If I Was a Pokémon Gym Leader

- Greetings Pokefans! Michael here, and something many Poketubers have talked about over the years is what their gym would be like if they were a Gym Leader. What would be his team, where would the gym be, what would be the puzzle and more. But I have never done it, at least until today. In this video, I'll go over my thoughts on if I had a gym and was a gym

leader

in the Pokémon world, but I'll actually do it twice. I'll first go over if I had a gym in the Galar region, where I'm limited to guys that aren't already busy, and then I'll go over if I had a gym anywhere without any limitations.

So don't forget to subscribe to my channel and let's start with my gym in the Galar region, where I would be an electric type gym

leader

. This choice was pretty easy. Electrics are not accepted and it is my favorite type. This is the design of my character as the electric-type Galar gym leader. I wear my signature hat but in different colors and all my Pokémon are in Quick Balls, my favorite Pokeball. Of course, I'm wearing the electric uniform, but with plain black tights instead of the normal ones with purple sparkles, simply because I thought the sparkles were too much.

My eyes are yellow because they fit well with electric typing and let's be honest, they make me watch anime. And my uniform number is 99. The meaning of the number 99 is that it was my jersey number in high school football, but it's also the jersey number of JJ Watt, who is my favorite professional athlete. Plus, it's just a cool number. As for how my gym battles would work, I would like them to be like Raihan's, where they are double battles. In my Sword game, I tried to make all my gym battles fair, where I only used the same amount of Pokémon as the gym leader, played in the set battle style, and didn't use healing items.

Raihan's battle was the closest of all and ended 1v1. Also, ignore my Corviknight there, it's the fifth Pokémon I sent out, because I had to and it was in my party and I intentionally didn't attack with it, it didn't participate. That battle, being a double battle, is the reason why it was an epic and hard-fought battle. I would just think that double battles are simply more fun than single battles. There are fewer changes. There's more strategy about when you should protect, when you should attack, and who you should attack, when you attack. There are all kinds of really interesting interactions too, between allied Pokémon, how their abilities work, and some abilities only work in double battles.

And I think it's much more interesting. Because of my love for double battles, I would like my gym to host them. They would be double 4v4 battles, just like Raihan's gym and also like Raihan's battle, it would use an environmental strategy. But instead of Sandstorm, I would use Electric Terrain, activated by my Electric Surge Pincurchin. My first Pokémon, Pincurchin's main function is, as I said, to establish Electric Terrain, thus boosting my team's electric moves. After that, simply start hitting the challenger's Pokémon with physical moves like Zing Zap, Poison Jab, and Liquidation to cover against Ground types.

It could give it Protection for its fourth move, but it could also give it an entry threat like Spikes. By the way, I should mention that these move sets I'm giving for these Pokémon assume that I'm one of the last, if not the last, gym leader. So I have the most moveset options. I'm doing it because I didn't want to limit myself. My other main Pokémon would be Lanturn. Lanturn has always been a Pokémon that I thought was very well designed, but I never got the chance to use it. That is, even my electric gym.

Its main function is to be a strong counter to opposing Ground types, something the challenger is sure to bring, as it is the only type strong against Electrics. Lanturn would have Volt Absorb as an ability because it's a double battle situation, where I can have my teammates attack him with electric moves to heal him. It wouldn't happen very often, I guess with Pincurchin because Pincurchin would have to attack Lanturn instead of the enemy Pokémon, but the other two Pokémon would get Shock because they are special attackers so Shock works on them and then they can hit the Pokémon enemy and heal Lanturn at the same time.

Lanturn would run Thunderbolt and Scald for Stab attacks. Ice Beam to cover grass types and then Protect or perhaps Whirlpool to catch enemy Pokémon. The next member of my team is Vikavolt. While Vikavolt's Levitate prevents it from getting the benefits of Electric Terrain, I just thought it wouldn't be right for me to not have my second favorite Pokémon of all time, on my gym team because of the type it is. I have to include Vikavolt. Additionally, while Levitate doesn't make the electrical terrain propel you, it does help prevent you from being damaged by earthquakes.

