Why Ash Ketchum Would Never Win the Pokémon League Based on His Actual Badge Count

Why Ash Ketchum Would Never Win the Pokémon League Based on His Actual Badge Count

This video analyzes Ash Ketchum's journey through the Pokémon League, arguing that he only earned three badges legitimately and would have lost even with Charizard's obedience. Three professional players test Ash's team in a simulated run, revealing that his poor strategy and reliance on luck would prevent him from winning. The analysis highlights the gap between the anime's portrayal and actual game mechanics.

Game Theory: Ash Ketchum SUCKS At Pokémon. | Transcript:

Ash Ketchum is stupid. We all know this, but how stupid is he? Today, we're going to finally find out. Hello internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that is constantly overthinking everything about Ash Ketchum. From his true age to who he's going to marry. Heck, my first ever episode of Game Theory was calculating the level of Ash's Pikachu. But, there is one part of Ash's life that has always bothered me. During his first time in the Pokémon League, his Charizard famously doesn't obey him, causing him to forfeit the match. Now, at first, this just feels like plot convenience. Ash has all eight badges, and anyone who has played the

games knows that once you have all eight badges, all Pokémon, regardless of level, should obey you. It doesn't matter how strong this guy is, he should have been listening to Ash. And if he had, Ash almost certainly would have won the league, right? Well, maybe not. See, if you watched all the episodes like I did, you'll have noticed that Ash didn't actually win all eight badges. In reality, he only won three. The Thunder Badge, the Soul Badge, and the Volcano Badge. The rest basically were given to him for just being a good dude. Brock gave him the badge for surrendering. Misty's sisters and Erika gave him the badge for saving the gym. Sabrina laughed at his Haunter. And the Earth

Badge, he actually did win the battle. It was against Team Rocket, not the real gym leader. And even then, he only got it because it fell out of the sky as they were blasting off again. Basically, Ash hasn't proven squat. Which begs the question, if these gym leaders hadn't gone easy on him and his Charizard's respect had been earned, could Ash have actually beaten all of the gyms and the Pokémon League? I wanted to find out, and a few years ago, I actually streamed myself playing a prototype version of this challenge. The problem is, I'm not the best Pokémon player. I the games, absolutely, if you couldn't tell from the posters and the weird amount of Eevee plushies I have. But, just because

I love it, that doesn't immediately make me good at them. I did beat the game in the end, but I was just kind of eyeballing stuff. If I wanted to find out the answers for real, I needed to make this a proper Pokémon challenge with actual professional Pokémon players. So, I decided to gather together three of the biggest Pokémon nerds I know to put Ash's team to the test. So, say hi to our brave test subjects. I mean, Pokémon trainers. Aydahf, Keegan J, and Jacob Alpharat. Although, before we can throw these guys into Pallet Town, let me tell you about another new city, the sky island city of Rose Kalifa, which is part of the 3.0 update for today's sponsor, Zenless Zone

Zero. Yeah, I'm still playing this game. I mean, how can I not? It's still a high-action RPG based in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, but now they came straight for me with Rose Kalifa combining its futuristic looks with classic British urban aesthetics. Ah, it just feels like home. If my home was being ravaged by monsters from interdimensional rifts. If anything, it actually sounds like some of the more modern entries of a certain other franchise we've been talking about. Plus, this new season promises to add new factions, new major story beats, and new mysteries for us to solve. And, you know me, I can't resist a good mystery.

It's what gets my theorist blood pumping in the morning. And, if you haven't already, right now is the perfect time to start playing because as part of the 3.0 update, they're giving away a free S-rank agent, Pyrois, an agent of the Python faction. And, plus a free skin for that character and a bunch of other freebies like 1,600 polychrome, 20 character pulls, and 10 signal searches. So, you can really hit the ground running, unlike our competitors today. So, head on down to the description and click the link or use the QR code on screen to download the game today for free on PC, PS5, and Xbox. And, for some extra rewards, use the code ZZZ30BANGBOO, which will give you even more in-game

