Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Now that I got all the other stuff out of the way, here are the first three battles I fought in Pokémon Champions—I decided to begin with a double battle team this time around, though you can see that I have an incomplete single battle team under construction, one with Meowstic in it. (That is subject to change.) I’ll keep battling in the style I always have, using Pokémon I feel like using regardless of if it’s popular or not and regardless of what the competitive players say about their viability.
My plan going forward is to put in multiple battles per video, both because they’re shorter than in previous Pokémon games and because Pokémon Champions encourages you to play a lot of battles.
I’ll also edit them in the same way as before, blocking out the hold items during Team Preview and editing out the move selections. People have asked me why I do this: I used to not, but people have exploited the information in the past. Not that they can’t exploit that like this, but it makes it harder and less worth the effort.
I’ve also kept the beginning menu in which you go into Ranked battles to show what it looks like and to show how Tatora handles them. That won’t be in subsequent videos. I accidentally was about to use Cordy’s random team, the one you use in the introduction, when I realized it in time and changed it to the Aurorus Team.
Here are the nickname origins for each of these Pokémon:
AURORUS - Lamar - from “Amargasaurus”
MUDSDALE - Mac - from “Big McIntosh,” a Clydesdale character in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
ABSOL - Abner - from “Absol”
QUAQUAVAL - Paolo - named after the city of São Paolo in Brazil (Paolo is the name of a major character in Pokémon Masters EX, though as a side game, the name is okay for me to use.)
MANECTRIC - Rigel - closest match I could find to “Raiju,” the Japanese mythological figure whom Manectric is modeled after; one possible pronunciation is “RYE-jel”
ROSERADE - Rosalyn - from “rose”
And it did take me a little while to figure out where I can nickname them.
00:25 - Battle #1
Type: Double Battle
Opponent: タツヤ (Tetsuya)
Battle Court: Battle Arena
Music: Trainer (Gold and Silver)
My Pokémon: Paolo (Quaquaval), Lamar (Aurorus), Rigel (Manectric), Rosalyn (Roserade)
Opponent’s Pokémon: Arcanine (Kantonian), Corviknight, Garchomp, Froslass
This was my first battle in Pokémon Champions using a team I came up with myself, but it looks like a lot of people opted to use Cordy’s random teams. Not much of a choice if you don’t have a source to get Pokémon from though, considering you’re given 1 Pokémon from the Roster Ranch, and you need pretty advanced knowledge of Pokémon battling to change anything from there. I take it that these players are not going to stick around for long, sadly, as they get tossed around by people who DO have fully customized teams.
04:05 - Battle #2
Type: Double Battle
Opponent: ユウキ (Yuuki)
Battle Court: Battle Arena
Music: Team MZ (Legends: Z-A)
My Pokémon: Lamar (Aurorus), Rosalyn (Roserade), Rigel (Manectric), Mac (Mudsdale)
Opponent’s Pokémon: Pikachu, Gyarados, Kingambit, Gengar
That being said, Cordy’s random teams have some pretty imposing Pokémon on them, so I cannot be sure if they’re random teams or someone bringing in Pokémon that happened to be of the same species as the lot that he uses (especially if something lke Incineroar turns up), so I’ll pick my Pokémon as if they’re being used by an expert. I’ll assume that Pikachu has a Light Ball (which you have to trade VP for, so it’s unlikely), that Kingambit has Sucker Punch and Iron Head with Defiant as its Ability, and that Gengar’s training points (whatever they’re called in Champions) is maxed out in Sp. Attack and Speed.
I see Pikachu using Volt Tackle on Rosalyn (Roserade), I’ll assume it was them selecting the wrong target. I see Kingambit using Flash Cannon on Rigel (Manectric), I figure this is someone new to Pokémon battling. Like my first opponent, I hope they don’t get discouraged and stop after a week or so.
07:23 - Battle #3
Type: Double Battle
Opponent: Caleb
Battle Court: Battle Arena
Music: Trainer (Gold and Silver)
My Pokémon: Rosalyn (Roserade), Lamar (Aurorus), Abner (Absol), Paolo (Quaquaval)
Opponent’s Pokémon: Whimsicott, Sylveon, Tyranitar, Garchomp
This is more like the opponents I’m guessing you wanted to see, someone whose team WAS deiberately planned, including use of a Mega Stone (Tyranitar, in this case). At this point, I couldn’t tell if that Whimsicott was going to use Tailwind, like I am used to seeing, or simply a strong-sounding attack like Giga Drain or Moonblast. My opponent seemed like somewhere in between: they used Whimsicott for attacking and never switched out (not that there was much of an opportunity for it), but Mega Evolved their Tyranitar and understood their type matchups.
You’ll also get to see Absol in action, meaning all six of my Pokémon were selected over the course of these three battles.
