At the time of writing, Pokemon Champions is missing a whole bunch of features – it’s missing many Pokemon, a lot of items that are popular in competitive play, as well as extensive customization options for your trainer. Of course, none of that is really worth complaining about right now, because it’s clear that all of these features will be added to the game over time. On that note, all we have to do is wait! But with that being said, there’s one key feature missing from Pokemon Champions that isn’t actually guaranteed to make it in: the ability to battle other players in Singles with a full team of 6 Pokemon per trainer.
To those who aren’t as familiar with competitive Pokemon, the absence of traditional 6v6 single battles is probably baffling. After all, almost every mainline Pokemon runs on a single battle format – Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk DLC is primarily double battles, but that’s about it. Even though 6v6 singles aren’t the official Pokemon VGC format, there’s an argument to be made that it’s the most popular or iconic format regardless. Whether it is or it isn’t, why would Pokemon exclude this ruleset from their big new battle simulator? To understand that, we have to understand why 6v6 singles aren’t the format Pokemon uses in their official VGC tournaments. And the reason for that is because 6v6 single battles take much, much longer. The official format for VGC is double battles, where you select 4 Pokemon out of the 6 on your team. Since both trainers have two Pokemon, it’s often easier to pick off heavily defensive opponents by having both of your Pokemon attack them at once. In singles, some players form stall teams that are intended to win the battle by simply surviving longer – you often see Pokemon like Blissey, Gliscor, and Clodsire, who can easily take hits and then heal them off. This strategy doesn’t really work in doubles, which is generally much faster-paced with all of the options trainers have available.
Currently in Pokemon Champions, singles ranked battles let you bring a team of 6, but you can only select 3 Pokemon per battle. This is, again, much faster than your typical 6v6 battle. In Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, you were able to battle friends with a full team of 6, but there was a built-in timer that meant each battle could only last a maximum of 20 minutes. It wasn’t possible to turn this timer off, so Pokemon has had accessibility issues with 6v6 battles for quite some time now. And to be clear, I’m not saying we need 6v6 singles to be the official format for one of Pokemon Champions’ upcoming seasons – I understand that would take far too long, especially if you’re queuing against random opponents online. But given that Pokemon Champions is going to be the home of competitive Pokemon for the foreseeable future, and given the long-standing popularity of 6v6 singles, it should really at the very least be an option to play against friends with any rules you want. Currently, the only rules you can select from are the ones used by Pokemon Champions’ official regulations, but the only one right now is the current Regulation Set M-A. And seeing as it’s unlikely that future seasons will incorporate 6v6 singles as the main format, we might be waiting a long time for 6v6 singles to make its way to Pokemon Champions in any capacity.
Are you looking forward to potentially more ruleset customization in Pokemon Champions, or are you fine sticking to the current rules? Let us know in the comments.