currency to help you get started or just bolster your already thriving squad. Thanks again to Zenless Zone Zero for sponsoring this video, but let's check back in on our competitors and what they had to do on their way to Cerulean City. Like any good experiment, we first have to establish some basic parameters. The goal here is to recreate Ash's experience as much as is physically possible within the bounds of a 30-year-old game. And honestly, I think we got pretty close. We're going to be following Ash as he battles through the eight gym leaders and the Elite Four of the Kanto region. During each battle, we'll be using the Indigo League rules that Ash uses in the anime. They can only use as many Pokémon as the gym

leader themselves uses. They can swap out Pokémon if they wish. They can't use items and there are no revives. Each player is only going to have access to whatever Pokémon Ash had when he went up against that gym leader in the anime. And we'll be catching, releasing, and evolving them like he does in the anime. Those Pokémon will be level capped at the highest level of the gym leader's Pokémon because I didn't want any of our players to simply get around the challenge by XP grinding on Route 2 like I did. And to top it all off, I then went back through the anime and made notes of each Pokémon's move set so the players will have those same moves available. But here's where things get

interesting because what's an experiment without a variable? For this, I've given each player a specific rule about which Pokémon they can use. In classic Kiegel J style, he is free to use whichever Pokémon Ash had at the time of the gym battle. Doesn't matter what he did or didn't use in the anime, it's just about planning and skill. Jacob, on the other hand, needs to use Pikachu each time, but he can fill the other slots however he wants. I mean, makes sense, right? Pikachu is the goat. Only makes sense that Ash would want him there at all times. Finally, there's Adef who specifically asked me for the hardest rule set. So he must use Ash's exact team makeup from the anime. If there's a

spare slot because the gym leader uses more Pokemon, he is free to fill that however he wishes. There may be one or two other details, but I'll explain them as we go. So without further ado, it is time to prepare your Pokeballs loyal theorists seekers. We're about to see if Ash's team could really stand up to the Kanto gauntlet. Ready team? Get set. Go. We start the game like normal in Pallet Town, Ash's home. But instead of picking one of the iconic three Kanto starters, we were late and we get our beloved Pikachu.

Its name is Pikachu. Oh, it's so cute. It's the best of all. Oh, hi Pikachu. Pika. Then we catch a Caterpie. Caterpie, you're mine. Then a Pidgeotto. Yes, we got Pidgeotto. And we quickly evolve Caterpie twice all the way into a Butterfree all without leaving the Viridian Forest. With that, we have everything we need for our first gym battle, Brock. And immediately things get hard, rock hard. Oh, calm down. Brock is a rock type trainer, but all of his Pokemon, Geodude and Onix, are also ground types making him one of the hardest gym leaders to beat during a normal play through if you pick the fire type Charmander, which is weak to both of those types.

Or if you're us, you picked Pikachu, the electric type, and all electric moves do zero damage against ground types. This makes it really difficult for Ash to win. And in the anime, that's exactly what happened. He loses the first time and gets extremely lucky the second time by setting off the sprinklers. And the same thing held true for our competitors, or at least two of them. Both Keegan and Jacob struggled here. Keegan chose Butterfree and Pidgeotto except for one time where he gave Pikachu a go and quickly regretted it. And Jacob had to use Pikachu, so he chose Pidgeotto as his second Pokémon.

Yeah, one like it has to connect eventually, right? You're kidding. How was it still landing these attacks? Yeah. This is not looking pretty right now. Two in a row? Come on, man. I need this to miss. I need a tackle to start missing. What was the deal here, Keegan? Why was this battle in particular so challenging? This fight against Brock is so hard because all three of Ash's current Pokémon have a terrible match-up into the rock and ground types of this gym. Defensively, both Pidgeotto and Butterfree are weak against rock type attacks. This makes it hard enough, but it gets even worse when you realize that

offensively, none of our Pokémon have any attacks that are good against Brock. To start, Pikachu's Thunderbolt is completely ineffective against ground types, meaning it can't hit either of Brock's Pokémon. This leaves our team with only normal and flying type attacks, both of which barely deal any damage against Brock, both due to the poor type match-up and Brock's Pokémon having a really high physical defense. Overall, this combination is deadly as we struggle to deal damage while also not being able to tank many hits. If we could use Ash's Squirtle or Bulbasaur here, this would be a very different story. Or if we could just break the

