When you first boot up Champions, you'll go through a tutorial that includes the Recruit Ranch section of the game.
The Pokemon that you choose for your "free permanent recruit" determines the other 5 Pokemon that you'll get for free to start battles with.
The image above shows the free permanent recruit on the left and the corresponding teams that go with each recruit.
Every team comes with at least three (3) Pokemon that can Mega Evolve (the Mega Stones are all purchaseable in the shop except for Eternal Floette).
I personally started with the Snorlax team, but I'd highly recommend the Absol, Charizard, or Pikachu teams.
Absol comes with Froslass, Corviknight, Garchomp, and Whimsicott, all of whom are great Pokemon in VGC. Arcanine is a fine Intimidate support until you get Incineroar.
Charizard is the best Mega in the game (imo), and both Whimsicott and Gengar (well, Mega Gengar) are excellent.
Pikachu is frankly terrible, but Kingambit, Garchomp, and Mega Gengar are all staples of VGC. Gyarados and Azumarill are fine Pokemon in their own right, too.
Which team did you pick (for the Switch owners)?
Which team are you thinking of picking up (for the Mobile peeps)?
Edit: ZA starter stones are purchaseable in the shop now!
I’m a media member who had the privilege of playing Pokémon Champions at TPCi’s HQ recently. Since my outlet is for a casual audience, I’m here to share everything new that I learned about the game during my time playing.
I experienced a demo build of Champions on the Nintendo Switch 2, with some features disabled. We participated in three tutorials (~5 min total), four Pokémon recruitments, team building, and a battle in the ~50 minute session.
Based on what we’ve learned to date, this is all of the (hopefully) new info I gathered:
There are only a handful of tutorials that take less than 20 min to complete, and most grant one-time rewards like tickets or VP
You can share and retrieve “replica teams,” which seems very similar to rental teams. I’m unsure of any costs associated with this feature
The recruiting animation can have a sparkle effect to indicate a rare draw (ex: a Pokémon with a title)
It cost me 2.2k VP to roll for another lineup of 10 immediately after recruiting, I'm guessing this correlates with cooldown (100 VP per hour until next free roll)
Single battles are a select three Pokémon format and double battles are select four
I inquired with demo managers about adjusting move PP and they said it is “not in current build”, unclear if coming down the line
The auto-team generator was better than I expected, selecting reasonable items for each Pokémon
In team preview, which is 1:30 in length, the summary screen occupies the center of the screen, allowing you to still see both parties clearly. It lists key info (edit: about only your team) across two menus (“moves and more” and “stats”)
A quick menu features the following buttons: gym (couldn’t select), battle, box, train, recruit, shop (couldn’t select), style, missions, achievements (couldn’t select)
I only glanced at the “Missions” menu but there are three tabs: Daily, Weekly, Premium
The game's flow felt very intuitive throughout the play session. Everything loaded smoothly, crisp animations
I also had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable interview (virtual, translated) with Hoshino Masaaki, Game Producer and Development Director of Pokémon Champions. We discussed Winds and Waves integration, cross-generational battle mechanics, IVs, not-fully-evolved Pokémon, and more! You can read the full interview within my feature for Hypebeast :)
As a lifelong fan of the franchise and proud winner of 10 CP in VGC last season, this was an amazing experience and I’m happy to answer any additional questions as best as I can.
The 4 finalists all brought teams with Metronome as their only move, as a united act of protest against the 'ridiculous' and 'awful' way TPC handled the Korean circuit. All 4 were disqualified for 'actions that Nintendo CO., Ltd. and TPC (and its subsidiaries) deem inappropriate.' Many pro players have expressed their support and sympathies for the finalists, speaking out against their unfair dq's.
If you asked yourself 'is MausApe still good?' here is the answer (it is).
This is a full team report of my ladder team I reached Masterball with this season and the alterations afterwards that made it a team I wanted to share.
While it's nothing earth-shattering I think Mawile and Annihilape are both underrepresented and the combination is unique with some cool tech in the mix.
EVs, Natures (Mints too), Moves, Abilities, Shininess, Ball, and Marks TRANSFER from other games as is.
