worse. This time it’s the prestige of Cynthia’s lineage that’s carrying it, the Champion’s Mega Garchomp being the only taste of 3D game gimmicks the region gets. As I alluded to in the Johto section Legends Arceus did little to expand the roster, Volo notwithstanding, due to being set in an era where Pokemon wielding is in its infancy; Ingo would’ve been another good new recruit if Legends Z-A didn’t just recently barge in with the revelation that he returned back to his time. Maybe Kamado? Eh...
Despite these hefty factors working against it, in my opinion Sinnoh escapes the bottom 3 due to two groups, the Frontier Brains and the Stat Trainers. Not only are these 10 non-type specialists that are confirmed Champion level due to their access to the Battle Zone, but many of them have minor Legendaries that allow their team to shrink the in-universe power gap with the super mechanic users.
Team Captain: Cynthia (Mega Garchomp)
Volo (Togekiss), Barry (Staraptor), Palmer (Cresselia), Darach (Entei), Cyrus (Weavile), Flint (Infernape), Buck (Registeel), Volkner (Luxray), Cheryl (Latias)
While its shortcomings and missed opportunities are undeniable, Sinnoh’s finest have enough powerful Pokemon under their sleeve to give their homeland a seat at the table. Gonna be a huge headache searching the Distortion World to get Cyrus on the team, though...
At a glance, Sinnoh seems like a repeat of Kanto that if anything may be even worse. This time it’s the prestige of Cynthia’s lineage that’s carrying it, the Champion’s Mega Garchomp being the only taste of 3D game gimmicks the region gets. As I alluded to in the Johto section Legends Arceus did little to expand the roster, Volo notwithstanding, due to being set in an era where Pokemon wielding is in its infancy; Ingo would’ve been another good new recruit if Legends Z-A didn’t just recently barge in with the revelation that he returned back to his time. Maybe Kamado? Eh...
Despite these hefty factors working against it, in my opinion Sinnoh escapes the bottom 3 due to two groups, the Frontier Brains and the Stat Trainers. Not only are these 10 non-type specialists that are confirmed Champion level due to their access to the Battle Zone, but many of them have minor Legendaries that allow their team to shrink the in-universe power gap with the super mechanic users.
Team Captain: Cynthia (Mega Garchomp)
Volo (Togekiss), Barry (Staraptor), Palmer (Cresselia), Darach (Entei), Cyrus (Weavile), Flint (Infernape), Buck (Registeel), Volkner (Luxray), Cheryl (Latias)
While its shortcomings and missed opportunities are undeniable, Sinnoh’s finest have enough powerful Pokemon under their sleeve to give their homeland a seat at the table. Gonna be a huge headache searching the Distortion World to get Cyrus on the team, though...
Paldea
The first of the regions where nearly everyone can use a really powerful and versatile gimmick, in this case Terastallization, as well as the second with a hefty posrgame roster of non-type specialists, this time the teachers you fight in the Academy Ace Tournament. You also can’t forget what is thus far a record for Champions, a trio composed of Geeta, Nemona and Kieran. The main things holding Paldea back from a higher spot are a somewhat uninspiring Pokemon selection in terms of raw power level outside of Hassel’s Baxcalibur and Geeta’s Kingambit, many of the region’s strongest new mons not being used by trainers (e.g. Gholdengo, Palafin) and some unfortunate instances of ruleset gimping, namely the AI Professors as well as Clavell not being able to use any starters.
Team Captain: Nemona (Pawmot)
Arven (Mabosstiff), Penny (Sylveon), Kieran (Hydrapple), Geeta (Kingambit), Miriam (Toxapex), Jacq (Farigiraf), Hassel (Baxcalibur), Larry (Staraptor), Iono (Mismagius)
Larry gets a bonus over many type specialists for honing two of them instead of just one, while Iono was the one Gym Leader both due to making the smartest use of Terastal out of the lot and also because she could probably arrange a stream mid-tournament somehow and get her fans to cheerlead them.
The first of the regions where nearly everyone can use a really powerful and versatile gimmick, in this case Terastallization, as well as the second with a hefty posrgame roster of non-type specialists, this time the teachers you fight in the Academy Ace Tournament. You also can’t forget what is thus far a record for Champions, a trio composed of Geeta, Nemona and Kieran. The main things holding Paldea back from a higher spot are a somewhat uninspiring Pokemon selection in terms of raw power level outside of Hassel’s Baxcalibur and Geeta’s Kingambit, many of the region’s strongest new mons not being used by trainers (e.g. Gholdengo, Palafin) and some unfortunate instances of ruleset gimping, namely the AI Professors as well as Clavell not being able to use any starters.
