Pokémon Kanto Challenge: How The iDigitalTimes Reader Vote Fared

The Kanto Challenge held from March 4-6 saw trainers compete online with the original 151 Pokémon using Gen 1 rules. With no items and each battle being one-on-one using all six Pokémon on your team, it was unlike most online Pokémon competitions.

As a long-time Pokémon fan and player, any excuse to battle other trainers with different Pokémon and different rules is welcome; that’s why when I decided to join the Kanto Challenge, I thought it would be interesting to have our readers choose my six Pokémon.

I was open to the challenge and hoped that some unconventional Pokémon would be chosen, like Kingler or Seaking, for my team.

What I got was six formidable, but not surprising, Pokémon.

I would enter the Kanto Challenge with Tauros (probably the biggest surprise of the bunch), Alakazam, Dragonite, Charizard, Gyarados and Gengar.

At first sight, it looks like an OP team, but there were some flaws with the crew chosen by the iDigitalTimes readers that I would come across during the competition and would put my Pokémon trainer skills to the test.

The first being that there was no check for any water types I should encounter, besides Dragonite and Gyarados. There were no electric or grass types that I could punish the typing that had a lot of strong Pokémon in Gen 1.

To overcome this, I was forced to add some electric and grass-type attacks to give my team a more balanced look. Surprisingly, I didn’t come across many grass types.

Another obstacle for my Kanto Challenge team was the abundance of physical attackers on my team. Alakazam and Gengar were the only Pokémon that used special attacks and that left my team vulnerable to burn effects and physical walls.

I came across a lot of Scald users and it took just one burn to cripple my team.

There was also Stealth Rock, which at first glance I didn’t perceive to be a problem in this competition but with Charizard, Gyarados and Dragonite being flying types, this would become a huge disadvantage to my team. This deterred me from switching too often, leaving me open for setups.

With those in mind, I had to improvise and turn out some Pokémon rather quickly after not leaving myself enough time before the Kanto Challenge started. I went 4-6 in my first 10 battles, but I had some server issues with the competition and didn’t get to battle with this team as much as I would have liked. I did learn a lot from this competition and would like to do more in the future.

But I wanted to let you guys know how I raised and trained the six Pokémon you chose and to give you insight on my approach to these choices. Here’s the finished team.

TAUROS

Tauros is one of the best physical threats in Gen 1 and with access to a lot of different attack types, the bull Pokémon was one of my favorite ‘mon on my team.

I went with an Adamant nature with full investment in Attack and Speed to maximize his power and sweeping ability.

Return is probably the best normal-type stab move to put on Tauros, with Earthquake acting as a great check for rock types that would wall Tauros’ normal attacks. Earthquake also helped with any electric-type I came across.

Zen Headbutt was used for any fighting types that could take out Tauros and caught many trainers off guard, especially when a Gengar was used. It’s also great for trying to get a timely flinch once in awhile.

Wild Charge was mainly used for any flying and water threats that my team would eventually come across.

ALAKAZAM

This was the least-successful Pokémon I had on my team. I ended up with a Naive nature because of time constraints (I recommend Modest or Timid) and without a Mega, Alakazam was outmatched in a lot of ways.

I invested everything into Special Attack and Speed because Alakazam’s weak defenses make it work best as a special heavy hitter.

I gave it Energy Ball to help with any Water-types and Shadow Ball to take out any opposing psychic types. I left Psyshock there instead of Psychic to bypass any Special walls I would encounter, but overall it was not up to snuff.

DRAGONITE

Every trainer and their mother I came across during the Kanto Challenge had a Dragonite. I don’t blame them, with the lack of fairy and other dragon types in Gen 1 this beast had only ice types to be wary of.

With its surprise bulk, attacking power and access to a large movepool, Dragonite helped me win some battles in the Kanto Challenge. I invested its EVs fully into HP with a lot into Special Defense and a smidge into Attack.

Extreme Speed was a must for Dragonite to give it priority, with Roost used mainly as a recovery/stall tactic. My team was all attack: Dragonite was the only one who wasn’t an all-out attacker and used to wall some attacks.

Dragon Claw was Dragonite’s main stab to deal with other Dragonites, and I toyed with the idea of giving it Dragon Dance to set up. However, with the lack of items to help with recovery, Power Up Punch seemed like the better choice, giving an attack boost while also dealing damage.

This would also help with Ice types but after the Kanto Challenge, I wish I had stuck with Dragon Dance.

CHARIZARD

The Charizard I used was one I carried over from Pokémon X, when I used it as Mega Charizard X.

So I used an Adamant Charizard with full investment in Attack and Speed to be a sweeper. It had Dragon Dance but, like Dragonite, I swapped it out for Power Up Punch for coverage and to deal damage faster. I also took out Dragon Claw and replaced it with Aerial Ace for a flying type stab.

Flare Blitz was my main attack for this Charizard, and it won me some fights against the likes of Clefable and Chansey. Earthquake was used for coverage against rock and electric types.

GYARADOS

This Pokémon was the MVP of my team. It was normally my lead Pokémon during the Kanto Challenge and even swept a battle for me.

I chose an Adamant nature with full investment in Attack and Speed. I chose Intimidate over Moxie to force switches and to help Gyarados survive physical hits to set up its sweep potential.

Waterfall was Gyarados’ main stab and I gave it Ice Fang specifically for grass types and Dragonite. I also gave it Crunch for coverage against Gengar and any psychic types I would run into, which wasn’t many, and Dragon Dance to setup that aforementioned sweep.

GENGAR

Gengar doesn’t have much to worry about in Gen 1. With no dark types and the Levitate ability giving the half poison type an immunity to ground type attacks, Gengar’s only real worry is fast psychic types.

I had a Timid Gengar to outspeed most other Pokémon in Gen 1, with full investment in Special Attack and Speed.

I used Shadow Ball was its main stab with Sludge Bomb to act as stab and to stop Clefable. Focus Blast provided coverage and I used a gimmicky set with Destiny Bond to take out any Pokémon when Gengar was low on health.

And before you scoff at the idea, I did take out a Dragonite with full health using this unexpected move.

Overall, the Kanto Challenge was a lot of fun and it was fun being challenged by using Pokémon chosen by our readers. Hopefully another competition with some interesting stipulations will come up and if you guys enjoyed this readers vote team, we could do it again.

So what do you think of the team I entered the Kanto Challenge with? What would you have changed and done using these same six Pokémon? Sound off in the comments section below.