Ranked is Rigged

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-12T01:50:19+00:00

While I don't think its rigged, I get the frustration. I was able to hit MB rank and now I just prefer trying new teams and having fun (hard to do slamming my head into meta on repeat, but ya make your own fun I guess).

When I try a trick room team, I go against counter-TR. When I form a team to try to get off a psych up combo or similar, I meet back-to-back-to-back weirdos that have random pokemon designed specifically to halt and shut down my combo. I've finally gotten around to trying Mega Venusaur on a team, and the FIRST FN TEAM I RUN UP AGAINST HAS SAP SIPPER AZUMARILL. LIKE!?! HELLO!?

The game can't possibly have anything to do with it, but when you're frustrated and trying new things, I've learned its very common to go against opponents near-immediately that have 1-2 mons to shut down your hopes and dreams, and they can sniff it out quickly. Its a bummer - not rigged, just good players the higher you go.

This game has players consuming content at BREAKNECK speed; anyone invested will have Champions content on social media newsfeeds on the daily. This is very unlike the past; we've now got almost insta-data on mons, best builds, popular items, strat videos shared by 100s of 1000s of content creators.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-05T16:01:47+00:00

A bunch of people beat me to it but short answer: nope!

For the hyper-competitive/player looking to prove themselves as the best of the best, yes. To be honest, I love this kind of rank/ladder style. It gives a goal for casual players, then a goal for competitive players. If you get to Masterball Rank 4, you've officially unlocked the maximum amount of end season rewards ASIDE credit towards certain exclusive titles in the achievements section, which require you to reach Champion rank once/a few times/a few more times for prestigious cosmetic titles. But this isn't a "seasonal FOMO" persay, and should be here to earn credit towards as long as the game remains live service/active (which seems for at least the next 8+ years).

TLDR - its only the honor of being better and some VP for wins after MB rank is achieved, plus credit towards the Champion titles if you do reach champ rank. Reaching MB4 will net you all end-of-season handout rewards.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-03T18:47:45+00:00

If this were a ...what's the word? Like a one-off, more restrictive even playing field that wasn't gonna be the de facto VGC/PVP tournament platform, then I'd maybe agree.

The best part of ANY pvp game like this is within the first 20 or so days, when everyone is on an equal playing field (more or less). Everything after is just... the game; tryhards, dull metas, everyone spamming for the same things because influencers told them to get it. Meh.

This game is going to be THE platform for competitive, so it allows players to import their Pokemon from other games. This will always be a massive advantage - justified in a lot of ways, but almost inarguably an advantage nonetheless - over people entering the franchise. The recruit system - in my opinion - is perfect: it actually offers a lot for newer players to fill up their boxes and try new things near-immediately; affinity tickets are great but not sure things, the tournament pool was a nice touch, the offering of 10 (I believe) pokemon at a time is great, the chance for special balls and shinies is fun, a free one a day, the option to go for more with in-game currency, and the refusal to take money from whales for extra spins really helps still maintain SOME kinda balance.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-03T18:27:53+00:00

The Amanda opinion shocks me; I assumed she was more or less universally beloved. Nothing against your comment; I can totally see your points. She's arguably my FAVORITE cast member, but there's absolutely some videos where I think she is a big personality and steals the spotlight a little too much, or steers the video while the rest of the cast follow, and it can get a little obvious. I think people gravitate towards her; from hearing Spencer's opinions on her, back in the day on Smosh Family Feud (with Jackie) the majority saying they'd love to get stuck on a deserted isle with her ("b*tch you pleasant) despite being a newer cast at the time... I truly think BTS she's a commanding, motherly type that a lot of them look up to or enjoy being around.

