Pokémon Champions could redefine Nintendo esports – but only if the full roster is present

Pokémon Champions is the upcoming competitive title that’ll redefine Nintendo’s most popular esport. Although it hasn’t been released yet, we know that Champions won’t feature every Pokémon at its initial launch, a sore spot for many longtime fans of the franchise.

There’s no shortage of popular Pokémon to pick, but with over 1,000 creatures in total, quite a few fan-favourites will likely be missing from the roster. For Pokémon Champions to blossom into the next step in Pokémon’s evolution on the competitive stage, it’ll need to offer a place for all of the distinct creatures Nintendo has created over the years.

The Pokédex is a sacred thing in the Nintendo community. Including every pocket monster in a game is an essential step towards perfecting it, and past titles that launched with a limited selection of Pokémon have often received backlash.

No Pokémon game on the Nintendo Switch offered a full Pokédex, and that trend doesn’t seem like it’ll be changing anytime soon for the mainline video games. As such, Pokémon Champions could become the only place where you can use all of your collected creatures for competitive battling.

Additionally, including a larger assortment of Pokémon will undoubtedly be beneficial for competitive play, as it means there will be more variety for team building. Not including a complete Pokédex is widely considered one of the franchise’s greatest downfalls in recent years, but Pokémon Champions offers an easy way for Nintendo to please both casual fans and prof Pokémon players.

The backlash in response to the removal of a complete Pokédex from the franchise was fierce. The most notable example is Pokémon Sword and Shield, which launched in 2019 with about 400 Pokémon to capture and trade. Generation 8 introduced the first set of mainline games to exclude over half of the existing roster, and the response from fans online was clear: they didn’t like this reduction.

Despite the backlash, Sword and Shield sold over 26 million copies, solidifying its place as one of the best-selling Pokémon games throughout the world. Due to its success, Game Freak seemingly decided that it would be fine to omit a large portion of the Pokedex from all future entries, most recently including Scarlet and Violet, along with Legends Z-A.

All of the games listed above have sold fairly well, but fan backlash remains strong in online spaces and from vocal influencers. Many Pokémon players want to see at least one title on the Nintendo Switch that offers access to the entire Pokédex, and the Pokémon Champions release date marks the perfect opportunity to mend this problem.

A complete Pokédex is the dream with Pokémon Champions, but there are also other ways that Nintendo can add variety to the combat. Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamaxing, and Terastallization will all be essential in diversifying matches, and luckily, all of the above have been confirmed to be available in Pokémon Champions via the new Omni-Ring device.

Alongside returning mechanics, it’d be fun to see some new variants of popular Pokémon or even a few extra mega evolutions to give players something fresh to explore. Pokémon Champions will make the biggest splash if it goes all out by offering both returning content and a host of new concepts to add uniqueness to each and every match.

There are many features that Pokémon fans want to see in Champions, but the most prominent is a complete Pokédex. Hundreds of creatures missing from Pokémon Champions is a recipe for disaster in the long term, so hopefully we’ll eventually be able to use any of the Pokémon collected in previous games.

Not only is a complete Pokédex great for combat variety, but it’ll also guarantee that players can send their favourite virtual pets into competitive matches. Pokémon Champions has the potential to be the next best thing for Nintendo’s competitive community, but it needs to feel complete to gain major traction.