Ranking the Rivals Weakest to Strongest

Ranking the Rivals Weakest to Strongest
Heartgold Randomizer Hardcore Nuzlocke:
• What a Fantastic Start...
Music Used:
Intro - Cherrygrove City - GSC
Track 1 - Kalos Powerplant - XY
Track 2 - Wild Battle: South Province - SV
Track 3 - Fire/Fighting/Science Club - Pokemon TCG (GB)
Track 4 - Galar Mines - SwSh
Track 5 - Penny Battle - SV
Track 6 - Elite Four Battle 2 - Pokemon Stadium 2
Track 7 - Rival Battle - GSC
Track 8 - Clay's Gym - BW2
Track 9 - Rustboro City - ORAS
Track 10 - Hau's theme - SM
Track 11 - Gym Leader Battle - XY
Track 12 - Normal Battle - Pokemon TCG (GB)
Track 13 - Arven Battle - SV
Track 14 - Nemona Battle - SV
Track 15 - Trainer Battle - DPP
Track 16 - Hop Final Battle - SwSh
Track 17 - Gladion Battle - SM
Track 18 - Champion Battle - RBY
Track 19 - Relic Castle - BW
Track 20 - Super Ancient Pokemon - RSE
Outro - Main Menu - Pro Sports Hockey (SNES)

[@CaylasCapsule]

Legit cried when Wally was the final battle instead of the standard rival. I’d just gotten off crutches after being on them for half a year due to my physical disability. Seeing him get stronger at the same time I did, when people didn’t expect it… it hit me HARD. He’ll always be my favorite rival.

[@erich9983]

So cool how games can speak to our lives in unintended ways like that. That’s a great memory

[@rockk9753]

Nice story

[@Shawnzy1]

I was hoping for Wally to be the e4 champion in emerald

[@brockcarter8748]

Bro how old are you lmfao 😂😂

[@eglol]

Aww :)))

[@i.m.solomon2280]

I never consider Shauna, Trevor and Teirno as Rivals. They're companions on the journey as their goals are never to beat or compete with you so for me that eliminates them as rivals.

[@0127sasuke]

I feel like Shauna comes close, she seems like she was intended to be a secondary rival, like bianca. She has a similar thing going where she TRIES to stand beside calm and Serena, and she's there for the major plot fights. But like bianca before her, she has to accept the fact that she isn't on their skill level. But they definitely fumbled the ball with her. She doesn't battle the player nearly enough times. She's really just trying to help, rather than really beat you Also I'm surprised Mystic counted arven and penny. I feel like arven is in a similar boat as the xy friends (or Lilly), but just handled better. While penny serves a different role entirely

[@TheShadow1347]

Same

[@CashoutRenny224]

I just say they are Just our friends

[@Matergamer-gr6ie]

They aren’t supposed to be rivals neither is Bianca or May or dawn

[@0127sasuke]

@@Matergamer-gr6ie bianca and may totally are. They have the same goal as the player and fully intend to beat them at the beginning. Bianca just decides it's not for her (and may just idk gives up I guess?)

[@the_ram_on_cam9640]

I think it’s important too recognise that rivals have different roles that benefit the story/game in their own ways. Like Bianca wanting to focus on being a professor and then in black and white 2 doing just that! Was such a cool character development to see :)

[@jonathanabgrall6075]

Silver being a pretty weak/bad trainer makes sense. He's a compelling character because as someone who has only known violence himself he tries to applies that to pokemon training and fails miserably because of it. I do wish he had a redemption arc or post-game battle where he's much stronger from learning from Gold's more friendly/compassionate approach after losing to him for the like 8th time before the League.

[@dylandurnal6544]

There is technically a post game battle with him. After you get all Kanto badges and beat red you can get a fight with silver where he has a decent well rounded team. His highest is his starter at level 50 but it at least showed he tried to make himself a better person in the game and I respect that.

[@KazShiro]

@@dylandurnal6544 There's also his team that's higher level than that in hgss where he helps you ight Clair and Lance in a double battle at dragons den

[@cornelliusmccollum5559]

Silver has always been my favorite pokemon character mostly because of this tbh.

[@KazShiro]

And unlike Paul who people usually refer to his anime counterpart he doesnt know what he's doing when actually using that approach.