Team Captain: Nemona (Pawmot)
Arven (Mabosstiff), Penny (Sylveon), Kieran (Hydrapple), Geeta (Kingambit), Miriam (Toxapex), Jacq (Farigiraf), Hassel (Baxcalibur), Larry (Staraptor), Iono (Mismagius)
Larry gets a bonus over many type specialists for honing two of them instead of just one, while Iono was the one Gym Leader both due to making the smartest use of Terastal out of the lot and also because she could probably arrange a stream mid-tournament somehow and get her fans to cheerlead them.
Hoenn
Hoenn can best be thought of as a better Sinnoh. Both have fairly similar roster makeups including two Champion equivalents and a selection of Frontier Brains with Legendaries, except unlike the #6 spot way more of Hoenn’s best and brightest have been given Mega Evolutions courtesy of ORAS.
Team Captain: Wally (Mega Gallade)
Zinnia (Mega Salamence), Lisia (Mega Altaria), Brandon (Zapdos), Tucker (Latias), Steven (Mega Metagross), Wallace (Milotic), Maxie (Mega Camerupt), Archie (Mega Sharpedo), Phoebe (Mega Sableye)
There’s a few choices here that could be up to interpretation: There’s no real way to determine whether Zinnia’s Mega Salamence is canonically more powerful than Drake’s, although the sailor does get around to using a full team in his postgame rematch which the lorekeeper never does. Lisia with Mega Altaria is also the only case in this whole ranking of a non-combatant being put on a squad, one I nonetheless find a worthwhile addition due to giving Hoenn a strong Fairy type in lieu of Wally’s RSE Gardevoir being replaced and overpowered. I consider the fact she can use Mega Evolution at all to be good enough proof of her strength, one that probably puts her above the bulk of Hoenn gym leaders. I also gave Brandon Zapdos over one of his more iconic Regis due to better type coverage as well as being on his Gold Symbol team. Everyone else is fairly self-explanatory, although Maxie and Archie’s participation in ORAS’ Battle Maison as multi battle partners is also worth noting as a marker of canonical power despite their teams being underwhelming from an in-game perspective. Team Captain Wally is maybe not the most pragmatic option but certainly the most narratively satisfying.
Hoenn can best be thought of as a better Sinnoh. Both have fairly similar roster makeups including two Champion equivalents and a selection of Frontier Brains with Legendaries, except unlike the #6 spot way more of Hoenn’s best and brightest have been given Mega Evolutions courtesy of ORAS.
Team Captain: Wally (Mega Gallade)
Zinnia (Mega Salamence), Lisia (Mega Altaria), Brandon (Zapdos), Tucker (Latias), Steven (Mega Metagross), Wallace (Milotic), Maxie (Mega Camerupt), Archie (Mega Sharpedo), Phoebe (Mega Sableye)
There’s a few choices here that could be up to interpretation: There’s no real way to determine whether Zinnia’s Mega Salamence is canonically more powerful than Drake’s, although the sailor does get around to using a full team in his postgame rematch which the lorekeeper never does. Lisia with Mega Altaria is also the only case in this whole ranking of a non-combatant being put on a squad, one I nonetheless find a worthwhile addition due to giving Hoenn a strong Fairy type in lieu of Wally’s RSE Gardevoir being replaced and overpowered. I consider the fact she can use Mega Evolution at all to be good enough proof of her strength, one that probably puts her above the bulk of Hoenn gym leaders. I also gave Brandon Zapdos over one of his more iconic Regis due to better type coverage as well as being on his Gold Symbol team. Everyone else is fairly self-explanatory, although Maxie and Archie’s participation in ORAS’ Battle Maison as multi battle partners is also worth noting as a marker of canonical power despite their teams being underwhelming from an in-game perspective. Team Captain Wally is maybe not the most pragmatic option but certainly the most narratively satisfying.
Galar
And so we enter the Top 3, the cream of the crop. After studying this trinity of regions I believe them all to be a tier above everywhere else we’ve looked at so far, the Pokemon world’s biggest nexuses of power and talent.
First up is Galar, and its strengths are immediately obvious. Like Alola and Paldea it too has exclusive access to a super mechanic, this one being potentially the most devastating of all: Dynamax transforms all who use it into towering beasts for its duration, massively heightening their endurance and giving their attacks buffing and nerfing effects that can provide powerful aid even after the transformation expires. Heck, in a chaotic battle royale format even just their heightened scale and range could be immensely useful to pick off multiple opponents at a time!
