I found this very handy resource from Serebii that gives you the entirety of the first ever roster available from the Recruit Ranch in Pokemon Champions Season M-A. I discovered there are some Pokemon in the game that I wasn’t even aware of, like Zamazenta. This tells me which Pokemon I can skip taking from the Roster Ranch, since I have shiny versions or fully trained versions in my existing games. But this season, I want to stick only with what the game gives me. But if I skip taking really good Pokemon, understand it’s that I can get them much more easily, and entirely for free outside of spending some VP on their stats. Also some of the movesets on the recruits are pretty trash; see Greninja and Garchomp… yuck! 

Also, I found the starter lineups based on what Pokemon you pick when you first start playing Champions: All 10 starter lineups in Pokemon Champions. Helpful if you haven’t picked up the game yet. Looking at it now, I kind of wish I went with Pikachu, since the Light Ball is easy to acquire in this game. You get Kingambit, Garchomp, Azumarill, Gyarados, and Gengar. That’s a hell of a supporting cast, even if the initial Garchomp move set is crap. And we’ve seen how strong Azu and Gengar are. Funny enough, though, Gyarados hasn’t done much against me yet. Neither has Kingambit, thanks to Sacred Sword on Gallade being boosted by Black Belt and Sharpness (what a combo, I’m glad I thought of this!)

I have to rant about Mega Meganium. I’m absolutely over the moon that they literally hand this Pokemon to you on the free Battle Pass this season, because it’s a pretty busted Mega. I knew this would be good when they cameoed it back in the new Pokemon Snap game a couple years ago. But, oh boy, Mega Sol making Synthesis instant recovery and Solarbeam a one-term move no matter the weather is insane. This Mega gained not only 10 points to its Defense and Special Defense, but its Special Attack went from 83 to 143. That’s two points behind Mega Dragonite. And the Fairy type makes Fire-type attacks neutral. Literally, only Gengar and Sneasler can effectively deal with this Pokemon! The ONLY downside to Mega Meganium? It’s a terrible Pokemon in its base form. However, facing this for the first time IS the first time I ever forfeited a game of Champions. So, that means something. It’s going to be a good Pokemon in some of the matchups I’ve been struggling with, I think. 

Also, Game8.co now has a list of all the moves available on different Pokemon in Champions. This is IMMENSELY helpful. It will save me a lot of VP preloading the correct moves onto certain Pokemon I already own; Protean Meowscarada, for example, seems to still learn all the same stuff it did before.

There are a LOT of complaints about all the missing Pokemon and held items. Honestly, I take zero issue with these absences because I believe they are entirely purposeful. The power creep in competitive Pokemon has been out of control the past couple generations. I’m sure we’ll have Paradox pokemon and Terastalizing (I actually like that mechanic) back in time. The first competitive format for events will be Season M-B, which I believe is going to be next month. I’m sure that the roster and available items will change somewhat by then. I’m actually very happy with the gameplay. I’ve had minimal latency issues. Apparently, the Switch 2 version is WORSE than the Switch 1 version. Go figure.

OK, after doing a lot of actual work today on my archives, work that got put off for an entire week due to illness, let’s play with some pocket monsters. Let’s see just how bad Mega Meganium is… I mean great. Unfortunately our first match doesn’t look like a good matchup for the fairy flower, due to the presence of Corviknight and Sneasler. I wonder how many Hydro Pump misses we’ll be getting.

Our lead is Wash and Azu, with Dragonite and Gallade in the back. Palafin and Sneasler are their leads. Azu is gonna bow out for Gallade and we’re gonna Volt Switch the Palafin. However, Sneasler went for fake out on Rotom, which is unfortunate. Wash is getting pretty beat up. They bring out Corviknight, which makes sense.Again we try to Volt switch, and they immediately go into Krookodile. Wow we are getting out played. Dire Claw absolutely WRECKS gallade and immediately paralyzes. This is looking VERY bad. Gallade is just dead at this point. Sneasler Close Combats our poor wash into the junkyard. This is AWFUL. Azu and Dragonite will have to make up for this 4-2 deficit. However, I was correct not to bring Meganium here. Aqua Jet does KO Sneasler, and hero Palafin isn’t great here against these mons. Dragonite’s ice beam almost KO’s Krook, and the rock slide only hits Azu. Could we come back? Will Fire Blast hit Corviknight? Krook uses protect, which is fine. Corviknight takes ¾ from Fire Blast. Iron Defense and lefties won’t save it. They do end up swapping the steel bird for palafin, which tanks an ice beam. Rock Slide connects, but no flinches. Krook gets played rough with and dies. Corviknight is super low. I decide to go aqua jet on Corviknight but it doesn’t KO. Wave Crash does decent damage to Dragonite, but after recoil, Draco Meteor does the job. 2 V 1. Even after a Roost Corviknight is in trouble. How much will -2 Fire Blast do? Well, Aqua Jet got a crit. So enough. Wow, after how badly that started, I can’t believe we won! 351 VP baby. And halfway through rank 3 already!