[@eanmiller7711]

It's not quite a redemption arc. But his Golbat evolves into Crobat which only happens via high friendship. It suggests he might have changed his approach

[@bet0v966]

My butt so proud for Wally, to see him come up from RSE to an absolute unit with an incredible theme - that’s our boy

[@mccuefam1452]

3:34 I personally think that despite its typing, leavanny is good in battle, and I think it's a fine enough addition to carmine's team.

[@steveinkpen2038]

Niceset with Swords Dance, Leaf Blade, and Xcissor is real nice too

[@silversalamence10]

1:33 in fairness, Tierno's Talonflame having Flame Body is understandable as imo it'd be a middle finger to the player if he has access to an ability the player won't have access to until the postgame. 15:48 I feel that even though game data shows that Dipplin can evolve further, I think if the devs put Eviolite onto Kieran's Dipplin, it'd have been an obvious tell. Better for them to keep their cards close to their chest and surprise us as and when rather than give the game away.

[@KohakuB]

Exactly, to me Dipplin was a fully evolved pokemon a month ago. In fact i was like "The apple has a total of 4 evos?" when i saw the final evolution on part 2 the other day

[@cammy649]

I think it'd be a nice hint that he's going to get an evolution. Honestly I was a bit disappointed learning in the teal mask that dipplin was the only evolution since it's stats were subpar and the design didn't really scream final evolution to me like the other two applin evos

[@ZeroMustang]

I'll be honest, I don't ever remember Wally being a difficult rival to battle. All I remember is sweeping his team in 5-10 minutes because the Pokemon that I had with me were always capable of almost, if not completely, O-K-O-ing his team

[@russellazure9316]

His final team presented in this video you only see if you’ve beaten one of the bosses at battle resort tho. U’d sweep him anw if ur team is all lvl 100, which is really easy to reach in gen6

[@jordanbrandon81]

So after Indigo Disk where would Champion Kieran rank? Using a VGC competitive team and Pokemon I'd imagine he would rank even higher? Justice for my boi!

[@CarlJoshuaPornelos]

The fact that you can use Wally's team in OU and still win many matches proves how strong he's team is

[@wills3210]

Same with Kieran’s indigo team, that drizzle thunder combo is crazy

[@AlectricEel]

Hop in a nutshell - "Wow you really know your type matchups"😂

[@luckluca8982]

Not gonna lie, Silver being higher than even Bianca is just favoritism. He just has half of a good team, even Trace does better

[@karthus006]

Blue deserves one of the top spots just by virtue of having such as memorable theme that sounds a lot like the Stardust Crusader theme. But Wally definitely deserves the top spot, just from character growth and development.

[@josephcirrincone9596]

Might I add Cheren's Unfezant can be sneakily good especially with Super Luck and with it holding the scope lens plus an Unburden Liepard holding a Sitrus Berry can be a pretty sneaky offensive sweeper and Gigalith holding a Leftovers can tank many hits and just stick around and hit very hard

[@aswin5151]

Wally deserves more love ❤

[@deweypatch]

I think Shauna is only in it for the adventure, not a serious rival. As for Trevor and Tierno, they might've been interesting if dancing was actually part of the game somehow or if Tierno was your showcase/contest rival, and if Trevor didn't always have fewer Pokemon than you did. Marnie seems to be going for a monotype run. Having never done one myself, I have no idea how good/bad her team is in that light. Silver had a great arc, but his team never made sense to me. For one thing, Gastly, Zubat, and Magnemite need some thought to use well, at least pre-evolution; not the kind of Pokemon someone obsessed with strength would use. Wally as #1 really surprised me because I suck at competitive battling and so never used the Battle Maison or Battle Tree, thus I never fought him there. I never had much trouble with his Victory Road battle. I would've put Blue or N on top, depending on if N counts as a rival or not (I usually count him among the villains)

[@macwelch8599]

I think it would be fun if we had different rivals in different versions of the Gen 10 game

[@tristindurocher-batley4780]

You still got barely over a month to find out if indigo disk provides any challenging rivals which could include Kieran as the champion of the BB league with a stronger team which I wouldn’t be surprised if Kieran was motivated enough by his defeat in the teal mask dlc to become the champion of the bb league and there are rumours that his dipplin has a secret evolution (or there was a bug upon release) since eviolite does work on it for some reason

[@swagbear9965]

I loved the first two rivals, there was such a tense rivalry and sense of competition. It felt like there was so much on the line every time you battled.

[@wonder777warrior6]

True plus beatin them was so satisfying 😂.