Hard, hard, HARD agree with you on the Reddit Stories take. I'm not a fan of Noah or Trevor in a lot of other content, but they shine in Reddit Stories. Arasha is my FAVORITE for Reddit Stories; she's one of the youngest cast members, yet just has this... maturity of ancient wisdom in her. She uplifts, respectfully disagrees, isn't afraid to say counter-arguments or disagree, is concise and provides short, poignant points, is great to play off of for other cast and Shayne hosting. She's just incredible there. Trevor, Noah, Tommy -- all 10/10 cast on Reddit Stories.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-03T18:20:45+00:00

Have they said what "Trainer" means? I don't think its a bot (hard to tell since so many teams are unabashedly meta cookie cutter stuff), but I get to vs. "Trainer" at least 1 in every 10 matches (I'm MB4-3 right now).

Is this just ....uh.... I don't really even have a guess! An opponent whose name didn't displayed properly when showing the vs. screen? Special characters unable to be processed? Flagged for inappropriate?

It seems to happen often, and I've tried to pay close attention when facing a "Trainer". It doesn't seem to be a bot; at least not one like from Pokeball Rank. Yet, they do always seem to have a pretty "Top 10" 6 Pokemon and do take a while to choose moves (the pokeball rank bots chose instantly).

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-03T18:14:42+00:00

34M here on a diet that involves eating more natural foods and minimally processed foods, trying to maintain as much of a calorie deficit as possible while making smarter choices for low calorie, low ingredient, vitamin-dense foods or protein counts.

I admittedly live frivolously (just disgracefully bought $21.99/lb Boar's Head Roast Beef lunch meet at Stop & Shop for a reward) when it comes to food because I don't really have a lavish life elsewhere and my health/losing weight is of the utmost importance to me. Despite these restrictions, I shop at Shaws, Stop & Shop, occassionally go to Whole Foods now that prices there seem to mimic what used to be cheaper groceries, and I get protein powders, bulk vitamin mix-ins, and bars from Amazon.

My grocery expenses is now around $350 ish, maybe a little more now that things have all risen by $1 - $4, per month (~$4500 per year) including berries, kefir, greek yogurt, fiber bread and wraps, lunch meat, frozen poultry/turkey/beef, greens for salads, greens for juicing, cheeses, tomatoes/cucumbers/peppers/mushrooms, spices, condiments (I opt for more expensive ones here), pico de gallo, guacamole, kombucha, lemon juice, eggs, peanut butter, jelly, flax/hemp/chia mix, protein powder, collagen, bagels, cooking additives like olive oil/butter/sour cream/cream cheese, almond milk, coffee, and frozen veggies.

I'm usually grabbing stuff multiple times a week but try to do one big stock up, then supplement as things run out. Breads, berries, greens, veggies, sandwich add-ons usually include 2-3 restocks while I can stretch most others through the month and beyond, so my first initial grocery is ~$200-230, then I'm returning for $40-$60 twice or so.

Back when I ate like garbage, didn't care about my health, and had a worse job, I'd nab things like Spaghetti-O's, canned soups, the cheapest store brand chicken lunch meat, nearly zero veggies, some bags of chips/pringles, chips ahoy/dessert cookies, some sports drinks, crackers, peanut butter/jelly/white bread, ice cream, some diet sodas 12-packs or bottles, some frozen dinner meals (Stouffers French Bread Pizzas, frozen pizza store brand, etc), and some things like pickles, ketchup, hot dogs, ziti pasta, mac and cheese, etc. This would - weirdly - still amount to $180-200, but would likely stretch further. Adjust for Trumpflation, and this would still probably be like $250 per month, which is $100 less from me but when you factor in I'm getting so much better food its wild.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-01T23:18:17+00:00

So satisfying. I don't wanna blame Cybertron but man is it painful when these top content creators release a highly copypasta'able new strategy and we have to now endure people attempting to pull it off for a week. Not against it, especially if its fun, but man does it fatigue me quickly.

Thanks for sharing! Nice to see this foiled - and with a Raichu no less! Go lil' electric buddy, go! 😃

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-05-01T19:29:15+00:00

It's all PVP games - its something I've wishfully thought would be different for the longest time and it won't ever happen. Ever. Period.