water sprinklers like Ash did in the anime, that would also make things much simpler. However, only being able to use these three Pokémon here makes this fight such a tough early game hurdle. I should also mention because this is Ash's Pikachu, we actually gave him the stats of partner Pikachu from Let's Go to make him a little more viable, especially in the late game. But even then, at this level, it was a real struggle to get through. It basically came down to lucky RNG, taking Keegan five attempts and taking Jacob six. Oh my that's it. Brock is done. So, with extreme perseverance, Ash can technically beat Brock. Then, Adef gave it a go. He uses the

same build as Jacob because that's what Ash uses in the anime. And at first, I thought he'd go the same way as everyone else. He lost his first battle, and so it looked like another painful RNG slog was up ahead. But, Adef was smart. They used this first fight to test out what strategies worked and what didn't in this situation. Our goal is probably just to sand attack a bunch, and then pray, and then we just quick attack. And welcome to our new home. And so, on the second try, Adef also powered through. Was it skill? Was it luck? Who's to say at this point? But, that's our first gym down.

Even if it was a super close call. On to the next one, Cerulean City. Between Pewter and Cerulean, Ash doesn't actually pick up any new Pokémon. So, once again, Pikachu Pidgeotto and Butterfree are the stars of the show. Now, you'd think this would be an easy win. Ash should just sweep this battle because of Pikachu. And to be fair, both Keegan and Jacob do exactly that. Pikachu, use Thunderbolt. Ooh, very simple. I think I could have just clicked Thunderbolt on Pikachu twice and won Misty. I'd actually No, I don't think this is a challenge at all.

However, in the anime, Pikachu actually refused to fight Misty. All right then, Pikachu, I choose you. Pikachu, what are you doing? Oh, what? Are you saying you don't want to battle with Misty? So, Adef, who has to use the same Pokémon as Ash, is at a disadvantage. Ash doesn't use Pikachu on Misty? Why ever not? Pikachu refused to battle? Well, he better grow up because it's he's going to be needed. Fortunately, despite it being a very close call, thanks to Butterfree's bad move set and

an unlucky critical hit, Adef did manage to beat Misty in one attempt. All right, we're good. Ash has two badges. No Pikachu required and that one was first try, baby. I'm starting to worry that 8-bit might be too good at this. Either that or these gyms were always this easy. Maybe that's why they just gave Ash the badge. It was basically as good as over as soon as he walked through the door. But okay, that means we're on to the Thunder Badge in Vermilion City. But before we get there, we have to catch a couple of Pokémon. First, there's a Bulbasaur. Poké Ball, go! We did it! We got Bulbasaur. Then Charmander.

Come on, Charmander. Welcome to the group. Up next is Squirtle. Would you like to come along with us, Squirtle? Squirtle! Finally, Ash gets a Krabby. Now I really caught one. Good try, Krabby, but not good enough. So a ton of new Pokémon in one go. And now we finally have some real diversity on this team. Not that he intended it to be that way, but you know, silver linings and all that. At least now they won't get destroyed by a rogue ground type that looks at them funny. That being said, none of them are great for an electric type gym. In the show, Ash just uses his overpowered Pikachu to

power through. And so if Ash could win this match, surely that would mean our competitors will probably win their match as well. And yeah, they do. Since Ash only used Pikachu in this fight, most of our competitors basically had free reign to use whoever they wanted. And weirdly, they all used the same team: Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and Charmander. Pikachu is an electric type, so is resistant there. Bulbasaur being a grass type is also resistant to electricity. And Charmander, well, it turns out if you have a Charmander with Flamethrower like Ash does this early in the game, it kind of breaks the whole system.

