My 10 Favourite Pokémon Gym Leaders

Pokémon is awesome, and many of the characters in Pokémon are awesome. Whether they're characters from the games or the anime, this franchise has many, many memorable and awesome characters that leave an impression on fans and players alike be they humans or Pokémon.

But of course, many of the franchise's most memorable characters are the ones we often have to face in order to achieve our Champion status in the games. You know what I'm talking about, the ones who regularly pose a challenge to new trainers everywhere in both the games and the anime. What would Pokémon be without Gym Leaders?

Gym Leaders are among the most iconic and memorable characters in the entire franchise. Whether they have a striking design, a charming personality quirk, a relatable character trait or a team of Pokémon we enjoy catching ourselves or fight against, Gym Leaders always leave an impression on us and this list is all about what I consider to be ten of my favourite Gym Leaders.

All nine generations can have a spot on this list and I'm not fussy about which Gym Leaders can make the count. Whether they specialize in Fighting, Water, Fire, Grass, Electric or whatever typing there is, they can get a spot on this list. Also, I'm not limiting myself to just the games either. If you're a Gym Leader and you've appeared in any form of Pokémon media, you can qualify for this list. This list is about my ten favourite Gym Leaders in general, not just those from the games. The one exception I will make is Iris. I do love Iris, but I'm not including her on the list since she's no longer a Gym Leader, she's a Champion. If I made a list of my favourite Champions, then Iris would make an appearance. For this list, the characters either have to be Gym Leaders or be known by the title of Gym Leader. If you're a Gym Leader who changes ranks like say becoming a member of the Elite Four or becoming a Champion, you're not illegible for the list.

So without further ado, let's get started!

This list is in no particular order by the way.

1: Bea from Pokémon Sword

If this list WAS in any particular order, I'd probably put this girl at the top spot. Also, don't be surprised if more than one Gym Leader from Sword and Shield makes the countdown since those games objectively have the coolest batch of Gym Leaders. Seriously, I dare you to prove me wrong on that. XD

I already put Bea on my Pokémon girls list a while back, so I won't go into too much detail. The most I will say is that Bea makes the countdown for pretty much the same reasons I listed her as one of my favourite Pokémon girls: she's a tough Fighting-type Gym Leader with a cool design, she can kick major ass to the point even Ash struggled against her despite being the Alolan Champion at the time, she gave us one of the best battles in Pokémon Journeys and her ace being a Gigantamaxing Machamp doubles the coolness factor for her.

When it comes to how she is as a Gym Leader, I'd say Bea has more than earned that position too. Not only does her Gym mark when the Gyms will get more challenging in Sword and Shield going forward, but she packs some really strong Fighting types that can pull their weight in battle. In her Gym Battle, she uses Hitmontop, Pangoro, Sirfetch'd and Machamp, all of which are solid mons in their own right. The fact she uses Pangoro is really clever on her behalf too as it means you can't sweep her with a Psychic-type and it also knows Bullet Punch to shoo off Fairy-types, which is also clever. Her mons also have useful abilities and move sets that can make use of them such as Hitmontop with Technician to power up Triple Kick and Quick Attack, Sirfetch'd with Steadfast to get a Speed boost any time it flinches, Machamp with Guts so if it gets a Status condition, it'll just get stronger and both her Hawlucha and Grapploct have Limber to prevent being paralyzed. Speaking of, her team when you rematch her in Champion tournaments includes Hawlucha, Grapploct, Falinks, Sirfetch'd and Machamp. I'm SO glad they didn't give her a Lucario as well since that overrated mutt has had enough exposure already. Plus we already have two cute Fighting-type Gym Leader girls with a Lucario, we don't need a third.

Anyway, Bea's final team is still a strong selection of mons and you have to fight carefully since some of them can cover their weaknesses such as Sirfetch'd and Falinks knowing Bug-type moves and Dark-type moves to handle Psychic and Ghost types, Hawlucha knowing Poison Jab to take down Fairy-types and Machamp knows Ice Punch to shoo off Flying-types. Her ace being a Machamp also makes her formidable as Machamp is one of the most reliable Fighting-types out there for being strong and bulky. Its signature move of G-Max Chi Strike when it Gigantamaxes also makes it deadly as it increases its critical hit ratio, thus allowing it to potentially hit even harder. So yeah, Bea's as tough as she looks!

