Ranking EVERY Hoenn Gym Leader Competitively.

Horse Council Merch available until end of December

Gameplay Footage from Kapoownug's Archive:

Pokemon Gym Leaders are usually rather trivial on the first playthrough.

In the post-game rematches though, they can put up quite a fight.

Which of the Hoenn Gym Leaders would be the best in a real competitive setting? Let's answer such a question.

This will be for Pokemon Competitive Doubles rather than Pokemon Competitive Singles.

0:00 Intro
01:35 8
03:10 7
05:06 6
07:14 5
09:04 4
11:46 3
13:28 2
17:03 1
18:47 Bonus

#competitivepokemom #pokemonshowdown #pokemonemerald

[jimothycool]

Disregard me calling Sitrus Berry OK - it's horrible actually.

Only heals 30 Flat HP in Gen 3.

[GeatShadw]

The best Hoen Gym leader has to be Flannery as she uses an influential member of the highly praised Horse Council.

[clarkkent]

you missed the vision @ 4:33. so what will happen is rapidash clicks bounce and *then* torkal clicks explosion. flannery cooked so hard with that

[gallae]

8:29 when did people stop saying “resto chesto”. we used to be a real country

[NinaNinaM]

Running Focus Punch on Blissey is so funny, it's hard to come up with a worse move to run on a Blissey in doubles, you might as well just have 3 moves. Whoever was in charge of designing these teams was weirdly obsessed with Focus Punch.

[tobiasgund]

Surf in Gen 3 doesn't hit your partner and does only half damage on both of the opponents, so that is not suuuper strong

[kobra]

12:29 Missed opportunity to say "Trocius is atropius", Jim. I will be sending a letter to the horse council post-haste.

[nilsbt]

Roxanne, who has The Police on her side, ends up as #1 in this very important competition. Many people say that this is big government at work, and while I'm usually not one to don the tin foil hat, I have to say that these allegations have some Sting. I hope we can still count on the journalistic integrity of Mr Cool in the future to give us an unbiased account of the current state of Hoenn.

[JackieJackJackerJacky]

6:16 Doesn't Sitrus only restore 30HP flat in Gen 3?

[PikaBubbles]

Jimothy, assuming you are the one making your thumbnails, your drawing are getting better!

[al]

ranking hoenn gym leaders by the number of horses they own

roxanne: 2 (nosepass, first geodude but not the second)
brawly: 1 (makuhita, don't forget that sumo wrestlers are raised in stables, do you know what else is raised in stables? damn right)
wattson: 1 (magneton)
flannery: 2 (numel and camerupt, we used to think that torkoal is a horse but recent research suggests that it is a different animal called a "turtle")
norman: 1 (spinda)
winona: 5, clear winner of the hoenn horsepetitve pokemon, every single team member is a certified horse
tate-liza: 3 (solrock, lunatone, xatu)
juan: 2 (whiscash, crawdaunt)

[chess_fella]

Imagine if Jimothy Cool was a gym leader.

[MissinDaSylveon]

1:55 you know I still don’t understand why slam wasn’t buffed or removed to this day. It’s unreasonably terrible with 80 power and 75 accuracy throughout every generation.

[Vaithegamingwarrior]

...Okay.
Something I feel is needed to be called to attention:
According to Bulbapedia, Surf hits all opposing Pokémon, and not your ally
I realize I'm basically going "Um, AkShUaLlY" here, but I felt it needed to be called to attention here because the whole Surf hitting your ally thing wasn't until Gen 4 with Diamond and Pearl

[MishKoz]

I never even realized that you could rematch all the gym leaders in the doubles format. I know what I'm doing on my next Emerald playthrough

[Gio.L.L.]

Flannery is the best because she's pretty, i will not discuss this matter any further.

[ShinyPeeko]

15:50 "then you skill swap giving slacking truant"

[IsuKen]

You don’t have to be the first gym leader. Use Geodude and Nosepass, you don’t care if it’s a fair fight.

[nguyenforthewin]

Surf actually doesn’t hit your partner Pokemon in Gen III, so Politoed wouldn’t benefit from it through Water Absorb.

[handanyldzhan]

I always liked to think that Roxanne is actually one of the strongest gym leaders in terms of ability. Every gym leader holds back, so being the first in the way isn't something to hold against her. She takes her job seriously, is noted for her knowledge and intellect, and in the anime, she had some neat tactics.

Bugsy from Johto is also cut from the same cloth. He loves his bugs, and knows what he's talking about to the point of being a walking encyclopedia.

Conversely, Clair comes off as an unqualified nepo baby despite being the last Johto gym leader. Being just a sore loser like Whitney (who IS actually talented despite her ditzy exterior) is one thing. But then she sends you off to the Dragon's Den to take a simple ass quiz, and when you pass said quiz like any trainer worth their salt, the bimbo just blurts out that she never passed it. Even if she didn't care about the entire "power of friendship" stuff, she could have simply pretended to believe that it was the most important thing, if only because it was the common consensus. Or she could have at least shut up to not let it be known that she's such a weak and ignorant excuse of a "trainer". Oh, and one of the questions is something along the lines that "which is the most important? A) Strategy B) Training C) Cheating". Both A and B are considered acceptable answers, but what does it make Lance's idiot cousin, who failed? No prizes for guessing.