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Will Ash Have a Rotating Team Again?

Islander Princess

"It wasn't a coincidence I met you of all people"
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I think a majority of us were taken by surprise when Ash caught a Galarian Farfetch'd in the latest episode. We're now less than 30 episodes into the series, and Ash already has a team of 5 Pokemon (6 if you want to include Mimey). My question is: do you think Ash is going to go back to having a rotating team rather than a set team of just 5-6 Pokemon?

Personally, I'm leaning towards yes. For starters, because he's staying at Professor Cerise's lab, it's pretty easy for him to switch Pokemon in and out and take whichever ones he wants with him to different regions, World Championship tournaments, etc. And although nothing has been confirmed, I'm also still willing to bet we might see the return of some of Ash's reserves at various points of the series.

Curious to hear what you guys think might happen!
 
I definitely think he’ll have a rotating team this time! Considering that he already has a team of 5 (6 if you count Mimey, like you said), I wouldn’t be surprised if he caught around the same amount he did in Unova. Of course, I’m hoping they handle it better than they did back then. I feel like when he gets his 6th or 7th they might slow down the rest of the captures.

He keeps all of his Pokémon at Sakuragi Park so it’s easy for him to switch since he doesn’t have to contact Prof. Oak or Kukui and physically send him a Poké Ball to swap out, he can just pick the 6 he wants to take with him for the day (Though it seems he doesn’t always take all of his Pokémon, since he didn’t use Dragonite or Gengar against Team Rocket despite losing badly.)

There’s also the smaller possibility that he could use some reserves which is always welcome, though I don’t see him using them until later and the battles get harder.
 
Yeah, I'm almost positive that he'll be rotating his team throughout the series at this point. While his captures in PM aren't as fast as they were in BW, the fact that Ash almost has a full team less than thirty episodes into the series is really telling. I don't think that they'd give Ash that many Pokemon, especially two fully evolved Pokemon, so early in the series if they were going to keep him with just the usual five to six Pokemon per series. There's also the benefit of how they can still promote some of the popular older Pokemon, like Dragonite, Gengar and Riolu, and some of the Galar Pokemon at the same time. Since Ash has Galarian Farfetch'd, I hope that opens the door for other Galar Pokemon in the future, especially Grookey. I'm also just thrilled Ash finally has a regional form. It was such a shame he didn't get any of the Alolan forms, so having a Galarian form instead is pretty cool.

I am worried about how they could handle rotating teams again. It really didn't work in BW, but I think that they might have a better shot at it this time around. Having some space between each capture potentially helps to flesh out their personalities and give them something to do in order to stand out. A lot of Ash's BW captures didn't really get a chance to shine after their debuts, if at all for that matter, so that didn't really help with rotating them in and out. If they can do that with Ash's PM captures, then it might work out at least relatively fine.
 
I am worried about how they could handle rotating teams again. It really didn't work in BW, but I think that they might have a better shot at it this time around. Having some space between each capture potentially helps to flesh out their personalities and give them something to do in order to stand out. A lot of Ash's BW captures didn't really get a chance to shine after their debuts, if at all for that matter, so that didn't really help with rotating them in and out. If they can do that with Ash's PM captures, then it might work out at least relatively fine.

I think that they will flesh out his captures just fine, they've been doing well soo far. I think the main reason that there's no reason to fear is because Ash uses other Pokemon besides Pikachu a lot more than he did in BW, and they're involved in the daily plot a lot more. Though personally I want him to use his reserves again.
 
I definitely think they'll have rotations this series. You're right in saying that having a nearly full (or full counting Mimey) within 30 episodes implies more captures in the future. I do hope it's not too many, however. I really want to see old reserve Pokemon coming back this series, especially given that Ash in participating in the PWC. It's the biggest tournament the series has ever had, and I think it would be a crime for Ash's older Pokemon to not have a shot at helping him climb the ranks.

In terms of seeing actual rotations with older Pokemon, I think it'll be best to start using them either when he starts battling Hyper Class opponents or very high Super Rank (~250 or so). In a given 3v3 battle, I'd have Ash use 2 "current" Pokemon and 1 "old reserve" Pokemon. For high Super Rank opponents, I'd want to see Pokemon that can still evolve like Gible and the bigshot heavy-hitters (Charizard/Sceptile/Infernape/Greninja/etc.) would start appearing in the Hyper Rank battles.

The number of Pokemon per battle will decide the number of old:new Pokemon, but I think a 1:2 ratio should work to give the new members the battling experience they need and some the older members time in the limelight again. That said, I don't expect all of Ash's reserve Pokemon to appear (I'd imagine that'd be a VA nightmare).

I do hope the upcoming PWC battles will be 3v3+ though. 1v1 practically demands PIkachu usage and 2v2, while nice, would be more interesting with another member on each team.
 
The problem with the BW team was that it wasn't exactly flexible. The permanent fixtures for the most part were Pikachu, the 3 Unova starters and Scraggy which total to 5.

That only left one slot free which was pretty much used up by Charizard later on. In this series though, only Pikachu and Riolu seem to be permanent which allows the rest of the slots to be more flexible. That, and IMO his current team seems far better developed than what his BW team was at the same episode count.

I do believe that they're giving him quick captures which can be developed early, so that reserves can start factoring in after episode 50-70.
 
