You get to pick your first friend in Pokémon Champions as soon as you finish the introductory battle mission, and it’s much more expansive than you would imagine. While the traditional games in the franchise have us begin with one of the three regional starters, things are slightly different in this one.
Table of contents
All starter choices in Pokémon Champions
There are ten different choices to pick from your first draw, and you can select any one that you may like. The table below has a list of all of them, along with their types.
| Pokémon | Type |
|---|---|
| Charizard | Fire, Flying |
| Tyranitar | Rock, Gyranitar |
| Armarouge | Fire, Psychic |
| Palafin | Water |
| Pikachu | Electric |
| Lucario | Fighting, Steel |
| Gardevoir | Psychic, Fairy |
| Absol | Dark |
| Altaria | Dragon, Flying |
| Snorlax | Normal |
Who should you pick
None of the ten picks is either game-breaking or they are completely useless. If you love any of the 10, you can go with that one. If you want to mix-max, however, here are my top three recommendations.
- Gardevoir: Having a Pokémon that’s Fairy and Psychic can be a wonderful combination to enjoy for free. It also offers four moves that belong to four different element types. This allows you to hit the weakness of a specific Pokémon that you’ll find in the battle. While it’s not the tankiest of options, Gardevoir has an amazing Speed stat, which almost always means a first attack.
- Charizard: Having a Charizard with the Blaze ability for free is a great choice. It also offers Dragon-type attack moves from the start, which will be helpful in those early battles. Charizard, just like Gardevoir, has a great Speed stat, which is complemented well by its Attack.
- Tyranitar: This is one of the two choices you can pick from the Dark type. It also offers Rock, Dragon, and Fire-type moves from the get-go, which is one of the best combinations to have in my books. Tyranitar also comes with the Sand Stream ability, which is also pretty useful to have in my books. This is a really solid, no-nonsense pick that has more strengths than weaknesses.
As an honorable mention, Pikachu can also be considered. Pikachu isn’t among the strongest starters to select. However, you’ll get five additional Pokémon when you choose your starter. You can check out the complete list here.
Pikachu happens to have the strongest of all starter squads. If you don’t care much about the starter alone and just want to roll out with the best squad, Pikachu is a viable consideration.