With a memorable design, lovable personality and strong team of Pokémon, Bea is easily my favourite Gym Leader of the bunch and is primarily the reason I play Sword more than Shield. She's more than earned her spot as a Gym Leader.

2: Misty from Red, Blue, Yellow and their remakes

As if I wasn't going to include her on this list. =P

Misty remains a fan favourite for Pokémon fans young and old, and a large reason for that is mostly down to the fact she was Ash's first travelling companion in the anime. If it wasn't for the anime, Misty wouldn't be anywhere near as iconic. While her time in the anime may not be as great as other Pokémon girls Ash has travelled with (heck, I even rate Dawn and Serena above her) due to some unlikeable moments involving her treatment of Psyduck and how she didn't really have a role to play in the story and was just kind of there for the most part, Misty is still an iconic character and fans can't help but love her, warts and all.

I too enjoy Misty for her tomboyish personality, her sporty appearance and how the late, great Rachel Lillis really brought her to life with her performance. But this list is about Gym Leaders, so let's talk about Misty as a Gym Leader. Well, she's great! She's the second Gym Leader you face in the games set in Kanto and has a reputation for being surprisingly tough too. At that early stage, unless you have Bulbasaur as your starter or a Pikachu in your party, you're going to struggle against her. She uses a Staryu and a Starmie (Psyduck and Starmie in the Let's Go games) and while Staryu's pretty easy, Starmie is when it gets hard. FireRed and LeafGreen especially made her tricky as her Starmie knows Recover. I actually got my ass kicked by her, even though I had a Pikachu in my party. When you have Bulbasaur though, she goes down like a pansy. A simple Bullet Seed and bam, Starmie is down! In the Gen 1 games, you can't rematch her with the one exception being the Let's Go! games where she uses a Dewgong, a Golduck, a Vaporeon, a Starmie and a Gyarados. All of them are pretty solid mons in their own right and some like Dewgong and Vaporeon have good Special bulk, so even Grass and Electric types may struggle to deal with them swiftly. Also Gyarados is Gyarados, that's always going to be a good mon to have on a team. If only the Let's Go! games let it Mega Evolve to make her more challenging. Also giving it Earthquake to shoo off Electric-types would've helped too!

In Gold and Silver and their remakes, you get to battle an older Misty and her team is still a solid roster with Starmie, Quagsire, Lapras and Golduck at her disposal. Quagsire is especially a wise choice as it's part Ground-type, so Electric attacks don't work on it (but it's double weak to Grass types) and her Lapras and Starmie both know Ice Beam to deal with Grass-types, which gives her good coverage. You can rematch her in the Fighting Dojo in the Gold and Silver remakes and she uses Starmie, Lapras and Quagsire again but also gains a Lanturn, a Floatzel and a Milotic. Funny how it took until the Let's Go! games to finally give her a Gyarados. Anyhow, this team is a good Water-type team to use, especially Milotic and its insane bulk and how it knows Ice Beam to deal with Grass-types. Misty really knows how to use the good Water-type mons, doesn't she?

Misty is an icon and a great Gym Leader who will always stand out to me for being one of the very few Gym Leaders I've ever lost a battle to. With a great selection of Water-types at her disposal and a memorable role in the anime, it's no wonder Misty is one of the franchise's most beloved Gym Leaders ever created...

3: Korrina from X and Y

This shouldn't be surprising considering she also made it on my favourite Pokémon girls list.

Korrina is an absolute gem and I dare anybody to tell me they don't love her. She has a lively, excitable and spunky personality, she looks cool when wheeling around on her rollerblades and engaging in a Pokémon battle, she has a awesome design that makes her look both adorable and tough at the same time and she also had a great showing in the anime with her arc being one of the strongest aspects of the X and Y series.

As a Gym Leader, she does leave a little to be desired. In her Gym battle, she uses a Mienfoo, a Machoke and a Hawlucha. Those are pretty decent mons, especially for an early route Gym Leader. The problem is that they pose no real challenge. Neither of them have any coverage for Ghost-types so you can just use a Ghost-type to render her efforts useless and the only coverage she has is Machoke knowing Rock Tomb to deal with Flying-types. Oh and her mons only know three moves too. There are Gym Leaders who come earlier than her who have mons with full move sets, so what's her excuse? We do get to fight her again after the Gym battle, but it's basically Mega Lucario vs. Mega Lucario, which isn't much of a fight and is just an excuse to give us a Mega Lucario after we beat her. At least in the Battle Chateau, she can be more of a challenge as she either uses Hawlucha and Machamp or Hawlucha and Mega Lucario, and even at that it depends because sometimes her mons have type coverage moves, sometimes they don't. So weirdly inconsistent like that.