All right, nice. Beautiful. Easy peasy, baby. That was much easier than the Brock fight, that's for sure. You know what? I think this challenge is going to go smooth sailing from here on out. Actually, no, no, no, I think the mid game is going to be easy. I think the late game is where things will get hard again. Well, let's see if you're right about that, Jacob. This is where things start to get a little confusing. In the show, Ash then goes on to get the Marsh badge from Sabrina. But in the games, you're actually pushed towards Erika next with the level cap. If you jump right to Sabrina, we would have to train our Pokémon to the level 43 level cap

and then go back and just sweep Erika's poor level 29 team, which doesn't feel right. So, we're going to change the order here just for the sake of logic. I mean, Ash did get completely bodied the first time he went up against Sabrina. So, I think going to Erika first makes sense. Technically, Ash also gains a Raticate at this point. Well, that's all there is to it. Raticate is your new Pokémon. But then he immediately regrets it because, duh. So, he doesn't have it for any future battles, although not that he keeps the Butterfree around for long, either. Yep, it's time for some childhood trauma.

Goodbye, Butterfree. Bye-bye, Butterfree. Good luck to both of you. And so, our trainers followed suit. know what time it is, everybody? Everyone say bye-bye to Butterfree. It's what has to happen, unfortunately. It's canon. It's how the journey has to go. O7's Butterfree, you were a real one. Go be with your people. Uh ignore this second Butterfree. I'll release this one as well. That means our competitors, unfortunately, have one less Pokémon to choose from in their next battle. But, that's quickly made up for with the addition of Primeape.

Primeape is mine. Which happened to be caught during the infamous jelly donut episode. are great. Jelly-filled are my favorite. Nothing beats a jelly-filled donut. Maybe I should have these guys eating jelly donuts just for accuracy. But now, it's time for Erika. And for once, Ash used his type advantage to his advantage. He uses Charmander, and so everyone else followed suit and just destroyed her. Well, turns out Charmander just solos Erika. We brought a full team. Uh that was for cosmetics. Charmander that is a he's just a unit.

Get absolutely cooked. Check plus. After this we get Haunter. Technically Ash never really catches Haunter. He just kind of asks Haunter to come along and help fight Sabrina. Will you help me defeat her? That Marsh badge is as good as mine. But we're going to count it anyway. It's also worth noting that Haunter has a really bad move set in the show. The only ghost type attack he has is lick. Yeah, not the best for this battle but regardless people actually did quite well against Sabrina just for very different reasons.

Keegan used a mix of Haunter, Pikachu and Charmander and with a lucky critical hit managed to take the win. Aiden came in with Pidgeotto and Charmander with a tasteful finale from Pikachu. I used Pikachu. Wait. I'm Ash Ketchum. My mom is dating Mr. Mime and I don't have any problem with that. I'm never going to think about it and my therapist doesn't have to know. Which left Jacob who decided to rely almost solely on Primeape? I'm going to lead with Primeape and just click thrash and see what happens. I mean that's a choice. Isn't he super weak against psychic types? So I come from a Nuzlocke background right? So you have to know how to exploit every single trainer

because you're not always going to be granted the same Pokémon. And the thing that's most notable about Sabrina's team is obviously they're very fast. They hit very hard specially. But a Pokémon like Alakazam is very frail physically. It has 135 special attack, 120 speed, 95 special defense. Like it's very good in that regard but this is a very min-max Pokémon. I mean the whole line is. That pales in comparison to this 55 HP, 50 attack, 45 attack. And that brings us to Primeape which I know isn't like the best answer into Sabrina on paper but we are going to out speed nearly everything she has outside of the Alakazam and we are going to hit it with this 105 attack stat. So suddenly none of our other

stats matter that much if we are just hitting things hard with Primeape. And the other fun fact is that I'm actually doing a second layer of technology here with Primeape, whereas I know when I go up to that Alakazam, I'm going to be dead in one psychic. Like it just is what it is realistically. But how the AI works is that to put it short, when it sees a super effective move, especially one that can kill, it's going to click that one. And Sabrina's Alakazam can either click future sight or psychic. And of course, future sight delays it a few turns, but it technically does more damage. And the AI doesn't really think about what kills now, it just thinks about what kills. So, if the Alakazam

attacks me, it's most likely going to click future sight. And that just opens the door for Primeape to attack it again. It doesn't look like it would work, but once you kind of look under the hood, you can see why this works. There is a timeline where this thrash just one shots it, right? Yes. And then we just keep clicking thrash. Primeape did not solo, unfortunately, but it got pretty damn close. You know what? Pikachu finished the job. I did not know Primeape had that dog in him. Fortunately for Jacob though, this did work. I almost feel bad that you now have to get rid of it. What? Sorry, that's the rules. He's going to go away and become a fighting world champion after all. After fighting Sabrina, I am now instructed to release

