The Hardest Pokémon League Ever 

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Imagine if enemy pokemon also had affection, just Imagine "Cynthia's Garchomp toughed it out so she wouldn't be sad"

“How is her garchomp faster than my weevile?” It’s Cynthia’s garchamp

I feel like in this game, the Elite Four actually earn their title as “Elite”

She’s insane. Hardest champion by far. Never struggled so much in a battle in my life. This is the one game, where it actually matters what Pokémon you choose to have on your journey.

I love the fact that the elite four is still difficult. This game made many changes, but the fact that made the elite four actually as difficult or harder than the original is such a beautiful idea and the fact they still kept the challenge is by far the best idea by them.

I was literally down to the revive-and-die strategy where I was just hoping one of my pokemon would survive with 1 hp due to affection. It eventually worked and I managed to land an ice beam taking down the Garchomp. My least graceful champion battle ever 😂

My mom started her Sinnoh Journey a couple months ago. Shes taking her time and she's about to battle Maylene. Her team at the moment is Prinplup, Dustox, Absol, Gyarados, Mismagious & Staravia. They're all mid 30s leveled so she hasn't lost a battle at all yet. Shes got a good attitude so far with her journey.

Say what you want about Affection and how it feels “cheaty” it does lead to some very good story moments in games. Like how my incineroar toughed out a hit that should have knocked it out during the ultra necrozma fight and managed to beat it the next turn. It felt like a proper moment from the anime to me.

I'd love to see Cynthia's Garchomp have Effection. I can just imagine: "Garchomp would not faint in front of Cynthia........just because". "Garchomp's willpower has caused your pokemon to faint" "Cynthia looks upset: Garchomp decides to Mega Evolve, it is now wise to turn off the game"

Flint's Drifblim has no attacking moves. It's moveset is Will-o-Wisp, Minimize, Strength Sap, and Baton Pass. Which is honestly scary, due to it baton passing to Infernape with upped evasiveness.

I swear the friendship mechanic is literally the only way to get anywhere close yo beating Cynthia without a full team of lvl80+ pokemon. I feel like it's the games way of rewarding you for having a well balanced team to carry you that far

I love how everyone got lucky with affection or a quick claw to win against that damn garchomp

Still remember how people thought Cynthia would be easy with fairy types and other variables now,. So Pokémon saw that as a challenge and made the league harder than ever before. You gotta love the irony.

I’ve never actually feared a Pokémon League before…every single one I’ve ever done was a first try. But idk man…the amount of people talking about how crazy this one is and the fact that they all have perfect competitive teams (correct natures, EVs, abilities, good held items, etc.) makes me a bit wary.

Cynthia's Garchomp has a counter for all of it's main weaknesses, it's berry weakens ice type moves, it knows poison jab, and dragon on dragon is basically a death sentence with her.

It's insane how they really buffed up the Elite 4. I remember the E4 being a real challenge when gen 1 came out. Gen 2 was really difficult cause I didn't understand the importance of held items and the level differences really got to me (not to mention not having access to most evolution stones). But after that, most E4 were really simple (not counting Cynthia because she was just beast mode). What they did to these remakes really makes me appreciate the challenge again. Sure it took them needing to use held items, have great coverage, AND have great IV/EV distributions, but that's still a challenge. Just feel bad for the kids that got the games and had tears against Cynthia without realizing her power.

If it wasn’t for the “affection” feature in this game, she could of easily wrecked us all the first time and probably more times.

This was easily the hardest elite four and I absolutely loved it. However I did not absolutely love being a bit underleveled and being unable to kill Flint's Drifblim before it minimized fully, used STRENGTH SAP, AND THEN BATON PASSED TO INFERNAPE. Either way though when I finally beat them I actually felt accomplished.

BDSP was my first ever Nuzlocke. Had a level limit. I'm honestly shocked I beat her. My Whiscash was the sole survivor with 3 HP. The elite 4 in this game is crazy.

I would love to see cynthia's origin story and rise to power as an anime..it would be fun to see a competent trainer work her way up the ladder.

Everyone has full IV, EV trained, and competitive natures, held items, etc, for the e4. It's actually so nice. Some real level of difficulty for people who are supposed to be the best battlers in the region not getting slapped around by a 10 year old

Can we appreciate Mikey for taking the time to post on his birthday and provide such quality content, happy birthday!

