The Pokémon Company released Pokémon Champions – a new free-to-play entry focused entirely on Pokémon battles – on April 8 for the Nintendo Switch (with mobile versions set to release in summer 2026). The title brings important changes to battle mechanics and rules compared to previous games, which players were quick to notice.
Most notably, in Pokémon Champions, when the overall match timer runs out, Ranked and Casual Battles now result in a draw. Players receive neither VP (Victory Points) nor SP (Season Points), and rankings remain unaffected.
In previous Pokémon games, in the event of a match time-out, a winner would be determined based on factors such as the number of remaining Pokémon and the HP of those on the field. This led to the emergence of stalling tactics, where players would attempt to intentionally force a match to time out in order to win. This often involved waiting until the last possible moment before selecting an action on each turn, which made matches drag on and has been somewhat controversial in the community.
By contrast, Pokémon Champions enforces an unconditional draw in both Ranked and Casual Battles when the timer runs out. The old rules remain valid only in Private Battles, which are set up by players and are not matchmaking-based. While this means that strategies that aim to win via time-out will no longer have competitive value, concerns are already spreading on social media that players could exploit this by forcing matches they are about to lose into a time-out, resulting in a draw.
There are also notable changes made to status effects. For instance, when paralyzed, the chance of being unable to act has been reduced from 25% to 12.5%, and when frozen, in addition to a 25% chance to thaw when attempting to use a move, Pokémon are now guaranteed to thaw after the third turn.
With these and other major adjustments, Pokémon Champions introduces significant changes compared to past titles. There’s also the much talked about new Mega Evolutions of Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, so we’re bound to see some changes in the franchise’s competitive scene.
Pokémon Champions is out now for Nintendo Switch, with iOS and Android versions planned for release this summer.
