Mega Steelix deserves to demolish Ash quite frankly, after his bullocks 'victory' in their first Gym Battle
Gym leaders get to use their own judgement to some degree when it comes to what counts as earning a badge. Brock believed it counted, and so it did.
I'm happy Ash is using his current Pokemon instead of reserves against Brock. They deserved the spotlight more than his past Pokemon.
So pokemon that haven't been used in years are less deserving than pokemon that are the focus of the current series? What sense does that make?
Oh yeah, actually he never really won any of the Kanto badges in a fair battle. Their where more gifts then anything.
Are you being sarcastic? There's no arguing that he didn't win badges against Surge, Koga and Blaine in genuine battles.
And again, gym leaders decide if a trainer has earned a badge even if the trainer doesn't win the battle.
Well Dusk Lycanroc just evolved recently, and barely mastered Continental Crush. Logically speaking, I personally don't think it should even be close to the power of Brock's regular Steelix, let alone Mega Steelix. But of course because of plot, and gen VII promotion, if Lycanroc were to battle Mega Steelix, I'd expect it to win.
Let's keep in mind that Brock's Onix had a HORRIBLE battle record, and it only improved so much as a Steelix. Whereas Lycanroc has been presented as a competent battler for a long time. It may lack super effective moves as far as we know, but I can see the writer's deciding to bring up the Tough Claws ability and have it wear Steelix down with its sheer speed and a bunch of Bite attacks.
Also, when they won against her, it was pretty clear her ace's power was dumbed down several notches.
One has to consider Mega Lucario was already weakened from Ash's other pokemon when it faced Pikachu, and that Pikachu was now more ready to face it, having faced it both in its reckless battling state and its feral state.
A super move that can only be used once vs a super mode that can be used on only 1 Pokemon per battle but last the entire match?
Given Megas can be beaten by non-Mega pokemon without even using Z-moves, I don't see it as such a drastic distinction.
Mega Evolution is the pokemon's body achieving its ultimate/perfected state, whereas Z-moves are the ultimate/perfect forms of attacks. 1 on 1 the two are not inherently inferior or superior to the other, as being able to be used for the whole match doesn't mean anything if the mega gets knocked out by the Z-move. Being able to be used against more than one pokemon of an opponent's is a natural advantage of mega evolution admittedly, but that doesn't apply in a 1 on 1 battle.
That is because pikachu at its peak like vs latios, regice, alain, frontier brains, 8th gym leader who all are much stronger than misty's gyarados is(even mega is) would destroy gyarados. Lets be honest misty is a 2nd gym leader of the kanto region, even with mega at best she could attain the level of 6-7th gym and will still be inferior to 8th gym.
The order of the gym leaders equating strength has never been used consistently in the anime. Sometimes they play it straight, other times they hint that the gym leader is only using such strong pokemon because they know Ash already has all the other badges, and thus would use weaker pokemon against trainers who had fewer badges.
We've also seen many times the gym leaders own a lot more pokemon than they use in any given match (and that these would logically vary a lot in experience and power), and we've explicitly been shown that they can and do "hold back" depending on the ability of the opponent. Just look at Wulfric, who didn't use Mega Evolution against Ash until he judged Ash to be a opponent qualified for it.
If you think about it, this makes more sense than having every new trainer in a region be forced to travel past a bunch of gyms until they reach the "first" gym. At most it seems like gym leaders only have "preferences" rather than "requirements" when it comes to the level of the trainers they battle (Clemont explicitly says this).
Heck, do you think new trainers in Johto would stand any chance against the team anime Falkner used against Ash? He is the first gym leader but because Ash's team was stronger than a starting trainer they had him use a much stronger team than is typical for a first gym leader.
You dont seem to get it that no matter how much misty trains she is still weaker than frontier brains or the 8th gym leader.
And what evidence is there of this? We know gym leaders can train and get more powerful like any other trainer. The only limits are their own abilities, not whatever arbitrary number you give their gym. And we have no idea what has happened with Misty's Gyarados since we last saw it, how it may have progressed, etc.