16:50 this was my exact reaction when i battled Cynthia, i read flame orb and immediately was like "please don't have guts" i still lost the first attempt and only won the second bc my lucario got dragon claw which i beat garchomp with

I love how everyone has these giant strategies to beating Cynthia and then there's me who uses Belly Drum Snorlax to sweep

I used like 20 revives in my battle with Cynthia, and eventually just kept trading out Empoleon and Togekiss to wear down the Garchomp’s PP. longest champion battle I’ve ever had

So happy to see Cynthia is just as brutal as I remember.

3:58 - "My love for my Pokemon make me Dutch." Gotta love the captions LOL.

Mikey:**sees Barry’s Snorlax** Also Mikey:**Vietnam War Flashbacks**

Ya know, they did a really good job with this E4. But if they really wanted to tilt the players? "Cythnia's Garchomp evaded the attack in time to her shout!"

Cynthia's garchomp has Max speed EVs, jolly nature, and Max speed ivs, so that's why it outsped.

I remember one time while fighting Cynthia it was down to her garchomp and my banette(my only pokemon left). The battle lasted for like 10-15 minuets and at the end I landed a shadow force against it,but it had rough skin causing damage to banette,and they both fainted,AND IT DIDNT COUNT AS A WIN!!! I felt so defeated after that and I didn't touch the game for like a week

I was shocked when Drapion outsped my Rapidash, and then I looked up and found that they were all perfect iv's, competitive ability, tiem and nature, and heavily ev-trained (perfect for Cynthia), so I started calculating the speed they actually had and made sure to level my hitters above those thresholds. But then ... I'm up with crobat against Hippowdon, switch out Crobat to bait an ice punch on my Empoleon tag-in, and got hit by an earthquake ... That's straight-up cheating, and I'm sad I didn't record it, because I couldn't believe this myself. I've been playing pokemon since the beginning, and this never happened, EVER, in a non-competitive environment. The drifblim honestly didn't pose much of a threat, I ohko'd it with my luxray, I believe, so it could never set up minimize.

I really like how hard the elite four is, the held items, moves, sometimes even switching strats, this is what an elite four should be instead of just higher level gym leaders and also Happy Birthday Mikey :D

Oh yeah, they buffed the hell out of Cynthia's Garchomp. It has perfect IVs and is fully EV trained (mostly speed and attack with some HP investment). It's not exactly a meta competitive build but it is still wildly powerful for a main-story play-through opponent. I saw an analysis that her gen 4 Garchomp would have to be scaled to level 80 to have this much speed and level 90 to have this much attack. (oh and the EVs and IVs apply to her whole team, and I'm pretty sure the E4 has some EVs too, but I don't think they are fully trained and still have random IVs.)

I didn’t beat her on the first try because her Garchomp’s Rough Skin ability knocked out my Snorlax (which was my last Pokémon). Cynthia is still such a threat even after all these years. It’s insane how well balanced her team is.

It is probably the toughest Pokémon league ever. But I still wouldn’t say it’s difficult if you know what you’re doing. It’s a pleasant surprise to see the Pokémon league not hold your hand for once

I remember fighting Cynthia without knowing her team and boy did I have a fun time with her Milotic. I didn’t have one good Grass type Pokémon or move to deal with it and it’s Marvel Scale. I legit almost LOST BECAUSE OF A LIZZO SERPENT.

Infernape, years after losing to Snorlax, came in with a comeback and beat Snorlax. This character development makes Zuko's arc look like child's play. Make way for the *real* fire bender, Zuko.

Cynthia: I am the hardest boss battle Volo and Giratina: You disappoint me

I honestly feel super bad for my friend because this game is her introduction to Pokémon for real. I always talk about it, but this is her first actual main series Pokémon game. I’m doing the best I can to help her out, but her limited knowledge on the game makes it so I not only give so much advice my throat is sore, but she has me making too many of the decisions when Pokémon should be just a fun thing for you to traverse through pretty normally and not have to worry about bs like the Gym Leaders and Pokémon League in this game

I LOVE this version of the Elite Four and Cynthia (and honestly all of the important story battles) because they made their teams engaging, competent AI, EVERY Pokémon has a held item that compliments them, beneficial natures, and that’s before you get to the rematches. Vastly superior battles to the originals and even Platinum. This needs to be the base they use for major fights in all Pokémon games going forward.

