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

Scarlet · May 18, 2026

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

What on earth would be illegal about a tournament lol

Maq47 said:
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.

The plan is for these to be monthly moving between a few different games, so stay tuned for the next one. I didn’t see anything about a solid mobile release date, but I will 100% be doing another Champions tournament around then.

Xanthe · May 18, 2026

You'd better hope that Nintendo/GameFreeak doesn't get a whiff of this.

Scarlet · May 18, 2026

Xanthe said:
You'd better hope that Nintendo/GameFreeak doesn't get a whiff of this.

why on earth would they care that their competitive game is being played competitively

grub · May 18, 2026

this is so cool! would u also consider doing future tournaments with vgc-ruleset double battles? i wouldn't mind if not, since singles feel like they make more sense for a pokemon-nonspecific forum like this. i think i was surprised at first to learn that official tournaments have been double battles almost exclusively from their addition in gen 3, since the whole singleplayer experience treats them almost as an afterthought.

i really like the restricted selection of pokemon! it's my favorite part of tournaments like these. other methods of pokemon restriction might be worth looking at, too-- like, only pokemon with less than x% usage would be allowed, and within that, only those under a certain base stat total, for example

it's a bit interesting because, if i understand the concept correctly, whenever a metagame has its highest usage pokemon banned, it actually just ends up creating an even more centralized game with less variety. because there will always be standout, more powerful pokemon, but u end up with less possible tools to use against them. so they end up being able to steamroll their way through everything else with no resistance

i think that's why smogon tiers are so complicated with community votes and stuff sometimes. because there are so many variables in pokemon that u can't always foresee imbalance in the end result

usage rates can be weird as a metric by themselves, because some pokemon are basically just better versions of other ones

autism infodump:

i think the most infamous example is incineroar in vgc (the "video game championship" double battle format used for tournaments officially hosted by the pokemon company).

in the 2017 vgc format, arcanine had an 80% usage rate, and it was by far the most used pokemon in the format with the #2 spot being tapu koko at 50% usage, and #3 kartana at 36%

but then the 2018 added landorus-therian and gave incineroar access to its hidden ability, intimidate. those two had a usage rate of 63% and 43% respectively, sitting at the top as the two premier intimidate pokemon.

arcanine, another bulky, fire-type intimidate pokemon like incineroar in that very same format, had dropped to 0.23% usage--incineroar was stronger, bulkier, and had access to utility moves like fake out, u-turn, and knock off, which wasn't even limited to just being a utility move due to its damage being boosted by incineroar's secondary dark type. which, as a bonus, made it immune to status moves from pokemon with the prankster ability, an explicit nerf to that ability that was new to gen 7 due to how strong it was before.

while arcanine is faster than incineroar, if anything, that was a bad thing for how the pokemon played--incineroar being slow meant it could sponge opposing attacks and then switch out with u-turn, bringing another pokemon of yours onto the field for the next turn with no damage taken at all.

a year or so after that, in the 2019 format (well, one of them), mega evolutions were banned and box legendaries were allowed, creating a metagame where landorus-t had a bad matchup against a lot of key pokemon, and fell to 10% as a result.

intimidating fire cat was at 90% usage, and intimidating fire dog was at 0.15%. poor puppy.

but...! an important clarification is that this sort of effect usually isn't as extreme for more casual, one-off tournaments like this, since the metagame doesn't have a ton of time to develop in the first place. i think it's interesting nonetheless! it makes trying out different sets of restrictions feel fun.

Scarlet · May 18, 2026

grub said:
this is so cool! would u also consider doing future tournaments with vgc-ruleset double battles? i wouldn't mind if not, since singles feel like they make more sense for a pokemon-nonspecific forum like this. i think i was surprised at first to learn that official tournaments have been double battles almost exclusively from their addition in gen 3, since the whole singleplayer experience treats them almost as an afterthought.

i really like the restricted selection of pokemon! it's my favorite part of tournaments like these. other methods of pokemon restriction might be worth looking at, too-- like, only pokemon with less than x% usage would be allowed, and within that, only those under a certain base stat total, for example

it's a bit interesting because, if i understand the concept correctly, whenever a metagame has its highest usage pokemon banned, it actually just ends up creating an even more centralized game with less variety. because there will always be standout, more powerful pokemon, but u end up with less possible tools to use against them. so they end up being able to steamroll their way through everything else with no resistance

i think that's why smogon tiers are so complicated with community votes and stuff sometimes. because there are so many variables in pokemon that u can't always foresee imbalance in the end result

usage rates can be weird as a metric by themselves, because some pokemon are basically just better versions of other ones

autism infodump:

i think the most infamous example is incineroar in vgc (the "video game championship" double battle format used for tournaments officially hosted by the pokemon company).