Vikavolt would run Discharge as I mentioned above for when next to Lanturn. Thunderbolt for when it's not, Bug Buzz and Sticky Web to help my entire team with their speed problem, because Pincurchin, Vikavolt and Lanturn are all slower. It doesn't have any coverage for opposing Rock or Fire types, which are its weaknesses, but the idea is for Lanturn and Pincurchin to take care of those with its Water type coverage. Now you might be thinking it's strange that none of my Pokémon so far have Thunder Wave. After all, most Electric-type gym battles, throughout all of Pokémon history, have at least one Pokémon with Thunder Wave, because Paralysis is of the Electric type.

However, while I don't have Thunder Wave on any of my Pokémon, I do have another way to spread status conditions. And that's with my ace Pokémon, Gigantamax Toxtricity. Toxtricity is one of my favorite Gen 8 Pokémon, and its Gigantamax form is my favorite of all. It's the perfect Pokémon to have as my ace in a Galar gym, and it works perfectly since no other gym leader or trainer in the game uses one. Its special move G-Max Stun Shock poisons or paralyzes both enemy Pokémon, which is how I spread the status conditions everywhere.

As for its moves to use once it returns to normal, I would run Discharge as I mentioned, Overdrive for when I don't need to heal Lanturn, Sludge Bomb, and Hyper Voice so I don't hurt my Pokémon ally with Boomburst. It would be the Amped form because I like that form better, and its ability would be Punk Rock to boost Overdrive and Hyper Voice for when Gigantamax isn't there. Toxtricity is such a cool Pokémon that it's very popular, so I'm a little surprised that it hasn't ended up as the star Pokémon of any of Galar's big-name trainers.

My gym would solve that. Now for the gym itself. The location, I am flexible. The only two towns in the entire Galar region that don't yet have a stadium are the first two and they really wouldn't have room for one. So, let's say I'm a minor league leader who becomes strong enough to replace one of the eight major gyms, so if I had to choose a stadium to change, I would choose Turffield. While the rural atmosphere around it doesn't really fit the electric type, it's such a nice place that I think it would be great to spend a lot of my time.

Also, the likely Toxtricity Gigantamax on the hill would be quite poetic, since I would use one too. For the gym puzzle, I imagine something to do with memorization and EDM music. There are several colored lights that play a sequence of notes that you must memorize, then you walk around and step on certain colored buttons that correspond to the notes to make the same little melody. If you do this successfully, it plays a short little EDM riff with that melody you just put as the main melody, but other things will be added to it to make it more just a couple of notes.

If you mess up, you have to fight a trainer, but once you beat him, the little riff still plays, because you know, that's fun. Also, if you're worried that a musical puzzle will be difficult for the hearing impaired to solve, like I said, there will be colored lights and buttons, so you can also solve the puzzle completely visually. The last thing I need to cover is what my team would look like in the Champions Cup, since all Gym Leaders can return and compete in it with full teams of six. Well, unfortunately, like Raihan, I would be forced to fight in single battles instead of double battles, I still think I could still hold my own.

While my base team of four would remain the same, the Pokémon I would add would be Dracozolt and Boltund. Dracozolt is the faster of the two zolt fossils and is therefore more likely to deal heavy damage with Bolt Beak. And Boltund is a nice-looking Pokémon that would give my team some much-needed speed. For the single battle aspect, I think I'd probably lead with Pincurchin to set up Electric Terrain right away. And then immediately just Self Destruct, so you can get a Pokémon that's better suited for sweeping, even faster. So that concludes my idea if I had a Galar gym, but now, my second idea as a gym leader, where I don't have location restrictions or equipment or anything like that.

So if I had to choose any place in the Pokémon world, I would choose the Hoenn region. After all, it is my home region. The location would be Fortree City, which has been my favorite city in the Hoenn region, since I was a child. I know Winona already has a gym there, but like I said, there are no restrictions. We'll just pretend she died in a plane crash. (explosion) Okay, nevermind, that's horrible. She was promoted to a member of the Elite Four after Drake retired. Are you happy now? Fortree City, which is my favorite city because it is literally a city of treehouses, an aesthetic that I have always loved.