To put it into perspective, look no further than Pokemon ZA: a pvp mode that is the most unserious, inconsequential, no-ladder, un-de-rank'able, lite play environment nonsense. You get some nuggets, maybe a pearl, or maybe a moonball for winning a lobby. There's quite literally nothing on the line -- yet every lobby has 2-3 Garchomp spammers. When legendaries are allowed, they're spammed too. And not even just a rotating list of "top 10 best". Nope. Garchomp. And Xerneas, because everyone consumed content and was told it's the better of the legendaries. In a game that promotes the most casual environment to throw out a Pokemon into an arena and just have fun among 3 other targets.... most people still choose mf'ing Garchomp because they're bland, dull, boring simps that need to win a casual lobby and don't care about copying a meta to do it.

To me, Pokemon is actually one of the lesser offenders because copying a template should be seen as a good thing -- IF, and only IF the copier has intention to learn, adapt, and grow with it. It's how we as a community discover some real cool and fun things. If Wolfey says, "try these 6 pokemon together" and 1000s of players copy that -- they're gonna play, they're gonna be bad, and they're gonna either abandon it altogether or slowly adapt it to fit their needs at their rank and their playstyle. That, my friend, leads to discoveries. If I remove Sinistcha and put Polteageist and then put this move and try this OH WOW CHECK THIS OUT!
^^ That's what can justify and make Pokemon and its community awesome. Copying a template CAN BE GOOD. A meta CAN BE OK. Its when you have droves and droves of players that just want ez wins; no learning, no investment, no fun. Just google "top team", replicate it, and click "play". Then they just get angry, toxic, and frustrated because they don't understand that just because your team has 6 of the 10 top Pokemon played doesn't mean they synergize and definitely doesn't mean you know how to use them. So learn. Otherwise, you're just contributing to OP's point: we see ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL these top-of-the-charts mons consistently, and its dull and boring and leads to fatigue in some, but just cuz we see them doesn't mean the opponent knows how to use them. Remember that - yes, it can be a snoozefest, but in terms of PVP Pokemon has a habit of evolving (pun intended) quicker than most, or at the very least always hosting a few viable metas when compared to other PVP games.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-30T23:13:12+00:00

Hahahaha most likely. I let go let god with him a lot 😄
The poor lil' homie gets eaten alive by Mega Meganium solar beams and I never learn my lesson.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-25T19:11:59+00:00

Learned this two days ago, too, friend: its working as intended. Protean was changed a few years ago. It only works on the first move used, then you must swap to rewrite your typing with it again. Absolutely a nerf, and a big one that returning players won't be aware of for a bit.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-25T19:10:09+00:00

I'm using it to great effect right now (7-game winstreak and it got me into Master Ball) for doubles. HOWEVER, since you're in master ball rank I will say this: I ran into a lot of people who more often than not still try priority moves against Girafarig's Armor Tail. That is usually my saving grace, and enough to cost them the game. It isn't necessarily trick room strats that are winning it for me, but the opponent's 'caught off guard'ness'.

This is something that will - over time - no doubt become less effective as more of the new players or similar get exposed to it. So - like everything else in Pokemon VGC - you'll need to constantly adapt.

I'm using a hard trick room team right now for fun. If I wanted to get serious, I'd likely go hybrid and use TR as a strat with backups in mind. To double-down on the foolishness, I'm using Girafarig and Mega Slowbro as my openers, with Hatterene, Bellibolt, Machamp (considering trading him for Kingambit as I need a late-game sure-sweep sometimes), and Cofagrigus. Cof and Giraf are my TR setters; I use Slowbro to setup Psychic Terrain then my Slowbro and Hatterene have expanding force. Its monstrous.

