How many rosters have gyms leaders got?

[Charmbracelet]

I do think that gym leaders at the very least ask the visiting trainers how long they've been battling and how many badges they have, and that way they can pick out the pokemon that corresponds to that. We just don't see in the anime.

Have you ever seen that happening in the any of the gyms Ash has battled at?.

 

[d4rk_tailed]

Off screen? I mean, they often flick from Ash going "Oh yeah!" the gym leader gives a smile and suddenly were on screen in the arena. I suppose theres like 20 minute psychup periods for both the leader and challenger?

Anyway, the point I was making about Surge was that....inexperienced little Pikachu whupped his Raichu. Hey man, if a Golem had been brought into that gym, whether Surge had gone easy or not, Raichu would have made a nice pancake once Golem whipped out his Rollout.

 

[Charmbracelet]

I doubt the gym leader has conversations with ever person who wants to battle, the writers just do it with Ash so the audience can be properly introduced to the Gym leader.

What I do think however is that many of these evolved Pokemon aren't as strong as they seem. Unlike the games, the anime has a habit of evolving Pokemon but not making them that much stronger than their pre-evolved forms (there are exceptions however). Misty's Starmie is an example. In her gym battle with Ash, her Staryu defeated Butterfly, when Ash switched out for the stronger Pidgeotto, she switched to Starmie, yet Pidgeotto swiftly defeated Starmie.

I do think that the gym leaders have more Pokemon than shown but they have no way in determining the strength of every trainer that walks into their gym.

 

[supernoob]

platinum

if you have played platinum(and been in the trainers cafe),you know that the gym leaders have more pokemons than the ones their using in the gym battles,for example roark has a tyranitar,maylene has a breloom and a hitmontop,volkner has a lanturn and so on.
what im saying is that the gym leaders are trying to match the challengers level,i mean,theres no way that ash cold have beaten roark if he used his tyranitar.

 

[High Commander Solomon]

Yeah, and by the time you see them you're already the champion of the whole region. Endgame content like that probably isn't canon.