Now that I got all the other stuff out of the way, here are the first three battles I fought in Pokémon Champions—I decided to begin with a double battle team this time around, though you can see that I have an incomplete single battle team under construction, one with Meowstic in it. (That is subject to change.) I’ll keep battling in the style I always have, using Pokémon I feel like using regardless of if it’s popular or not and regardless of what the competitive players say about their viability.
My plan going forward is to put in multiple battles per video, both because they’re shorter than in previous Pokémon games and because Pokémon Champions encourages you to play a lot of battles.
I’ll also edit them in the same way as before, blocking out the hold items during Team Preview and editing out the move selections. People have asked me why I do this: I used to not, but people have exploited the information in the past. Not that they can’t exploit that like this, but it makes it harder and less worth the effort.
I’ve also kept the beginning menu in which you go into Ranked battles to show what it looks like and to show how Tatora handles them. That won’t be in subsequent videos. I accidentally was about to use Cordy’s random team, the one you use in the introduction, when I realized it in time and changed it to the Aurorus Team.
Here are the nickname origins for each of these Pokémon:
AURORUS - Lamar - from “Amargasaurus”
MUDSDALE - Mac - from “Big McIntosh,” a Clydesdale character in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
ABSOL - Abner - from “Absol”
QUAQUAVAL - Paolo - named after the city of São Paolo in Brazil (Paolo is the name of a major character in Pokémon Masters EX, though as a side game, the name is okay for me to use.)
MANECTRIC - Rigel - closest match I could find to “Raiju,” the Japanese mythological figure whom Manectric is modeled after; one possible pronunciation is “RYE-jel”
ROSERADE - Rosalyn - from “rose”
And it did take me a little while to figure out where I can nickname them.
00:25 - Battle #1
Type: Double Battle
Opponent: タツヤ (Tetsuya)
Battle Court: Battle Arena
Music: Trainer (Gold and Silver)
My Pokémon: Paolo (Quaquaval), Lamar (Aurorus), Rigel (Manectric), Rosalyn (Roserade)
Opponent’s Pokémon: Arcanine (Kantonian), Corviknight, Garchomp, Froslass
This was my first battle in Pokémon Champions using a team I came up with myself, but it looks like a lot of people opted to use Cordy’s random teams. Not much of a choice if you don’t have a source to get Pokémon from though, considering you’re given 1 Pokémon from the Roster Ranch, and you need pretty advanced knowledge of Pokémon battling to change anything from there. I take it that these players are not going to stick around for long, sadly, as they get tossed around by people who DO have fully customized teams.
04:05 - Battle #2
Type: Double Battle
Opponent: ユウキ (Yuuki)
Battle Court: Battle Arena
Music: Team MZ (Legends: Z-A)
My Pokémon: Lamar (Aurorus), Rosalyn (Roserade), Rigel (Manectric), Mac (Mudsdale)
Opponent’s Pokémon: Pikachu, Gyarados, Kingambit, Gengar
That being said, Cordy’s random teams have some pretty imposing Pokémon on them, so I cannot be sure if they’re random teams or someone bringing in Pokémon that happened to be of the same species as the lot that he uses (especially if something lke Incineroar turns up), so I’ll pick my Pokémon as if they’re being used by an expert. I’ll assume that Pikachu has a Light Ball (which you have to trade VP for, so it’s unlikely), that Kingambit has Sucker Punch and Iron Head with Defiant as its Ability, and that Gengar’s training points (whatever they’re called in Champions) is maxed out in Sp. Attack and Speed.
I see Pikachu using Volt Tackle on Rosalyn (Roserade), I’ll assume it was them selecting the wrong target. I see Kingambit using Flash Cannon on Rigel (Manectric), I figure this is someone new to Pokémon battling. Like my first opponent, I hope they don’t get discouraged and stop after a week or so.
07:23 - Battle #3
Type: Double Battle
Opponent: Caleb
Battle Court: Battle Arena
Music: Trainer (Gold and Silver)
My Pokémon: Rosalyn (Roserade), Lamar (Aurorus), Abner (Absol), Paolo (Quaquaval)
Opponent’s Pokémon: Whimsicott, Sylveon, Tyranitar, Garchomp
This is more like the opponents I’m guessing you wanted to see, someone whose team WAS deiberately planned, including use of a Mega Stone (Tyranitar, in this case). At this point, I couldn’t tell if that Whimsicott was going to use Tailwind, like I am used to seeing, or simply a strong-sounding attack like Giga Drain or Moonblast. My opponent seemed like somewhere in between: they used Whimsicott for attacking and never switched out (not that there was much of an opportunity for it), but Mega Evolved their Tyranitar and understood their type matchups.
You’ll also get to see Absol in action, meaning all six of my Pokémon were selected over the course of these three battles.
