A former Pokemon world champion says that the series' new competitive title, Pokemon Champions, could have a massive impact on the competition circuit.
Yesterday, during Pokemon Presents 2025, Nintendo and Game Freak had a game announcement to go along with its chunky Pokemon Legends: Z-A reveal. Pokemon Champions is a competitive-focused strategy game that strips out all of the narrative and presumably quite a lot of the creature catching and rearing mechanics that have been a mainstay of the series for nearly three decades. Pokemon Champions is all about competition, which is probably why one of the best players in the world thinks it's likely to make a big splash.
Wolfe Glick is a competitive Pokemon player, best known for winning the official 2016 world championship. Most recently, he claimed the Pokemon Europe International Championships with the return of his infamous strategy, but he's been a major player in the competitive scene for many years now. In a tweet after the reveal of Pokemon Champions, he suggested the new game "could change competitive Pokemon in ways I can't even fathom."
this could change competitive Pokemon in ways I can't even fathom pic.twitter.com/TPLTreHLBcFebruary 27, 2025
Glick doesn't expand on that hypothesis, but I have a couple of guesses as to why he thinks it's such a big deal. For one thing, eagle-eyed players will have noticed that both Mega Evolution and Terastalization - battle gimmicks from two different generations that have never really shared a stage before. How exactly the pair will link to each other in Champions remains to be seen, but if they're allowed to interact with each other, it could be a massive change.
The other major reason is that Champions' links with Pokemon Go and previous games could be an interesting workaround to a controversial competitive rule. The Pokemon Company has been cracking down on Pokemon who haven't been trained up by those using them in some recent tournaments, but the ability to shift mons back and forth between multiple games could mean that that particular issue becomes a thing of the past.
Somewhat separately, I'm interested to know whether this is Nintendo taking aim at unofficial battle engines. The likes of Pokemon Showdown - simplified, web-based games that strip fights down to little more than stat checks - have existed for a long time, but this does feel like The Pokemon Company attempting to find some way to work around them and provide something straight to its community for a little extra cash. Either way, with the amount of theorycrafting that happens in those online spaces, let alone the other factors at play, Glick is likely correct - Champions does seem like it's about to tear up Pokemon's competitive scene.
We're gearing up for new entries in our list of the best Pokemon games.
