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That's still pretty minimal, especially considering when Noivern was first caught. They could have easily given Noivern more battles than that. Gible had more focus and personality even with only being used in the Sinnoh League a couple of times, which is why I'd still consider it one of the best late series captures.Noviern battled a Zapdos, tied with Shota's Salamence, and Hawlucha looked after it when it was a baby. It getting two battles in the league is the same as Melmetal getting two battles but not much else since it came too late. Also Gible only got two league battles and Phanpy only 1.
Assuming that they are intended to be late captures just for the shake of Ash having a full team for the league, why is that considered a good thing or something that we should be okay with? It's a pretty weak rationale for giving Ash a sixth Pokemon. In the cases of XY and SM, they had more than enough time to introduce these sixth Pokemon and give them something to do prior to their respective League. They introduced Noibat early enough to where it could have been potentially used more in battle and they should have done that for Meltan given that Ash's SM team had an empty slot for most of the series.Notice how also all these pokemon didn't get a Gym battle or Kahuna battle in their series. So the writers only intended them as late captures for the league. Snorunt appeared in Juan's Gym but got KO'd immediately.
Ash's final capture in every series was always treated close to the same. They come extremely late in the series and miss the final major Gym or battle, and only get two battles or so in the league and then are done.