Primeape. And like, dude, what a heroic way out. He demolished Sabrina. Nearly soloed it. Haunter also leaves, but I'm not like too upset about that one. He was just chilling, you know, he was just present. Sometimes that's all you can ask for. In later seasons of the show, Pikachu basically just becomes set dressing. But anyway, after those goodbyes, we grab Muk. I did it! I captured a Muk. Then we head over to Fuchsia City to battle with Koga, the poison type gym leader. Heegan and Alpharad both managed to get through this battle pretty easily. But his Weezing is completely hard countered by Muk, so two body slams

finish it off, and that's Koga done. After suffering through that first Brock fight, my hacks luck has been so good. Things have just not gotten to attack and it's been beautiful. One more flamethrower and that's it. But oh, poor ADEF gets caught up in the classic cycle of minimize with Machop. He loses on his first attempt but locks in for the second round. That is a check plus on Koga, baby. We are so back. Koga, I hate you so much. That is a Pikachu solo. Easy. I was never worried. So far, whatever way you slice it, Ash's team is managing to keep up with these gym leaders. Even with his poor choice in Pokémon, these battles are still possible. But now, we're into the late game gyms.

The late game is where things will get hard again. Who cares about that? Because this is the moment everyone's been waiting for. Ash is finally going to catch 30 Tauros. On top of catching all of those Tauros, we also get to evolve Charmander not once, but twice. It's evolving. Wow, Charizard. Yep, finally Ash evolved a Pokémon. He is almost 30 levels above what he should be at this point. In the anime, they actually say that Charizard evolved too soon, which is why he's so much shorter

than other Charizards. But in reality, he was clearly overleveled. Maybe another reason why Charizard didn't want to listen. But better late than never. Now, we have to use Charizard to get our Volcano Badge because Ash just loves using the same typing against each other for some reason. Which puts ADEF in a bit of a spot. Fortunately, Ash has some wits about him and in the initial fight against Blaine, he uses Pikachu but more importantly, Squirtle, which ADEF uses to wipe out a big chunk of Blaine's team.

99% of Thunder users stop clicking it just before it hits big. Check plus. Keegan also relied on Squirtle as well as Krabby to take down most of the team. But despite having complete freedom, decided to hold true and see it out with Charizard. All right, nice. Well done, Charizard. Just like the anime, Charizard defeats Blaine, giving us badge number seven. GG, Blaine. But then, there's Jacob, who brings out perhaps one of the most advanced battle techniques ever. I am going to save because I'm kind of going silly mode with this team and I don't know if it is the correct play. Like absolutely there are better teams to do. I think Charizard should come here to like at least resist things. I

think just bringing the three Tauros, I would bring four Tauros if I could. That's right. Jacob went full Tauros. And while I thought about getting him back in here to explain why he did that, well, just watch. Oh my god, that's Oh, he intimidates me. All right, well, I'm just clicking Fissure. Well, that works. Six Fissures, four hits, by the way, and that's Blaine. Fun fact, Ash doesn't actually ever use Tauros until he gets to the Orange Island final. Clearly, he was missing a trick there. And I think this may become a bit of a pattern going forward. And with that, we're on to the last gym

battle of the game. We don't catch or evolve any Pokémon in preparation, either. Yeah, we're taking Squirtle and Bulbasaur all the way to the final gym leader because Ash does not care. I mean, half the time he's handed a badge, anyway, so why would he care? Well, we do care. And unlike Ash, we're actually going to fight the real Giovanni. Aidef has to use Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Pidgeotto since that's what Ash uses, which actually works to his advantage. While in the anime he fights Team Rocket, who aren't using the usual ground-type Pokémon, Giovanni has two Pokémon with a four times weakness to water and grass, and all the others are at least two times weak to them. So, Bulbasaur and Squirtle are really solid picks here.