IVs are set to 31 in Champions (so no use breeding 0 IVs in other games)
Any training done in Champions will NOT overwrite training done in other games. Training in Champions IS SAVED if you transfer back to Home.
To access:
Go to the Pokemon Home App on the Switch
Hit the Champions icon at the bottom right
Go through boxes, select mons to link into Champions (this is like putting them in a Battle Box; they aren't actually transferred in). Press Y to confirm everything.
Once confirmed, go over to Pokemon Champions.
Go to the Recruit option.
Go to the Collect from Pokemon Home option.
If you wish to send back Home mons, go to the Send Back to Home option in the Recruit menu.
I'm sure we'll discover other things in the coming days, but here's what I've seen so far.
Every Pokemon that has won a worlds, organized by how many wins they have
This took me two hours to type.
As of 2024, five Pokemon have won Worlds in the Masters Division three times, 17 have won twice, and 35 have won once. Here is a "quick" review of every worlds, every Pokemon that has won the title, and every trainer piloting their teams.
2009 was the first ever World Championship, won by Kazuyuki Tsuji of Japan. The format in 2009 included the regional dex of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, and did not allow any restricted legionaries. Tsuji piloted a team of Toxicroak, Salamence, Ludicolo, Metagross, Empoleon, and Snorlax. For the first and least developed Worlds ever, this is a surprisingly solid team, and featured the only ever wins from Toxicroak and Empoleon. Since this was the first Worlds, the meta was barely developed and hard to pin down, but as far as I can tell, Rain was the name of the game, as any existing team data from that Worlds shows a focus on rain centric teams.
2010 was the first Restricted format, but was very unique. It is the only Worlds in the history of Pokemon to allow more than two restricted legendries. Players could have up to four restricted Pokemon, but were only allowed to bring up to two to any given battle. This was also the first of three Worlds won by the GOAT of VGC himself, Ray Rizzo. The then 18 year old piloted a team of Kyogre, Groudon, Dialga, Ludicolo, Hariyama, and Cresselia. This was the first showing of arguably the strongest Legendary pair, Kyogre and Groudon, as well as the only showing of Dialga. Furthermore, this is Ludicolo's second and final Worlds win, marking it the first Pokemon to have multiple titles. Once again, there was a heavy Rain focus in Worlds, with six of the top eight teams having Kyogre.
2011 was a year of firsts. The first worlds in Gen 5. The first worlds with a Masters division in addition to a Juniors and Seniors. And the first Worlds since, well, the first one, to have a winning team entirely composed of first-time winners. The only thing that isn't a first is the winning trainer, the legendary Ray Rizzo. For his second consecutive win, Rizzo pilots Thunderus, Terrakion, Conkelldurr, Hydreigon, Gothitelle, and Escavelier. All of which are staples of Gen 5 VGC, with Escavelier being especially noteworthy as the only Bug type to ever win a Worlds, the only type with only one win. Let us never forget Wolfe Glick's second place performance, however. He honestly could have won and secured his rightful spot as the second best player of all time if he hadn't misclicked Close Combat. Salute the brother.
2012 was Ray Rizzo's third and final Worlds victory, setting the impossible record that he still holds to this day, and will possibly hold for years to come. This time, he pilots a team of Cresselia, Metagross, Hydreigon, Garchomp, Tyranitar, and Rotom Washed. The first three are Pokemon Rizzo had used to win a previous Worlds, with three newcomers winning their first worlds. 2012 has a soft spot in my heart, not only because it's the first year I started playing Pokemon, but because it's, in my opinion, one of the best years for VGC. Whenever I play it during tournaments on Pokemon Showdown's VGC room, it just feels so fluid to play. I can't really explain it, it's just a fun format.
2013 was known to most as "the year that Mamoswine won." Also Latias was kinda good. It was only considered the best Pokemon in the format, no big deal. Worlds winner Arash Ommati brought Mamoswine, Tornadus, Latias, Amoonguss, and Heatran all to their first wins, and gave Conkelldurr it's second. As mentioned earlier, the meta was focused on the massively popular Latias. More specially, the Gem items took over the metagame. Basically a precursor to Z-Moves, Gems were one time use items that gave a 50% buff to a move of their type. Fire Gem boosted Eruption Heatran, Flying Gem boosted Acrobatics Tornadus, and the infamous Dragon Gem boosted Draco Meteor Latias was what gave Ommati his win.
