Pokémon Champions Will Make One Major Change To The Pokémon Competitive Scene

1 day ago 12

Published Mar 8, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Lee D’Amato is a writer born, raised, and based in Queens, New York. With collective thousands of hours in games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Elden Ring, and The Legend of Zelda, he's now writes game features, guides, and reviews for Screen Rant, but has covered a wide range of topics, including ancient history, affordable travel, and overall health.

Pokémon Champions is bringing major changes to the world of competitive Pokémon, and fans are split on whether they'll be good for the community. The upcoming Switch and mobile game will allow players to engage in casual and ranked battles against trainers from around the world.

Pokémon Champions Will Usher In Changes

How the new stat formula changes the game

Mega Charizard X shooting fire at Dodonzo who is shooting water in Pokemon Champions

The new stat formula for Pokémon Champions does away with EVs, hidden stats previously distributed to Pokémon based on the battles they participated in. For example, if your Pokémon battles a Geodude, which ordinarily have high Defense, they'll get EVs that boost their own defense in future battles.

Over the years, this has become an important aspect of Pokémon training: players can use EVs to customize their Pokémon's stats. In Champions, however, EVs are being replaced with the new SP system, which works a bit differently. Each SP is roughly equivalent to 8 EVs. Now, you can assign up to 32 SPs to each stat, with a hard limit of 66.

In some ways, that's a good thing: since the limit is higher now, you can max out two of each Pokémon's stats, instead of just one, and you won't have any leftover EVs at the end. However, this comes with a limitation: any changes you make to a Pokémon's stats, nature, moves, or other features won't carry over if you transfer them from Champions back to an older game.

Fans Are Calling These Changes Positive

But some are scared to lose progress

Charizard, Dodonzo, Samurott, and Aegislash in Pokemon Champions

The reaction to Pokémon Champions' new stat formula has been largely positive. Fans have long since expressed concerns about how EVs work, and their impact on competitive battling in general; to those fans, this seems like a first step in the right direction.

However, some players have expressed concern that the new stat formula could cause them to lose years of progress in training. One frustrated fan commented, "So then everything we know about competitive building is just thrown out the window?"

Others suggested that these stat formula changes could be the first sign of bigger shakeups to the Pokémon formula. "I suspect IVs have already been removed from Gen10," one commenter says, "If not, they'll be gone by Gen11."

It's still not exactly clear how the stat changes will affect battles and training going forward, but we won't have to wait too long to find out. Pokémon Champions is out on Switch in April 2026, with an iOS and Android release to follow.