I spent 12 hours constructing a diabolical Pokemon Champions team to challenge the meta head-on, which has caused so many forfeits I almost feel bad

If you've spent any time playing Pokemon Champions since its launch, I'm confident you'll have encountered more than a few teams starring Incineroar, Sneasler, and Whimsicott. There's a reason for that – they're very good. However, in my first twelve hours with the game, I found far more success – and fun – as soon as I stopped trying to chase the meta, and embraced a supervillain identity to instead counter it head-on.

Pokemon Champions has broken down the barrier to entry to its competitive battling scene, making the series' Video Game Championships (VGC) more accessible than ever. By simplifying certain complex mechanics, now, anyone can quickly put together a powerful team with optimal stats. While its current state at launch is missing quite a lot of things – from the 6v6 single battle format to a whole load of items and Pokemon – it's not taken long for folks to start adapting to this new normal, and you can see precisely what that looks like by heading over to the game's Battle Data menu.

The very best

At the time of writing, the undisputed king of the 2v2 double battles format is Incineroar, running the Intimidate ability to lower its opponents' Attack stat, Fake Out to make a foe flinch (unable to move), Parting Shot to deliver a debuff before escaping back into the party, and Flare Blitz and Darkest Lariat to deal heavy damage. Combine that with a Whimsicott, which can instantly use Tailwind to make its whole team twice as fast, and throw in something like the absurdly strong Sneasler or Mega Charizard Y, the latter of which can set up the harsh sunlight weather condition to power up its Fire-type moves, and you've got yourself a powerful team that's rather frustrating to go up against, to put it lightly.

Obviously, things do vary a bit – Garchomp and Sinistcha are also super popular choices at the moment, and I've come across plenty of teams using rain-centric weather teams, too. But the Incineroar, Whimsicott, Charizard, and Sneasler combo is one that even I couldn't resist the temptation of as I first got myself more reacquainted with competitive battling, as admittedly, I'd not taken part in the VGC format regularly in years. And, wouldn't you believe it, it works, but where's the fun in pitting near identical teams against each other, trying to pull off the same strategy?

In a moment of clarity, tired of being amongst the masses constantly switching an Incineroar in and out of battle for the Intimidate and Fake Outs, I decided to leave the meta behind me, and in the hours that followed, began honing a squad purpose-built to shut down the very strategy I'd been using. Not only that, I wanted to make something so packed with relatively unpopular 'mons that opponents would be less likely to know how to deal with them. Well, at long last, I'm pleased to introduce you to my Slow Boys – a team of my favorite li'l freaks who've now caused so many forfeits that I've lost count, and frankly, I don't blame anyone who does.

The brains of the operation is a big, bulky Cofagrigus – a Ghost-type immune to being hit with Fake Out, and defensive enough that I've yet to see him be taken out in one turn. And one turn is all he needs, because he has a key job at the start of every battle: set up Trick Room.

Trick Room makes it so the speeds of the Pokemon on the field are essentially reversed, with the fastest going last and the slowest going first, so any Tailwind set up by his opponents in the first turn immediately works against them, and my own Pokemon – engineered to be as slow as they can possibly be – are suddenly able to outspeed everything against them. This is the essence of the Slow Boys, but – excuse the pun – Trick Room isn't the only trick up Cofagrigus' sleeve.

Once Trick Room is active and he's the fastest 'mon in the room, Cofagrigus has a number of options, all as nefarious as the last. He can either hit something with a Burn-inducing Will-O-Wisp to slowly deplete their health (and, more importantly, cut the power of any Physical-attacker in half for the rest of the match), or sacrifice some health to set up a Substitute and protect himself from damage until it's broken, keeping him alive on the field as he slowly recovers all his health with the Leftovers he's holding. While he can land Shadow Ball attacks on his foes, too, his main job is to stick around as long as possible and hopefully set up yet another Trick Room when the first one runs out – assuming the rest of the team hasn't already done enough damage to seal our opponent's fate.

After all, Cofagrigus would be nothing without his teammates. His partner in crime at the start of a battle is usually my Hisuian Goodra – lovingly named Oopy Goopy – who can use Protect on the first turn if a Fake Out is headed his way, or start causing chaos by using Knock Off to remove his opponents' held items, often ruining certain strategies in the process. With the Steel-type Heavy Slam, he can swiftly dispatch Fairy-types like Whimsicott, and Draco Meteor is a powerful Dragon-type move that can put a massive dent in – or completely knock out – many other foes.

The rest of the team composition varies depending on what I can see my opponent is bringing with them, but rounding out the offensive side of the Slow Boys are Drampa and Tyranitar (an admittedly more popular option for a team). Both of them are able to get rid of weather conditions like harsh sun and rain thanks to their respective Cloud Nine and Sandstream abilities, instantly making Pokemon like Mega Charizard Y less threatening. What's more, Tyranitar is also Charizard's public enemy number one thanks to his quadruple-effective Rock-type moves, while Drampa's Hyper Voice can attack both opposing Pokemon for some strong spread damage, or come in with a Thunderbolt to get rid of rain-setting Pokemon like Pelipper.

My Galarian Slowbro is a regular teammate, with the ability to set up Calm Mind to buff his Special Attack and Special Defense, heal with Slack Off, and unleash brutal Shell Side Arm and Psyshock attacks (the latter being brutal on Sneasler). He has the power to sweep a team if given the opportunity, with the Trick Room making him the speediest Slowbro alive.

Meanwhile, the most unusual (and easily the most situational) addition to the lineup is a shiny Appletun I was determined to use solely because I was thrilled to get him from Champions' gacha system. He doesn't slot into every quad quite as easily as the others, but when the circumstances are right, can exploit his Ripen ability to get massive heals from a single Sitrus Berry… which he can endlessly replenish thanks to his Recycle move, further supplementing the constant health sapping he pulls off with Leech Seed, forming an adorable apple pie wall.

My villain era

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I'll be the first to admit that this could be an infuriating team to face if you're not prepared for it. In fact, so many people have hit forfeit against it that I almost feel bad. Almost. After all, my Slow Boys aren't completely unstoppable – there's many ways they can be (and have been) stopped in their tracks, and the alternative is submitting to an equally frustrating meta. Even so, each time a team full of popular 'mons concedes to my scrappy go-getters, I feel like I'm slipping further and further towards becoming some kind of Pokemon supervillain, with each win spurring me on to keep playing just one more match.

It should be noted that Trick Room teams are far from new, and even in Champions, I've occasionally seen other folks trying to pull off similar strategies using Pokemon like Farigaraf, so it's not like I've concocted something totally unheard of here. What's clear, though, is that by following the meta so closely right now, a lot of folks simply aren't prepared to deal with something that's a bit more out of the norm.

To put it into perspective, the official Battle Data at the time of writing shows that Cofagrigus – the undisputable MVP of my team – is only the 123rd most used 'mon in double battles right now, putting it far down the list of currently available Pokemon. Less experienced players won't be as familiar with it as a result, and even the veterans out there might not necessarily have the tools on their team to deal with it as effectively as possible given that it's not what most players are running.

It sounds cheesy to say it, but perhaps more importantly, it's not all about winning. Over my 12 hours of playing, assembling my wacky team of weirdos and fine-tuning their builds through trial and error has been the most fun I've had with Champions, and I'm excited to see how I'll be able to further improve things the more I play.

Truthfully, the Slow Boys aren't the faithful minions of a supervillain – I actually hope that folks running into something a bit different like this in their ranked battles could inspire them to try something new, too. After all, battles are about having fun with different strategies – weird, clever, or totally unexpected – and the more of those we see, the more interesting Champions' competitive landscape will be going forward.

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