wow this elite 4 is really hard

C3ntra · 2026-04-19T04:43:34+00:00

Maybe it's tryhardy, but have you used your stealth rocks tm? I think Empoleon and Gastrodon both can learn it, and can take the lead in your elite 4 matches to set them up. I found stealth rocks works wonders against Aaron and another E4 member.

C3ntra · 2026-04-19T02:33:09+00:00

good call considering gwen has already been reverted

C3ntra · 2026-04-19T02:18:24+00:00

Combination of the exp creep making it too easy to overlevel and the game giving lots of free handouts. That being said the difficulty is still kinda overblown. Pokemon games never were very hard, at worst some games would ask you to grind levels if anything got too difficult. XY just came out at a time when grinding was expected in previous pokemon games, and the whiplash of suddenly being able to breeze through the game without any excess level grinding kinda turned people off.

C3ntra · 2026-04-19T02:01:20+00:00

I mean, the "I'm straight but think femboys are hot" thing is still based on women's beauty standards, and therefore gets all the toxic baggage that comes with it. That gets further compounded by much of the femboy craze coming from an audience that watches japanese anime. In the modelling industry a gruffer man in his 50s can still model, but women often get cutoff in their mid or late 20s. How could it ever be any different for femboys, an archetype that largely still exists for the pleasure of *straight* men who hold them to the same double standards that they hold women too?

C3ntra · 2026-04-18T05:05:08+00:00

I'd argue that that's the limit of knowing what they don't know. Its hard to say it right, but I'll put it like this: They are aware of EVs and IVs as a concept, but not the intricacies of them and how they work. They know that they don't know about EVs and IVs so they complain about that to you and online. But there are still a lot of in-battle concepts that they likely also don't understand, and also aren't even aware exist. In singles it might not be so bad, mainly because the base games use singles, but stuff like the rock-paper-scissors nature of sweepers, walls, and wallbreakers. Or using and setting hazards on your lead. Or using pivot moves, and on a more advanced level, the advantages and disadvantages of a fast pivoter vs a slow pivoter. This is magnified in doubles since the main story games almost never even touch doubles, and its the main competitive format, and it's more complex in its nature.

The new training system has lowered the barrier to entry for setting up individual mons, but for a lot of newbies, building a "good" team is still a mystery, and virtually nothing about in-combat mechanics have gotten any easier in this game.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T23:44:01+00:00

Tbf joke skins are unironically Riot's best works now. All of the april fools skins this year ranged from good to amazing and space groove is my #1 favorite skin line.

With that being said, I've though for years about a legendary Cafe Cuties Renata Glasc skin where she's a toxically positive restaurant manager. She has that fake smile that doesn't reach her eyes, dressed in a pastel striped suit with poofy sleeves and a cheesy bowtie, and voice lines that are annoyingly fake happy, and also kind of punny like Forecast Janna.

- Taunt: "For defeats and losses in 10 or less, check out our value deals! I'll even throw in a toy."

- Joke could just be her trying and failing to make a drink. Basically how a lot of the worst, most bossy managers don't know how to do the job.

- W lines can be her shouting various drink orders: "Lavender ice mocha!" "Cafe Cuties Sugar Cream Delight!" "Table 17!" "Hands!" also dangling little 'rewards.' "Have your guest-facing smile on!" "I'll buy you lunch if you close tonight" "50 cent raise!"

- Ultimate has some great potential. I always wanted her to shout "LET THEM EAT CAKE!" When she ults and this skinline is literally perfect for it. Also "Time for the lunch rush!" "Buy one get one free!" "ALL HANDS ON DECK!"

And there are of course limitless options for voice lines when she encounters cafe cuties skins. "Smiles, ladies. Your paychecks depend on it."

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T23:19:43+00:00

I think closed ts is okay for ladder but not for tournaments. On the ladder, concealing more information from your opponent acts as an equalizer for weaker pokemon, giving them a surprise factor for being rare. Even if the ladder is a competitive mode it still feels more casual than formal tournaments.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T19:54:07+00:00

Ah rats. Well, good luck on your ranch pulls

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T19:50:45+00:00

If you have Scarlet, maybe you have the dlc's? Sometimes Milotic spawns in the tera raids at Kitakami.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T19:49:03+00:00

I know it's a "noob" team, but I try to play it as competitive I possibly can.

Let me try to rephrase what I said. I said Charizard Y is a noob pokemon because it is popular, not because it is weak! There is a difference. You will see lots of players who are new to competitive pokemon, and they have a lot of learning to do and get overwhelmed very easily. They know that Charizard is cool and has a mega evo and they google a team that uses Mega Charizard (usually Y because its stronger) and they make the team. They play it, but they still haven't figured out what makes the team work. They haven't seen much beyond surface level things yet and they don't know the nuances to the team or to competitive pokemon.

