[MAJOR SM SPOILERS]Hardest Champion

[Ice Cream Sand Witch 1650]

Since I made threads for hardest Gym Leader and hardest E4, here's one for Champions.

Lance was the hardest for me. My team didn't have much of an answer to Dragons, and he had three Dragonite. Ampharos swept the other half of his team, but those three Dragonite just by themselves were more difficult than a lot of other Champions' entire parties for me.

[Shad_ 6]

Lance for me too, the others were pretty much a peace of cake

[Pausaunias 4]

too easy.........CYNTHIA!!! She was a real monster. Even with counters her Garchomp was the terminator of poke world and he was ruined your team in seconds if you didnt have a boost move. But the rest of her team it was also challenging.

[Anstane 71]

My opinion's kind of biased because I only fought 3 of these champions, but of those I fought I'd say Blue was the hardest. He just has a solid team line-up.

[Spineblade 20]

Last time I played Platinum (around a year ago?) I was surprised by how challenging Cynthia was, even after I had played Reborn. Her Garchomp nearly wrecked me.

[Tacos 205]

Cynthia was frighteningly strong and was a major jump from past champions. All of the others were handicapped in the previous games. Blue's team was basically revealed to you throughout your adventure and countering his team was hardly difficult. Not to mention gen 1 pokemon were overall just not good. Lance we'd already seen in Gen 1, and was hampered by his dragon type preferences. Steven also, while I love him to death, was biased heavily towards steel and had a fairly easy to counter team. Wallace was water monotype and just shit and we don't talk about him. Cynthia had a truly strong, high-leveled, and balanced team for the first time in a pokemon game and presented with the first true challenge of a champion.

[Combat 62]

i had issues with Blue, just because I was young baby child when I first played Red. That basically meant that I still didn't know quite how to play, so it was basically me mashing tackle with my level 100 Venesaur. Now though, I have no issues with him, but back then...

(I also had a lot really bad time with Drake in Ruby, since I only leveled up my starter and ran out of PP...)

(Also, happy 777 post to me! Lucky? Probably not.)

[DerogatoryTrainer 323]

Cynthia for sure.

I remember playing those games years ago before I got internet and had no clue what the hell Spiritomb was. And I'd never even seen a Garchomp before so it was a pretty scary battle

[Ice Cream Sand Witch 1650]

Cynthia was a close second for me. Her Garchomp was power. It actually made me develop a "grudge" against Garchomp until ORAS where I was against myself using it (I still don't use it, but just because I have no interest in using it, not because of the "grudge"). Spiritomb was also annoying with Pressure + no weaknesses + Cynthia healing it. I beat her by the skin of my teeth. (how did that phrase even become a thing? teeth don't have skin on them)

[Trevore 76]

I would have to say that Cynthia was the most formidable opponent I've had yet, even if I didn't realize it at the time. Solid team, solid levels, hell, she even had the theme to back up her power! Like, her encounter AND her battle themes made it intense. For her to reveal herself as the Champion? I KNEW I was fucked.

Not to mention, she is also the HOTTEST Champion. Iris and Diantha can't compare. Gtfo, you two kiddies, y'all's no match for the hotness and sexiness of a REAL Champion. Well, Diantha was okay, but she wasn't powerful as the amazing Cynthia <3 <3 <3

Hell, after I play Emerald, I might actually want to play Platinum again, just for the hell of it and for old time's sake. The first time I played it, I beat it in a week. Let's see how long it takes now.

[Ironbound 110]

Cynthia had a very diverse team with a significant level jump in platinum. The last gym leader was lower fifties max, and then just four major trainers later there's a level 66 Garchomp.

[Jar-Kai Marek 0]

Probably Wallace since my team was the most underleveled vs any Champ I've ever gone against.

[Chase 94]

This one is pretty difficult.

It's a competition between young Hunter getting absolutely hammered by Blue way back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth - and somewhat capable Hunter choking against Iris in the middle of stupid o'clock when I no-lifed White 2.

I'll give the nod to Iris.

[mde2001 236]

Cynthia is by far the hardest. She has much better AI than the other ones, and her team is pretty unforgiving if you don't have a good balanced team. She's also kind of overlevelled which didn't ever help.

Her Garchomp was not friendly at all, especially given I didn't have a fast ice type in platinum, so was trying to get rid of it with an empoleon.

[pyrromanis 70]

Cynthia was the hardest champ hands down!

Not only her Garchomp outsped and 1-2 shot anything, her Lucario was also very hard for me! Back then I had no idea what type Lucario was and the many resistances steel types had made it difficult for me to find out how to bring it down.

Also the rest of her team was quite bulky with no weakness Spiritomb, Milotic and Togekiss/Gastrodon. Trying to weaken them slowly only for her to heal them back to full was so annoying with all the low PP moves I loved to use back then (that's why I hate to use Fire Blast over Flamethrower etc.)