Yet again, we have a bad matchup for Meganium. So Gengar will come instead this time instead of the flower or Gallade.They lead Charizard and Venusaur. We double the Charizard. As suspected, it’s a Charizard Y. That means aqua jet got nerfed. So, yeah, Azu got sacrificed. That was not a great move by me. BUT the chip from that got a Volt Switch to KO the Charizard. SO, I go into Gengar and Dragonite. Rotom is still fully healthy. They bring in Arcanine, which is fine since I have special attackers. I go icy wind for speed control and Ice Beam with Mega Dragonite. Weather Ball does an absolute boatload to Gengar, but this is OK. Ah the Arcanine has white herb. How interesting. Also, bye Venusaur. We tank Play Rough thanks to Multiscale and here comes Clefable. I go destiny bond on Gengar and switch back to our special tank Rotom. Bye Arcanine. I love that move. Moonblast does a decent chunk, but they forfeit since Dragonite is coming back and it’s a 2 V 1. YAY! Rank 2 great ball baby! 300 more vp to train new pokemon!

Game 3 we are gonna go for Meganium against a rain team. Sneasler could be a problem but we shall see. They lead Pelipper and Starmie though. Wash will volt switch the Pelipper and we’re gonna MEGA EVOLVE AND SOLAR BEAM the starfish. And OH the Starmie is mega too! It uses flip turn. Didn’t see that coming.Naturally, that means Sneasler. We bring pelipper down to sash and I need to deal with the Senasler. Fortunately we have Gallade for that. How much will Solar Beam do? Pretty decent chunk to Sneasler.  Unfortunately, Pelipper’s Hurricane connects and there goes our mega. Pretty rough start for our secondary mega. Sneasler fakes out Rotom but Gallade finishes it off. That unfortunately lets Pelipper hurricane our Gallade. This isn’t going great. It’s 2 V 3 and Azumarill isn’t the best mon here. Their last mon is Dragonite though. We get to switch to Thunderbolt on Wash as Pelipper protects. Thunder does a TON to Azumarill, although Stirus gets us a lot back. Play Rough ALMOST KO’s. Fortunately, we have the priority here. Aqua Jet takes down Dragonite and Rotom has the Choice Scarf Bolt. Just Mega Starmie left. Unfortunately, somehow Mega Starmie outspeeds and KO’s Rotom. BUT AZU’S PLAY ROUGH GETS A CRIT AND WE WIN! HOLY MOLEY!

And things only get better. I looked up mystery gift codes for Champions and there IS one for a Machamp: CHAMP10N. Decent looking Pokemon. Could be a good contender for our future Trick Room team with great type coverage: Dynamic Punch, Stone Edge, Ice Punch, and Bullet Punch.  Can never complain with a free mon! Oh, and also, you can get Shiny Pokemon from the Roster Ranch… we also got 2K VP because the battle pass tried to give us Meganiumite. So that’s good to know; any rewards you can’t get do get converted. That’s kindly appreciated. This means all we missed out on were the Emboar and Feraligatr, plus a few tickets and icons and wearables. There’s a ton of free VP coming up, which I like. They don’t gate any of that. Not much point in the first premium battle pass it seems to me.

OK, after that short break to collect some stuff, let’s get back to the ladder. I’m actually leading Wash and Gengar together for the first time, with Dragonite and Azu in the back. Sneasler and Charizard is just a no go for Meganium. Icy Wind for Gengar seems right, and Charizard Y immediately Megas. Their Whims uses Tailwind, which isn’t good for us. Wash can’t tank a Solarbeam. We’re off to a bad start. We needed that damage on Charizard! Fortunately we do have Azu. We’re gonna Icy Wind again. Hopefully Azu does a decent chunk to Charizard. It does. Gengar is putting in WORK! Whims gets CRIT BY ICY WIND! Can AZU tank solar beam? Nope. This looks bad, but remember, I have Dragonite. It is a 4 V 2, but I think we got this. Mega Dragonite can deal with Sneasler and Gengar’s Shadow Ball should be able to deal with Charizard. Well Zard uses protect, so that’s actually good for me. Sneasler is gone, but now I’m stuck with -2 special attack and -1 speed after Sneasler rock tombed me. Here comes Garchomp. I decide to risk another Destiny Bond. Unfortunately, Garchomp now outspeeds and kills Dragonite. So, yeah, this is a loss. I take down the Charizard, but I died. Close one, but we just took too much damage early. Bad lead by me and bad positioning cost me. I didn’t lose much ranking though so we can quickly lick our wounds and move on. Gengar was great there though.