At least the anime made her come off as more challenging and skilled by comparison. Need I remind you that Korrina was the same girl who gave Ash a tough battle in the World Coronation Series despite Ash being a Champion by then? Her Mega Lucario managed to give even Dragonite a hard time before Ash took the win, so Korrina's no slouch by any means! If only the games reflected that...

As is, Korrina's still one of my favourite Gym Leaders, even if most of that is down to other media. She's a lot of fun, she has a striking appearance and a tough selection of Pokémon. This skater girl may not be great in the games, but her anime appearance more than makes up for it...

4: Raihan from Sword and Shield

See, I told you Bea wouldn't be the only Galarian Gym Leader to make the count. XD

Raihan is such a cool dude and it's easy to see why he's one of Galar's most memorable Gym Leaders. He has a cool design with a neat looking hoodie and a nice mix of dark blue and orange on his clothing to match the fact he specializes in Dragon-types, he's competitive yet also laid back and friendly outside of battling and his propensity to take selfies is an oddly endearing quirk of his. I still love how he feels the need to take a selfie before he Gigantamaxes his Pokémon. That's never not funny to me. XD

Seriously, that's just so dorky and cheesy and I love it. XD

Speaking of his Pokémon, Raihan's a very unique kind of Gym Leader. How so? He's a Dragon-type specialist, but he isn't limited to just Dragon-types. He also specializes in weather conditions, so he uses a lot of unpredictable tactics you wouldn't have expected from a Dragon-type Gym Leader. His Gym Battle sees him using only two Dragon-types (Flygon and Duraludon) while the other two he uses are Gigalith (a Rock type) and Sandaconda (a Ground type) so he can abuse the Sandstorm weather condition. His team is cleverly structured in that regard as Flygon and Duraludon are immune to Sandstorm and Sandstorm boosts the Special Defence of his Pokémon, so even a strong Water or Grass-type struggles to one-hit KO Gigalith or Sandaconda. His team can also cover their weaknesses too such as Flygon with Steel Wing to break Ice-types or Sandaconda knowing Fire Fang for Grass-types and his Gigantamax Duraludon is nothing to sneeze at with its powerful attacks and huge bulk. I'll still never forget how when I did my first ever Pokémon Nuzlocke challenge, I lost half of my team to this guy. Even Leon didn't knock out that many Pokémon, but Raihan did! That's how tough he is!

Come rematches, while he doesn't Double Battle like in his Gym Battle, he still has some powerful mons to call upon. He uses Torkoal, Goodra, Turtonator, Flygon and Duraludon. Like before, he abuses weather conditions be it Torkoal's Drought ability making it sunny upon entering to strengthen its Fire attacks (and also lets it use Solar Beam immediately so bye-bye Water, Rock and Ground-types), Goodra can make it Rain with Rain Dance, Turtonator also has Sunny Day to make it sunny and Flygon can whip up a Sandstorm. So yeah, Raihan can use all sorts of weather tricks to make his team a tough one to defeat. I still wonder why his Duraludon has a Physical move set when it's a Special Attacker...

Anyway, Raihan's an awesome Gym Leader. He poses a challenge, has unique battle tactics we don't get with Gym Leaders, has more variety to his team than just his type speciality and just has a cool air to him anytime he's onscreen. Now imagine how fearsome he'd be if his Duraludon ever evolved into an Archaludon...

5: Jasmine from Gold and Silver and their remakes

Many fans love this absolute sweetheart of a human being, and it's easy to see why.

Jasmine left a memorable impression on players back when Gold and Silver came out for how kind and devoted she was to healing up a sick Ampharos. She practically makes you go on this side-quest just to get the change to battle her because she's that devoted to curing the poor mon! She also left her mark on the franchise for being the first ever Steel-type Gym Leader for Gen 2 is when the Steel-type was invented. Who'd have thought the first ever Steel-type Gym Leader would be this dainty, unassuming young woman? Then again, women are often tougher than they look, so it works. XD