Of course, even the most powerful Pokemon and mechanics mean nothing in the hands of amateurs. It is fortuitous, then, that the Galar League is composed of anything but. Mere participation as a Gym Challenger requires an endorsement, and actually going through with it entails regularly fighting in massive stadiums filled with crowds expecting to see some truly spectacular battles. Gym Leaders have unparalleled levels of celebrity in Galar, being covered with sponsorships and having their faces put on collectable cards. While in a vacuum none of this formally establishes their in-universe power level relative to other Gym Leaders, especially given there not being a huge realm of gameplay differences with them, it has to be assumed that all this pressure to succeed and the power of Dynamax at their fingertips would put them at the higher end of the scale, especially given the man many of them are actively competing to surpass. As far as we can tell Leon is the strongest Champion, having been the entire PR fulcrum of the Galar region before he was unseated. Kids in Paldea are copying his Charizard Pose, and when he visited Lumiose City just before Legends Z-A it was seemingly a far greater event than even Blue’s trip there given the amount of NPCs talking about him after the fact. And while I said at the beginning that I would not be taking anything outside the games into account the tournament of Champions we saw in the Journeys anime where he served as the final boss for Ash Ketchum after a 25 year run surely must count for something.
Given all that the pertinent question isn’t “Why did you put Galar so high up?” but “Why isn’t Galar even higher?”. Alas, this is where bench size problems strike one more time. The overall selection obviously isn’t as bad as Johto or even Kanto, but things are still fairly stripped down with the emphasis on the Gym Challenge heightening the quotient of type specialists to a less-than-optimal degree: For example, Bede specifically goes down my estimation of rivals due to always maining either Psychic or Fairy. Similarly, despite not including him on the team I consider Chairman Rose a relatively weak villain for the same reason - I put the presumably more mentally sound Peony in his steed instead, which in itself is not a good look given the redundant type specialty and ace selection. Thus it was left up to Mustard & Honey from the Isle of Armor to supplement the fairly meagre base game roster - I briefly considered Sordward & Shielbert but only having 4 Pokemon each and not using Dynamax at all even in the Galarian Star Tournament knocked them out of contention. At least Marnie, Piers and Raihan aren’t completely monotype (I know I literally just said the weapon twins were docked for not using Dynamax but unlike them Piers actually has serious credentials and the fact he got as far as he did after being born in a slum and refusing to use the mechanic out of protest paints a very good picture of his skills).
Team Captain: Leon (GMax Charizard)
Hop (GMax Corviknight), Marnie (GMax Grimmsnarl), Bede (GMax Hatterene), Peony (GMax Copperajah), Mustard (Kommo-o), Honey (Galarian Darmanitan), Oleana (GMax Garbodor), Raihan (GMax Duraludon), Piers (Obstagoon)
Much like how I called Hoenn a better Sinnoh, Galar can be thought of as Super Kanto: Very strong fundamentals but with a pool of options that leaves a lot to be desired, leaving the team with one track to success. If this region had the character variety of even Paldea it would be a #1 contender, but for now this is where it shall stay.
Speaking of character variety...
And so we enter the Top 3, the cream of the crop. After studying this trinity of regions I believe them all to be a tier above everywhere else we’ve looked at so far, the Pokemon world’s biggest nexuses of power and talent.
First up is Galar, and its strengths are immediately obvious. Like Alola and Paldea it too has exclusive access to a super mechanic, this one being potentially the most devastating of all: Dynamax transforms all who use it into towering beasts for its duration, massively heightening their endurance and giving their attacks buffing and nerfing effects that can provide powerful aid even after the transformation expires. Heck, in a chaotic battle royale format even just their heightened scale and range could be immensely useful to pick off multiple opponents at a time!
Of course, even the most powerful Pokemon and mechanics mean nothing in the hands of amateurs. It is fortuitous, then, that the Galar League is composed of anything but. Mere participation as a Gym Challenger requires an endorsement, and actually going through with it entails regularly fighting in massive stadiums filled with crowds expecting to see some truly spectacular battles. Gym Leaders have unparalleled levels of celebrity in Galar, being covered with sponsorships and having their faces put on collectable cards. While in a vacuum none of this formally establishes their in-universe power level relative to other Gym Leaders, especially given there not being a huge realm of gameplay differences with them, it has to be assumed that all this pressure to succeed and the power of Dynamax at their fingertips would put them at the higher end of the scale, especially given the man many of them are actively competing to surpass. As far as we can tell Leon is the strongest Champion, having been the entire PR fulcrum of the Galar region before he was unseated. Kids in Paldea are copying his Charizard Pose, and when he visited Lumiose City just before Legends Z-A it was seemingly a far greater event than even Blue’s trip there given the amount of NPCs talking about him after the fact. And while I said at the beginning that I would not be taking anything outside the games into account the tournament of Champions we saw in the Journeys anime where he served as the final boss for Ash Ketchum after a 25 year run surely must count for something.