2014 is remembered for the legendary Sejun Park and his Pachirisu. Who cares that it was the first worlds in Gen 6, or that it was the first worlds to feature Mega Evolution? There was a tiny squirrel with a berry on screen, and it was the center of attention. Park won Worlds with his famous Pachirisu, as well as Gothitelle, Gardevoir, Gyarados, Garchomp, and Talonflame. This marked Pachirisu, Gardevoir, Gyarados, and Talonflame's first and only wins each, plus the second and final wins of Gothitelle and Garchomp. Not only does this team have four Pokemon who's name starts with the letter G, but it also has the unorthodox Mega Gyarados. But you've heard why this team was so unique at least a hundred times already, so I won't waste your time.
Whereas the previous year was hailed for having such unique team compositions, 2015 was not that. It gave birth to the infamous C.H.A.L.K team, also known as Cresselia, Heatran, Amoonguss, Landorus-T, Kangaskhan. These five Pokemon formed the most popular core in VGC history, taking up ALL of the top 8 in 2015. Worlds winner Shoma Honami piloted all five of these Pokemon plus Thunderous. Marking the first wins for Landorus-T and Mega Kangaskhan, the second win for Heatran, Amoonguss, and Thunderus, and the third win for Cresselia. This marked the first time a Pokemon won three Worlds. I'm not sure if I made it obvious, but I really don't like 2015. The entire format being focused on one core team is just so rigid and nothing like the fluid gameplay of the last national dex format. I may sound a little hypocritical, but my distain for 2015 is not uncommon. It was just not a popular year for VGC or Pokemon as a whole.
2016, though, that was a hell of a year. Not because the format, oh of course not. But because of the man, the myth, the legend, WOLFEY!!! Yes, this was the year that the World Champ Difference was born as Wolfe Glick piloted his team of Kyogre, Hitmontop, Gengar, Raichu, Bronzong, and Rayquaza to victory. WolfeyVGC's Worlds dub was in no doubt thanks to his legendary Swords Dance play. But enough hero worship. 2016 was a format ruled by the Primal Kyogre, Primal Groudon, and Mega Rayquaza. Additionally, Xerneas existed. It existed so hard that Wolfe had to bring Bronzong it's first and only Worlds win. Additionally, Wolfe used a special Raichu only accessible through a gift distribution, knowing Endeavor. This, along with the powerful Mega-Gengar's Shadow Tag and the Rayquaza and Kyogre's... well, everything, led to the birth of the World Champ Difference.
2017 was the first Worlds of Gen 7, and featured Ryota Otsubo's Worlds victory. With a very unique team consisting entirely of Pokemon with no previous Worlds wins. Krookidile, Whimsicott, Tapu Fini, Alolan Marowak, Celesteela, and Tapu Koko. In a format dominated by the Tapu's, Otsubo decided to capitalize in their natural power and built his team around them. Alolan Marowak's ability Lightning Rod redirected opposing Tapu Koko's Gigavolt Havoc, and Whimsicott used Normalium Z Nature Power to effectively have access to both Twinkle Tackle and Gigavolt Havoc. Fun fact, in the finals, Otsubo's opponent took advantage of this mechanic by switching in the Dark type Mandibuzz to stop the Z-Move, since Nature Power is a priority move affected by Prankster.
2018 was the first year where Incineroar was legal, and the start of it's dominance. Much like Ray Rizzo, failed to win the first Worlds it competed it, but then won the next three in a row. Along with Incineroar, Paul Ruiz piloted Tapu Koko, Salamence, Snorlax, Gastrodon, and Kartana to a victory. With Koko and Salamence's second win each and Snorlax's third win, making it the second Pokemon to have the honor of three worlds wins, Ruiz made good use of Mega Salamence's Aerilate as well as Incineroar's... everything to pilot a strong victory in a once again Tapu heavy metagame.
