Best and Worst Pokémon Gym Leaders

all right everybody my turn hit it hello everyone and welcome to the first of hopefully many hijackings of my husband's channel now some of you may be wondering why have i disposed of the man i love in mysterious and possibly dangerous ways because a crime has been committed that's why the crime of not talking enough about pokemon and that's where i come in i've been playing pokemon since 1997. i have at one point or another owned every single pokemon title i have more plushies than is probably healthy and i am the queen of pokemon in this household yeah this channel is late to the pokebandwagon but i'm here to fix that with today's non-traditional list the best and worst gym leaders slash island challenge captains from the main series games i'm doing it this way because i'm here to shake things up and since hubby kins is known for his countdowns imma do it my way i'm going to lay out who i think are the best and worst from each generation of the main games only i will be basing my judgments based on personality difficulty in the context of the games the pokemon slash move sets they have design of both the leader and the gym interactions outside of battle reward and representation across all versions unfortunately the anime will not play into the selection since a i only ever watched to johto and b the leaders are very different from their game counterparts so as much as i would love to talk about sabrina misty brock celen i'm not including anime appearances i'll talk about the best first and then the worst and hopefully i can do a good enough job that i won't get a lynch mob outside our apartment again so without any further ado grab your free potion from your pc kiss your mama goodbye register your bike and let's do this thing i don't think anyone is really going to be surprised who the best kanto gym leader is but i'm here to do a job that i assigned to myself and i'm going to do it right blue is the 8th gym leader of kanto in the generation 2 games their remakes and weirdly the let's go games so he totally counts cerebe.net agrees with me too yeah he's a pretty good gym leader when you go fight him in the rematches and let's go mega charizard because of course but he truly shines in the generation two games just like when he was champion he made fighting through everything you have to go through worth it he's still just as arrogant and jerky as before but the two years since his defeat at the hands of red have mellowed him out a little he has matured though not enough to not abandon the gym and leave trainers hanging all the time i love gym leaders in battles that don't stick to a particular type or style of pokemon so him bringing out his old buddies from your adventure with him through gen 1 just oh it stirs my soup y'all and while the gym is a little bland lego blocks dude are you emmet in disguise or something he more than makes up for it with his personality for better or worse his pokemon selection and his growth throughout the games mega charizard why is it always charizard [Music] grass types get a bad rap they're weak to five things on their own and even more when they are commonly paired with poison type before the physical special split they were almost a joke the leader who did not help that perception was erica design wise she's fine she's lovely and soft-spoken and cute and whatever but when you stack her up against the other forces of personality that are the rest of the kanto gym leaders it's like erica who let's look at what we know she's a famous flower arranger because that's a job it's japan don't question it she may be a little narcoleptic or just affected by the fumes that she has going around her gym she has only girl trainers in her gym and she only collects attractive pokemon and i hate her now i know i'm not supposed to look at the anime but the trait of no boys allowed in her gym actually does transfer over to her gym trainers also honey my pokemon are solely of the grass type you got a victory bell vileplume gloom jump puff shiftery roserade fire solely my fanny maybe i should get you a dictionary also thanks for the super weak tm mega drain and the low pptm giga drain super helpful when i was replaying heart gold soul silver i can't tell you how many times i forgot about her she's that bland and then when i found her i remembered oh yeah she's an anti-y chromosome fiber next [Music] generation two's crystal version was my favorite game of all time for 18 years until fire emblem dimitri's house i mean three houses stole that title i have three copies of the remake games i still play them generation two is my bae fight me so who is my favorite gym leader from my favorite generation is it the sweet steel type leader who tends to stick pokemon is it the dignified old veteran who has let his heart freeze like his team nope it's the ghost-loving pseudo-cryptozoologist 4th gym leader morty quick morty you gotta turn into a car now i'm ready for the people wondering what the heck i'm thinking ari he only has one ghost type family he should at least have a miss drivers or something and to that i say i agree