Is New Cynthia the Strongest Pokemon Trainer Ever?

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have not only reawakened a sleeping giant, but may have also created the strongest Champion yet. What makes Cynthia so strong?

[JPRPokeTrainer]

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans, but regardless of where you are I’m thankful you’re here all the same :)

[BadBoiFilms]

We all remember facing her for the first time, seeing spiritomb and going “WHAT IS THAT!?”

[_medusas_wrath]

Cynthias humbleness is one of her strongest character traits. I love how the introduces herself as a trainer and not the freaking champion. She really is the strongest champ- not only pokemon-wise.

[Zactoshi]

Pianos have never sounded so terrifying.

[amwolfmusic]

As a person who has played DPPt so many times and can just run through the Cynthia battle there with ease. I walked into that champion room with some kind of swagger and left on a stretcher.

[crashicle]

My friend instantly regretted saying "this remake is way easier" and just got beaten by Cynthia with only 2 of her Pokemon.

[MahenS_R]

If she is this hard in this game, you best believe she will be harder in gen 5 remakes if they happen. It will make going into houses into Undella town a lot scarier.

[mini]

Bdsp has the strangest difficulty curve ever, the entire game up to the e4 is the easiest the series has ever been, but then the e4 and cynthia have these insane competive teams. its wild

[ZachaRicO]

I took on Cynthia yesterday in Brilliant Diamond, and I wound up losing. But not only is Cynthia's team plenty strong even on a first run, but she battles so intelligently that I honestly can't complain. After all the other Switch games provided challenges that were decent at best, having a truly challenging Pokemon game makes me extremely happy.

Oh, and just to be clear: it's not just Cynthia who battles intelligently. Several other trainers, particularly in the late-game, also use impressive strategies. They didn't make much of a difference in difficulty, but the fact that they actually used strategy made it impressive all the same.

[Parleetxt]

I played shining Pearl as a nuzlocke. I’ve played a lot of nuzlockes before. But never blind on an official game. I didn’t look anything up, didn’t look at movesets or anything. Although I vaguely remembered a lot of Diamond & Pearl’s trainers & Pokemon.
However I managed to technically tie against Cynthia. She swept my entire team with her milotic. Luckily I managed to get Lucario and Spiritomb out of the way. So she had 4 mons left and I only had my snorlax. Her milotic couldn’t really do much against me, so she spammed recovers and ice beams to get freezes. Thank god I had belly drum and leftovers on my snorlax. I swept the next three Pokemon away. (I wouldn’t have been able to kill lucario or spiritomb, so that was lucky). Her Garchomp was last. She pressed dragon claw and I lived with 27 hp. I used body slam and the garchomp was a One-Hit-KO. But due to Rough Skin, which I didnt know it had, my snorlax went down too.
I beat all her 6 Pokemon, but still whited out. Actually, it was the best nuzlocke experience I could’ve had.

Edit: thx guys <33

[egbert-_-]

This was actually one of the funnest battles in YEARS, no more sweeping in one hit or spamming attacks… it was really well done. To an extent I felt like Volkner and actually got excited for a battle after a long time!

[pigfish]

People don't realise that D/P's Cynthia was extremely brutal, simply because of how hard it was to level, but the fact that the jump of levels from the victory road to the E4 was so drastic. and Cynthia is another level jump on top of that!

[ErikCPianoman]

Her team is intense if you're not over-leveled. Her Milotic is so bulky with Marvel Scale and with her spamming recover and full restores (she has at least 4 of them). One of my battles against her I struggled it to death because I literally had nothing left on my team that could take it out. Also her Garchomp out-sped and OHKO 4 of my Pokemon.

Been a long time since I didn't just bulldoze over the champion/elite four in a Pokémon game (of course battle is on set and no healing items in battle).

[Alvaro-qzqk]

You forgot to mention, Cynthia can use more Full Restore than other trainers, which at this level is very relevant

[sunflow]

People love her because of her personality, which is understandable. She's so sweet to everyone and it's obvious why her pokemon respect her.

[arkekkers]

I can’t believe one of the biggest ways to make Cynthia dangerous as hell in the remakes was just to give her pokemon held items, THAT’S how you know how well balanced her team. Not to mention as well giving a lot of her pokemon set-up moves like Nasty Plot and Swords Dance (they made garchomp nastier than the original with this move).

[lock]

When you made that video anout Leon being the strongest Champion I completely agreed when just comparing his team with Cynthia’s old team. However after see what ILCA did to Cynthia’s team, she is for sure the strongest champion in the games and easily has the best team. Leon’s team with the Rilaboom is still very good and well built but Cynthia having items, perfect EVs and hidden abilities really just makes her team incredible

[fdfivjp]

I dunno, what ILCA smoked, when they made rematch team for all trainers, but they deserve the biggest compliment.
Hopefully, they will have some influence in later titles.

[rotcalex]

The #1 thing I was comcerned was them nerfing her, yet they made her reach her final form.

Amazing how giving pokemon items makes things more intresting (reminder that in the entirety of SwSh there are 0 held items by NPCs)

Lucario being Garchomps bodyguard is very fitting. He basically covers everything Garchomp cant. (Personally Lucario was toughest for me because I nothing for it...also her Spiritomb baton passed double minimize to it 😖)

Gastrodon and Milotic just being monster tanks is great.

Seriously, her team is damn near perfect and that makes me happy.

Long live the Queen!

[benny]

Props to the creators for making the champ fight like a champ