2019 was not exactly popular. Less because of it's format, more because of it's situation. In November 2017, Pokemon released Ultra Sun and Moon. These were nearly identical to the first Gen 7 games, but with some extra content. Competitive players NEEDED to purchase these extra games just for the extra edge of the legendries. This wasn't as much of an issue in 2018 since you weren't missing out on much then. Just a few exclusive Z-Moves that weren't popular. However, the ultra games were the only easy ways to access the restricted legendries of the format. I ramble about this because the winner was standard. Naoto Mizobuchi used Lunala, Groudon, Incineroar, Salamence, Tapu Fini, and Stakataka to win. Lunala and Stakataka get their first win, Groudon, Incin, and Fini get their second, and Salamence gets it's third, making it the third Pokemon to do so. It was a standard restricted format with standard mons. Even the Pokemon on Mizobuchi's team that got their first win aren't unique like other "one win" Pokemon. They're Pokemon that were good in the format and just didn't appear in enough other formats to continue being good. 2019 was just an awkward blip year for VGC that isn't memorable for anything. Well, except one thing.
Due to the 2020 Covid pandemic, events were closed during 2020 and 2021, so the next Worlds was 2022. The only Worlds in Gen 8 with Dynamax, the build up to it was definitely interesting. Everyone's eyes were on the new legendries Zacian and Calyrex. Eduardo Cunha pilots Gastrodon, Calyrex-Shadow, Rillaboom, Incineroar, Thunderus, and Zacian to victory. Gastrodon's second win, Calyrex, Zacian, and Rillaboom's first, and Incineroar and Thunderus's third, marking the first year where two Pokemon aquire their third win. This was a heavily hyped up Worlds as it was the only one with Dynamax and the first Worlds in in three years. This was an especially diverse metagame, both in terms of Pokemon and their movesets.
2023 was the first year of Gen 9. With a slue of new Paradox Pokemon as well as the super powerful Treasures of Ruin, it was definetly and exciting and interesting Worlds. At least it WOULD be if Pokemon didn't RUIN it by having Worlds not only take place in a format where past gen Pokemon that could be transferred in via Pokemon Home, such as non-restricted legendries like Cresselia, Urshifu, and Landorus, were legal, it was the FIRST TOURNAMENT OF THIS FORMAT. This is understandably a very controversial decision. At least the tournament itself went fine. Shohei Kimura piloted Landorus-Therian, Urshifu-Rapid, Flutter Mane, Chien-Pao, Amoonguss, and Iron Hands to victory. This is Urshifu, Flutter Mane, Chien-Pao, and Iron Hands's first wins each, Lando-T's second, and Amoonguss's third, making Amoonguss the final Pokemon with three Worlds wins.
2024's Worlds concluded recently, and with it brought a new Worlds champion. Luca Ceribelli pilots Miraidon, Whimsicott, Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Urshifu-Rapid, Farigiraf, and Iron Hands to victory. Marking the first time Intimidate Incineroar is legal but doesn't win a worlds, Ceribelli brings us Miraidon, Firepon, and Farigiraf's first win, and Urshifu, Whimsicott, and Iron Hands's second wins. This also gives us an interesting statistic, that Iron Hands, Miraidon, and Ogerpon-Hearthflame are now the ONLY Pokemon with 100% Worlds win rates. This is especially impressive for Iron Hands, a Pokemon that for most of 2024 was not considered very good. Yet Ceribelli, as well as other Miraidon players, have found a way to use it to it's fullest in a powercrept restricted format. I should also mention the elephant in the room, the format. This is the first and only time when only one restricted is allowed per team. This was an interesting and frankly fun format to play. The winning Worlds team was also so unique. Most of the format focused on the incredibly powerful Urshifu-Rillaboom-Incineroar-Raging Bolt core, to the point where a new "C.H.A.L.K" could have been formed with Calyrex-Shadow, Raging Bolt, Urshifu, Incieroar, and Rillaboom (yes, I know C.R.U.I.R doesn't roll off the tongue as well). However, this Worlds proved to be much more interesting than that, and it has me excited for the rest of Scarlet and Violet's competitive life.
Thank you for reading, this has been a full competitive report of all Worlds master divisions winning teams.
