Showdown is back and better than ever! For those that don’t know what our Showdown series is, or need a reminder: Showdown is where we hold a series of polls on our site and ask readers to vote for their top choice until we found our champion.
Showdown: Villainous Teams will work a little differently this time however: rather than a winner from each round moving forward into a finale vote-off, votes from each round will influence the final score one all rounds are complete. This time will have four rounds: Round 1: Leaders, Round 2: Grunts, Round 3: Plans, Round 4: Overall. The final winner will be the team that receives the most OVERALL votes.
You can pick your favourite by voting in the polls on the site. At the end of the voting period, we’ll add up all the votes, publish a results post and get started on the next round!
NOTE I: Teams that appear in more than one Generation are classed as one team. For example: Team Aqua from Generation III is classed as the same as the Team Aqua from Generation VI and will receive combined votes. This also means Generation III Archie and Generation VI Archie will have their vote combined, for example.
NOTE II: Team Rainbow Rocket and Aether Foundation have also been excluded from this series.
Voting periods will run for one week at a time and new rounds will begin on the following dates:
Round I: Leaders — December 2nd
Round II: Grunts & Admin — December 9th
Round III: Plans — December 16th
Round IV: Overall — December 23rd
Winner Announcements — December 30th
Up first in Round I are the leaders of each villainous team. These are responsible for giving guidance to their teams and often the main “bad guy” trainers face in their Pokémon adventures. Every region has had their own unique team excluding Johto, who share Team Rocket with the Kanto region.
Giovanni: Team Rocket Leader
Appears in: RBY, FRLG, HGSS, BW, B2W2, USUM
Giovanni is the Leader of the original villainous team, Team Rocket. Team Rocket has appeared in the largest number of Pokémon games, in many different iterations. Giovanni himself is the only Team Leader to hold a Gym Leader position.
Many of Giovanni’s actions within story events reflect upon his selfish nature. He has abandoned his team on several occasions, despite this they still remain loyal to him.
Giovanni also leads Team Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
Maxie: Team Magma Leader
Appears in: RSE, ORAS, USUM
Maxie leads Team Magma in the Hoenn Region. He wishes to create an ideal world for humanity. Maxie is often calm yet sensitive in game, making his true personality difficult to understand. He pays extreme attention to the tiniest of details, but believes that some sacrifices cannot be avoided if he is to achieve his goals.
Maxie is able to utilise the power of of Mega Evolution and Mega Evolves his Camerupt during battles.
Archie: Team Aqua Leader
Appears in: RSE, ORAS, USUM
Team Aqua is lead by Archie, who dreams of creating a perfect world for Pokémon to live in. Due to his big heart he has earned unending loyalty from subordinates within his team. Despite this, he does not care for the wellbeing of himself or his team if it means he can achieve his ultimate goal.
Archie is a Mega Evolution user and will boost the power of his Sharpedo using it.
Cyrus: Team Galactic Leader
Appears in: DPPt, USUM
Cyrus heads Team Galactic and is perhaps the most twisted of all the Team Leaders. His childhood rejection led him to believe the problems of the world were caused by emotion. Ultimately he dreamed of destroying the universe, so he could create another with himself as its god.
Cyrus is often portrayed with little to no emotion and is happy to exclude himself in the unknown after being defeated by trainers in the Distortion World.
Colress & Ghetsis: Team Plasma Leaders
Colress appears in: B2W2, SM, USUM
Ghetsis appears in: BW, B2W2, USUM
(Note: Ghetsis unpictured)
Ghetsis and Colress are leaders of Team Plasma in Black/White and Black 2/White 2 respectively. Ghetsis at first appears to be a kind-hearted individual merely wanting the best for Pokémon. However, as events progress his true megalomaniac personality becomes apparent. He is willing to stop at nothing in order to achieve his dream of liberating Pokémon from humans.
Colress has less far insidious intentions and joined Team Plasma in order to research the true power of Pokémon, thus unlocking their full potential. He is extremely helpful and polite towards the player and even offers to rebattle them after his defeat within Team Plasma.
Lysandre: Team Flare Leader
Appears in: XY, USUM
Lysandre is the leader of Team Flare in the Kalos region. He sees the beauty within everything, but unfortunately takes his obsession with it too far. He wishes to make the world a perfect place and despite the beauty that they hold is willing to destroy all Pokémon and humans that do not follow Team Flare.
Guzma: Team Skull Leader
Appears in: SM, USUM
Team Skull’s Leader is Guzma. His plans are far less wicked than that of the other Leaders, with him instead merely wanting to bring fear and chaos to the Alola region. His looks gain him a lot of respect from most in the Alola region, but in reality he lacks confidence in himself and wishes to be seen as a confident Pokémon Trainer.
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So, there you have it, all 8 contenders in the Leaders round of this showdown. Get voting for your favourites and be sure to comment below with your thoughts and opinions only who deserves to win!
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Be sure to check back next week for Round II: Grunts and stick around for more content as part of our ongoing Advent event!