So yeah, Jasmine is a wonderful human being. How is she as a Gym Leader? Pretty decent, but could be better. Her team consists of two Magnemites and a Steelix. Steelix is great, but two Magnemites? Wouldn't a Magneton have been better? I would've made her use Magneton, Skarmory and Steelix as that would've better advertised the new Steel-type and given more variety to her team. As is, Steelix can cover its weaknesses to Fire with Rock Throw and knows Sandstorm and Screech to give trainers trouble. I remember how in the anime she really gave Ash a lot of trouble with her Steelix. When you rematch her in the Fighting Dojo, her team is much more formidable with Metagross, Empoleon, Bronzong, Magnezone and Skarmory added to the team while she still uses Steelix. This team doesn't cover its weaknesses that well due to the baffling choice of moves the game gave them, but it's still a tough team to handle. Metagross is a pseudo-legendary, Empoleon's a powerful starter that can cover her team's weakness to Fire and Ground types, her Bronzong has the Hypnosis and Dream Eater combination and Magnezone and Skarmory have Sturdy as their abilities so they won't go down in one hit. Her Steelix also has the Roar and Stealth Rock strategy, so that's also a sign of how she can be strategic and cunning too. Thankfully the Pokémon World Tournaments in Black 2 and White 2 make her even better with better move sets for her mons that can also cover their weaknesses better.

Jasmine has fine qualities for a Gym Leader, being as kind and devoted as she is, and she also shows that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover as she's a lot stronger than she may seem. With a will as hard as steel, she's definitely deserving of being a Steel-type Gym Leader...

6: Maylene from Diamond, Peral, Platinum and their remakes

What is it with this franchise and cute girls who are Fighting-type specialists? First Bea, then Korrina and now we have Maylene. Debuting in the Diamond and Pearl games, Maylene is a fan-favourite for her cute design and her enjoyable arc in the anime where she learned to become more confident in her capabilities as a Gym Leader and strengthen her bond with her Lucario. Also, this character stands out to me, and I'm sure many others, for being the final voice role for the late, great Rachel Lillis in the Pokémon anime. It was just surprising to even hear her voice again after the voice actor switch back during Battle Frontier, so at least Rachel got one last hurrah in the series by voicing the best Gym Leader out of the Diamond and Pearl games. Imagine how funny it would've been to hear Maylene and Misty interact with that in mind. XD Also funny when you consider Rachel Lillis's first and last roles in Pokémon were both Gym Leaders. That's one way to bookend your career.

Anyhow, Maylene is a Fighting-type Gym Leader who shows why she's no slouch in a fight. Her team consists of Meditite, Machoke and Lucario. Meditite is part-Psychic type, so Psychic attacks don't do much to it and if you think you can take it down with a Dark-type? Hard luck, it's half-Fighting type and knows Drain Punch. Her Machoke can handle Flying-types with Rock Tomb and her Lucario is half-Steel type, thus Fairy-types aren't safe with her (even though she existed before the Fairy-type did). Her Meditite and Lucario both have Drain Punch so they can restore HP when they attack and if you face her in Platinum, her Meditite also knows Fake Out to stun you for a turn. So yeah, she knows her stuff. Her rematch team is even better an Intimidate Hitmontop, a Medicham with Pure Power so it's Physical moves are really powerful and it knows Thunder and Ice Punch to deal with Flying types, a Breloom with Spore (a sleeping move that never misses) and Stone Edge to cover its double Flying weakness and a Guts Machamp that also knows Stone Edge to deal with Flying types. And then you have the Diamond and Pearl remakes where Maylene's Pokémon all carry Held items and have improved moves, including a Machoke with Knock Off so it can cover Psychic and Ghost types and her Lucario carries a Big Root so it can drain even more health with Drain Punch. And her rematch team is also stacked in the remakes too with Heracross and Infernape added to her roster along with Lucario, Breloom, Medicham and Hitmontop and they all carry Held items and have moves that can cover their weaknesses or abuse their Held items. Yeah, to say this girl has been training hard is an understatement. XD

Maylene is great from top to bottom and I always enjoy battling her in the games. She's cool, she's cute, she carries strong Pokémon and she had a fantastic arc in the anime. She may not know what it means to be a Gym Leader, but she sure gave it her all anyway...

7: Clemont from X and Y

Most of this is down to the anime, but here we go.

