Pokémon Champions - releasing April 8, 2026

Magcargo said:
Vibes are telling me Feraligatr is DoA. I definitely don't think it will be useless - notably I think it can use mega DD as a way to flip the MU against some of its general checks. However, losing Sheer Force + LO boosts means its water attacks & coverage are actually weaker than base Feraligatr - and ice punch will generally cover a lot of its iffy MUs as is. I think an area gatr will shine could be luring its standard grass / Water checks & using the mega to grab another DD. I think the defensive qualities of its new typing could also come into play in various MUs, but overall I am not impressed.
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One thing that I do think is worth bearing in mind opposite this is that Dragonize giving Dragon STAB moves massively streamlines Feraligatr's Coverage with just two STAB moves. Identical water moves lose ~20% of their power overall, but Dragon STAB with the 20% boost is not that much of a power drop considering the defensive benefits the typing and bulk increase add (you basically sleep through Water and Fire, neutralize the less-common Grass and Electric, and in exchange gain a Fairy weakness and an iffy Dragon one since Dragon-into-Dragon tends to need pivoting on whichever side is defensive).

252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Feraligatr Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sinistcha: 166-198 (47.9 - 57.2%) -- 89.8% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Feraligatr Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sinistcha: 166-198 (47.9 - 57.2%) -- 89.8% chance to 2HKO

(Moves changed to Dragon and 20% increased)
252 Atk Feraligatr-Mega Double-Edge (144 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sinistcha: 190-225 (54.9 - 65%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Feraligatr-Mega Body Slam (102 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sinistcha: 135-159 (39 - 45.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Double Edge hits harder and Body Slam is not far behind a SE move (bearing in mind that a lot of Feraligatr's SF coverage is low Base Power floated by the combo, unlike the more infamous Landorus or Nidoking), so there is something to be weighed in Feraligatr being able to pull off a 3 Attack + DD set which better average power. 85/125/93 is a marked improvement for Priority sniping and setting up on moderately-strong tank attackers. Main thing from there is running coverage into Steel types (which you have native options for between Superpower and Earthquake that didn't synergize with SF+LO already) and some Fairies (Gweezing, Primarina, and Clefable since the offensive Fairies drop to STAB Waterfall) as a late game sweeper.

At the very least, I see this thing having more play than base Feraligatr has had even in lower tiers, simply because it drops power for more versatility/dimension to its offensive playstyle.
 
Eriorguez said:
Ice Beam being the one move to have 10 PP while its equivalents had 15 was weird ngl. Wonder if Thunder and Hurricane will go down to 5.
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Unfortunately Ice Beam actually seems to still be at a lower PP than the others (12 vs 16) even still.

According to serebii's preview, it seems there may not be an actual PP Up system and these individual PP values are just what they set them to at base. Which is different to all the official screenshots so far showing 5/10/15 PP values, but I guess that's how it is now, so I think noting PP values by their base like I've been doing may not be fully accurate to the actual gameplay.

Most of these PP values seem to be a general adjustment to moves of the same base PP (a lot of the formerly 15 PP moves I mentioned are actually 16 PP in practice), but there are still some notable exceptions like 2:13 Glaceon's Baton Pass is down to 20 PP from 40.

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It's nice to see that Azumarill at least has max Attack investment and Huge Power after what happened to Scizor.

A few more video preview links for reference, though it's mentioned that they use the same B-roll footage it seems but there's different human impressions I suppose.
 
I wonder how much of these PP changes might carry over to future games. Most of the PP slashes could be put into a regular game and there wouldn't be that much difference so like...may as well

Though could just be a situation of forcing more situations to use VP even if you're using Home
 
Yung Dramps said:
Apparently Mega Dragonite keeps Multiscale while Froslass gets Snow Warning
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I'm a little disappointed in Dragonite not getting a different ability. Personally, I was hoping for No Guard like Pidgeot to make use of how many high bp/low accuracy special attacks it gets, including stab Hurricane (and also kinda Draco Meteor), which would've been fun.

Froslass getting Snow Warning is a godsend though. That's, like, the literal only ability that can make her usable outside of RU.
 
Mega Dragonite not getting a new ability is a bit of a dull BUT this opens for some interesting mindgames in VGC.

You basically just go with Dragonite Inner Focus by default now, and you force your opponent into mindgaming if they fake out to prevent the mega from doing anything, or not faking out assuming you mega and throwing a ice move but risking throwing it into multiscale instead.

I am a fan of this kind of shenenigans so while I'd have preferred a "new" ability, this is still pretty solid in my opinion.
(I don't think Dragonite will see any VGC play without Tera though, so this will probably just be a singles thing)
 
I’ve heard multiple people say that Body Slam and Double-Edge are going to be Feraligatr’s best Normal-turned-Dragon options but I feel like Facade could be especially dangerous to punish status. Right now I’m thinking a set like Waterfall/Liquidation, Facade, Swords Dance and Taunt could potentially catch bulkier structures in Singles off guard and in Doubles, Facade could be nice if teams elect to run Feraligatr as a bulky breaker, though I really don’t know much usage this is going to get at all.
 
Did anyone talk about how private battle rulesets are?

More specifically can we do 6v6 without 20 min timers going on lol

To me that's the ultimate deciding factor if the game will be ever worth playing online as a non-vgc player cause fuck the forced 20 minute timer.
 
Facade is a interesting option but the problem is that you only have 4 moves and 3 of those will always be Liquidation, Dragon/Sword Dance, and likely Double-Edge for the big damage or Body Slam for neutral coverage.