[Monochrome_Complex 116]

Cynthia easily. Dat lvl 66 Garchomp.

[FairFamily 197]

Cynthia, no doubt.

[Jan 2600]

Cynthia was definitely the hardest... though recently I played through Black 2 again and Iris actually gave me a little trouble. I underestimated her and she set up her Haxorus for a clean sweep. It's a good thing I had a Pokemon with Sturdy...

[Goblinpat 11]

I'd have to go with Cynthia as well, and not even because of her Garchomp, as I could just one shot it with Floatzel + ice beam. It was her Togekiss, which is part of the reason I use Togekiss so much, and still use it in Reborn as I was lucky enough to get one from the mystery egg.

Cynthia was a close second for me. Her Garchomp was power. It actually made me develop a "grudge" against Garchomp until ORAS where I was against myself using it (I still don't use it, but just because I have no interest in using it, not because of the "grudge"). Spiritomb was also annoying with Pressure + no weaknesses + Cynthia healing it. I beat her by the skin of my teeth. (how did that phrase even become a thing? teeth don't have skin on them)

By the skin of my teeth comes from this biblical verse: ‘My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth’ (19:20). So basically narrowly escaping disaster.

[Jmanultrax1 38]

Cynthia

[Sin! 17]

Cynthia, not because her pokemon and their movesets are particularly scary (not saying garchomp cant destroy teams) but rather It is such a huge level gap from the first e4 (high 40's low 50's) to the champion Literally mid 60's.

I mean if you have a good trained team that is high enough level, you'lll be fine.

[Spark Dynamo 2]

Tossup between Lance and Cynthia... depending on criteria. Since I first played Gen2 as a young child, and was not... particularly good at raising or choosing pokemon back then(some might say I'm still not that great at it), Dragons were something akin to a nightmare for me. As for ACTUAL difficulty and a well-crafted team though... yeah, Cynthia... which is compounded by Sinnoh's... other issues that I won't tangeant off onto here. Has to be her. In all honesty I don't think I've ever fought Alder even once, since I never re-challenged the E4 in BW1, for... reasons I don't recall, and Ghetsis was basically a Champion battle himself, that had already annihilated my teams enough. The XY E4/Champion fights I don't even REMEMBER, though I'm sure I had to have done them.

[AeroWraith 3]

Even with how powerful Cynthia's team was, espescially with that Garchomp.....I have no memory of ever losing to her. I even did a nuzlocke of Diamond recently and my Torterra was able to hold it's own against it with the help of Curse, and Synthesis. I always had my starter be Torterra in Sinnoh so it may have been my trump card against it. As for the rest of her team, Torterra can deal with Gastrodon and Lucario. I just send whatever at Spiritomb. I usually have something for Roserade (Staraptor, or Weavile), and I always have a Luxray for Milotic.

Now Lance, Lance I've always had trouble with. Most runs I do of gen 2 usually ends up with me having a team with no ice types whatsoever to counter his 3 inappropriately leveled Dragonites.

His other 3 pokemon are perfectly fine to deal with, but once he sends out his dragons, it will usually end up going down hill from there. Actually, even with an ice type, his strongest Dragonite has fire blast, which sure yeah it's accuracy isn't great but it's still a threat. Lance was livin the life of no fairies.

[Might Gai 63]

cynthia>lance>steven>iris>wallace>blue>alder>diantha

cynthia's team was made to be a true champion team, lance is a hacker, steven is ... ok, iris can sweep with haxorus if you et down your guard, walace is kind of a dick, blue is fucked by type advantage, we all forget alder, diantha have a bad case of exp share

[Ojama Yellow 759]

my opinions on the difficulties of the champs from most difficult to easiest (never battled alder or diantha)

cynthia -> iris -> wallace -> steven -> lance -> blue

cynthia: that fucking garchomp can bulk ice beams and hit back hard and I hate it. not only that, but she has a milotic as well, which is one of the most threatening pokemon in nuzlockes for me, considering its powerful bulk. cynthia is just the most powerful, and I cant debate this.

iris: probably an interesting choice, but iris has some threats in her team. bring something to attack hydreigon or druddigon, please. and lapras also bulks stuff like hell. but those arent actual threats. the only actual threat in iris' team is that fucking haxorus with dragon dance and focus sash. seriously. that thing hits so hard once it is at +1 attack.

wallace: milotic and double team shenanigans. a lot of people consider steven to be more threatening, however, I disagree.

lance: I...never really had any trouble with lance. his dragonite can hit hard, sure, but I mostly managed to ohko them without a problem. so...idk, honestly.

steven: cradily and metagross can be threatening, the others are ez.

blue: LMFAO. you got introduced to his team before, you know how to counter most mons. the only threatening things are the starter (if its not venusaur), arcanine and alakazam. remotely. blue is by far the easiest champion.