Which pokemon champion was the hardest to beat in the pokemon games?

[skynerel]

Which one gave you the most trouble?

I struggled a bit against Steven for not knowing Cradily’s dual typing nor carrying pokemon who had efective attacks against Metagross. I also had some trouble with Cynthia’s Spiritomb because it had no weaknesses at the time.

 

[Kirumi]

Steven Stone for sure... Pokémon Sapphire was my first attempt into the Pokéworld and that caught me rather unprepared, especially while facing stuff like Cradily, Armaldo and Metagross because of their type combinations.

 

[guzmania]

you know what... i've never done this before, so i'm gonna rank them by difficulty! (in my opinion)

1. cynthia (dp): great team, not to mention how ridiculous the level scaling of the endgame is. she's not terrible if you prepare but if you go in not knowing what to expect, it is really no question how people have issues with her imo.
2. cynthia (bdsp): to make up for the game generally being easier what with exp share and whatnot, they decided to give her competitive items. yay! what makes her easier than her older iteration is garchomp having a weakness that is a little easier to exploit than ice imo. plus the game as a whole being designed to make it way easier to level up your team quickly and easily
3. steven (rs): some of his mon have weird type combinations. (looking at cradily and armaldo here) they do have several weaknesses, but none are necessarily obvious, so it's no wonder why people struggle with him. pseudo-legendaries also tend to make for some of the best aces for a champion to have.
4. cynthia (platinum): she still has a great team. the level curve is just less ridiculous now.
5. blue (rgb): gen 1 is still hard to me just because of how broken it is. i shouldn't have to list off what exactly makes those games so flawed, so i won't. all i can say is that blue has a really good team as far as g1 is concerned.
6. red (gsc/hgss): he's only hard because of how high of a level he is. unlike cynthia, his team is actually, like... bad. snorlax and venusaur are fine ig, and blastoise is not a terrible choice if you want a pure-water type, but pikachu is a terrible pick and espeon is not much better with the advent of dark type. and charizard... look, it worked for leon because of gigantamax, plain ol zard isnt super good. 4x rock weakness is just crippling.
7. iris: she is an underrated beast if you ask me... pre-g6 dragon specialists were kinda scary especially when they actually used a variety of mon.
8. lance (gsc/hgss): speaking of dragon specialists. his fault lies in his predictability. the full restore spam and three dragonites are still kinda a slog to fight though.
9. n: if he counts. his team isn't particularly good, the one that stands out is easily the box legendary and you will have one of your own at this point that can easily counter it. actually i think having to beat this guy was harder emotionally than anything else. what were we talking about again?
10. wallace: GODLY team for a water specialist! but he's the champion. being a champion and having all six mon sharing a type with two fairly common weaknesses isn't great. this being said, he's still a decent fight, especially if you're like me and always pick torchic.
11. leon: his problem is that swoshi is simply too easy. his team has some seriously great picks and while it isn't a terrific mon, gmax charizard is really no pushover. but his game just throws too many damn resources at you, he can't really be hard. such a shame because i swear if g8 didn't have exp share or limited the diversity of mon encounters or didn't let you get leftovers before the first fucking gym he easily could've gone down as one of the toughest champs.
12. steven (oras): once again just a fairly easy game. by this point, i think his team isn't quite as good as it once was. mega metagross is still badass though. (and i still love steven himself, my fav champion)
13. blue (frlg): he's way less menacing in his game. it was g1 that made him hard, similar to sabrina.
14. alder: oh alder. you really need a team with less obvious weaknesses. i love bug types but they are hard to fit on a champion level team. volcarona is terrific but escavalier, not so much. and accelgor even less so. all in all he just isn't a particularly memorable fight unfortunately...
15. nemona: she also has a half decent team, especially with meowscarada. but sv is still just TOO EASY for her to offer a serious-serious challenge.
16. hau: i dunno. he was harder than the next four i guess.
17. kukui: ...the ONLY things i remember at all about this fight were the lycanroc and advantage starter.
18. diantha: 5 chumps and a mega gardevoir. i love kalos. but it had a really huge difficulty problem, the problem being that nothing in the game is difficult whatsoever. even swoshi gave me some trouble with dynamax, and the starmobiles in sv i found surprisingly hard. what was easily the most difficult battle in xy being ranked third to last on my "hardest to easiest" champion ranking isnt a good thing.
19: geeta: oh geeta. if only glimmora was your opener and you just... did not use gogoat and avalugg.
20: trace: ...sigh.

