By Aeth Finch

Whether it’s through apps like TCG Pocket or games like Scarlet and Violet (S&V), Pokémon has been growing in popularity over the past several years. The next title, Winds & Waves, revealed during Pokémon Day this year, only made the hype wave stronger. 

Then there’s Pokémon Champions. Released in early April, I’ve played 30 hours in the first week, and 70 hours so far. I’ll tell you why. But first, let me tell you more about my relationship with all things Pokémon.

I’m a competitive Pokémon enjoyer. I’ve been watching the Pokémon World Championships, Worlds for short, since 2023 and I’ve been playing in unofficial tournaments hosted by the community, on Pokémon Showdown. The Pokémon Company’s Video Game Circuit, known as the Video Game Championships (VGC), has seen a drastic increase in its number of players ever since S&V. But even with this there hasn’t really been anything completely fresh for VGC players. The Pokémon Company International (TPCI), has been quiet on this side, and even with different regulations, rulesets that vary widely from each other, you can only do so many unique regulations. Just to put it into perspective there were nine regulation rulesets, with some being re-run multiple times.

With all the above said, you can imagine my surprise when I saw the trailer for Pokémon Champions at the 2025 Pokémon Day Direct. I hadn’t felt that hyped for a game in several years. I really mean it. The announcement’s only downside was that it was fairly early. Everyone had to wait until Pokémon Day 2026 to hear info and a release window. 

I really like the game. This review would’ve been done way faster if I didn’t get addicted to the game. Despite this, my first impressions are a mixed bag. While I like the game, it definitely has some notable flaws that need to change over time. 

For starters, it’s a plus that Champions removes the biggest entry barriers to competitive Pokémon, those being the long process of collecting and training Pokémon. 

Here’s what I mean. In Scarlet and Violet, to get Flutter Mane, you have to have Pokémon Scarlet and its DLC – it doesn’t appear in Violet. Next every single Pokémon has 2 key things that cannot be changed in-game: Individual Values (IVs), and Natures. IVs can range from 0-31 and affect a Pokémon’s stats, determining their usage. Some Pokémon can be very physically defensive, like Aggron, or fast special attackers, like Flutter Mane. Nature also affect stats but not in a range, instead they increase/decrease two separate stats by 10%. 

After you get the Nature and IVs you need, you’ll need to defeat specific wild Pokémon to get Effort Values (EVs), which range from 0-252 – a very noticeable difference from IVs. The main way to train these is to hold a Power Item, of which there are 6, one for each stat: The Power Anklet for Speed, Band for Special Defense, Belt for Physical Defense, Bracer for Attack, Lens for Special Attack, and Weight for HP. With Flutter Mane as the example, let’s use its common stat spread: maximum speed & special attack. The power bracelets give 8 EVs per Pokémon defeated, meaning 62 wild Pokémon in total would max out both stats. This is how long it takes for just one Pokémon, and this is on the easy end! 

Champions is much easier. Imagine instead of doing all that hard work, you press a few buttons to max all the stats you need. Yes, Champions makes it that simple. The big explanation above is complex, but I think it’s needed just to put into perspective how important the Champions user friendliness is. This barrier alone stopped me, and countless others, from even wanting to try VGC in S&V due to how long this process took. 

While this does cover the training part of the Pokémon, how does Champions cover the catching part? Well, there’s a few ways. To play a Pokémon battle, you must have a team, and the game provides you with one based on nine starting Pokémon you’ll see. (P.S. Pick Pikachu, it’ll give you the best teammates for starting out!) 

Another way is interesting to say the least; It’s a gacha system, meaning you spend in-game currency to pull for random rewards. Every 22 hours, you can recruit a Pokémon from one of the nine that are displayed to you, and there are ways to reduce this timer. These Pokémon have complete stats, moves, and everything you would need to play with them right out the box, like a plug and play device. Some Pokémon are more useful compared to others in the gacha, but it’s your job to find what works well for you. You can also obtain shinies and Pokémon with specific titles this way. So anything is possible!

The third method is through Pokémon Home. If you have some already-completed Pokémon and want to transfer them in, you can do so from the app on the Switch. Do note, a Pokémon going into Champions will still use a slot in Home , and can only be moved out of Champions in-game. I recommend getting a membership for Home if you plan to play Champions for a long while.

It’s now time to talk about the battles, which are played in two formats, Singles and Doubles. In usual singles, you would have one Pokémon on the field, with the remaining five on deck, but for Champions, you pick three out of the six you have. This is known as Battle Stadium Singles or BSS. In usual doubles, you would have two Pokémon on the field, with four in the back, but for Champions and anything VGC-related, you always have two in the back. VGC is the widely popular format as the official format for competitive play, and it feels more like a game of chess. As a friend I know put it, it’s rock, paper, scissors and chess with random elements mixed in.