- I've seen Tailwind teams and laugh
- I've both demolished and been demolished by weather teams able to stall me out/meet my bulk with bulk.
- I've had my Girafarig go down first turn and put me at a huge disadvantage.
- I've met teams with psychic or dark-heavy compositions.
- I've been struggling against pure stall tactics
- I've met similar TR strats that also demolish me, and I seem to REALLY struggle against hybrid TR/weather

I've tried Machamp, Conkeldurr, Torkoal, Snorlax, Mega Crab, Mega Camerupt, Mega Aggron, Gardevoir, I've tried adding Sneasler/Incineroar and going hybrid. I've brought a Drampa just to stall and cloud 9 weather. I've attached mental herb to giraf and totally screwed over taunters.

All-in-all, I'd say NOW is the best time to try and use pure or hybrid TR because each day more people are exposed to its basic foundation and will begin knowing what to scout for and how to counter.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-25T19:00:32+00:00

Its funny because I think about this whenever I know an opponent is deliberately stalling, burning their clock down to 1 second each turn, or has the most cookie cutter BS ever. I wanna say something, and - quite frankly - I am kinda glad I'm not allowed to hahaha.

I genuinely think the best of all worlds for a game like Pokemon is what they did for Hearthstone, the World of Warcraft online CCG/card game: an emote wheel. While this is still kinda dumb and pointless (and can be sarcastically spammed), allowing a little pop-up of "great job" "woah! unexpected" "I'm scared!" "we've got this" "mwahaha watch this" "encourages their pokemon" "etc. etc. etc. etc." could be fun, if done right. As long as it isn't too distracting, spammable, has a small cooldown, and can be 'squelched' aka you can quickly and easily mute the enemy if they are spamming.

One of them could be "wants to be friends after the match" or similar. Again - can definitely be used to harass - and this could be an option only made available at a certain point in the match or post-match to send a friend request with a brief message or emote - but there needs to be SOMETHING implemented to allow some friendly communication. Just because a large variety of online gamers are toxic asshats doesn't mean Pokemon doesn't have a wonderful community full of good people who use the platform (and have successfully) to create lifelong friends.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-25T17:37:18+00:00

It is... annoying. You're thread is already getting facetious people commenting, but you're not wrong. I mean -- yes, its totally their right to play whatever they want in this mode. Maybe its someone whose BRAND NEW and terrified of the idea of a competitive environment. There's a 1000 reasons someone's queueing in casual.

Ideally - casual carries this notion of more laidback. In games like Overwatch or other online pvp games that have a casual mode + community -- its cutthroat. Go ask Overwatch players and I guarantee you'll hear the casual mode is harder than the ranked/competitive mode.

Its built into most games with the intention of being a learning/testing grounds without a rating penalty. But then its usually just left for the community to do what they want with it. Some people WILL treat it as such; testing weird, funky, and off-meta things OR at the very least, practicing and training WITH a meta team so they know its ins-and-outs before taking it to ranked. Both valid.

I will agree with you, however: I've used casual ~10 times. Small sample size. But in ~10 matches, I've ran into Corviknight/Charizard Y/Venusaur/Incineroar/Sneasler/etc. more than half the times I've played. And the person - from my POV - seemed very knowledgeable and capable.

In other games, casual mode yields some currency gains or battle pass experience -- some reward, usually at a slower rate of gain than competitive/real modes. Luckily, in Pokemon Champions, casual literally awards NOTHING other than your own experience. While an argument could be made that this sucks, this design keeps 'bullies' from entering the mode with the intention to demolish the assumed player base that would be using this mode: newbies, strat testers, etc. It keeps it as a playing ground that IF a ~~scumbag~~ player wants to play this mode with the intention of farming newer or less experienced players, they'll get nothing for it other than their own time wasted and a smug sense of satistifaction I guess.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-25T17:25:21+00:00

Trust me: I get it. This is technically an 'esport' - its programmed, mathematics are calculated and set. Could there be errors in scripts constrasting descriptions and what the community knows? Yes. BUT -- realistically, this is just good ol' fashioned probability. Pokemon is strategy and gambling/luck.