Facade can slot in 4, but it competes with other things like Taunt, Crunch, Flip Turn, Protect (for doubles) etc.
It's definitely a *option* but you shouldn't run a worse stab just expecting for people to status you.
 
So, Mega-Nite has Multiscale. Meh. I mean, to me it's more of a problem regarding hazards and how they are managed in-game than a problem of the ability itself. Imho there's a problem with the game when your first thought at seeing a theoretically busted ability like that is "but it can't use boots". Anyways I was expecting some kind of ability change after mevolving since those make the mindgames more interesting to me (like Gyara into Mold Breaker, Hyper Cutter into Aerilate, Prankster into Magic Bounce and so on).

M-Fros got Snow Warning so they cooked again with the underdog like they did with Meganium.
 
bdt2002 said:
I’ve heard multiple people say that Body Slam and Double-Edge are going to be Feraligatr’s best Normal-turned-Dragon options but I feel like Facade could be especially dangerous to punish status. Right now I’m thinking a set like Waterfall/Liquidation, Facade, Swords Dance and Taunt could potentially catch bulkier structures in Singles off guard and in Doubles, Facade could be nice if teams elect to run Feraligatr as a bulky breaker, though I really don’t know much usage this is going to get at all.
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The issue there is unlike a Guts Pokemon, Status'd Mega Feraligatr is heavily impeded if it has to click anything besides Facade, while Facade is markedly weaker than its other Normal-turned-Dragon STAB options under normal circumstance.
 
After watching most of the content creators' preview videos. It appears that single-player mode is no longer available. Which isn't a deal breaker, but if you were hoping for a stadium or Frontier-style challenge mode you will be disappointed.

The game looks good graphically, and the animations look nice and smooth. I don't mind grinding a ladder as the primary form of gameplay. But I do hope they consider adding more in the future.

Still no word on 6v6 singles. It could still be hidden in a menu somewhere, but I am starting to wonder what some of my favorite content creators will do if their preferred format isn't available to play at all.
 
Not just faster, differently from A-tales whose damage tickles, Froslass actually hurts. Even a completely bulk invested Mega-Frostlass Blizzard and Shadowball are going to hurt heavily.
Plus being a fake out immune aurora-veil setter, I actually have pretty big hopes for it to show up in VGC.
 
Worldie said:
Not just faster, differently from A-tales whose damage tickles, Froslass actually hurts. Even a completely bulk invested Mega-Frostlass Blizzard and Shadowball are going to hurt heavily.
Plus being a fake out immune aurora-veil setter, I actually have pretty big hopes for it to show up in VGC.
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as far as doubles go ninetales is out just from the fact that it´s a weather setter inmune to fake out
 
Ninetales still does have the niche of being a non-mega.

We run into the internal dilemma of "i give up mega kangaskhan / salamence / rayquaza for this"

Bit disappointed not every ZA mega will be in but home at least should display abilities, maybe thats why they held off on giving us a ZA update before champions to keep the abilities incognito.
 
Ravaris said:
Still no word on 6v6 singles. It could still be hidden in a menu somewhere, but I am starting to wonder what some of my favorite content creators will do if their preferred format isn't available to play at all.
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Ride out the storm until WiWa hits because I bet that has casual 6v6.

Despite what some people think I can't see them get rid of pvp now that Champions is here, it'll just be a more casual experience to go with friends. Maybe tack on an extra sillier mode to go alongside it. Then you go to champions for the "real" experience of 3v3/4v4




As an aside does champions even have local wireless PVP? I think they only ever mentioned online....which like yeah I guess both of you going online works but different from an experience they like fostering otherwise.
 
RoyalDispenser said:
Ninetales still does have the niche of being a non-mega.

We run into the internal dilemma of "i give up mega kangaskhan / salamence / rayquaza for this"
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This. It’s also Dark resistant rather than Dark-weak, for what that’s worth. Mega Froslass will absolutely be better, but this has its advantages and I feel like Encore is the biggest of those that Froslass doesn’t get.
 
Move descriptions have a lot of room for improvement.

There seems to be a More Info button on certain moves, probably for relevant status terminology.

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Disable vs Taunt: Disable lists the number of turns it lasts, Taunt doesn't.

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Thunder goes to 50% accuracy in Sun, not mentioned.

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Protect's description should technically say "each successful consecutive use", and also technically the Protect counter is shared across other moves like Endure which is also in this game. It also doesn't explicitly state the original chance of success is 100%.

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Curse lists the Ghost Curse description. I think this is okay if it's dynamic since Froslass is selected specifically as a Ghost, but also it says Range: Varies which implies the opposite. If it was a Ghost Curse specific description then the range should be "Random Opponent" like Outrage.

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Night Shade's description of does 50 damage implies levels are not planned to exist so probably no level 100 gameplay options.

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Also I like how Serebii's example of "the level of detail on the move information" being the strongest it has been is a picture of Shadow Sneak with a -- dashed out description because there is no flavour text in this game. No more "this move always goes first", just +1 Priority with no context.

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Bizarre type matchup indicators against the opponent's party when Body Press's move details pop up (on the right). Why does it say SE on Starmie and Charizard?

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Then Waterfall shows as neutral on Starmie and Charizard.

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Cool Ice-type Torrent Greninja. Also Serebii let the game audio play out here at 14:19 so watch out.

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Also it is confirmed that you can only mega once per battle since I saw at least one other person expecting the opposite because of ZA.
 
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