The Pokémon Champions, Ranked From Worst To Best

Geeta, the League Champ from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was a bit of a let down. Her design is a serve and her background plot (of possibly being a terrible boss all the Paldea gym leaders resent) is actually pretty compelling, but her actual team and battle strategy is so anticlimactic she’s often tagged as one of the worst Pokémon League Champions in series history. Is that actually true? Who is the best champion in the Pokémon series? What makes a good champion?

I’ve been thinking about this after seeing a TikTok by @amarcheo, which examined the competitive viability of each Champion’s teams to try and find a definitive ranking. Their comparisons, backed by data based on each trainer’s team’s type coverage and other stats, are pretty damning for some of the series’ most popular champs.

But there’s one thing raw data alone can’t account for: vibes. So I decided to look at each Champion’s team for myself and see just who is the best (and worst) Champion in the Pokémon world. To keep this simple, we’re keeping this to the crowned Champions we meet at the beginning of each game, rather than accounting for rivals and other characters who “ascend” to that station during the story or were once given that title in the past.