 

[Rachael]

Hmmm....I'm gonna have to say Leon. That Dynamaxed Charizard is a killer.

In general, I have more trouble with a diverse team than with those "single type" Champions. (Duh.)

 

[Koganium]

Red in SS because level 88 was ridiculous. I barely beat him at the end with a level 75 Tyranitar.

 

[Tactician Karina]

For me it was Cynthia when I first played DP. She gave me the most challenge due to scaling plus me not knowing what her team consisted of then. In Platinum she's easier after knowing what to expect, that and I felt that her having Togekiss this time made it slightly easier.

In RS Steven would probably be the only other champion that I somewhat struggled with, not to the point he was too hard, but his Cradily was the only one on his team I had a bit of a problem with due to the typing.

 

[Zexy]

FRLG Blue I did struggle a lot with in my first run with Blastoise, also Platinum Cynthia much later. The actual first Champion I beat, Steven in Sapphire, felt much easier than Drake, since I started with Blaziken.

 

[nickdt]

People generally sleep on Diantha, but if you don't have an amazing set-up or don't have many mons that counter, her team is actually scary.
But the hardest for me to beat was Leon, but yet again, this came due to my team build-up. I didn't have a Fire or Ground type on the team on my first run, so his Aegislash destroyed me completely because i couldn't do anything about it.

I also see someone mention Kukui and Hau... they ain't champions.

 

[Greninjaman]

I also see someone mention Kukui and Hau... they ain't champions.

They are final bosses that you fight AT the league after the Elite 4, so they count.

 

[guzmania]

I also see someone mention Kukui and Hau... they ain't champions.

not in the traditional sense, but they're the closest thing to a champion fight gen 7 offers...

 

[nickdt]

They are final bosses that you fight AT the league after the Elite 4, so they count.

In that case, Kahili also counts, as she is the Island Trial Champion, so she is a Champion too.

 

[Pikasso]

For me, it's Cynthia in Platinum. Took me several times to beat her because of her Garchomp. My team wasn't prepared, so I had to rely heavily on healing and reviving my Pokémon. Somehow, I managed to beat her Garchomp with Altaria and Empoleon.

Second hardest is probably Blue in LG. I remember his Venusaur gave me some trouble, though I managed to win with Blastoise and the Legendary bird trio on my team.

 

[Pasio]

I have the most issues facing Steven on average because I tend to run silly/incomplete teams against him, unlike let's say Cynthia, who I go out of my way to ensure I have prep for beforehand.

Last time I battled Steven the match came down to whether or not I can take down most of Mega Metagross's HP with just a Secret Power Ninjask without it getting hit by a Giga Impact. If it managed to hit my Ninjask with Giga Impact ONCE, I lost the battle. I was somehow lucky enough to dodge those Giga Impacts and watch it resort to different moves.

Another example I have was in a Pokemon Sapphire run where I brought just a Level 67 Blaziken, Level 46 Kyogre, and four incredibly low level Zigzagoons or something. I forgot Blaze Kick was special here, so I failed to OHKO Steven's Metagross and it KOed my Blaziken back. I revenge killed the Metagross, only to go through an absolute struggle against Steven's Claydol next. It kept spamming Earthquake for Kyogre and Blaziken, using other attacks for the other Pokemon I had, I kept revive spamming Blaziken, and my team kept getting shut down. This went as far as to have me run out of recovery items entirely, but to my surprise Claydol ran out of Earthquake. If Claydol had just one Earthquake left I would have lost the battle, and honestly I already accepted the loss before discovering it ran out.

 

[Zexy]

Giratina Altered was basically my PP staller while I was spamming Revives and Potions on the rest of the teams, in most Cynthia runs...

 

[Lapidot Matoi]

BDSP Cynthia gives me the most trouble, but since I don't want to justify her unfair competitive team (in the main game, it's fine by me in post-game). I lost the most to Leon having beaten them on my 3rd attempt in sword