This is the first elite four I’ve seen that truly feels like they are the most powerful trainers They literally have strategies with held items and Flint even has HIDDEN ABILITY INFERNAPE This is unprecedented

I'm at the Pokemon League in this game, and I convinced myself that I can defeat the Pokemon League in one try, thanks to a technique my sister taught me (get to the last Pokemon, use Perish Song, then keep reviving). That did not go according to plan.

This Pokémon league was traumatic, first one I've ever lost first time although shout out to blue in pokemon blue. Cynthia's garchomp terrifying. Though I handicapped myself with no infernape, grass types and no one with earthquake

Pro Tip: If you have a Roserade with Toxic Spikes in that second E4 battle, use it. The sturdy Golem is no joke. Also, Golem didn't outspeed Mikey's Roserade because of Bulldoze. It's just really, *really* fast! It OHKO'd my entire team when Roserade couldn't kill it in one hit.

"Is this a Hidden Ability Infernape???" Fun fact, Gym Leaders and other "boss trainers" in this game were occasionally using Hidden Ability Pokémon since Gardenia's Turtwig and Roserade!

am i the only one who appreciates the water physics in this game? i love it

I feel bad for any child trying to beat the league. WHEN LITERALLY THE BOTS ARE ACTING LIKE WE ARE AT A COMPETITIVE POKÉMON COMPETITION….

Yeah that's definitely a faithful recreation Now everyone can experience the despair the original Gen 4 players felt fighting Cynthia

I love seeing so many veteran Poketubers struggling with the league because it makes me pumped to get there myself! I only have 5 mons (levels 51-56) and just earned badge 7: Infernape (Jolly) Roserade (Timid) Magnezone (Timid) Alakazam (Timid) Staraptor (Adamant) I'm struggling trying to find out which Pokemon should be number 6. I'm thinking Weavile or Mamoswine, but I've spent HOURS underground and caught more than 30 Sneasel but all have crappy natures and one I caught with Jolly nature DOESN'T KNOW ANY OF ITS ICE EGG MOVES!!! Really need to get something good to face Garchomp...

My Experience Through the Bdsp League was quite fun. I managed to Beat It In One Try,but the Champion Battle was Quite Close. My Team was: Burt The Torterra,Knowing Giga Drain, Earthquake, Rock Climb, and Crunch, with the Overgrow Ability,and While Holding A Big Root, and With a Naughty Nature (+ Atk, - Sp. Def) Stratus the Staraptor,Knowing Close Combat, Agility, Take Down,and Brave Bird,with the Intimidate ability, while Holding the Sharp Beak, and Having a Naughty Nature Kazza the Alakazan, Knowing Shock Wave, Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, and Grass Knot,with the Synchronize ability, while Holding the Leftovers, and A Quiet Nature (+ Sp. Atk, - Spd) Quaggers the Quagsire, Knowing Ice Beam, Earthquake, Waterfall,and Sludge Bomb, with the Damp Ability, while Holding the Lax Incense, and having a Rash Nature (+ Sp. Atk, - Sp. Def) Steelworker The Bronzong,Knowing Psychic, Flash Cannon, Rock Slide,and Metal Sound, with the Heatproof ability, while holding the Odd Incense, and having a Mild Nature (+ Sp. Atk, -Def) Dimitrescu the Frosslass, Knowing Avalanche, Crunch, Shadow Ball, and Thunderbolt, With the Snow Cloak ability, holding the Spooky Plate, and Having a Bashful Nature (Neutral) In the Cynthia Battle,I managed to Get Through All Of Cynthia's members up until Garchomp. It was Stratus and Dimitrescu Up against Cynthia's Terrifying Garchomp. Garchomp Outsped Dimitrescu,firing off an Earthquake which She Survived. She retaliated with Avalanche,which Did approximately 3 Quarters due to the Yache Berry,then Fainted from another Earthquake. I felt that I should Revive Quaggers,since she Had Ice Beam and would be able to tank an Earthquake. So I attempted to Sack Stratus. I revive Quaggers,and Stratus toughs out a Dragon Claw on 1 HP. fully heal Quaggers with a Full Restore,and Stratus Toughs Out a Dragon Claw On 1 HP AGAIN. I then decide to go for Brave Bird, expecting Stratus to be Ko'd. BUT,Stratus toughed out a 3RD Dragon Claw on 1 HP, and Ko'd Cynthia's Garchomp with Brave Bird. Stratus Then fainted,but I Still had Quaggers Alive,meaning I won. I was Astonished by Stratus's Performance at the end.