Given all that the pertinent question isn’t “Why did you put Galar so high up?” but “Why isn’t Galar even higher?”. Alas, this is where bench size problems strike one more time. The overall selection obviously isn’t as bad as Johto or even Kanto, but things are still fairly stripped down with the emphasis on the Gym Challenge heightening the quotient of type specialists to a less-than-optimal degree: For example, Bede specifically goes down my estimation of rivals due to always maining either Psychic or Fairy. Similarly, despite not including him on the team I consider Chairman Rose a relatively weak villain for the same reason - I put the presumably more mentally sound Peony in his steed instead, which in itself is not a good look given the redundant type specialty and ace selection. Thus it was left up to Mustard & Honey from the Isle of Armor to supplement the fairly meagre base game roster - I briefly considered Sordward & Shielbert but only having 4 Pokemon each and not using Dynamax at all even in the Galarian Star Tournament knocked them out of contention. At least Marnie, Piers and Raihan aren’t completely monotype (I know I literally just said the weapon twins were docked for not using Dynamax but unlike them Piers actually has serious credentials and the fact he got as far as he did after being born in a slum and refusing to use the mechanic out of protest paints a very good picture of his skills).
Team Captain: Leon (GMax Charizard)
Hop (GMax Corviknight), Marnie (GMax Grimmsnarl), Bede (GMax Hatterene), Peony (GMax Copperajah), Mustard (Kommo-o), Honey (Galarian Darmanitan), Oleana (GMax Garbodor), Raihan (GMax Duraludon), Piers (Obstagoon)
Much like how I called Hoenn a better Sinnoh, Galar can be thought of as Super Kanto: Very strong fundamentals but with a pool of options that leaves a lot to be desired, leaving the team with one track to success. If this region had the character variety of even Paldea it would be a #1 contender, but for now this is where it shall stay.
Speaking of character variety...
Unova
As the final sprite-based region, Unova left off with a bang and paved the way for the kinds of stacked talent pools we often see nowadays. The Black & White duology provided the effective equivalent of 4 Champions, 3 rivals with varied teams of six, the Subway bosses, the Lati-wielding Benga and Colress. Even if your preferred team still feels the need to pull from the type specialists you have an extra four Gym Leaders and Grimsley’s Battle Tree roster which includes, you guessed it, Mega Evolution access. N even has an additional 4 seasonal battle teams from BW2, further increasing the choices. The fact he’s among a small few who captured a mascot legendary further sets the tone for how strong he is.
If that were all, Unova would probably be in third or fourth place, hindered by mostly lacking gimmick access besides the two guys who appeared in Alola. Then came the Blueberry Academy’s introduction in SV’s DLC, the most prestigious Pokemon battling school in the world with its own incredibly strong, Terastal-wielding Elite Four and an entire artificial biome as their training ground. They may still be type specialists but they use full teams right out the gate with several off-typers between them.
Unova is simply a region that radiates power: An evil team with an ominous airship, a towering castle unearthed from a mountain, a high-tech battle academy from the future. Hoenn and Sinnoh debatably have comparable benches thanks to guys like the Frontier Brains, but they don’t have the integration and infrastructure Unova does.
Team Captain: Cyrano (Serperior)
Colress (Mega Metagross), N (Ninetales), Emmet (Eelektross), Ingo (Gliscor), Ghetsis (Hydreigon), Alder (Volcarona), Marshal (Conkeldurr), Drayton (Archaludon), Lacey (Excadrill)
What a composition this is: Three 600 BSTers, one of whom can Mega Evolve and one who can Terastallize, with everyone else being almost as powerful, intimidating and exotic. The headmaster of Blueberry Academy guides his students and the rest of Unova’s elite, all while wielding the region’s best starter with Tera Blast Rock coverage to dispatch of the Fire types that would give most Serperiors trouble. This is far from definitive, by the way! Iris, Benga, the other BBA E4 members and more all have very good cases. The only noticeable (not severe) flaw remains the super mechanic shortage, which again is still the second best as far as the regions introduced in the sprite era go and could even be patched up even more somewhat with the region-exclusive Gems.