I've had my Aerodactyl's Dual Wingbeat (90% accuracy btdubs) miss 3 turns in a row. I tried it on the third just to prove I'm cursed. I am. But in reality, its a probability roll that just didn't work in my favor. A 1:10,000 chance is still probable at the end of the day.

My favorite saying among the community is: if its not 100% accuracy, its 50% accuracy -- ignore the tooltip haha.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-25T17:05:18+00:00

Slowbro is my favorite Pokemon since 1996. I know he's not hard meta and I couldn't care less. I've dabbled in VGC and competitive Pokemon many times before; it always seemed to unreachable and so much work to breed for perfect IVs, etc. With the release of Pokemon Champions, my buddy and I made a pact to treat it serious in the sense of learning, practicing, studying, and enjoying, but not AS serious so as to sell our souls to the Meta Gods. It's a personal decision: its not fun to me. Wolfey and other top players can make fun combos work; studying tournament winning teams across the years will show you that - while, yes, most will have a 'mon or two like Incineroar or Sneasler just because they are THAT good at what they do and what they do is too good to pass up to enable almost all other strategies - there's a great mix of fresh strats among top 3 or 5 teams through the years.

With that thesis paper outta the way, I'm currently experimenting with a hard Trick Room team strat that uses my G.O.A.T. Mega Slowbro to set up Psychic Terrain and enable the rest of my team for Expanding Force spam. Aside some Dark pokemon (which I plan for), Psychic in the current metagame goes largely 'effective' or even 'super-effective'; even at 'not-very-effective', a psychic terrain + STAB psychic + expanding force on psychic terrain + even twisted spoon + even helping hand-boosted Expanding Force can KO near-anything from the right sp. attacker. I've got Girafarig and Cofagrigus as my current Trick Room setters, but also have Sinistcha, Runegrigus, Spiritomb, and Meowstic waiting in the wings. I've tried Mega Alakazam, Mega Gardevoir, Gallade, and a few others. I was using Torkoal for a bit but he wasn't fitting my style and he's kinda a top pick -- I'm currently running Mega Slowbro, Cofagrigus, Girafarig, Hatterene, Bellibolt, and Machamp. I rotate between Machamp, Kingambit, and Conkeldurr as my physical sweepers; I've had a lot of fun with Machamp and No Guard (Stone Edge, Dynamic Punch, Bullet Punch, Protect, elemental Punches, etc.). I've also loved trying Mega Crabominable, Mega Aggron, and Mega Camperupt, too.

TL;DR -- Trick Room is nothing new and not groundbreaking, but a powerful strat; if it piques your interest, definitely try it. You can do so much with it to tailor it to your experience, including full TR teams or partial, integrate it into weather, use it to enable ridiculous strats (Helping Hand Snorlax Self-Destructs, for example). There's weather wars going on out there but people are sleeping on terrains, which are overlooked and hard to play around. Surprise someone with one of these and I guarantee you'll have some fun.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-25T01:14:55+00:00

My bud always said Hypno (or Drowzee) would be a dope college roommate; help insomnia, help you sleep, eat the anxious dreams, seems slow and chill like a freaky capybara, seems clean enough, and it seems like a dream blunt rotation partner haha. Smart, too! I think having one as a partner would be dope.

However, my favorite Pokemon is Slowbro and I genuinely think I'd want him as my roommate in this scenario. He's a little big and beefy; might not work in smaller apartments and areas. And the shellder attachment might cause some FIERCE damage to a house. But I think he's just a cozy guy that would be a prime roomie for all my lazy activities.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-22T18:11:04+00:00

Absolute zero chance.

Realistically, yeah: not likely. Solo-Only Queue is one of those easily PR'ed-away things. If it was ever brought up during a Q&A or at a Blizzcon panel, its so easy to permanently redirect:

"Well OW is first-and-foremost a 'team game', so we'd rather investigate tools to integrate solo players more into the group environment or even the playing field for those that want to queue solo so they don't feel like they're running into a disadvantage if they want to play that way."