In the X and Y anime, I really enjoyed Clemont as a travelling companion for Ash. He and Bonnie provided a lot of funny comedy, especially whenever Clemont's inventions would explode, but Clemont also proved to be a competent and capable Gym Leader by helping Ash and friends out of sticky situations and also proving himself worthy of being a Gym Leader in his own right. I'd even say his Gym battle with Ash is one of, if not the best Gym battle Ash has ever participated in and the fact they made a freaking event out of it made it all the sweeter. Also fun fact, he and Yuya Sakaki from Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V have the same English voice actor and LITERALLY have the same voice. No really. Anytime I watched Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V and heard Yuya speak, I expected him to suddenly talk about science and show off a fancy gadget or something. XD

But I digress. How is Clemont as a Gym Leader? Not as great as his anime counterpart sadly, but that's the problem with the X and Y games as a whole, that the Gym Leaders pose no challenge. Still, he's better than Korrina at least. He uses Emogla, Magneton and Heliolisk. Emolga's a smart choice since it's immune to Ground-types thanks to having the Flying typing, his Magneton can't be one-shot as it has the Sturdy ability and his Heliolisk has Grass Knot so he has some coverage for Ground-types at least. The problem is that his mons only have three moves and only Heliolisk has any coverage. What's even dumber is that during the Battle Chateau matches with him, he never uses a Heliolisk with Grass Knot again, so what's that all about? I thought he was supposed to be MORE challenging after his Gym Battle, not LESS! In any case, with some tune-ups, his team could've potentially been challenging. At least in the anime, he proves to be an actual strong and powerful trainer. He did give Ash a strong first impression of what Kalos had to offer after all.

The games don't do him justice, but I still like Clemont anyway thanks to his adorkable and endearing character from the anime where he's both funny and cool at the same time and proves to be a capable trainer and a great friend to Ash and Serena. I just don't think I'd trust him to maintain any machinery while I'm around him...

8: Drake from the Pokémon Orange Islands series

This might be an unusual choice since Drake's the Champion of the Orange Islands, but on the Orange Islands, the Champion is known as the "Orange Crew Supreme Gym Leader" rather than Champion, so technically, he counts as a Gym Leader. Also funny enough, the games have a character named Drake who is a member of the Hoenn Elite Four. Weird, isn't it?

Drake doesn't have much of a personality admittedly, he's pretty much just your typical Champion who wonders if anyone can beat him, but he still leaves a memorable impression since he's the first Champion Ash ever beats in the anime and he's also the first opponent Ash gets to challenge in a full 6v6 battle. You ever noticed that it took until this battle to finally have a full-on 6v6 battle in the anime? They took their time. Anyway, Drake looks like the kind of guy who could probably take you down in a fight with just his bare hands with his strong and muscular appearance and his attire makes him look suitably adventurous and athletic, which further enhances his strong appearance. His team, while primitive nowadays is still a solid roster of Pokémon by Gen 1 standards. Ditto, Onix, Gengar, Venusaur, Electabuzz and Dragonite are strong mons to use (more so in the anime than in the games as mons like Ditto and Onix are considerably more useful in the anime) and Drake manages to exhaust Ash's team just trying to beat them all. The match may have been one-sided, but you still feel the hard work Ash is putting in there as each of Drake's mons give a tough fight before eventually being defeated. Then there's the fact his Dragonite is absolutely broken with a whopping TEN moves at its disposal (I wish the games let us do that) and it mows through most of Ash's team single-handedly. If it wasn't for the fact his team wore Dragonite down by the end so Pikachu could narrowly scrape a win, Drake would've won for sure! It's no wonder this guy is the Orange League Champion!

If we count him as a Gym Leader (which I do because it's literally in his title, Orange Crew Supreme Gym Leader), then Drake may well be the strongest Gym Leader in history alongside Iris given he's at the level of Champions. Now imagine how strong he would be if he had a modern style Pokémon team? He'd evolve his Onix and Electabuzz into Steelix and Electivire respectively and would probably replace Ditto with something stronger. I'd probably give him a Metagross or something.

Overall, Drake is a guy where the impression he leaves on us is why he's so memorable rather than the character himself, but it's still a big impression and he gave us one of the anime's most iconic matches ever that gave us Ash's first ever league win at the time. We have to at least respect him for that, right? And it's because of this as to why he's one of my favourite Gym Leaders...

9: Tulip from Scarlet and Violet

Anytime I play the Scarlet and Violet games, I'm always happy to battle this beauty.

Tulip is a rather cute Gym Leader who works as a model and make-up artist and as such, tends to be about the beauty of someone. At the same time, she isn't this shallow person who only cares about appearances and does clearly have a nice side to her. The fact she's more about "inner beauty" than outer beauty also shows she's got a good head on her shoulders. It's such a shame that during Pokémon Horizons's awful Terastal Debut arc that she was essentially a glorified cameo as it would've been nice to see her have a spotlight episode. At least my rewrite gave her that.