but that's literally the only bad thing about him unlike some other gym leaders who are kind of a bs level of challenge [Music] uh the morty's challenge comes from strategy instead of flat-out difficulty or poor planning or design ghost types only have two weaknesses dark type and themselves and poison has psychic and ground type now the likelihood of you having a viable dark type is nearly non-existent you could have a haunter or gengar of your own but that would leave you vulnerable as with a psychic type and in the remakes his pokemon have levitate so there goes the ground type morty despite his simplicity makes you think about what you're going to do to beat him the only other gym leader in johto who i think does that is claire but she's a bitter betty and can't take a loss so morty takes the ethereal cake and that's just his pokemon his design is very good lending him an error of mystery and his gym is designed well too from a befuddling invisible wall puzzled in the original to a candlelit precarious walk in the remake you get a sense of moreness with him he's even described as the mystic seer of the future something you really don't see from a ghost type leader all that often usually it's reserved for leaders like sabrina olympia and titan liza not a ghost leader he's just fascinating he's an archaeologist he loves his city he's knowledgeable he's a fair challenge and all around he's just a swell guy it almost makes up for the oh no okay y'all get ready for the tea on this pink haired pig first off let's start with the only positive quality i think she has the gym itself the shrubberies and walls are in the shape of a clefairy cute clever moving on i hate her first off she's another anti-white chromer for her gym trainers guys can't be beautiful or cute too because i've seen some drag queens and they are prettier than my entire existence ugh whatever they're all pretty blase dot anyways i can clean them up with just a couple scratches and some extra cash from their meowth no big then we get to miss prim and pointy piggy tails herself and god have mercy on your save file her clefairy has metronome which is of course a few flavors of bull but if r jesus is on your side you can skate by just fine clefairy is not the problem almost forgettable but then [Music] let me set the stage it's early 2000 and your wee little seven-year-old ari playing her new pokemon game you picked a cute little fire mouse that evolved into a fire weasel you have a pidgeotto because you loved pidgeot from when you played red you have a ghastly because your friend promised to trade with you for a gengar later you just swept through whitney's entire gym all your pokemon are level 16 through 19. you are feeling good she has a fairy no biggie bye-bye then it happens roll out this son of a carrot stick cow has roll out why was it a super effective hit normal is not super effective on michael lava it's not super effective on anything everyone is down i never lost mom why did i die yeah see roll out was a brand new move in generation two and no one knew what type it was going into this gym it's a normal gym not freaking rock tight because why on peller's green alley tastica would a normal type gym leader have a rock type signature move it was perhaps the most unfair thing to ever happen to pokemon at that point then of course this bovine has stopped which has the chance to make you flinch and it hurts even more if you've used minimize attract which makes your male pokemon next to useless because you can't have lesbian pokemon and milk drink which means that even if you somehow survive roll out enough to hit miltake a couple times it could still heal itself i hate her i hate the incredibly pretty girl and then she has the flopping ovaries to start crying and almost deny me my badge it took me no joke 11 tries to win and then she couldn't give me my badge i'm the one who should be crying give me my money and let me leave i think i popped a blood vessel give me a minute if disney has an unhealthy relationship with the dead mother society then japan has an unhealthy relationship with the missing sperm donors club dads are sometimes mentioned but never seen until now yeah this is the predictable choice but norman changed the game in a lot of ways it was the first time you had a second parrot what the first time that items were a prominent part of the gym's layout and the first good normal gym we got low bar but still norman is different and that at least earns some sort of recognition but why the best because not only is his gym structured differently and would not have anything like it repeated until galar's challenges not only is his team challenging in a good way not only is the gym's design actually really elegant in the auros remakes but this fight is personal norman is the first gym leader you feel personally obligated to be i mean blue in the second gen kinda but that's like secondhand obligation because it's your dad he tells you to go away and come back stronger he wants you to be better he wants you to come at him with everything you've got and when you do he has that happy sad pride thing