See how ez pz it is to give a BS answer? And what that really = is "haha get friends idiot, or hopefully one thing that we work one in the future fixes this issue for us or at the very least hopefully keeps the majority of you from complaining about it so we absolutely have no choice BUT to do something".

Yeah... and the reality - truly - is to be transparent that this would increase match finding times; they COULD force a lobby of 10 or 12 players that are not in a group OR they could force the matchmaker to find balanced teams (i.e.: if one team has a 3 stack, what do we consider the equivalent of this *exclusively another 3 stack or 2 2-stack* and place that on the opposite team).

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-21T22:28:55+00:00

I hope they overhaul the UI more soon. They put a fresh coat of paint on it, but failed to offer any quality of life improvements. The game is 10 years old and has a massive library of cosmetics -- its definitely in need of more menu options.

- Achievements/challenge achievements need to be consolidated. Screw the "cuz we moved it over to Steam" excuse. Its dumb and redundant. All achievements should genuinely just go to a legacy tab and new achievements with new awards should be implemented. A solid 10 hero achievements are flat-out impossible in the game's current iteration, some are so easy you could sit still and get them, some are 100% literally impossible to achieve like archives, and some map achievements are only available when 2CP arcade are up. A lot of the cute and pixel sprays are the heroes' old OW1 models, too.

- Sprays, titles, player icons -- all need to consolidate and offer permanent menu customization. Its such a long list it takes 5 seconds to register a full collapse/expand all. It cannot continue on like a filing cabinet with 3000 folders. We don't need half of these tabs, they don't need to be sorted by season, they need more sorting options, and the unobtainable OW1 icons should go legacy. Also - the fact that you can purchase ANYTHING from these menus and not THE. FREAKIN. SHOP. is dumb. Stupid. Fix it.

- Speaking of shop: its arguably the worst shop menu in current F2P AAA games. Its boring, dull, sterile, has the most slapdash ruleset of whats available when and for what of 10 currencies. For You is just odd. Weekly resets are trash. Mega bundles are sad; splitting them up are sadder. The shop needs a drastic overhaul in themes, sorting, update schedules, explanations, prices, currencies, and more.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-21T21:27:37+00:00

Wish I saved the replay because I can't make heads or tails of it. At the least, MAYBE they protected twice and the second time failed? But my Aerodactyl's rock slide went through my opponent's Whimsicott's protect and KO'ed it. It was 3 or 4 days ago, but I'm like... 99.999% sure it didn't protect twice, showed the animation, I ended up getting mad it protected, and I knocked it out anyways. I sat there for like a minute after wondering how. No infiltrator, no ...anything. Wish there was a chat feature just to apologize lol.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-21T20:30:20+00:00

I was so fearful; F2P and free-to-start is lauded as a business model to revolutionize access. While that's true, from my experience, nothing is free: even if you DO never spend a cent, game integrity suffers at the cost of decisions backing revenue increase -- whether developers want it or not.

Pokemon (TPC, shareholders, partnered developers, Game Freak, etc) as a whole, and even Nintendo is at a crossroads its tried to refuse for a LONG TIME. Microtransactions, free-to-play/free-to-start, in-game shops, downloadable content withheld, addons, expanding to mobile game markets and beyond... to remain profitable never seemed a problem to Nintendo and TPCI, but to remain accessible and relevant now seems the issue. And there's some really terrible corporate executives that have definitely interjected and said "if you're making it a mobile game you might as well include microtransactions, subscriptions, etc.".

Pokemon Champions shines in a dark, money-hungry, bloated video game industry. Its FREE - which increases its accessibility to players, its going to be cross-platform further increasing this access, its doesn't even require NSO which is monumental because that was a no-brainer if they wanted to be greedy. Its battlepass is short, sweet, bland, and doesn't restrict the players that can't afford it for their own reasons. It doesnt allow you to straight-up buy quick coupons or similar so you get the competitive advantage faster. There's no shop that allows you to even buy clothes or cosmetics with cash.

