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Is Ash's Journeys team now just his outright 6 strongest Pokemon?

GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
The writers dont want Ash's JN team to be overshadowed by his old Pokemon.
if some of you watch Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V then you should understand because when characters from past series were brought back, the ARC-V original characters were overshaowed by them.
Wouldn’t say so. This definitely applies to Crow overshadowing excellent characters like Shun or Sawarari, no arguing that, but Jack was pushed to be the main rival because Reiji’s VA was unavailable and/or too expensive to have him around all the time, and Edo/Asuka/Kaito were handled atrociously anyways.

JN did this pretty good so far with Infernape and Greninja imo.
 

GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
Yeah Journeys team is lowkey busted if you’re going off feats alone, power scaling is a mess tbh

But mons like Infernape and Greninja are stronger than some of them imo, at least rn
Those 2 definitely. Greninja was clowning on Lucario, and Infernape seems to be the strongest Pokémon at Oak’s right now.

But let’s see what the JN team does at the tournament, each win they get will move them one step closer to the top of the list.
 

DayQuil95

Well-Known Member
Yeah Dragonite and Charizard/Infernape could go either way, but I expect Dragonite to perform well in Masters 8 so that automatically should push him above

As for Sceptile, I kindaaaa feel he's overrated. I mean he wasnt treated like an ace in AG necessairly, it wasnt until BF its strength was established with its arc of losing powers and regaining them and then beating Spencer. Thats a great feat but pales in comparison to Dracovish taking out Angrynite and Drasna's Noivern + whatever it accomplishes in Masters 8, same with Sirfetchd and Gengar
Now before you bring up Darkrai, I really dont think Sceptile alone should be given the credit for that tbh, considering he only landed like 1-2 leaf blades on him, with gible and heracross putting in their fair share of work as well. I can see why people would disagree though
Fair enough, Sceptile did feel more underwhelming compared to the other Aces recently.
 

Kuzehiko

That moment I found a lifetime treasure
Yes and no.
Pikachu, Lucario and Dragonite are amongst his strongest Pokemon even counting his reserves.
You could add Greninja, Charizard and Infernape.
 

Mr. Reloaded

Cause a pirate is free
You could make an argument that the aces probably scale with the journeys team (more or less), so debatable at best.

This is one of the main reasons I wanted reserves in the masters 8 to begin with. Cause now we'll never know.
 

DayQuil95

Well-Known Member
You could make an argument that the aces probably scale with the journeys team (more or less), so debatable at best.

This is one of the main reasons I wanted reserves in the masters 8 to begin with. Cause now we'll never know.
Would be nice if the next series started with Ash defending his title in the PWC against several opponents beating them with reserves, Rocky 3 style.
 
Why do people think that Ash-Greninja is strong? It doesn’t have any impressive feats compared to Pikachu, Dragonite, Incineroar, Charizard, and Sceptile. Heck even include Dracovish and Sirfetch’d in their too. When has Mastered Ash-Greninja took over a battle like Charizard, Infernape, and Pikachu have? I don’t even think it got two KOs in a single match since being mastered.
 
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GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
Pikachu, Dragonite, Incineroar, Charizard, and Sceptile.
One of these things is not like the others ~

Anyways: Blasted his way through Wulfric and Sawyer, swept Tomo, nearly defeated MC-X and was recently clowning on Lucario. Also, he was undefeated as a Frogadier and quite strong even as a Froakie.

Additionally, the anime loves to highlight that mega evolved Pokémon are superior to normal Pokémon, so there’s that, too.
 

masdog

What is the airspeed of an unladen Swellow?
One of these things is not like the others ~

Anyways: Blasted his way through Wulfric and Sawyer, swept Tomo, nearly defeated MC-X and was recently clowning on Lucario. Also, he was undefeated as a Frogadier and quite strong even as a Froakie.

Additionally, the anime loves to highlight that mega evolved Pokémon are superior to normal Pokémon, so there’s that, too.
Don’t forget that he provided a serious challenge to Diantha before mastering the AG form.
 

GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
Don’t forget that he provided a serious challenge to Diantha before mastering the AG form.
I didn’t mention it because - even though it’s one of the biggest feats any of Ash’s Pokémon had done until then - I would be quoted by at least 6 people that would argue that Diantha wasn’t taking the battle serious and that she was just testing Ash.

But I agree with you, it’s one of his best feats.
 

DayQuil95

Well-Known Member
I think Greninja is stronger due to his role as the protector of Kalos and AG shenanigans, however, Infernape has the type advantage so it could really go either way.
Blaze Infernape vs Ash-Greninja would be amazing to watch, even though Ash-Greninja seems to be a better power-up all around, Infernape is still extremely skilled and has immense firepower, mainly if he really learned Close Combat. And he has two type advantages over Ash-Greninja:
Fire > Water
Fighting > Dark
 
One of these things is not like the others ~

Anyways: Blasted his way through Wulfric and Sawyer, swept Tomo, nearly defeated MC-X and was recently clowning on Lucario. Also, he was undefeated as a Frogadier and quite strong even as a Froakie.