that all good fathers have when you've succeeded or surpassed them or you could take in a completely different direction he uprooted your life moved you to a little town two routes away from where he works tells you to go away and doesn't spend any time with you or your mother he literally ditches your mother for the meteor shower even though it's kind of an anniversary thing rude beating him could be satisfying like you're taking out your aggression on him or use him as a proxy for your own parents norman like most normal types is up for interpretation do with him what you will [Music] there was no need for this guy to be here why why emeralds why did you take away steven put wallace in his place and then give us one there was no reason whatsoever he's really kind of the red-headed stepchild here and he's being poked at because of a bad decision on the developer's part but i can't get over it i really can't juan was a mistake this floppish floozy flirty flap gets on my nerves the leaders before him are all interesting and diverse and when you get to him and you hear there's a different water gym leader you get excited thinking you'll get something new nope it's basically just a mega above wallace with a casanova complex his team is love disc really can't even get a free heart scale useless celio and wiscash okay pretty decent all right all right crawdant oh yeah boy now we talking water dark whoa but why for all that is holy doesn't he have a hoenn based trunk pokemon this region is 73.648 water what the actual atlantis game freak my reasons i admit are kind of superficial he's the product of a bad judgment call emerald would have been just fine without replacing steven without moving wallace up and without juan if juan didn't exist this spot would go to winona because she's kind of bland but since he does exist congratulations one is somehow worse than you little known fact thanks to my wonderful hubby and his bestie luna corva i have become incredibly interested in a new form of entertainment professional wrestling it has action drama ham violence ham man diapers mystery and did i mention ham to those of you who say it's fake so are movies and tv shows so if y'all can stand in line for seven hours to get tickets to the next marvel movie i can watch two sweaty beefcakes throw themselves around in a square okay okay anyways you've probably deduced that i mean none other than crash or wake what makes him the best because not only does he embody the new physical special split to its fullest he embodies the spirit of wrestling to its fullest water was just a special type before gen 4. so the introduction of physical water moves was a pivotal and a godsend to certain prior pokemon like crawdaunt for alligator and poliwrath and crasher wake puts these new advantages to good use with a mix of both physical and special moves making sure that both sides advantages and disadvantages are taken care of his team in platinum is especially vicious with the resilient quagsire that knew yawn his gyarados which is normally a physical monster anyways and his signature floatzel with icefang that could the grass type that you would need in order to make a dent on that quagsire crash awake is about fun he doesn't take himself too seriously he's excited to battle any challenger that comes his way he encourages you when you're doing well and when he's beaten he'll just say that he wants more that's the spirit of wrestling you don't always win but you have a lot of fun doing it and putting on a show then you get up and do it again win or lose even other generations know he's amazing as there are references to him in other games he's even based on real life luchadores especially frey tormenta and in my opinion the legendary el santo crusher wake's personality and energy put him as the best of cinno his excellent team are just icing on the cake oh by the way did i mention that he goes in alone to make sure bomb threat was cleared this dude is hardcore generation four is remembered mostly for the physical special split arguably the best villain team that we've ever gotten and the first dark and ghost type legendaries at least those are the positive traits that people remember one of the negative traits that folks remember though is fontina this french fancy is easily the most difficult gym leader in the region and i'm not sure whether or not she was supposed to be she's a ghost type gym leader who isn't all obsessed with dead things cool and she loves participating in contests alright a gym leader you can interact with outside of the gym testing the waters are we game freak but that's where my compliments end fontina is insanely tough to beat first off generation 4 seems to have a similar problem to generation 2 and that leveling up was a little tricky so unless you grind yourself into the ground you are likely going to be under leveled or underpowered for this fight what's more she uses the new physical special split to her advantage and unlike crash or wake she doesn't make it very fair for those who don't know ghost used to be a physical type and those of us who were going into diamond and