Rating Every Pokémon Team I Used in 2021

I played Pokémon a lot in 2021. Here are my personal rankings for the 12 teams I used this year!

I make Pokemon videos, such as Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl content, Pokemon Legends Arceus content, Pokemon playthrough challenges, Top 10 or Top 5 Pokemon videos, Pokemon Talk, Pokemon Meme Review, and lots more! If you're any level of Pokemon fan, subscribe for videos you're sure to love!

Edited by Katie Rose!

#Pokemon #pokemonswordshield

[Lordquarl]

"Sorry Grunty Boi"
"It's fine you're just an idiot"
Man I died laughing

[deoxysdude]

mandjtv with a beard is such a godsend, he’s like an alolan one but also shiny, plus it suits him a lot

[purpleraider]

I like how both the gym leader playthroughs were in Gen 6 and both the Team Sky Playthroughs were in Gen 3. I expect this will change this year but its still fun

[BKRproductions]

Another point for the Grunty Boi team is that Grunty Boi was the first to discover that Drowzee is a Pokemon. (if you get it you get it)

[pomik]

Team sky grunts can technically use any Pokémon as long as it has levitate or they have a balloon as a held item.






I think.

[Godzillawolf]

Go Team Sky!

You should do a playthrough as Team Pixiedust. It'd be hilarious. Especially given knowing you, you'd most likely do it in character and I find that incredibly amusing.

[masteretainturmakan]

I'd love to see more Grunty Boi Plays too! His Team Rocket playthrough was so fun to watch!

[Dzone]

I actually quite like the long form content - so multiple videos for 1 playthrough and then one summary one on the main channel. Maybe even skip the summary - as long as it stays somewhere between 3 to 5 videos, I quite like it.

[HunterTube-ulcs]

Beyond the Escavalier sounds like an awesome look at Escavalier’s life.

[ViridianMask]

I think I only did 5 playthroughs this year: Shield, Emerald, Fire Red Friendlocke, Leaf Green and Brilliant Diamond.

Emerald was probably my least favourite of these, which is odd seeing as I used Swampert, Hariyama, Flygon, Armaldo, Cacturne and Banette, some pretty cool Pokémon. Maybe the Physical/Special attacks being based on type killed it for me, I don’t know. Might replay Alpha Sapphire with this team in the future.

My Shield playthrough is probably 4th. I used Cinderace, Appletun, Mr Rime, Polteageist, G-Slowking and Rapid Strike Urshifu. Aside from Cinderace, I really enjoyed using these guys (especially since Polteageist and Slowking were shiny), but the team was pretty unbalanced. Especially Urshifu, I had to take it off my team at times to give myself any form of challenge.


My Brilliant Diamond playthrough sits at around the middle. Infernape was great overall, but I wished I had leaned into the mixed attacker approach more. Lumineon wasn’t great, but it was super fun when I switched it into a water move so Storm Drain would activate. Honchkrow hits hard, but usually gets oneshot before it can do anything. Froslass is a really good special attacker and was pretty useful for the run. My Shiny Rampardos hit like a truck but struggled to take a hit, and despite not using Shiny Dialga a lot, it did great when I used it, unsurprisingly. However, I will probably never shiny hunt in a first playthrough ever again.

Leaf Green is the runner up. I decided to switch my starter out for Victreebel, who was good but barely got any poison moves. Ninetales could flamethrower and not much else, but I really like Ninetales so its cool. Starmie was probably the MVP since it had wide coverage and hit a lot of things hard. Kangaskhan was decent I guess. I happened to get a Marowak with a Thick Club so he hit everything super hard, but was slow and weak to special attacks. Finally, Dragonite was pretty strong.

Lastly, my Fire Red Friendlocke wins for how fun the league ended up being. The team was very unbalanced, having a Vileplume and a Tangela on the same team, but the rest was great. Graveler took hits like a champ (and I would have used Explosion on Lance’s Dragonite if it didn’t get oneshot by Arbok), Arcanine was just consistantly good for the whole run, Jolteon could hit hard and fast, but somehow, Butterfree ended up being the MVP, thanks to Sleep Powder/Compound Eyes. Everyone was in the voice chat when we beat the league and it was great, even if only Jolteon and Butterfree survived.

[PlayGame-wvjd]

Never realised how many play throughs michael has done this year

[ThePureSynergist]

This really was a great year for MandJ content. Every play through was a banger. Just love watching any of the playthroughs. They’re all so good and unique.

[r.j.penfold]

I actually really liked the Bug team, cuz at the end you came out on top and did eventually win. It was cool to see and to be reminded how many cool bugs got introduced in Unova.

[cullenhutchison]

RIP Azrael. Absol is so cool and is by far my favorite Pokémon, but I cannot ignore its lack of battle prowess due to it lack of speed or bulk, as well as not having a secondary typing for extra STAB or to help in a monotype run. Mega Absol is at least pretty fast, but it still doesn't really hit hard enough to justify its lack of bulk.

[zcythegeist]

The best thing we got this year is Michael's beard.

[danpitzer]

This year I used a Roserade entirely because you showed their potential.

I ended up feeling dirty, and only let her fight last, because she murdered everything. Didn't matter what type it was, she murdered it. Blood soaked little rose.

[henryheisel]

Pretty incredible how far you have gotten in just one year cant belive the sun and moon no catching was a year ago wish you luck for 2022

[bryanbravo]

i swear MandJTV looks good with a beard it simply looks magnificent

[NJMiguess]

Therapist: Bearded Mikey isn't real, he can't hurt you

Bearded Mikey:

[Lycan]

Hey, Michael!

While I agree with you on BDSP, I've decided to make them more interesting for me, so I've been doing a Team Sky playthrough of Brilliant Diamond! Despite the chosen game, it's actually really fun.

I haven't beaten it yet, but my team is Gyarados, Drifblim, Togepi (it will be flying type eventually), Swablu, Honchkrow, and Crobat. Yes, I had to specifically hunt for Murkrow and Togepi, but Murkrow didn't give me any trouble. Togepi, on the other hand, took almost two hours to get, because 5% encounter rate. Despite all of that, I'm really having fun with this team!