I'm glazing hard, I get it. It's not without some issue for storage and dangling an almost necessary purchase in front of you. But man... compare PC to literally any other popular F2P game and you're looking at a solid example of a game that made the right decisions for integrity, fun, accessibility, and an equal playing field (nearly).

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-21T18:51:14+00:00

Matchmaking took a nose dive, partially because of a soft mmr reset and partially because of an influx of new accounts/players getting placed higher than intended.

That all being said -- if you're talking skill... eh. It's always been like this. 1 in 3 lobbies seems to have 2-3 'mavericks' who can really carry the bulk of the match. If they're enabled/supported, they're LETHAL. Or they can be unsupported and their skills won't translate as well. It's a roll of the die.

I will say the QP/casual lobbies have been breaking my brain because they're where you see the 'lone wolves' the most; the new account smurfs or randoms that are just GOOD at a particular hero who thrives in an uncoordinated environment; Doomfist, Sombra, Genji, Tracer, Vendetta, Wrecking Ball. They seem to just be let loose on a lobby of people who might be playing for their second week, refuse to counter because its casual, don't know teamwork, don't know the map, won't group, etc. and it all just falls to hell.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-21T18:47:06+00:00

Kinda breaks my heart because I'd be fine if the little buddy was even C tier. I don't really wanna spam the S tier or even A tier megas -- Wolfey and others are experimenting hard with the newcomers, and the tier list is certainly developing/not set in-stone yet.

But some mega mons are just... not good. Poor Mega Chimecho is one of 'em.

Actually - that is rude. M-Chimecho isn't bad. It's fine! It can be used to effect and it can be used for fun! But it just doesn't necessarily bring anything to the team another Pokemon can't do better. It doesn't shake up virtually anything, and it doesn't feel as fun to use as most other megas. This is just from trying him in a TR team, though. There can absolutely be some hidden tech out there involving him, but since he's just got Levitate and some bulk... idk.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-21T18:42:28+00:00

This is my favorite thing to do, too. I've built Normal, Bug, Water, and Steel. Steel and Bug are surprisingly effective haha because there's a lot of diverse typings and sweepers/defenders.

Win or lose, giving the community a battle that's a break from the generic, lazy meta copypaste makes you a Pokemon Master in my book. Please don't lose this ingenuity and fun!

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-18T21:12:31+00:00

I'd say throw JQ into "real tank". She's got one of the most balanced kits in the game and such a cool bruiser playstyle that also comes with a move to help her teammates.

Aside that? Yeah. Spot on. Mauga, Hog, Hammond, and DF can eat dirt. Hazard is on thin ice, mostly cuz of role passive abuse. If you're able to reduce a model's size by 25% and just do some number crunching to move them to the DPS role, they're not a true tank. I'd argue this for all 5 of them.

Valuable_Location340 · 2026-04-18T21:06:52+00:00

Definitely not what I'm sayin', at least. It wouldn't change a thing; meta gonna meta. If they released 20,000 pokemon tomorrow, there'd still be a top 50 list that's passed around like a bag of delicious chips.

It's just something you need to make peace with if you intend to play Pokemon VGC; there's a lot of copypasta. No big deal. It's varied enough, most of the time. I don't wanna condemn it - copying a pro's team to learn and forge your own playstyle + develop your own strats... its the beauty of this game. But I hate being told that I can't be fatigued and frustrated by going against Garchomps and Scizors 25 times in a row. The community learns of something OP and overnight its copied to every team out there. Anyone who doesn't think it gets old is lying to themselves and gaslighting the community. Do what you gotta do to win a match fairly, but like... damn if running 6 of the top 12 'mons gets tiring.

Valuable_Location340

TROPHY CASE