Easy-peasy. That's eight badges, baby. Ash Ketchum has gotten all eight Kanto badges. This is huge. It's unsurprising therefore that Keegan took a similar tactic using Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charizard, Tauros, and Pidgeotto. Nice. Job done. The eighth and final legitimate badge for Ash Ketchum. I never thought I'd see the day. And now you all know what time it is. It's Tauros time. Uh well, it looks like I'm bringing three Tauros. You already know the vibes. You know what it is. Although turns out he only needed one Tauros. I guess he was wrong about the late game being that hard after all.

I don't know what to say. Tauros one kind of goated though. I legitimately thought Giovanni was going to be like impossible. I didn't think we had anything for it and uh Fisher, that's our get-out-of-jail-free card. And with that Ash has all eight badges. It is time for Pokémon League. But not before he gets one final evolution, Krabby into Kingler. Hey guys, Krabby evolved. It looks like the intensity of the battle has caused Krabby to evolve into Kingler. Yes, I know that technically he evolves during one of the first fights of the Pokémon League, but the games don't really let us do that and he wins

because it evolves, so it feels like this is just the best way to handle it. Plus we're having to bend the rules a bit anyway as the anime doesn't actually have an Elite Four. I understand why they wouldn't love that format. The tournament style gives Ash plenty of cool plot opportunities with new characters. Plus it stops him from becoming a Pokémon master allowing the series to go on for another 20 years. But this video can't go on for another 20 years. It's already long enough as it is. So if you haven't already, I'd appreciate if you subscribed. It lets me know that you like these longer videos and the collabs we've been doing on the channel. Thanks for that, but let's get

on with the Pokémon League, shall we? Ash only has about eight different Pokémon at this point, but the Elite Four is varied. So they have to strategize and diversify if they're going to succeed. While Ash uses most of his Pokémon except for Tauros during the League, he obviously has a fondness for Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Pidgeotto, and Pikachu. So to make the challenge more challenging as he requested, Aid F used those while also filtering around the lesser used Pokémon like Muk, Kingler, and Charizard. Whereas, both Keegan and Jacob decided to just completely replace all of the over-leveled but unevolved Pokémon like Bulbasaur and Squirtle for Tauros and Charizard pretty consistently. And while this is a smart strategic decision, I think Jacob wished he'd done it

differently. I'm going to be heavily relying on the Fissure. Honestly, I should have just brought five Tauroses. What was I thinking? In fact, Jacob pretty much soloed the entire Elite Four with just Tauros. Now we click Fissure. You're kidding. Why? How is Tauros one so goated? How does he do it? I did not think Pikachu was going to Why doesn't Ash just do this? You don't need other moves. Just spam Fissure and Pika Fissure and we got it. Yeah, is he stupid? Is he Is Ash just stupid or like what is it? Why did it take him seven generations? I feel like this game's easy.

Sadly, that strategy would not last forever. Even though he does get one Fissure off on Dragonair, Lance has a bunch of flying type Pokémon that are just simply immune to ground type moves like Fissure. Pikachu also goes down during the fight, forcing Jacob to swap in some other party members, but he does manage to claim the victory. That fight did get a little scary. I threw Pikachu around. I Fissured a bit too much. What can you do? But, there is still one more fight to go, the champion, our rival, Gary. This is the first and only 6 V 6 fight. So, you guessed it, Alpharad adds yet another Tauros to his team. we bring in another Tauros. Could we possibly lose now? I don't think so.

Honestly, I don't think so. The champion is a 6 V 6 battle, which means we get the bonus bull, which is perhaps the best reward any game could ever provide you with. This fight ends up being pretty easy. Tauros one unfortunately goes down, but then passes the torch to Tauros two, who just sweeps Gary. Uh okay, so now what? Blastoise? Well, this is Pikachu's battle more so than anybody else's. If he kills Taurus, he kills Taurus. If I kill with How?

Kegan also had a pretty straightforward run using basically the same team as Jacob just with a little less fish up reliance. So, four of her Pokémon are water types, meaning basically my plan is for Pikachu to go All right. Lapras goes down and that is Lorelei done. And the poison finishes it off. All right, that's Bruno done. All right, next up is Agathon. Agathon's probably the most scary of the Elite Four for me. All right, please do something. Oh, that's terrible. Oh my god, seriously? Hit these attacks. Oh, all right. One it is. Critical hit. The Ash Ketchum plot armor is back in full swing. All right, that was kind of close, but yeah, that's Agatha done. GG.

