GBAtemp Pokemon Champions tournament sign ups open, set to run on the 23rd of May

Mama Dizzys · May 17, 2026

oh interesting, will the event be broadcasted?

Scarlet · May 17, 2026

Mama Dizzys said:
oh interesting, will the event be broadcasted?

Maaaaaaaaybe? I don't know what kind of spectator setup is available for Pokemon Champions, but if there's interest I certainly have the gear to come up with a stream for these things going forwards.

NitroShell · May 17, 2026

Scarlet said:
View attachment 573438

After a long wait we're finally back with our first tournament in many moons. For this grand event we'll be playing Singles battles on Pokemon Champions. For those not familiar this involves building a team of six Pokemon and picking three to participate in any given battle. Any items currently in the game are permitted to be used, with a maximum of one of a given item being usable across the entire team. Given Champions is still relatively new, the rulesets and mechanics available to us are still fairly limited, so we'll be using the Regulation Set M-A rules with a custom ban list for this event. A summary of these rules can be found below:

Battle Format: Single Battle

Number of Pokemon: 3

Total Time: 20 Minutes

Your Time: 7 Minutes

Move Time: 45 Seconds

Mechanics: Mega Evolution

The theme I've gone with for the ban list is "the unpopulars", with the 150 most used Pokemon being banned. This should make your team building experience a little varied, even if you've spent a good bit of time playing on the ladder already. A full list of allowed Pokemon can be found painstakingly typed up in the spoiler below:

Alcremie

Appletun

Arbok

Aromatisse

Audino

Aurorus

Avalugg

Avalugg-Hisui

Bastiodon

Beartic

Camerupt

Castform

Decidueye

Dedenne

Emolga

Farigiraf

Flapple

Flareon

Florges

Furfrou

Garbodor

Golurk

Goodra

Gourgeist

Hydrapple

Leafeon

Liepard

Luxray

Lycanroc-Midday

Lycanroc-Midnight

Meowstic-F

Meowstic-M

Mr. Rime

Ninetales

Oranguru

Pangoro

Passimian

Raichu

Raichu-Alola

Rampardos

Rhyperior

Rotom

Rotom-Fan

Rotom-Fridge

Samurott

Sandaconda

Simipour

Simisage

Simisear

Spiritomb

Stunfisk

Stunfisk-Galar

Tauros

Tauros-Paldea (Fighting)

Tauros-Paldea (Water)

Trevenant

Typhlosion

Tyrantrum

Watchog

Wyrdeer

The tournament will be a single day event starting at 2pm in the UK on Saturday the 23rd of May. Players will be expected to show up on-time and be available for at least a few hours from the start time. I've not run something like this in a while so bear with me if there are any teething issues. The exact format the tournament will use will vary depending on how much interest we get. Anybody with an account prior to this post going live is free to sign up, so head over to the sign up post in the GBAtemp Tournaments group if you're interested! There'll be a £20/€20/$20 Nintendo eShop voucher in it for the winner, and with Pokemon Champions being free to download, it won't cost you anything to enter.

Those interested in signing up can find the post linked below.

Sign Up Post

When was the last event?

MeowthBlep · May 17, 2026

You were supposed to defeat Nintendo not join them

BlueFox gui · May 17, 2026

MeowthBlep said:
You were supposed to defeat Nintendo not join them

shhhh don't say the N word, they will find us and send a cease and desist because of the illegal tournament >: (

matchet23 · May 17, 2026

Hoping that, this time, having emotions wouldnt risk a disqualification

Scarlet · May 17, 2026

LandonAndEmma said:
When was the last event?

It's been a good while, I think the last ones we ran were a series of tournaments over the span of a week back in 2020.

Exnor · May 17, 2026

My 2 favorite Pokemons are not on the list :cry:

Post automatically merged: May 17, 2026

I want to participate but i never played this game.

Scarlet · May 17, 2026

Exnor said:
My 2 favorite Pokemons are not on the list

Post automatically merged: May 17, 2026

I want to participate but i never played this game.

If you have an unbanned Switch there’s enough time to get a team together without spending any money. No pressure but the option is there at least.

Exnor · May 17, 2026

Scarlet said:
If you have an unbanned Switch there’s enough time to get a team together without spending any money. No pressure but the option is there at least.

Ok i'm going to download and try it. Thank you

Darth Meteos · May 17, 2026

the top 150 banned is wild
alright, let's do it

Scarlet · May 17, 2026

Darth Meteos said:
the top 150 banned is wild
alright, let's do it

Remember to pop a message on the actual sign up post linked at the bottom! Still not sure how many people will actually be interested in this, but if we only have a few we can always just do a round robin so we get a few games out of it.

