Pokémon Champions - To Skill (Swap) a Mockingbird - Aug 15 26 A

The World Championships officially begin the following day…I attempted to make my way there, or at least to Pokémon XP, but it would’ve been pretty expensive, so I won’t be going. I was able to make it to the one in Anaheim in 2025 because it was within driving distance, but California is a large enough place that going to San Francisco is a LOT harder. That, and lodging suddenly got a lot more expensive. From what I hear, both admission and panel opportunities (and Pokémon Center admission) were scalped too. What ISN’T being scalped in the Pokémon sphere today? Well, I did see plenty of those Lego Arcanine figures at Costco the other day… 00:00 - Battle #1 Type: Double Battle Opponent: TropiusRulez Battle Court: Battle Arena Music: Battle Arena My Pokémon: Vincenzo (Sceptile), Ferdinand (Tauros) (Kantonian), Mabel (Clefable), Poindexter (Overqwil) Opponent’s Pokémon: Char-bok (Garchomp), Sableye, Tyani.tar (Tyranitar), Excadrill You know, it WOULD be nice to have Tropius in this game. It was in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and people made surprisingly good use of Tropius as a Pok´meon with both Tailwind (for support) and Leech Seed (for disruption). Raging Bull is a rarely seen attack, with Tauros being a rarely-seen Pokémon (nowadays, at least—remember when it stood at the top of the non-Mewtwo meta in Generation I?), so it would stand to reason that they didn’t realize Raging Bull would remove all screens. It must have been a shock to see both Reflect and Light Screen taken down once I landed a hit with Raging Bull. (For the record, Raging Bull also removes Safeguard and Aurora Veil.) Garchomp’s nickname is likely based on how Arbok would state its own name in early seasons of the anime. Arbok is, in fact, available in Pokémon Champions. 03:19 - Battle #2 Type: Double Battle Opponent: Danketic Battle Court: Battle Arena Music: Trainer (Sun & Moon) My Pokémon: Ferdinand (Tauros) (Kantonian), Vincenzo (Sceptile), Mabel (Clefable), Kane (Mr. Rime) Opponent’s Pokémon: Tyranitar, Excadrill, Sinistcha, Gholdengo Tyranitar and Excadrill is a common start in Pokémon Champions, and Vincenzo (Sceptile) and Ferdinand (Tauros) are my go-to response to that start. Ordinarily, they will defend their Tyranitar, either switching out or using Protect, leaving their Excadrill open to attack, but this time, they swapped out Excadrill instead. Between that and many other actions that effectively stonewalled me, you’d think they had precognition or mind-reading. Or maybe they recognized this team and have studied my videos, knowing my game plan going into the Tyranitar-Excadrill start. 07:06 - Battle #3 Type: Double Battle Opponent: WinterWolf Battle Court: Battle Arena Music: Trainer (X & Y) My Pokémon: Poindexter (Overqwil), Kane (Mr. Rime), Mabel (Clefable), Vincenzo (Sceptile) Opponent’s Pokémon: Chesnaught, Sinistcha, Metagross, Mimikyu I rarely see Chesnaught in Pokémon Champions, so I figured this would be interesting: the strategy here, it seems, is to divert attacks with Sinistcha using Rage Powder so Chesnaught is free to use Belly Drum. Meanwhile, if there’s the opportunity, Sinistcha uses Trick Room to turn Chesnaught’s (and Mega Chesnaught’s) slow Speed into ah asset, and Chesnaught uses a combination of SPiky Shield and Drain Punch to make the most of the HP sacrifice for Bell Drum. A pretty tricky set of advantages they set up. I could see they were always going for the bigger target for HP restoration from Drain Punch, but forgot to account for Unaware, which ignores the Attack boost from Belly Drum. I did forget to account for Rage Powder on Sinistcha too though. They even had a backup Trick Room user in Mimikyu to continue to keep the battle in a Trick Room state after Sinistcha is down! 10:17 - Battle #4 Type: Double Battle Opponent: おまめ (Omame) Battle Court: Battle Arena Music: Trainer (Sword & Shield) My Pokémon: Ferdinand (Tauros) (Kantonian), Poindexter (Overqwil), Mabel (Clefable), Vincenzo (Sceptile) Opponent’s Pokémon: Tyranitar, Medicham, Sinistcha, Quaquaval This Medicham’s job was to use Skill Swap. I was thinking they’d use Skill Swap with Ferdinand (Tauros) to trigger Intimidate on my side of the field, but it seems they wanted to set up Reflect and give Tyranitar Huge Power. Unfortunately, the Attack bonus from Huge Power is not something Unaware ignores, as it’s not a stat boost, but an Ability-derived bonus, so it became important to get rid of Tyranitar when I could. Once Tyranitar went down, the rest of the team felt easier to deal with, meaning this was liekly one of those tentpole teams, with Tyranitar as the tentpole. Of course, Medicham’s own Huge Power is erased doing this, so this one is fond of switching out and back in, perhaps to give Huge Power to someone else (and maybe to trigger Hospitality by Skill Swapping with Sinistcha).