in the 2017 vgc format, arcanine had an 80% usage rate, and it was by far the most used pokemon in the format with the #2 spot being tapu koko at 50% usage, and #3 kartana at 36%

but then the 2018 added landorus-therian and gave incineroar access to its hidden ability, intimidate. those two had a usage rate of 63% and 43% respectively, sitting at the top as the two premier intimidate pokemon.

arcanine, another bulky, fire-type intimidate pokemon like incineroar in that very same format, had dropped to 0.23% usage--incineroar was stronger, bulkier, and had access to utility moves like fake out, u-turn, and knock off, which wasn't even limited to just being a utility move due to its damage being boosted by incineroar's secondary dark type. which, as a bonus, made it immune to status moves from pokemon with the prankster ability, an explicit nerf to that ability that was new to gen 7 due to how strong it was before.

while arcanine is faster than incineroar, if anything, that was a bad thing for how the pokemon played--incineroar being slow meant it could sponge opposing attacks and then switch out with u-turn, bringing another pokemon of yours onto the field for the next turn with no damage taken at all.

a year or so after that, in the 2019 format (well, one of them), mega evolutions were banned and box legendaries were allowed, creating a metagame where landorus-t had a bad matchup against a lot of key pokemon, and fell to 10% as a result.

intimidating fire cat was at 90% usage, and intimidating fire dog was at 0.15%. poor puppy.

but...! an important clarification is that this sort of effect usually isn't as extreme for more casual, one-off tournaments like this, since the metagame doesn't have a ton of time to develop in the first place. i think it's interesting nonetheless! it makes trying out different sets of restrictions feel fun.

I appreciate the enthusiasm lol. Yeah VGC-style doubles I think will be the main format going forwards when more Pokemon tournaments come up. Singles is the one I went for here since Champions is still relatively new. It's the more approachable format if people want to jump in for the first time in my mind. And having a much more limited roster also means less overwhelming choice.

We'll see how this one plays out and how people enjoy it and just go from there either way.

Darth Meteos · May 18, 2026

Scarlet said:
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.

aah i remember that tournament
that was fun!

Marc_LFD · May 18, 2026

I hate to complain about graphics, but playing this on Switch 2 should mean they ought to look a lot better yet it looks like something from the Switch 1.

This is a brand new game so where's the better graphics at?

raxadian · May 18, 2026

Honesty I hate Pokemon Champions, it is a money sucker that will go offline the moment it stops being profitable enough. Sfuff like that is why I gave up on Pokémon.

RedBlueGreen · May 19, 2026

Coo, I'm interested, but I'd personally only ban the top 50. I was thinking about starting a draft league where either the top 50 are banned, or sorted into a higher tier so you can only use 2 from the top 50 on your team.

Marc_LFD said:
I hate to complain about graphics, but playing this on Switch 2 should mean they ought to look a lot better yet it looks like something from the Switch 1.

This is a brand new game so where's the better graphics at?

Right? It looks like a GameCube or PS2 game upscaled through an emulator.

Which wouldn't be an issue if the game actually had more Pokémon and items to choose from. I get limiting the ranked roster, but let us use whatever we want in casual or private battles.

I'm almost ready to go back to playing Showdown because of this game.

Scarlet · May 19, 2026

RedBlueGreen said:
Coo, I'm interested, but I'd personally only ban the top 50. I was thinking about starting a draft league where either the top 50 are banned, or sorted into a higher tier so you can only use 2 from the top 50 on your team.

Right? It looks like a GameCube or PS2 game upscaled through an emulator.

Which wouldn't be an issue if the game actually had more Pokémon and items to choose from. I get limiting the ranked roster, but let us use whatever we want in casual or private battles.

I'm almost ready to go back to playing Showdown because of this game.

It’ll be a different format every time, I just wanted a more restrictive list to start with so people new to it might not be so overwhelmed. It won’t be as drastic going forwards.

Hayato213 · May 20, 2026

Have fun guys, I would have enter if I had time, too bad I am leaving for a flight on the 23rd.

grub · May 21, 2026

RedBlueGreen said:
I was thinking about starting a draft league where either the top 50 are banned, or sorted into a higher tier so you can only use 2 from the top 50 on your team.

that. is. such a cool idea...!!!! like restricted pokemon formats but for strong pokemon instead of box legendaries! that sounds so appealing, especially now with power creep making stuff like both ursalunas, archaludon, basculegion... theyre basically a weird category in of themselves, like neo pseudo-legendaries, lawl.

admittedly im not super good at actually playing the game--it's hard for me to enjoy competition itself--but a lifetime of hyperfixating on pokemon means its mechanics are second nature and i love so much to see what people come up with in certain formats and how the metagame develops.

chrisrlink · May 21, 2026

i might join next month when the pool of unrestricted pokemon is better (in the mean time picking a mix of home and rentals (perm) to try out hope i get better by next tournie

AaronUzumaki · May 23, 2026

I'll have to join the next one, but would love to take part in one of these.

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