DJPlace · May 17, 2026

well this is a good ban list NERF that TRICK ROOM teams HARD nerf em to HELL. but i can't join sadly i have to pay 5 dollars to get access to my teams again and i'm broke just to do that. good luck to everyone who's going join and stuff like that. if things change i'll keep everyone up to date.

edit:oh snap the non-used pokemon... i see now... UGH....

ChronoCrossfangirl2002 · May 17, 2026

Out of curiosity: why champions instead of showdown?

Scarlet · May 17, 2026

ChronoCrossfangirl2002 said:
Out of curiosity: why champions instead of showdown?

New game seemed fun basically, plus it's free so not a huge barrier to entry. I've nothing against Showdown and likely will have it in the mix for future tournaments, especially for things like the Other Metagames. Some of those are super interesting.

ChronoCrossfangirl2002 · May 17, 2026

Scarlet said:
New game seemed fun basically, plus it's free so not a huge barrier to entry. I've nothing against Showdown and likely will have it in the mix for future tournaments, especially for things like the Other Metagames. Some of those are super interesting.

ah ok that makes sense!

Ericzander · May 18, 2026

I'm 899 Pokemon in to my Living Pokedex in Pokemon HOME so I would normally love to jump on this to put some of these bad boys to the test.....

And I would have signed up too if it weren't for these meddling kids!

Kids of course referring to my hooligan IRL friend who I foolishly agreed to spend the 23rd with prior to learning that ignoring them to play Pokemon was an option.

HideoKojima · May 18, 2026

You sure this is legal? Don't want Ninty to shut down gbatemp

Maq47 · May 18, 2026

Scarlet said:
View attachment 573438

After a long wait we're finally back with our first tournament in many moons. For this grand event we'll be playing Singles battles on Pokemon Champions. For those not familiar this involves building a team of six Pokemon and picking three to participate in any given battle. Any items currently in the game are permitted to be used, with a maximum of one of a given item being usable across the entire team. Given Champions is still relatively new, the rulesets and mechanics available to us are still fairly limited, so we'll be using the Regulation Set M-A rules with a custom ban list for this event. A summary of these rules can be found below:

Battle Format: Single Battle

Number of Pokemon: 3

Total Time: 20 Minutes

Your Time: 7 Minutes

Move Time: 45 Seconds

Mechanics: Mega Evolution

The theme I've gone with for the ban list is "the unpopulars", with the 150 most used Pokemon being banned. This should make your team building experience a little varied, even if you've spent a good bit of time playing on the ladder already. A full list of allowed Pokemon can be found painstakingly typed up in the spoiler below:

Alcremie

Appletun

Arbok

Aromatisse

Audino

Aurorus

Avalugg

Avalugg-Hisui

Bastiodon

Beartic

Camerupt

Castform

Decidueye

Dedenne

Emolga

Farigiraf

Flapple

Flareon

Florges

Furfrou

Garbodor

Golurk

Goodra

Gourgeist

Hydrapple

Leafeon

Liepard

Luxray

Lycanroc-Midday

Lycanroc-Midnight

Meowstic-F

Meowstic-M

Mr. Rime

Ninetales

Oranguru

Pangoro

Passimian

Raichu

Raichu-Alola

Rampardos

Rhyperior

Rotom

Rotom-Fan

Rotom-Fridge

Samurott

Sandaconda

Simipour

Simisage

Simisear

Spiritomb

Stunfisk

Stunfisk-Galar

Tauros

Tauros-Paldea (Fighting)

Tauros-Paldea (Water)

Trevenant

Typhlosion

Tyrantrum

Watchog

Wyrdeer

The tournament will be a single day event starting at 2pm in the UK on Saturday the 23rd of May. Players will be expected to show up on-time and be available for at least a few hours from the start time. I've not run something like this in a while so bear with me if there are any teething issues. The exact format the tournament will use will vary depending on how much interest we get. Anybody with an account prior to this post going live is free to sign up, so head over to the sign up post in the GBAtemp Tournaments group if you're interested! There'll be a £20/€20/$20 Nintendo eShop voucher in it for the winner, and with Pokemon Champions being free to download, it won't cost you anything to enter.

Those interested in signing up can find the post linked below.

Sign Up Post

I can't join because my Switch is modded and likely to be banned upon booting stock because I am a 'try before I buy' kind of person, and go sailing (downloading (with a yo ho ho)) whenever I need treasure (a game) to try out. If this could be postponed until the last Friday of June (when the Android version of Pokémon Champions is supposedly going to be here by), I could maybe join, and this would be fairest to everyone here, to be quite honest.

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