pearl raw were floored when our super beefy defensive pokemon were being swept away by the ghost type moves then each of her pokemon have a surprise we weren't prepared for drifloon's aftermath took down pokemon who barely managed to make a dent in it gengar had levitate so those of us who were banking on using ground type moves to take advantage of that poison subtype were sol and miss mages y'all i literally had to fight her five times before i managed to take her down and every single time my team was swept by this wicked witch of the worst shadow ball it has 80 power which is already pretty hefty for a third gym but it also has a 20 chance of lowering your special defense so if you manage to survive one you sure as heck ain't survive it again but ari i hear you bleat why is she so terrible i'll tell you she's so smug i could handle the strong pokemon in the tacky fashion but her attitude in the games always came off as the stereotypical's french superiority finally you have arrived yeah lady maybe if your elevators moved faster you wouldn't have to wait for the peasant incidentally fontina the hot home gym leader also happens to be a contest expert and you may ask yourself how do i know this well i am fontina a little full of yourself there aren't you sweets and uh so it shall be that you challenge me but i shall win because that is what the gymnast does no not on my watch lady okay maybe that is what a gym leader does what do i know [Music] gen 5 is the middle child generation it's the region time kind of left behind which is sad the story is great the rivals are pretty boss and go along with the themes unova finally gave bug pokemon some friggin respect and oshawa exists to that end though i only ever hear about two gym leaders maybe three and neither of them were my choice for this list so who is it who is special enough to get over this slump [Music] nobody is going to agree with me on this but hear me out roxy was the gym leader i was waiting for a lot of previous gym leaders tried to give off the air that they were tough and we shouldn't mess with them like volkner or brawley but i don't believe them as much as i believe in roxy if joan jett and shirley ann manson had a white-haired baby that got dimension hop to unova bam it's roxy she's the first poison gym leader we've had since koga and she just oozes the part well koga and janine whatever her outfit and attitude wouldn't pin her as anything else even her pokemon in all three difficulties suit her to a t to be honest her pokemon are the weakest part of the gym with only one poison type from the unova region really no rubbish or did the controversy catch up to you and you all realized how stupid it is but i don't really care because they aren't bad just nothing special the rest of her whole existence is her gym trainers are her bandmates she's singing when you walk in her gym is an underground punk rock club from the manchester scene or cbgb in the late 80s it was a missing part of the new york city inspired region and i'm so so so so happy she was included aside from being balls manglingly difficult or just kind of offensive the worst thing you can be in a pokemon game is forgettable and even though the whole region is kind of forgettable which sucks i can at least give you a rundown of most of the gym leaders basic white boys back streets back all right first black gym leader cherry bomb i'm fabulous supermodel and motivational speaker money money money must be funny pilot with awkward hair and cannons baby durgan champion dragon hey you're like dewaterman did any of you notice who i was missing anyone yeah the ice guy nothing against him he's just kind of there as leader seven he has one super cool moment where he can see the shadow triad where no one else can see them that's kind of neat but he's so quiet and doesn't really interact with you much nothing stands out he's jim yay another ice puzzle his design an all-blue kabuki outfit is that it i don't even know and i feel bad for dismissing it but after price and candace he's really kind of lackluster bryson is honestly more charismatic once he gives up his gym and serves as your on on-again off-again co-star in the pokestar studios movies as bryce and man and mecha cop how a stoic guy like that pulls off such goofy roles i'll never know yeah this entry isn't as vitriolic as i have been but sometimes just blah leads to more blah sorry fellas i'll try and be more pissy next time i have a soft spot for children i really do i participated in community junior theater for over a decade i was a substitute teacher for years i worked in juvenile corrections i was even in the credential program to become a full-fledged teacher i love kids and i'm excited to eventually get to be a mom so when i see a kid or in this case a pair of siblings embody what i hope and pray my child or children will be like it makes my day clermont is a hard-working prodigy and a pillar of the lumiose community along with being a doting big brother and a trainer passionate about recognizing the pokemon's strength not just the trainers and i adore this little pseudo babu and his little