My team in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond would be Torterra, Staraptor, Houndoom, Gardevoir, Magnetzone, and Gyrados are around mid 65-66s level!

mikey: it's gonna go for a poison move also mikey: does not switch to flux the magnezone even though it is immune to poison(i know stealth has super effective moves and resists poison)

They also are perfect IV's (even where a special attacker has 0 att ivs and a physical attacker has 0 spatt ivs), and are EV trained and have the right natures, like cynthias jolly garchomp. Basically ILCA took the "pokmeon is too easy" to heart and just juiced up everything possible edit: ILCA is lit, gamefreak didn't do this

Bro even when i have a full Level 100 Team with Legendaries, Cynthia, and The Elite Four are HARD! I had to find the right strategy and kept healing my Pokémon when battling.

Good to see Cynthia still handing out L's like Poke Balls.

I beat Cynthia while being 4 levels under her Garchomp. I also used a less used team, Empoleon, Gastrodon, Roserade, Machamp, Froslass and Houndoom. Funny part is I originally used Staraptor but a Shiny Machoke appeared on victory road while I was farming and I KNEW I had to put this thing in the hall of fame. No guard dynamic punch rock slide is insane. I loved this team so much. I know some people use Roserade and Gastrodon but it’s mostly Garchomp and Luxray. This team is my favorite one.

I know the pain of your Weavile being outsped. Brought it out thinking easy dub. At that point I knew it had to be running a Jolly nature with IVs. They did everything to beef up this champion.

I just beat Cynthia on my first try and I felt like sharing it with somebody because I went from so nervous to so excited

This was my first main series game I played and I took 7 attempts to beat the league and now that I know this might be the hardest league I don’t feel as bad anymore

You were so lucky on the Flint fight, that Drifblim has minimize, baton pass, will-o-wisp, and strength sap. I spent what felt like an hour fighting Flint

The Elite 4 in brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl has perfect EV and IV, good items and strats. And they get even better during the rematches. They trully went the extra miles and made all the rematches and the Elite 4 in general much MUCH harder and competitively Good, they get good coverage moves and excelent items during the second rematch too.

20:48 just for future reference, Cynthia’s team in BDSP is competitively perfect down to the held items. Including perfect EVs perfect IVs, and hidden abilities, alongside competitive programming.

19:55 if its not 100 percent true its 50 percent true

I feel better now that I lost 5 times against Cynthia before beating her

first time meeting Cynthia: scream in happiness second time: smiling for 20 min third time: smiling for 10 min . . . 100th time: crying

22:58 This part always makes me laugh bc of the rollercoaster of emotions that went on with Mikey and Hemlock for 5sec

11:50 i believe it's max EV'ed to atk and speed too

Me after beating the E4 and Cynthia: "Oh my god that was no joke. Competitive ready teams with egg moves, hidden abilities, items galore and near perfect IVs and EVs. Man, even the poketubers will have a hard time with-" *remembering all the non-poketubers doing Nuzlockes with no idea what awaits at the end*

Gotta say, happy to see the main storyline battles becoming harder. One of my biggest complaints in recent years is that the main playthrough was too easy and didn't pose a proper challenge.

My theory / belief is... Cynthia, Volknar and Flint are the original three trainers to help Ronan with his Pok'edex. That's why they don't have a full set of Mons representative of their arena. They simply use the team they used the travel Sinnoh.

Finally got around to finishing this game and good lord it was tough. I really thought i was good because I did well with the elite 4. Little did I know Cynthia would whoop my ass 3x before I could beat her. I didn’t have enough revives. Note to self: there is NO SUCH THING AS ENOUGH REVIVES! This is one of the hardest battles EVER.

I found that treating it like a competitive battle and actually using stealth rock helped a lot. I was able to beat garchomp with intimidate strats but it still went through most of my team.