Whether it's the Fortree or Ewok cities on Endor or the Freedom Fighter base on Avatar, if you have a village where everything is tree houses, I'll like it. Being surrounded by greenery and at the same time being so high and connected to it is beautiful. That's why I would make my gym a grass-type gym. First of all, it's my second favorite type behind electric and we just made it all electric, but also because it would fit very well with Fortree because you are very connected to nature there. I'm honestly surprised Fortree's gym wasn't a grass gym from the beginning.

Hoenn already had a water-type gym and a fire-type gym, why not complete the triangle? Also, another reason I'd like to be a grass gym leader is because Ramos' gym from X and Y is my favorite gym interior in any Pokémon game. It's beautiful and cool to go to the top of this huge tower, while the leaves are falling everywhere and you find this cute office space at the top, which is like your little laboratory. That's great. This is my design for myself as the leader of Fortree City's grass-type gym. The rope and the Go-Goggles are there so this version of me mainly does, in his spare time, working on the tree houses and stairs of both Fortree and the Fortree gym.

Of course, the rope is used to join wood together and the goggles are there to protect my eyes when I fly on the back of my Tropius, which helps me work on the tree houses that are much higher in the trees and , therefore, they are harder. to go up to. The leaf style on my shirt is a nod to Tropius' leaf wings. I like to think that a big change that the gym leader brought to Fortree is the implementation of elevators. At the moment, Fortree only has stairs, which doesn't work well for people who aren't physically able, so I like to think they implemented, like wooden platforms with ropes running over them and a pulley system, using counterweights, you already know.

Like engineering! My gym would use these elevators and I imagine it like Byron's gym in the Sinnoh region, but with wooden platforms raised by ropes, which move instead of floating metal platforms. The challengers would have to navigate through this maze of wooden platforms and elevators that are attached between the trees and look really cool, until they would finally reach me at the top, in the large battlefield of wooden platforms that I have built, in the sloping canopy of trees, high above the houses of Fortree. That may seem dangerous if the challenger brings, like, a super-heavy Pokémon, but don't worry, the engineering is structurally sound.

And also when I say very high up, I just mean the elevation, they are not directly above the houses. My team would of course depend on what number of Gym Leader I am, but if I had the honor of being the last Gym Leader and I had a full team of six, this would be my team. The first is Tropius, as I already mentioned. He's out of his Pokeball most of the time since, like I said, it's my main method of transportation, between the different levels of the treehouses. It's not my strongest Pokémon, but it sure can hold its own, especially when the opponent can't fly to keep up with it.

The nextis Breloom, a Pokémon that I have always really liked and one of the best designed Pokémon that exist. His springy arm punches are a force to be reckoned with. Then there's Whimsicott, a great support Pokémon that I like to use to set up Tailwind for the other members of my team. Then there's Ludicolo, my main answer to challengers who plan to defeat me with Fire types. Since it can learn both Rain Dance and Sunny Day, I can choose which weather helps me the most, depending on whether the challenger leans more toward Fire types or not.

Next up is Sawsbuck, a cool Pokémon that ends up being in its summer form most of the year, due to the tropical climate of the Hoenn region. And finally there's Mega Sceptile, my first starter Pokémon that I got when starting my journey, in Littleroot Town. It's my most powerful Pokémon by a considerable margin and has ended many battles with a single hit. He only activates his Mega Form against stronger rivals, as his sheer power risks damaging surrounding infrastructure. I considered using Torterra and Decidueye, but ultimately decided my team should only have one starter.

Also, if I were to limit my team selection to Pokémon that are in the Hoenn Pokedex, then I would swap out Whimsicott and Sawsbuck for Shiftry and Roserade. Roserade is in the ORAS Pokedex. I also like Cacturne, but since it's a cactus, I didn't think it would fit very well in the rainforest type area. So I didn't choose it. My gym badge would be... I honestly don't care. I've never cared much for the emblem in particular, so it just... It looks like a tree. It's the tree badge, there you have it. Thank you so much for watching and a very special thanks to my Patreon patron who is helping support me in a way independent of the bad fluctuating and unreliable income from YouTube.

If you want to help me in the same way and get some cool benefits in return, like my ad-free videos, the link is in the description below. Also, don't forget to check out more of my fun Pokémon content, including my Metronome Battle Federation week two battle. Which is over here. Alright, that's all I have for now. So until next time, Pokefans. I have to catch them all.