sister oh so cute clemat's team is pretty balanced and the kalos edition is absolutely brilliant i love helioptile and heliulisk i swear they saved my life on my kalos run so to see him use heliolisk made me very happy he does get a couple points off for the amulga though stupid flank shock squirrel i must admit that x and y are the games i've actually played the least not because i dislike them but because they got overshadowed by other things going on in my life when i first got them and omega ruby and alpha sapphire but clemont is the one gym leader i remember with sheer clarity and i have to give a few bonus points for the inclusion of bonnie not very many gym leaders have a manager slash valet sideman throughout the whole gym which is a cute and very intelligent addition to the gym sometimes i have a little bit of trouble telling which one of them is the genius hey wait where are these kids parents who lost their kids okay i said i'd try and be pissy for the next one but honestly olympia ain't worth it she's so so existent she's functional she takes up that space and has weird hair oh what's that an interesting trait better give her a stupid signature pokemon so far into the game really guys a meow stick after like three battles with callum or serena caleb callum california we know it's weak sauce give us something better was malamar too interesting of course that's the reason this lady is boring teleport switches in a little pocket dimension woo been there done that can i get a refund on this movie it's boring boring alola is a little hard to judge since you don't usually directly fight the leader you go through their weird trial and then fight the totem pokemon which granted the captain usually either trained or had a hand in training so how do you judge who is the best of the alola gym leaders when they don't really have them personality not everybody has one yes plastique and we will get to that one later but right now i'm going to talk about the perkiest little possible dead girl the lola has to offer that's right it's acerola ace rolla assa roloff ace it is ace is the captain of the ghost type trial on melee mali melee island taking place in an abandoned supermarket what am i even looking at what am i saying this is well it's different i'll give her that and her total pokemon is my favorite pokemon from alola mimikyu if you are not ready for mimi you are gonna have a bad time yes my husband cringed in his sleep disguise gives it a free hit astonish can and probably will make you flinch and the ally pokemon could put you to sleep not to mention the fact that mimikyu is a physical attacker so for those of us going in with special defense in mind good luck but despite my undying love for the lonely pika wannabe i'm here to sing aces praises i can't think of a bad thing to say about her she's helpful she pops up when you need her she takes care of children at aether house she keeps her grunkle in line and she's perhaps one of the more formidable members of the eventual elite four and my personal theory i think she's either dead or a ghost which would make total sense for a ghost type wrangler i mean think about it her uncle is depressed maybe because she and his brother her like royalty dad died seeing her all the time everywhere makes it worse hence why he's so grumpy but we'll always listen to her she's also dressed in rags it could tell old stories maybe her spirit has decayed with time and being dead gives her knowledge of the afterlife in the past okay i need to stop before i go all alex jones on this yikes oh oh oh okay remember the clip remember this clip this clip right here personality not everybody has one yeah it's for this girl right here mina she likes to paint cool what else you got flaky kind of shallow lackadaisical wow i kind of hate her more than i probably should i mean look at all all of the other captains are kahunas they all work hard to make their challenges special intense or combination of the two mina just look how many bong hits did you take before i got here you could be honest with me i could take it there's a difference between apathy and complete disregard for responsibility nanu is the former but he still does his job watching out for team skull and taking care of the island mina is just not present she abandons the duties given to her mina runs off paints comes back to eat her parents out of house and home then disappears again laziness especially in a place of responsibility really irks me if i understand correctly the topu of each island only chooses the kahuna and the kahunas choose the captains and that means hapu's grandpa chose mina this means that mina was chosen by a respected member of the community who passed away and she still can't bring herself to be a competent trial captain that does kind of make it worse for me that also means that happy could fire her so get to it short stack yes she kind of gets her act together for ultrasound and ultra moon a flower petal hunt which is fine she even has a totem pokemon a rebombi which suits her to a tea but i can't get the disrespectful flavor out of my mouth from my initial