[@aceknight6622]

if we are counting N blue and gladion as rivals then N is by far my favorite next to hugh and wally. he has a pretty good team,has some good character development and is just a really interesting character in general

[@glowstickspinalfluid]

i love gladion so much!! i feel like his team matches his backstory very well. but i'm also very because it's my favorite game :3

[@cadenroland7586]

I have a thought, so this was a really good video on deducing how good each rival’s final team is, but I think you should also look at there teams as you progress through the game, or even if you have slight team changes that the player doesn’t expect between rival fights. In that aspect I think Marnie could be placed higher, but other then that this list was really well thought out.

[@leerobinalesna4683]

24:00 no i'm Honestly Surprise That Wally is the Strongest Rival. From Weak to Strong. Plus Wally is my Favourite Rival character.

[@kylebrandon4556]

When I first saw Wally in oras as an upgraded version of his original push over team. I finally agreed that he gave me a challenge

[@AKUNJIG]

Wally kicked my ass when fighting him the first time because I didn't expect it.

[@seriousquil7161]

Wait are we really just going to ignore the fact that Penny has Quick Attack and Baby Dolls on all of her eevees, especially the fact half her team don’t really benefit off of quick attack. Or heck how Flareon is running FIRE SPIN of all the special Fire moves if could learn, and why must she be running half of umbreon’s attacks on it’s weakest stat. Seriously why, it doesn’t matter if you run coverage if that coverage hits like a wet noodle.

[@dillonsomerville4729]

Arven and Penny are definitely not rivals. I think a rival should be a character who follows your journey through the story, battling you along the way, testing your and their strength. Arven and Penny literally only battle you three times TOTAL (excluding post-game content) and only Arven's is for the purpose of testing your strength. Arven first battles you to test your worthiness to own Koraidon/Miraidon, and later to test if you're ready to visit Area Zero. And Penny battles you as Casseopia, in the name of Team Star, as one last test before officially giving up Team Star. Nemona is your rival and was testing your strength since the beginning, the other two are characters who initially seek you out for their own personal agendas, but become friends and allies along the way.

[@Fanman1217]

I considered N's teams as scary but then I end up soloing his teams with on pokemkn. Emboar for winter Gloduck for fall and summer Electross for spring

[@anthonyanglemyer]

This has to be one of your best listings yet. Well done.

[@ItsJayzhor]

I'm watching this after beating Kieran in the indigo disk... oh boy you might wanna consider your top 3

[@arctistarfox]

I think I may be the first to point out that the Sw/Sh rivals Bede, Marnie, Klara, and Avery are all also Gym Leaders, thus their type-focused teams make sense. The only one I think makes sense being so low on the list is Bede, since his team was also nearly monotype (Psychic) before he was picked to be Gym Leader by Opal. Marnie became Gym Leader after her brother-it was fairly obvious she would be-and it can be assumed that Avery and Klara are the first Gym Leaders of their type in the region.

[@sabercat5490]

Why do people consider Penny and Arven as Rivals when they dont even play that role. Penny simply wants you to help her disband Team Star with deafeating her to end the Team Star for good cause she's the boss. Arven on the other hand isn't competeing to see who gets the titans 1st cause its implied you are looking for them at the same time. Now the reason why he battles you is simply as a test to see whether or not you seem strong enough to go down to Area Zero to fight whats down there.

[@LuminousArc92]

Barry needs a big asterisk given he doesn't evolve his Starley in bdsp till just before the league. That's just unacceptable

[@aliaubreyswink6767]

Silver does have a crobat when you rematch him at the Pokémon league

[@FalconFighterPilot1013]

The amount of revives I used during that last battle with Hop still haunts me 😅

[@M4NNYL0PEZ]

Hey @MysticUmbreon, can you please film a series where talk about the best teams for Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness? In the series, you could talk about what are the best Pokémon to add to your team based on what eeveelution you picked. This would make for an awesome video series. Hope you like the idea.

[@blackout_void4503]

When Wally pulled out gallade during the victory road battle in ORAS we all knew what was going to happen

[@xSeulgi]

Is flame body not good for a physical Pokémon? I always thought flame body was clutch

[@megadracosaurus]

The thing I never understood about the Kalos trio: Sycamore offers the boys the remaining Kanto starters and they never take them up on it!

[@Citanoo]

Another bonus for Wally being number 1, is his battle theme in ORAS. It is amazing!

[@Adrian-ze9ud]

I'm really waiting for the 'How strong is Kieran?" video after the Indigo Disk.