Anyhow, Tulip is not only a beauty, but she's Paldea's second strongest Gym Leader with only Grusha being stronger, and it's easy to see why she ranks so high. While it's silly that her mons only know three moves (seriously, why do Pokémon games keep doing that now? Gym Leaders can still be easy to beat even with four moves!), they still have good moves at their disposal. She uses Farigiraf, Gardevoir, Espartha and a Florges that she Terastalizes into a Psychic type. All three of them can cover their weaknesses in some way, whether it's Farigiraf and Espartha with Crunch and Shadow Ball for Ghost types or her Gardevoir and Florges knowing Fairy-type moves to deal with Dark types, so you better be careful if you have a team of Ghost and Dark types at your disposal. Her Farigiraf also knows Reflect, which is useful since a lot of attacks that are super-effective against Psychic types are physical moves and Psychic types tend to be physically frail, so that's clever of her.

Her rematch team is even better with the same four mons as before but with improved move sets and she also adds a Gallade to the team, so Dark-types are even more screwed against her. Her Gardevoir also learns Mystical Fire, so bye-bye Bug-types. Speaking of Fire, when you invite her to battle at Blueberry Academy, she uses a Delphox, so Bug-types are in even bigger trouble! Think you can hide behind a Ghost-type? It knows Shadow Ball. Tulip really proves she's not just a pretty face and that she can be smart when it comes to battling and constructing her team. Add in the fact the Psychic type is a powerful typing, it's easy to see why she's one of Paldea's strongest Gym Leaders.

Beautiful, friendly, packing strong Pokémon with clever moves that can cover their weaknesses, Tulip will always be the Gym Leader I look forward to meeting the most when I'm in Paldea as she's always a pleasure to meet and battle with...

10: Allister from Pokémon Shield

NOT THAT ALASTOR!

There you go.

Allister is the Stow-on-Side Gym Leader for Shield players and while Bea specializes in Fighting-types, Allister specializes in Ghost-types. Allister is insanely endearing due to his shy personality, creepy cute appearance with his face hidden behind his mask and his zombie-like gestures and he overall just has that vibe where you just want to give him a hug. I can also relate to Allister as I'm not the best when socializing with others either, and I'm sure many others feel the same way this kid does.

As is, Allister is a relatable and endearing character. As a Gym Leader, he's a mixed bag. On the one hand, he has some decent Ghost-types at his disposal such as Galarian Yamask, Cursola, Mimikyu and his ace is a Gigantamaxing Gengar. The problem is that they don't have great move sets. His Yamask and Cursola only have three moves (which is weird since over on Sword, Bea's mons all have four moves so why doesn't Allister) and they both know Hex but can't abuse its secondary effect since they can't inflict status conditions on your Pokémon. His Mimikyu does know Baby Doll Eyes, which can be helpful in lowering attack and his G-max Gengar does have the useful Cursed Body ability. As is, his team can't cover their weaknesses at this stage, unlike his Sword counterpart where Bea did at least have one mon that could cover the Fighting-type's Psychic weakness.

During rematches, he does get a lot better. He uses Dusknoir, Cursola, Polteageist, Chandelure and Gengar when you face him in the Champion Tournament and when you rematch him again, he replaces Polteageist with Runerigus. His team has much better moves and he can actually abuse Hex's secondary effect since he has a Chandelure with Will-O-Wisp to inflict a status condition on your mons and his Dusknoir and Runerigus know Disable, which can be tricky if he disables a super-effective attack you keep using on him. It would've been nice if his Gengar knew Dazzling Gleam so he had Dark-type coverage though. Giving it Dark Pulse just seems redundant to me. As is, he still has a good team of Ghost-types at his disposal. If his team had better moves, he'd really be formidable.

Maybe not the strongest Gym Leader ever, but Allister is one of the most endearing and relatable and it's those things that make me love him so much. He's one reason why to have both Sword and Shield so you can face Bea in one game and him in the other...

And those are my ten favourite Gym Leaders. I hope you enjoyed the list and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. Did you like my choices? Which Gym Leaders are YOUR favourites? Do tell me.

Next week, I'll be covering the latest animated series to come from Star Wars, the new Tales of the Underworld miniseries. See you then media fans!