Additionally, the anime loves to highlight that mega evolved Pokémon are superior to normal Pokémon, so there’s that, too.
Only counting as Mastered in XYZ.
As AG he won against Wulfric’s Mega Abomasnow, Mega? Altaria, and Sawyers Mega Sceptile. Against Sawyer he only had one KO in that battle against Sawyers ace, however, Pikachu had two.
Idk how many KOs against Wulfric he had the second time around or who Tomo is (probably that Altaria trainer, but Ash shouldn’t have revealed AG that early and instead revealed it against Sawyer) and did we see it actually on screen sweeping it? I never watched XYZ
Against Alain: Pikachu takes out two pseudos while Greninja (oneshots) Alain’s Bisharp who took out two of Ashs Pokemon (one of them being one of Ashs weakest Pokémon ever) because guillotine. However, in the Ash Greninja form, while putting up a close fight against MCX who had damage done against it by Pikachu so Greninja should have KOed it, but it lost.
 

AJ97

Well-Known Member
I would argue that Ash Greninja scales above his Journey team.
Firstly, Ash Greninja is a rather special pokemon compared to most of Ash's team. Some reason for the same being,

1) This is the first of Ash's aces that have been outright released (Without any callback option).

2) Additionally, it is the first of Ash's aces to have a unique connection/bond with Ash which you could argue also surpassed Ash's bond with "Pikachu" in a way, due to the entire nature of the transformation and how it worked. The real reason I think why it wasn't Oak'd and was left in Kalos.

3) It is a special phenomenon entirely exclusive to Ash which nobody else in the world has.

4) It is the first of Ash's Pokemon to actually bring him close to achieving Elite Four-tier feats in his career as a trainer which was a very big deal before Journeys.

5) In the Lucario training episode, we see Greninja effortlessly clown Lucario and the latter was strong enough to defeat Raihan's ace in its base form after a short training session with Greninja.


Given this special status of AG and its performance in the recent episode, I would like to think that AG is arguably Ash's strongest Pokemon. I think Pikachu and Lucario are strong contenders to take this title, but this would depend on their feats in the upcoming Master Class tournament. If Pikachu defeats Mega Metagross and goes on to defeat Leon's Charizard (On it's own), or Lucario goes on to defeat Cynthia's Garchomp and Leon's Charizard, this might change.

As for the rest of Ash's base team (Including the rest of his aces), I'm going to go against the rest of the commenters and say that they are a cut below his Journey's team.
Firstly, I believe that the reserves will be scaled exponentially from their previous feats and will be good enough to achieve Elite four tier/Regional Champion tier feats (Based on Ash's progression), however, based on a particular reason in "Episode 114", I am going to argue that his Journey's team are a cut above.

When Paul and Ash decided to battle, the former laid down a condition that he wanted Ash to only use the Pokemon that he would be using in the Master Class Tournament. Knowing Paul's character, to me, this suggested that he wanted to test Ash's best pokemon.

If Paul just wanted to train Ash, he would've just said 3v3 battle with no exchanges and used the aces of the MC. However, the fact that he explicitly stated that condition, suggests that Paul wanted to test Ash at his best and the fact that Ash used his Journey's team, suggests that they are a cut above his regular reserves (With the exception of AG).
 

masdog

What is the airspeed of an unladen Swellow?
1) This is the first of Ash's aces that have been outright released (Without any callback option).
Except it hasn't been released outright. Ash still has his Pokeball, and as JN has shown us, Bond Phenomenon allows Ash to sense where he is.
 

AJ97

Well-Known Member
Except it hasn't been released outright. Ash still has his Pokeball, and as JN has shown us, Bond Phenomenon allows Ash to sense where he is.

You're missing the point.

Released outright means it wasn't released with the option to be called back (Like in the case of Charizard, where it was left to train).

Yes, Ash has a connection and can find Greninja etc (Which was all revealed only in Journey's).
However, at the end of Kalos, Greninja was released from the team with the reason of being the protector of Kalos (Being tied to the Region). Similar to how Pidgeot was released to look after the Pidgeys etc.

It wasn't even released or left with a Person etc. The fact that this was done to an ace and Ash's strongest Pokemon at the time (In terms of feats) is a unique factor.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
His team at the moment is arguably one of his most consistent ones, but I don't consider all of his current Pokemon to be his strongest ones. I might not be a huge fan of Lizardon, Goukazaru, or Jukain, but I believe those three would wipe the floor with some of Satoshi's current Pokemon.
 
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