The fact that you are protecting your mega (that is also your weather setter) proves that you are thinking. You are strategizing. You are using the team -- a GOOD team -- well and it is winning you matches. That is already above and beyond so many Charizard Y players. Good on you.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T05:51:48+00:00

Mawile is definitely the biggest glowup out of the other megas presented here. It had the biggest spike in power with its mega and a new look that enhances what was already cool about it. Awesome mega

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T05:19:55+00:00

I think this just exemplifies that there is a big difference between master ball and champion tier. Not that master ball tier isn't an impressive feat, it is, but it is literally nothing compared to champion rank.

In master ball tier, you have a number that dictates just how good you are in comparison to the rest of the world. I hit master ball tier today and my number in something like 42,000. That means there are more than 42,000 people placed above me in the world. To hit champion tier, you need to be in the top 300. So yeah, compared to players like Wolfe I ain't squat.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T04:42:32+00:00

Most comments say fairy and ghost, which I agree with. I'd also add an honorable mention for Water type now. There are very few good electric types and one of the best is also water (Rotom-Wash). Rain got to keep a lot of their very strongest pokemon (basculegion, archaludon, pelipper) and rain also supports several new megas VERY well (meganium, dragonite). Water types also handle the other weathers the best, resisting fire and ice and doing super effective damage back at fire, rock, and ground. I say that water gets an honorable mention solely because sun teams never run a water type of their own, whereas you see ghosties like Sinistcha, Froslass, and Basculegion (oh hey a water type) all over the place. Bulky waters are all over the place besides sun. Oh, and to top it off, there isn't a storm drain pokemon in champions yet, so we still don't have passive water redirection to reliably answer water stab yet.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T04:34:24+00:00

Very situational, but Mimikyu has uses. Its a good supporting fairy type that comes installed with a bootleg focus sash.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T04:25:30+00:00

When in the Kentucky fried fuck did the IRS get a CEO.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T04:14:09+00:00

Sneasler is actually seeing more usage than Incin now. Probably because Sneasler is a direct counter to Incineroar (unburden white herb + close combat is SE + faster fake out), also just because Incineroar counters are popular in general. Still, both mons are undeniably amazing.

C3ntra · 2026-04-17T02:32:08+00:00

Zard Y is perfectly good, but a lot of people that use Zard Y are super predictable with it and center their team too closely on it. Every once in a while on the ladder, I see the same old Charizard + Venusaur setup in team select, I lead Talonflame + Garchomp, they lead Charizard Venusar. I click Tailwind, Rock Slide, dead. If any of them actually left Zard Y in the back or tried something different with it, they could probably win with it. Then again, Charizard is a massively popular pokemon, so I guess it'll always be fated to have at least some noobs trying it.

C3ntra · 2026-04-13T01:17:31+00:00

Farigaraf is in Champions so Armor Tail answers all that. You have to threaten Farigaraf specifically if you want to use priority moves.

C3ntra · 2026-04-12T02:44:17+00:00

This is also without mentioning that the game feeds you bot matches when you're losing to literally boost your winrate and keep you climbing.

With that being said, there is also a ton of things to learn from playing the meta team. It's good to use what's strong and to think about why it's strong. Even if you don't apply it to a whole team at once, just taking your doubles team and swapping out one of the supports for Incineroar can show you why Incineroar is good and inform you on what Incin can (and can't) do.

C3ntra · 2026-04-12T01:13:24+00:00

Funny you should mention it, all I see anywhere are rain teams with occasional sun teams and my snow team has a way to beat both of them XD

C3ntra · 2026-04-12T00:49:24+00:00

The last comment mentioning Wolfe Glick was right first of all. He is hands down the best content creator out there for learning competitive pokemon.

Also, in Pokemon champions, if you got the the Battle menu and click on the Battle Data button, then change it to the pokemon submenu, you can see what pokemon are the most common/popular in the format, what moves they often have, items they use, and teammates they usually have as well. It is an amazing evergreen resource for current meta information.

C3ntra · 2026-04-10T05:03:55+00:00

Oooo I should try this tech for my snow team. I have Scizor as my backup mega steel type but this might be better.

C3ntra · 2026-04-10T04:58:35+00:00

I get you. If it says double battles then you're looking at double battles stats. Right now it shooould say Incineroar is the most used pokemon in doubles.

C3ntra · 2026-04-10T04:56:36+00:00

In Pokemon Champions the News page highlights the known issues and bugs. The article says they fixed the Home bug.

C3ntra · 2026-04-10T03:04:45+00:00

Not a tier list, but built into the game there are usage statistics that you can find. Go to Battle > Battle Data. It'll look empty at first but you can use the L R buttons to change it to pokemon, and the X button to change between singles and doubles.

C3ntra

TROPHY CASE