[@potatodiggs9602]

A lot of these criticisms are moot because the teams work well for lore. It's not a game for sweats

[@GoldenDeer_]

They work well for lore, but this video is looking at how they would work competitively. Soooo

[@briansherrod1916]

It seems like in many games including Gen 2 and Gen 3 the rivals start off so strong then become incredibly weak.

[@johnnypollack3243]

Keep up the awesome work and videos

[@Olliemaxx1]

What site do u use when u show a Rival’s team? The colored boxes, and stuff?

[@209_FM]

Taken straight from Bulbapedia

[@johncosco2348]

I would have waited until the Indigo Disc comes out to do this video because I wouldn’t be surprised if Kieran comes back and you fight him again

[@jonahdengler3858]

I’ll be waiting for the Pokémon League teams: Gym Leaders, Elite Four, and Champions!

[@CarlJoshuaPornelos]

Can't argue with wally he's team is actually viable for gen 6 OU winning many matches (Side note an updated list is needed considering Kieran has improved)

[@dragonfirenetwork4554]

With how badass of a rival Silver is you would think he would have a more impressive team

[@seanwilliams823]

The Wally rematch team is worth the struggle to find it. It is BRUTAL

[@Kinochai]

Id like to see a video that ranks how powerful each trainer is in relation to the game itself. I don't really care if a rival with megas can beat someone who doesn't have megas. What I'm interested in is how easy or hard they are in their own respective games

[@siphon53]

You may want to update this video as Indigo Disk is out now!

[@user-ru6xd1th9y]

Are you going to make Champion Kieran the strongest rival now?!

[@TKnHappyNess]

Hau and Gladion would probably be lower if it was their Sun and Moon teams since they only have 5 Pokemon Hau: Alolan Raichu, his starter, an Eeveelution, Crabominable, and Komala. Yes, Komala Gladion: Crobat, Weavile, Porygon-Z, Lucario, and Silvally holding the Memory that's strong against your starter

[@nishant9289]

The latest trailer makes it feel like Wally is finally going to be dethroned. Kieran seems like he's got this title this time.

[@StateBlaze1989]

The least I can give Trevor is that he's the only one of the trio with a team with full move sets. They aren't good move sets, but his pokemon do have four moves each.

[@joaobrito2653]

I feel like rivals became an actual joke in gen 7. That’s when they started the trend of your rival picking the starter that is weak to yours, which makes fights against them much easier. Gen 6 to me only had 1 rival(Serena/ calum) as shauna didn’t fight you nearly enough times to be considered one and the other goofballs were just there to serve as extra route trainers

[@joaocisne556]

how strong would Silver's and blue's teams if they had acess to cros gen evos? like Crobat, Magnezone and wevile would be huge boosts for silver, and riperior would help Blue a lot

[@o_o1241]

Nuzlocking ORAS must be very terrifying when you have to fight Wally’s victory road team

[@ANameOverreaktzCanPronounce751]

He isnt that strong in victory road, only in battle mason

[@platinumraven118]

Hop playing little Timmy mode with a legendary is really funny to me

[@FutureOverYou]

Kieran definitely glowed up in the Indigo dlc

[@57thMarauder]

May beat my in what route was it?? I don't remember

[@animaniac181]

Pleasantly surprised to see Calem and Serena in the middle ground

[@nishant9289]

Wally is also the winner of Masters 256 by Pokedad. That cements his position further.

[@dakotamcclung2988]

Brenden and May are weaker than Cheren. I don't understand how they were so high.

[@connor971]

Also Tierno and Trevor aren't really rivals, there your "friends."

[@shawngallagher8764]

Wally is a lot of peoples favorite but in the og games I never would call him a rival. He’s just an NPC you fight twice. But his overblown popularity garnered him his own theme even. Ugh

[@axels3188]

It’s funny how Bulbapedia considers N a rival but not Arven and Penny.

[@F34rANDl4ught3r]

im playing pokemon shield while watching this and the battle music starting at silvers place lined up perfectly with me starting a batle and i had to check my switch lite to see if my sound got turned on on accident lolololol

[@robinedwards462]

I don’t understand how you put trace so high lol he’s one of the most dog eater rival ever

[@KiyoshiroClips]

Hugh is just kinda there, hes mostly focused on getting back his...ehem...*batman voice* PURRLOIN...