Now, what if that problem was resolved and the team options were expanded even further?
As the final sprite-based region, Unova left off with a bang and paved the way for the kinds of stacked talent pools we often see nowadays. The Black & White duology provided the effective equivalent of 4 Champions, 3 rivals with varied teams of six, the Subway bosses, the Lati-wielding Benga and Colress. Even if your preferred team still feels the need to pull from the type specialists you have an extra four Gym Leaders and Grimsley’s Battle Tree roster which includes, you guessed it, Mega Evolution access. N even has an additional 4 seasonal battle teams from BW2, further increasing the choices. The fact he’s among a small few who captured a mascot legendary further sets the tone for how strong he is.
If that were all, Unova would probably be in third or fourth place, hindered by mostly lacking gimmick access besides the two guys who appeared in Alola. Then came the Blueberry Academy’s introduction in SV’s DLC, the most prestigious Pokemon battling school in the world with its own incredibly strong, Terastal-wielding Elite Four and an entire artificial biome as their training ground. They may still be type specialists but they use full teams right out the gate with several off-typers between them.
Unova is simply a region that radiates power: An evil team with an ominous airship, a towering castle unearthed from a mountain, a high-tech battle academy from the future. Hoenn and Sinnoh debatably have comparable benches thanks to guys like the Frontier Brains, but they don’t have the integration and infrastructure Unova does.
Team Captain: Cyrano (Serperior)
Colress (Mega Metagross), N (Ninetales), Emmet (Eelektross), Ingo (Gliscor), Ghetsis (Hydreigon), Alder (Volcarona), Marshal (Conkeldurr), Drayton (Archaludon), Lacey (Excadrill)
What a composition this is: Three 600 BSTers, one of whom can Mega Evolve and one who can Terastallize, with everyone else being almost as powerful, intimidating and exotic. The headmaster of Blueberry Academy guides his students and the rest of Unova’s elite, all while wielding the region’s best starter with Tera Blast Rock coverage to dispatch of the Fire types that would give most Serperiors trouble. This is far from definitive, by the way! Iris, Benga, the other BBA E4 members and more all have very good cases. The only noticeable (not severe) flaw remains the super mechanic shortage, which again is still the second best as far as the regions introduced in the sprite era go and could even be patched up even more somewhat with the region-exclusive Gems.
Now, what if that problem was resolved and the team options were expanded even further?
Kalos
Just as the loser wasn’t close, neither was the winner. In order to understand the Kalos’ region’s triumph, a critical piece of context needs to be laid out: From an in-universe perspective, the cast of XY is stronger than you think. Before expanding this idea into a full write-up I made the regional line-ups many months ago before the release of Legends Z-A. The original Kalos team looked like this:
Again, ignore the mechanical intricacies or lack thereof that made the game notoriously easy for players and just think about the canonical context. This is pretty damn stacked, don’t you think? 4 of these guys have Mega Evolutions under their belt, 2 have Legendaries and then AZ swoops in with the never-fought-but-still-deadly Eternal Floette. You can laugh at the Kalos friend group, but like the comparatively underwhelming Maxie & Archie they are shown to be more capable than the game design conveyed by how they’re allowed to participate at the Battle Maison. Frankly looking back I don’t think this early team was even very optimized: Within the reserves you still have the other 2 Battle Chatelaines, Sina with Mega Abomasnow (thanks Alola), Trevor and Calem/Serena with Mega Absol, all without ever having to touch any Gym Leaders besides Korrina. There’s a lot of parallels with Hoenn here right down to having a very strong Fairy you don’t actually battle in-game, and we already established that place as an upper mid-tier.
So, given this perfectly cromulent foundation that clears half the series, what do you get when you add on a sequel game with a mostly original cast that makes much, MUCH better use of the signature transformation mechanic to the point of literally every major trainer using it, sometimes on multiple Pokemon across different encounters? Well, you get an absolute beast of a squad that looks something like this.