All right, next up is Lance. I'd say on paper his team is stronger than Agatha's, but I think we have a better match up here than we did in the last fight. So, Lance is going to heal, unfortunately, but at least Pikachu can land another thunderbolt. Okay, I just need Kingler to live a hyper beam. Please, Kingler, live this. All right, easily. What was I worried for? And that was a lot closer than I thought it was going to be, but that's Lance dealt with. And for the final fight, he adds Bulbasaur in who comes in clutch against Rhydon and even does some pretty good damage against Alakazam. And ultimately, he also comes out victorious.

Down goes Gary. Ash truly is a Pokémon champion. What a time to be alive. Honestly, Gary, my guy, that wasn't even close. But then, there was Adeff. Oh, poor Adeff. Thanks to Ash's insistence on using unevolved Pokémon like Squirtle and Bulbasaur, Adeff ended up in a pretty rough spot. Lorelei went down easily enough thanks to Pikachu, but both Bruno and Agatha gave him a run for his money. That's a crit. You can stop at any time. Brother, goodness, good wake up. Okay. I got really unlucky. A lot of crits. Now, a lot of the crits were from cross chop from Machamp and cross chop has a high crit rate, so it's not like completely unforeseeable, but I still

got pretty unlucky on my first attempt and there were a lot of crits against me. On Agatha though, the story is a little different. I have a bit of a history with this trainer. I have been unlucky on this fight many times on my own channel over on the 8-bit channel in challenge runs like this one where I try to see if other trainers could make it through to Victory Road or to the Elite Four. Agatha is pretty much always a nightmare. Her team is really solid. I mean, Gengar is incredibly good and if that Haunter can get you asleep, first of all, its speed status really high, but also Dream Eater is just an incredibly powerful move and it sort of kicks you while you're down when you're

asleep. So, you can quickly get into a bad situation against Agatha and candidly, I don't think Ash matches up very positively against her team anyway, but in the end, you will find. Both times you able to lock in and with a little bit of luck and some help from Charizard, he managed to take them down. I really wanted to not use Charizard until I absolutely had to and this is winnable without Zard, but it is really annoying. So, whatever. And it one shots. Beautiful. Well, I didn't want to use Charizard, but it is a check plus and we are moving on. And from this point on, 8-bit had a much easier time.

Yeah, nice. Beautiful. That was way easier. That's a check plus. Agatha remains the most threatening and we're on to the champ, our rival, Gary Oak. Ash Ketchum is champion of the Kanto region, baby. It's just that easy. And just like that, all three trainers defeated the Elite Four and became the champion of the Kanto region. We did it. So, yeah, is Ash just stupid or something or Look, if I had the sprinklers and Brock, this would have been the easiest run ever. And the truth is, he's not wrong to be asking that. No matter what way you slice it, Ash has everything in his tool belt to beat all the gyms and the league fair and square. Even with his bad type match-ups and unevolved Pokémon, it is

perfectly possible. His stupidity definitely makes it tougher as Ada saw firsthand, but it is doable. Ash shouldn't have taken the handouts. He should have earned all of his badges fair and square and that way Charizard would have maybe listened to him and he wouldn't have had to wait 20 years to become a champion. Although Ash's stupidity doesn't just stop at type match-ups. One thing we've proved in our Pikachu's level video is that Ash doesn't actually train enough. Sure, he goes on a bunch of adventures, but his Pokémon aren't really leveling up all that much. We followed basic challenge rules here where the Pokémon matches the level of the leader's strongest Pokémon, but in reality Ash doesn't get his

Pokémon to those levels at all. Heck, Pikachu is only around level 30 by the time he gets to the league and Pikachu gets more battle time than any other of his Pokémon in the first region. So, while it's technically possible for Ash to win, once again, his own stupidity and lack of dedication is the real reason he could never have won. But, hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching. World premiere on Game Theory. Pokémon Legends ZA will be the death of the Pokémon world.

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