[@SylveonMujigaeOfficial]

Despite the fact that Sylveon is still pretty much my backbone and does most of the work, I have started to experiment with Legendary Pokémon, thanks in large part to me having the DLC for Sword. However, even though I am experimenting with different types, like Fighting, Steel, Psychic, and Water-types, Fairy is still pretty much my specialty. (Sylveon holds a very special place in my heart though, as it is the first Eeveelution I have ever had.)

[@twinshiftyt]

I don’t agree about Carmine. Drayton legit says in hand that if Carmine really tried instead of studying she would be the leagues champion

[@xylynthian753]

Yeah and if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle, but my cousins ain't buying her hypothetical father's day gifts.

[@MrRichieRides]

Wally is the Goat!!! That’s for sure haha 😂❤

[@Triobros1098]

Nemona had a deleted fight that was way too hard for people to win so they removed it for a fade to black fight. If they kept that fight then she would be number 1

[@RagdollM]

Tierno's Crawdaunt better watch out, Miss Beakman's still got 👋👋👋 out here on her behalf

[@HourglassBen]

I learned one thing today... Never underestimate anyone with green hair.

[@xxheart_breakerxx8732]

Carmine was unimpressive considering she's always talking about how she's sooo strong 😅 ngl when Drayton said she's so strong, he probably just made fun of her 😂😂

[@allshipper2158]

I didn't know Wally has such a massive upgrade since the original 3 (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald). 100% would have lost the first 2 if not 3 battles.

[@TheShadow1347]

I'm surprised that Trace ranked as high as he did

[@ZaphielSahaquielSariel]

13:06 where in the world is Brendan's hand going? xD

[@gundhamyaboitanaka8106]

lets be real, x and y did trevor shauna and tierno dirty, theyre basically just there to pad out the cast and occasionally fight you. the manga at least had the decency to give them goals, character development and some semblance of a personality

[@the_clawing_chaos]

Now with Indigo Disk out, you'll need to redo it again to consider Kerin's new team

[@SuperPuddingCup]

I thought Wally being number 1 was a joke at first, I forgot about ORAS hahaha

[@RobertLydonReviews]

Tierno has forever been changed to Dance Man for me thanks to CandyEvie. I love the gen 9 rivals (the proper ones) the ones from the teal mask are something else…carmine is annoying and her brother yikes he needs a HM

[@DiabloDePiablo]

There’s 1 thing every rival has in common , they’ve been getting cooked since 96’

[@tmnt754]

Spoiler: After the most recent scarlet and violet dlc champion Kieran beats Wally no contest.

[@izzulizzuddin05]

does red is not considered as rival?because we do fight him at the end of pokemon heartgold

[@wills3210]

You can remake this and put Kieran at the top, his final team is competitively viable and gave me a tough fight

[@TZBrax]

Wanted to let you know you have a Pokémon video hidden between all the ADS you run every 45 seconds

[@erikanderson799]

funny enough, fighting Arven after finishing the titans missions is the only time i REALLY got my ass kicked in pokémon lol

[@lyircmagic3164]

I don’t think Wally’s battle maison team should count because it’s not a rival battle with a rival team it’s a battle maison for the battle maison

[@austinmj64]

Wally said he got Smogon bookmarked

[@mylestomsik4720]

i disagree slightly with what you said about Cheren, gigalith is also a pretty powerful pokemon. then again he has an elemental monkey and an unfezant

[@joekauffman9690]

Shauna, Trevor and teirno were not rivals, they were friends and companions, they shown a lot of trust and care for their pokemon; they helped you on the adventure in x and y, sliver was weak because he didn’t show any of his Pokémon any trust or love. It’s the same reason why Blue lost to Red, if you don’t show any of that to your Pokémon, you lose

[@GappyGoesb3yond]

volo has entered the chat

[@blacksheep7741]

Gary never had a tyranitar That's Ashes Pokémon that's off limits

[@shelbybayer200]

With Arven what are you talking about He beats me all the time Though, I suck at Meta gameplay in general

[@mrgonzalez8838]

I really started to be annoyed with pokemon whenever the rival chose the starter that was weaker against ours. It truly felt like the game was going too easy on us. That being said, I am glad those rivals are mid or lower on the list.

[@denman2991]

i'm 99.9% sure we'll see Carmine and Kieran again next month shouldn't you have waited until then to rank them ?

[@MysticUmbreon]

Didn't know there was gonna be an annoucement for DLC so soon and the video was already done by the time I found out lol

[@denman2991]

@@MysticUmbreon fair enough lol