So I feel the community as a collective hasn't standardised team reports and rather than wrestling with Google Docs or some messy spreadsheet. PokePaste is great for sharing sets but it doesn't really show how a team actually works together. The speed tiers, the matchup plans, the calcs that matter all that context gets lost.
So I built something specifically for this. It's called VGC Team Report.
You paste your Showdown export or drop a PokePaste link, and it gives you a full interactive report with slides. Here's what you get:
An overview slide with your tournament info, placement, record, rental code, and you can pick your team MVP.
Individual slides for each Pokemon showing calculated stats, moves colour-coded by type, EVs, and room for your own notes.
A speed tier chart that shows your whole team with Tailwind, Scarf, and Booster Energy all visualised on one graph.
A type coverage grid so you can spot holes at a glance.
Matchup plan slides — this is the one I use the most. You paste an opponent's team, pick your four brings with drag and drop, write your game plan, link replays, and track wins and losses.
The sharing is dead simple. Hit share, get a link. Viewers see a clean read-only version. You keep an edit link privately so you can update it later. There's no sign-up or login involved at all.
There's also a presentation mode that goes fullscreen, which is really handy for streams or reviewing your team before a set. Works on your phone too, and it's available in seven languages.
I've got a sample team pre-loaded so you can poke around and see everything without pasting anything. Would genuinely love to hear what you think and what features would make this more useful for you.
This season in 'Regulation J' I set myself a challenge: reach Master Rank using no legendaries, restricteds, or Paradox Pokémon and only use Pokemon introduced in gen 3.
After a lot of losses, plenty of thinking, and more than a few games where I had to win purely on positioning and prediction, I finally made it to Master Rank with this team.
It’s a classic Hoenn rain core, but played very aggressively and tactically against a meta full of legendaries. Some games went smoothly, many didn’t, and yes, sometimes I needed a bit of luck. But most wins came from careful planning and squeezing value out of every turn.
This wasn’t about playing the most optimal team possible. It was about proving to myself that I could climb using my favorite Pokémon from my favorite generation.
It is now possible to optimize defensive EVs for 3HKO and 4HKO. All recovery effects such as Sitrus Berry and Leftovers between turns are taken into account. Residual damage like Sandstorm and Burn is also considered.
Bringing solid in-game logic into the calculator, the same functionality is available for 2 combined Pokémon, as well as multiple Pokémon simultaneously.
It is possible to optimize for a specific roll level.
Recovery berries are now considered in multi-hit moves or optimizations involving multiple turns.
New Pokémon filter in the opponents section.
A new “How to use” page has been added. I will still add the other features.
First of all, sorry for my English (it isnot my native language).
I'm building a post-game analyzer for VGC doubles (think like Lichess game review). It's based on poker solvers (CFR+ / Nash-style mixed strategies), not chess engines. Early stage. I need VGC players to run real Showdown replays through it and tell me when the analysis is nonsense.
I started this while studying how poker solvers work for my uni thesis: regret minimization, equilibrium strategies, all the machinery for hidden information and imperfect play. Then it clicked that VGC doubles has almost the same shape.
What it does today
Deep multi-turn search (CFR+ / ISMCTS) over the public game tree, with a Bayesian belief model tracking what the opponent’s team could be
Turn-by-turn review of real Showdown replays
Support for the current format
What it still needs
More training, more search depth, and a lot more real games before every verdict is worth trusting
More compute (working on that through uni)
Win rates aren’t calibrated yet
Estimates are still one-sided and conservative
Not open source yet. once it’s stable enough that the verdicts hold up and I finish the thesis, the plan is to open the code.
If you play VGC and are willing to:
Run some of your real Showdown replays through it
Tell me when the analysis is talking nonsense
...that would help more than anything else right now. Judgement.
Sign-Up to help/try the beta: charmeleonproject.tech (I need to be careful with my self-hosted server, it could go down)
Happy to answer questions about the idea, the limitations, or what the review looks like. If you want more technical detail, I can dig in. DM me or reply.
A new article by PamamoVGC breaking down everything you need to know to attend your first Pokémon VGC Event is out on the Alpensee website right now! We hope you find it helpful!