That Garchomp is the fastest thing in the series. I used my Gengar against it, and it out sped it, and one shot it as well

You did better than me, it took me a few tries to beat the League. I thought I could use brute force and power but they had good strategies that left me SHOCKED lol it was a fun challenge

I think it's perfectly appropriate for this League to be way harder. BDSP was clearly made for fans of the originals, if the overworld didn't give that away enough. It's a fair assumption to make that if you're playing this game in particular and you've beaten Volkner, that you probably know what you're doing and they can take the kid gloves off. I personally really appreciated how hard they made the League in these games. Seeing Aaron's Heracross burn itself with Flame Orb was a huge moment where I realized what the game was doing and got hyped for just how insane this was going to get. Of course, I'm a Shin Megami Tensei fan, so I'm used to brutal difficulty in my RPGs.

18:40 The moment you realize they gave her a fully EV trained Garchomp lol 🤣

“Oh they did the weird diamond and pearl thingys” is honestly probably the best way to describe these remakes in a nut shell

I beat her on my first try. She had her Garchomp with 2 or 3 sword dances up and was ready to sweep me. My Staraptor dodged the Poison Jab and hit its Brave Bird to win 😮‍💨

There should be an option to turn off affection battle effects. That way those of us who like it can keep it and everyone who feels like it’s cheating can play without it.

They gave the elite for max evs, pretty much perfect ivs, hidden abilities, and items. Man I'm actually gonna fail my nuzlocke at the end

Michael: "That was a foolish" Me: Miscalculation? Michael: "Mistake" Also when I was fighting Cynthia's Garchomp I was reviving as many pokemon as I can and sent out my Togekiss praying it out speed's her Garchomp it didn't but her Garchomp used swords dance and I got it with a crit affection dazzling gleam and OHKO'd it

I can't believe Mikey just dissed Chimecho, in my playthrough I sweeped 4 of Cynthia's pokemon (including garchomp) with chimecho.

😂😂😂😂😂😂 I was cracking up at around 18:30 to 20:00. Mikey’s reactions were genuinely surprised at the outcomes

Man, I love the Og gym challenges, and the fact that they made this pokemon game more difficult than sword and shield, makes it more intense and rewarding!

For as OP as I was going into the League with a team I thought was very good and well-rounded, I was quickly humbled by Cynthia.

24:10 Earthquake: AM I LITERALLY JUST A JOKE TO YOU

I GOT THE PARALYSIS 17:31 😂

Usually the remakes are easier than the original, but they really weren't messing around with this one. Gotta respect that they have a new weakness for Cynthia's ace Pokémon yet still managed to keep the fight just as hard, if not harder than the original

So my buddy did some math and Cynthia’s Garchomp has the speed stat of like an 80+ Pokémon, I ended up losing twice to her. I’m happy they finally gave us a tough league again lol

You can jump over these stones with a bike?! I didn't knew that!

Aaron's Drapion is a powerhouse. It has 2 moves that have high critical hit ratios, combined with its ability that raises the likelihood of moves becoming critical hits when attacking and its held item that boosts the critical hit ratio. Your Pokemon will almost always faint easily to Drapion.

I struggled against these guys a lot too. I was able to beat the elite four just fine (I lost to Flint once but that’s it). Cynthia, however, was a different story. I lost to her 5 TIMES before I finally won (and popped the heck off afterward).

I know it can feel like cheating when your pokemon dodges, or heals a status due to affection, but I always loved that addition cause it made it feel more immersive. I can easily imagine myself yelling at my pokemon to dodge then attack and it makes battles more fun rather than it just being "attack, get hit, attack get hit".

I hadn't heard anything about how tough they'd really made the League in this game, so I just went in with a team full of my favourites in the high 50's, didn't really think about coverage or anything..... man did I get my ass kicked hard. Took me two more tries and some serious editing of moves and items to make the team work. Taking this league on with no Fairy attacks is so hard. Dragonite, Tyranitar, Magmortar, Milotic, Garchomp, and Torterra sure looked cool in the hall of fame though lol

I had to resort to a cosmic power stored power psychic moonblast clefable, and I don’t even feel guilty.

When it came to her Milotic it was so tanky against my team I literally threw Blissey in and used reflect AND light screen and forced it to struggle LOL

We knew Cynthia was going to be a challenge but the rest of the elite four always surprises me!

I remember, after so many tries, I got super lucky when one of my last Pokémon somehow lived the Earthquake and Ice Beamed her Garchomp and it got frozen. She unfroze it by full restoring, but it gave me a chance to one shot it with one more Ice Beam. Most epic thing that happened in any Pokémon play through I’ve done.