Team Captain: Lysandre (Mega Gyarados)
Urbain/Taunie (Mega Manectric), Diantha (Mega Gardevoir), Corbeau (Mega Scolipede), Emma (Mega Malamar), Grisham (Mega Charizard X), Shauna (Goodra), Nita (Landorus), Dana (Regice), Korrina (Mega Lucario)
Mega Evolutions across the board except for the pseudo-legendary and two facility heads with actual Legendaries. Out of the two type specialists here one has multiple off-typers and the other has special training at the Tower of Mastery. This doesn’t even contain the full list of everyone with non-monotype teams of six in this region, and some of these have alternatives ready. Ivor over Korrina? Lebanne over Shauna? Sina over Dana? Sure, why not, I’m sure you could muster solid arguments in favor of all these swaps and more! The best part, of course, is that we still haven’t seen Kalos’ final form. LZA’s Mega Dimension DLC is upcoming and will doubtlessly introduce even MORE choices to truly make this region the 2007 New England Patriots compared to everyone else. But even in a worst case scenario where for some strange reason the DLC underwhelms, Kalos post-Z-A is still the perfect team with everything from total mastery over Mega Evolution, the deepest bench of all and what are basically two different battle leagues for trainers to gradually rise up and hone their skills in, something basically nobody else has besides Unova kinda. The only thing you can really hold against it is the lack of a trainer with the global reputation of Red, Cynthia and Leon, but honestly does that really matter at this point?
In conclusion: Get ready to learn French, buddy.
Just as the loser wasn’t close, neither was the winner. In order to understand the Kalos’ region’s triumph, a critical piece of context needs to be laid out: From an in-universe perspective, the cast of XY is stronger than you think. Before expanding this idea into a full write-up I made the regional line-ups many months ago before the release of Legends Z-A. The original Kalos team looked like this:
- Shauna (Goodra)
- Tierno (Talonflame)
- Dexio (Mega Alakazam)
- AZ (Eternal Floette)
- Nita (Landorus-Incarnate)
- Evelyn (Entei)
- Diantha (Mega Gardevoir)
- Lysandre (Mega Gyarados)
- Wikstrom (Aegislash)
- Korrina (Mega Lucario)
Again, ignore the mechanical intricacies or lack thereof that made the game notoriously easy for players and just think about the canonical context. This is pretty damn stacked, don’t you think? 4 of these guys have Mega Evolutions under their belt, 2 have Legendaries and then AZ swoops in with the never-fought-but-still-deadly Eternal Floette. You can laugh at the Kalos friend group, but like the comparatively underwhelming Maxie & Archie they are shown to be more capable than the game design conveyed by how they’re allowed to participate at the Battle Maison. Frankly looking back I don’t think this early team was even very optimized: Within the reserves you still have the other 2 Battle Chatelaines, Sina with Mega Abomasnow (thanks Alola), Trevor and Calem/Serena with Mega Absol, all without ever having to touch any Gym Leaders besides Korrina. There’s a lot of parallels with Hoenn here right down to having a very strong Fairy you don’t actually battle in-game, and we already established that place as an upper mid-tier.
So, given this perfectly cromulent foundation that clears half the series, what do you get when you add on a sequel game with a mostly original cast that makes much, MUCH better use of the signature transformation mechanic to the point of literally every major trainer using it, sometimes on multiple Pokemon across different encounters? Well, you get an absolute beast of a squad that looks something like this.
Team Captain: Lysandre (Mega Gyarados)
Urbain/Taunie (Mega Manectric), Diantha (Mega Gardevoir), Corbeau (Mega Scolipede), Emma (Mega Malamar), Grisham (Mega Charizard X), Shauna (Goodra), Nita (Landorus), Dana (Regice), Korrina (Mega Lucario)
Mega Evolutions across the board except for the pseudo-legendary and two facility heads with actual Legendaries. Out of the two type specialists here one has multiple off-typers and the other has special training at the Tower of Mastery. This doesn’t even contain the full list of everyone with non-monotype teams of six in this region, and some of these have alternatives ready. Ivor over Korrina? Lebanne over Shauna? Sina over Dana? Sure, why not, I’m sure you could muster solid arguments in favor of all these swaps and more! The best part, of course, is that we still haven’t seen Kalos’ final form. LZA’s Mega Dimension DLC is upcoming and will doubtlessly introduce even MORE choices to truly make this region the 2007 New England Patriots compared to everyone else. But even in a worst case scenario where for some strange reason the DLC underwhelms, Kalos post-Z-A is still the perfect team with everything from total mastery over Mega Evolution, the deepest bench of all and what are basically two different battle leagues for trainers to gradually rise up and hone their skills in, something basically nobody else has besides Unova kinda. The only thing you can really hold against it is the lack of a trainer with the global reputation of Red, Cynthia and Leon, but honestly does that really matter at this point?
In conclusion: Get ready to learn French, buddy.
Sinnoh can run pure (pseudo) legend spam if they want.