encounter with her i wanted a fairy trial i love the fairy type and alola had some really amazing additions to the roster all we got in the first iteration was oh hey there yeah yeah here you go enjoy kiddo fairy mz nope not cool if any of you watched josh and i play through pokemon shield you will already know who my favorite gym leader from galar is while i do have a soft spot for fire father-in-law and thick ice mama and i agree with the general consensus that nessa is gorgeous and well designed my broadway baby purple loving quiz happy heart beats only for opal i want to be this feisty when i get to be 88. i mean 16 seriously this ninja granny just sneaks up on you at the strangest of times says something strangely profound gives you a lead card and then just dips out slowly i can't wrap my mind around how much i love her she took over the gym 70 gosh dang years ago as she's still passionate about pokemon to the point where she does not accept anyone who she would deem unworthy to succeed her how does she know she sees the pink no i don't know what exactly pink is but anyone who could take bead under their wing care for him when no one else will and turn him into a somewhat respectable member of society has to earn quite a bit of admiration yeah that's right right when rose and olianna ditch him after using him opal swoops in and gives him another chance to make something of himself as long as he doesn't mind working hard for it she sees potential in people she looks deeper like a real good granny and i haven't even gone to her gym her whole gym is the audition process to succeed her as leader which the theater geek in me loves she's waiting for you on the pitch still somehow faster than you what waiting to give you your final test and her pokemon her ma while is kind of laughable but togekiss and wheezing can present a challenge since both are kind of tanky and togekis can raise its stats with ancient power and alchemy's dyna gigantic ginormous max form is beautiful and makes me hungry i think she's my favorite gym leader of all time so much personality really funny supportive satisfying gym in battle and just adopt me nana opal i want to have the pink [Music] okay i'm going to be honest galore has one of the best gym leader lineups we've seen in a long time so i don't enjoy calling anyone from sword and shield the worst gym leader for the most part the leaders are very charismatic well designed and their challenges are fun and interesting sure we've seen a water switch puzzle before but the wulu hurting and the audition surely make up for that slight repetition so who gets the dishonor of being arbitrarily named worst of galar after careful deliberation it honestly has to be b let me get into why b is only in sword which gives you less time to get to know her if you didn't choose that game but the same goes for gordy melanie and alistair well let's do some compare and contrast we have melanie a plus-sized representing helicopter mom ice type gym leader with a great team featuring three new pokemon and a beefy lapras we have alistair who's basically the pearl jam song jeremy makes with paranorman and i love it there's gordy who honestly was so close to taking this spot due to his lackluster personality but his gym challenge and the latter half of his team saved him and then b she shares her gym challenge with alistair with just a palette swap but it sucks so who cares b is a young girl who enjoys the fighting type and trains super hard yes she has strict parents and she doesn't like people knowing she eats sweets hi lyscythia fancy meeting you here but that's it and it's not like it comes into play in her dialogue i mean she speaks a little formally but also we've had a cute little girl who trains super hard and likes fighting types did everyone forget about maylene and lucario did they forget that that was a thing ugh but what solidifies bee here is her team she only has one galar pokemon one most of the other gym leaders even if they don't use a galar pokemon as their trump card have at least two but she only has zerfetched and he's not even her dynamaxx candidate honestly just kind of edible she's fine okay she's not bad but standing in a room with all the other colorful leaders or even with her pokemon all lined up i would kind of forget she's there and that's it that's everything now i'm aware that every gym leader is someone's favorite so i know i'm not going to please everyone and that's okay i love hearing from you all no i don't stalk the comment section stop looking at me like that anyways i gotta go bye [Music] bye [Music] you

Channel: joshscorcher

Views: 129,166

Keywords: josh, scorcher, joshscorcher, top, ten, fiery, joker, countdown, top ten, ranked, fiery joker, hoenn gym leaders ranked, kalos gym leaders ranked, unova gym leaders ranked, kanto gym leaders ranked, johto gym leaders ranked, sinnoh gym leaders ranked, galar gym leaders ranked, pokemon sword and shield gym leaders ranked, best gym leaders in pokemon, top 10 best pokemon gym leaders

Id: dJIDzblmGXg

Length: 31min 43sec (1903 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 21 2020