As I’ve mentioned at the beginning of the review, there are regulations that change every so often to keep everything fresh, and bring in new Pokémon. One rule set might aim for higher-power, while another might be weaker. For example, a high-power ruleset example is Regulation I from S&V, where 2 Restricted Legendaries are allowed on each team. Every regulation has something called the metagame that develops around it, which determines the most powerful Pokémon of that ruleset. One such lower-power example would be Sneasler, the current NUmber One  of Champions. Despite having good tournament placements in several regulations since the S&V era, in higher-power formats it doesn’t see much usage.

Champions isn’t only free, it’s also cross-platform, with the mobile release coming soon. With this free to play model, there’s been a sharp rise in players trying out competitive Pokémon for the first time. To set the scale, The Pokémon Company hosts an annual event called the Grand Challenge, which uses the current game for VGC and usually has around 5,000 players. Champions hosted a warm-up version of this, with no reward besides one Pokémon for playing 3 games. This warm-up challenge contained 700,000+ participants, 140 times higher than usual. 

While I’m all for the game being accessible, my personal gripe is this feeling like more of a double-edged sword. Everything seems like it’s in a limited state right now, as if they sacrificed a bit too much of the depth for the accessibility. A lot of things were removed for this first ruleset, Items like the Assault Vest, Choice Band/Specs and Covert Cloak were all cut from the game. These items gave a Pokémon some extra punch: like the Assault Vest which gave more Special Defense. Archaludon relied on the Assault Vest’s benefit, while its ability, Stamina, would increase its Physical Defense every time it got hit, so it could use the move Body Press, which uses your Defense for Offense.

Alongside what I’ve stated so far, the tools  available for team building are very cramped. We have 229 Pokémon, 48 items , Pikachu’s Light Ball, and Mega Stones. While it may feel a bit weird, I slowly started to gain a liking to the limitations. There’s no world where I thought I would be seeing Aerodactyl and Tauros, two Generation 1 Pokémon, becoming viable in the metagame alongside modern threats like Archaludon. 

The IVs mentioned earlier were also cut. That isn’t a big issue, if anything it’s more of a positive than a negative, but there is one move that’s very important in VGC: Trick Room. This reverses the turn order, making slower Pokémon move faster, and with IVs, you get a little more customization on your speed. That can be a deciding factor for wins and losses when field effects are active.

Another gripe I have, and this is a big one even if you aren’t a competitive Pokémon fan, is there being no 6v6 single battles. The definitive way you would battle in the mainline games, can’t be done  here! This alone had me, and many others, not liking the game at launch. You could still play single battles though; just not in 6v6, instead you could only do 3v3 which was way less fun. I get 6v6 not having a form of matchmaking in-game, those matches do take a while, and I wouldn’t be as annoyed if it was a private room only option, but it isn’t. You are forced to play 3v3 singles and I hope this eventually changes. With that being said, I think it’s fair to mention an experience I had that you really can’t get from 6v6 singles; I got hit with a Whimsicott set with Leech Seed and Substitute. Most people won’t know what this means, but if you’re a Champions player, you will know very well. And no, I didn’t win that game. It was a draw, and it ended my four-win streak. Never again.

Every free-to-play game is cursed with microtransactions. Money has to be made somehow, but Champions isn’t as greedy as some other games under the Pokémon IP, (Looking right at you, Pokémon UNITE), it’s actually very free-to-play friendly. The currency in the game, Victory Points (VP), can only be obtained in-game, not purchased. Outside of some cosmetics, the limited things that can be bought with real-world currency can also be obtained through regular gameplay. 

There’s a membership that is priced badly, $59.99 a year, and $5.99 per month, and is the only way you can get the premium battle pass. Outside of the membership, you can instead buy the starter pack for $6.99, which is more worth its value. It gives you 50 additional storage spaces from the default 30, 30 teammate tickets for bypassing the gacha, and 50 training tickets which allow you to edit anything about your Pokémon’s abilities, nature, or stats. The tickets are amazing for starting out, and are the main reason you should really be buying. It’s a must-buy in my eyes. You can also use quick tickets which reduce the timer of the gacha, exactly like how hourglasses work in TCG Pocket, and even get type-specific tickets by completing tasks, guaranteeing you will get at least 3 Pokémon for that type.

For those starting out in VGC or wanting to start out after reading this, give it a try! It’ll be difficult, it’ll probably make you mad that you missed a few moves that cost you a match, but it’s all part of the process to eventually become a Pokémon Master. Maybe some could even say, a Pokémon Champion. 

In all, to say I love this game would be an understatement. I want to see it grow and become bigger than it already is, which doesn’t seem out of reach. I personally wish I could go to Pokémon Worlds myself to see what happens in-person. But I’ll be fine happily watching from home. Anyways, I have to go back to playing ranked, I hit Masters not too long ago and want to try to hit the 2000 Rating before the season ends. If you want to try the team I used to hit Masters, here is a graphic!  

Circle intern and Brooklyn resident Aeth Finch is now in college. He has been with us since high school.

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