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The current numbers seem to be hinting at it, especially when they have eight regions to draw on this time.

That's no guarantee--maybe these fast captures are just to avoid late-capture syndrome--but I'd say the odds are pretty favorable.

I'm less sure about reserves (except I expect the Alola team to appear when he goes there because they're so recent) as much as I'd like to see them since it would be pretty sad if so many's last battle was getting trashed by Tobias.
 
I am worried about how they could handle rotating teams again. It really didn't work in BW, but I think that they might have a better shot at it this time around. Having some space between each capture potentially helps to flesh out their personalities and give them something to do in order to stand out. A lot of Ash's BW captures didn't really get a chance to shine after their debuts, if at all for that matter, so that didn't really help with rotating them in and out.

The problem with the BW team was that it wasn't exactly flexible. The permanent fixtures for the most part were Pikachu, the 3 Unova starters and Scraggy which total to 5.

That only left one slot free which was pretty much used up by Charizard later on.

These are great points that I didn't really think about until I recently re-watched BW. I actually kind of forgot he had that rotating team until I started going through the episodes again, and I loved that he had it, but it definitely did reach a point where I felt like it was the same Pokemon getting the shaft over and over again, especially after they brought back Charizard (who, ultimately, didn't do a whole heck of a lot, which is something I'd also like for them to avoid if they go back to the reserves this time as well.)

Especially now that it's just Ash and Goh in the group, and a majority of Goh's Pokemon seem to stay back at the lab, Ash's whole team, especially if it's a little bigger, should have a lot more room to shine this time around.
 
Will Ash Have a Rotating Team Again?
Definitely. Ash will be the rotating striker for this time. He will catch some more stronger/fan favourite Pokémons and some more from Galar. Normal class battles were 1vs1 against a normal trainer and 2vs2 against Gym leaders. For the super class they will raise the bar (May be 3vs3). So he will use a rotating team if possible he should use his older mons too.
 
For the question if a rotating team, my answer is a yes.
For the question of reserves coming back, my answer is yes as well...
However, I like the reserves to stay at the lab. Honestly it can be really easy writing. As you can write them almost as hyped as a capture. Imagine, Ash is finding trouble to defeat someone that has a cruel and very strong electric type. Go says something like, do you wanna borrow Golurk, and in this moment you see Ash smile. Fades to black you see Ash outside of the lab waiting for someone. Go immediately asks why would someone come from above, since Ash is looking at the sky, and with this you see a shadow and guess what, is Gliscor. Then Ash proceeds to present Gliscor to everyone, every pokémon on the lab that's his, and starts training with it.
Just this, makes a return fill up an episode slot while being very wholesome at the same time. Perhaps not everyone will agree with me, specially how much this return resembles the return for the league and with the same Pokémon. However, I chose to do it with Gliscor to show, how a pokémon, that already had a return, in the same kind of way, doing it almost as equal, would be just as exciting!
 
He needs to make room for the Kanto starters, which are the only ones hinted to return between the poster, key visual (placing them in Pallet) and various merchandise. Eevee is an option (if it doesn't belong to Go or Chloe), too. I don't think anything else stands out as particularly likely, and 10 Pokemon should be enough.
 
The problem with the rotation in BW is that the writers were never going to rotate out the starters. So that basically left only two spots to share for the other Pokemon. In this series, Ash having a base to go back to really helps out. He spends a good chunk of his time in Vermillion, so the screen time for more than the standard six Pokemon he normally gets shouldn't be a problem.

Now, I don't suspect a parade of reserves. But the 5 new Pokemon Ash has caught, along with Pikachu, Mimey, and 3-5 reserves (likely the Kanto starters) shouldn't be that difficult for the writers to manage.
 
He needs to make room for the Kanto starters, which are the only ones hinted to return between the poster, key visual (placing them in Pallet) and various merchandise.

I believe Greninja was also seen in the key visual, right? There was also that ending that showed Lycanroc (notably dusk form) alongside Riolu and I think Grookey (someone can correct me if I'm wrong) so I'd give them some possibility points as well.
 
For all we know, he hasn't really got an actual team he regularly carry around.
 
I think he will for the reasons stated above. I doubt his final team for the next 3 years will be composed of Pikachu, a dragon, a ghost, a psychic and two fighters and a mime, with zero coverage from the starter types and only one Pokemon from the current generation that only appears in one version of the game.

I want to believe that he will call some of his reserves for important battles but I don't have much hope.
 
Actually, his current roster is pretty similar to the Kalos team.

Pikachu = Pikachu
Dragonite = Goodra
Riolu = Greninja
Farfetch'd = Hawlucha

Only difference is Gengar, which is a wild card compared to the regional bird.
 
I wouldn't mind if he didn't catch any of the Galar starters (but I'd be okay with only one of them), because since we're discussing about rotations and how they worked in BW (most of the team ignored to give room to the three Isshu starters) I wouldn't like to see something similar happening again. When you think that Gamagaru made only five appearances under his ownership (four for battle and one inside the Orchid ranch), that Dangoro evolved on its first battle ever, that Hatoboh and Kurumayu evolved with no experience whatsoever, all to make his team seem stronger than it actually was).


From what I've watched and heard, Satoshi's team is much stronger than it was in BW at least, that's something.
 
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