Ooh, delphox (shiny), meganium, alolan ninetales, garchomp, primarina, and incin. This is a very interesting team. I’m assuming it’s gonna be mega Meganium. So we’ll go Gallade, Wash, Dragonite, and Gengar. They took quite a while to choose their four. Let’s see how this goes. Meganium and Alolan Ninetales lead. Volt Switch on the Tales and Swords Dance for Gallade. I was correct. The Meganium is mega. Fortunately I was expecting that. Tales puts up Aurora Veil, which is problematic. But I do get to position better this time. I have Gengar waiting. Sludge Wave time. It will hit Gallade and the Incin that just came out. They even retreated the Meganium for Garchomp. So now I know all four mons, and Sacred Sword destroys Incin. Gengar won’t survive another Solar Beam, so I went for Destiny Bond as the Meganium protects. Garchomp EQ’s and DOUBLE KO’s. Destiny Bond didn’t get proc’d. OUCH. This is probably a loss. Wash NEEDS to hit a Hydro Pump and Mega Dragonite is going for Ice Beam. Alolan Ninetales comes back in, which is fine.  Hey PUMP HITS! Ninetales is out. Unfortunately Ice Beam doesn’t KO the meganium even with a crit. So it’s a 1 V 2. On the plus side, i can deal with Garchomp. Dragonite is still at full HP meaning I still have Multiscale. Rock Slide comes out, and I flinched… that won them the game. UGH. That flinch cost me. Without the flinch I would’ve lived. That’s a rough loss. I don’t want to go out on that, especially after I lost 25% of my rank progress. I played OK, but these matchups are just bad. Makes up for all the good luck I was getting the last two days, I guess.

Lots of poison on this next team, so no Azu or Meganium. We’ve seen how busted Mega Meganium is; that’s my second loss to it! They bring out their Gengar and Palafin. I decide to Volt Switch and KO the palafin immediately, and SD with Gallade. I switch into my Gengar. Their Gengar used Taunt but AFTER I danced. My Gengar outspeeds and Shadow Balls its counterpart into dust. Gallade uses +2 sacred sword on Hydreigon. Yeah, this is going VERY WELL for me. All that’s left is Aggron. Gengar shadow balls for like 78 percent and +2 sacred sword is massive overkill. Wow, that was a nice sweep. But I just got back to halfway to rank 1. I want to get in one more win here before I break for now.

This next team is interesting: Blatoise; maushold, excadrill, pelipper, arcanine, and mow rotom. They lead Maushold and Blastoise vs my Wash and Azu. I’m actually going for belly drum on azu and Volt Switch on Blastoise. Predictably Maushold uses follow me. This is fine. Very good damage. Blastoise goes for Shell Smash. I’m using Icy Wind and going Play Rough on Blastoise. The Maushold protects anyway.  Gengar is brought to sash and Azu eats its Berry. At +6, Play Rough murders Blastoise. Here comes the Mower. Azu Jets away the Maushold as I decide to go Shadow Ball on the Rotom. It does 60 percent and it Volt Switches and takes out Azu. Fortunately I did the damage I hoped for. They bring in their Arcanine. I bring in my Wash. I go for Destiny Bond on gengar, which actually works this time and i go to volt switch the rotom for some chip. Dragonite comes in as my last pokemon. Unfortunately the Rotom targeted the Dragonite slot. Fortunately, Arcanine crunched the bonded Gengar. BYE BYE. That’s literally the second arcanine I’ve taken down. They obviously forfeited. YAY! Great play by me. I’m ¾ to rank two, but I think that’s a good time to pause and reflect. And collect achievements.

Tonight I’m going to look through ZA, Violet, and GO for some interesting pokemon that we may want to import in the future. Some Pokemon I’m excited to see going forward are Spiritomb, Farigarif (I haven’t seen one yet), Hydrapple (I really want to use my shiny), Mega Scovillain (because I just gotta see that), and Mr. Rime (just because I want to see it have some use.)